Crack houses, stripping, underwear parties, hate mail from Pink Floyd fans and Elton John’s dog – are you ready for a tasty slice of camp pop history as told by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters?
One of the great joys of this time of year is scanning the media for their pick of new bands and having a little mental bet with yourself how long it will be before some of them have already faded from memory.
Scissor Sisters are back, and this time they’re on a mission to channel Elton John, Paul McCartney and the Bee Gees into the first soft rock masterpiece of the 21st Century. In an exclusive interview, the group’s main songwriter, Babydaddy, gives us the lowdown on their second coming.
Ironically (or, more likely, deliberately) it takes all of five seconds before the new Scissor Sisters' single awakens in you the urge to get up and dance like a crazy sugar-filled loon. Elton John plays on the track, which is fitting as it is the most Elton John-sounding song the man never wrote himself – lots of ‘70s glam disco flourishes that should guarantee it a place at the top of the charts.
As always, the Scissor Sisters are ever so generous with their B-sides…a funky Junkie XL remix of ‘Mary’, and a rather Elton-ified version of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’.
Call it the shitegeist. In times of war and pestilence, art gets decadent, and all we wanna do is dance. Scissor Sisters are a tight little NY combo who apply rock dynamics to disco’s lust for the transcendent dance.
Title of the year on the single of the year from the album of the year (until we get sick of it). Like a Sao Paulo Scissor Sisters – use them up and wear ’em out.
OK, so ‘Laura’ wasn’t bad, they were pretty good at Oxegen and they seem like thoroughly nice people, but the Scissor Sisters are really not the saviours that everyone makes them out to be.
I should, by rights, given that I loathe the Scissor Sisters, find Mika equally annoying. ‘Love Today’ is essentially a SS record in every respect. Yet while you won’t ever find me feeling like dancing to Jake Shears & co, something about this Mika lad strikes a chord. ‘Grace Kelly’ was fab and this isn’t bad either. Strange days indeed.
The Blizzards' rollercoaster shows no sign of losing momentum. This little number is destined to become one of the tracks of the (late) summer. The boys from Mullingar have taken Weezer’s power pop formula, added a dash of Scissor Sisters glam and a pinch of Queen bombast. The result? An instantly catchy tune that will keep their fans sated (just about) until their debut album arrives in the autumn.
The Welsh wonders are back with some more madcap behaviour. ‘Lazer Beam’ is full of the infectious hooks, random sounds and innovative thinking we’ve come to associate with them, but presented in an understated manner this time. As a taster for the much-anticipated Love Kraft LP, it confirms that their quirky sounds have been sorely missed, even though their seat’s been kept warm by the Scissor Sisters. They can go home now.
Mika is too good to be true – in a very scary way. A waxy , cravat-wearing synergy of Rufus Wainwright, Freddie Mercury and Scissor Sisters, this 23-year-old Londoner of Lebanese extraction deals in glitter-ball piano balladry: imagine a Queer Eye For The Straight Guy make-over of James Blunt and you’re in the zone. Obviously, ‘Grace Kelly’, a dandy-ish ode to looking fantastic in ruffled evening wear, is going to sell and sell and sell – six months from now Mika may well be the most hated man in pop. So let’s enjoy him before the taste-makers sink fangs into his taffeta- coddled rump.
A flyover near the old Harland & Wolff shipyard was the starting point for a remarkable three months that has seen Franz Ferdinand challenging U2 and Coldplay for the title of ‘Biggest Band In The World'. Daredevil photographic exploits completed, Hot Press jumped on their tour bus and got the lowdown on Snoop, Bono, Kanye West, Natasha Bedingfield and nights of debauchery with the Scissor Sisters.
If it's the missing link between the Bee Gees and Frankie Goes To Hollywood you're after, look no further than the Scissor Sisters who open their Irish account with a March 1 visit to Auntie Annie's, Belfast.
Mullingar’s The Blizzards have struck upon an appealing FM-rock schtick, buoyed up by optimistic swirls of piano and a bouncy chorus that seems to clamber down from the stereo and deliver a great big slobber of a hug.
Throughout the pioneering events of Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8, Bob Geldof has repeatedly achieved the impossible, twisting the arms and consciences of self-absorbed rock stars to get them to think beyond their egos and stimulating recalcitrant politicians and a jaded media into doing things that are not really difficult at all but thinking makes them so.
They may profess disdain for the CD:UK world of glamour and hype, but with a recent appearance on the show and a support slot with The Darkness to their credit, it looks like nine-piece rock sensation Do Me Bad Things are going to have to get used to being in the limelight.
hotpress.com can exclusively reveal to you that Mylo's set for the first Heineken Green Room Session of 2005. Cork, Europe's 2005 City Of Culture, is set to host the first invite only bash of the year.
The line-up for this year's Oxegen festival is getting bigger and better with the addition of many new Irish and international acts, including UK indie kids Editors.
They come from Los Angeles, support Rotherham United and have a lead singer who loves Andrew Lloyd-Webber as much as he does Arcade Fire. Stuart Clark meets Orson's rather peculiar Jason Pebworth.
Claudia Carroll is a busy actress and author, but she still allows our Jackie Hayden the time of day, gives him a hot scoop and introduces him to her haunted room.
Live at the Marquee on Friday June 29: They were the gaudiest of the ‘80s pop sensations. 20 years on, Duran Duran leader Simon Le Bon explains why the good time boys are a band for the long haul.
While there’s nothing on this newie to replace ‘Rio’ or ‘Girls On Film’, there’s a style and depth in both the production and performances to make it worth watching Top Of The Pops again.
This Is The Tomb of The Juice is Michael Pyro & co.’s first album, and it’s a ballsy, gritty collection of songs, the kind of record that announces the summer, oscillating between aggressive Alabama 3 rantings and über-cool James Brown blues funk.
She’s the post-modern starlet who is stalked by paparazzi wherever she goes but is as comfortable talking about Andy Warhol and John Updike as she is hanging with fashionistas. Say hello to Lady GaGa the good-time pop princess who went to school with Paris Hilton, cultivated a drug habit ‘cos that’s what David Bowie did in the ’70s, but thinks fame is just a game.
With their album release only days away, U2 have been speaking to Hot Press about their upcoming world tour and the likely candidates for the prestigious support slot
By rights this headline slot should have been the stuff of legend. All the more surprising, then, that the band misjudge the whole thing in quite such spectacular fashion. Arriving more with a whimper than a bang, the first forty five minutes is devoted solely to material that sparks recognition in no-one but the most hardcore fan.
He began working in music as a drummer, but Dave Pennefather's greatest success has been as MD of Universal Music. Hot Press looks back over the life and times of a man with a larger than life reputation.
Their debut album Hopes And Fears launched a host of hit singles, going on to become one of the most successful British records of the past five years. But, their indie background notwithstanding, Keane have still been dismissed by some self-styled aficionados as just too nice to be considered real rock'n'rollers. "If only people knew," says lead singer Tom Chaplin.
Politician, law & criminology professor, activist, abortion information campaigner and labour party candidate in the forthcoming european elections… all this and Ivana Bacik once served a pint of vodka to Perry Farrell, shortly before he fell over on stage at Glastonbury.
Snow Patrol‘s Gary Lightbody may be the thinking woman’s indie sexpot, but with their new album Eyes Open going supernova all over the shop, the poor fella has no time to capitalise on his status, given that the only people he sees on a regular basis are his band and crewmates. With whom, he assures us, “penetrative sex is out of the question.” Also on the agenda: break-ups, infidelity, the Northern body politic, U2 and, of course, underpants.
Apparently, Mika is playing this year’s Oxegen. If he’s to make an impact there, he’ll need to pick up some stage tips. Maybe he should stop listening to Queen and start watching them instead.
In all, YES! is an unexpected joy, a heady, discombobulating cocktail of rock opera, obstinate punk and feel-good dance vibes. Ignore, if you will, the fact that Do Me Bad Things were ‘discovered’ by the same people that ‘discovered’ The Darkness. For all its calorific riffing and Rocky Horror-esque psychedelia, the true beauty of this record is its newness (as opposed to the novelty) factor. ‘Liv Ullman On Drums’ (featuring, bizarrely, Tom Shotton on drums) is an incredible ragout of ‘70s cop show theme music with hair metal, while ‘Time For Deliverance’ is a spine-tingling AC/DC inspired-Broadway musical number.
A handful of bands, each playing four or five-song sets; this is a formula that will always produce mixed results. But, pleasingly, tonight threw up more hits than misses.
Three years since Moloko’s last album, Statues, and seven years since they had a hit with ‘Sing It Back’, Roisin Murphy’s going it alone. Credited as co-writer with her new collaborative partner and producer Matthew Herbert, when you pick this up you should remember that the version of ‘Sing it Back’ that we heard non-stop that summer was a Todd Terry remix, and that Roisin’s tastes naturally, like those of her former band, gravitate towards the experimental and leftfield.
“If you build it, they will come” – a familiar quote from a Hollywood baseball movie – became the mantra for Dolan’s Warehouse’s 10th birthday celebrations.
With Michael Eavis letting the grass grow at Glastonbury this year, Scandinavia’s long-running equivalent was bound to be a huge draw for international music fans. Those seeking a people-friendly atmosphere and a musically-varied experience were always likely to flock to Roskilde, a festival structured along similar lines to its English counterpart
