Festival des Inrocks 2008

So let's talk about this year's Festival des Inrocks and it's pretty amazing line-up and how, if I were living in France and had the money, I'd pretty much be going every night.



The whole shebang (did I really just write that?) started off last night with MGMT, Alela Diane, Fleet Foxes, and She & Him playing L'Olympia in Paris, and continues through the 18th.

A Paris:
13th November - Franz Ferdinand, Get Well Soon, Yo Majesty - La Cigale
14th November - The Ting Tings, Cajun Dance Party, Black Kids, Amazing Baby, GaBLe - La Cigale
15th November - Foals, Friendly Fires, Soko, S. Steve, The Virgins, Wild Beasts - La Cigale
16th November - Hot Chip, Metronomy, Late of the Pier, Kennedy, Cut Copy - La Cigale
17th November - The Kooks, CSS, Mystery Jets, White Lies - Le Zenith

A Lille:
13th November - The Ting Tings, Cajun Dance Party, Black Kids, Soko - Aeronef
14th November - Foals, Friendly Fires, Soko, The Virgins, Wild Beasts - Splendid de Lille

A Nantes:
15th November - The Ting Tings, Cajun Dance Party, Black Kids - Olympic de Nantes
16th November - Foals, Friendly Fires, Soko, The Virgins, Wild Beasts - Olympic de Nantes

A Ramonville:
17th November - The Ting Tings, Cajun Dance Party, Black Kids - Le Bikini
18th November - Foals, Friendly Fires, Soko, The Virgins, Wild Beasts - Le Bikini


Plus some other bands that seem to be on the poster but not listed on any of these dates that I'm seeing.

That's a lot to digest. Point is, there's a shit tonne of bands that I'd love to see (Franz, Mystery Jets, Cut Copy) and would be interested to see (The Ting Tings, Foals, Friendly Fires, The Virgins, CSS, She & Him) and, um. I can't go.

Luckily, les Inrocks and sponsors iDTGV will be posting videos and photos in their Festival blog over here, for those of us unable to swim across to Europe.

If you do happen to be in France, there's some ticket info over here, although a majority, if not all, of the Paris shows are currently complet. That's French for "sold out."


I mean, frankly, whose idea was this whole "Atlantic Ocean" business, anyway...?

Munday Morning Mux 2 : C'mon, Get Happy!

Stolen from Muxtape, blah blah.

So all of my posts lately have been my silly attempts at making mixtapes and playlists and my whining and moaning in commentary. How boring. I'm sorry.

But I'd like to post new muxtapes on a regular basis, and this week you were going to get my Please Please Please mix (which isn't so great, akshually, hence why it's not getting posted), but the weather has been SO DAMN NICE and it smells like sunshine and barbecues and I'm envious of the daffodils and dammit, I need some happy music!

Thing is, not a lot of my favourite music makes me happy. Okay, I must find some sort of pleasure in all of it, in some way, otherwise I wouldn't be listening to it. But it's quite different for me to think of a song that, say, makes me really happy and one that makes me want to dance, which then makes me happy, or one that is really splendidly written and that makes me happy but the song itself isn't so happy.

So here I'm presenting a mix between my pitiful Happy Mix! (which is all of like, eight songs) and the stuff I've been listening to as of late, which will be Spring '08 mix material.

C'mon, Get Happy!

Mux available here.

Tracklisting/Commentary/Incoherent babbling:

1) "Thomas Window Paine" - DZUSA
Did I have this on my last mux, too? Oops. But it makes me so happy! I just want to dance around a lot.

2) "Pop Song" - The Lashes
Also, more Lashes. The drum-heavy opening always gets me.

3) "Eyes" - Apollo Sunshine
It's so preeeeeeetttyyyy!

4) "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" - The Beatles
God, I love this song. Love love love it. It's very reassuring, as well.

5) "Here Comes The Sun" - The Beatles
More Beatles! Everyone needs more Beatles! And more sun. Yes.

6) "Elevate Myself" - Grandaddy
I'm not so taken with the rest of Just Like The Fambly Cat, but this shit's good.

7) "Young Love" - Mystery Jets
I've just recently written about this song and the adorable video that goes with it. I can't get it out of my head! I listen to it everywhere, on the way to class, at the gym, downtown, everywhere.

8) "Look Me Up" - Georgie James
I wrote about Georgie James relatively recently as well. Still love them.

9) "You're So Damn Hot" - OK Go
Yeah yeah, another OK Go song. This song pretty much started it all. And after four and a half years, I still love hearing it, which is a good thing, I suppose.

10) "A-Punk" - Vampire Weekend
Carefree and summery. Perfect!

11) "Shut Your Eyes" - Shout Out Louds
First SOL song I came across, probably still my favourite.

12) "Sophie" - Scamper
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I LOVE THIS SONG it makes me so happy!!! All of my friends are always like, "This reminds me of 'Stacy's Mom'!" which is DOES, but it really just makes me want to DANCE around all SILLY-LIKE, which I often DO.

(PLEASE NOTE: I wrote the above at like, 2:30 a.m., when I was way too super-tired. Hence the excessive capitalisation and punctuation. Sorry.)

All right, enjoy, loves.

Stuck in my Head : Mystery Jets, "Young Love"

I grabbed a copy of Mystery Jets' so-called attempt at a Christmas #1, "Flakes," back in December sometime, but it wasn't until I was on a bus heading back from Boston back in March after having spent the weekend maybe listening to too much Nightmare of You that it really caught my attention and I put these guys on my "listen to more" list.

So apparently the 'Jets have just released their second record, Twenty One, in the UK. (I don't really pay well enough attention to this sort of thing.) It features "Flakes" and also this little gem, "Young Love":



Um. HOW FUCKING ADORABLE IS THAT VIDEO? And how amazingly catchy is that song...? When the line You wrote your number on my hand/But came off in the rain came up, I really said "AWWWWW" out loud for no one to hear. I do like the more introspective, sadder feel of "Flakes" maybe a bit more than their all-out powerpop, but really, you know me. I'm a sucker for handclaps and fingersnaps and harmonies. I'll take either one.

Mystery Jets - "Young Love"
Mystery Jets - "Flakes"

Right now, they've just got a slew of tour dates for the UK listed. I'm too lazy to repost them, so you can see them here.

Seriously. Boys. When you're in the States, call me. We'll go out for drinks and sing pop songs and so forth. It'll be good times.