Scene Issue 213

SCENE Wednesday

February 2011 Issue 213

23,

Chase and Status

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT FILM

TV

BOOKS

TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

N O I S I TELEV

CHAPMAN LA O IC N . ll a e w 't n re A ?

TV Sick of rubbish ird La h is tt co S a en h w ys a d d ol reminisces about the good ht... ig n y a d n u S s l' ir g le tt li y n a could make

I

t wasn’t until the other day when I was seriously considering watching ‘Vic Reeves does Jack the Ripper’ on Sky 3 that I realised there was something fundamentally wrong with TV. It has all got so very dire. I found myself questioning – where did good TV go? I am by no means an old man declaring, ‘it wasn’t like this during the war’, please don’t think that of me, but one has to question this sudden viewing dry desert.

I believe TV’s hay day has been and gone, for me anyway. And I think that this notion comes down to one very important point: I was far more easily pleased as a child. I had routines with TV at the core back then, back when Edmunds and Blobby were the biggest couple on the box.

TV, in a sense, was an event for me and I’m sure it was for many other families across the land.

Can you remember the very first Lottery show? 22 million people tuned in that night. I remember it as well. I declared that if we were to win, I would run upstairs with such delight that once I reached my bedroom I planned to throw every teddy off my bed to give me ample space to bounce up and down in unparralled euphoria. I’m afraid to say that that never happened, nor has any TV event got me that excited since.

I felt so very involved with TV as a child, something I feel I lack now.

I always found that Sunday night TV was an event, something planned around. We’d always have our Sunday night indoor picnic watching the end of Last of the Summer Wine (a programme that always made me question pensioners) – but sitting down just in time for The Clothes Show. It made me feel so grown up, even though I had no idea who this

‘Christian Dior’ guy was. But after The Clothes Show had finished and I had polished off the last of the celery sticks, I would have my bath just in time for my two TV favourites: Monarch of the Glen and Where the Heart Is. Two of my all time greatest TV loves. As a child I always imagined that I would grow up to live in a Scottish castle with Hamish, Killwilly and the gang, or run away to the Dales with my childhood mega crush Christian Cook.

Thing was, I was so happy being so immersed into these peoples’ lives, lives of which I had no understanding whatsoever.

And so now I feel my tolerance for TV has well and truly disappeared along with my childhood ability to do the splits. I just can’t commit anymore. The only saving Grace for me now is the final series of The Tudors, something which I’ve been watching avidly since the end of series one.

My joie de (tv)ivre has gone AWOL. I think my tolerance for bad TV went out the window along with some of my choice childhood shoulder padded jumpers. That is why, when any good TV programme comes along, I obsess over it, I plan essays around it. Take for example Glee. It's on at 9pm, and when the big hand points to 11 and the small hand points to 9, I rush down the stairs to get the best seat in the lounge.

And that's another thing - TV can divide and unite any household. I was alone in my love of Monarch of the Glen and Where the Heart Is (I expected the Sunday night sneer frommy family), but we all sat around to watch You've Been Framed. And it's the same now. Myself and my housemates all gathered for Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and Sun, Sex and

Suspicious Parents, yet scatter as soon as anyone says 'David Dimbleby lecture'.

It's the same at home in peak X Factor season. You are more likely to see Louis wait 5 minutes to talk instead of shouting over the audience than see my Dad partake in 'quality' reality viewing time.

Therefore, I propose this to TV Controllers across the land: please make good TV that unites people.

And by way of unite I mean that someone is sitting next to you on the sofa getting as involved as you are. A simple premise.

I'm not going to end this on my high horse as I do realise that as children, we were so easily pleased. All it took was half a carrot, a strawberry winder and a prime seat watching Mike and Angelo or Recess. But I am hugely aware that TV has gone pretty much to the dogs. COME ON TV! Prove me wrong. Bring that worryfree, little girl back.

Fit?...

OCH AYE!!

LISTINGS

RASTAMOUSE: AN UNLIKELY HERO

O

Dean Knapper

ur grandparents had Mickey Mouse, our parents had Danger Mouse. Now, finally, we have a rodent star of our own. Rastamouse first scurried his way onto our screens just a few weeks ago, but has rapidly achieved notoriety from children and students alike.

If you’re not yet familiar with Rastamouse, I can only assume you’ve been living in a (mouse) hole for the past month. Rastamouse is a reggae loving mouse from Mouseland Island. When he’s not busy playing with his band Da Easy Crew, or relaxing on the beach, he solves crimes for the President of Mouseland, Wensley Dale. The cheese pun is obviously intentional; they can’t get enough of the stuff over on Mousland Island (a Rastafarian mouse who loves cheese, I’m pretty sure there’s no metaphor to be found there...).

Okay, based on the fact that the show is on Cbeebies, I’ll concede that we might not be its target audience. But thanks to the iPlayer, and the near endless student quest to do anything other than study, Rastamouse has found a solid fan base at universities up and down the country.

I don’t know about you, but I often look at the state of current children’s TV with a sense of horror. Maybe it’s just good old nostalgia, but I believe we grew up in a golden era of children’s TV, an era that has long since passed.

That’s why I found Rastamouse such a breath of fresh air.

Here we have a show that has everything a good kids’ TV show needs: endearing characters, enjoyable storylines with a moralistic element that always stays on the right side of preachy, and genuine humour.

But Rastamouse manages to echo the success of kids’ shows of old, whilst at the same time feeling (to borrow a favourite term from the mouse himself) fresh. The reason for this has got to be its use of Jamaican idioms, which manage to introduce a different culture in a light-hearted and humorous way that avoids simply laughing at how different the culture is.

Whilst back home last week I went to see my 7 year old cousin, and he greeted me with a perfectly pronounced ‘Wah Gwaan’. In that instant I fully appreciated the beauty of Rastamouse, and the £142 license fee felt that little bit more like value for money. Thank you BBC for returning children’s TV to its former glory. And thank you to whoever it was at Cbeebies who heard the idea of a TV show starring a crime fighting, reggae playing, Rastafarian mouse and thought, ‘why the hell not’.

If you haven’t already, I urge you to join the Rastamouse revolution. You can find all the episodes on the iPlayer.

Remotes at the ready - our tv picks for the week

Best of 4oD

y Tool Academ

Take twelve poor, delusional women and their lager loutboyfriends, teach them how to have the perfect relationship and watch as everything goes up in flames. This is the general premise of Tool Academy, its lude, crude and damn right shameless; this show is the very definition of trashy car crash television - but my gosh is it good Mondays, 10pm E4

Watch this week

Embarrassing Bodies

Get your bits out, there's no need to feel ashamed.

Embarrassing Bodies is back and is on the mission to get us talking about our illnesses - a decent informative show, not to be watched while you're having dinner though

Friday , C4, 9pm

Oh No You Didn't...

When I came across this TV show it made me so proud to know that it wasn't my mother gyrating her pelvis in studded hot pants...

Hotter Than My Daughter , Tuesdays, 9pm, BBC3

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT FILM

TV

BOOKS

TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

ON THE BOX TV box sets to brighten any rainy day Dexter

Michael C Hall, Jen Carpenter Series 1 - £9.99 (Amazon)

Sex And The City

Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall Series 1-6 - £48.64 (Amazon)

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iveting TV that’s dark and twisted, yet oddly witty; Dexter is the story of a reclusive blood spatter analyst who harbours a spine tingling secret…he kills people, well, serial killers to be exact.

The show centres around our socially awkward forensic expert, come soulless sociopathic vigilante, as he desperately tries to fit into mainstream society, whilst still aiming to satisfy his insatiable thirst for the kill.

This show is an excellent example of the forensic crime genre done well, it is unlike anything else on the box, purely for its capacity to disorientate and mystify. What other TV show makes you root for the eponymous hero and enjoy it when he gets the kill?

Expect gruesome gratuitous violence and all the thrills that ensue. It is definitely a must see, so go on take some time out from reading those musty library books and sit back and enjoy the appealing lure of mutilated flesh. Oh Dexter, you’re such a lovable homicidal sociopath…

Morgan Collins

ow before I begin can I make it absolutely clear that my love for SATC was deep rooted light years before either of the films were released.

For all you non-Carrie-ites, you’ll probably know SATC for the pitiful reviews it has collected after the last film graced our cinemas. I agree, the film was damn awful, but please put that to the back of your mind. The SATC box set is by far one of the greatest things I have ever spent my disposable income on.

SATC is based on this simple premise: four successful, (sometimes) affluent New York ladies swan about in beautiful clothes with beautiful men and spend their days eating $10 rice pudding and having mindblowing sex.

Don’t worry, they’ve left Lisa Minnelli shaking her near-nuddy bum just for those lucky film-goers, so don’t let that put you off. Oh and watch out for a young Bradley Cooper, he features as a very hot guy ready for the (one night stand) plucking.

It’s the type of life any girl dreams of – strutting along 5th Avenue with hilarious friends, in gorgeous Blahniks and dressed head to toe in Oscar de la Renta. Shallow?

Maybe. But this box set has given me hours of joy on those awful, gloomy York days when all you can dream about is sharing that penthouse with your very own Mr Big. All girls and (unashamed) boys should have this in their DVD collection:

Family Guy

Seth MacFarlane, Seth Green Series 3 - £12.93 (Amazon)

F

or those of you who have been living under a rock and have never watched an episode of Family Guy – what have you been doing with your life? Family Guy is one of those divisive shows that is constantly shocking TV audiences worldwide, with its hysterical political incorrectness; pushing taste boundaries to their limits.

Nine seasons in and the Family Guy franchise is still going strong, so for all of those who have lived a sheltered life – don’t fret, I’m here to expose you Family Guy Virgins to the wonders of this hysterical “cartoon”.

If you are going to commence your Family Guy journey I would suggest starting at season 3. This season is an excellent example of Family Guy at its pinnacle, arguably boasting some of its best moments. Episodes such as “And the Weiner is” and “Screwed the pooch” had me laughing into my badly made popcorn; the combination of taboo and bizarre comedy is truly something else.

The show’s sheer outlandishness and general stupidity is unrivalled – so if you like to laugh (which I’m sure you do), then Family Guy is an unmissable series, certainly worth a watch.

Nicola Chapman

Morgan Collins

BLAST FROM THE PAST...

LISTINGS

THE TV HOT LIST TV HEAVEN Big Fat Gypsy Weddings

The unlikely hit of the year so far. The series finale even managed to attract more viewers than the Brits. But then again BFGW did have the unfair advantage of not featuring James Corden.

ut Take Mee teOrm ‘it’s

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10 O’Clock Live

ne had I think everyo ns for tio cta pe ex r thei o high. to t se this show not bad, ly ite fin de s It’ find its but it has yet to role nt ce de rhythm, or a for Lauren Laverne.

TV REWIND

THEY DON'T MAKE KIDS TV LIKE THAT ANYMORE

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ith the amount of trash splashed on our screens from the disgraceful Jersey Shore gang to the equally annoying waste of space simply known as Hannah Montana, it makes you ponder on the TV of yesteryear.

I remember when TV revolved around two channels: CBBC and ITV and when the hot topic of the day was ‘what happened on Byker, Byker Groooove?’

As students we remember collecting Pokémon cards as fondly as we now collect vodka bottles and hideous Efes pizza boxes. Nevertheless, we can all agree that kids' TV has never bettered the TV of our childhood days.

The question of favourite kids TV programmes will always bring different responses. From Fun House, The Queens Nose, Bernard's Watch to the old classics such as Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry and the The Chuckle Brothers. The list goes on. Digging into my past in the 90s, an undeniable favourite, for me was the awkwardly wide faced genius called Hey

Arnold. I always empathised for him in his time of constant abuse from Helga and rejoiced on his minor successes.

Helga’s failed attempt to crush Arnold’s spirit made us laugh, but we all knew she secretly had feelings for him.

But who can forget Blue Peter? It always aired at 5pm on the dot, right before Newsround and Neighbours. You may have loved it or loathed it but you can’t deny that secret desire to be given one of those white Blue Peter badges, pinned on your shirt with pride after your heroic act of bravery. You attempted unsuccessfully to make the perfect brownies or art masterpiece that you saw Matt Baker create and, just like an episode of Art Attack, you were amazed they were able to do it all in 3 minutes.

This trek down memory lane makes you wonder whether children's TV will ever reach the level of the 90s. I’m left with the best memories of rushing back from school to watch a marathon of Arthur, Hey Arnold and later The Simpsons and Fresh Prince. As I remi-

Top Gear Defending sexism one week, mocking Mexicans the next, is there any barrel Jezza and co aren’t prepared to scrape?

nisce watching an old episode of Kenan and Kel on Nickelodeon, I have come to the realisation of what I am now at the tender age of 19 and what student loans and huge rent deposits have made me become: an OAP (Old and Penniless).

But let us not forget the programmes that shaped our childhood. If you need me, you'll find me 'liking' every group on Facebook with the premise that 'If you don't remember Round the Twist then you are not a real child'.

Skins

Not a won

New series, new characters, new storylines. One thing’s stayed the same, it’s still shit.

derful kin

d of day a

nymore?

Rebecca Ojumu

TV HELL

MUSIC

SPOTLIGHT

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BOOKS

Books AFTER the closure of the UK branch of booksellers Borders in late 2009 (as mentioned in 'On The Street or On The Web' in the books section of the last issue of Vision) reports are emerging that the US branch is soon to follow suit, possibly shutting down by the end of this month. It appears that the chain has not coped sufficiently with the ongoing trend of

books moving towards digital media. Reports have been released suggesting that the firm has failed to resolve liabilities in excess of $1bn with their bankers. Though no official comment has been released by the Borders conglomerate itself, as of Friday 11th February, Wall Street reported that shares in the company had plummeted by 32%.

NIGHTLIFE

LISTINGS

Want to contribute? Contact us at books@yorkvision.co.uk

GEORGE OSBORNE looks at developments within the publishing industry...

It's Curtains For Borders

TECHNOLOGY

Assange To Leak Life Story

W I K I L E A K S founder Julain Assange has reportedly signed a massive $1.5m book deal, with reports stating that it will be a tell-all autobiography. Assange has publicly declared that he has no wish to sell his life story, but that it is vital to pay for his ongoing legal costs; "I don't

want to write this book, but I have to. I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

Assange is currently waiting to hear from British magistrates whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault - a claim he vehemently denies.

JASMINE TARMEY looks at future releases and re-releases...

Once Upon a Clothes Design FASHION goes folklore as Camilla Morton releases a set of biographies interweaving fairytale stories with the lives of some of fashion's biggest names. First up is Christian Lacroix and The Tale of Sleeping Beauty, which includes Lacroix's interpretive illustrations of the popular tale, due out 20 February.

Morton has already announced the next title, Manolo Blahnik's The Elves

and the Shoemaker which will be out in the fall, and John Galliano and Diane Von Furstenberg will also have their own stories in fairy tales.

It's 'Once Upon a Time' with a twist, as these revolutionary designers get their own happy endings written down, suggesting to fashionistas everywhere that fairytales really can come true.

'Inju[n]'ring Twain's Twang CLASSICAL literature comes under fire as Mark Twain's works are being rereleased with racist terms replaced with more politically correct versions. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn will never be the same again, as the word "nigger" is replaced with "slave" and "injun" with "indian" in an attempt to avoid offending modern day readers.

However, some readers have attacked editor Alan Gribben for this decision, accusing him of desecrating Twain's novels. This backlash is fuelled by the fact that Twain was selective about his lexical choices stating that the difference between the right and almost right word was like "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

Pinching Pynchon's Privacy SAM HOOK investigates the phenomenon of reclusive authors...

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enneth Slawenski's recent life of J D Salinger is the latest in a long line of investigations into the mysterious lives of reclusive authors.

While Salinger was probably the writer most famous for avoiding fame, the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson are all notoriously publicity shy.

After Salinger's death, Thomas Pynchon assumes the title of most famous literary recluse. Ironically, John Calvin Batchelor once claimed in the Soho News that Pynchon and Salinger were in fact the same person, leading Pynchon to respond, "not bad, keep trying Unlike Salinger, who lived like Emily Dickinson in isolation, Pynchon maintains a low profile by fanatically controlling reproduction of his image. When CNN managed to film him on a New York street he succesfully supressed coverage of the footage, and he appeared twice on The Simpsons complete with a paper bag over his head.

For much of his professional career, McCarthy preserved a similar profile.

However, he surprised commentators by appearing on Oprah in 2007, after his novel The Road was included in the show's

book club. He then attended the Oscars ceremony in 2008, which saw the Coen brothers' adaptation of McCarthy's No Country for Old Men land best picture.

After this brief flirtation with celebrity, McCarthy has again disappeared from view, making no further notable public appearances.

The figure of the secluded author is a

pervasive and fascinating one. It recalls the lives of contemplation lead by religious figures from Gautama Buddha to St Jerome, individuals who obtained access to spiritual insight through private meditation. Similarly, writers such as Emily Dickinson and the BrontĂŤ sisters are credited with works of astounding

perception despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that they led lives of relative isolation.

The phenomenon also speaks to the uneasy relationship between an author and his critics, exemplified in Roberto BolaĂąo's posthumously published masterpiece 2666. In the novel, publicitiy shy author Benno von Archimboldi, is pursued for an interview by the very critics who popularised his writing.

An author's elusiveness is a frustrating hindrance to a biographical reading of their work, and even more of an obstacle to an actual biography. Inevitably, hiding from publicity only attracts attention and speculation. The desire of critics and fans to know more about their favourite writers, coupled with the nature of twenty-first century media, means that the writer's wishes for privacy are very often not respected. Google Map gives me the opportunity to view Salinger's New Hampshire retreat and I can watch Pynchon walking in his New York neighbourhood on YouTube.

It is impossible to hide completely in today's world. Setting aside the moral and legal implications of a desire for pri-

vacy I can't help but feel that it is simply far more enjoyable to speculate about the strange and exciting lives these writers may have lived, than to find out the mundane, humdrum details of their existence. The reports that have emerged about Pynchon, for example, characterise him as a thoroughly normal, respectable citizen. I for one feel much poorer for this information. I would prefer the freedom to project onto the names Pynchon and Salinger the kinds of strange and disturbing existences their writing suggests. It is one case where I am sure fiction is much stranger than fact.

MUSIC

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SPOTLIGHT

kippy Dies is hard to categorise. Paul Murray's epic is simultaneously comic, romantic, political and tragic. The novel covers the short life of Daniel Juster, a student at the prestigious but sinister Seabrook college, a Catholic boys boarding school in Dublin. To reveal that Juster dies is hardly a spoiler, the novel opens with his demise in a donut eating contest and he is the "Skippy" of the title, cruelly nicknamed because of an unfortunate resemblance to the crime fighting marsupial. Yet the novel proves to be far darker and more moving than even this bleakly comic opener suggests.

Much of the novel is told in flashback as Murray details the events leading up to and the subsequent fallout of Juster's mysterious demise. By drawing wonderfully vivid characters, from Juster's overweight genius roommate, to the ruthlessly ambitious deputy head, Murray invokes the agony and ecstasy of our school days and exposes how bullying and victimisation is by no means limited to the students.

As Juster takes tentative

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steps towards a relationship with the beautiful Lori we see how his misfit friends, the psychopathic school bully and Seabrook's dysfunctional staff are drawn together and torn apart by a series of strange events. Such an ambitious novel could easily collapse under the weight of its sub-plots but Skippy Dies is sustained by Murray's affectionate and compelling style, which manages to elicit warm humour and real pathos from the helter-skelter narrative - the only tragi-comic romance you will read featuring both particle physics and the poetry of Robert Graves.

RACHEL PRONGER

TV

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Rated Reads W

hilst re-reading Graham Greene's edgy murder thriller, it struck me that this book has never been needed more than now, as it is a perfect example of what is currently lacking in the British market. Books today are too conscious of their motifs and ethics, and whilst this is fine, necessary even, their weakness is that they do little to hide it. Greene's novel is a fast paced, distinctly British, pulp fiction, and whilst it is vitally underpinned by questions of love, sin and morality, it never seems to let on. Set in Brighton just before the outbreak of the second world war, it follows the tangled lives of Pinkie, a sadistic teenage sociopath; Rose, his new wife who is only just becoming aware of the horror she is living in; and Ida, a well meaning busybody who tries to keep balance, in every sense of the word. Greene's key asset is the way he can manipulate his narrative to plunge the depths of the human soul, whilst simultaneously never straying into the unbelievable. It is perhaps this realism that gives the book its awed notoriety - the fact that there is no fantasy to hide behind, no super-

natural buffer to protect us from the idea that men and women as tortured and dangerous as Pinkie walk among us. Adapted into a successful film in 1947, the 2011 remake has just been released, with Sam Riley in the title role, no doubt hoping that he'll be accredited with a breakthrough performance as magnificent as Richard Attenborough's.

Regardless of whether this film lives up to the original, it is still the book that people turn to time and again.

Intriguing, unsettling and asking more questions that it can ever hope to answer, Brighton Rock is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century.

GEORGE OSBORNE

The Bluffer's Guide to: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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NIGHTLIFE

u Maurier’s Rebecca has one of the most famous opening lines in literature: ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again’ – and from there the novel only goes up. Despite revealing the tragic ending in the opening chapter - the burning down of Manderley and the couple's life in exile - Du Maurier’s prose captivatingly weaves a page-turning story as the unnamed narrator, the second Mrs de Winter, recounts her journey from youth to womanhood. The novel’s title character, Rebecca, died under mysterious circumstances before the narrated events occured, but her presence haunts the text, and proves that revenge can still be had from beyond the grave.

She was loved by all who knew her, yet throughout the novel more and more dark secrets come spilling out of the closet. The second Mrs de Winter constantly compares herself to Rebecca's supposed perfection whilst constantly failing - in her mind - to live up to her predecessor. It is a prime example of a gothic novel, contaning events more realistic and psychological than other-worldly supernatu-

LISTINGS

ral. Many have likened it to Bronte’s Jane Eyre but whilst comparisons are noticeable, the novel doesn’t read as though it is treading over familiar ground.

It is centred around a marriage haunted by du Maurier's version of the madwoman in the attic and questions the imprints our lives can leave on people, places and things. The novel boosted du Maurier into popularity, and came to be her best-selling novel. It’s a doomed romance with a twist, starring a brooding widower, self-conscious bride, malcontent servant and dead first wife.

JASMINE TARMEY

Guess What?

Nanki Chawla gives you the lowdown on Goethe.

he only thing you really need to know about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is that he was a self-proclaimed womanizer; a ladies man, who was constantly inspired by the leading lady in his life. They changed frequently, usually on one of Goethe's whims to pursue something or someone new.

If you can keep a track of the lady in his life, you can usually tell what he was working on at the time and into which literary genre it would fit. As Germany's answer to William Shakespeare, he was a writer and a polymath, writing everything from poetry, drama, prose and fiction to coining new scientific theories most notably his discovery of the human intermaxillary bone (in the jaw) and his 'Theory of Colours'.

Notable woman #1 - Charlotte von Stein: Charlotte defined the early years of Goethe's life in Weimar. His Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) poetry, plays and notable epistolary novel (written in letter form), The Sorrows of Young Werther made up his version of angsty teenage love poetry. The book was so successful that it caused a spate of suicides (inspired by the title

character) and a new fashion wave where people began to dress like the ill-fated Werther. The book is based on Goethe's love for the married Charlotte, who never felt more than platonic love for him, something which tortured his early, romantic sentiments.

Notable woman #2 - Faustina: To escape his great love for Charlotte, Goethe ran away (literally in the middle of the night) to Italy. Here, at 40, for the first time in his life, he discovered "physical love" (ahem).

His experiences inspired the very famous Roman Elegies, some of which were too risqué for his austere German audience and were left out of the initial publication.

Here, he became one of the leading figures of Weimar Classicism, and tried to create works which fit in with the classic canon.

Notable woman #3 - Christiane Vulpius: Upon his return to Weimar, Goethe took up with a woman called Christiane Vulpius, which was a scandal because she held a much lower class than the ennobled Goethe. She inspired much of his later poetry, which matured from the exuberance of Sturm and Drang

to a more reflective, measured and scientific tone. He was also influenced by the Eastern poet, Hafiz at this time, and wrote the often underrated West-Östlicher Divan. He worked on his most famous text, the epic Faust throughout most of his life, which was only published in its entirety post-humously. Its basic premise of selling your soul to the devil has become a staple metaphor in western literature.

Goethe died in 1832 - he was in love with 17 year old Ulrike von Levetzow, who (unsurprisingly) rejected his advances. Despite this, he remains one of the most influential figures in history, not only in terms of literature, but importantly philosophy and science. He penned some of the first works which today make up the German canon.

An automated storage and retrieval system as seen in the University of British Columbia Library

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NIGHTLIFE

JONATHAN FROST considers the latest and greatest from the world of tech...

Early iPad3 rumours will cannibalise iPad2 Sony announce AS new rumours of an iPad 3 being released in 2011 flood the internet, Apple should be feeling more than a little concerned. The speculation suggests that the company may be set to release two new versions of their highly successful tablet computer, the iPad, later this year. Regardless of whether there is any truth to the rumours, it would seem that the growing whispers can only be detrimental to sales and Apple’s hopes of continued success in the area.

At first, it seems easy to dismiss the rumours; surely Apple can’t be short-sighted enough to attempt to compete with themselves? However, upon closer inspection, it’s possible to legitimise the speculation. In such a highly competitive and rapidly expanding market, Apple will be desperate not to lose their top spot to one of the growing number of competitors. Earlier this year, at CES, offerings from nearly every other major electronics manufacturer were shown off, each with their own improvements over the iPad, and each looking for its share of the action.

Perhaps Apple considered that launching only one more iPad this year might see see them fall behind, so why not try two?

Another possibility to consider is that one of the products will be more of “.5” offering, rather than a full new model, such as with the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and that releasing two models will rather add to the iPad line, rather than making older versions obsolete. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article stating that the iPad 2 is to be a slimmer, refined version of the original, which would suggest that the iPad 3 is to be the big update in the line. By introducing these rumours so early on, the next upgrade can only suffer as it appears inferior, and becomes more of a half-way house.

Regardless of Apple’s intentions, or whether there is an iPad 3 slated for release this year at all, the rumours can only cause

Tech

Support

WHEN you know your laptop is dying, it’s a gut wrenching feeling as a student. It’s going to be costly to replace, and it houses all your work from the past however many years of your life.

You’re also kicking yourself that you didn’t renew your antivirus subscription, but that’s all a bit late now, as your beloved comes closer and closer to a grinding and complete standstill.

However, there are some easy ways to try and breathe a little life back into your machine, such as Piriform’s brilliant and, more importantly, free, CCleaner.

This little bit of software filters through your hard drive, ridding your system of all the unnecessary stuff it will have consumed in its life, literally cleaning out gig’s worth of space. It can also have a dramatic effect on the speed of your computer, so if you’re struggling to cope, or if you just want to optimise your system, try this superb freebie out.

CCleaner is available for free download: www.piriform.com/ ccleaner

hesitancy in those looking to purchase an iPad 2 on release. Customers will find it hard to justify buying a slight upgrade on the original, when a full revamp could potentially be waiting just around the corner, probably for a similar price. This loss of sales will not only reflect badly upon Apple, but could also mean that unsure consumers, tired of relying on rumours alone for news of a second new Apple tablet, may end up purchasing other more promising options from competitors as they are no longer content with what they may have been lead to believe was an iPad “1.5” offering.

The rumours may be nothing more than speculation and fabrication, but when the Apple hype-machine starts, it doesn’t stop. Should the rumours be true, Apple may not necessarily have pitted two of their own products against each other and may just be adding to their line, but it can only have a negative effect on the sales of the next to be released.

For once, the rumour-mill is working against the company, rather than for it, building anticipation for a product one away from the next in the pipeline, cannibalising the success and sales of the soon to be announced iPad 2.

the NGP

WITH the Nintendo 3DS promising great things, and the PSP’s latest offering, the PSP Go, falling considerably flat, Sony seemed set to drop out of the handheld console market. However, in recent weeks, Sony unveiled their future for the PSP, announcing what is effectively the PSP2, in the form of the stunning NGP, or Next Generation Portable.

Already highly anticipated, the console looks set to feature an exciting array of tech, including a monstrous quad-core processor, a further quad-core graphics processor, a five inch OLED touchscreen, two cameras, speakers, a microphone, and a touch sensitive back. However, perhaps the most crucial development from the old model is the inclusion of two analogue sticks; a welcome change for anyone who suffered the old arthritic thumb-pad of the previous generations.

With Sony packing in these features and more, the NGP has the potential to compete with Nintendo’s 3DS, but only if the price is right. Certainly, this tech doesn’t come cheap, and after initial talk of a price close to £400, Sony has been eager to make amends and is now working on lowering the cost, with rumours of a sub £200 RRP.

WiTricity and the future of wireless power App of the Week

I

n the last decade, the wireless technology scene has exploded, rapidly providing more and more simple alternatives to the tangled annoyance of wires. Tipped by many to be the next big advancement in the area, WiTricity is a US based company that plans to bring wireless power to the masses.

Wireless electricity may seem like a vastly complex idea, but it has actually been realised through the clever use of simple physics.

Primarily, the WiTricity power source is connected to the mains, and houses a resonating coil of copper through which an alternating current of electricity passes. As the electricity flows back and forth, it generates an oscillating magnetic field around the coil. If a second coil is then placed near the first, the process works backwards, and the oscillating magnetic field causes an electric current to be produced in the second coil. This process is known as electromagnetic induction, and essentially means that within a certain range, increased by the resonance of the coil, power can be wirelessly transferred from one coil to another.

This transfer of power has a range of benefits, aside from eliminating the hassle and cost of wiring. To have power wirelessly available in a home would mean that a lot less disposable batteries would need to be used, such as in TV remotes. A remote equipped with a WiTricity coil instead of disposable batteries would be able to draw power directly from the main, which is a far more efficient source of power and much less expensive than batteries. Through their elimi-

MetroOnline for iPhone Price: Free

Image: WiTricity nation of the need for batteries, the company has gained recognition with environmental groups. It would appear that WiTricity is not only simpler and cheaper, but also greener.

As well as providing direct power, such as with a TV remote or even a full TV set, wireless electricity can also be used for charging batteries, such as for a mobile phone. A phone, laptop, or any other device running off a chargeable battery only needs a coil to be built in at production and then placed in range of a wireless source to charge.

With its ground breaking use of simple physics, WiTricity opens the door to so many potential applications. The company has already revealed a TV set turning on when in range of a power source and mobile phones charging themselves. In a way it’s a little spooky when you can see that there are no wires attached to anything, but it’s undoubtedly impressive. In ten years’ time, we’ll never plug our electric cars in, disposable batteries will be far less necessary, and wires will be a dirty word.

Rating: ***

THIS is definitely a worthwhile newspaper app for those looking to keep up to date with current affairs. Obviously, it's not the same as having an actual newspaper to browse whilst on the train or bus, but if you’re on the move or just out and about, it’s very useful.

The main menu links to each section of the newspaper, such as news, music, sports and technology, so you can easily access any content you want without trouble. Its simple to use, easy to flick through the menus and straight to the point.

Considering the app is free, and all previous bugs seem to be fixed, there's really no reason not to download it.

By Edward Gammie

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E F I L T NIGH RUM REVOLUTION Why Emma Walker and Ellie Wallis love York's new Revolution fort with this relaunch; never has so much free alcohol been shelled out to students. The lock and key party of last Sunday added interest to the standard student night out. Upon finding your lock/key, you got yet another free glass of champagne.

Aside from Sundays, Revs is putting on lots of events during the week. Thursday latino nights are definitely one to check out for anyone interested in salsa, with beginners lessons for under a fiver with a student card.

What used to be part of Orgasmic has been transformed into a spacious and sophisticated bar area, in which to rest your weary feet whilst dancing, or a place to enjoy a cocktail with friends during the week.

The new Revs doubles as a bar and restaurant as well as a nightlife hotspot. It's perfect for a hot date, daytime drink, or an alfresco riverside meal in summer. The prices are reasonable, if a little expensive, and there are some good drinks deals. But we recommend you suggest your date funds this evening!

EMMA WALKER & ELLIE WALLIS

M

onday week five saw the return of Itchy Feet to York. For one night we ditched the routine clubs and headed to The Duchess for an evening of alternative music.

I've heard so many people raving about Itchy Feet since their last visit to York. Tickets for the event completely sold out in advance, and my friends and I were keen to see what all the fuss was about.

Describing themselves as a "homeless party", Itchy Feet plays a mixture of Swing, Soul, Funk, Rhythm & Blues, Rock n Roll and Ska, and walking in to The Duchess felt a bit like travelling back in time, with girls in A-line skirts and boys in skinny trousers and braces filling the floor.

The evening kicked off with some swing, and it was really refreshing to see everyone put aside their normal self-conscious dancemoves, twirling and jiving around the dancefloor.

CONFESSIONS OF A

Indie/re g g ae/swing/ powerpop band Will and The People then took to the stage.

Sounding a little like a 1930s version of Vampire Weekend (head to www.myspace.com/ willandthepeople and have a listen) the band played an amazing hour long set. The Itchy Feet DJs then took over, with classics like " Wa l k ing on Sunshine" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" encoura ging everyone to dance l i k e crazy people and sing along.

As well as breaking up the weekly Revs, Fibbers, Salvation, Ziggys, Tokyo routine, Itchy Feet caters for the non-clubbing regulars, offering a night of alternative music and an opportunity to dress up.

Rumoured to be making York a regular fixture in the Itchy Feet calendar, I definitely recommend buying a ticket next time they are in town.

YORK STUDENT E

veryone knows that feeling on a Wednesday night when it's time to break the seal. After those triples you've downed in Nags Head, it doesn't matter whether it's the girls' or boys' toilets.

A few Ziggys ago, whilst dressed as a nun for a social, I fought my way into the boys' toilets. Unfortunately, although I managed to lock the door, I couldn't quite work out how to unlock it.

After thinking through my options, the only way out seemed to be over the top of the cubicle partition.

With great difficulty, I hitched up my nun's gown and climbed on to the top of the toilet, scrambled over the wall, and fell head-first onto the floor.

After brushing myself down, I turned around to see that the toilet was occupied. A bemused looking boy had to escort me out of the bathroom!

ANONYMOUS Know a better story? Email us (anonymously) and your exploits could be in the next edition. scene@yorkvision.co.uk.

ANNA FIELD

FIDEL CASTRO INGREDIENTS: 4 cl Havana Club dark rum Juice of 1/2 a lime Ginger ale Fill the glass with ice. Add the rum and lime juice. Fill with ginger ale.

k

COCKTAIL OF THE WEEK Photo: www .kluens.co.u

A

t last, a club York can be truly proud of. The newly refurbished Revs has set the bar high for nightlife in York. Sunday nights are back on. The classy decor sets it apart; with no sweaty walls or sticky floors, you could almost imagine you were on London's Southbank, not Coney Street.

Its riverside location gives it the edge over all other York clubs - having a cigarette whilst looking over the water is a world away from the smokers' alleyway outside Ziggys.

In combining Revs with Orgasmic, there are now two dancefloors, playing a good mix of relatively up to date music - a refreshing contrast to the usual cheese favoured by most York clubs. Our request for 'Build Me Up Buttercup' was flatly refused!

When, last year, we managed to blag a free bottle of perry from the dj in Tru, we thought we'd reached the pinnacle. Imagine our drunken joy at being offered unlimited free champagne in chocolate shot glasses as light refreshment while we danced. There is also a definite note of class in predrinking on Dusk cocktails, rather than downing triples at Nags.

Revs is really making an ef-

ITCHY FEET, I GOT THEM ITCHY FEET!

FANCY DRES S OF THE WEEK FANCY SE E

ING Y

OURSELF Send your HERE? fancy dres to nightl s photo ife@yorkv ision.co.u k

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20 QUESTIONS

Justin Young Interview by Dean Knapper

Can you describe your band in 5 words?

Freddie, Justin, Pete, Arni, Band

X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing or neither?

X Factor.

Your debut album is coming out next month, but what was the last album you bought?

Lou Reed - Transformer

Which do you prefer, big venues or small intimate gigs?

I prefer intimate gigs. It's easier to connect with people.

And what is your favourite album of all time?

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

What in life is more important than music?

Me.

If you weren’t in a band, how would you be earning a living?

Unsatisfactorily.

How come Wrecking Bar is so short?

It's as long as it needs to be.

Where did the name ‘The Vaccines’ come from and is there any significance behind it?

There is no significance behind the name. It just sounds classic and timeless and I was surprised no one had used it.

If you could work with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be?

Brian Wilson

If you had to compare your band to three other bands, who would they be?

Oh, I couldn't do that.

Which was the best gig of your career so far?

Bowery Ballroom in New York.

If you could play any venue in the world, which would it be?

Wembley Stadium.

NIGHTLIFE

LISTINGS

Justin Young is the frontman of London-based 4-piece The Vaccines. The band's debut album 'What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?' will be released on the 21st March.

Formed just over a year ago, the band has already earned itself a dedicated fanbase, and a legion of famous followers including Marcus Mumford and Zane Lowe, who named their debut single 'Wrecking Bar' his 'Hottest Record in the World'.

Speaking at such an exciting point in his life, you'd expect the interview to mirror this excitement. You'd be wrong. Unfortunately, Justin's ability to provide a decent interview does not mirror his ability to make great music. Oh well, I guess you can't have it all.

What do you prefer, touring or working on an album?

I think you want a good balance. You always pine for one when you're doing the other.

Glee want to cover one of your songs, do you let them?

Sure.

Guilty pleasures, we all have them, what are yours?

No guilty pleasures, just pleasures. I like Abba?

biggest fear?

Death.

If you could speak to yourself at the age of 16, what would you say to him?

Don't do it.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

Alive.

What do you think of Spotify?

I'm listening to it now.

What

is

your

PICKS OF THE WEEK Scenesters Scene Editor Jaime Riley Music Editors Edward Francis Stephen Barbagiannis Deputy Music Amy Beecher Josh Brill Film Editors Will Haydon Rachel Pronger Deputy Film Alysia Judge Thomas Martin TV Editors Nicola Chapman Dean Knapper

WEDNESDAY 23 SHAME

York Theatre Royal, 2.30pm £4 A rehearsed reading of an original play by Terry Cartwright (Jay's dad in The Inbetweeners).

A black comedy exploring young people's desire for fame and fortune.

THURSDAY 24

Deputy TV Morgan Collins Rebecca Ojumu Books Editors George Osborne Jasmine Tarmey Technology Editor Jonathan Frost Nightlife Editors Emma Walker Ellie Wallis Deputy Nightlife Anna Field

THE GONDOLIERS

Central Hall, 7.30pm £10 Adults, £7 Concessions, £4 NUS The Gilbert and Sullivan society return with one of their most exciting musicals to date. The show runs until Saturday and tickets can be bought online at www.gsyork.co.uk or in Your:Shop.

FRIDAY 25 JIMMY CARR

Leeds Town Hall, 7.30pm £28

The busiest man in comedy returns to Yorkshire with his latest offering. Expect to be offended, disgusted and outraged, what more would you want from a Jim-

S AT U R D AY 26 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm £7 NUS A gripping staging of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, set in America's scorching Deep South at a time when racial tensions are at an all time high. This is the last night of the production, it's one not to miss.

If you'd like to see your event in Listings, email scene@ yorkvision. co.uk Want to advertise here?

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Music

EDWARD FRANCIS reveals all the latest news and gossip from the music industry

hail to the kings ex-tempah-lary TRUE to the unpredictable and exciting style that is nothing if not integral to the band’s ethos, Radiohead have made their latest album The King of Limbs available for digital download via a purpose-created website at little under a week’s notice.

Information on the album, which is the eighth full studio release by the Oxfordshirebased alt-rockers, had been previously kept under wraps by the group, whose flair for innovation has been once again illustrated recently by the revelation that two of their older albums can be played together in a playlist to make one coherent piece of work.

Though the widely-acclaimed format that allowed fans to purchase previous album In Rainbows at a price of their choosing has been abandoned for the band’s latest release, a more expensive, valuable package is being offered that will reward patient fans who stump up a mere £33 with a ‘Newspaper Album’, compromised of the CD, two vinyls and “many sheets of artwork” this May. Bargain!

H

ow does one make music that will sell? Matt Bowman lays down the secrets behind The Pigeon Detectives’ success when we caught up with him at the Courtyard Bar on campus at the ‘Rag Blaggathon’ event. “If it sounds good, we will listen to it. If it sounds really f*cking good, we steal it, change it a bit, and release it as a record!” Humbly he spoke of his biggest musical inspiration, “the rest of the band”, quickly following with “that’s literally the cheesiest answer I have ever heard, laughs) I didn’t realise how cheesy it sounded until the words came out of my mouth!”.

When asked about The Pigeon Detectives’ influences, Bowman describes The Beatles as their “catalyst for making music”; their biggest debt, however, seems to be to Oasis who “really motivated us to make music”.

In preparation for their new album and tour the band were whisked off to New York for a photo shoot, but “for some reason Oliver, the guitarist was blinking on every photo…press agency has demanded we do a re-shoot”, costing £2000. “We demanded to be flown back out, they were not having any of it”…reshoot in Leeds it is then!

behaviour

TINIE Tempah has been named as one of the artists lined up for a series of charity gigs for Teenage Cancer Trust to be held at the London Albert Hall next month, joining a stellar lineup of artists that includes Biffy Clyro and Editors.

Tinie, real name Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu Jr., has recently stated that he wishes to counter negative stereotypes associated with rap music and act as a role model for his younger listeners in performing kind acts for people, a responsibility which he feels

THIS stems from his faith in Christianity.

Precisely how lyrics such as “you can find me on a table full of vodka and tequila/Surrounded by some bunnies, and it ain’t f*cking Easter” have been shaped by the 22 year-old artist's religious persuasions remains unconfirmed.

say "cello" to a new star IN a turn of events that has stunned and delighted serious music fans the world over, 26-year-old jazz cellist Esperanza Spalding beat out a host of flavour of the month opponents including Drake, Florence and the Machine and Justin Bieber to win the award for Best New Artist at this year's Grammy Awards.

Spalding, whose latest album Chamber Music Society was released last year, has been acclaimed for her at once intelligent and accessible output by critics in recent years; yet her surprise win is still widely regarded as an upset by observers, not least a noticeably put-out Bieber who was quoted at the event as saying, "I worked re-

After questioning about his onstage antics, Bowman jovially replies “I am not a thrill seeker, I think bungee jumping is for absolute f*cking mentalists” but on the other hand “I just have a total lack of self-preservation on stage”.

“There is not much I have not done”, he goes onto say, pint in hand, and that probably explains the seven hospital visits with the band, a broken leg, as well as needing an operation along the way.

Sadly his parents cannot even watch him play live due to his onstage behaviour, including crowd surfing, scaling the P.A system and climbing the rigging, to name but a few. The daredevil singer concludes that “the louder the crowd shout and cheer the more I get excited… it is not a good combination”.

Now, some readers may not know this, but Matt Bowman has bought the local bar, Monty’s at the top of Micklegate, which takes up a lot of his time when not with the band. Unsurprisingly he is able to get the big music names in the UK, with Sunshine Underground and Kaiser Chiefs on the bill. If those names do not draw you in, then perhaps his drink, “Jager Pain”, will? “I have invented a new drink, which is Jager

ally hard these past few years and you know, I'm not going to lie - I was disappointed".

Spalding's gong was not the only unforeseen result of the night, with baroque indie Arcade Fire triumphing over Lady Gaga and Eminem to take home the Album of the Year award.

Bomb, but you replace the Red Bull with champagne”. That sounds painful!

Luckily Bowman told us the secret ingredient just as he was called back on stage for duty.

best of foo?

THOUGH frontman Dave Grohl is widely referred to by contemporaries as ‘the nicest guy in rock’, gentility and reserve are absent from Foo Fighters snarling new single ‘White Limo’. To tease fans hungry to hear new material from the upcoming album, Foo Fighters have released a grainy, homemade-looking video for the track, featuring Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead; appreciators will be pleased to hear that the band are shooting similar clips for every track they release off the upcoming album.

PIGEON DETECTIVES TIMELINE Formed in 2002 in Rothwell, West Yorkshire. There have been several stories regarding how they came up with the band name, including favourite pigeons Got signed to the independent label Dance To The Radio, releasing their debut album Wait For Me in 2007 Performed their biggest gig in terms of audience size at Oxygen 2008, where the performance was beamed across Europe on MTV Announced on the 1st February the bands 3rd album Up Guards And At 'em due to be released 4th April. The single 'Done In Secret' is due to be released 28th March.

The Pigeon Detectives are touring all across the country from March 28th – April 12th ahead of the release of their new album Up Guards And At 'em on April 4th.

photo by Chris Owyoung, photoshelter.com

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YOU-CHOOSE THE MUSIC YOU-WANT TO HEAR As infectious videos continue to spread across the world, STEPHEN BARBAGIANNIS assesses Youtube's role as a vector in the music industry...

Since being founded in 2005, YouTube has gone from strength to strength as one of the most influential components of the music industry since the compact disk. It has revolutionised the way music is consumed by the public, adding a visual dimension that used to belong exclusively to live gigs.

YouTube has provided a place for fans, performers and procrastinators the world over to visit and watch their favourite artists performing (often alternative) versions of the official recordings when they may not otherwise have the chance.

The website has also provided a medium for aspiring artists to showcase their own material and get exposure from audiences who may otherwise be unattainable. The suggestions column can also be fun, leading you into realms of music you never knew existed if you remain open minded.

The website's effect on the billion-

aire music distributors, however, has not been so lucrative, with numerous run-ins over copyright and piracy issues. These have been duly dealt with, using such means as making direct payments to record labels for playback rights. However these issues are all trivial to the site's visitors who just simply click on an alternative video that is not undergoing a menial courtcase worth millions of pounds.

An article on YouTube would not be complete without reference to some of its phenomena (this will be brief), such as the soul destroying Bieber-fever, which has spread like the plague across the globe and Lady Gaga's experience of a bad romance. There are however some videos which artists might want to forget such as the infamous 'trapped in the closet' series R-Kelly blessed his fans with.

When successful, YouTube allows an interactive viewing experience for the consumer whilst allowing copy-

right owners to be rightfully paid and acknowledged.

YouTube videos Vision recommends...

This video will remind you of your summer holidays with Lykke Li and Bon Iver teaming up along with a couple of other musicians in a park to cover her dance dance dance track. It is a stripped back performance without any over production and shows the artists in a relaxed format.

Marques Toliver Keywords: Black Cab Sessions

Joy Division Keywords: New Dawn Fades Live

HANNAH VOSS reviews the latest releases...

Eric Prydz - Niton (The reason)

T

he Swedish DJ's first single release under his own name for three years is not what you'd call boring. Beginning with a retro-inspired electronic riff and developing into an upbeat electro-house track with spacy vocals, Niton is just the sort of song you'd expect from Eric Prydz, when he's not too busy producing grimy underground hits under a different name. Admittedly the track isn't radically different to Pjanoo and neither of them are revolutionary, yet Niton is still a solid dance track that will no doubt do very well in the charts.

I blame coco turn your back on love

T

Lykke Li & Bon Iver Keywords: Dance Dance Dance

This comes from the excellent black cab sessions, where artists are driven around in a black cab performing their songs. This particular example is excellent with no gimmicks just a violin and a very good voice. You might want to skip the first 30 seconds though to avoid the irritating introduction.

LISTINGS

King Charles Keywords: Love Lust Glastonbury King Charles in this performance shows his ability as a live performer as this rendition of love lust with the way it progresses and builds is very impressive and certainly worth a watch.

A band that left a lasting impression despite their short life -span, this is probably my favourite song by them which when performed live shows the fragility and genuinity of Ian Curtis as a performer. It is haunting and amazing.

Sanatana Keywords: Soul Sacrifice Woodstock If there is a video that encapsulates the essence of woodstock, it is this.

A relatively unknown Santana turned up with his band to play a legendary show and this is maybe the pick of his songs. The rhythm section, along with Santana's guitar playing make for a great song that is topped off by an extraordinary drum solo.

Also worth a watch...

The Vaccines ('Blow It Up' Jools Holland) - Touted as one of the bands to keep an eye, this performance shows why. A well structured, good song; we may well be hearing more from this band before long.

JP Cooper ('Little House We Built') - He has a really quirky set up within the band, with an interesting voice and song.

Certainly worth a listen and has other stuff on there if you like him.

Stone Roses ('I Am The Resurrection' Blackpool) - Filmed from the iconic Blackpool gig they did in 1989, they represented everything about the Mad-chester scene at the time with a storming performance.

Mt Eden ('Sierra Leone') - From the controversial dubstep genre, this is my pick of the bunch without being a huge fan of a lot of the stuff.

Scott Matthews ('Eyes Wider Than Before') - He has an excellent, quite distinguished voice. This song teams his voice over gentle guitar picking and works very well.

here's something very endearing about the tracks that I Blame Coco produces.

They are an awkward mix of indie-pop and electro, but it works. Turn Your Back On Love starts with 70's inspired guitar chords overlaid with borderline nonsensical lyrics, building up to a chorus full of bubbly synth.

The song is an easy listen, although Coco (aka Eliot Sumner) seems to do best when relying more heavily on the synth, as in previous singles Selfmachine and In Spirit Golden. Turn Your Back On Love therefore remains a little underwhelming, although by no means unworthy of a listen.

Skepta vs. n-dubz so alive

N

-Dubz obviously haven't thought this through. Collaborating with an artist more credible than they could ever aspire to be has done nothing but made them appear even more laughable than ever. The song starts off with promise, sounding for all the world like one of the many catchy tracks from Skepta's new album, but when the second verse (led

by Dappy) kicks in, it's like kids hour has hit South London. Despite this, the combination of hip-hop and grime works quite well, and Skepta performs admirably, as always. The synth during the verses and the riff repeated throughout is cleverly simple, leaving all focus on the rapping. So Alive is a passable track, but definitely one that could be improved if it weren't filled with ridiculous statements from Dappy.

the thermals not like any other feeling

N

ot Like Any Other Feeling is the latest single from The Thermals' 2010 album, Personal Life, and to say that it's justanother-indie-song, it's surprisingly good. The track is heavy on the bass, creating a sound strangely reminiscent of The Strokes, and vocals also take precedence. Hutch Harris has a powerful voice that is smoother than that of the average indie singer, and as such every word of the clever lyrics can be clearly heard. Guitars take a back seat, apart from a catchy solo in the middle, and the parts come together to make an upbeat catchy track that adds to The Thermals' impressive collection of such songs.

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Albums...

PJ Harvey

Let England Shake

I

f there’s one constant that can be picked out across PJ Harvey’s genre-spanning back catalogue, it’s her vengefulness. From playing an unhinged spurned lover on 1993’s Rid of Me to lamenting the rotting core of the inner cities on ‘The Whore’s Hustle and the Hustler’s Whore’, the Dorset-born singer-songwriter has displayed throughout her career an unmatched ability to spit nails about those who commit wrong. The only difference on this album is the way this focused anger is turned outwards; abandoning the personal nature of many of her prior work, Harvey’s attention is here paid to the bloody warfare that has shaped Britain’s history.

In terms of composition, the album is immensely successful at tackling both rawness and subtlety. The echoing, chim-

ing guitars, which drift through the tracks like battlefield smoke, create a beautiful haze around thunderous tribal percussive work of long-term collaborators John Parish and Mick Harvey. This lightness of touch applies similarly to PJ’s voice; singing in a tone that is both lilting and utterly bleak, Harvey's voice is assured and confident and yet at the same time dripping with venom and intent.

And it’s no wonder, considering the subject matter Harvey has chosen to deal with, that the rage that colours her voice never seems more than an inch away from brimming over. Lyrically, a recurring theme of the album is the human cost racked up when the seemingly simple plans of unaccountable leaders spiral out of control, rendered in lurid detail through lines such as [I’ve seen and done things I want to forget/ I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat] on ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’.

It seems to be Harvey’s mission to give a face to the poor souls annihilated in the bloodshed that peppers England’s military past, such as the protagonist of ‘Let England Shake’ [Smile, smile Bobby, with your lovely mouth/Pack up your troubles, lets head out/To the fountain of death], humanizing the people that governments and global political organizations treat as statistics in tracks that are alternately soothing and earth-shattering. Listening to the stirring sincerity in the singer’s voice, it’s hard to fight the urge to join in with her sarcastic chant of “Why don’t I take my problems to the United Nations?”

The Streets Computers And Blues

H

aving a Brummy for a father I was taught from a young age to love all that comes from the midlands utopia that is Birmingham, which ranged from UB40 to Black Sabbath and in this case, The Streets. My old man used to tell me that front-man Mike Skinner was our answer to US mega rap star Eminem in his own offbeat, down to earth lyrical waxwings. However, the new album, Computers and Blues, fails to live up to that high praise.

Any album that seeks to break away from a band's conventional sound is one that should be applauded. Unfortunately, this is the album's undoing as it simply tries too much too quickly. The opening track, 'Outside Inside', is a dive into the relatively unknown realms of techno for The Streets, which feels uncomfortable and is immediately followed by a rock track, 'Going Through Hell'. This mishmash of genres doesn't refresh your ears, but seems to illuminate a desperation on Skinner's part to prove that he is not just a one-trick-garagepony.

ED FRANCIS

The problems with this album don't end there though. Computers and Blues just seemed to pass me by with no really memorable tracks catching my ear at any point. There was nothing as deep as 'Everything Is Borrowed' or as funny as 'Fit But You Know It'. There are a few throw back songs that try to invoke the styles of the former with tracks like 'We Can Never Be Friends', but they are only lame intimations, carbon copies of past glories.

Computers and Blues is not a complete failure and songs like 'Without Thinking' and 'OMG' bring some respectability back to the album. Unfortunately, this is not enough to remedy a frankly optimistic stab-in-the-dark, and sadly for The Streets' final album, this swing for something new has ended up becoming a massive miss.

CHRIS CRADDOCK

Bright Eyes

The Peoples Key

E

ver since he began recording in his basement in the mid-1990s, singer-songwriter Conor Oberst has been quietly building a reputation as the defining voice of contemporary Americana.

His quavering vocals, distinctive genre blending and thrilling melodies have earned minor chart success, critical plaudits and even a celebrity fan (Johnny Depp allegedly described 2007's Cassadaga as "one of his favourite things"). Add to the mix that Oberst has hinted that this will be his last album under the Bright Eyes moniker, and it is easy to see why The People's Key has been so eagerly anticipated.

The album opens in typical Oberst style with samples of spoken word rambles (from Texan muscian Randy Brewer who Oberst met on the road) and a gradual siege into the first song "Firewall" and appropriate seven minute slow-burner that builds to a shimmering climax. This use of spoken samples is a continuation of techniques used on earlier Bright Eyes albums such as Cassadaga, but it can make for a slightly frustrating opener. Nonetheless you have to admire his balls, Oberst is no people pleaser.

This Oberst trippiness is further reinforced throughout the album by references to Rastafarianism, including 'Haile Selassie' a brilliant midtempo grimy pop number replete

with driving drums and playful references to a girl "calling me home like Haile Selassie". In 'Shell Games' talk of "slipping steadily into madness" because "that's the only place to be free" is matched by an infectious chorus and stomping mid song break down, whilst in the angsty penultimate 'Ladder Song' sings about Jesus, Buddha and Science Fiction novels over a raw piano accompaniment.

It may all seem a little too angsty for some and Oberst's confused spiritual references occasionally jar. The People's Key is more of a slow grower, a three listen wonder rather than an immediate hitter like Cassadaga.

Nonetheless, if this does turn out to be Bright Eyes' swansong then it is by no means an anticlimax. Oberst still lives up to his reputation as one of America's finest songwriters and I have a sneaking suspicion that he still has more to give. I await whatever he does next with anticipation, even if the preoccupation with Jah on this album suggests it may turn out to be a compilation of reggae covers.

RACHEL PRONGER

sepalcure fleur e.p.

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rooklyn based duo Sepalcure are back this year after a graceful embrace into the post-nightclub scene last summer with their debut Love Pressure; a four track E.P. gushing with ambient pads, trickling oak-beats and moody vocals ripped to shreds, all lavishly powdered with white noise and vinyl emulation. Their new release, Fleur, is another four track E.P. put out by progressive electronic label Hotflush, marrying more of the lush sounds dished out in Love Pressure with a faint whisper of Detroit techno and house.

The opening self-titled track 'Fleur' bypasses this fusion, and what's left is that post-dubstep vibe oozing coloured sounds and varied textures, more focused than their last E.P. and much more unique. Woozy soul/RnB vocals and a pulsating glockenspiel keep your ears alert, organically corrupted beats keep your head nodding and pure sine waves and white noise keep your feet lifted off the ground.

The next two tracks, 'Your Love' and 'No Think', pour out more interesting vibrations tucked within a slight techno/house tone. The rhythms are more controlled and syncopated, pulling away from the sparse claps and wooden

knocks, and heading more towards future-garage territory. These shuffled beats carry you through the EP, past thick chords and hushed choirs, 'No Think' tugging your ears with an agitated symphony before flushing you into a musical baptism of industrious space met in final track 'Inside'.

'Inside' is absent of any pulse, yet still absorbs you into its noise with roaring chords, tinkering church bell samples and 'other-side-of-the-wall' vocals. It would seem a strange note to end the E.P. on considering its absence of rhythm and defined melody, but it acts as a therapeutic warm down, an ambient ear cleansing after the roughed up traintrack throb of 'Your Love' and 'No Think'.

The contrasts and complements from each track to the next adds another element to the E.P. as a whole. Every tune is well thought-out, humble in ambition and uniquely atmospheric. A soundtrack for the ghost of dubstep fornicating in the woods just as the sun goes down, I look forward to a potential album.

JOSH BRILL

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JOSH BRILL talks to Sea of Bees about their 'distressingly intimate' debut album

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or those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the sounds of Californian singer-songwriter Julie Ann Baenziger a.k.a. Sea of Bees, prepare to be stung by the distressingly intimate tales of this solitary Queen Bee. Her freshly cut debut album ‘Songs For The Ravens’ follows a critically acclaimed E.P. (Bee Eee Pee), working alongside great friend and producer John Baccigaluppi, a man who has also helped pave the way for sonic-Jesus-like icon Devendra Banhart.

After signing to Heavenly Records, a label distributed by music giant EMI, she has finally crossed the pond for a tour around the UK and Europe. I was lucky enough to indulge in some beekeeping, catching up with Sea of Bees for an interview and live performance at Fibbers last week.

The most striking ingredient of new record ‘Songs For The Ravens’, amongst an earthy folk-pop milieu, is Baenziger’s candid lyrical character. So as we nested side by side in the hive of a Fibbers cloakroom, I was eager to gain an insight into what got her into song writing. “A girl", she smiles. "When I was 16, this girl was singing and playing guitar in church and she opened her heart to me really fast. I thought, ‘I really want to sing with her, I really want to write her love songs’. It didn‘t work out though… she was straight.”

Even in her cheerful poise it’s difficult not to see the same heartbroken victim of unrequited love that erupts on the album. Song ‘Wizbot’ expresses an ir-

repressible appetite for reckless love; [I’m yours alone/You do not care/ But I want more]. In soft and solacing daydream ‘Skinnybone’ it’s Baenziger’s ebullient passion that emerges, grieving over her own irrational cravings; [I don’t need you, I know/But I want you]. Even on the albums most artificially produced track ‘Willis’, the profound vulnerability that pours from Baenziger, [I trust another boy/He held me out to dry/Used me for a good time/Made me lose my mind/Now I feel cold here

in this house], forces the boundaries of genre into a new territory of intelligent pop music.

Such dark connotations are sprinkled so generously throughout ‘Songs For The Ravens’, I wondered how sunny Sacramento, California could be the backdrop to this record. “I lived in a really sh*tty

house that was on stilts, surrounded outside by trees and phone lines and ravens.

We always had house parties that would go on 'till the mid afternoon and I used to lock myself in my room and write about what I experienced. I just played lonely songs to the ravens outside.” This music becomes a lot darker knowing that before she had the backing and support from her producer John Baccigaluppi, Julie Ann Baenziger felt she was nearing the end of the line. “To be honest, I actually didn’t think I’d go on much further. If I couldn’t do music or be with the woman I loved, then what was the point of going on? It was very selfish.”

As we ended the interview and Sea of Bees got ready on stage, there were only a scattered handful of people to make up an audience. The setting was so gentle and intimate that at one point, after Baenziger introduced penultimate song ‘The Woods’, a girl jumped up and pleaded with the band to wait until she had gone to the bathroom.

Small things like that intensified the whole performance and made the experience more unique and memorable for everyone who was there. After an encore, Sea of Bees played an exclusive unreleased track called ‘Tantrum’. Baenziger’s fragile voice haunted the whole venue. In the chorus, her lyrics ribboned around the ears of everyone; [I want more/I want more]. At the end of her set, so did we.

INNOVATION SAVED THE VIDEO STAR DAN CAVE and JOSH BRILL debate whether the music video really has declined as a companion piece to new music

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n our current hyper-techno age, when artists give birth to a song, there is an overwhelming desire to accompany it with a sexy Siamese twin: The Music Video.

Originally used to either enhance the story of the song or create an artistic visual semblance between the worlds of film and music, the modern music video has a tendency of being wielded as one of the scantily clad arms of marketing; proliferating the careers of the talentless by showing us heavage, cleavage and, all to often, the ambiguous crotch-u-lar region of Sir Lady Gaga.

However, it is all too easy to reach such a disparaging conclusion that foregoes the countless innovations in this harmonious partnership of film and music. Directors and music-makers alike are constantly generating overpowering works of cinematography; inducing emotional, political and stunned reaction. It is of no surprise that varying musical award nights all contain a “Best Music Video” subsection, appraising superiority amongst a swathe of nonentity.

Proof of active innovation arrives as recently as Kanye West’s “Runway”:

a thirty minute film that amalgamated half a dozen of the songs off his album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, into a narrative, musical montage on love, the media and racism; portrayed excellently using dance, choice location and CGI, only made possible by marrying a video to his music. Kanye is often accused of being aloof and pretentious but he has answered his critics with a stunning piece of cinema that re-wrote the rulebooks on how to use the music video in modern times.

Although most directors are self-constraining by adhering to the time-limits of one song, this has not hampered original creation by having less narrative space. The average song time of 3-4 minutes presents an appetising challenge to directors to negotiate a story or present an idea that will encapsulate the audience’s attention.

The most prominent example of this is in the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s video for Californication, in which the popular band members flit between the worlds of video gaming and reality to avert disaster and come to terms with their existence being constantly scrutinised by the

media. The subtleties, the comments on the relationship between consumer and artists, are joined by attention grabbing action as the director, Valerie Faris, completes one of the most memorable of videos.

The surreal, often grotesque, visual aspersions birthed by the marriage of Chris Cunningham and Aphex Twin further the argument that, by perforating the vacuous veneer of the music video industry, one will find a varied array of creative artworks. The video for Windowlicker contains a five minute 'Tarantino-esqe' scripted intro that is captivating for it’s sheer perversion, illusion and perfect coupling with the music. Sometimes it appears that without a video the music can be magnanimous and illiterate in attempts at narrative portrayal; Aphex Twin is one of the many artists who has become famous due to the marriage of advertisements, videos and films with his music.

It has become apparent that the music video is not just a marketing tool but one that can add meaning and at least bridge the gap between artistic meaning and public understanding.

Jessie J

BITCH

I

t is an indisputable fact, some people argue, that all instances of hatred stem from fear. When a bully picks on another child in a playground, for example, it is his own insecurity and desire to be respected and acknowledged by other people that is being reflected in his forcing another human being to eat sand. The only difference in this case, however, is that I am not masking or sublimating anything - I am completely open about the fact that my dislike of Jessie J stems partially from the fact that I am completely and utterly terrified of her.

The root cause of my intense fear of Ms. J, as a few of you might have guessed already, is that video. The one where, spikylipstickered up, surrounded by toned and sweating he-shes, she attempts to demonstrate how well she can emulate the behaviour of her ‘mandems’ by acting absolutely batf*ck insane. Gyrating like a seizure victim and shooting venomous looks at the camera that could make a man’s modesty retreat up somewhere into his digestive tract, the video is a nightmare not even David Lynch could have the balls to dream up. From the moment I first saw this clip (mostly through my fingers and from behind the sofa), I knew I could never look at Jessie J in the same way, or at all, again.

Subsequently, what this has meant is that in seeing her anywhere since - smiling widely at awards shows, warbling through soft acoustic performances, even hugging a giant teddy in the video for 'Price Tag'- I am still convinced that I can see her licking her lips hungrily and winking at me (as if to suggest “we don’t want your money… your cooked and seasoned flesh will be enough").

Doesn’t help that the song is a load of absolute tat too.

Which leads me on to my second main criticism of Jessie J - the absolutely sub-below-par quality of her songwriting, and the strange sense of missed opportunity that lingers around it. More than anything, the dirgy nature of everything she's released to date is a genuine pity because quite frankly, lurking behind that penetrating glare is a geuinely nice voice - as her performances on Jools Holland and the BBC's Sound of 2011 have illustrated, J has the power to out-warble a considerable number of her lip-syncing contemporaries, a point not overlooked by fellows stars such as Justin Timberlake, who has described her recently as "the best singer in the world."

Why Jessie J subsequently chooses to debase herself by allowing herself to be associated with the vacuous pop she's put out to date, not to mention the horrifying image choices mentioned at length above, is beyond me. Perhaps, as the fact that at the time of writing she is number one in the charts illustrates, she just knows what sells - despite having apparently had a fair old crack at scaring me off both music and women forever, I still get the sense she's cashing in. Strange for a young lady who has explicitly told me she "just wants to make the world dance" and "forget about the price."

MUSIC

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Lives...

T

he Saturdays' Headlines Tour landed at Sheffield City Hall last Friday - a perfect venue to see any artist. The theatre hall, whilst still an ample size, is quite intimate compared to massive arenas which both provides good acoustics and allows all concert-goers to watch a life-sized act as opposed to tiny dots on a stage.

The Saturdays performed a 90 minute set, including the full 'Headlines' album, hits from 'Chasing Lights' and 'Wordshaker', a Rihanna melody and a brand new track from their next album due out later this year. The era of girl groups appears to be over, but The Saturdays are surviving despite the odds - and after seeing them live it's no surprise why! The show was fully live, with not a lipsync in sight (or sound), and these girls can definitely sing. Fans have become used to acts who sound completely different live (ie, terrible) compared to how they do on mastered tracks. However, The Saturdays prove that there is still talent in the music indus-

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The Vaselines 06/02/11

Duchess, York

The Saturdays Sheffield City Hall 11/02/11 try and that it IS possible, when performing live, to sing in tune whilst dancing.

The concert was everything you would expect: fun, attention grabbing, and flawless.

The girls not only sounded good, but provided a visual treat of dazzling costumes, video interludes - including one filmed to look like a live backstage feed - and props including photo-frames, balloons and strung up wrists for the song Puppet. At the start they read out some of the attending fans' names over Duck Sauce's Barbara Streisand, proving that despite having gold and platinum selling albums these girls are still down to earth and were putting on a show for their fans and not their egos.

The line up changed depending on who was singing so all members shared the limelight and made a good use of the stage including a raised platform which housed the live band underneath. It was a shameless celebration of fun, happy pop, and made for a perfect night out.

The 'Headlines Tour' is still ongoing, with another tour planned later this year The Saturdays are definitely on the 'Up' and are an act worth catching live.

I

n what could be described as the very definition of a hidden gem of a gig, on the 6th of February the cramped, dark conditions of the Duchess York played host to a garage rock band whose deeply intimatesounding brand of two-chord pop would before their 1990 breakup develop enough underground appeal to lead a young, pre-fame Kurt Cobain to describe them as “my most favourite songwriters in the whole world”.

Now reformed and fresh off the back of a new album, it is difficult to imagine that the Vaselines ever truly went away. Their understated,

vaguely smutty and notably bitterness-tinged style is comparable to the output of any number of contemporary indie bands, yet also granted an extra edge by the gravitas provided by twenty years of touring and releasing albums.

Nothing illustrates this point better than the fact that, though The Duchess isn’t exactly full on this particular night, the band still manage to animate the crowd and generate an excited atmosphere, proving that their music remains as accessible and relevant-sounding as it always has. Retaining the simplistic fivemember setup that the band have opted for for the majority of their musical life which perfectly reflects their lo-fi ethos, this is the sound of a band comfortable in their niche.

EDWARD FRANCIS

JASMINE TARMEY

Duchess, York

I

JUNIP

’ve got to admit before I begin that my response to the news that Junip were playing The Duchess was, unfortunately, “Who?”. However, I’m pleased to report that I came away from this gig a complete convert. Junip are Swedish band formed in the 90s by their front man, Jose Gonzalez, and whilst their atmospheric folk-indie mix is at times reminiscent of his more well-known solo releases such as “Heartbeats” (which many in the crowd couldn’t resist requesting), they can most definitely be recommended on their own merit.

The interior of the Duchess, with its low ceilings and intimate atmosphere, provided the perfect setting for Junip’s sound, with Gonzalez’s powerful yet un-

FRANK TURNER 03/02/11

derstated vocal melded with melodic guitar. The rock-steady bass and drumbeats gave the music a strength and urgency that differentiated it from Gonzalez’s solo releases. Whilst their music perhaps requires a few listens to be truly appreciated on record, the crowd at the Duchess were gripped from the very beginning of the set - fortunately, as the band were absorbed in their music with no need for stagecraft.

The songs were drawn mainly from their 2010 release Fields, with the faster beat of Howl raising the energy mid-set.

The closing choices of In Every Direction and Without You proved the most well received songs of the night, as In Every Direction’s deceptively lo-fi beginning built to a chorus which had members of the audience singing along.

All in all, Junip were a fortunate discovery; hopefully soon they won’t need to be precluded by their lead singer’s name!

AMY BEECHER

Fibbers, York

17/02/11

T

he build-up surrounding this show was nothing short of phenomenal. Frank Turner's last significant gig was a few short months ago in front of a sold out Brixton academy, and in the summer of the same year he supported Green Day at a full capacity Wembley Stadium. This evening's performance at Fibbers also sold out in a matter of hours - not bad for a man whose old band (Million Dead) used to regularly play York, safe in the knowledge that they realistically had no hope of selling out any of the city's venues.

So it is no surprise that tonight Frank is treated like a returning hero. Coming on with a simple "Good evening, York", he tears straight into 'Eulogy' before unleashing a rousing 90 minute set. His band is professional, the songs are tight, and Frank himself is the consummate showman; warmly thanking the people of York for allowing him to get back on the road after "The only 6 weeks off from touring [he's] had in 7 years." The atmosphere is one of extreme comfort; the crowd act like they're all old friends and the good-natured, kitchen sink quality of the lyrics dares you not to smile and sing along.

It is also the first time that the at-

mosphere of the recently refurbished Fibbers shows signs of reaching its former capabilities. The walls are sweaty, the PA system is sharp, and once again Fibbers feels like a real gig venue, as opposed to the rather generic nightclub it has evolved into.

A heartfelt rendition of 'Long Live The Queen' is the highpoint of the evening, with every voice in the room strained to its limit, and every heart firmly on every sleeve. Of course the question is where will Frank Turner go now? With academies/clubs conquered, he must surely be aiming for arenas with his next album - I just hope it's not at the cost of intimate gems such as tonight.

GEORGE OSBORNE

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CHASE AND

STATUS DAVID ELLIOTT interviews drum'n'bass's hottest property...

"B

EEEEEEEERRPPPPZZZZHHHH oh shitting fuck I’m sorry!”

My first ever phone interview hadn’t started well. Having been called promptly by Chase & Status’ press management, I had promptly proceeded to make a complete tit of myself, despite my very best laid plans.

“David? Yeah, you’ll be talking to Saul.” Saul ‘Chase’ Milton, he meant. I had looked it up on Wikipedia, as I was a professional (in the very loosest sense of the word). Still…

“Paul?” I said dumbly. There is apparently no-one called Paul in Chase & Status, which might have covered my booby.

“No. Saul.” An awkward pause. “I’m putting you through now.” Recovering, I quickly put my phone on loudspeaker and pressed the big idiot-proof record button my computer. Only the mic was still on, so just as Saul came on the line an earsplitting shriek of feedback burst forth enthusiastically.

“BEEEEEEEERRPPPPZZZZHHHH oh shitting fuck I’m sorry!”

So for a brief moment me and a worldfamous producer were united in one brief moment of extreme mutual embarrassment. It was glorious.

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hase & Status are, of course, the drum’n’bass/dubstep producing duo famous for hits ‘Eastern Jam’ and ‘End Credits’ (a collaboration with dapper rapper Plan B that featured on the soundtrack for Harry Brown). They’re one of a range of crossover acts like Magnetic Man and Pendulum that have pushed underground club music blinking if not into the light of day, then at least into the muted greasy spotlights of the Gallery basement.

They broke the surface with debut album More Than A Lot in 2008, but are really set to make waves with their new record No More Idols. I caught up with Saul just as he was applying the finishing touches to the album, and he seemed confident that it was going to tick all the right boxes.

“The new album picks up from where we left off, but with bigger songs and big-

ger songwriting,” he begins, in a voice that’s a study in either authentic urban gruffness or affected nonchalance, and I’m much too nervous to tell which. “It’s got some really exciting beats in there. It’s a really UK album and we’re just showing you where we’re at right now.”

What exactly a ‘UK album’ is he doesn’t clarify, and when I float the idea that dubstep as a genre just isn’t suited to the album format I’m shot down ruthlessly, so I don’t pursue it. Regardless, UK dubstep has quite drastically moved on since More Than A Lot, and the fact that Saul’s implicitly admitting that the new album is essentially an amplification of the previous record’s sound is maybe a bit worrying. I ask him whether he feels that Chase & Status have progressed musically over the past few years.

“I dunno, I think it’s a more mature album. There’s no point in trying to recreate More Than A Lot, it’s great for what it was and as it is,” he says, safely covering two of three possible perfect tenses. “Equally, there’s no point trying to write ‘Eastern Jam 2’.” However, for all this commitment to remaining current, Saul is firm when I ask whether Chase & Status have been influenced by some of the more leftfield dubstep artists of late, such as Mount Kimbie or James Blake.

“No, not at all.” But he softens the blow. “It’s not a question of whether I respect them more than, say, Magnetic Man. I love what Magnetic Man do, and I love what underground people do as well. I love it all mate. I’m not one of these people who wants to pick a side.” This diplomatic streak gradually begins to reveal itself in ever brighter colours as the interview goes on, especially when we begin to talk about ‘the scene’ and ‘purists’.

Underground forums on the net are notoriously ruthless when it comes to their favourite artists selling out. No More Idols features an impressive roster of collaborations with hot UK chart talent – Dizzee Rascal, Plan B, Tinie Tempah, White Lies, Sub Focus and Cee Lo Green all feature.

Chase & Status can hardly be surprised

when they’re accused of selling out, but do they feel the need to defend themselves from the forum fanboys?

“Yeah, yeah,” Saul starts eagerly, then checks himself, suddenly becoming artificially casual about the whole thing, but unable to keep his enthusiasm breaking through. “Uh, well, I personally wouldn’t bother getting into the debate at all. But, um, yeah obviously… the thing is… when I was young, I just loved drum’n’bass, jungle, that was it! Hated everybody else. But then I realised that that was mad, and you should just like everything you like. Being a purist is just stupid.” Again he stops in his track and pulls a 180, perhaps aware that he could be alienating a substantial demographic. “I mean, purists are great in one sense, because they’re the core of the underground. I just think it’s narrowminded when you can’t cope with people evolving and changing and doing bigger things. All the artists you mentioned have been doing stuff in the underground for years, they’ve shaped that scene and now they’re moving on top to do bigger things as well. It’s great. I don’t think anyone needs to justify anything to anyone.”

So Chase & Status’ migration to Amer-

I just think it’s narrow-minded when you can’t cope with people evolving and changing and doing bigger things.

ica to work on Rihanna’s Rated R is completely in character for a duo who are keen to let the winds of the market blow them to wherever they’re wanted. It doesn’t hurt that the experience with our favourite Rude Girl gave them a taste of the high life.

“We were with her every day all day.

We went out for drinks and were working on beats together, it was awesome. She was amazing, we got on really well with her. It’s not as corporate as it’s made out. Stargate and Drake were in the studio as well. Jay-Z came in and we all went out to dinner. It was a real nice vibe.” The relationship with Jay-Z then went on to blossom into a US management deal with Jigga’s Roc Nation. “It was a real nice vibe. Right now we’re just concentrating on getting the Chase & Status record done, so everything else needs to be put on hold, but I’d definitely like to work with other people again.”

Saul is keen to distance himself from commercialism, however, and it’s perhaps this residual affection for the alternative that led him to the grotty sound of the Dizzee collab ‘Heavy’, which was an apparently deliberate move away from the Rascal’s recent forays into the pop market, bringing him back to “the deepest grime of his Boy in Da Corner days. And he’s absolutely better like that, he’s ferocious on the track.” Saul seems to view ‘Heavy’ as a bit of a middle finger to the ‘betrayed’ purist community. “I’m sure half of the people would have thought that we were bringing him into the studio to come up with what purists would call a pop tune, but we didn’t. We just wanted to do something unbelievably raw.”

Saul, articulate, impassioned and ever so slightly defensive, is clearly loving where his talent has landed him and fellow DJ Will ‘Status’ Kennard, but while he’s apparently keen to stress that he owes the underground dance community nada, it becomes clear over the interview how keenly he feels that particular debt. Perhaps his most surprising opinion, however, and especially given Chase & Status’ massive success, is that writing music for the charts is the first step on the road to artistic suicide. “You never write for the charts, man, you write for yourself. That’s why we make music. If you write music specifically for the chart, you’re finished.”

Well amen to that.

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F I L M Will Haydon's Cinematic Exposé

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ork's cinema scene, although not incredibly comprehensive, is a lot more varied than most students re-

alise.

Although they do offer the bigger blockbusters, City Screen Picture House focuses on independent, arty or foreignlanguage films: if you feel like light-hearted Hollywood fare, you won't find it here.

On the other hand, films that could otherwise pass under your radar are shown here. Tickets are a little pricey, although it is worth it for the classy experience. As well as the usual refreshment stalls, there is an adjoining riverside café-restaurant, and the cinema's an easy walk (and an easier bus ride) from campus.

The Reel Cinema is probably best avoided. Five screens vary in size from multiplex style enormousness to seminar room level tininess. One student claimed that the screen in one room was "no bigger than my laptop's" and that before the performance, someone had to walk to the back to turn the light off. Even the big screen is prone to disaster - who can forget Pottergate of 2009, in which hundreds of customers queued for hours for the premiere of the latest Harry Potter, only to be turned away because of a clerical error. The draconian staff mean that snacks have to be well hidden. A slightly redeeming factor is the price: if you go on Monday or Wednesday, it's only £4 a ticket.

Vue offers a more professional film-going experience but as it is a multiplex you are forced to catch the No. 6 far into the suburbs. The hazardous journey is worth it for the variety offered; Vue is the cheesy foil to arty City Screen and between them every major film is covered. Vue offers the usual range of oversized, overpriced refreshments, but a better idea is to pop into the 24-hour Tesco opposite. At evenings and weekends you'll pay around £6, but go daytime in the week and it'll be cut to £4.80.

The obvious downfall of York Student Cinema is that films don't appear until a few months after release, at which point it almost seems worth the wait for the DVD. However, convenience and the £3 entry make YSC a great, cheap way to spend an evening. Refreshments are limited to a hastily-munched snack from the vending machine - YSC's website states that: "should YSC staff see any, we must ask for it to be put away or left outside", which sounds like a carefully-worded warning to hide your snacks well. Screenings take place in P/X/001, or, as it is colloquially known, that Physics lecture hall that looks like it is about to fall into the lake.

And the Award for Worst Film Goes to...

LISTINGS

The Vision Tur-Key:

= So very bad, it's (almost) good. = Late-night TV movie. = Disappointing, must try harder.

In response to next weekend's Oscars, SARAH GREEN reveals her alternative shortlist, the biggest Turkeys of 2010/11...

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o, The King’s Speech and The Social Network rather predictably swept the board at the BAFTAs and naturally now we turn towards the Oscars.

However, film awards often fail to include some of the real gems. The pompous Oscars have, until recently with the acknowledgement of Toy Story Three, been particularly averse to nominating out and out crowd-pleasers. Frankly, there are too many award-ceremonies around. Over the past decade there has been a significant fall in audience numbers for the stuffy and predictable Oscars, and the beautiful people have been forced to hang on to their tiaras in the face of accusations that the ceremony has lost its impact.

So let's ignore the pandemonium surrounding the gold statuette, drop the pretentiousness and look at some of the most spectacular turkeys, of 2010. Bar substantial bribery, these are the flops that will never find themselves on the winner podium, or even within the vague proximity of the red carpet.

Losers

Cop Out

Great cast, entertaining action scenes, but the script, storyline and general aura are underwhelming. It had such promise — Chris Evans’ strip was memorable though…

The Wolfman

Bruce Willis stars as a cop, but this is no Die Hard. Cop Out starts well but ends badly, and has a bizarre storyline with cringingly bad one-liners. Another legend bites the dust.

Jonah Hex

Oh Anthony Hopkins, what were you thinking? Didn’t you learn from the illfated Beowulf? Even the Twilight saga is preferable to this—just.

Letters to Juliet Beautiful scenery and a decent cast cannot detract from a poor script and transparent storyline. A nice, predictable ending and also predictably, this was my favourite part of the film.

The Book of Eli

Josh Brolin called it the worst script he had ever read, and quite frankly, he was right. Boys, even Megan Fox in a corset does not revive this flop. This should not have seen the big screen.

But the award for biggest turkey of 2010 goes to: Vampires Suck This could have been Sex and the City 2 but this tatty, humourless and shameless Twilight spoof is far worse. I am not a fan of the Twilight saga, but would watch it over this any day.

Proceed at your own risk!

Denzel Washington stars in this apocalyptic-thriller about a man travelling across the US to deliver a book that will save humanity. The film has a great concept, strong acting and exciting action scenes, but it promises more than it delivers. Worth a look, just expect to be slightly disappointed.

If you liked

then watch Dir. Darren Aronofsky Co

W

hereas Black Swan is about one woman's descent into insanity, Veronika Decides to Die is more about the quest for sanity. Both films, however, deal with the human (and in particular feminine) psyche, its fragility and its destructive/redemptive qualities.

Furthermore, they both have silly plots carried by good directing choices and impeccable performances, most notably Natalie Portman in Black Swan and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Veronika. SMG plays the titular heroine Veronika, who is every bit as feeble, as virginal and as vehemently angry as Natalie Portman's Nina.

When Veronika decides to die, she wakes up in a hospital to find that her suicide attempt has failed, although her heart has suffered such abuse that she

Dir. Emily Youngo

has only days to live. The final kicker is that she's in a mental hospital, where she must live out the remainder of her days.

Nina and Veronika both find themselves confined in provocative environments, although Veronika has no intention of embracing her world in the way Nina so hopelessly does hers.

Filling the role played by Thomas, Nina's ridiculously French choreographer in Black Swan, is Dr. Blake, played

by David Thewlis, who runs the mental institution and treats Veronika. As in Black Swan, Veronika's journey becomes overtly sexualised when she meets hunky-yettraumatised Eduard, and, although she knows she can't sleep with him, decides to masturbate in front of him. It doesn't make sense on paper (although the film is

ironically based on Paulo Coelho's book of the same name), but it really is the film's centrepiece and it's kind of cool to see Buffy touching herself.

The supporting cast of Black Swan is probably stronger, and Veronika has not received anything like the same box office treatment or the plaudits of Aronofsky's film (it has yet to be released in the UK or the US - you can find it online), but this sordid account of a young woman struggling for validation, clarity and sex is a quietly moving affair. So, if you enjoyed watching Nina dance herself to death, check out Veronika trying to trace her steps back from it.

THOMAS MARTIN

MUSIC

SPOTLIGHT

FILM

TV

BOOKS

TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

NEVER LET ME GO

LISTINGS

Dir. Mark Romanek

A starry take on the much loved novel is a worthy adaptation, but ALYSIA JUDGE is left unmoved

A

t first glance, Never Let Me Go seems as unsuited to the label "dystopian science-fiction" as an adaptation of Austen’s Mansfield Park would be. The sun-dappled world of an idyllic English boarding school, home to a trio of adorable school children hardly adheres to the usual convention of faceless robot armies goosestepping in futuristic headgear. However, it is this apparent contradiction that lies at the heart of both Kazuo Ishiguro's much acclaimed novel and Mark Romanek's faithful interpretation.

It isn’t long before cracks begin to show beneath this utopic façade, and the chilling reality reveals itself in time to tear apart the lives of our three ill-fated protagonists.

The plot centres around the lives of three unfeasibly goodlooking friends, Ruth (Keira Knightley), Cathy (Carey Mulligan) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield). Beginning with their 1970s childhood at the mysterious but picturesque Hailsham school we follow them through to late adolescence where we witness the emergence of a painful love triangle, made all the more poignant by the realisation that their "completion" is drawing ever nearer. Their society is both familiar

Paul Dir. Greg Mottola

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and alien to the audience: an alternate reality reminiscent of wartime Britain and riddled with disturbing laws that sanction the use of radical Huxley-esque methods designed to prolong human life. This is not some shiny, futuristic apocalypse that

our society is being propelled towards, but rather a subtle distortion of the tangible present. It is this familiarity that evokes a real poignancy, bringing us closer to the real horror of the characters’ situation.

Whilst stereotypically a dystopia re-

And Soon The Darkness

True Grit

Dir. Marcos Efron

S

Dir. Joel and Ethan Cohen

volves around oppression, there are no such concerns here. We are left wondering how things got to be this way and who made these regulations, but as in the novel such concerns remain unanswered.

Nobody tries to defy fate, only defer it.

Indeed, the characters have remarkable freedom yet there is no attempt at a great escape as seen in similar films, such as The Island. This is a work concerned with the fleeting nature of human life, romance and jealousy, which, as a whole, it fulfils very well.

The downfall of Romanek’s adaptation lies precisely with the aspects that makes it so successful: the acceptance of the immorality of these medical advancements in a society so like our own means there is little emotional impact at the film’s climax, despite breathtaking performances.

Perhaps this is the aim of the story, a more realistic approach to how Britain would react to such a revelation. Still, a little more rebellion against their tragic fates may have made the inevitability of the characters’ predicament draw a tear from my eye. As such, my pack of Kleenex remained unopened and the emotional potential of the film fell just short of success.

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU...

T

like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I really do. It was their chemistry that allowed Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz to transcend spoofery and become something much more interesting, a testament to male friendship. Sadly, likability alone is not enough to save Paul, an ambitious twist on the road movie format that never quite hits the spot.

The premise is simple. Pegg and Frost, who co-wrote the screenplay, are -wait for it- best friends, on a nerd pilgrimage to the American comic book convention Comic Con. Whilst touring sites of alleged UFO activity in the desert they bump into Paul, a real live alien voiced by the beardy one from Knocked Up (Seth Rogan), who is on the run from the government. They agree to escort him back to the mother ship in their battered RV but soon find themselves pursued by a sinister Federal agent (Jason Batemen).

Paul boasts a strong cast, from Kristen Wiig as a kooky evangelical Christian, to Bill Hader as Bateman’s inept inferior, but even their formidable comedic might cannot save a film that suffers from undeveloped characters and a convoluted plot. Worse, Greg Mottolo’s direction is sluggish at best and I was left pining for long term collaborator Edgar Wright’s snappy editing and instinctive sense of pace.

The real problem however is a dearth of good jokes. A reliance on anal probe gags proves wearing for adult viewers, but a lazy reliance on swearing also alienates (no pun intended) a younger audience. Paul could have been a passable kids movie but instead comes across as an exercise in how to waste an ensemble, less Little Miss Sunshine, more Blues Brothers Two.

tephanie (the talented Amber Heard) and her free-spirited friend Ellie (Odette Yustman) are enjoying a perfect gettaway in Argentina. Unfortunately, they miss the last bus to civilization and are forced to spend the night in a seedy hotel in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, they head down to the nearby river where a silly quarrel leads Stephanie to abandon Ellie and slowly a nightmare unfolds. When, predictably, Ellie goes missing, her friend embarks on a frantic search which must end before darkness falls.

So far, so standard, And Soon The Darkness, a remake of a 1970 British film, certainly isn't winning any prizes for originality or innovation. As Stephanie's plight unfolds she is joined by Michael (Karl Urban), a young man searching for his missing girlfriend,.

Through uncomfortable encounters with creepy hotel owners and corrupt cops we quickly begin to realise that no one can be trusted and nothing is as it seems.

The film is hampered by a tedious opening and the excessive bikini shots may make you despair (unless you are a teenage boy). Nonetheless And Soon The Darkness does eventually find its feet, and a genuinely unsettling ending is bound to keep you on the edge of your seat.

The plots twists may be at times painfully obvious, but this grimy horror flick remains passable thanks to strong performances from the female leads and lingering shots of breathtaking Argentinean scenery. Marcos Efron's cautionary tale may be predictable at times but it remains a cut above most dim-witted teen horror fare.

he Coen Brothers’ latest venture is a triumphant adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel True Grit. While the 1969 film centered around Wayne’s character Marshal Rooster Cogburn, the Coen Brothers’ wisely return the focus to Mattie Ross, the indomitable heroine played with astounding sass and nerve by fourteen year old Hailee Steinfeld. No pigtail sporting, Presbyterian tween has ever been cooler.

The film opens to Mattie’s voice avowing revenge as the camera pans towards the body of her father, barely distinguishable in the swirling snow. What follows is a sleek, atmospheric and endlessly gripping Western romp as Mattie hires the disreputable Marshall Cogburn to track down her father’s killer Tom Chaney in a whiskey soaked trek through bleak and unforgiving Indian territory.

Excellent performances abound throughout. Jeff Bridges is captivating and somehow charming as the grizzled, whiskey loving Marshall while Matt Damon is almost unrecognisable with sideburns and bushy mustache as a Texas ranger chasing Chaney for an earlier crime. The real star however is Steinfeld who holds her own against heavyweights Bridges and Damon and gives a truly astounding performance.

Despite the fact that much of the film focuses on the characters trekking through the wilderness, it never drags or feels slow paced. An underlying tension, present from the very beginning, runs throughout, a tension that is not disturbed by the persistent gallows humour and the genuinely comic moments that pepper the plot. Definitely a must see.

RACHEL PRONGER

KINGA OGIEGLO

TEJA PISK

Pan's Labyrinth: Catch Guillermo del Toro's fantasy epic, Student Cinema, Monday Week 8.

YORK STUDENT CINEMA Week 7 Thursday - Somewhere Friday - Voyage of the Dawn Treader Week 8 Monday - Pan's Labyrinth Thursday - Love and Other Drugs Friday - 127 Hours Week 9 Monday - We Are What We Are Thursday - The Green Hornet Friday - The King's Speech All films shown in P/X/001 Start at 7.30 pm (doors at 6.45 pm)

POLARSETS

FRANK TURNER

SCENE Tuesday March 15, 2011. Issue 214.

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT FILM

TV

BOOKS

TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

N O I S I TELEV

e for d a m re g n ei b s te ri u vo fa TV With so many British the Vision TV team wonder what the US small screen, les were reversed... would happen if the ro

I

f there’s one thing our American cousins are good at, it’s remaking our TV shows without ruining them. Sounds like no big feat, right? But it’s something us Brits have failed at time and time again.

Consider the American Office, how we all scoffed at the idea of the Yanks daring to have a go at one of our most beloved sitcoms.

And what happened? They only went and made it just as good.

Hell’s Kitchen, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Three’s Company, all massive hits in the states; all have their origins on the British box.

But when we try and repay the favour, the outcome isn’t always as successful. But it seems our TV producers haven’t conceded defeat just yet. This spring sees the first outing of MTV UK’s Geordie Shore, a British version of American shitfest Jersey Shore. If it’s successful it could be the birth of a British remake boom.

Here at the TV section, we’ve had a go at imagining what could be in store if we Brits try to remake any more of America’s best TV shows.

Glory Daze – York style Follow the trials and tribulations of four fresh-faced teens as they desperately try to leave their mark on the breeze block jungle that is Hes West. There’s Dave, the standard boy-next-door type (whatever that means). He’s funny, popular in a non-Rugy player kind of way, and hopes to find the girl of his dreams somewhere on the Ziggy’s dance floor. Next we have Gloria, the Oxbridge reject who is actually not that posh. Honestly, she even went to Magaluf once on holiday. Well, her daddy’s yacht had to refuel there, but she promises that that counts. Then

there’s Jack, the science geek, who thinks he’s a hit with the ladies, but in reality the only thing he knows about biology is what he’s read in his text books. I’ll let you imagine the fourth member of the gang yourself, or just pretend I wrote another lazy cliché, it’ll save my time and yours.

Watch their fresher’s week unfold; laugh as they pay £30 for the privilege of standing in the queue outside their own Fresher’s ball, marvel at how the offer of free toasties becomes the highlight of their night. Enjoy this insight into ‘wild’ uni life, York style.

Desperate Housewives The five central characters: Barbara, Carol, Karen, Joan and Elaine. Everyone has a neighbour like Barbara. You know what she's like; she comes round offering milk and old magazines, faintly veiling the fact that she wants to gossip about Mr. No.24 and that bloody diesel lawnmower. And then there's Carol. Cardigan Carol, the character that enhances all the other character's beauty by not conforming to the stereotypical 'wife'. But this is Britain. There ain't no wives like that on this street, well, apart from Karen. Karen is the token 'young' wife, the one that moved in two years ago. A divorcee at 30, she remarried Mr. Wealthy and brought along a brat and her pink garden gloves to ruffle some feathers. And she's done that alright. How come her hanging baskets are looking so good? That's Miracle Grow, or if anyone asks her, her loving, flower touch. Joan, well she's the street stalwart. The tough one, that rallies the street into action if the council plan to cut down the tree at the end and put in a roundabout. The one that everyone kind

of avoids at all costs from both fear and the fact that you think no one will ever take your word seriously if your signature appears on yet ANOTHER petition sheet.

So that just leaves Elaine. Lovely Elaine with her perfect, 2.4 family.

They have the Volvo, the dog, and that lovable cat that really is just that little bit evil.

The biggest scandal in this street: the bins haven't been emptied for over 3 weeks. What is going on? Perhaps it's because of Barbara and her constant meddling, like the time the council refused to grit the street. That'll teach them all. Well done Barbara, again.

Lost in Blackpool This isn’t a scene from Castaway where you are on a flight then suddenly an emergency engine failure causes the plane to crash on this remote tropical island, with beautiful white sandy beaches and Hayden Panettiere strolling in the sand. Well if you swap the BA transatlantic flight to Miami for Easyjet, you have Lost in Blackpool. Rather than a bumpy landing on a deserted Caribbean island, the plane crashes on the Blackpool pier complete with a bunch of wingeing passengers who all just want to get to Corfu.

One look at the locals, otherwise known as ‘the others’ forces the passengers to try to escape with a dingy constructed from candied rocks and hardened candy floss. Images of your anticipated Corfu holidays flash through your mind as you sit by the pier freezing and drenched in your short shorts, eating some soggy fish and chips. If there was anywhere in the world where you had to get lost, pray it’s not Blackpool.

LISTINGS

Le Geek?? c i h c t s e ' C Nicola Chapman

Class of 200(

PHWOAR)

D

on’t get me wrong, I am well aware that TV is smothered in sensationalism. It seems that unless a person or a storyline isn’t stretched to the extremes then we wouldn’t believe it.

But when a stereotype is so far on the other side of the personality spectrum than you’d expect, it becomes kinda difficult to take it all seriously.

Exhibit A: Gossip Girl. All those beautiful clothes and ridiculous week-by-week scandals cannot mask the fact that Dan is by no means a Geek. He is scripted as the loveable, hopeless-in-love brain box that cares about his studies and his family. Geek? What a Geek.

If you cast your mind back to school and college, the Geek was probably someone who was bouncing up and down, looking like they were about to have a mental hernia just to answer that question in class that everyone was trying to avoid. The person who was eventually asked the answer after minutes of everybody else staring down at the desk feeling hopeless. The Geek was someone who usually substituted personal hygiene for individual credit. We all suffered that hamsterish sawdust smell all so they could get an A for the homework the rest of us ‘forgot’ to do. So if Dan (Penn Badgley) walked down the corridor, book in hand, he’s not the one you would be throwing that half drunk can of coke at. You would probably stare in sheer disbelief that someone so beautiful actually went to your school.

Exhibit B: Soaps. Well, Hollyoaks, if we’re being really picky.

But it’s the same-old, same-old when a stereotype comes along. It’s either a LAD or total slag that turns good after ‘years and years of being messed around’ (?!) or that ferrety little Geek who ‘after years and years of being the ‘good’ one’ turns into a druggy and sets the pub alight. There can never be just someone normal, someone who enjoys studying and then moves along the standard path of Sixth Form and University. No. It’s clear that the Hollyoaks casting team have chosen someone stunning, found a pair of comedy glasses and dungarees in the costume bin, and asked them to walk around like they’ve suddenly produced a Quasimodo style hump from all those library books they’ve got. What a joke.

Exhibit C: Skins. Quite obviously. Even if this series is so appallingly acted then at least we can sit there and laugh at how casting directors expect us to believe that these people really are who they say they are. And even more so in this series than in the glory days of Tony and the gang. Take for example Rich, the metalhead and rock’n’roll lover. Shave his head and he’s a stand-up gent. Simple.

And all of the kids in it scream stereotype, because that is what we all were in youth right? Running amok in fields and vandalising farms. God we were all terrors. Show me someone who had the Skins adolescence and I’ll be amazed. All I can say is that at least those who created The Inbetweeners knew that, even if you thought so, you weren’t cool at all deep down.

So, pass me the TV salt pot please, I need to take a pinch from it.

Remotes at the ready - our tv picks for the week

Best of 4oD

Th

how e Cleveland S

From the producers of Family Guy, The Cleveland Show is back for its second season and is funnier than ever. Crazy, and full of outlandish fun, The Cleveland Show has upped the ante in tasteless smut - proving that spin-offs are not just second to their parent show.

Mondays, E4,10pm

Oh No You Didn't...

Watch this week

The Vampire Diaries

For all you Vampire lovers, sink your teeth into a high octane drama, that's got a little for everyone - action, romance and of course, beautiful people.

Although you may cringe a lot while watching this teenage vamp-fest, it is still Has Jeremy Kyle gone too far with his day time talkshow? With episodes named 'has my boyfriend a damn sight better than Twilight. been exposing himself to my mum?', I truly believe so...

Tuesdays, ITV2, 9pm

Jeremy Kyle, Weekdays, ITV, 9.25am

MUSIC SPOTLIGHT FILM

TV

BOOKS

TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

RED NOSE DAY THE GREATEST MOMENTS

This Friday sees the return of Comic Relief. The one night every two years where TV stars old and new join forces to make us laugh in the name of charity. We've waded through all the Comic Reliefs of the past to bring you our favourite moments. And don't worry, there isn't an 'Is this the way to Amarillo?' in sight.

LISTINGS

oscaRS BEST ACTOR Jeremy Kyle: always remains in character as the pissed off, disciplinarian father who can make any fool get off their backside and do something with their life.

best show ries 2 of Misfits: Se r show may this popula in Decemd de have en t e still can’ ber but w the show of get enough e es who ar about hero r. pe su t anything bu

LET’S DANCE ALI G VS THE BECKHAMS MY FAVOURITE Comic Relief moment has to be when Ali G interviewed the Beckhams back in 2001. Getting an interview with David Beckham at the height of Goldenballs fever was a master stroke for Comic Relief, and the choice of Ali G as interrogator was simply inspired.

Ali G was known at the time as the man with no fear when it came to celebrity interviews, and his 40 minute destruction of the Beckhams all in the name of charity was arguably his finest hour.

Doubts about whether he would go easy on his superstar guests were instantly put to bed with his introduction: ‘Every boy wants to be in his boots and every man wants to be in his missus.’ The interview became an overnight classic, and I don’t think there’s been a Comic Relief moment to match it since.

PRANCING NEWSREADERS REMEMBER those days when news readers actually reported the news?

Nowadays they are moving from behind the desk, pushing the scripts aside and prancing around in their glad rags as if they are the next pop phenomenon. Every year they fail to disappoint in their ever extravagant performances like the Mama Mia tribute of 2008 or last year’s dance off with Diversity.

TV doesn’t get better or worse than seeing conservative newsreader Fiona Bruce booty-shaking like Beyoncé.

Every year we are blessed, or some say cursed, with this spectacle. Whether they go Gaga, Abba or Queen, we cannot forget it's all in the name of charity and has now become one of our many national cringe worthy traditions.

LET’S DANCE is back! Well it’s been on our screens for the past few weeks now making Saturday night TV worth watching. It seems that the great British public can’t get enough of ‘so called’ celebs and professional comedians completely making a spectacle of themselves for charity.

Hoping to be just as memorable as Rufus Hound's ‘Fight For This Love’ performance last year, we have seen some real highlights such as Ade Edmondson twirling around as the Dying Swan. And if the mention of the name Katie Price doesn’t annoy you already, her performance as Freddy Mercury with a wig and moustache will push you off the edge.

But apart from that, I have no complaints. Let’s Dance raised £57 million in 2009, when the event was last aired and let’s hope they beat this record. It will be a relief to see some of these D-listers off our screens for another year.

R WORST ACTOthe Charlie Sheen:

iving star is rece ition gn co re more f the of ys da e es th to his screen thanks haviour car-crash be called and his so antics. ‘winning’ r, I’m “I’m not bipola pure a ”, ng ni bi-win . ce an rm Razzie perfo

Dean Knapper and Rebecca Ojumu

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? B

ullying, drugs, friendship and peer pressure - Saved By The Bell was the first sitcom to encounter these issues and many more, through captivating storylines and characters; making it a world-wide phenomenon way back in the '90s. The show was famed for its slapstick comedy and 'After School Specials'; but what made the show so entertaining was its characters; Zack, A.C., Kelly and the gang. They were all so cool, so smart and they had an amazing sense of style (for the '90s anyways). They were attractive, positive role models, who showed me that you should always aim to achieve, no matter the cost. So, sometimes when I have some quiet time alone I naïvely wonder - what ever happened to those characters who taught me valuable lessons in difficult situations, who said that it was okay to be smart and good looking at the same time?

Well to my surprise, these shining beacons of moral superiority are now desperate examples of has-beens, who

WORST ACTRESs

Lucy from Take Me Out: Let’s just say we're not surprised that it took 12 weeks before one desperate fella decided to take this lass out and finally put us out of our misery.

SAVED BY THE BELL

once had Hollywood eating out of the palm of their hands. From washed up actors to amateur porn stars, it's oddly thrilling to see how far the mighty have fallen. A great example is Elizabeth Berkley - renowned for her portrayal of Jessica Spano, an ardent feminist activist who was the epitome of strength and purity. She can now be seen making her money gyrating and jiggling what her momma gave her, in the disreputable film Showgirls. Remember that well-loved virginal geek, Screech aka Dustin Diamond? Well he has now turned his talents towards the smutty world of pornography. He has repulsed the public with his 'erotic' home video and is now a frequent member of the Z-list.

Isn't it such a shame that the actors who influenced a generation couldn't have taken their own advice and stayed current? However, within this story of loose morals and candid sex tapes lies redemption

- Mario Lopez or A.C broke the mould.

He has retained his fame and built a successful career on his rippling six pack abs, hosting a wide selection of TV shows, most notably, America's Best Dance Crew.

Still, I can't help but wonder when reflecting upon the matter - isn't it ironic how all the Saved by the Bell actors have made their mark on the world through the sale of their bodies?

Not e

ell can ven the b

save them

WORST SHOW

Coach Trip: 6 hour trips are generally unpleasant, so watching a bunch of bickering fools on a rundown coach makes the ultimate Turn off TV.

now

Morgan Collins

Razzies

MUSIC

SPOTLIGHT

FILM

TV

BOOKS

Books AN ANONYMOUS author has found an ingenious way of releasing their novel to the public - postering it on various lampposts around New York, page by page!

The book, entitled Holy Crap, appears to be a crime thriller with a whodunit twist, though locals will have to wait until the author finishes postering to find out the conclusion.

The stunt has inevitably torn public opinion between art and vandalism, but the content has nonetheless been well received.

Some of the locals of East Manhattan have even decided to photocopy pages and put them in the place of the originals, no doubt hoping that in years to come they'll own a part of literary history.

NIGHTLIFE

LISTINGS

Want to contribute? Contact us at books@yorkvision.co.uk

GEORGE OSBORNE looks at developments within the publishing industry...

Mystery Writer Keeps New York Guessing

TECHNOLOGY

Bristol Palin to Reveal All

PUBLISHING HOUSE HarperCollins has announced that it is to publish the memoirs of Bristol Palin, daughter of former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The publishing firm promised that the book will be an "intimate, behindthe-scenes" look at the 20 year old's life so far.

Whilst not as action packed as her mother's life (Sarah Palin is cur-

rently advocating the extreme right wing Tea Party movement) there is not exactly a shortage of incidents in Bristol's life. Having become a mother at 18, she then went on to become a spokesperson for teenage abstinence, and in September 2009 set up her own lobbying and public relations firm, BSMP. And she will, of course, be revealing intimate details from the 2008 presidential elections.

Though HarperCollins have not disclosed the fee they are paying Miss Palin, they have revealed that it will be published this summer.

JASMINE TARMEY looks at discovered tales of deceased authors...

Discovering du Maurier's Tales CORNISH bookseller Ann Willmore has discovered five previously lost stories by Daphne du Maurier. Maurier was frequently published in UK and US magazines and consequently Willmore has searched booksellers catalogues for years trying to find some of these lost works.

One of the stories The Doll, mentioned in du Maurier’s autobiography Myself When Young, proves to be quite risqué even for today’s standards, since the short story revolves around a man

discovering his amour is obsessed with a mechanical sex doll. Another story The Happy Valley contains plot elements which later evolved into the bestselling Rebecca. These, and the three other tales And His Letters Grew Colder, East Wind and The Limpit, are to be published by Virago Press on May 5th in a collection entitled The Doll – and all 5 tales prove to be as dark and macabre as fans would expect.

The Hidden Treasure of Blyton's Archive ENID BLYTON may have died over forty years ago, but her literary legacy still lives on and is set to be reinvigorated.

A new, unpublished and unheard of manuscript has been discovered hidden away in an archive of her work at a recent charity auction.

The novel titled Mr Tumpy’s Cara-

van is an almost 200 page fantasy story.

Whilst originally believed to be a mere version of Blyton's comic strip picture book Mr Tumpy and His Caravan the book is actually a completely new and different tale altogether.

Since no one even guessed at the existence of this manuscript, it is a definite treat for Blyton fans everywhere.

Despite writing nearly 800 books in her lifetime this is one author whose vast canon just keeps growing, and whose imagination appears limitless.

Hiding Behind A Mask GEORGE OSBORNE investigates the concept of pseudonyms FOLLOWING Sam Hook's absorbing piece on reclusive authors in the last issue of Vision, I decided to look into the similar, but distinct concept of pseudonymous names, an intriguing phenomenon in the world of literature. So what is a pseudonym? Also known as a pen name, it is a fictitious name created by an author to conceal his/her identity. It is separate from the concept of writing anonymously, where the author is looking to conceal all identity, i.e. to remove the concept of 'authorship' so that attention can only be directed towards the work itself.

An example of a pseudonymous author is Charles Dodgson, an Oxford graduate who, after gaining a first in mathematics, wrote his mathematical theories under his real name and his 'literary nonsense' such as Alice In Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

The most natural question that we, the reader, ask when faced with a pseudonymous author is why do they do it?

Why do they let false names take the credit for their own proud work?

A key reason is the ubiquity of social conventions. For example William Luther Pierce, an American white supremacist,

wrote the disturbing novels The Turner Diaries (which Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh later called "[his] bible") and Hunter under the name Andrew Macdonald. Both novels depict in violent detail the emergence of a race war in a fictional future and were written with the intent to provoke a reaction - which in the case of Oklahoma they clearly did. Therefore it is no wonder that Pierce wanted to conceal his identity.

Of course, pseudonyms can also be used to garner a positive reception - Mary Ann Evans wrote under the name George Eliot to escape the socially perceived

inadequacies of female authors, as did all three of the Brontë sisters. However whilst the Brontë sisters' work is now published under their real names, Evan's continues to be printed under the name George Eliot.

Probably the most tragic and poignant use of a pseudonym was undertaken

by Sylvia Plath with the publication of her only novel The Bell Jar. The novel follows a young woman for a year and charts her descent into depression, attempted suicide and institutionalization.

Published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, it was released one month before Plath killed herself and when her name was eventually put on the cover four years later, the horror of her life was realized by fans and critics alike. Plath had left specific wishes with her husband (Ted Hughes) that her name not be used until a suitable time has passed, so as not to tarnish the book as a literary suicide note.

Pseudonyms are still popular today; horror writer Stephen King regularly writes as Richard Bachman, and children's author Daniel Handler wrote his hugely successful A Series of Unfor-

tunate Events chronology as Lemony Snicket. So with their popularity remaining at a steady level, we can be sure that in the future we'll discover that some of our favourite authors may not actually be who they say they are.

MUSIC

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SPOTLIGHT

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TV

BOOKS

Rated Reads

f you like your vampires with a little less love and a little more blood try Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, the first novel in her vampire chronicles.

First printed in 1976, this novel has stood the test of time and is still popular amongst readers today. The main protagonist, and narrator of the story, is Louis de Pointe du Lac who is recounting his life to an interviewer he refers to as “the boy”.

When Louis’ brother dies, he is so struck with grief that he seeks death. Louis believes he has found the answer in vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, but Lestat has other plans and instead of killing Louis, he turns him in the hopes that he will become his companion. Rice’s story has it all, from questioning the ethics of making child vampires to having a coven of vampires front as an acting troupe committing real murders on live stages, the reader is taken on a whirlwind adventure from the backwaters of New Orleans to the bright lights of Paris.

Louis tale is meant to be horrifying and offputting to both the reader, and the fictional interviewer, however, the history he relates, and the Lestat that he portrays, instead captivate and appear seductively inviting. Rice’s enthralling prose continues in the second novel of the series – Lestat – which somehow proves even more compelling, and even harder to put down than the first. If you fancy reading vampire fiction as it should be, Rice’s Chronicles are definitely worth putting on the list.

JASMINE TARMEY

T

he title of this book jumps out at you and leaves you thinking "Really?! Did you call your own book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius?"

Combine that with the small army of awards and accolades littering the front and back of the book (Pulitizer Prize Finalist, Time Magazine Best Book of the Year, #1 National Bestseller - I could go on...) and you've got a recipe for dangerously high expectations. But, quite sickeningly, the book does not disappoint - it actually is genius.

Not quite a novel and not quite a memoir, AHWOSG is like real life but more exciting. Anyone who's ever lost someone close to them will find his portrayal of the hidden perks of grief to be refreshingly true, but the dialogue is so witty and the plot so fast-paced that the reader is never allowed to feel bogged down by the drab greyness of the everyday.

It tells the tale of Eggers and his funny and precocious little brother Toph, who are forced to embark on a new life together after the deaths of both their parents in quick succession.

Obviously this doesn't

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spell an easy read, but there are glints of humour and fun to be found in even the most moving and harrowing scenes.

Alongside the human factor there are also some amazing sun-dappled descriptions of San Francisco and the California coast that make AHWOSG a perfect summer holiday read.

I realise this review is about as gushing as the aforementioned difficult title, and yes Eggers has flaws like any writer (if I had to pick one it would be his liberal use of ironic self-awareness, which can really grate at times.) Yet overall I loved it - genius indeed.

KATE TURNER

The Bluffer's Guide to: Franz Kafka

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Tea Obreht The Tiger’s Wife £12.99 When Natalia's grandfather dies she tries to reconstruct his last days whilst recalling the stories of folklore and mystery that he used to tell …

Sarah Winman When God Was a Rabbit £12.99 The story of a flawed family, concentrating on the bond between a brother and sister, and the ordinary and extraordinary events which construct their everyday lives…

S. J. Parris Prophecy £12.99 Q u e e n Elizabeth's throne is threatened by plots to install Mary Stuart, whilst an astrological phenomenon causes frenzy through predictions of terrible events...

COMING SOON: James Frey The Final Testament of the Holy Bible £16.99 F r e y ' s controversial and somewhat condemned novel caused his exile from America and criticism by the public. His novel charts the life of the Messiah living in today's New York, sleeping with men, impregnating woman, committing euthanasia and healing the sick, those who thought The Da Vinci Code was controversial will be moved to rethink…

Wilbur Smith Those in Peril £18.99 When Hazel's private yacht is hijacked by pirates and her daughter is kidnapped for ransom and tortured she enlists the owner of a security firm Hector Cross to take the law in their own hands and recover her daughter…

JASMINE TARMEY

Literally Literary Art

Sam Hook gives you the lowdown on Kafka.

"Dearest Max, My last request: Everything I leave behind me to be burned unread."

FRANZ KAFKA, one of the twentieth century’s great imaginations, died of tuberculosis at the age of 40 in an Austrian sanatorium after requesting that his unpublished manuscripts (including his three novels; Amerika, The Trial and The Castle) be destroyed. Fortunately, his friend Max Brod chose to ignore this request and allowed Kafka’s work to be published.

Today Kafka is regarded as one of the German language’s greatest writers, and his stylistic legacy has influenced writers of all cultures from Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Vaclev Havel and Haruki Murakami.

Kafka was born in 1883 in Prague, which was then part of Austria-Hungary, into a Jewish family. He spoke both German and Czech, but wrote exclusively in German. An only son, he had a troubled relationship with his father who opposed his ambition to become an author. This relationship would then

serve to inform his future writing.

In later life, Kafka formed an intense relationship with Mila Jesenska, a married writer and journalist, who subsequently translated some of his work into Czech. However, she was unable to leave her husband and consequently they communicated by letter until Kafka’s death in 1924, when he left her his diaries.

Kafka's writing was underap-

preciated both by his contemporary audience and by himself. He considered his friend Max to be the better writer, and his chronic insecurities were the reason much of his work remained unfinished. Kafka’s protagonists (particularly K. in The Trial, Gregor in Metamorphosis and Joseph K. in Amerika) are young men struggling to both come to terms with their identities and locate themselves in an inhospitable modern world. Intelligent, thoughtful but often awkward and flawed figures: Kafka’s heroes, as well as often being read as semi-autobiographical, can be found echoed in the works of many modern writers, particularly Murakami.

Kafka’s work anticipates and warns of what would become some of the major and distinctive features of twentieth century society.

His novels expose the alienation of the working man and the terrifying and impersonal power of mindless bureaucracy. They are also infused with the sense of despair and impotence in the face of the hostile structures of society with which we now associate the term 'Kafkaesque'.

Brian Dettmer has taken literary art to a new level, using knives, tweezers and surgical tools he carves and manipulates books pages, covers and spines to create sculptures. Nothing is relocated, only removed.

JASMINE TARMEY

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Apple have a busy week, and is cheaper tech making photography accessible?

App of the Week IMDb Price: Free Rating: *****

THE BASICS Round-up :

iPad 2: looking beneath the shiny exterior

By Andrew Ryan

iPAD 2 T

- 1 GHz dual-core A5 Processor - 9.7" screen, with 1024 x 768 resolution and "Retina display" tech.

- Front and back facing cameras for Facetime and HD video recording.

- The usual WiFi / WiFi + 3G options, with a choice of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB storage.

- 10 hour battery life for general usage.

- New "iPad smart cover" accessory- pictured above.

- Now also comes in Apple white...

HE new iPad arrives in the UK on the 25th, and, unsurprisingly, it suffers from many of the same problems as its predecessor.

The price remains at the same ridiculous level, although they have thankfully knocked £100 off the first generation model. Probably the biggest difference is the slimmer, lighter form factor, better screen and the addition of two cameras.

The screen in particular is, as with most Apple products, looking fantastic. It supposedly employs the same ‘retina display’ as the iPhone 4 which essentially attempts to make the pixels invisible. I’d rather opt for the explanation that it’s simply an advertising buzzword dreamt up the marketing division one dreary night before the deadline. Unfortunately if it’s anything like the iPhone 4, this will be a massive lie.

They’ve supposedly upped the battery life and the processor as well; four times faster apparently. I’m not so sure. From rumours I’ve heard the architecture of it is similar to the ARM A8’s which are a genera-

tion old now. I’d steer well clear of it, especially until they provide some benchmarks for it, especially with a comparison to the Tegra 2 chips.

The iPad is still far too easy to poke holes in. It’s too expensive for the kick off, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing the price come down for a long time.

Unsurprisingly it doesn’t support flash, so you can continue to enjoy the distinctly ‘mobile’ surfing experience. In fact, out

"I suppose literally rinsing us for everything we're worth is a sort of industry standard for Apple now" of curiosity, I had a read of the statement Mr. Jobs put out on the interwebs about why he doesn’t use Adobe Flash, pretty unconvincing if you ask me, but have a read of it yourself.

They’ve also included full 1080p output with the new generation tablet; all you have to do is buy their £30 kit. Fantastic. I suppose literally rinsing us for everything we’re worth is a sort

Cheaper technology is changing photography

P

HOTOGRAPHY has always held something of an elitist and exclusive reputation, reserved for those who can afford the expense and have the experience. With lenses often costing more than the actual camera, it’s no wonder so many newcomers turn their backs on it. However, a lurch forward in technology and a drop in price has torn down the barrier and made photography accessible.

Entry-level DSLR cameras have proven to be a key factor in this. DSLRs such as the Pentax K-x (TIPA’s Best Entry-Level DSLR 2010) combine easy-to-understand instructions with the quality of image and features expected from high-end DSLRs. The K-x specifically, simplifies most aspects of DSLRs; the on-screen menu isn’t overcomplicated and explains functions precisely. As a first DSLR cam-

era, the K-x provides a comprehensive introduction to photography and it’s clear to see that these kind of entry-level DSLRs are aimed at those who have neither the money nor patience for something more professional. The K-x with an 18-55mm lens typically retails at around £450, although it's worth shopping around.

Another thing that is making photography so much more obtainable is cheap editing software. We hurl around the criticism of “photoshopping” an image but the reality is that the ability to tweak a photo after capture really benefits the amateur photographer. Thanks to Photoshop, an overexposed photograph can be easily rectified, the composition improved, and flaws cropped out. In a nutshell, Photoshop allows you to turn a fairly bog-standard photo into a masterpiece.

Whilst industry standard, Adobe Pho-

of industry standard for Apple now. They’ve also made the odd choice of not putting in either an SD card slot or USB which would have come in handy with the new cameras. Apple has, in all fairness, listened to the complaints made by their many fans. When I say complaints, I mean the stifled yelps of a few while everyone else leisurely mashes more shit biscuits, courtesy of Apple Labs, into their pale faces.

If you’re really serious about getting a tablet then at least take a look at the Android alternatives, even if it is only a cursory glance. The Motorola Xoom is expensive but, with 4G, pretty future proof, the LG Optimus pad is nice, as is Samsung Tab 2. Alternatively, you can pick up tablets which run full versions of Windows 7 for about £300 off eBay. I’m yet to try them but they don’t look half bad for the price. If, like me, you’re feeling really adventurous, then maybe even take a look at Notion Ink’s ADAM tablet. Whatever you do, don’t just stumble towards the glorious white Apple and give them even more money. Trust me, they have enough.

THIS app brings the ultimate website for any film or television fan into portable form. IMDb stands for the Internet Movie Database, if you were not already aware, and gives you access to any information you want on any film or television programme, including ratings, running times, information on the cast and crew, and even allows you the option to watch a trailer.

The app also includes up to date news from the industry, recent box office results and listings for films at your local cinema. The fact that this app is completely free is beyond belief; with such a vast array of information available at your fingertips on a sleek, easy to navigate menu, this app really is astonishing and a must have for all iPhone users, not just movie fans.

By Edward Gammie

MacBook Pro gets overhaul APPLE'S high end notebook line, the MacBook Pro, recently received its facelift. This high-spec version of the popular MacBook now packs the latest Intel technology; dual-core i-5 and i-7 processors, meaning that "all models are up to twice as fast," Apple claims.

Further changes include the introduction of "Thunderbolt." This new connection tech claims to be able to transfer "a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds."

Prices start from a casual £999.

By Jonathan Frost

By Philippa Grafton

toshop, will set you back a jaw-dropping £600, Adobe also offers a simplified version in Photoshop Elements at far more reasonable £53.79 for students. Elements offers a respectable range of tools needed for photo-editing; enough to help photographers at any level.

Furthermore, the internet has provided aspiring photographers with a platform to share images and seek ad-

vice. Websites such as Flickr and DeviantArt allow users to share images whilst also offering the chance to receive comments and criticism from other members, whether they are more, less or equally experienced. Readily available tutorials and forums have also helped to open up the photography industry. Whether you have the most obscure homemade pinhole camera or simply a compact digital there will be someone online who is willing to help with your dilemmas.

Clearly the age-old idea that photography is a niche hobby is out-dated. Technological advances and drops in price now mean that quality photography is more open to us all, and less impeded by budget.

The widening appeal of photography can only benefit the field as a new influx of talent is born, keeping photography fresh and creative.

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LET'S SALSA!

Emma Walker on why every student should strut their Latino stuff... of rum from around the world.

Revs also offers lessons at reasonable prices (ÂŁ4 with an NUS card) for anyone wanting to pick up the basics, and the night itself is free, so this makes for a cheap alternative night out.

The only Latin bar and restaurant in York; BoBo Lobo, just off Stonegate is also well worth checking out, and offers some of the best Cuban cocktails and Latin-inspired food to be found in town. BoBo LoBo puts on weekly Salsa, Samba and Reggaeton nights with "York's very own DJ Chris". Although the food is a little pricey, the 2-4-1 cocktail offer on weeknights make it more student-friendly.

Although Salsa isn't the most likely choice for a student night out, it's definitely worth a try and makes a fun and unusual alternative to the standard YUSU nights. Who knows, you may even become a fan!

Confessions of a York Student

I

n our house we routinely run out of toilet paper and we end up holding it in until eventually someone pops to Spar. A few weeks ago I was chatting to my female housemates about the noloo-roll situation and they revealed that, when times were desperate, they had resorted to using make-up remover wipes.

Last week, in the middle of the night, I drunkenly found my way to the toilet only to realise, too late, that we had run out of paper again. I spotted a packet of wipes sitting on the cistern and, remembering the conversation with my housemates, used a few. Unfortunately, in my drunken state I failed to notice that the wipes were not make-up remover, but instead were bleach cloths for cleaning the toilet.

My housemates will never let me forget my mistake. On the plus side, the rash has almost disappeared!

ANONYMOUS Think you have a better story? Email us (anonymously) at scene@yorkvision.co.uk

I

Anna Field on why she's proud to be a York student

have to admit that when I started at York I didn't expect much in the way of nightlife. My friends at other universities find it strange that all the students head to the same clubs on the same nights, and with the DJ in Ziggy's announcing that it would be 'staying open until the later time of 2.30' (wild!) a night out in York clearly does not prevent you from getting your beauty sleep. Unless you're a fan of prawn crackers.

So a few weeks ago I abandoned York, and ventured to what my friend referred to as 'the dodgy end of Manchester' for an event called 'Take the Whole Cake'. Tickets were completely sold out in advance and, despite spending the whole afternoon combing Facebook for a spare, the taxi had already pulled up by the time my Manchester contingent were able to find me one. Spread over three floors 'Take the Whole Cake' is a monthly event that plays a range of music including Bassline, Breaks, Drum n' Bass, Dubstep, Electro, Electronica, Funky House, Garage, Grime, Hard House, Hip

Hop and House. It plays host to many up and coming artists, as well as headliners such as Flux Pavilion, Sigma and Ed Solo. We

danced like crazy people, and finally called it a night at about 4am when the pain in our feet got too much to bear.

But here's my second confession. I actually prefer York.

Soundcontrol was packed, but not in a sweaty, laughable way like Ziggy's. Instead, in the basement room, there wasn't even room to jig about on the spot, and big, scary boys started shoving other people across the dancefloor. The DJ had to stop the music and calm everyone down. The

anonymity was exciting at first but soon I found myself searching for familiar faces and wondering where Derwent was. And people in Manchester are just a little bit too cool. My friends and I were throwing our arms around, but it was slightly intimidating being surrounded by hundreds of people calmly rocking backward and forth to the Drum and Bass beats.

Drinks were expensive and, with funds running low, we were on the tap water for the last couple of hours; And with student housing so far from the city centre, taxis are essential.

Walking home via a takeaway is not really an option, so I had to settle for late night marmite on toast rather than my staple Efes.

I had an amazing night in Manchester, and with the big city only a short train ride away, I definitely recommend exploring nightlife outside YO1. But at the end of the day, I'm growing more appreciative of what York has to offer. I might be heading home at two in the morning, but I'm doing so with a box of cheesy chips in hand.

'Take the Whole Cake' is next at Soundcontrol Manchester on 18th March

COCKTAIL OF THE WEEK Espresso Martini

Photo: Jam esTphoto.co .uk

E

very self-respecting gap yah student who went anywhere near South America will be familiar with at least the basics of Salsa. For seven weeks of last summer in the clubs and bars of Cusco I developed a real love of this exciting, vibrant and exotic dance form, which so epitomises the colour and exuberance of Latin culture.

York, therefore, with its notoriously cheesy music scene seems a world apart. But as I've been discovering recently, if you look beyond the usual student favourites, there is a surprisingly vibrant Salsa scene.

The newly re-launched Revs seems an unusual champion of all things Latin, but its 'Revolucion De Cuba' room upstairs now offers the "best Salsa party in York". 'LoveLatino' on a Thursday night is definitely the pick of the bunch when it comes to Salsa nights, and its Cuban inspired bar offers fifty different varieties

YORK IS BEST

FANC y DRESS OF THE W E

EK

FANCY SEEING Y OURSELF HERE? Send your fancy dr ess phot to nightlife@yo rkvision.co.uok

Pour vodka and Kahlua, creme de cacao and espresso into a cocktail shaker with ice.

Shake well.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

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20 QUESTIONS

Polarsets

Interview by Jaime Riley What advice would you give to students about making it in the music industry?

Work on your songs. Write more songs. Find your sound and take it to extremes. Nothing is ever finished.

Manage yourself. Use short sentences.

Do you think where you’ve come from has influenced your music?

Lyrically yeah. Musically no. Newcastle has a really diverse sound at the moment and everyone is just doing their own thing.

Being from Newcastle, are you associated with other Newcastle bands?

Not really no. There are loads of bands from the North that we’re all big fans of but no real ‘associations’. There aren’t many other bands around here making music like us, maybe that’s why. Outcasts.

How would you describe your style?

Floating melodies. Dirty Synths. Imported Rhythms.

What do you think of the music

scene in Newcastle?

It’s stronger now than it’s ever been.

Hopefully some bands from the current crop will break through to the national scene.

Do you think it’s growing?

The talent is there. There are loads of venues and studios now. It’s been a long underrated area musically. The world’s loss.

What’s your best festival story?

Last year we played the Wickerman festival up in Scotland. Tony Christie twoc’d our keyboard stand. Clepto.

Also, Mickey [guitarist] got chatting to the lead singer of The Charlatans (not knowing who he was) and asked him why he was there.

Where do you seek your inspiration?

Just anything that hits a nerve really.

Films, books, songs. Everyday experiences, out of the ordinary experiences. Moving around.

You seem to enjoy using cow bells in your music… where did that come from?

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Polarsets are a three piece from Whitley Bay, a seaside town just outside of Newcastle. Taking influences from synth riffs, electronic beats and tight guitar hooks, Polarsets are very good at getting songs into your head.

Their singles ‘Leave Argentina’ and ‘Just Don’t Open Your Eyes Yet‘ are available online. www.polarsets.com We love Latin music so a lot of the percussive arrangements are derived from that. Got to have cow bell.

Can bands make it without a label today?

It’s nigh on impossible to achieve chart success sans label.

So, do you think it's necessary to have one?

The shift in music consumption has taken control away from the majors and given independent labels a bigger foot hold. Even still it’s the bigger independents that chart.

Is it all about chart position, though?

No, it's not all about charting. If you can build a fan base who love your music and play killer live shows then you can do it professionally. You don’t need a label for that anymore.

What's your opinion of Spotify?

None of us use it so no great opinions.

Generally positive.

Will your EPs be going up on Spotify?

Yeah they probably will, people are

welcome to listen to our music on it.

Why should students buy your EP over others?

It will make you feel happy and better about yourself.

What’s the best lyric you’ve ever heard?

"She told me she was going back into using again, I said wait first try this hallucinogen", or "Richard you haven’t really changed I said, it’s just that now you’re romanticising some pain that’s in your head".

Which new artists are really doing it for you right now?

The Naked and Famous. Unicorn Kid. Local Natives. Is Tropical.

When are you next on tour?

April and May. We’re in York at The Duchess on May 1st.

Where’s the most special place you’ve played?

York. Obvs.

Vision or Nouse?

Vision!

PICKS OF THE WEEK Scenesters Scene Editor Jaime Riley Music Editors Edward Francis Stephen Barbagiannis Deputy Music Amy Beecher Josh Brill Film Editors Will Haydon Rachel Pronger Deputy Film Alysia Judge Thomas Martin TV Editors Nicola Chapman Dean Knapper Deputy TV Morgan Collins Rebecca Ojumu Books Editors George Osborne Jasmine Tarmey Technology Editor Jonathan Frost Nightlife Editors Emma Walker Ellie Wallis Deputy Nightlife Anna Field

WEDNESDAY 16

ONGOING

TUESDAY 19

THE HEARTBREAKS

DAVID HOCKNEY

SHAPPI KHORSANDI & JON RICHARDSON

FIBBERS, 7.30pm £6

YORK ART GALLERY

Through romanticism, boredom and fun, Manchester via Morecambe brilliant fizzy-poppers The Heartbreaks are producing elegant British seven-inch pop, full of lovelorn bluster and jilted hopes. There are obvious influences , The Smiths and Orange Juice for example, but a musical glow around their rosy cheeks combined with the knack for a great story will keep them relevant for some time to come.

David Hockney's painting Bigger Trees Near Warter, on loan from Tate, is the largest painting the artist has ever produced and measures 40 x 15 feet (12 x 4 metres).

Featuring two copses, a huge sycamore tree, buildings and early flowering daffodils, the painting comprises of 50 individual canvas panels and takes inspiration from a site at Warter in the Yorkshire Wolds.

Painted en plein air (outside) in six weeks, the artist used digital technology to help him complete the painting, creating a computer mosaic of the picture which enabled him to 'step back' and see it as a whole.

York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm £7 NUS

One of the hottest comedy prospects in the country, Shappi is feisty, flirty and effortlessly funny handling every subject with a razor sharp wit.

Meanwhile, 'It’s Not Me, It’s You' sees everyone’s favourite young grumpy man, Jon Richardson, return to the stage. Embracing his misanthropy, the show features the best bits from his sold out, critically acclaimed Edinburgh show Don’t Happy Be Worry as well as some brand new material.

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News...

Getting his teeth into it HAVING STAMPED his mark on films such as Se7en and The Social Network through his soundtrack work, Oscar-winning Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor is looking to further his involvement in the film industry with a role in the upcoming schlockbuster Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Directed by Wanted helmer Timur Bekmambetov, Reznor will take on the role of the vampire that spurs the President into vampireslaying by killing his mother, a project which will surface shortly after he finishes work on soundtracking David Fincher’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake.

Though representing an intriguing new direction for Reznor, acting will remain very much a second priority for the industrial altrocker, who recently claimed to be focusing on his revived career with Nine Inch Nails. Here's hoping he can tuck into some more roles when he has time.

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EDWARD FRANCIS reveals all the latest news and gossip from the music industry

BEADY "AYE"!

STEPPING OUT of the formidable shadow cast by brother Noel and under a more focused, perhaps harsher spotlight, Liam Gallagher lead his new band Beady Eye through their first ever live gig last week in Glasgow.

Comprising of the remaining core members of Oasis and formed in the aftermath of the elder Gallagher’s departure, the band have worked up an arsenal of tracks such as The Roller and The Morning Stone to deploy on the live circuit and used them to win over the raucous crowd. Ahead of his

THIS live success, Vision applauds the cryptic nature of Liam’s lyrics - we’re particularly struggling to figure out who “he’s in my soul/ he’s even in my rock and roll” is referencing.

(We’re not).

MURPHY CALLS OUT TOUTS EUPHORIC RECEPTION of the news of a farewell gig planned for LCD Soundsystem on the 2nd of April at New York’s Madison Square Garden venue has been overshadowed by the revelation that the show’s rapid sellout had been the result of the activities of touts, who are now permitted to use the website StubHub to resell the tickets at inflated prices of up to $35,000.

Reacting to the complaints of thousands of disappointed fans, frontman James Murphy invited the website’s hosts to “eat sh*t”, adding that “I pretty much guarantee that ‘fans’ are pricing these tickets”. As a means of recompensating fans, the dance-punk

band have added a number of extra dates running up to their final ever performance; in light of Murphy’s reaction to the problems with the April gig, touts are presumably advised for the sake of their own safety to keep away from tickets to these shows.

TOWERING ACHEIVEMENT BIT OF A curio, this one. Track down the video for N-Trance's club classic Set You Free, skip to around 50 seconds in and... yep, that's Clifford's Tower she's excitedly jigging about in front of. The Tower, a swift Wiki search tells us, was first built in 1068 and was used as a prison as late as 1929. Since N-Trance graced it with their presence, however, nothing more exciting than a few drunk freshers rolling down the hill seems to have transpired...

"IT WAS LIKE A CRIMSON MASK..."

EDWARD FRANCIS TALKS TO YORK POST-HARDCORE OUTFIT TOMORROW WE RADIO ABOUT THEIR EXCITING, OCCASIONALLY BLOODY PATH TO FAME...

I

f a band’s eligibility to find success was judged solely on the way they give interviews, then York-based post-hardcore band Tomorrow We Radio should have really conquered the UK already. Throughout the hour I spent talking to bassist Michael Robson and guitarist Lee Raisbeck, formal questioning was almost immediately abandoned in favour of relaxed conversation which gave me more insight into the band’s plans than my prepared list of questions could have ever got me.

This is not to say, however, that by the more official criteria of quality of music, Tomorrow We Radio should be seen as any less deserving of popularity. Formed close to home in the members’ local Darlington, the band’s polished and melodic, yet raw and aggressive sound draws upon left-field influences such as such as Hell Is For Heroes and Hundred Reasons and has already won them support slots with punk up-and-comers Failsafe as well as with InMe’s Dave McPherson.

Despite these considerable early breakthroughs the band remain realistic in their intentions. Despite the fact that, as Raisbeck claims, “if we wanted to put out an album, we could probably put out two or three” purely with the material the band already have prepared, the band have decided to hold off from releasing anything more lengthy than singles or EPs until their their emerging fanbase has fully developed.

Taking into account recent gig experiences, it appears that Tomorrow We Radio are already beginning to win over their target market. In slots such as their recent

support gig for The Proxies, the band have been exposed to younger listeners who, as Robson points out “can’t buy beer, so that’s it - they’re there to see the band. This is what I love”. The energy of these audiences have gifted the band with their most successful gigs so far, although, as both note, the intensity of these performances has occasionally become problematic. Robson reflects on the time when “during the Proxies gig one of the kids was leaning on the barrier, reached out, grabbed a string and snapped it clean off.”

On-stage mishaps haven't been limited just to unwanted interventions from fans, anecdotes involving the cameramen filming Tomorrow We Radio's gigs receiving head wounds from guitar swings ("There was blood everywhere. It was like a crimson mask. I did forgive him in the end for cracking my guitar though.") and an incident involving eight pints of water getting spilled across the stage ("it basically turned into an ice rink") are picked out one by one from the band's more eventful live performances. These experiences only seem to exist as fond memories however for a group who seem to be loving every minute of sounding out the art of performing at bigger and bigger venues.

All that's needed now is for even bigger bands to take heed and give Tomorrow We Radio the break they've really earned.

Tomorrow We Radio's debut release 'Sunlight EP' is out now and available at tomorrowweradio.bandcamp.com.

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WHAT THE WHISPERERS SAY ABOUT HER...

JOSH BRILL finds out what's making 'Pack Up' starlet Eliza Doolittle tick at the moment....

E

liza Doolittle seems like a very happy girl.

Having conquered the airwaves last year with mega-singles 'Pack Up' and 'Skinny Genes', the Camden-based starlet has seen her career progress from early gigs playing at secondary schools on the "Playground Unplugged" tour to world tours that have recently taken her as far as Amsterdam (described as her "best gigs ever"), it's not really hard to imagine why that could be.

Behind all this, she's been even more fortunate in getting herself signed to a record label that allows her a serious degree of creative control; as she herself claims, "they know that people don't buy into fake manufactured shit any more. I've never had any trouble creatively, I've been able to express myself".

Even though she's spent much of last year playing at festivals throughout the UK, she's not let the chance to play in front of huge crowds let her

lose sight of where she prefers to be when it comes to performing. "Nothing beats an intimate setting for a gig", she claims, as "the atmosphere will al-

ways be better when you can reach out and touch your audience. I like to play with mine!" Indeed, being sure that her fans are having a good time seems to be the most important element of any

live show for Eliza: "The audience is definitely a huge factor. You're feeding off each other's energy. If the energy is great from me, then they give me back energy and vice versa... Gosh, reading that back I sound like a hippy!" Given that Eliza is the daughter of two veteran thespians, it's not a stretch to guess why exactly she still takes the reactions of the punters seriously.

After last year's success, Eliza seems to be happy just cruising through tours and getting the most out of the material she's already released. When pressed for details on her future plans, she claims: "always got ideas bubbling! I don't know exactly what its going to be yet but hopefully you'll hear something soon!" Seeing how satisfied and carefree she seems at the moment, however, it's not hard to imagine that upbeat, summery tracks will remain the lynchpin of her sound for the foreseeable future.

Picks of the Week...

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so easy to find footage of a skateboarding dog, a surprised cat, or a man attempting to jump his motorbike over a hedge. But it would be a misservice to the site if we didn't pay some respect to the incredible music videos and live

LISTINGS

SINGLES Edward Francis and stephen barbagiannis review the latest releases...

LADYTRON - Ace of HZ

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adytron are back with this latest offering which you may be already accustomed with from FIFA 11. It is what you would expect from the Liverpool outfit - heavy synth and bass-lines between two part female vocals that lack somewhat in spark. The singles lyrics are overly repetitive and are accompanied by a rather uninspiring, recurring melody that unfortunately will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Tinie tempah feat. ellie goulding wonderman

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Vision 's Youtube ere at Vision, there's nothing we like more than procrastinating our way through seminar reading, an essay, or production weekend, by browsing the best and the beautiful of Youtube. Never before has it been

NIGHTLIFE

performance footage that is also kicking around in its massive archive. So next time you just can't take another six minute clip of Family Guy, take a peak at some of these; Vision's guide to the best of Youtube's musical clips.

inie Tempah offers us another insight into his tough rise to stardom, with the subtly named 'Wonderman'. He teams up with Ellie Goulding on this latest offering, using her fragile vocals to describe how the 'chosen one' calls his name. Tinie blends elements of rap, rock, electronica and dance to produce a sound that will surely be a popular hit with his fans. A particular highlight of the single is when he tells us "my uncle used to drink a can of kestrel when life got stressful".

patrick wolf the city Eddie Vedder & Johnny Depp Keywords: Society Live

Ludovico Einaudi Keywords: Divenire Einaudi

This video teams one of the most famous rock voices with a world famous actor to great effect. The song is taken from the soundtrack of 'Into the Wild' which Vedder worked on. Depp's role in the performance is talisman as much as anything, however he is more than capable of playing the guitar.

Ludovico Einaudi is a contemporary composer and pianist, and this performance shows exactly what is good about his music. The layers of strings accompanying his intricate melody are exceptional and how the song works to a crescendo with several changes of tempo.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Keywords: Maybe Slane Castle This shows John Frusciante's explosive dynamism as a performer, with this cover of the Chantels' song. Although his guitar playing is kept relatively simple, his spell-binding and unique voice carries off the performance very well.

The Janice Graham Band Keywords: Janice Graham Robbery The Janice Graham Band are a ska group with a great sound, and this performance demonstrates just that.

Their playing is tight and energetic led by a charismatic frontman, and helped along by interesting rhythms and a few burst from the trumpet.

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arefully timed just as Winter turns into Spring and sunny, feel good tracks start coming back into demand, Patrick Wolf's second single off new album Lupercalia is a breezy, upbeat pop single reflecting the brighter nature of the London-born singersongwriter's output in recent years. Encompassing the diverse range of instruments that characterizes Wolf's back catalogue, including a brass section, 'The City' tumbles unintrusively out of the radio and straight into your brain, growing more and more addictive with every listen. Put another way, the track is perfect diet-pop- satisfying, organic and certainly better for you than a lot of what's in the charts at the moment for you. Speaking of which...

alexis jordan good girl

A Arcade Fire Keywords: Neon Bible Elevator A brilliantly creative take on one of the band's quieter and more introspective baroque pop tracks, magazineripping percussion is the highlight of this performance which sees all of the members of Arcade Fire crammed into an elevator battling each other for armroom.

fter the unrelenting mess of brown, featureless noise that was Alexis Jordan's ironically depressing debut antisong 'Happiness', I expected that things could only get better with her next few releases. Such naivety was duly punished upon first listen of this equally drab, equally uninspired, equally repetitive slab of pseudo-90s rubbish, which sees nearly 4 minutes of buildup and absolutely no sort of resolution or climax,with lyrics that could have been copy-pasted from any single ever released by any female pop artist at any point in the past two decades. Good girl perhaps, but abysmal songwriter, certainly.

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Albums...

Elbow

build a rocket boys!

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s much as I hate to admit it, poetry isn’t really my thing. It is rare that I appreciate stanzas as more than black ink on white paper, or manage to look beyond contrived literary imagery.

But Guy Garvey’s poetic illustrations of the everyday never fail to evoke memories, images and emotion somewhere within me that I didn’t quite know existed.

After the success of Mercury awarded album The Seldom Seen Kid, some worried that Elbow would follow other award winning artists and end up with nothing more to sing about but popularity, paparazzi, and the trouble of new-found fame. Luckily the

five piece have remained as grounded as ever, continuing to tell blushingly intimate stories of their past from their understated corner of Manchester.

Build A Rocket Boys! turns away from the sorrow and darkness of The Seldom Seen Kid, moving instead towards fond recollections of adolescence and tales of “stealing booze and hour long hungry kisses.” Garvey’s lyrics still strike a resounding chord with the everyday experiences of the common man; ‘Jesus is a Rochdale Girl’ beautifully narrates moving in with a significant other, as ‘The Night Will Always Win’ gives an honest recount of the silliness and trivialities of early romance. The lively ‘With Love’ shimmers with amusing drunken lamentations such as "I’d give my liver to see you," whilst in ‘Lippy Kids’, Garvey elucidates the lives of hoodies on street corners.

Elbow’s charm lies in painting the mundaneness of everyday into a portrait of beauty and wonder, transforming small details into striking nostalgia and Build a Rocket Boys! remains testament to this skill. It’s a less hungry album, more contemplative and reflective. The five piece have, yet again, made an album able to soothe yet swell the soul; their contagious melancholy conjuring a sense of euphoria amongst listeners, as they are drawn by Garvey into reminiscing on times gone by.

JAIME RILEY

Noah and the Whale Last Night on Earth

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oah and the Whale are one of those rare bands who seem to be able to evolve constantly. Dodging the difficult second album curse, their 2009 offering was a heart-wrenchingly melancholy, orchestral ode to the breakdown of lead singer Charlie Fink’s relationship with fellow new folk artist Laura Marling. Their new release, Last Night on Earth, which combines this with a new electronic, synth-based sound, is further proof of their ability to take a new direction whilst retaining all their best features.

Fink has described the new album as being “about the unlimited possibilities of the night-time, and the excitement and freedom within that” and this certainly shows: it’s absolutely saturated with an overwhelming sense of optimism. 'Give It All Back', with its lyrics about dreams of playing rock’n’roll, shows the band’s youthful idealism still firmly intact three albums later, whilst the opening track 'Life is Life' combines this with its new darker, more mature sound.

The first single released from the album, 'L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.', makes use of Fink’s conversational lyricism, recalling Jamie T’s 'Sheila' in its urban story-telling style. Tracks such as 'Just Before We Met' most

resemble previous albums, capturing the band’s warm sound with big multi-textured choruses and intimate lyrics. 'Old Joy', the beautiful finale, is slow, melancholy and largely based on its huge choral backingechoes of much older influences mixed with bittersweet synths.

At the risk of sounding sycophantic, this is a truly striking album, that immediately made me smile and impressed me on further listens. With their so far inexhaustible capacity for reinvention, the only question is where Noah and the Whale will go next.

AMY BEECHER

Claire Maguire Last Dance

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dds are, you will already have been exposed to Clare Maguire’s 'The Last Dance'. The singer-songwriter from Birmingham, who left school at 17 to pursue her musical aspirations, has been occupying the dreaded advert spot on Spotify for a while now.

Just 22, she has been subject to more than her fair share of hype recently after gaining the fifth spot on the BBC’s Sound of 2011.

I have done my utmost to listen to leading single ''The Last Dance' without prejudice; however, unfortunately, it still fails to impress.

Though Maguire undoubtedly has a powerful voice, overall the impression the track leaves is unoriginal and tired, as are the lyrics. Her impressive set of lungs are not used to their best effect, the unsuitable electronic production forcing the vocals to alternate the unremarkable with harsh unvarying high notes in which the effort sounds evident. A similar effect is present in 'You’re Electric'.

However, another burgeoning sound present in the album seems much more appropriate. Tracks

such as 'Ain’t Nobody' are much better, delivering a modern update on an older sound. Here her raw emotional voice is given the leading role, and similarities to Hurts, whom she has previously supported, are evident in the way in which the darker electronic backing used to good effect without drowning her undeniable talent in anonymous beats. 'Freedom' is another winner, with a softer piano-based feel again allowing her voice to shine, as is the strings-based 'This Is Not The End', in which Maguire’s vocal tone seems somewhat reminiscent of Enya.

Overall as a debut, this album is promising but mixed– perhaps the effort of a young artist who is yet to find her niche.

AMY BEECHER

Mogwai

Hardcore Will never die, but you will

Before you've even slipped a Mogwai album into your CD tray for the first listen, you know that you can depend on two things to feature- witty titles, and fuzzy guitars that are overdriven to a point where they sound both raw and lush all at once. Both of these two constants from the band's catalogue are carried over for Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Willwitness the shredded majesty of 'You're Lionel Ritchie' and the titular hilarity of 'George Square Thatcher Death Party'.

Features that were less anticipatable, however, are the piano and synth that form the pure heart of the album around which the dirty, shoegazey distortion coils like a cobra. On tracks such as 'Letters To The Metro' and 'How To Be A Werewolf',soothing chords set to undulating jazz drums break up an album otherwise characterized by hissing guitars and rumbling bass. On other songs, including 'Mexian Gran Prix', a nice balance is struck which matches shimmering organ with a growling low-end sound, an approach which fuses beauty with bloodstirring excitement.

All of these additions represent a huge leap forward for the band and pro-

vides a great deal of depth to the album.

This is not to say, however, that Mogwai have lost sight of their influences at all'San Pedro' is a thrilling three-and-a-half minute Sonic Youth-style instrumental workout with sprawling guitar soundscapes fitting loosely around a pounding beat. The tendency of the album to take the simplest of chords and work them over for long periods of time from softer, measured passages into hysterical frenzies also strongly recalls a Disintegration-era the Cure.

Despite the echoes of other music the band remain totally original across the album and sound like little else you'll hear at the moment. For an almost entirely lyric-free work, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is surprisingly easy to pick up and listen to over and over again, perfect as a complete piece and as a collection of solid, tight tracks, and thus can be held up as essential listening for this month.

ED FRANCIS

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A TALE WORTH TELLING

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Ed Francis'

RACHEL PRONGER enters the fantastical, uplifting and tragic world of The Mummers

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hen listening to Mink Hollow Road, the latest release from The Mummers, melancholy is probably the last word that comes to mind. It is a sumptuous, sensual swoon of an album, all swirling strings and ebbing woodwind, with the sort of fantastical lyrics that have rendered comparisons with Lewis Carroll an occupational hazard. Yet, despite initial impressions, this is the work of a band still recovering from tragedy. In September 2009, only months after the release of the band's début album Tale To Tell, band member and arranger Mark Horwood committed suicide.

It was, understandably a devastating blow from which the band are still recovering, but, as singer/songwriter Raissa Khan-Panni explains, continuing their signature sound was part of keeping his memory alive. "After Mark died I did write a lot of direct lyrics and very simple angsty songs as a kind of therapy. But after a while I thought this isn't what The

Mummers is about. We started the band as a way to make people - us - happy, and take them out of ordinary life. So that is how we used music again, to cheer us up."

Instead of moody piano ballads or electro dissonance, Mink Hollow Road offers us a sound that is in many ways more fanciful than its predecessor. As Kahn-Panni explains, "we wanted it to be more uplifting and joyous than before and were influenced by MGM musicals of the 40s and 50s, Nelson Riddle's string arrangements for the Rat Pack, John Barry's film music." With such a rich array of cited influences and the others that instantly spring to mind - Bjork in Raissa's delicate vocals, Guillemots and Arcade Fire in the sheer orchestral ambition - it is unsurprising that Kahn-Panni herself describes their unabashed polyphony as "a motor pile-up of melody".

The story of the Mummers begins long before their acclaimed début. KhanPanni was raised in south London and spent her childhood studying classical music, playing the piano and the oboe.

In her early teens she was bunking off school to busk, and from these precocious beginnings she went on to busk around Europe before studying Music at Bristol University. By 2000 she appeared to have arrived; she was signed to Polydor, her first album Believer was widely acclaimed and her single 'How Long Do I Get' received extensive airplay.

Yet by 2001 this promise appeared to collapse and Khan-Panni found herself waitressing full time in a Brixton restaurant. Such a fall from grace must have been difficult, but when I ask whether she ever considered giving up on music Khan-Panni is upbeat: "I've had amazing times and hard times... but I've never thought of giving up. When I was dropped from my label all those years ago, it inspired me to go and collaborate with underground beats and sounds which was

an exciting challenge at the time, plus I knew something better was to come..."

Khan-Panni's instinct was proved right when her former collaborator Paul Sandrone passed one of her recordings to orchestral composer Mark Horwood. He gave it an orchestral arrangement and, although it took more than a year for Khan-Panni and Horwood to meet, the seed for The Mummers was planted. The trio collaborated to create Tale to Tell, the band's name inspired by their everchanging line up of musicians. The resulting recording is opulent and escapist in the best possible way, like an evening on the waltzers or an MGM spectacular.

Even in the years of limbo KhanPanni never stopped writing, composing lyrics in her head whilst waiting tables.

Unsurprisingly she cites "big orchestral music, such as Mahler, my favourite composer, the weather, certain movies and musicals, Rickie Lee Jones..." as inspiration, but she admits she has to block out reality to write, an interesting reflection on the groups famously escapist quality. I wonder if she dislikes the labels of "fantasy" and childlike" that are so often applied, but she remains sanguine. "I don't really see myself as childlike... I don't think I could have written this stuff when I was younger. It is escapist, yes, but we still have dreams as adults, they are just more complex".

This last point seems especially valid. Although fantasy is often perceived as childish, nostalgia is a peculiarly adult concept. When I ask Kahn-Panni what she thinks of the current scene she is tactful but admits "I do think British music needs to be shaken up... for someone to do something really big and daring."

Listening to The Mummers on a rainy afternoon I can't help if Khan-Panni and her ensemble might just provide that breath of fresh air we so desperately need.

DIVIDED THEY STAND? ED FRANCIS examines whether parting with members and changing lineups can be the best step forward for bands

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t the end of last month, Interpol bassist Dave Pajo (formerly of Slint, Zwan and Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame) announced that he would be parting with the group after just five months of touring. Pajo himself was originally hired as a replacement for former bassist Carlos Dengler, who himself departed last September - from a casual observer’s point of view, one can only imagine that the band are currently struggling to settle into a comfortable mould and get a consistent creative process going. Is it fair to assume, however, that the band’s ability to put out good music will suffer?

Arguably, the most obvious answer would be 'yes'. Looking back at the history of music, all of the bands widely considered to be the most influential and consistently, seminally brilliant from The Beatles to Blink-182 all held down a consistent hardcore lineup of members who grew so tight together that the quality of the music never seemed to really flag.

Even more significantly, it could be argued that by contrast, bands directed by one or two key members who simply adopt the ‘revolving door’ approach to

supporting musicians are often associated with a drying up of ideas and a steady loss of credibility. With the departure of Slash from Guns ‘N' Roses and the taking on of a bizarrely eclectic group of members to fill the gap, the band has, in the eyes of most, descended from the pedestal of one of the most important generations to the unenviable position of a laughingstock outfit fronted by a ruddy-faced, washed-up egomaniac. Similarly, the ‘reformation’ of Smashing Pumpkins by frontman Billy Corgan in 2007 which saw only he and the band’s former drummer coming back together was widely seen as a cash-in move for an artist unwilling to leave the limelight while he had a few years of touring left in him.

Look a little more closely, however, and this impulsive point of view can be dismissed with closer attention to the bands that have actually benefitted from the occasional refreshment of their lineup. During the middle stage of their career, Red Hot Chili Pepper’s substitution of John Frusciante for Dave Navarro and back produced some differences in sound between albums that broadened

the band’s appeal and helped to firm their reputation for being one of the most diverse bands still touring today. Similarly, the constant chopping and changing in the makeup of Nick Cave’s band The Bad Seeds can only be considered to have been it’s greatest strength. In giving a number of incredible musicians from Mick Harvey to Blixa Bargeld to Warren Ellis a chance to bring something new to the band, Cave has managed to retain a sound that is at once consistently brilliant and yet fresh and unique from album to album. The same regenerative power in working with new collaborators can be seen in David Byrne's more recent interpretations of Talking Heads songs live, which have contributed to his being labelled a 'musician's musician'.

It is thus arguably a complete fallacy to imagine that the occasional tinkering with a band’s lineup should implicitly be seen as a negative move. As long as the very essence of any group’s sound remains intact, a little change would arguably never hurt anyone- just as long as no attempts are made to find the new Kurt.

BITCH W

hy, why, why oh why won’t McFly just die now? Every time over the past few years the jackboot of demographic change hovers over them ready to stamp them out once and for all, they’ve displayed a pathogen-like ability to mutate and adapt into new, ever-more repugnant guises in order to stay just about relevant enough to sell records.

The first thing I want to use this unstructured rant to do is to dispel, once and for all, the myth that McFly emerged in the early 2000s simply as the new Busted, neatly filling the void left by the splitting up of That One That’s Now In Fightstar’s first project. Though far be it from me to defend the work of quiffed, mantanned boybands as some kind of high art form, I do still feel that everything Busted did they did with a keen sense of wit and irony- the lyrics to ‘Year 3000’, when analysed carefully (ahem…) are a surprisingly thought-through mishmash of pop culture and 80s film references.

No such subtlety would ever be found in a McFly song, the usual template for which involves sets of horrifying clichés slathered in whingeing tones over chords.

From the outset of their career, it appears to me that the band set out to see how close to the musical equivalent of the colour beige they could get in peddling the most generic, aimless output I’ve ever heard.

Five or six years ago, you could justifiably have called me up on these points by crying: “but they’re a kids band, it’s not meant to be deep!” This defence, however, no longer holds up- as mentioned at the start, rather than doing the decent thing and got started on their barista training as their fans hit puberty, McFly have simply evolved over and over, going from The Pop Phase into The Guitar Phase and now into The Synth Phase in order to match the demands of their fans.

The rather awkward result is that now a bunch of adult men have to marry ‘edgy’ Taio Cruz-abetted dance music with their older output when playing live- and in a world in which a thousand Usher–alikes have sprung up to sell boring dance pop, what room could there possibly be for one who can do dodgy ballads for kids too?

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Jamie Woon Cockpit, Leeds

The Naked and Famous

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Fibbers, York

y the time The Naked and Famous get around to pounding their way through a rendition of mega-single ‘Punching In a Dream’ two songs into their set at Fibbers, two things are already abundantly clear to me- firstly, Alisa Xayalith’s strong, soaring voice, which gives all the hooks on the New Zealand up-and-comers new album their bite, sounds exactly like it does on the record. Secondly, I’m not going to be able to hear very much of it without straining my ears through layers of very, very loud keyboards.

Once again, a classic Fibbers sound tech

01/03/11 mix-up slightly short sold the band performing, leaving the vocal melodies and harmonies between Xayalith and other singer Thom Powers integral to the band’s sound slightly thin sounding under the instrumentation. Ignoring this, however, there was still much to find exciting in The Naked and Famous’ brand of shoegaze-y electro popwith MGMT and Passion Pit currently serving as the main comparisons in the press at the moment, the band actually came across as a more thoughtful The Big Pink, marrying leather-clad machismo and crunching, fuzzy guitars with the delicate keyboards and catchy hooks of indie electro pop.

All of this made addictive material for a crowd who chanted, clapped and danced along to every track. Though on-stage banter was kept to a bare minimum and Powers appeared to come close to a sense of humour failure when a gobby fan requested the closing song again for the encore, The Naked and Famous seemed content to get their audience eating out of their hand with their music, an approach which seems to work just fine for now.

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he night begins with Ghostpoet, a more than competent support artist. Thoughtful, sometimes witty rhymes are backed with a sampler as well as a live guitarist and drummer, who creates some very interesting rhythms to drive the songs on.

The night has almost sold out by the time Jamie Woon is due to perform despite him not having yet released an album and there is an atmosphere of anticipation. He begins the show with an acapella rendition of 'Wayfaring Stranger' using a loop pedal to mix beats with different melodies to create a full bodied sound; a bold statement that he pulls off well.

The song sets a precedent for the rest of the gig, and Woon is joined by

03/03/11 the rest of the band which his voice fronts just as effortlessly. Woon seems far more comfortable performing his material than interacting with the crowd, his stage presence being understated and at times between songs almost awkward.

The set is fluid with little time wasted between songs, most of which are new from his upcoming record Mirrorwriting. After the opening tracks, the audience's attention drifts slightly as some of the mid-set songs lack hooks for a live show environment as the focus lies in the vocal melodies and some songs get a little lost. The show soon got back on track with a strong finish before an encore of his new single Lady Luck and Spirits which he leaves his band to play out while he leaves the stage.

STEPHEN BARBAGIANNIS

ED FRANCIS

Fibbers, York

Wild Palms

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ild Palms are very much undiscovered. Rocking up to Fibbers with a few friends on a Wednesday night we were confronted by the odd sight of an almost deserted room - and at the front, giving their all, Wild Palms.

This north London five-piece fare set to play the Camden Crawl along with rising talents such as Japanese Voyeurs and Johnny Foreigner later this year, and it’s this scene that they fit neatly into, with gigs lined up at venues such as KOKO and their debut album launch shortly to take place at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen.

Showcasing a varied mix of musical influences, Wild Palms moved from songs such as Deep Dive, the spiky guitars and jaunty upbeat choruses of which recalled bands such as Bombay

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KUNT AND THE GANG 02/03/11

Bicycle Club, whilst many other tracks made use of atmospheric melodies providing the backdrop for the beautiful soaring vocals of lead singer Lou Hill having previously toured with Florence & The Machine, it’s easy to see where the similarities lie. Despite having to perform to an almost empty room, the band performed with intensity and idiosyncratic style, the attractively eccentric dance moves of Hill being a case in point.

The last track Calvacade was adapted to live performance with the addition of two extra drums, turning it into a powerful crescendo of a closer.

Though signs of discouragement may have begun to creep into the demeanour of some band members, we still didn’t want Wild Palms' set to end - although being thanked personally by one of the band members for coming was some consolation!

All in all, Wild Palms’ big sound deserved a better response, and with an upcoming tour supporting Cold War Kids in addition to the Camden Crawl slot, exposure should be just around the corner.

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SE MUST

AMY BEECHER

Stereo, York

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f you’d been looking for some kind of stimulus to sing gloriously childish and foul lyrics at the top of your voice in public and generally make like you’re 15 again, then Kunt and the Gang at Stereo was the place to be last month, where a casually offensive and compelling show provided probably the best entertainment some of the audience had had in a very, very long time.

An Essex-based comedy musician who smashes a hole in the bottom of barrel and scrapes underneath for material, Kunt's music is so filthy you can't help but feel disgusting yourself just for putting it on.

Rattling through some of the classics of his back catalogue, including ‘Let’s Have a W*** For England’, ‘Arranged Bride’ and ‘Men With Beards’, Kunt and his ‘gang’ (which consists of a hand puppet with his face on) was on his usual mission to alienate and upset absolutely everyone and have a ton of fun doing it. From this point of view the gig was unmissable- the chance to see a grown man defecate all over taste with lyrics like “it’s like a shower but over the sink, the only thing that gets a wash is shiny and pink” comes along once in a lifetime.

How I wanted to give

27/02/11 this event the 'Vision Must See' tag for this month. Sadly, considering that the gig can only just be considered on the right side of the line between music and novelty/comedy, and because it wasn't by any sort of conventional standards very good, I just can't bring myself to give Kunt the recognition ahead of the proper musicians in this section.

All this considered, however, you can’t not admire a man who managed to write a song so horrendously titled that the name can’t really even be printed in censored form here and somehow get it reviewed as best of the week in NME. That about sums up everything about Kunt as well as his live performances- world-class filth.

ED FRANCIS

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MUSIC

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EVERYTHING EVERYTHING JAIME RILEY talks to the electronica foursome taking the music scene by storm... onathan Higgs, frontman of Everything Everything, considers his music “magical”, asserting that their debut album sounds like a release by “Harry Potter’s favourite band”. The eclectic Man Alive was released last year and received critical acclaim from a whole range of sources, which is unsurprising considering its stylistic make-up. When asked if the band ever have to tone down their musical amalgamations, Higgs explains: “We simplify some crazy sh*t! We feel it’d be a bit too much of a meal to watch us play the whole album live. We’re trying to make the next one full of dazzling moments alongside moments of real maturity… be a bit more laid back and not worry about filling every second with a new idea.

Letting things breathe a bit more.”

And there’s no doubt that the foursome will take relief in this new found respite after their successes during 2010. After making it onto the BBC Sound Poll 2010, Everything Everything were snapped up

by Geffen Records and released their first track, ‘Schoolin’, which has been described as sounding like “an iPod on shuffle”.

Make of that what you will.

“Being on the poll didn’t really mean anything at first, but in hindsight we owe a lot to the BBC. We just thought 'Oh, that’s nice, it’s a list', but as the year went on, we found it coming up again and again and again. Particularly when we went abroad and they didn’t know anything about us, but they’d still say ‘the BBC list!’ We thought, what’s going on? This is huge around the whole world.”

Things continued to progress for the band as they were nominated for an NME award earlier this year.

“The ceremony wasn’t really what I

expected. It wasn’t like it looks on TV, it was just a succession of people wandering up to the stage and saying stuff and then wandering off again. It wasn’t very magical really, I don’t know what I expected. But when Dave Grohl, the teenage hero of pretty much everyone our age, was just wandering through the crowd with his guitar and playing in front of us, we just thought, what the hell’s going on? This doesn’t feel real at all!”

Higgs is also the director of the group’s surreal music videos, explaining: “I made a couple of films at uni, then when I left, we started the band and I thought ‘we’ll need some videos’. So I gave it a shot myself and somehow it worked. When we got signed and had a budget, we thought we’d try using professional people, but to be honest, I think we much prefer the ones we did ourselves. We make them ourselves again, now.”

He also expresses his slight quibbles with their promo photos: “We kind of look like trannies on those pictures, we have so much make up on and there’s so much Photoshop!”

‘Photoshop Handsome’ is often cited as the band’s best single, after its release in 2009. The lyrics talk of inorganic photoshopping and almost attacks the photographic industry with lyrics such as “Airbrush! What have you done with my landscape? Flooding the fields with this clone shape?” and “my teeth dazzle like an igloo wall”.

However, Everything Everything’s attitude towards the mainstream is much the same as many other bands’ and music fans’, who delight in the somewhat sexy glimmer in the lack of commercialism.

“I don’t care about commercialism

much anymore, if you’d asked me when I was 17 and I’d have been like, “f*ck major labels, f*ck radio!” I don’t feel the opposite to that anymore but I don’t care where we’re placed within mainstream or otherwise, as long as we stick to our own music and our own beliefs then I don’t really care where we are or what people think of us.

To be false is the worst thing you can be.”

"If you’re making music and you put it online, then you’re a band, and you don’t make any money. We make music, it goes online, we don’t really make any money!"

Similar is Higgs’ belief of the big four.

“To try to make it without a label is more possible than ever, but there are so many bands around nowadays. The line between being in a band and being in a professional band is pretty hazy - if you’re making music and you put it online, then you’re a band and you don’t make any money. We make music, it goes online, we don’t really make any money! It’s much more in the hands of the people now, like it used to be before the invention of record labels.”

The Northumberland-born singer is also in favour of consumers paying for downloads, despite their liberty to listen to music for free.

“Spotify is great to use, but sucks if

you’re a band. I can’t complain because I was a prolific downloader in my teens and it’s great to have free music at your fingertips. The money that the bands aren’t getting, they probably wouldn’t get anyway now, so overall, it’s probably good for music. Lots of bands are staying alive now due to exposure. But my opinion is, pay for it!

Though if you don’t, listen to the adverts.”

It’s a fair claim, though the singer makes it clear that he doesn’t expect music consumption to remain the way it is. After a brief discussion of Radiohead’s method of releasing EPs, he soon moves on to talk about his idols.

“I guess I realised that particularly Radiohead and Muse were using falsetto a lot and I liked the sound of it. I tried to do it early on and it slowly developed into this weird thing of moving between falsetto and not falsetto, sort of due to my inability more than anything. I got better at that until it turned into a new style for us and now we can’t do anything else, it’s our style.”

Though sure of the band’s style, Higgs depicts his willingness to move towards spontaneity during the recording process after the slightly more rigid approach during Man Alive.

“We’re in the middle of writing at the moment and we’re trying to be a bit more free with stuff. There is the still usual mixture of laptop demos and riffs but we’re trying to be a bit more collaborative as, rather than The Demon Headmaster just bringing in something that we must play!

That’s me of course. Yeah, we are getting better at being more spontaneous. We went through our latest single in the studio and we ended up writing something really successful there and then.”

‘Final Form’ is out April 4.

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TECHNOLOGY

NIGHTLIFE

LISTINGS

FILM WILL HAYDON GETS MEDIEVAL L ast week saw the release of Ironclad, a thirteenth-century epic set during King John's reign, depicting the monarch's two-month siege of Rochester Castle (I've seen Rochester Castle - not worth the effort). It's a good watch, if you're into that sort of thing - people being sliced in half, Paul Giamatti shouting, lots of people on fire - but it's not exactly an original theme. The film is part of a long line of medieval romps, a genre that became popular in the '50s with the big-screen adaption of Ivanhoe, but has really been around since the beginning of cinema.

Setting a film in the Dark Ages must be an alluring prospect for any director - no other era can combine the bloodiest of battles with heart-wrenching romance, all the while accompanied by healthy dollops of blokeish humour and staunchly rebellious attitudes. Having your film in any other time period will undoubtedly mess with this winning formula. Beowulf, released in 2007, did not translate to film - its AngloSaxon setting lent itself a little too much to the noisy battle scenes and not so much to the chivalry of the medieval ages (two wives? Why not?). The Early Modern era was, on the other hand, quite enlightened and civilised - hardly fruitful ground for gruesome battle-scenes.

Braveheart is the prime specimen of medieval films. As well as being a staple Man Film, it was a critical success, winning five Oscars. It's easy to see its appeal - it has battle scenes in spades, two love-interests (occurring at respectably separate time periods, take note Beowulf), and plenty of medieval-style lad antics (although the male nudity may deter some of the more manly viewers). It's also technically brilliant - two of those Oscars were for Cinematography and Sound Editing.

It's safe to say that any sort of film representation of the Middle Ages made since Braveheart will be a direct descendant of the film, and because of this, it's never really been bettered within its genre. Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, released last year, was a clever, well-made film - but its lack of a strong, clearly formed anti-establishment undertone meant it just didn't pack the same punch as Braveheart. The only way film-makers can get out from under Mel Gibson's shadow is to move the goalposts: the closest any film has come to matching his representation of medieval irreverence is the 2001 romcom A Knight's Tale, a film loose with historical accuracy but with a clear, well-executed purpose.

So how does Ironclad fit in with this canon? It's actually quite experimental.

Rather than attempt an imitation of the classics of its genre, it underplays the romance and focuses instead on the battle elements. The film is a much-needed step away from the typical cinematic representation of the Dark Ages, towards something more uncompromisingly realistic.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

SARAH GREEN explores how budget pictures hold their own against Hollywood heavyweights

T

he recession has not hampered our passion for cinema. Box office takings in 2009/2010 remained buoyant despite the collective belt-tightening. Despite the cutbacks, recent blockbusters Inception and Avatar are rumoured to have had production costs of $180million and $500million respectively. While big-budget films are clearly of value, what can we learn from low budget successes? What do films such as Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity have to teach us about film-making in cash-strapped times?

With the UK Film Council in the cutback firing line, a level of uncertainty regarding funding for low- to mid-budget films in the UK is a persistent issue. The biggest obstacle low-budget films face is that, irrespective of any critical acclaim or accolades, they tend to slip under the radar due to a smaller marketing budget. Andrea Arnold's 2009 drama Fish Tank is a clear example of

If you liked

T

he Adjustment Bureau is a flimsy but entertaining piece of sci-fi. It's harmless, stylish and boasts at its centre a warm love story. However, if it's science fiction with a touch of romance that you're after, then you'd be much wiser to save your cinema admission and track down a cult classic. Brazil is, in my humble opinion, Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Featuring the director's trademark wit and visual inventiveness, the film is set in a totalitarian dystopia, largely run by unreliable machines. Just as The Adjustment Bureau is about a man fighting against the establishment, Brazil is a slapstick 1984, following the struggles of a bumbling everyman at the mercy of the system.

Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level government employee who distracts himself from his monotonous job by losing himself in daydreams about a beautiful woman (Kim Greist). When a printing error leads to the imprisonment

how marketing can be everything. The film received a warm critical reception which was topped off when it won the Jury Prize at Cannes and Best British Film at the BAFTAs - yet it made just under ÂŁ600,000 at the UK box-office. So, is it possible to utilise a small marketing budget and still compete with the big boys?

There have been clear examples in recent years of low-budget pictures that have managed to employ effective marketing techniques within meagre means.

Some low-budget films gain momentum by using the internet to go viral. The 2008 American disaster-movie Cloverfield famously utilised a fictional Japanese drink, "Slusho" (previously seen in TV series Alias and the latest Star Trek film) and created a fake website to tie in with the brand. Various sources have debated whether this was or wasn't official policy, but it was nevertheless effective in generating online awareness and a buzz that clearly helped the film at the box office.

However, the most obvious example of how clever marketing doesn't necessarily need a big budget is from more than a decade ago. The Blair Witch Project, released in 1999, grossed just under $250 million world-wide, despite only costing approximately $25,000 to produce. As a result, this low-key, semi-improvised American horror is considered one of the most successful films ever, based on cost and profitable return. Primarily marketed on the internet, the studio used trailers and narratives

Dir. George Nolfi Co

to encourage the illusion that the film was based on a real event. This influenced unofficial websites to do likewise, consequently causing an online buzz and blurring the boundaries between a real and artificial event. Despite online marketing being seen as surplus at the time and secondary to more established outlets, it is now widely utilised by modern day lowbudget films such as Paranormal Activity.

Following the trail blazed by The Blair Witch Project was 2007 horror Paranormal Activity, similarly shot with camcorders, and constructed to look like real life. In Italy there were numerous reports and ambulance call-outs due to the raw, believable nature of this supernatural film. Costing $11,000 to make, it made over $193 million world-wide at the box-office. The film's success was helped

by Paramount, who gave film-goers the opportunity to request that Paranormal Activity be played in their local cinema.

All three of these low-budget movies employed effective marketing ploys, but most importantly remembered that a movie does not need A-List actors/ cameos, expansive special effects and a huge marketing budget. Sometimes, a stripped-down, raw and 'real' movie is what audiences really want. Patronising a low budget flick is hugely satisfying for many cinema fans, involving them in a modern-day David and Goliath story, and frankly sticking two fingers up at indulgent and bloated Hollywood blockbusters.

, you should watch

and death of Mr. Buttle, an innocent man wrongly confused with a terrorist, Lowry is sent to meet Buttle's widow. In Buttle's flat, Lowry meets Jill, a neighbour, who is coincidentally the same woman that he has been dreaming about. When Jill herself becomes a terrorist suspect, Sam realises he must use his government connections to save her from the authorities.

The plot is surreal, with the bewildered protagonist serving as a foil to the grotesques he encounters, from Robert De Niro's dashing terrorist Tuttle, to Sam's monstrous, surgery addicted mother Ida (Katherine Helmond) and her sinister surgeon Dr. Jaffe (Jim Broadbent). What really makes Brazil work, however, is Gilliam's trademark imagery. The whizzing, whirring machines that underlie this cruel regime could be straight out of a more surreal Monty Python sketch. In fact, Michael Palin himself makes a surprising appearance as Lowry's torturer friend, genial in his free time but a manic

Dir. Terry Gilliam

psychopath at work. This dark portrayal of a world in which people mindlessly serve their own pointless machinery is contrasted with the bright and airy fantasy sequences in which Lowry dreams he is a futuristic Icarus, sprouting wings to rescue a damsel in distress.

This contrast gives what could have been a funny but cold film, a humane warmth. For all Lowry's daydreams, his attempts at heroics only end in disaster.

As much as he wishes otherwise, Lowry is not especially unique or brave, but instead has become part of the unthinking majority, enabling the very bureaucracy that he despises. While The Adjustment Bureau seems to conclude that it is possible for one man to defeat the system, Gilliam's conclusion is much bleaker. For all its playfulness, it is the film's unsettling final scenes and twist ending that linger long after the closing credits.

RACHEL PRONGER

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RANGO

F

rom the opening sequence, in which a quartet of singing Mexican owls advised me to enjoy my "low-calorie popcorn" (a little rich considering I could feel my arteries clogging already), I realised Johnny Depp's latest film Rango was going to be an altogether different experience to the generic threedimensional family fare that has been churned out by the Hollywood machine in recent months.

For a start, Gore Verbinski's film is not even in 3D and, in all honesty, I did not mourn the absence of the headacheinducing glasses. The colour, detail and rich texture of the desert speak for themselves, without having to draw in the audience by slapping on glasses that would not look out of place in Gok Wan's garish Specsaver range.

The story follows domesticated lizard Rango (Johnny Depp) who, after his tank falls off the back of the truck on the desert highway, swaps his Hawaiian shirt for spurs, as he unwittingly becomes sheriff of the backwater western town Dirt. However, in this town, oddly reminiscent of the eponymous one in the classic Chinatown, water is currency and with drought scorching its ram-

The Adjustment Bureau Dir. George Nolfi

B

ased on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi, is an intriguing blend of romance, sci-fi and thriller, combining to create a modern take on the typical love story.

David Norris (Matt Damon) is a spirited politician heading towards the White House until pictures of his wild side are revealed. His popularity drops and as he prepares his defeat speech, he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a fiery British ballet dancer, in the bathroom. Damon and Elise's chemistry is as electric as the chase scenes, and a powerful relationship is formed.

Yet it is the Adjustment Bureau, the fedora-clad controllers of fate who have different plans. Having already planned a future in which Elise and David are not together, these master manipulators tell Norris that if he remains with Elise, he will risk their dreams of rising to the top of their careers. Norris is left to fight fate itself and prove that free will and love can conquer all.

Sometimes, moments of potentially gripping suspense become a little flat and predictable, yet the romance is the main feature that shines through and a highly optimistic conclusion is drawn as Harry Mitchell (Anthony Mackie) claims, "one day we won't write the plan, you will."

ARJUN KHARPAL

Animal Kingdom

West Is West

est Is West is Andy De Emmony's follow up to the 1998 comedy-drama East is East, and, as is so often the case, this lacklustre sequel fails to live up to the original.

The story follows imposing father George Khan (Om Puri) and his youngest son Sajid (Aqib Khan) on a trip to Pakistan, where George hopes his son will learn to embrace his roots, which were so angrily rejected by his elder sons in the previous film.

East Is East worked by focusing on the tension between a father desperately determined to raise his children in a traditional Islamic manner, and his children rebelling against him. Unfortunately this sequel lacks such focus as it introduces too many storylines and plot-twists. Authenticity is swapped for sentimentality and as a result the film fails to pack the same emotional punch as its predecessor. Even the wit that characterised the first film is curiously missing; instead the jokes feel forced, and disjointed from the drama.

To its credit, West Is West is an aesthetically pleasing picture, thanks to beautiful scenery and music throughout which allows the audience to become immersed in Pakistani culture.

But ultimately the film fails to replicate the humour, drama and charm that made East Is East such a hit.

LISTINGS

Dir. Gore Verbinski

(think along the lines of the crawling rocks/crabs in the third movie).

Despite this, what makes Rango so successful is its ability to mix childish fun with darker undertones such as the struggle to assert one's own identity and the corruption of authority. One minute we are laughing as Rango struggles to camouflage himself in a sweet wrapper as a hawk inserts coins into a vending machine, the next we are moved as our chief protagonist questions his position in society. It allows the story of a lizard lost in the desert to transcend 'family film' and become something much more special.

All in all, Rango is a roaring success.

The acting is sharp, the effects sharper; the only let-down is Verbinski's tendency to drag out the plot one reel too far. The pacing occasionally lags, and if you're not a natural Wild West fan, this film may not be your cup of cactus juice. Saying that, the brilliance of Rango's presentation, from the stunning score to the breathtaking animation, makes this a must-see, and well worth the clogging of my arteries with Vue's infamous "low-calorie" popcorn.

Dir. Andy De Emmony

STEPHEN PUDDICOMBE

NIGHTLIFE

Johnny Depp's wild west animation may not be in "eyepopping 3D" but ALYSIA JUDGE is still impressed.

shackle saloon bars, Dirt's inhabitants resort to desperate measures to get their claws and paws on "agua".

Filmed using "emotion capture" rather than the clinical motion capture that most animated movies utilise nowadays, Rango presents vibrant and believable performances from the cast, based around scenes the actors physically enacted. The result is a larger-than-life extravaganza packed with genuinely compelling characters, narrative suspense and some of the best animation seen on the big screen to date.

Verbinski's creation boasts a cast as studded with stars as Rango's sheriff's badge, alongside the vocal talents of Bill Nighy (as gun slinging Rattlesnake Jake) and Isla Fisher (as lizard love-interest Beans). Indeed, with the reunion of Pirates of the Carribean trio Verbinski, Depp and Nighy, at times I felt like I was sitting in a remake of the Disney classic, though with Captain Sparrow looking distinctly more scaly. As a result, Rango presents characters as endearing as Will Turner but like Verbinski's trilogy, has the tendency to baffle the audience with scenes that are visually stunning, but can stretch the limit of strangeness

W

TECHNOLOGY

Dir. David Michôd

I

t’s three hours since the credits rolled on David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom and I’m beginning to think my nerves will never recover. It’s been a long time since I last saw a film so tense that I had to remind myself to breathe.

Set in '80s Melbourne, Animal Kingdom opens with the impassive Joshua calmly watching a game show next to his mother who, it soon transpires, has just died from a heroin overdose. After the paramedics remove the body, Joshua calls his estranged grandmother Janine Cody, a reptilian matriarch with a penchant for uncomfortably long kisses with her ‘boys’. Janine brings Joshua into her household where he plays an integral role in the crime family's nail-biting destruction.

The film is beautifully shot, with hand-held cameras immersing the audience into the gripping narrative.

Such cinematography, combined with a haunting soundtrack, often creates unbearable tension.

Michôd’s Australian cast deliver brilliant, intensely natural performances. There are some standouts, however, such as the deservedly Oscarnominated Jackie Weaver (Janine) and Ben Mendelsohn as the psychopathic ‘Pope’, whose glassy stare and strange delivery leave the viewer seriously unnerved.

A story of revenge, betrayal and family, the stunning twists of Animal Kingdom will leave you breathless.

A must-see.

Casablanca VISITED RE

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine" - Rick Blaine Casablanca, released in 1942, is one of the most famous romances of all time. The tale of two former lovers (played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman), who find themselves reunited by chance in sleazy Second World War Casablanca but are torn apart by a greater duty, is a heart breaking and infinitely quotable classic.

But - did you know...?

•

TEJA PISK • •

The character of Sam was originally intended to be female. At one point, Ella Fitzgerald was considered for the role.

Many of the shadows seen in the film were actually painted onto the set.

Bogart's famous line "here's looking at you, kid" was actually an adlib.