As you are probably more than aware, we’re pretty real and urban here at Vice. We know what the time is, as they say. And we also personally know lots of authentic rapper type people. Some of us even went to school with a few. Bruno went to secondary school in south London with a UK hip-hop rapper called Fliptrix, and John went to secondary school in north London with a UK hip-hop rapper called Chedda. Now, via the medium of the interweb, our former school pal rap “homies” will battle it out. Well, kind of. We will be analysing and comparing their hip-hop prowess to see who is better. Read more »
Vice Singles Club, 4 August, 2009
LOVVERS
OCD Go Go Girls
Wichita
I desperately wanted to hate this – everything about this band has always screamed “AVOID” at me in huge elephant letters. However, they bypass the wanky sub-No Age teen thrills of their peers and go straight for a Real Kids/Television/Flamin’ Groovies dirty power-pop jugular. Seems almost entirely engineered for sad, middle-aged record collector scum like me, so clearly they’re never actually going to get any bigger.
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LEICESTER BANGS Read more »
Vice Singles Club, 6th July 2009
HONOR BLACKMAN
The Star Who Fell From Grace
Music Infinity
This is more like it. Dame Blackman sing-talks her way through a litany of heart-wrenching pathos and regret that even Marc Almond would be ashamed to keep a straight face throughout. Probably the campest single since Elaine Page and Barbara Dickson power-moaned their way to the top of the charts, and at two minutes and nine seconds, sounds suspiciously truncated. Perhaps the intended finale was so overwrought that all involved dissolved in a pool of tears.
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TONY MOLESTER Read more »
Vice Singles Club, 29 June 09
THE VIRGINS
“Hey Hey Girl”
Warner
The charming thing about the Virgins, or at least the song “Rich Girls” was they were a shitty guitar band trying to play R & B but failing in a dumb and glorious fashion. Then they re-recorded that song with some big shot producer who actually made them sound professional and ruined their schtick, which made them pretty rubbish. This is another song by them, which may have been good at some point, but now definitely isn’t. Basically if they hire me as their manager / guru I will make them shitty and glorious once more.
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WALDO JEFFERS Read more »
Pharoah hoodies, Europe’s black royalty and shit jokes: An interview with Afrika Bambaataa
This is me and the Amen-Ra of hip-hop chanting “BAMBAATAA”
This weekend I witnessed musical history, entered the oneness of supreme force and watched FernGully: The Last Rainforest on a comedown. I feel like my interview with Afrika Bambaataa reached a level of spiritual intimacy that I have not previously been able to achieve with another musician. Maybe it was the incense he was burning, maybe it was the fact he pulled out a statue of Anubis before we started the interview, maybe it was the Universal Zulu Nation medallion he gave me, or maybe the fact he called me “sister”. All I know for certain is that Afrika Bambaataa’s jokes are way less funny than he thinks they are. Read more »
