Lily Allen at the Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

LILY ALLENMIAMI HORROR
The Hodern Pavilion, 21/01/10

Melbourne DJ/producer Benjamin Plant, otherwise known as Miami Horror, performed live as part of a four piece band which offered dance-fuelled indie disco. While it was sleek enough and boasted occasional uplifting moments, for the most part it was a pretty uninspiring set.

When Lily Allen first played in Sydney, she had the aesthetic of a typical English backpacker, bounding around in white trainers, so it is an indication of how much of a star she has since become that she slinked onstage looking every part the diva in massive heels and proceeded to make two costume changes during the show. Indeed, her huge marketability can also be indicated by the fact she told the crowd she was celebrating her album "going quadruple platinum". Drinking "disgusting" wine through a straw, the Brit got the ball rolling with Everyone's At It and LDN, while also throwing in a few covers, including The Kooks' Naive, Britney's Womanizer and a version of Just Be Good To Me featuring UK rapper Professor Green.


Her songs were delivered in the kind of bubblegum pop style that has ensured her records have sold by the truckload, yet it is her lyrical content that separates her from her mainstream contemporaries. Her stories contained plenty of acerbic wit and adult themes which offered a nice juxtaposition to the radio-friendly tunes they were wrapped in. The pleasing honesty to her subject matter was constant, whether she was talking about a lover's ineptitude in bed (Not Fair) or going on anti-war rants (the brilliantly-titled Kabul Shit). Okay, sometimes her wordplay may lack subtlety, but there is nothing wrong with using pop songs to smack people around the face with a bit of morality, and anyone who writes an anti-Bush song called Fuck You deserves plenty of credit. The Fear, though, was the standout track of the night. Not only is it Allen's best song, but one of the finest pop offerings of the last few years with its knowing swipe at celebrity culture.

She may be platinum-plated nowadays, but, delightfully, this rapturously received show proved she is still the same old Lily. Charismatic, bursting with energy and telling everyday truths in her songs; when it comes to pop stars, Lily Allen is as real as they get.

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

Sometimes, an album comes out of the blue and belies all preconceptions. Alright, Still, Lily Allen's debut, was one such record. On the surface, a collection of bubblegum pop songs from the daughter of odious celebrity ligger Keith Allen didn't appear to be worth bothering with, but, upon closer inspection, it burst with wit and honesty (not to mention radio-friendly, ska-influenced tunes) in its stories of the trials of modern life. It was like a breath of fresh air, and certainly one of the albums of 2006. Following that unexpected gem, Allen's new album is burdened by the considerable weight of expectation.

Though Allen is truly now a marketable pop star with an army of teenage fans to cater for and record company sales forecasts to deal with, It's Not Me, It's You stays pretty loyal to the uncompromising nature of her debut. Swear words are still unapologetically littered throughout and she deals with issues that other pop acts wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. While subtlety is sometimes absent as she wallops us over the head with her words, her occasionally overt morality is still applaudable and there is pleasing wry commentary. Opening track Everyone's At It is a lament to drug taking, while The Fear offers lines that are equally straightforward and knowing digs at the culture of celebrity: "I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless/Cos everyone knows that’s how you get famous." There are other acerbic moments, like the line-dancing Not Fair, which treads the familiar ground of a lover's ineptitude in bed.

Even though there is nothing on It's Not Me, It's You to match the quality of the best parts of Alright, Still, it is still a slickly produced album of catchy-as-fuck pop, and Lily Allen's personality shines through enough for her to to easily leap the Difficult Second Album hurdle. One gets the impression that, if you went for a beer with her, you would encounter exactly the same cheeky, witty, gutsy, truthful character you hear in her songs. For a mainstream pop star, Lily Allen is as genuine as they get.

Mark Ronson, Version

I reviewed the new Mark Ronson album for Drum Media. Here's what I thought:MARK RONSON
Version
Sony/BMG

You’ve probably already heard the funky version of Radiohead’s Just that has been doing the rounds for a while. Well, indie DJs everywhere will be overjoyed at the news that the man responsible, Englishman Mark Ronson, has released a whole album of indie covers.

These aren’t lazy re-hashes either; they’ve been given a total shake-up, resulting in a tasty mix of jazz, hip-hop, pop, samba, funk and motown, and, as a producer and DJ of some acclaim, Ronson has called on a few industry pals to lend their voices. While some collaborations miss the mark; most notably Robbie Williams’ wishy-washy vocal on a directionless Charlatans cover, and pointless Maximo Park and Kasabian tracks which feature the original artists, for the most part this is a slick and interesting experiment.

Highlights include Lily Allen’s cheeky take on Kaiser Chiefs’ Oh My God and a complete revamp of Britney’s Toxic, which features a verbal tirade by the late, great Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Elsewhere, Ronson plays the dangerous game of covering The Smiths, yet his brooding, Massive Attack-style reworking of Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before is little short of majestic.

In spite of these fine moments, this album is fairly disposable, and once the novelty wears off you won’t really have cause to revisit Version very often. But Ronson certainly deserves credit for the quality and integrity of these recordings. Considering the unmitigated disaster that this type of project could have been, short-lived fun is a pretty good result.

Big Day Out 2007 - review

More than happy to sidestep the Australian flag debate on the strength of being English, this particular reviewer (below) was keen to focus solely on the music rather than the politics at Big Day Out. The Butterfly Effect though, were full of patriotism. “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie,” they yelled before launching into a routine set of heavy rock, while people who prefer their rock to be less obvious and more brooding went to check out an impressive show by The Drones.

Lily Allen treated punters to witty and intelligent stories wrapped in bubblegum pop with hints of reggae and ska, and proved to be the perfect antidote to the plethora of bland pop stars around at the moment. Her tongue was typically sharp, and between songs she gleefully attacked George Bush and, slightly less obviously, Jet’s drummer, Chris Cester, who she had had an altercation with earlier in the week. “Fuck you Chris, and your rubbish band,” she yelled, to the amusement of a heaving Boiler Room.

Less controversial, but equally appealing were The Sleepy Jackson, who offered a grand and poignant display, before The Vines rolled onto stage. Anyone who thought The Vines were yesterday’s news will be surprised to learn that, just as they did at Homebake, they belted out a cracking set to a crowd that was practically turning cartwheels while hollering along to every word. Maybe it’s simply because they were playing on home soil, but there seems to be a bit of life left in the old dogs yet.

While The John Butler Trio offered the Main Stage’s most charming and eclectic set of the day, Englishmen Kasabian performed on the Green Stage with a swagger that suggests they are used to playing to European crowds who worship their every move. But, while their indie-dance set was well-enough received, they’ve still got plenty to prove on these shores before they are entitled to strut in such a way. Still, a little self-belief never hurt anyone I suppose.

Over on the Local Produce Stage, Dappled Cities Fly played to a criminally small audience, and those who stayed away missed some interesting, upbeat arrangements. Perhaps the reason that the crowd was so diminutive was because, at the same time, The Killers were drawing the biggest attendance of the day with an efficient set of crowd-pleasers. As the Americans left the stage, a massive chunk of the crowd dispersed while scratching their heads and wondering how the next performers, Jet, were afforded such a high placing on the bill when the likes of My Chemical Romance were relegated to a much earlier slot. Judging by the way the band pouted and postured their way through their set, it seems that Jet genuinely believe that they are the greatest band in the world, which is something that saddens me to my very soul, as this offering was nothing more than a clichéd collection of painfully generic rock songs so bland that they failed to connect on any level whatsoever.
Juxtaposing Jet’s hackneyed display with what followed from Muse made the barmy British prog-rockers’ performance seem all the more outstanding. Embellishing their relentless attack of hits with stunning visuals, this was a band clearly intent on rocking Big Day Out to within an inch of its life with their space-age opera. Frontman Matt Bellamy produced sounds, both vocally and from his effects-laden guitar, that ripped through the crowd like a cyclone, as hits like Time is Running Out and Knights Of Cydonia somehow made the vast arena seem intimate. It was a breathtaking and engaging hour, which attacked the senses to such a degree that it left most of us feeling the need for a little lie down.

There was no time for rest though, as, not prepared to let Muse pull the rug from under them, Tool immediately belted out what was essentially a greatest hits collection, which delighted ardent supporters and the uninitiated alike. Full of those trademark chunky riffs, their menacing prog-metal sound had fans from the very front row to the VIP boxes going totally nuts.

In an ideal world, the proceedings would have been rounded off by Lily Allen and Chris Cester resolving their differences with some kind of public dance-off, but this world is not ideal, and so the drunk and dishevelled crowd simply shuffled home, happy that the astonishing sets from Muse and Tool were still ringing in their ears.

Review by Rob Townsend

New Young Pony Club interview

ON THE EVE OF THEIR FIRST EVER VISIT TO AUSTRALIA, LONDON’S NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB TALK TO ROB TOWNSEND ABOUT NEW RAVE, TOURING AND CAT FIGHTS WITH LILY ALLEN

“A good gig is better than sex.” Frontwoman Tahita pauses for a second, before correcting herself. “Well, actually it’s like having sex with 1300 people. And no consequences.” Watch out; New Young Pony Club are heading this way, and they’re bringing their unique brand of punk-funk, disco-pop noise with them.

For the uninitiated, New Young Pony Club is a supercool collective, comprised of three girls and two guys, that was born following a meeting between Tahita and guitarist Andy Spence three years ago. Bored with the plethora of dad-rocking post Brit-pop bands dominating the indie scene, they saw a niche for the fusion of guitars and dance music, and so their journey began.

NYPC’s influences come from far and wide. There are traces of the New York punk scene from the 70s, the rave scene, as well as nods to bands like The Stone Roses and The Rapture. “Our sound is a free-for-all, a car crash of styles,” the instantly likeable Tahita confirms. The band’s recent eponymous EP release brilliantly showcases this sound, offering simplistic lyrics and chunky, funky beats. It is infectious stuff.

Because they’re guaranteed to get you dancing, NYPC have lazily been labelled with the New Rave tag that all English bands combining guitars and dance music have been lumbered with. Like most of these groups, they feel a little uncomfortable being pigeonholed in such a way. A slightly baffled Tahita does her best to describe a scene that nobody really seems to fully understand. “It’s more a term based on people’s hopes of what is going to happen - the potentiality of a group of bands,” she says by way of explanation. “We’ve had a Labour government in England for ages now and things are getting corrupt. People, particularly young people, want to feel like they have something of their own. There seems to be a spirit lifted directly from 1988, when there would be a cavalcade of cars heading out to the countryside for a rave. Now it all happens with bands playing in warehouses in East London.”

And where did the band’s name come from? “I just like the idea of a Pony Club. It is cutesy and innocent, but then there is also that whole domination thing where people dress up as ponies and draw carts. There is also a lot of Freudian imagery entrenched within horses.” Almost as an afterthought, Tahita adds: “Also, it’s a good acronym.”

Until now, most of the band’s performances have been in the UK, including a recent tour with potty-mouthed songstress Lily Allen. “She’s an interesting girl,” the refreshingly candid Tahita says. “She’s pretty nice, and her band and our band got on really well, but to start with, her and I kind of circled each other like cats, ready to scratch.” In an attempt to clarify the reason behind the initial animosity between the two, she merely says with a laugh: “It’s a front-person thing. It was fine in the end though, and she gave us all flowers at the end of the tour.”

Keen to escape the freezing cold winter’s days of London, the gang of five are heading to Australia this week for the first time to perform at the Modular Christmas party, and a genial Tahita can’t wait. “It’s going to be an absolute riot, “ she enthuses. “I’ve heard that people are really up for it compared to London, where you have to shove a rock up people’s arses to get them moving.” NYPC’s tour also takes them to America and Japan, which is something that will test their stamina to its very limit. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of the world, and I think I’ll enjoy it, but I’m a weakling,” the singer openly admits. “A few nights of doing naughty things and I’ll be coughing, hacking and just wanting to be put in a cardboard box and fedexed home.”

And what does the future hold for New Young Pony Club? “Everyone wants to feel like they are going to be the biggest band in the world, but I’d just be happy to get a really good album out; something that sounds timeless,” Tahita says sincerely. “We want to write emotive songs, as well as songs that make you feel like going out and biting somebody.”

Interview by Rob Townsend