Finito!
And that’s end of play for the live-blog today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll finish up just like how we started: with a song. Here’s Ibeyi aka French-Cuban teen twins Naomi and Lisa-Kainde Diaz with their second Richard Russell collaboration for XL Recordings. It’s slightly Björk, very Wildbirds & Peacedrums, most probably alien...
Stuff to do tonight
If you’re in Nottingham, go and see old school hip hop troublemakers and Camp Bestival headliners De La Soul at Rock City.
If you’re in London, go check out legendary jazz-funk keyboardist Joe Sample put his own beatific twist on the standards at Ronnie Scott’s.
If jazz isn’t your cuppa, though, go and see political mumble-rocker Jamie T at the Dome in Tufnell Park. His other comeback gigs have been incredibly well received - you can read Dave Simpson’s recent 5* review here.
If you’re in Cambridge, go and see Ultimate Eagles, Fleetwood Bac, Who’s Next and Pure Floyd at the Rock festival, if you can stomach it. They all sound hilarious.
If you’re Brecon, go and see Burt Bacharach at the Market Hall. Despite the hefty ticket price, we’ve heard he’s a bit of a legend...
Over in tellyland, you can get sense for life for life in a Childrens’ ward on ITV, check out a doc about million-making scrap company Metro Salvage, or revisit sitcom Cuckoo, which is back on BBC3.
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and Boyhood are still on at the pictures, and will probably remain so for a very long time.
HuwGC
As promised a little earlier, here’s the best User Generated Content the internet currently has to offer, curated by yours truly. HuwGC... geddit?
So let’s get started. Perhaps best of all, here’s a twitpic of Jeff Bridges spreading his thighs over Arrested Development’s Will Arnett.
This just happened pic.twitter.com/bXcpdxXqri
— Will Arnett™ (@arnettwill) August 7, 2014
This was unmissable earlier this week: a baby does the impossible and gets cheered up by Katy Perry’s Dark Horse. The only thing bigger than Ed Sheeran is, after all, YouTube videos of babies gawping while pop music plays in the background, and this shows why. 10 million hits in less than 3 days. Blimey.
There’s a Dr Who fan loose in the London underground, and this tweet is testimony. This was apparently left at Tufnell Park Tube station this morning and is said to quote series writer Steven Moffat. Great effort.
Tufnell Park station is on it pic.twitter.com/OTyX4dJqwe
— Summer Ray (@SummerRay) August 5, 2014
And here’s Lady Gaga modelling her new stage costume. Actually, it’s a little more serious than that - turns out she’s been hospitalised for Altitude Sickness. I wouldn’t go giving her any sartorial compliments, though; don’t want her getting any ideas.
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Pop star depositions: some of the best
You may have heard the news this morning that the way celebs are treated is just like how it was for African-American minorities in the 60s, during the movements for civil rights. The source? Kanye West, in his leaked deposition for the trial over his alleged wrestle with a pap.
Before warning any potential doubters that he’s the smartest celebrity in the game, and certainly above Britney Spears’ IQ range, he mentioned:
I mean in the ‘60s people used to hold up ‘Die N****r’ signs when my parents were in the sit-ins also.
When asked by the victim’s lawyer, Nate Goldberg, whether he believed there was an equivalence between current celebrity harassment and historical racial discrimination, he said:
Yes, 100 ... I equate it to discrimination. I equate it to inequalities.
Notably, he also took a swing at the lawyer, using a new, plural form of the collective noun ‘scum’:
I’m in the business of trying to make dope shit for the world. You’re in the business of representing scums and trying to make as much money as long as there’s this lapse in the law.
It’s funny reading, sure, but Kanye has nothing on the cracking one-liners pulled out by Justin Bieber, who was also accused of beating up a paparazzo in Miami Beach, and also performed a stinker of a deposition.
When he asked about a recent trip to Australia, he pondered, then swivelled towards his lawyer:
“I don’t know if I’ve been to Australia. Have I been to Australia?
Something went wrong in his brain and he started repeating himself. After his lawyer’s question fell on deaf ears:
I think my lawyer is asking a question. I think my lawyer is asking a question. I think my lawyer is asking a question.
Then, when asked about ex, Selena:
Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again. Don’t ask me about her again.
There was also, of course, that time Lil Wayne was super rude to the lawyers in one of his many trials, again sold to, and leaked by, TMZ. When asked whether he should remember if his album, Tha Carter 3, was the biggest selling album of the year:
Isn’t it something that I would remember that? Isn’t that a personal opinion type question? I would be actually answering the question to isn’t it something? That’s my question? Isn’t it something? Yeah, it’s something out of your ass.”
Any other good deposition stories? Let us know in the comment section.
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My breakout Hollywood role
The word ‘inspirational’ has been used countless times to describe the new trailer for Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory Of Everything (which you’ll find way below). And inspirational it, er, truly is.
Now I wouldn’t usually be interested in patronising Oxbridge pastiche, but this one sees my first foray into Hollywood at the 10 second mark. I became an extra for a week last September, playing the role of ‘Student/Party-goer’ and you can see me in action below. I’m the guy in the black suit on the left. Wow! Just look at me strut!
Being an extra isn’t all as bad as Ricky Gervais made it out to be - it’s actually really fun. I got to fist-bump Eddie Redmayne, had free dancing lessons, and ate nice continental-style free meals. Here are seven other things I learnt on set.
- Never look the Director in the eye. My man at the helm was James Marsh (Man On Wire) and he was intimidatingly slick (but frightening, too)
- Always remember your props. I didn’t in one cut, when I’d been carrying it in the previous shot. (DIS)CONTINUITY, GR!
- Be ready to have your hair cut into any shape, however displeasing. I had a short back and sides, plus was subjected to straightening for the first time in my life.
- Free biscuits. There are always free biscuits on set. Find them. And hoard them.
- Play around with your props. I was given some ‘period’ 60s glasses to complete my pretentious Cambridge student look. If this happens to you, nudge them up your nose with your index finger a bit, just to draw attention to them. The ADs love attention being swung to such superficialities.
- Tell the costumiers you don’t like your itchy suit until they give you a non-itchy suit. There’s no point wearing a clingingly tight outfit for five days straight. Begins to hurt, like.
- Don’t make friends with people who want to actually be actors. They get in the way, drag you into the shot when you just can’t be bothered, and tend to moan an awful lot.
Anyway, sorry for all this anecdotal stuff. Here’s the actual trailer.
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Lunch-time listens
After lunch, we’ll have a little break-down of the best, in-no-way immoderate pop star depositions, but first here are some tunes to have a listen to while you gnash away at that panini I can see.
First up, U-huh by Australia-via-Zimbabwe rap diva Tkay Maidza. A flow like Azealia (not as good as 212, better than everything else) and a beat like Kala-era M.I.A. mesh to form the kind of unabashedly childish, carnival-like party anthem you think you remember from that bustling Fifa Street 2 soundtrack. Currently unsigned here and Stateside, expect to hear more from Maidza soon.
Next, here’s 20 y/o Irish wunderkind MMOTHS doing what all aspiring 20 y/o Irish wunderkinds should: crafting epic, shady, stripped-back bedroom techno that takes queues from Apparat as much as Richie’s Hawtin’s Plastikman. If you’re impatient like me and want a beat, jump to 1.50 for a despacio kick that evolves, but never overwhelms. This is the sound of the generation that grew up with the XX.
Techno of a different shade here, with a rare, frenetic release from Berlin-based DJ Objekt. Ganzfield is the B-side on a split release with legendary duo Dopplereffekt. Out on September 1st, each track is apparently:
a transmission derived from a shared journey into extrasensory perception and subconscious thought.
So bear that in mind.
And here’s a cover you probably weren’t expecting: it’s introspective Parisian SoKo (who found much deserved fame earlier this year thanks to that First Kiss video) playing some gorgeous Duran Duran, pared down a little and made all the more haunting. The link isn’t embeddable yet, but you listen over at Stereogum now.
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Like prog rock, but street
Ah, the time-honoured tradition of the pointless, intentional spelling mistake. Old Arnold Schwarzenegger took to Instagram (everyone’s got it now - see Barbra Streisand and her dog) yesterday to drop the deets on the fifth Terminator.
Well, just the title and a release date (July 1st, 2015), actually. Clearly intended as some sort of risqué, iconoclastic orthographic swipe, they’ve named it Genisys. Which sounds like the worst kind of Apprentice team-name.
In fact, on further googling, I have found many fledgling corps also under the same erroneous guise. How is it that so many people can have the same bad idea?
To celebrate the news, here are the three most boring American companies called Genisys. Schwarzenegger’s following in the footsteps in some true giants of the corporate world.
THREE: “Where you come first”: where else, but a Credit Union, of course.
TWO: Genisys OTC, a reseller of used Hewlett-Packard computer equipment for trucks and cars. Rumour has it they’re friends with Cisco and IBM.
ONE: (Stay with me...) Genisys Global, an IT company offering innumerable kinds of hosting services. “IT simplified”!
Great times! You may now continue with your day.
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Can you help Skream and B.Traits find each other?
The DJs are at the airport and seem to have lost each other. They can’t see each other - but can you see either of them?
This is the situation as it stands. Skream’s mate Chris tried to help out, but to no avail.
BREAKING: it actually appears we’re too late...
So, it appears Skream has nipped off, given up and jumped on a plane without his mate. You should never abandon your friends, Skreamo.
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Hola!
It’s Huw in the hot seat today, and I’ve been tasked with coughing up all the usual, fun, incisive commentary on what’s currently being bandied about and LOLed at on Planet Pop Culture.
HuwGC lands later on, as well as my tales of “being in scenes with” Eddie Redmayne, so watch out for that.
But to kick things off, I suggest you wrap your ears around this new one from silk-smooth RnB newcomer TIAAN. Sharp production and mopey backing vocals are her stock-in-trade and ‘Clean’ makes no exception. Not quite as energising as we’d like at this time of the morning. But a brilliant jam nonetheless.
