Mike Long

Who's that boy? That you dream of?



The one with the exquisite taste in music? Who knows good tunes from original sixties band The Creation to eighties power punk X-Ray Spex to the very recent Robyn?

never heard of any of these? who's this guy who can also give you sixties Beatles, eighties Michael Jackson or rather contemporary The Knife?

Who is this guy who appreciates a sweet soul ballad just as much as a laid-back reggae rhythm or an old funk classic? Punk is on his list just as much as Kraut music or, of course, cock rock - I mean satire.

Who's the guy dancing to each of this classic tunes, with a uniqueness that makes any average white-guys-can't-dance white guy have a little crush on him.

Who he is? He's Mike Long. He's gonna be a star!

Flight Of The Conchords

Here's to funny things happening in music recently. Flight Of The Conchords is a musical comedy duo from New Zealand and they got their own tv show, too! But I'll spare you (or rather me) reciting biographical details and trivia I could only copy from other websites (obligatory link #1: the homepage; obligatory link #2: wikipedia; obligatory link #3: myspace). and give you something to see first and then my thoughts afterwards.

If You're into it



Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros



Inner City Pressure



Business Time



Inner City Pressure is not bad, eh? You can tell it is a total rip off of The Pet Shop Boys, but yet it is such a unique song. The sound is so much the same but they did not just add different lyrics to a familiar melody.

What fascinates me about Flight Of The Conchords is that at first I thought how clever they were not forming an ordinary band, but making a comedy thing out of it. That way they are not limited to one style of music and they do not have fixed roles (like who plays what instrument etc.). Although their live shows are with acoustic guitars only (at least as far as I have seen on youtube), they can play all sorts of music in the show - quoting music history from ragga to hiphop to french pop to electronic music to folk, from David Bowie to Pet Shop Boys to Sisqo and so on. Then I wondered whether this meant they weren't so clever at all, because basically when you use a musical style and just copy it for your own song, then there is a lot of work that has been done for you already. But if you listened to the songs closely, you should object now - of course. What makes each song remarkable different from any music it was inspired by is how the two guys use lyrics to comment on their inspiration, to ironically over-emphasice and ridicule what was at no point meant to be funny by the original artists - hence the comedy aspect.

"you know you're not in high finance
considering second-hand underpants"

is what the Pet Shop Boys would never have added to their description of the lifes of young rebelious west end boys.

Same goes for rapping the obligatory hate rhyme:

"Other rappers dis me
Say my rhymes are sissy.
Why? Why? Why?
What?
Why exactly?
What? Why?
Be more constructive with your feedback, please. Why?"

and If You're Into It is just thoughts of a boy - a boy nobody ever told when to stop!

"If you want me to
I could hang 'round with you
If I only knew
That's what you're into.
You and him
Him and you
If that's what
You're into
Him hanging 'round
Around you
You're hanging 'round
Yeah, you're there too.

...

Then on our next date
Well, you could bring your roommate
I don't know if Stu is keen to
But if you want we could double-team you
How about you
And two dudes?
Him, you and Stu
In the nude
Being lewd with two dudes with food
Well, that's if Stu's into it, too"

It's soo well done how all the sounds of the vowels correspond with each other. This is very you can see how much lyrics with music and poetry have in common - the sound has to project the meaning. The way they do it shows they are not only good lyricists, but also fantastic musician. This is very clever, musically and lyrically!

01 - Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators: Keep Reachin' Up & Amy Winehouse: Back To Black

01
NICOLE WILLIS & THE SOUL INVESTIGATORS: KEEP REACHIN' UP (2006)
AMY WINEHOUSE: BACK TO BLACK (2006)

These two records largely made my year. I like them both so much there was no way of choosing one of them over the other. Each perfectly fits into one of the two halfs this year has been for me. Keep Reachin' Up is me in Manchester, I can see myself sitting on the bed doing make up and getting ready for going out. I can feel this even now listening to it, the memories are so intense. Back To Black is me in Berlin. The images that come up are less, well, images, rather diffused, but the feeling is the same. I feel butterflies in my stomach when I hear these records. The perfect soundtrack for 2007.
Both records were released in 2006. Like I wrote before, I think that even if I made a list of records released in 2007, it would still make a lot of sense to consider albums that came out in the late 2006. A good records, a NUMBER ONE RECORD needs some time to climb to that position, to become worthy enough for this. This is Keep Reachin' Up for me. Ironically, the first time I heard about it was in a Best-of-2006-list, namely as the number one of the best soul records of 2006, chosen by the staff of Picadilly Records Manchester (which was elected "best independent record store" by the readers of Music Week and "one of the best shops at all" by The Observer in 2006). Their praise of Nicole Willis' record sounded so good I just had to get it. I was curious whether the record would keep the promise made by Picadilly Records - whic was stiring the Northern Soul fire that had been burning in me since I came to Manchester. Needless to say that is just what it did.
Back To Black, however, needed a lot more time to make it into my heart. Although I had heard about Amy Winehouse already when her first album Frank was released, I did not mind her at all back then. I have complained about her quite harshly, but in her case endless repetition of her songs, being played over and over kind made way for her record - through the backdoor.
So Keep Reachin' Up won my heart at the very beginning of the year, and in a straight, steady way. Back To Black only had very few time to overwhelm me, because it took the long way round. But both had to get my in the end.

The two records are very much different, regarding their popularity. Amy Winehouse was massive this year, whereas no one seems to have heard of Nicole Willis at all. I got the feeling that the record might be a bit of a grower, not in terms of the music, but in terms of popularity. Musically, they have a lof of things in common. Both are outstanding up-to-date and new Northern Soul records, and, I must admit, the only two modern Northern Soul records I know about. There might be more coming up this year, with songs like the remix of Frankie Valli's Beggin' getting quite some attention. For me, discovering and exploring Northern Soul was the biggest musical gain I got this year - even more than living in the city of music.
2007 has been the year of Northern Soul for me, and what would be more obvious than to mention Amy Winehouse as the woman who made Northern Soul music fashionable this year. You couldn't avoid Back To Black this year, the songs seemed to be in everybody's ears and her name on everyone's lips. But Nicole Willis made way for her in my heart. So now I hope that the people who love Back To Black could make space in their hearts for Keep Reachin' Up...

02 - The Coral: Roots & Echoes

02
THE CORAL: ROOTS & ECHOES (2007)

Similar to Rjd2's The Third Hand, Roots & Echoes has been frequently on the turntable in autumn 2007. And I literally mean "turntable" this time, as there was no way of avoiding The Coral whenever I went out to listen and dance to great records. All of The Coral's albums have their great moments and when I heard the band at clubs or bars, it was not even that likely I would get to hear a song from their latest record. But I have chosen this one as my favourite because it is the one I have listened to most frequently. Plus Who's Gonna Find Me definitely is one of the songs of the year for me, and it is on this album. But then again, I only discovered Dreaming Of You (from The Coral) this year, and it should have been inside my heart and head from 2002 on. But maybe I would not have been ready for this sixties-influenced, bright and shining pop/rock music back then, I think I was listening to quite different stuff then. That is why I'd rather have the latest record as my favourite in this list, but all the others are great, too.
Anyway, Rjd2 and The Coral is what I have been listening to heavily over the past few months, and to be honest, maybe this is one of the reason they ended up so high in the ranking. For the records that you listened to in the first half of the year may not be in your short-time memory when you are compiling the list, and the ones that you found out about by the very end of the year may be to fresh to really mean something to you. You will soon see how I tried to overcome this problem in my number one.

03 - Rjd2: The Third Hand

03
RJD2: THE THIRD HAND (2007)

I have written about this one here. It is still hard to believe I read about this record in a hiphop magazine first. But yeah, Rdj2 used to be a hiphop sampling dj once. With this record, he has created something more atmospheric, more dreamy, more melodic. This has been the soundtrack for my autumn this year. I used to listen to this one all of september when I was riding my bike. It is a bit of a twisted record, I find it very hard to add "labels" to it. But unlike last time I wrote about this record, there is now something I can give you to hear. Please have a look and listen at Work It Out, which represents the feel of the album very well, I think. It may sound repetitive when you've only listened to it once, but If you give it a few more tries you will realise there is a lot going on in the song.



Rjd2, by the way, is not the guy with the crutches, but, among others, the guy in the blue/white checked shirt following him at the beginning.

04 - The Clash: The Clash & London Calling

04
THE CLASH:
THE CLASH (1977),
LONDON CALLING (1979)

2007 brought me lots of new musical styles to listen to, and punk rock certainly is a very influential one. I always knew about The Clash, but never paid attention to their music until I went to Britain. When I was there, The documentary about Joe Strummer, The Future Is Unwritten, was in the cinemas. I only saw the film after I got back to Berlin, but the big fuzz that was made about it was something I couldn't escape from. One day I heard Rock The Casbah on the local uni radio station. It's a song I had known before but didn't know which band it was from. I also hadn't heard it for a long time, so it was kind of like discovering it for the first time - this wild, energetic, yet bright and jingly song. I then started to listen to lots of stuff from The Clash, that's why I cannot really choose one particular album to put here in the list. There are lots of Clash-classics, and most of them are on these two records: Janie Jones, White Riot, Career Opportunities, Garageland on The Clash and London Calling and Guns of Brixton on London Calling.
I also got some dvds abouth The Clash from the local library in Manchester. The band was everywhere this year, I even ended up in their local pub in Camden one evening when I was in London - and it was not at all intentional, nor something I knew when I got there. I only found out a lot later. Just like I found out how great this band is very late.

05 - The Detroit Cobras: Tied & True

05
THE DETROIT COBRAS: TIED & TRUE (2007)

On we go in the new year with old music. This record contains songs from the 60s, all covered by the band The Detroit Cobras. I like that all songs are really powerful, even the slow, sad ones. I read about this record in a music magazine, and the description sounded so tempting I just had to listen to it! I didnt like everything on it at first, only my first favourite song: Only To Other People. I liked it so much that I have the whole album some more spins. It took a bit of time, but now I like it very much. It also quite well represents what kkind of music I particularly listened to this year: energetic, good , loud, and rather often with interesting female singers.

06 - Love: Forever Changes

06
LOVE: FOREVER CHANGES (1967)

Forever Changes is a record I got as a present, as something I "must have". The first time I listened to this record was at a party, when I was hanging around with some people who all knew this one and wanted to hear it. A discussion about Arthur Lee started, the guy who wrote all the songs. Some people had seen him live a few years earlier, shortly before he died. A lot of attention was drawn to the record, so I listened to it quite often afterwards, and quickly fell in love with it. Yet this record is another on of these cases where I got the special edition, and maybe shouldn't have. The record itself is great, and there are some nice versions of the songs on it as well, but all in all, you don't really need all the special stuff that is on there. After all, a record is a record, and when it's over, the songs that follow kind of destroy the atmosphere the record created. However, to talk a bit more about the songs, Alone Again Or is great, I knew this one even before I got the record. And I later found out that I had also heard Always See Your Face before, as it is on the soundtrack of High Fidelity, one of the greatest films about music there is. However, Forever Changes is not about single songs, but they whole record in itself is what you gotta listen to.

07 - The Zombies: Odessey and Oracle

07
THE ZOMBIES: ODESSEY AND ORACLE (1968)

I rarely listened to the record in a whole, I must admit. Rank 7 is more about certain songs that mean so much to me. This entry is mostly about Care Of Cell 44, about Leave Me Be, Time Of The Season, This Will Be Our Year - songs that are so important for me this year, that the whole record had to make it onto the list. Yet this is all about The Zombies as well, because these songs stand for their sound in general, their music, which I find incredibly good this year. When I discovered Leave Me Be, it was another of these instances when I fell in love with a voice. I was in a state of mind when I could literally feel the sadness this song emerged from. Later I heard Time Of The Season, which is so different from Leave Me Be - a bright song about happyness and love. After that, it took a while until I got the record. I got the new 30th anniversary edition as a present. It's a nice records, because everything a Zombies-newbee needs to have from the band is on there. And I love most of the record very much, songs like This Will Be Our Year (which it was!), Brief Candles and Maybe After He's Gone. They are all fantastic, but none of them can quite shake me as much as this one song does: Care Of Cell 44. It's a long story behind this one. It's about me...

8 - The Bishops: the Bishops

8
THE BISHOPS: THE BISHOPS (2007)

The Bishops stand for all the great rhythm'n'blues and beat music I discovered this year. This is a fresh young band from London who just represent this great hard 60's sound and style so very well. A records that pushes you and makes you jump up and dance! I love their energy, and I am also very much into their sophisticated stylishness. Okay, I am repeating myself.
I like the band for how they combine dramatic lyrics that actually say something sad(The Only Place That I Can Look Is Down or Will You Ever Come Back To Me) with very danceable beat music. The Bishops are just one of the many many many recommendations that, ironically, came from all the way home to make my time in Manchester. I was told to go to their gig. I had the chance to see them both in Manchester and, later, in Berlin. But both times, it was not destined to happen. May I get a another chance? This probably depends on what's going to happen next with the band. Let's hope they keep it up!

9 - Little Man Tate: About What You Know

9
LITTLE MAN TATE: ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW (2007)

This years' list is gonna give a lot of reference to the time I spent in Britain. Being in the country of music for five months, and spending almost all the time in the city of music (I am talking about Manchester) does of course have some nice effects. I had great experiences there and some of them had loosely or tightly to do with Little Man Tate.

The first time I heard about them was last year, in autumn 2006. Back then I went to a Peter, Björn & John gig in Berlin where they were touring with Little Man Tate. But I had no clue who they were and so we missed the show. But things that are destined to happen simply happen! In Manchester I had lots of opportunities to gain as much from the musical atmosphere there as possible. This included going to clubs and record stores (Manchester's Oldham Street has a larger number of record stores than any other street or area in Britain), namely The Roadhouse (venue) and Picadilly Records (store). And one day on myspace I got a bulletin saying the Little Man Tate were doing a few free gigs in Britain to promote the release of their new single. The gig was in the Eastern holidays, and they were giving out tickets in Picadilly Records on a specific date. By then, I had become very interested in the band because of their great rock music and their smart titles like Man I Hate Your Band. So I rushed to shop right in the morning to make sure I got two tickets - as a special surprise for someone special who was gonna spend the holidays with me. The gig was great. And I mean not only the band, who were rather tired (you could tell by the voice of the singer that they had been touring the continent) but still put on a great show. For me it was also fantastic to observe the audience - lots of Brits, weird guys who were into stage diving and partying hard. And they adored the band. The atmosphere was very much alive.

The record, About What You Know, also brings back lots of memories of things that I experienced, which could only have happened in Britain. I went to a big house party, were two hundred people squeezed themselves into a living room to see Foals play for free, and everything I hear House Party At Boothys I can't help but thinking of that. In most party of the album, the lyrics just refer to specific things I have seen that are part of the British culture. I am failing to properly describe this here, let's just say that it's great Britrock, and with this records I feel like I listened to it from a British point-of-view, not as someone who hears it and has to wonder what it is like to know all this. Cause this time I know!

Frankie Valli and the mysteries of video shooting

"beggin', beggin' you
put your dancing shoes on baby"
(slightly edited, ;-) )

Frankie Valli - Beggin' (pilooski edit)



The most amazing song for me at the moment.

Why on earth they shot a video like this one is a mystery to me. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (why the full name of the band isn't spelled out correctly is a mystery either) were, among other things, successful in the British northern soul scene in the 60s. Considering the timeline, the 1950s petticoat dancers are a complete miscast, and the sound doesn't really apply to these 80s hiphop dancers either.

There are people dancing northern soul nowadays. I bet these two young men would have loved to take part in the video:



Better luck next time!

And in case you would like to see and hear more northern soul (like I do!), try these guys:

Justice live at "I love Techno"

Kinda old, but this still hits me like a rock. I am more and more into Nu Rave.

Finally Amy

I may possibly be the last person on earth to fall in love with Amy Winehouse's music. It had been suggested a few times before by friends, who all said that "that's quite the music you'll like". So I gave her stuff a try. And I hated her guts. I called her voice the "voice of a duck being minced through a meatgrinder." That's a really bad thing to say. I am honestly sorry, Amy. I love your music. I adore your voice. I love your beats, and melodies. I appreciate the fact that you dress and style just like you want to. I admire your frank and open lyrics. I've been listening to them a lot recently.
There was no avoiding Amy after I started working for a company which provided its staff with music at work. And while I was doing my chores her songs just slowly crept into my brain until I was able to distungish them from each other (there are three I heard, You Know I'm No Good, Back To Black and My Tears Dry On Their Own). I learned to recognise the beats and within the first few seconds of a track I could tell there was an Amy Winehouse song coming up. I was a bit afraid of listening to the Back To Black record at home because I thought "what if I get used to it to quickly and then I can't stand hearing it at work anymore?". But I was just way too curious to not find out what the other stuff sounds like. And I love everything.

Amy Winehouse's songs are modern classics. The love with which they are made, the uniqueness of the power she puts into them.. I hear Amy Winehouse is not too well these days. I hope she will make it and stay a fascinating personality. But no matter with how many more records she'll eventually come up with, I predict that Back To Black will be a classic, something to appear on the top of all-time hit lists in fourty years, a record people will discover and listen to in a long while. Because It's timeless. So I guess I am not too late, I'm still right on time!

my current fave song

I love this one, I don't know why. it's really playing inside my mind all the time at the moment. I'll try and blog about this, I promise. And about Martin Newell. I announce this here to get some desperately needed motivation.

The Coral - Who's Gonna Find Me

RJD2 - The Third Hand

It was about time for me to like a record so much I feel it is worth being recommend. My new favourite album is RJD2's The Third Hand.

Well, as far as I know RJD2 has released quite few records so far, and I know him has a hip hop sampling dj. However, the new record quite blew me away because it combines a number of styles. What drove me to listen to it was a review I read that stated something like "RJD2 seems to be more relying on psychedelic and the beatles here than on hip hop beats." And damn right this is! The first song and, as far as I know, new single you never had it so good is based on piano chords. The second one, have mercy, is extremly funky. I find the lyrics quite amusing, as they remind me of German train workers being on strike recently:

Oh my goodness
I've been waiting for a train all morning
Lord Allmighty
I got a downtown shot to get to
Oh please
I got no car to bring me
...
Lord have mercy
have mercy have mercy
on these old fools
Lord have mercy
have mercy have mercy
'cos I won't do

Probbaly not what RJD2 wanted to say, but nevermind. Same goes for laws of the gods, which sounds like a angry girl's revenge on her ex-boyfriend:

Oh lazy man
you broke the laws of the gods
...
don't come home for a week

Enough interpretations...I discovered this record just three days ago, and already came up with some weird conclusions. One suddenly hit me this morning when I listened to the record in the queue at the post office: The thing is, one of my favorite songs so far is sweet piece. The chorus just appeals to me very much, and now I think I know why: May I be so presumptuous to claim it's like the electro hymn George Michael has not been writing recently? "Not him again again" I hear you scream, but listen for yourself. It's electronic, a soft electronica, it's about unaknowledged love or misconceptions on love, and his voice sounds so, well, like George Michael.

Likewise noteworthy: rules has perfect bonds to good old triphop and someday is played with an acoustic guitar. Not quite your average hiphop dj, ey?

We are now coming to the sadder part of this blog. What ever happened to radioblogclub? Is it just me or is it gone, making room for a page full of advertisement? What happened to all the radioblogclub links I put on this blog?

Not all the songs I mentioned are available there, but do try and listen to RJD2 on his myspace.

Digitalism

One of the spearheads of the so-called "New Rave"-movement is a band based in Hamburg/Germany, called "Digitalism". Tracks are released on the french label "Kitsune", and after a few singles/EPs the two dudes have finally finished their Debut-Album called "Idealism". And I don't actually want to write alot about this except that I love their music and urge you to check them out too.

"Zdarlight"-Video, their first big hit :

"Pogo"-Video, the current Single :

Digitalism on myspace.

Discopunk !

I have been at an "Indietronic"-Festival yesterday and had an amazing load of fun. Two bands where especially great:

First "The Plectrons", a band of four 19-year-old schoolkids with some great indie-behaviour, classic rock-setup (drums, bass, two guitars) and alot of kicking funk in the music. Taking the fact that they are yet to finish school I really see a great future for them. Check their myspace page.


The other band was "So So Modern" from New Zealand, cute costumes, live drums, guitars and a huge synth-rig infront of every member, which makes an amazing mix of dirty synthlines and blaring powerchords. I really hope to see them live again sometime in the future. Check their myspace-page.




It was great to get a truckload of this strange music I keep calling "Discopunk" and I am now officially a fan of two rockbands. Who'd h' thought, ey ?

Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators

You are about to listen to something plainly beautiful. Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators' album Keep Reachin' Up. The incredients are quite extraordinary, though:

This is Northern Soul, somehow. But it is from "the other north": Finland.

This was not released in 1966. It was produced in 2006.

Apparently the band won every soul award there is last year. Not only for the great music, but surely also because everybody was so excited about the fact that there is a bunch of young people making a record full of kitchen soul. It was about time.

myspace

homepage

Robosonic Mashup-Mixes

Recently stumbled over two guys from Berlin called "Robosonic" who are doing minimal electro-tech-stuff as well as playing mash-up-nights all over the world. Their myspace-page offers two sets for download and I urge you to grab those. Mash-up at its best, all from 80s, hiphop, house/tech-stuff over to metal, it's a wild ride.

download set1
download set2

And while you are at it, make friends with them.