Eurovision Gay Pride Disco!

This weekend's London Pride will be all kinds of fun. Sadly, unlike Norway, Sweden or Finland, London's Pride doesn't involve any Eurovision shenanigans. Seriously, you'd think Brotherhood of Man would need the gig. And Katrina (sans the Waves) could surely be coaxed onto the Woman's Stage to Shine Her Light.

Not to mention Gina G. There'd be a stampede.

Even if there was something EuroVissi, what would we dance to? Good winners as Lordi and Marija were, they hardly set the dancefloors alight.

There's not been a chance to shake our disco tits since Elena Paparizou.

Never fear! Here are remixes of Hard Rock Hallelujah and Molitva, gay disco-ed up, just perfect for homo-hands in the air, arms-a-waving and plenty of shimmy.

Download Frodo United - Hard Rock Hallelujah mp3

Download Marija Serivofic - Molitva dance remix mp3

Raymond och Maria

I went to see wistful Swedish poppets Raymond & Maria last night. They're playing a whistlestop tour of gigs in London and Glasgow this week, and I highly recommend.

Reasons why Raymond & Maria are great:

• There are 5 people in Raymond & Maria, only one of whom is called Maria. Raymond & Maria was the name of a notorious swinging club in Stockholm in the '60s. Amazing.
• Raymond & Maria play floaty, wistful pop music that sounds very happy and jaunty but in fact is rather depressing.
• Many of their songs have hand-claps and 'la la la' bits. One song in particular was hand-claps-a-go-go.
• Tambourines!
• Raymond & Maria are very polite and unassuming. They said 'please' and 'thank you' and 'takk!' a lot.
• One song includes the line 'Will someone tell me why the boring ones are loudest in the bar?'
• One song abbreviates 'television' to 'televish'.
• Raymond & Maria have been Number 1 in Sweden with Ingen vill veta var du köpt din tröja. The English version of this is called No One Notices Your Brand New T-shirt, but in Swedish it means "No one wants to know where you bought your sweater".

The English version can be heard on Raymond och Maria's myspace, and download the Swedish version here:

Download Raymond och Maria: Ingen vill veta var du köpt din tröja mp3

GipsyCZ

This man is Gipsy.CZ.

He took part in the Czech Republic's Eurovision pre-selection this year, and came second. He also played a gig in London yesterday as part of the Central & Eastern Europe Pulse music festival. I went to see him. He was very good.

• He plays a racuous mixture of gypsy folk music and hip-hop. It mixes accordions, fiddles, cellos and phat vocals.
  
• Despite having a powerful, masculine rap voice, Mr GipsyCZ has a sweet, cute speaking voice. He said, "hell-low, I am from Prack".
  
• His best song is Romano Hip Hop. Listen to a little bit of it here.
  
• He bounces around stage a lot, striking poses. Why did the Czech Republic not send him to Eurovision?!
  
• His little white shirt was nicely fitted, not like these ill-fitting American rap t-shirts.
  
• If you're going to Glastonbury, go see Mr Gipsy.CZ. He'll be there too. More info: on Gipsy.Cz's website and Myspace.
  
• The gig had fantastic energy and the crowd were loving it, dancing and 'hands-in-the-air'-ing.
  
• Interesting geography fact! The gig really showed the demographics of recent migration from Eastern Europe: lots of funky cool young people. Also: lots of really beautifully cheekboned buff handsome men. Hurrah for them.

Lost, in London

I'm not sure what to write now. With no eurovision to distract me, I'm practically lost.

My new job is keeping me very busy, so I don't find the time to keep up with the cool pop blogs and haven't listened to new music in yonks (suggestions on a blog comment, please!).

What I have been doing is wandering around strange parts of London taking photos. London: The Way We See It is a cool site that picks a London street at random each week and the masses go out to photograph it in their own unique style. Below is Change Alley, in the City.

I thought Change Alley would be one of London's delightful hidden alleys. Instead it's a dumping ground.Following an odd cross-shaped path, it wasn't particularly winding, medieval or mysterious. It turned out to be where restaurants kept their wheelie bins, where the rubbish was and where the pipes where hidden. Running between two 'main' streets and arteries, it was where the stuff that couldn't be out front was deposited. This photograph is the stuff deposited between two surfaces.

Fun, no? More photos like that either in my FlickR or on London: The Way We See It.