You Don't Have a Clue - Röyksopp

Anneli Drecker

Ah the sweet bliss of Röyksopp! The Norwegian duo played Shepherd's Bush Empire last week, supported by their vocalists Robyn and Anneli Drecker.



Röyksopp

Here's, err, as much of the set list as I can remember, there may be some I missed:

1. Royksopp Forever
2. This Must Be It
3. The Girl and the Robot
4. So Easy
5. What Else Is There?
5. Happy Up Here
6. Tricky Tricky
7. Eple
8. Poor Leno

What a set list, eh? I couldn't make it much better if I designed it myself.


Another crazy costume

The room darkened before the duo of Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge, aka Röyksopp entered, one of them wearing a huge plastic spherical astronaut style helmet on his head. They opened with the instrumental "Röyksopp Forever" which cut into "This Must Be It", one of my favourites from the new album Junior. To my delight, Anneli Drecker appeared, wearing a strange costume, which turned out to be the theme of the party, with her wearing different costumes all the way through.


Anneli

It really made the gig having Anneli and Robyn there with their incredible vocals. If anything I was amazed that what they produced was so close to the album versions, with only minor improvisation except for intros and banter. It was clear that the Röyksopp duo were really having a good time, although they described the gig as "sweaty" on their blog later!


Do you recognise this beat?

They introduced a song by saying “Maybe you remember this rhythm… it goes like this” and started drumming on the drum pads.. within seconds the audience twigged that it was the rhythm of Eple, one of their classics, and the audience went wild!


Torbjørn Brundtland


Robyn

The encores were of a new song that I didn't recognise and seemed to be the weakest song of the evening, and of course the classic Poor Leno, the same way they ended years ago when I saw them at Marble Hill.

Overall the gig was fantastic and a fantastic repost to those who claim that Röyksopp is just ambient chillout. This is dance music through and through, and the Empire full of people getting down to it was confirmation enough!

Röyksopp forever!
(PS Photos were "borrowed" from Crazybobbles without permission, sorry!)

Jerk City

Tried out a Jamaican restaurant for the first time last night. The choice was a place I've passed many times before at the top of Wardour Street - Jerk City. There is Savannah Jerk a couple of doors down which looked a bit smarter but was quieter. I was slightly confused about which one used to be Mr Jerk, but according to TimeOut I subsequently learnt that "When business partners split in 2006, Mr Jerk was renamed Jerk City and The Original Mr Jerk rocked up next door. It changed name to Savannah Jerk in early 2009, following a change of ownership, but the chef and the menu remain the same."



Cash only this evening, their card machine was out of action, but soon we'd ordered some recommendations from the friendly girl behind the counter:

"Jerk" - their speciality, which was Jerk Chicken. The chicken was tasty, and doused in what tasted like chilli ketchup (the "Jerk Sauce"?). The choice of accompaniment was either plain rice or "Rice and Peas", which is not, as one would expect, just "Rice and Peas" but instead rice cooked in coconut milk and spices, and the peas are actually kidney beans. Apparently this is nicknamed the Jamaican "Coat of Arms".

Mutton aka Goat Curry with Hard Vegetables. The Mutton was amazingly tender and not fatty, in a delicious spicy curry sauce, and for a side the "Hard" vegetables, which consisted of Cassava, pounded and prepared to make bammy, a heavy but tasty starch cake, Plantain, a strange-tasting member of the banana family, and what seemed to be hairy potato.

Both dishes came with salad too, presumably which was the purpose of there being a bottle of salad cream on each table, along with the obligatory chilli sauces.

Drinks? No beer unfortunately, but instead "Guinness Punch", which tasted remarkably similar to Baileys - a large cup of that felt extremely naughty!

Overall a good experience, and about 20 pounds for two good-sized mains and drinks. I'd go back!

Shibuya in London

How exciting! After months of construction, Oxford Circus has been converted to a Shibuya (Tokyo) style crossing.

The only thing that worries me is that unlike Japan, here no one pays any attention to Green Man or Red Man, so how often are people going to get run over?!

In other news, I've just spent bloomin' ages sorting out birthdays in my Outlook. No more contacts in dodgy time zones or repeating every 12 years!

Dear Lily Allen

Just love this - an open letter response put to music in response to Lily Allen's ill-thought-out comments regarding file sharing by the clearly very talented Dan Bull. Download this tune here, check his other tunes on Myspace here or go to his site and buy his album here.



Lyrics:

Dear Lily Allen,

Remember when you pretended, Lily, that you were truly independent, Lily? Faking like you made it all alone but you were legally with Regal, part of Parlophone - oh yes. So when you lectured me, I thought I'd fileshare my thoughts on your mp3, Lily.

Now first I must sing your praises - I love your singing but I'll just say this: I saw on your MySpace pages saying filesharing's a new ice age, but the industry's a recent innovation - music's been alive, thriving since cavemen. Folk songs so long have had a place in communities that you should be amazed at it. Then one day came intellectual property, meaning if I think a thought, you can't copy me. And if honesty's the best policy, I'd say songs are better off without this monopoly. It'd blatantly be a major fail if they'd patented the major scale. And downloads don't equate to sales, so taking them away won't make me pay up - just procludes me from sending your tunes to my friends, so we all lose in the end. You lose potential fans and we lose respect for the fact that you're desperate for cash. But what do you expect from the lass who's collecting a fat bank cheque from the man, while her fans are collecting the glasses for minimum wage they'll spend on her tracks?

Now please don't be offended, Lily; I think your new CD's splendid, Lily. Everybody's at It and it's Not Fair, I Could Say, The Fear was Him but He wasn't There so let's go Back to the Start, before 22 - all music's in the public domain, so Fuck You.

It's never the amateurs that's reckon it's damaging us, it's the major labels saying it's fatal; like when Napster had to pack up, wrecked by Metallica. The table's turned now - the labels churn out a new Jezebelinternetelevangelist - and she's fit - with a manuscript that was actually written by Mr. Michael Masnick. Can you get the irony? And by the by, Lily, I like this beat - I hope you don't mind me thieving, 'cause even doing a cover song's decried as stealing. But it's alright, still, for you to plagiarise, and preach it - Don't you believe it's maybe time to rethink, Lily?

Put music back in the hands of the people; make the majors and amateurs equal. If anything labels strangle the freedom you claim they're saving by banning this evil. That's the actual reason, you see; and please don't compare sharing to stealing - I've not took anything off you, I'm just spreading love for what you do. Downloaded your songs for free, then I bought my mom your CD. She likes it too, she keeps telling me, all because I pirated an mp3. Now I've got Matt Bellamy belling me, telling me I'm not a fan, I'm the enemy. That's amusing, I've paid enough to see Muse in my time I could buy them a museum. Did you see them on that programme miming? Yeah, the pirates are killing live gigs. Maybe we should have a ban CDs appeal - then people would pay to see bands for real. Dear Lily, why are you being this silly?

Yours sincerely,
Dan Bull

P.S. - And I don't mean any offence or anything, Lily. I just don't think the issue's as clear cut as you're making out. And I know you're going to carry on making music really. But when you're between the devil and the deep blue sea, you need to stop worrying about pirates, and adjust your sails.

---------------------------------------- -------------------------------------
Instrumental: "22" by Lily Allen. If you like this version, you should check the original too.