Author: Dave Prowse

Dave is Spotisfaction's Editor-in-Chief and founded the site in February 2010. He can often be found acting as web designer, code-monkey, writer, people manager, editor, tea boy, and sometimes all of the above at the same time. Dave lives in Gloucester with his wife and two cats.

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Playlists

141 Spotisfaction Monday – 22nd November 2010 – Hyperdub

Morning folks. Quick call to arms for you this morning – for the first time since our launch, we’re running really short on playlists. If you have a Spotify playlist that you’re quite proud of, or would like other people to see, then please get in touch in the usual fashion (Twitter, email, on the site, etc.). Seriously, anything you can send to us will be gratefully received and used – we survive on your content, guys and dolls, so please get it to us!

Anyway, to business. We have something a wee bit different for you today. Today’s playlist is one that was recently published by prolific dubstep label Hyperdub, and features many of the label’s artists such as Kode9 and Burial. It’s a cracking playlist, and one I’ve very much enjoyed listening to – I hope you enjoy, too.

Take it easy, friends.
Dave

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Playlists

140 Spotisfaction Friday – 19th November 2010 – Dan Herlin

Afternoon all! Sorry for the slight delay in getting the playlist to you today – I had this morning off as holiday and quite short-sightedly forgot to ask anyone to cover! Oops. My apologies. Tonight is episode 3 of The Walking Dead, which is ridiculously exciting – I’ve not been this gripped by a series in a long time. Are you watching it? If so, what are your thoughts so far? Having said that, I guess, I was equally as engaged by Lost season 1, and look how seasons 2 and 3 panned out…

Anyway!

Today’s playlist is by Dan Herlin and is entitled “Paraphrasing”. It’s a long one, but stick with it as it’s very enjoyable – some great versions in there, kudos to you Dan!

Have a lovely weekend, kids, and see you next week.

Dave

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Reviews

Review: 3 Daft Monkeys, Gloucester Guildhall

Inflatable Buddha - image courtesy of Martin Svancar

I’d not heard much of 3 Daft Monkeys before we reviewed their latest self-released album The Antiquated & The Arcane a short while ago, but since then I’ve had the album on near-constant repeat and have fallen in love with their eclectic folk stylings. It was with some excitement, then, that I recently attended their gig at Gloucester’s Guildhall.

Arriving late due to a slight guestlist kerfuffle and having a bit of a chin-wag with an old friend in the bar, I missed the start of opening act Inflatable Buddha. It turns out that this was a major mistake on my part. Wandering in to find enigmatic poet/mandolin player Steve Larkin joking around with the crowd as naturally as if he were best of mates with everyone in the room, I was instantly hooked. Their particular brand of quirky folk punk was quite mesmerising to behold, a relentless energy surging from Larkin, and also double-bass player and co-vocalist Susannah Starling, through the remainder of their set. Particular highlights for me were ‘Clown’, a highly entertaining tail about a bi-polar, alcoholic circus worker which very clearly showcases the poetic nous that won Larkin 2004’s Spoken Word Olympics in Canada, and ‘Life Is Sweet’, which got the crowd well and truly warmed up through the liberal use of well-timed hoi‘s. A thoroughly enjoyable set, and I shall certainly be looking out for this 4-piece in the future.

Continue reading “Review: 3 Daft Monkeys, Gloucester Guildhall”
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Playlists

138 Spotisfaction Monday – 15th November 2010 – Simon Mogg

Morning guys and dolls. I trust your weekends were great? My wife spent the weekend at her sister’s, so I spent a large amount of my weekend sat on the sofa in my pants, grinding out levels in Black Ops’ multiplayer. Good times! A wasted weekend, you say? How very dare you. This week should be pretty good – James T and I have a few live reviews for you, along with our regular mix of content and playlists.

As always, if there’s something you’d like to see us cover, or even if you’d like to cover said thing yourself, please do get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.

Anyway, to business! I shall hand you over to Moggy for todays playlist, and his passionate defence of Nu-Metal. Readers of a nervous disposition are probably best advised to stop here; readers with a sense of humour are encouraged to read on.

Take it easy, kid-faces.
Dave

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Reviews

Review: Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer

For an artist with so many hit records and singles, Cee Lo Green is a name that has only recently become ingrained in the public’s consciousness. Known to some for his work as a founding member of hip hop group Goodie Mob, to others for his collaboration with DJ Danger Mouse in Gnarls Barkley, and to everyone else for the ridiculously popular ‘Fuck You’ (aka ‘Forget You’, it’s neutered brother), Cee Lo’s voice has been gracing our clubs, radios and YouTubes for a good long while now. We’re now 8 albums into Green’s expansive, 20-year career, and so it comes as no surprise that with all of this experience his new album The Lady Killer is a mature, intelligent and highly polished record.

However, could the high production values and lack of grit take something away from the album? You see, Cee Lo has always been someone who works best when allowed to experiment and push the boundaries. His last two solo albums, 2002’s Cee Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections and 2004’s Cee Lo Green… Is the Soul Machine might not have had the sheer polish and production of his latest, but they were genre-mashing, adventurous and downright exciting listens. They were warts-and-all insights into a thoroughly creative man who is a self-described freak, and his personality made these records worth listening to.

The Lady Killer is an album that has been crafted specifically to propel Green into the spotlight. He has mentioned that he wanted to create a more accessible album so that he would no longer be the “underground underdog”, and he has reigned in his eccentricities in order to avoid his creative output becoming a “kamikaze mission”. So, how has this affected his sound?

Continue reading “Review: Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer”

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Playlists

134 Spotisfaction Friday – 5th November 2010 – Simon Mogg

Morning everyone. I trust your weeks have been lovely? Mine’s been, to be honest, incredibly busy – so, my apologies for the slight slow-down on content this week. On that note, though, if you ever fancied having your writing published, then we’re always looking for news, reviews, features, opinion-pieces and other such stuff, as well as our usual tri-weekly playlists. Get in touch if you are interested.

Today’s playlist is by staff-member Simon Mogg, and is entitled “I’m 27” – appropriate, since we went to Alton Towers to celebrate his birthday last weekend, and he turns 27 tomorrow bless him. Happy birthday, old bean.

See you next week guys and dolls.
Dave

Moggy Says:

Tomorrow I am 27 years old. Congratulations to me another year, and I’m not dead yet. To celebrate such an unimpressive landmark I decided to make a playlist to see how musical taste in Britain has changed over the years I’ve been alive. So I’ve been perusing the UK number 1 single lists and picked one number 1 for every year I’ve been alive and here they are:

1983: The Police ”“ Every Breath You Take
I love the Police. They’re awesome.
1984: Stevie Wonder ”“ I Just Called To Say I Love You – Single Version
1985: Dead Or Alive ”“ You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) – Original 7″ Mix
1986: Falco ”“ Rock Me Amadeus
1987: M. ”“ Pump Up The Volume (7″)
1988: Aswad ”“ Don’t Turn Around
1989: Jive Bunny ”“ Swing The Mood
Jive Bunny had 3 number ones this year. Crikey I only thought they did this one song.
1990: Beats International ”“ Dub Be Good To Me

Hit the link for the rest:

Continue reading “134 Spotisfaction Friday – 5th November 2010 – Simon Mogg”

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Playlists

133 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 3rd November 2010 – James Battin

Morning all. Running a wee bit late today, so I won’t bore you with much blurb – let’s just rip back the blurby wrapper and get to the juicy, gooey playlist centre yeah?

Today’s playlist is from Tomorrow’s Sounds Today / Classics Collected czar, James Battin and is entitled “Around the World In 18 Tunes”. Ta, fella.

Take care,
Dave

James Says:

So, today I don my top hat and Phileas Battinski invites you to come around the world in 18 tunes. The concept behind this playlist was to really try and demonstrate that there is a huge wealth of music out there in the world, and often in places you might not expect to look. Most of the general public, I worry, are out there being drip fed their X Factor pop pound spinners and they often don’t have a look around them.

I’ve chosen 18 tracks from 18 different locations to highlight that you really can find some great music out there in that world of ours. In this first run I’ve not even gone that far off spectrum and tried to include more established acts – so as not to go all out on the first trip.

Grab your passports and get ready as we visit the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Japan, China, Brazil and more.

Hit the link for the breakdown…

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Playlists

132 Spotisfaction Monday – 1st November 2010 – Woody Whyte

Morning kids. I hope your weekend was as awesome as mine – spent my Saturday screaming like a little girl at Alton Towers, and then spent an extra hour in bend on Sunday. Bliss. Now though, I’m hoarse as hell and work today is a bit of a shock to the system, I’ll be honest. No matter, though, we have another playlist to get us through the Monday blues!

Today’s playlist is by staff-member Woody Whyte, and is curiously entitled “In Bed With Grace Jones”. Incredibly camp playlist today, sir. I approve.

See you folks on Wednesday,
Dave

Woody Says:

So, I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking when I came up with the title of this playlist. Obviously, I was thinking of Grace Jones, but this playlist isn’t a list of songs I would play her if we did happen to end up in bed together, which lets face it, is probably unlikely. But anyway, this playlist is more a collection of songs which, after listening to ‘Slave to the Rhythm’, got my brain all excited about the prospect of a playlist of new wave/electronic/pop and everything inbetween music from the 80s and early 90s.

I would recommend you only play this to other people if they already expect you to play socially awkward music at the complete wrong time. Otherwise, listen in your room and freak out like you’re Kate Bush on acid for an hour. It will do your soul wonders…

Woody x

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Playlists

131 Spotisfaction Friday – 29th October 2010 – Dave Christensen

I’m not sure if it’s WordPress being annoying, me failing, or people not refreshing their browsers before editing stuff (*cough*), but for some reason today’s post reverted back to it’s pre-edit version and we lost all the changes. So here, again, is Dave Christensen with his “2009” playlist. Thanks, fella.

Hopefully this now works!
Dave

Dave C Says:

Ahhh 2009, that was a good year, wasn”™t it? Nostalgia ain”™t what it used to be…

We have two great features on Spotisfaction ”“ Tomorrow”™s Sounds Today and Classics Collected. The first tries to introduce us to a new selection of albums with some clever connection. The other forces us to “blow the dust off some records” that we might not have heard for a while or might have missed. ‘Why is there no middle ground?’ I think, while I struggle to find a niche for myself as a new contributor here. Well, maybe I”™ve found it, or maybe this is just a single playlist. Yeah, it”™s just a playlist.

So, I made a massive playlist of albums that were released in 2009 and that I listened to loads last year, but not much since. Then I listened to the lot and narrowed it down to an appropriately sized playlist. I think these are some great tracks from mostly brilliant albums (not Phrazes For The Young, that was awful). I hope you enjoy it. If not, make your own damn 2009 playlist. It took bloody ages.

Dave

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Playlists

130 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 27th October 2010 – Kev Atkinson

Afternoon all. Sorry for the website outage this morning – our provider had a bit of a hiccup (they managed to lose an entire datacentre, bless ’em), so we were out for most of the morning. Back now, though (uh, obviously otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this…), so apologies for the delay to the playlist today.

We’re running a little short on playlists at the moment – if you have an idea for a concept; if you have a story you’d like to tell with music; or if you just want to chuck a bunch of random tracks into Spotify, please send them our way and we’ll publish them.

Today’s playlist comes from Kev Atkinson and is entitled “The A-Z”. Brilliant concept, and a very enjoyable playlist. Thanks fella!

Laters,
Dave

Kev Says:

As a little side project on my personal blog I”™ve been creating a series of playlists with artists starting with the letter A and working my way towards Z. When I started on this project I quickly hit upon the problem of what to do with bands that began with “The”, did I ignore the “The” or did they all count as Ts? Well the decision I made was to discount any artist beginning with “The” and create a separate playlist for them. Once I started on this idea I took it one step further; could I do a complete playlist of artists beginning with The and then the following words going from A to Z? Well I came close and thanks to James for coming up with an I as I was completely stumped by that one.

Kev

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Playlists

128 Spotisfaction Friday – 22nd October 2010 – Paul ‘Fozz’ Foster

Morning kids. Got a pretty feature-packed day for you today which hopefully explains why the playlist is ever-so-slightly earlier than normal. Some good news to kick off with: Spotisfaction HQ is getting crowded these days as we’ve had a couple of newbies join our staff ranks – say hi to Dave Christensen, Rob Tite and Tom Girard. Look out for stuff from these fine chaps in the near future. We’re always looking for more content, just so you know, so get in touch if you want to join our illustrious ranks and write for Spotisfaction.

In other news, James TAE keeps stealing the biscuits, and Kev smells distressingly of booze – thank God it’s the weekend and I can get out of here! In the build up to escape-time, today’s playlist by Paul “Fozz” Foster is, frankly, stuffed full of relentless energy and has gotten me completely pumped up for the weekend. I’m sat here listening to The Bloody Beetroots and dancing around like a loon. Wahsomes, kudos to you Fozz.

Catch you next week, amigos.
Dave

Fozz Says:

There’s no particular theme to this playlist, it’s just a bunch of tracks that have caught my attention over the last few weeks. It does work best listened to at high volume though, at the risk of irritating your neighbours/housemates/parents.

I absolutely love each track for various different reasons so it’s hard to pick any stand-outs, I just hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I have.

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Playlists

126 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 20th October 2010 – Simon Mogg

So, another Wednesday. I think Monday gets a bad rep, to be honest – all weekdays are pretty crap, not just Monday. And on that lovely note, happy birthday to contributor Ben Mercer! Love!

Anyway… Today’s playlist is by Simon Mogg and is entitled “The West Wing”. I’ll be honest, I never really watched it. I may need to bug you for the box sets…

Later!
Dave

Moggy Says:

There have been seven seasons of The West Wing. I’ve watched them all… a lot. I love everything about it. I think all elements of the show are of tremendous quality and that includes the choice of music. Other than W.G. Snuffy Walden’s incidental music, they pick a mixed selection of tracks to complement the episode that they are included in. Many tracks are very emotive, some very strange but most are just very good. Here is a playlist of some of the best from all seven seasons, in order.

The Yo-Yo Ma cello piece is absolutely beautiful. I very much like the tone of the cello. The Dire Straits track used at the end of season two really swells the mood of the season finale and helps create a dramatic climax. Tori Amos‘s very breathy version of ‘I don’t like Mondays’ is coupled with a storyline about a bomb in a school and adds a haunting feeling that can bring a tear to the eye. I could talk at length about the rest of the tracks as well but it would be dull for all of those who don’t know the show. I will just leave you with this advice: even if you skip the rest of the playlist, at least listen to Massive Attack, Steve Miller Band and the two Chopin piano pieces they are all brilliant in their own way.

Hit the link for info on which tracks came from which seasons.

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Playlists

126 Spotisfaction Monday – 18th October 2010 – Kev Atkinson

Morning kids. Hopefully everyone had a fab weekend? Mine was pretty good. Saw MF Doom on Saturday night, and he was completely mind-blowingly incredible, as expected. The downside is that I’m completely pooped and I don’t really feel like I got enough sleep this weekend. Therefore, I’ve decided I’m going to sleep at my desk today. If you’re passing, bring me hot chocolate and biscuits, yeh?

Today’s playlist is by staff-member Kev Atkinson, and is entitled “Two Pigs”. A perfect hangover cure for a Monday that arrived far too quickly. Cheers Kev!

Later,
Dave

Kev Says:

This playlist is named after a nightclub in Cheltenham. The Two Pigs used to be one of my favourite places to go at the end of a night out, as it was a good place to hear a nice mix of alternative music, and you could drink and dance until a silly time in the morning.

The problem is that the last few times I”™ve been there the music selection has been too tame, too mainstream, and it feels like they have been pandering to the masses a bit too much. This is why I haven”™t been there for a while.

What I have done with this playlist is put together a few tracks and artists that I would like to hear more of (or in quite a few cases, at all) when I go to Two Pigs – basically this is the sort of thing you”™d hear if I had a DJ spot there!

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Playlists

125 Spotisfaction Friday – 15th October 2010 – Dave Prowse

Morning folks. This week has been brutally busy for me – my wife and I told friends and family that we’re expecting a baby (woop!), so our feet haven’t really hit the floor between doctors appointments, dinner dates and showing people ultrasound photos. Fun times! Good thing I had a playlist in reserve, eh?

This weekend a few of us are going to see the DOOMTASTIC tour hit Bristol (tomorrow night, in fact), and it’s going to be mindblowing. MF Doom (plus his myriad alter egos), supported by Introducing (a nine-piece orchestra performing DJ Shadow‘s Endtroducing) and a DJ set by Jamie xx. Whoa. Tickets are still available, and I think I’ve got room in my car from the Gloucester area – let us know if you’re coming!

Love, etc.
Dave

My Blurb:

Today’s theme is movie scores. Each of the tracks are either from a film, inspired by a film (or vice versa) or were written by people famous for their film scores. I really enjoyed pulling this one together, and it’s amazing how you can find virtually any genre of music in a film somewhere. The thing I love about film music is that I always recollect the particular scene or moment in the film as I’m listening to the track, so this playlist was a real treat for me.

Hit the read more link for a list of where each track is from.

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124 Spotisfaction Wednesday – 13th October 2010 – Simon Mogg

Morning kids. Quite a busy one today, so I’ll keep it brief. If anyone is going to see Doom (with support from Dangermouse – can anyone say Dangerdoom tracks?!) in Bristol this weekend, a few Spotisfaction staffers will be in attendence – let’s get our brew on, y’all.

Today’s playlist is by staff member Simon “Moggy” Mogg and is entitled “Super Dooper Upbeat Happy Songs”, which I think is probably the best playlist title I’ve ever read.

Peace and love, and other stuff like that.
Dave

Moggy Says:

Here is my playlist of happy songs to make you dance… DANCE MONKEY BOY DANCE! Sorry about that, got a little over excited. So, these tracks are not all ‘good’ as such (I highlight Professor Green for example) but that does not necessarily matter. They are all bouncy and unpretentious, and all round good fun (in my opinion).

Young MC‘s ‘Bust A Move’ is a classic hip hop track and one I like because it is not about bling and it is not entirely full of swearing, which makes a nice change. I am always quite surprised when I enjoy a Black Eyed Peas song. The fact that Travis Barker has had his hot little hands all over this one doesnt hurt. Think I might have a bit of a man-crush on him.

I remember ‘Boombastic’ from the claymation Levi’s Advert in the 90s. Later in life I remember it being played in clubs and finding it hilarious watching men and women alike gyrating to it. Brilliant. ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ is just a purely brilliant track as is the Fatboy Slim remix of ‘Body Movin’. I think it is a vast improvement from the version off the Hello Nasty album.

So there it is. Enjoy it all. I know I will.
MOGGY