Daft Punk Baby!

I went to Paris on Monday to talk to Daft Punk (one of them is very hot, who knew!) for a documentary I'm producing for BBC Radio 1. The show is going to air in November and I'm going to pimp it everywhere when it does. But for now put November 22 in your diaries! As we weren't allowed to film the guys, I spent Sunday trying to recreate their helmets (in shonky format) to film some video content around Paris in them. The content is ridiculous. But here is the photo of the helmets in action, modelled by my lovely housemates and giggled at by Daft Punk on Monday. Amazing.

The Secret Handshake

The Secret Handshake is Luis Dubac, and he's kind of what would happen if Calvin Harris was American and felt a bit more emo. I'm not quite decided whether this is good or not but it's certainly a bit interesting. His new single is called Summer of '98 and it's taken from the album One Full Year which came out in America last week. The vocoder on this track is quite grating, and I think it maybe works a bit better on "Midnight Movie" which you can hear on myspace.





Obviously, as with every American act that perks up our interest, they played in the UK in August and currently have no plans to return >:(.

The mind of Enrique

I'd often like to know what runs through the mind of Enrique Iglesias. To all intent and purpose you'd probably think he was just a normal, bland popstar, but there's something a bit odder about this one we think. Did you see any of his Berlin Live Earth performance? If you did, you'd be thinking along the same lines as us.

Anyway, Enrique unintentionally causes amusement whenever we have to interview him for work. Here are two outtakes from an interview we did with him this week:

What is your new single about?

What's the most embarassing thing that's ever happened to you?

Genius. I can't wait to see him at Wembley.

Operator Please

Operator Please are this year's Grates. Well they are in the sense of being Australian, having loud shouty music and possibly only one good song. That's a bit harsh on The Grates, but their first single "19 20 20" did show massive promise and wasn't followed by anything that great. They did tell me they liked my beads though so I like them.

Operator Please are also quite like what we already know (and it's about 3 lines) Manchester's seemingly amazing Tigerpicks who released the impossibly brilliant and guaranteed floorfiller "Disco Punk Electro Funk" earlier in the year. They're alike because they both like bright colours in their videos (maybe it's the same director), their songs are bursting with energy and zest and they all look about 14.

I don't know what the rest of their stuff sounds like really, and I'm not sure whether to go and see them live next week at the Astoria. But I think I will. I like bands who look like they're having fun.

Kanye West - Good Life

So once again Kanye left an MTV awards show empty handed and surprise surprise, he was not happy at all. His video's keep getting better and better though, and now after getting the hump after Justice "stole" the best video prize for "We Are Your Friends" last year, he's hired Ed Banger art director So Me, the very man he stole the mic of at the EMA's, to do his new video. The song is "Good Life" which samples Michael Jackson's PYT and features T Pain. He's sampled Daft Punk and now is working with So Me - is Kanye West becoming Ed Banger's bitch?

Undescribable

This is absolutely amazing. Props to producer of the year for finding it. So, it's from 2006, but who cares! Where's Grovski though?

Northern State - Better Already

Blogging has slowed to a standstill as I move house and am, until Tuesday, internetless (the open connection seems to have disappeared :( ).

I've not heard of Northern State before, but I just watched this video via Stereogum and quite like it. It's quirky rap-prock (er pop/rock), the type of thing that we'd play at Miss-Shapes, so it's not that surprising to find out that some of their stuff is produced by Beastie Boy Adam Horowvitz (who's married to Le Tigre's Kathleen Hanna). Northern State are Spero, Sprout and Hesta Prynn, and they've been knocking about since 2002. They were signed to Columbia for a short while, but left the label after disagreements. Their 3rd album Can I Keep This Pen? was released this week on an independant label in America and it by the sounds of their myspace page it's something to try to hear in full.