Tell me this isn’t a mighty fine lineup!

Har Mar Superstar, “The coolest man in the world” according to NME, is the latest addition to the superb Mighty Boosh Festival line-up. Har Mar’s unique brand of lewd R’n'B and electroclash is a perfect fitting to this summer’s coolest looking festival bill. His downright sexy stage performances (most of which are performed in his underpants) showcase not only Har Mar’s breakdancing and exuberant stage presence, but also his genuine musical and songwriting ability.

London’s electro punksters, Robots In Disguise have also jumped on the Boosh Festival bandwagon, taking place at Hop Farm in Kent on the 5th July. Sue Denim and Dee Plume are high on the Mighty Boosh wish list and will bring their hi-octane blend of punk and electronic beats to the festival. Already a firm favourite among the trendy set, Robots In Disguise have amassed a loyal fan following through blogs, word of mouth and some insanely infectious sounding tunes. The duo’s third album, We’re In The Music Biz, released to rave reviews earlier this year, has finally cemented the band as serious contenders, ready for global domination.

Joining them on the main stage, aptly titled, Monkey Hell, will be fellow luminaries The Charlatans, Gary Numan, The Kills, Peaches, White Denim and Polar Bear.

Three new acts have just been added to the Mighty Boosh comedy tent ‘The Velvet Onion’. Perrier Award Nominee Tim Key, up and coming comedian Paul Sinha and Canadian comic Tony Law join an already stellar line-up which includes multi award-winning international cult comic Ross Noble, critically acclaimed Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle, plus Matt Holness (Garth Marenghi), Arj Barker (Flight of the Conchords), Greg Fleet, Mark Watson (If.Comedy Award WINNER), Josie Long (If.Comedy Award WINNER) , Paul Foot and Robin Ince (The Book Club).

Of course, no Mighty Boosh festival would be complete without a performance from the boys themselves. They will headline the day’s events with a comedy extravaganza on the main stage.

Says Noel Fielding “The line up is finally coming together with all our favourite bands and comic friends. We can’t wait; it is going to be a blast!”

Further major acts to be announced shortly.

Tickets available here. More info can be found on the festival’s Myspace.

MP3: Gary Numan - Metal
MP3: Robots in Disguise - We’re in the Music Biz
MP3: The Kills - Last Day of Magic
MP3: Peaches - Downtown

- Mark

Stockholm’s Caesars will release their forthcoming album, Strawberry Weed, on August 19 via Astralwerks.

From Astralwerks: Strawberry Weed offers the sort of power pop that takes the raw rock and R&B rage of mid-60s The Who, The Kinks, and The Rolling Stones as its starting point and then adds a Red Bull-fuelled edge to create an infectious new brew. Caesars may wear their influences on their sleeves, but their sound is fully clothed in a modern, rebellious edge that turns its back on their idols with the energetic wit and bite of defiant teenage power pop and punk.

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I recently covered the excellent debut platter from Rotary Ten. Stephen and James from the band kindly answered some of my burning questions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo: Amy Bramall

You have been together quite a while as a band (2003). When did you first realise that it might be going somewhere?

I think we always wanted to take it a bit further than just playing to our mates in our home town every few weeks, we’ve always wanted to do an album and release stuff. We don’t really think in terms of ‘going somewhere’, I mean we feel lucky that we’re releasing an album, it’s an opportunity that most bands don’t get so we’re enjoying it and hopefully we’ll get to do another one. I guess whenever we write a song that we think is good or we play a good show then we feel really positive about it but equally there can be moments that make you think you’re going nowhere!

You have had some pretty awesome support slots who has been the most fun to hang out with?

Nearly all the bands we’ve played with have been really friendly and helpful to us, when we played with The Futureheads and British Sea Power we’d only been going a few months so it was good to get advice from bands that have been doing it a while. We played with a band called Super Tennis recently they were really good and really nice guys. There’s been a few bands that have been a bit aloof, and a couple that are just plain dickheads but I won’t name names…

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At some point in time, I really need to start thinking about compiling a mix of songs from the bands who make contributing to Rock Sellout a more pleasurable experience. One band who would definitely make the cut is The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. I’ve grown quite fond of the band since I was introduced to them. What does the band sound like? We’ll let our very own little Swiss Miss, Cecilia, tell you “Imagine The Ramones adding a soft-voiced sister to the band, and then going shoegaze. Sort of. Or just a couple of New Yorker’s having 16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens on repeat and deciding to make their own dreamy noise-pop. Either way, it’s really good.”

Kip Berman and the rest of The Pains recently took time to answer a few questions for us:

Give us a brief history of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart:
Kip: We formed last spring to play at Peggy’s (keyboards) birthday party. It was our first show, and it was this big warehouse party in Brooklyn with our friends The Manhattan Love Suicides (UK) and Titus Andronicus playing too. I don’t think most bands get to have such a fun first show, so we were fortunate and took it as a good omen. We also partied really hard, so I can’t quite remember the details, except that we played 5 songs, The Manhattan Love Suicides sounded like a fuzz pop apocalypse and Titus Andronicus played “Bulls on Parade” and blew up a bass amp. Which was awesome, except I soon realized it was my bass amp.

Alex: Kip and I were friends and would bond over various indiepop (and The Killers). He started writing songs and asked me to join the party. Peggy was a mutual friend who ruled (and liked the same music that ruled), so it was a natural fit. Kurt joined once we realized that having an amazing drummer would be better than basically doing Pains karaoke on stage with a drum machine.

Kurt: I still think the drum machine is better than me.

Peggy: What Asian mother didn’t make her kids take piano lessons at age 5? It’s a good way to meet nice Jewish boys.

More from The Pains after the jump…
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A perfectly layered, hypnotic and dizzying decent into the heart of darkness…

Track 9 (’Predict The Day’) of Ladytron’s latest album begins with a whistle strangely reminiscent of the theme to the X-Files. That seems appropriate to me, because Ladytron have always seemed like the soundtrack to the best supernatural thriller I’ve never seen. There’s this sort of extraordinary, otherwordly quality to everything they do. The kind of thing that might be playing in the background of a dinner party between Edgar Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft & Rod Serling while they all share a bottle of wine (perhaps a little macabre, but hey, so am I).

Point being, Ladytron faithfully continue their trip through the outer limits on Velocifero, their 4th album.

In fact, I don’t think I’d be too far off in saying this is their best, most cohesive work to date. It doesn’t feel as though anything here is filler or a musical interlude. Ladytron set out to conquer the world with this record, and I have no doubt they will succeed. As I listened, it honestly felt as though the band were raising the bar with every new song - and that is saying a lot for an album that starts out with a kicker like ‘Black Cat’. Every track is a standout, but ‘The Lovers’, ‘Tomorrow’, ‘Runaway’ & ‘Versus’ all stood out to me as particularly killer.

The production work by Alessandro Cortini & Vicarious Bliss, as well as the band itself, is outstanding. The mere fact that the band were able to keep its signature sound intact while amongst such distinctive producers is a feat. That being said, the band is clearly not trapped in any sort of creative doldrums. While this falls within the distinctive Ladytron ’sound’, it still manages to avoid being a repeat of their previous album, Witching Hour. Velocifero is probably the ‘heaviest’ of any Ladytron record, with every beat feeling as though it’s trying to crush you beneath it. Yet, somehow Helen & Mira sound at their warmest & most inviting here (not to mention they seem to be at their least filtered).

This is definitely what I’d call a ‘headphones record’ (though being the music lover I am, I tend to think most albums are better experienced through headphones), thanks in no small part to that excellent knob twiddling. Listening to Velocifero with a nice pair of ‘phones allows you to become completely immersed in the band’s world. Take the aforementioned ‘Predict The Day’ - there are so many elements, so many layers, that you don’t really experience the song until you can remove all distractions outside the track. There’s that whistle, of course, then Helen’s vocal, the synths, then the drums, another synth, then the dual guitar attack, another Helen vocal in the background, another synth…it’s like I was beseiged by a musical empire bent on sonic domination. An empire I was happy to submit to.

So what should all this mean to you? If you’ve been a Ladytron fan from the start, this will be another pleasant surprise in your journey with the band. If you’ve been reluctant to give Ladytron a chance up ’till now, Velocifero is a great opportunity to find out what you’ve been missing (Answer: A lot).

MP3: Ladytron - Ghosts

BUY: Digital
BUY: Physical

- Sean

PS - If you missed it, I did an interview with co-frontwoman Helen Marnie here.

I mentioned Laura Marling earlier this year when I posted about the Mystery Jets’ song that featured her, ‘Young Love’. It was a great track, and her voice was more than lovely, but it wasn’t exactly a showcase for her musical range.

Thankfully, Miss Marling will be putting our her own album - titled Alas I Cannot Swim - on August 18th courtesy of Astralwerks, which will allow us to hear all she is capable of. The album came out in the UK in February (curse those staggered release dates!), and is available digitally right now. You can also preview the album on her website.

Though she’s freshly out of the womb (she JUST turned 18 this year), her voice seems to reveal a much older soul behind those incredibly young eyes. She sings as though she’s experienced far more than she possibly could have. The truth is, I just can’t find a bad song on this thing.

Laura will be visiting US shores for two dates in New York in June. You can see her video for the combo single ‘Cross Your Fingers/Crawled Out of the Sea’ below, as well as a non-album track called ‘I’m a Fly’.

MP3: Laura Marling - I’m a Fly

- Sean

Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre may be coming to a close in the form of their US tour, but for those of you who missed the chance to sing ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ at the top of your lungs while watching Simon & the boys strut on stage, then you might be interested in this:

“Duran Duran has created an exclusive video podcast series that gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the band’s latest album Red Carpet Massacre, as well as a glimpse of the creative process surrounding the video “Falling Down.” In-studio footage with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland launches this week and will be featured on the front page of MSN Music. Additional podcasts are being released throughout the entire month of May with 4-5 new episodes featured each week. Exclusive backstage interview footage with Nick Rhodes captured by Zune prior to the band’s first U.S. tour date in Seattle will be rolling out in weekly installments as well.”

I had mentioned in my review of the show that Nick Rhodes was taking a ton of pictures during the band’s performance on May 5th - perhaps some of those pics might end up on the band’s website or even incorporated into a future podcast? At any rate, you can check out the podcasts on the band’s Zune page (http://www.zune.net/duranduran). I think you have to have the Zune software installed for that, but don’t take my word for it. The podcast is free, though.

Remaining US Tourdates:
May 27 Columbia, MD Merriweather Post Pavilion
May 28 Boston, MA Agganis Arena
May 30 New York, NY Central Park Summerstage
May 31 New York, NY Central Park Summerstage

MP3: Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf (Night Version)

- Sean

I mentioned in last week’s podcast that I thought The Ting Tings probably borrowed a bit from a Captain Sensible song for ‘Shut Up and Let Me Go’, but a lot of people have also mentioned to me that the song sounds similar to ‘Take Me Out’ by Franz Ferdinand. I’ve posted all 3 below so you can make up your own minds. Personally, even if they did pilfer from the aforementioned bands, I still love the song. It’s a perfect sugary-sweet pop treat.

Their album became digitally available one week ago, but the physical release in the States will be next Tuesday (June 3rd). Immediately following, the band will be embarking on a brief North American tour, including a stop at San Francisco’s legendary Popscene. They’ll be hitting our shores again in August when they play Lollapalooza.

MP3: The Ting Tings - Shut Up And Let Me Go
MP3: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
MP3: Captain Sensible - Wot!

- Sean

Redd Kross‘ Jeff McDonald recently took time to answer a few questions about the band’s forthcoming album. The effort will be their first release since 1997’s Show World. It will feature the legendary Neurotica lineup (Jeff McDonald: Vocals & Guitar, Steven McDonald: Bass, Roy McDonald: Drums, and Robert Hecker: Guitar).

Photo (Spain 2007): David Jimenez

How’s the new album coming along?!
The album’s coming along great! We started it last summer…did all of the basics and lead vocals very quickly, then throughout the winter we’ve been having a hard time scratching the time to do the overdubs. We’re doing it very slowly, everyone has other projects they’re working on. We have to actually start cramming. It’s the middle of May and we have some mix sessions booked, so hopefully we’ll get going on it soon and finish it.

Tell us what it’s sounding like.
I would say the record does encompass pretty much the whole scope of who we are. Just being fans of rock n roll music, rock history and music history it all ends up in our albums. Our albums have all been kind of conceptual in a sense that they are just this kind of collection of what goes on in our minds. I never really pay attention to what’s going on in any kind of movement or scene. I’m never really part of that kind of stuff when I’m writing…if it does happen, it’s an accident. I think there’s some total over-the-top pop moments, there’s some extremely garagey moments, there’s some pure pop moments (I hope). It’ll be really interesting to hear how it sounds all pieced together.

The majority of it I wrote and I wrote it very quickly just in a fit of inspiration. There are a couple of songs that we’ve had since the late 90s (there’s like two of them), I’m not going to say which ones they are…you’ll just have to guess.

Who’s behind the controls for the recording?
Well, actually Steven is. Steven’s been working a lot as a producer and engineer for the past few years. He’s made a lot of records. I’ve produced a couple of records, but he’s taken it very seriously and works all the time. So, he’s much more involved in the actual twiddling of the knobs. We really work very well together as far as taste and what’s right, what’s not right, and making decisions. If one person gets hung up on something the other one can usually knock it down or encourage it, whatever may be required. We work better together now than we ever have, so I think it’s pretty exciting.

Explain the writing process for the album.
It’s always across the board. I’m always surprised when I look at who wrote what when I look at our old records, because Neurotica and Third Eye I wrote pretty much by myself. The later records I wrote the majority of, but I did collaborate. On this record, I pretty much wrote the whole thing…that’s because it was my job (chuckles). We just kind of go for whatever organic process seems to happen at the time and everyone’s off doing their own thing so my job was to write the songs.

I’ll do these fits where I’ll just sit down with the guitar and sing a melody into a tape recorder. I’ll just do a bunch of them. I always have my iPod on shuffle and listen to it in my car all the time. All of a sudden, this song will pop up with garbled lyrics, but it’ll be almost a completed song and it’d be me running through something for the very first time and I’d think “wow, that’s great” and I’ll just finish it. A lot of it happened that way, so I guess this record was kind of made via Magic 8 Ball iPod.

Any plans to tour after the album is released?!
Well, of course. It’s been about a year since we started performing live again and everything we do feels like a tour (chuckles). Every time we play now it’s in some other country or state, so we’re always on tour. But as far as like this international, long, rung out…I don’t know about that, we’ll see.

What other projects are you guys involved with at the moment?!
Well, Roy still plays with The Muffs and I know that they’re planning on getting together and doing some recording. Steven just produced Be Your Own Pet’s second album and he’s working on a few other records. I’m just kind of getting back into writing and just hanging out and playing guitar. I’m really getting obsessed with my guitar again, which is kind of fun. So, I don’t know…maybe another Malibu Kids record? That could always be fun, we talk about it. But, Anna and Charlotte are extremely busy and Astrid being a teenager now (she’s 13), she’s pretty uptight (said lovingly)… so, we’ll have to see about that.

Tell us something about yourself (or the band) that we couldn’t find on Google?!
I don’t know, that’s a loaded question. If I was sitting here talking to you in person, I could think of lots of things about myself that you couldn’t find on Google. I don’t know. I know that…um…geez…I sound like a stoner. I don’t know, you’ll have to wait for the book. I think when I sit down and write the book it will all come out. A lot of the stuff on Google is wrong anyway. So, I don’t know. I can’t answer that question entirely.

Download: Redd Kross - “Switchblade Sister”

I was lucky enough to drive down to Seattle yesterday & take in another Pela show.

Amazing. The crowd & the band were seriously in synch. Just looking around & taking in the people was enough to put a freaking smile on your face.

Not only did they put on a show, THEY PUT ON A SHOW.

Please forgive me, as I’m going on 2 hours of sleep.

They played a lot of new songs that will be on their next album, Rise Ye Sunken Ships & they played a lot of ‘old’ favorites as well. The new addition to the band, Chris, is Billy’s best friend & I have to say I think they’re most definitely a complete unit now. Not that they weren’t before, but now, even moreso.

2008 isn’t even over yet & this was by far the best show this year. The whole set can be found here (much more will be added).

Epic. Truly epic. Thank you boys for another great memory.

Visit Pela here.
Tourblog here.

-Gina Argentina

p.s. they were rocking the rocksellout.com pins & so were their friends, sadly.. I didn’t get photographs of that. however, we were represented.. in style.