Web 2.0 x 5,000

Web 2.0: it's the buzz word on every net-person's lips. This video is a whirling, trip-like flick through the logos of 5,000 Web 2.0 sites, applications, or companies. Bonkers. It's baffling to think that there are 5,000 out there, and probably many more on the way.

Roads & Rodez

This news story caught my eye last week. Three Norwegian tourists ended up in the small French city of Rodez, having bought a flight which they thought was for Rhodes in Greece.

Sadly the trio (Bente, Marit and Knut - 3 ace Norwegian names) did not stay in Rodez. I would have thought it would be something of an adventure, a journey into the unknown as it were.

Journeying and wandering for their own sake are fun (Norwegians take note!). I love wandering city streets with no particular aim in mind, taking photographs and soaking it all up. The two images here come from two such wanderings: a wander from Broadgate to Bank and a wander along East London's Christian Street.

Sounds Sveriges

I went to see Swedish rock-poppers The Sounds play Hoxton Bar & Grill on Tuesday night.

They came on stage about 40 minutes late. When popstars are late on stage, I naturally assume they're preening their hair. So when Maja came on stage with a right dodgy mop, I wasn't overly impressed.

Maja is fierce, and I don't mean in an fabulous way. Woman is scary. She marched across the stage, ducking and diving, spitting and snarling. Her voice is more shouty and harsh than floaty and high. She's a woman among men, but has definitely a touch of the masculine.

Still, she was wearing a nice headband. And has amazing legs.

Crucial fashion error: double denim. Maja teamed a light blue denim jacket with dark charcoal denim high-waisted buttoned-up hot pants. Double denim is never a good look. The whole effect, avec headband, was very 80s European rock.

As it happens, this image works for the band, whose songs are best when they're Europe-style anthems. Living in America, Painted by Numbers, Ego and Hurt You were sing-a-long, arms-in-the-air highlights.

Check: The Sounds site // The Sounds myspace

Discoveries

I'm in a blogging quandary. Part of me wants to just stop. A bigger part of me wants to go on, boldly going forth and exclaiming, "ace!" I'm not sure what a blog is for any more, as everyone blogs now, in one way or another, thanks to Facebook.

Acediscovery will change - it was always to be somewhere I'd write about things I've found that I think are cool. This became hijacked with Eurovision and pop music, and that's great... I just miss the other stuff, that's all. (Thanks, Robyn.)

So.

These two articles about Ireland are very interesting.

• Irish lap up cappuccino culture and put tea up the spout

Tea drinking in Ireland is on the decline. Buzzing Ireland now drinks coffee, coffee to stay awake, coffee to keep up, coffee to drink on the go. All this coffee being sold is instant coffee.

• For whom the bell tolls . . . line goes dead for phone boxes

Ireland's main telephone provider are removing over 20% of their phone boxes, because of under use. Mobile phones, Blackberries, PDAs have taken over. Ireland's commuter culture has no time to stop at a phone box, it just calls from the mobile, on the go.

Swedish pop @ G-A-Y

I went to G-A-Y on Saturday night to see BWO, Alcazar and Army of Lovers.

• Army of Lovers were just plain bizarre. Alexander Bard had a black blow up (female) sex doll with him.
• Alcazar were with new girl Lina, and all synchronised head turns and pointing.
• No handclaps! No strutting!
• Tess was dressed for wind machine success with a big flowy number.
• The wind machine was set to Carola strength for Tess, but a mere Sonja Alden trickle for Lina. Maybe there's a wind machine pecking order?
• Andreas was sharp with his shaved head and tight, tight trousers. He knew his market.
• They were all coy about Alcazar reforming, meaning 'no'.
• BWO were good too. Martin took his shirt off.
• They performed Temple of Love to a hugely bemused audience who had no idea of its Melodifestivalen brilliance.

Girls Aloud! Sexy! Yes Yes Yes!

The new Girls Aloud single: Sexy! No No No.

OMFG.

Amazing.

It makes me want to be a teenager again.

• It's all swooshy, drivey, whirly and amazing.
  
• It starts all Cheryl-in-vocoder, and reminds me of Eiffel65. This is no bad thing.
• Then it thumps in, and there's a 'dialogue' between Cheryl and 'the girls' about whether she did this, that or the other to some bloke she' met.
• Her replies are: No no no, No no no, No no no, Hell no, No No No, No no no, No no, no, Hell YEAH.
• Then there's more No No No bits and a verse.
• Nadine sings "d...d...dirty mind" recalling Grafitti My Soul.
• I'm sure some Popjustice types will decry some of the girls' absence, but Nicola can be clearly heard grunting "Uh Uh Uh" at one point.
• Then there are Woo Woo bits.
• It's all about singing in duplicate and triplicate. Amazing.
• It's very Sex and the City gone hyperdance whacked up and crazy. Girls Aloud - the logical mid-00s UK successors to Carrie Bradshaw et al?

Hurrah for Girls Aloud. They bring sunshine into even the wettest of summer days.

Here it is, via youtube and some random dance video:

Don't Rain on My Parade

London Pride was something of a washout. It was wet. Still, at least the float blaring out "It's Raining Men!" made sense.

I didn't even get a shot of a buff man bouncing around wearing a mankini. Forshame.

It turned out that there was a Eurovision connection.

Amnesty International used the idea of Eurovision voting to highlight the poor experiences of gays in Eastern Europe where a lot of Pride marches are banned. Thus, nul points for Moldova, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and others.

Read all about it here.

And to make it even better, the Amnesty float was blasting out I Love You, Mi Vida. Oh, if only buff Ony (Antonio to his mum) from D'Nash had turned up with his lovely arms and chest...

Lots of great photographs of the day here.

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.

Girls! Aloud!

I've been to see Girls Aloud play their Greatest Hits tour in Wembley. In a word, it was amazing. I love their songs, their attitude, their style. The audience was a hugely diverse mixture - young kids, gays a plenty, indie boys, Essex girls, trendy girls, New-Rave "youth of today" and many more besides. Girls Aloud seem to succeed by mixing quite complex, layered and referential pop music and lowest common denominator styling, and somehow pull this off with ace personality.

The Best Bits:

• Entering and coming down onto stage on a platform.


• Nicola, despite allegedly being Miss Body Issues, wearing the most revealing clothes of all 5. The minx was loving it.


• The band, great as they were, were kept well hidden at the sides of stairs with dancers to the forefront.


• The Hunky dancers, especially when wearing ripped shirts and ties or nothing at all. One long, lingering shot of a dancer's chest and torso proved there was certainly a gay in charge of the camera.


• Their dodgy covers were rescued by: Synchronised Strutting during Walk This Way, hunky dancer pelvic thrusts for Jump, and an amazing finger-clicking bit in I Think We're Alone Now.


• Cheryl Cole totally over-sexes her dance moves, especially during Something Kinda Ooh. She's fabulously filthy.


• Three dancers brought out nunchucks at one point. It's always nice to see violent weaponry on stage.


• Nicola's miserable puss for the "frankly I don't even care" lyric in No Good Advice was a joy to behold.


• Dance routines with canes.


• There was an odd Dirty Dancing routine but, sadly, no time for a 'Nobody Puts Nicola In The Corner' skit.


• A whole lot of shimmying, shaking, thrusting, lurching, head swishes and hair swooshes - especially during Wake Me Up and Money.


• The hunky dancers were hidden under bedspreads for The Show, and the song's "I won't sex you until I say so" message was given a whole Benny Hill chases around the bed treatment. Brilliant.


• Biology! Literal dance interpretations of "a girl's got to zip it up" and the tick-tock-clock dance move.

More pictures on Flickr, if you are interested.

New York City

Far from being rubbish, New York City is amazing. Here's what I did:

• Looked incredulously at tall, tall buildings. Skyscrapers are amazing.
  
  
• On the first day, wondered "where are all the people?" The city seemed remarkably, and oddly, quiet.
  
  
• Got caught in a rainstorm (oh my god, I'm Carola) wearing hopelessly inappropriate clothing (oh my god, I'm Carrie Bradshaw).
  
  
• Saw someone with big hair and sunglasses like dinnerplates in Saks 5th Avenue who I'm choosing to believe was Diana Ross. As she sashayed past, the sales assistant breathlessly whispered "you look beautiful" at her.
  
  
• Said "I guess", a lot.
  
  
• Ate "subs".
  
  
• Bought Verka Serduchka and Ruslana CDs at a Russian music shop near Coney Island. Eurovision is unavoidable.
  
  
• To that end, I saw a bar called Vertigo and a restaurant called Dervish.
  
  
• Took well over 600 photographs. Just be glad I'm not doing show and tell. They'll eventually make their way onto Flickr, I guess.
  
  
• Explored New York's many gay scenes. My favourite was the Meatpacking District. No giggling, please.
  
  
• Laughed like a drain at the bitchiest drag queen I've ever heard. She grew impatient at her show not being able to start, grabbed the mike and shouted "Motherfuckers! Get a move on, I'm growing a beard here!"
  
  
• People watched. Three particular standouts were:
• A gorgeous, cornfed American jock type stormed manly into a bar, dropped his bag with a manly movement and campily screeched "oh my god this bag is soooo heavy!"
• A blonde girl rushed me past engulfed in her conversation on her phone: "No, cos Anthony told Samantha" all said in total Noo Yoik speak.
• Two women met on the subway, having not met in a while. One says to the other that's she's not working right now. The other replies, "oh too bad. I do accounting for a firm of forensic investigators".

I find these hilarious, and I don't know why. Beguiling, just like New York.

London to New York, from above.

I took these aerial photos on a flight from London to New York.

Eurovision

Now that Eurovision is done and dusted, I'm off to New York tomorrow.

But there's still time to celebrate this year.

Serbia was a fantastic, deserving winner. I loved the militaristic, powerful performance and Molitva is a storming stomper of a song.

I'm really glad a ballad has won again, and it's the first fully non-English song for yonks.

My votes on the night were a tight affair: 3 joint winners: Serbia, Ukraine and Slovenia. I had the top 2 at least.

Patriotically, I'm a bit disappointed Ireland didn't do better, but not surprised - it was joint 20th in my line-up. We gave big cheers when Scooch got their 12 points from Malta, and huge groans when Ireland's points for the UK and Lithuania voted themselves into last position.

Also: a word to Sweden, who really didn't do well. SEND SCHLAGER EVERY YEAR: YOU'RE GUARANTEED A JOINT 6TH POSITION.

And that is all. Now, hands in fists, arms aloft: MO---LIT---VA!!!!!!!

Le Semi

Eurovision semi-final came and went yesterday, and wasn't it a whole lot of fun? As has been covered en masse elsewhere, all the qualifying countries (bar Turkey) are Eastern European. I don't really care about this, but I'm disappointed that Netherlands, Malta and others didn't qualify.

If anything, I think the EBU need to come up with a format that tempers this disappointment, and highlights the fact that the show is a celebration of music and song!

Here are my Best Bits!

• Belarus! Dmitry Koldun's new hair-do was the highlight of his performance for me. That, and the 'reach up to the side and grab' dance move.



• Iceland! The guitar player on the right was HOT.



• Georgia! It felt like all the first few performers were wearing black or in dark colours, so thank goodness for Sopho and her crimson red dress. I quite liked her swordsmen too. She's obviously been to The Ruslana School of Weaponry.
  
• The Netherlands! Edsilia! She belted it out, the performance was pitch perfect, quite simple not too overdone with just a little bit of strutting. Poor Edsilia.
  
• Denmark! DQ was fan-tastic! Ho ho.
  
• Serbia! I love, love, loved Marija's performance. From her nonchalant stroll on stage to the strangely sinister Military glamour girl chorus gently fondling each other, to her Big Belt-It-Out Vocals, it was amazing.


• Estonia! Gerli strutted all about, to the side, to the other side and had the hunky dancers. Hurrah for Estonia's predictability.


• Slovenia! Alenka's wonderful arms aloft entrance said "I'm here!" and her sparkly diamond hands were cool, but most exciting was Alenka's cute "look! I've got sparkly hands!" faces.

I loved lots of other things too. Roll on Saturday!

Today's The Day

It's all so very exciting. Today is the day! I'm not only referring to the Eurovision semi-final tonight, but also today is Kikki Danielsson's birthday. Hurrah for Kikki!

Kikki is 55 today and, bless her, she doesn't look a day over 50. Poor Kikki's been in the spotlight more for her eating and drinking habits recently than her fab schlager credentials.

So let's redress that with some Kikki facts.

• Kikki has been in Melodifestivalen 9 times, and has gone to Eurovision twice, in 1982 and 1985 when she finished 3rd.


• She's been a proper schlager pop singer since 1973.


• Her Bra Vibrationer is not only schlager brilliance, but also a hilarious song title.


• In her latest Melodifestivalen appearance, Kikki came last in the final. Poor Kikki! But! I dag & I Morgan was pure schlager brilliance, with bongs and a whopping key change.


• Kikki wore a big pink kaftan or muu-muu or something. What's not to love?


• Kikki was very big in the 80s, rocking a big hair and shoulder-pads look.

For your download pleasure, here are I Dag & I Morgan from Melodifestivalen 2006, and the very ace Varför är kärleken röd? which came in 2nd place in 1983's Melodifestivalen.

Kikki Danielsson - I dag & I Morgan mp3 (right click - save as)

Kikki Danielsson - Varför är kärleken röd? mp3 (right click - save as)

Enjoy Kikki! Enjoy Eurovision!

Antti-pop

Antti Tuisku came third in the first series of Finnish Idols, which was won by this year's Finnish Eurovision entrant Hanna Pakarinen. Antti, 23, subsequently released two albums on the same day - Rovaniemi and New York. They topped the chart at numbers 1 and 2 in their first week.

Rovaniemi mixes pop sounds and hints of trip hop and downbeat ethereal techno to surprising effect. New York is much more racy, vampy and sexy. Taking a Timberlake styling, the album took influence from Antti's idol Madonna, mixing dancebeats and electrosynth hooks, creating an modern sound complimented by assonant Finnish lyrics.

Sekaisin, loosely translates as 'Confused', reached number 2 in the Finnish charts last year. I love the 'ooour' sound in the chorus, based on the sound of the Finnish language.

Tulevaisuus, which means Future, builds from synth hooks and echoey vocals to a huge chorus.

Humppa!

Humppa is a bonkers Finnish musical style that seems to be a hilarious thrown-together mix of lots of instruments, wild on stage energy and exuberant performances. It's a sort of mash of ska and polka and folk and rock. It's brilliant.

Eläkeläiset (Finnish for "pensioners") are a humppa band, who've been around since the early 1990s. Eläkeläiset mainly play cover versions of famous pop and rock hits in a fast humppa style with Finnish lyrics. They've covered lots of classics: The Cardigans' My Favourite Game, Madonna's Like A Virgin and a particular stand-out track The Pet Shop Boys' Domino Dancing.

Here for download is one we all know and love given a bit of humppa treatment.

Eläkeläiset - Kulumaton Humppa mp3

Bright New Things

Brightboy are an exciting new band from Helsinki. They bring us catchy guitar pop songs with hooky melodic vocals, and exciting synth highlights.

They released a few singles in 2006, and a debut album: Love For The Streets. Brightboy are one of the youngest bands to ever grace the cover of Finland music magazine Rumba. They've supported current Swedish pop darlings The Sounds on tour, so they have credentials.

There's something very Finnish about brightboy. Their songs speak of enjoyment and fun, getting the most from life, but a slight disaffection with their surroundings, knowing there's something better out there, as in their song This Town Is Getting Too Small For Me and a pragmatic attitude to fame and money, as in the synth-tastic Vanity Fair.

In particular, I love Wear Out the Soles (download below). It's infectious, melodic guitar pop with a great, fun sentiment about living for the moment and dancing with abandon. It seems very Finnish, for a country that throws off the shackles of winter by partying.

Brightboy release their second album, In the shadow of trance formers, in the early autumn.

Brightboy - Wear Out The Soles mp3

By the way, to hear lots more great contemporary Finnish music, visit Music Export Finland.