Muscles is a dick. 

Back in October I was slightly amused about his plans to delete his Myspace account due to the deal that the News Limited owned company had done with the four majors in the US and what he perceived as the Independents getting locked out of the equation. At the last minute he decided not to delete his myspace after a call from their Marketing Manager who told him to check his facts. The funny thing about it was that instead of Muscles actually checking his facts he took the guys word for it and instead watched some pirated tv. Top work Muscles.

It was about this time I started to hear a couple of funny stories about the guy, how he wasn’t getting along with his label (Modular/Universal). One of the baseless rumors involved him inviting all the label staff to his house for a BBQ to make amends where he went around one by one giving everyone a hug and profusely apologising.

The latest dickery that’s emerged is Muscles announcing on his twitter account that he’s “cancelled from Nevereverland 2008″. This seemed to indicate that he’d been given the boot but now Modular have put this blog post up categorically stating that Muscles was…

“…offered a spot at NEVEREVERLAND which still stands and whether he chooses to play or not is his decision. Obviously we would like him to be part of our 10 year celebrations and hope he turns up to perform.”

He’s come back to say that Modular said they couldn’t afford him which would suggest that his asking price was too high… How much is a Muscles live set actually worth? 

Either way his latest blog post is pretty much him going head to head with his label, probably not a good idea for this one trick pony.

This all seems to stem from some idea that the world is out to get him. It’s all the ramblings of someone paranoid that the man is trying to get him down. I don’t think it’s the man that he’s got to worry about, I think he’s doing a pretty good job himself.

 

Update: Muscles has just announced that he is quitting the music business for good and may or may not release his follow up album “Manhood”.

Update 2: “Muscles has sought legal advice and legal proceedings are about to be commenced against Modular Records”

That is correct. Muscles, Shepparton’s own electro-pop golden boy, is performing a one off acoustic gig at the Yamaha ‘Felt Hammer’ Festival.  It’s going down in Melbourne town from March 12th to the 24th at The Toff. Muscles, best known for his ironic lack of the aforementioned, will be smashing out such hits as ‘Ice Cream’ and ‘One Inch Badge Pin’ on ‘one hell of a Yamaha Grand Piano!’ (thank you publicists..).

Suffice to say – this is f’ing cool and you should all f’ing go. I went to school with Muscles (his real name is Chris by the way), where i saw him perform lots of Creed-style piano power-ballads at recitals and the like. He’s always been handy on them there ivory keys, just not in a totally cool way… And then he disappears for a while and suddenly he’s electronic music’s second coming… go figure. Or go fish. Whatever.

The Felt Hammer festival is a celebration of local musicians done-good, playing all their hits on piano in a groovy, intimate setting. New Buffalo, Sly Hats, The Ground Components and Art of Fighting are also on the bill.

For tix n’ deets follow the blue-brick, hyperlink road!

www.thetoffintown.com/shows

Not acoustic!

Muscles – Hey Muscles, I Love You

Muscles – Lauren From Glebe (Damage Edit)

They will be spinning their characteristic mix of bleeding edge electro with some old favourites thrown in for good measure. Personally I am hoping they play a lot of food themed tracks like “Ice Cream” by Muscles/New Young Pony Club/Soft Tigers (where is THAT mashup?) or maybe they could just play “E Talking” Tiga. What? E is a food!

The tour is promoting the Verbena Selected session (which Dan got in on the ground floor back here) in which the Buffetlibre DJ’s have been joined by artists such as Midnight Juggernauts, Simian Mobile Disco, Bag Raiders, Pomomofo, The Bloody Beatroots, D.I.M. and Shitdisco in the making of the set. You can download it straight off their well decent site at http://buffetlibre.net.

And another thing: before each of their events they are giving away one of 250 t-shirts from some of the top designers around the world. Can someone in Australia please give away tshirts at gigs already? I knew there was something missing from the Aussie DJ experience but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Enjoy this mix the guys have put together called “Verbena Rewind” full of some really tasty tracks, including the Never Ending Story by the great man Moroder:

Tracklist:
1.Sintonia Buffetlibre
2.Ray Parker Jr. – Ghostbusters
3.Communards – Don’t Leave Me This Way
4.Desireless – Voyage Voyage
5.Human League – Don’t You Want Me
6.Pet Shop Boys – Always On My Mind (Extended Mix)
7.New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (Extended Mix)
8.Bananarama – Love In The First Degree
9.Kylie Minogue – The Locomotion
10.Trans X – Living On A Video
11.Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round
12.Yazoo – Situation (12” mix)
13.Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams
14.Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough
15.Giorgio Moroder & Limahl – NeverEnding Story
16.Franco Battiato – Yo Quiero Verte Danzar

verbena-rewind.mp3

xox
nek

This year the top ten spots went to the following:
1. Muse – Knights of Cydonia
2. Silverchair – Straight Lines
3. Kings Of Leon – On Call
4. John Butler Trio – Better Than
5. Faker – This Heart Attack
6. Foo Fighters – The Pretender
7. Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (live)
8. Cold War Kids – Hang Me Up To Dry
9. Soko – I’ll Kill Her
10. The Panics – Don’t Fight It

Interesting piece of trivia is that the Silverchair track in the number 2 spot was co-written by Julian Hamilton of the Presets who used to act as touring support for Paul Mac and Daniel Johns’ The Dissociatives.

And here is the rest of the top 100. Well the ones you probably know and/or care about:

12 Wombats, The Let’s Dance To Joy Division
14 Muscles Ice Cream
17 M.I.A Paper Planes
18 Presets, The My People
19 Architecture In Helsinki Heart It Races
20 Kanye West Stronger
24 Bloc Party Hunting For Witches
27 Operator Please Just A Song About Ping Pong
34 Feist 1234
35 Justice D.A.N.C.E
36 Architecture In Helsinki Hold Music
37 Cold War Kids Hospital Beds
39 Cut Copy Hearts On Fire
40 Bloc Party I Still Remember
54 Klaxons Golden Skans
57 Midnight Juggernauts Into The Galaxy
69 Digitalism Pogo
76 Muscles Sweaty
86 Midnight Juggernauts Tombstone
93 Bumblebeez Dr Love
98 Interpol The Heinrich Maneuver
99 Hives, The Tick Tick Boom
100 Pnau Wild Strawberries

You can listen to the Triple J Hottest 100 here as well as checking out who made the entire list. And that’s all I have to say on the matter

xox
nek

If you’re Australian, then you’ve heard of Boags Draught, Boags Premium Lager and Boags St George Super premium Lager, but what else is Tasmania (mainland Australia’s shunned little brother) good for? Well, Nek and myself (ie: Duncan) went to see Tasmania’s hottest new export last Friday at the Espy in Melbourne. They’re called The Scientists of Modern Music and they gave us all a practical class in kicking out the jams.

After knocking out the kids at Falls Festival with their fists of synthesized fury, the Scientists have turned their synth-pop gaze to the mainland – and they’ve set phasers to ‘fuck yeah’.

It’s a simple gimmick done well – buy lots of expensive synths, guitars and midi controllers then use them to make loud noises. It’s a bit like Lo-Fi-Fnk and Muscles having punch-ons with a vocoder. Underwater.

The Scientists of Modern Music – Easy

They’re nice chaps too – both in their early 20’s with a background in DJing and classical piano. The sort of guys that make you regret giving up music lessons because the other kids at school said they were lame. Their stage show isn’t down pat yet, tough. Still a bit too much pre-recorded raving and not enough mindless bashing of keyboards – seriously, who doesn’t love that shit.

If you’re in Australia, come back here for updates on an upcoming national tour. The Scientists will be dissecting ear-drums near you very soon.

Check out this merry tune, MacGyver*!

The Scientists of Modern Music – Technology Illiterate

* Office spell-checker has ‘MacGyver’ in it. I spelt it MacGuyver and the Microsoft Corporation corrected me. Hmmm…

I have to thank the ever reliable (and reliably left-field) Monsieur P for pointing me in the direction of Aussie up and comers Christopher Robin [MySpace], two lads from Brisbane doing a fine line in acid-tinged, melody heavy electro pop. They seemed to pick up a bit of blog-love throughout last year with their frankly bitching remix of Muscles’ ubiquitous ‘One Inch Badge Pin’, a track which probably gives one a fair indication of what their reputedly off-the-charts live shows might be like. But now they’ve emitted a digital download demo, which is available for FREE from their MySpace, and features three pulsing, beautifully produced songs that combine heavy beats with a soaring, radio-friendly pop sensibility. It makes me think that 2008 could be a pretty fucking colossal year for the Christopher Robin boys. If you’re in Brisbane and Melbourne get yo ass down to one of their upcoming shows

26 Jan – Dusk Australia Day Party, Mooloolaba (DJ Set)

27 Jan – LICK IT with Adam Sky, Brisbane (Live)

31 Jan – Pogo, Melbourne (Live) [EDIT: Melbourne show postponed! Keep an eye out in April...]
And here’s a sampling for you to wrap your greedy ears around

Muscles – One Inch Badge Pin (Christopher Robin Remix)

Christopher Robin – Always

Christopher Robin – Vision 2020

-luke

Australian dance mental Muscles is about to release his first album release following the successful “One Inch Badgepin” 12′, a watershed track from the one man machine.

Track lists are not available yet but you can preorder (again, I am loving this but get in there quick!) from www.jbhifionline.com.au. And this time you get a free muscles wrist band and iron on transfer.

Here is my favourite remix of “One Inch Badgepin” to date, can’t wait to hear the album due out on September 29!

Muscles – One Inch Badgepin (Van She Tech Remix)