Bitch Is the New Black

Laura Marling article

There's some pretty good articles on Laura Marling this week, since her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim came out on Monday. I took the picture to the left during the ICA show and it captures her on-stage demeanor pretty well.

Here's the article in full or you can read it at the London Paper here.

"I can't stand being compared to these people because the only thing we have in common is we're female and we're young."

So says 18-year-old Berkshire singer Laura Marling of her contemporaries, the likes of Lily, Amy, Duffy and Adele. "I hope people don't only want to hear my music because I'm a female songwriter, that's just lame," she snipes.

With an obsession for female singers not seen in the UK since a toothsome Vera Lynn won the nation's heart, there's a chance the subtle charms of Marling may be lost in the bluster of competitive foghornery from Adele etc, or the tabloid tribulations of Misses Allen and Winehouse. This would be a shame. What Marling is offering is something less obvious but equally satisfying.

Alas I Cannot Swim is a gently rocking boat of melancholy folk and dreamlike pop with an uplifting jangle.

For such a young talent, she has a voice of grave character and the gentle storytelling ability of Suzanne Vega, layered with lyrical morsels such as, "He wants to die in a lake in Geneva, where the mountains cover the shape of his nose" on the entrancing My Manic And I.

"It's meant to be one continuous sound – it's very much a sad sound in a way, although there are some happier songs on there," she says.

A far cry from the confident high-kicking stage school brigade, Marling is on the shy side. She wishes she'd chosen a "nom de chant" like Bat For Lashes ("It gives you much more freedom and it's a better way of keeping anonymous.")

She doesn't like giving interviews, either: "I'm not really very talky and I've got this huge paranoia that I'm the least funny person ever."

She also seems a bit paranoid when I bring up her age. "I'm not a knobhead teenager," she assures me, as if I were about to chastise her for alcopop consumption.

I merely mean to enquire whether her job, at her age, increases certain anxieties and as it happens, I hit the nail on the head: "I'm quite an anxious person and I suffer quite badly from panic attacks. When I'm on stage, I'm pretty much concentrating that my heart doesn't fall out of my chest."

She has another surprising confession. "I don't really go out. Sad as that must sound and – this is bad –I don't like being the focus of attention. I don't wear make-up when I do gigs, I don't want to be the pretty little girl. Because my music is not clean-cut and perfect so why should I be?"

"Because it sells records," I want to counter, but she knows that and at 18, she's got time to change her mind.

Noah and the Whale + Pull Tiger Tail @ ICA

I posted this on my other blog, but since I would write about Noah and the Whale here as well, I thought copy+paste would be a bit easier on me...

I saw Noah and the Whale at the ICA near Trafalgar Square and I have to say, the ICA is a hidden gem of a venue. I was right up there at the stage (I took the picture to the left) and although it was sold out, it had the intimacy and electric vibe of the 9:30 Club without the crushing crowd that sometimes encroaches my personal space.

We arrived promptly at 7:30, but decided to hit the pub and wait it out for a little while. After a pint of Kronenbourg and healthy conversation at a really spacious pub near Westminster, we headed back to ICA.

Noah and the Whale came out dressed in blues and yellows. They fit the stylistic bill for many indie acts these days, but their sound set them apart. In one song I hadn't heard before, the fiddle came in with a riff similar to the one in "Sweet Child O Mine" and got everyone bumping and clapping. The bassist had a full-time job playing the xylophone (or something similar) and harmonium in addition to his bass. Laura Marling shook the shit out of the egg shaker but was still a little timid. With her new haircut, fresh from last Monday's in-store, she still won me over, but I wish she'd realize how good she is and come out of her shell. They played... around seven songs including "Five Years Time," "Jocasta," "Rocks and Daggers," "Mary," "Give a Little Love," two or three others I didn't know, and an encore cover of The Smith's "Girlfriend In A Coma." All of their live versions had more energy and momentum than their recorded versions, but that's saying a lot since their recorded stuff is great. Look for their songs on Hype Machine.

These guys deserve to get famous immediately. And also... I want a cd. So far, they've only released two singles on vinyl. Bah. All I know is I've found myself a new favorite band. Catch these guys at SXSW for anyone going.

I've already talked a lot about Noah and the Whale, so let's talk about the opener Pull Tiger Tail. These guys from Shakespeare's own Stratford-upon-Avon made me regret my decision to spend the majority of their set drinking beer at a pub. I was glad I caught a bit of their stuff and I'll be hunting down some mp3s on the internet. Until then, here's some YouTube videos of my favorite Pull Tiger Tail songs performed. Here's "Animator" and "Let's Lightening." Their live performances are pretty true to the recorded version so see if you like them. Enjoy.

Bald Inspiration

While waiting weeks for my hair dye to come in so i could get rid of the nasty blondy-orange streak i was rocking, I began to contemplate shaving my head. For those of you that know me...this is something i contemplate every so often. I was asking my sister if she would do it with me and of course she refused, so I was stuck waiting for the hair dye. So the dye finally came in and my streak has returned to the bluish-purple greatness that it was originally!! This is all very exciting but i still want to shave my head, which got me thinking about how much I love Sinead O'Conner. Let's face it...she's awesome. I was watching vh1 the other day and she was on a one hit wonder show for Nothing Compares to You. I didn't think she was considered a one hit wonder, cause she has a lot of good songs and I thought she was popular for a while. Anyway...this song is awesome and I thoroughly enjoy that the God figure is black and that Sinead takes off her wig and displays her beautiful baldness...If i could pull it off like Sinead i totally would! Maybe some day I will
So enjoy...

Soulja Boy 182

My illicit past with Blink 182's music is widely known, so it is with great pleasure that I post this Travis Barker remix of Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat."



Say what you want about him, but he always manages to look damn cool while drumming. The high arms, how he throws his head into every beat, etc.

This remix appears in Nike + Apple's 30-minute jogging workouts. Go cross promotion! Pretty smart idea. The playlist is "designed to build speed and endurance." So ch-ch-check it out. Now if only I was a runner...