If It's Tuesday There Must Be A Gratuitous Belgian Link At The End Of The Dump

We meant to go to see LaRoux and The Electrilickers at The Rainbow back in February but it was snowing and we're fairweather fans so point you instead to a review by the hardier and more local Baron.

In other news, we really like the album Embrace by Sleepy Sun, trippy but undeniably powerful stuff, and they'll be playing ATP on May 8.

Elsewhere, Twenty Major takes on the banks with his usual foul-mouthed flair.

Still with time to spare? Try to unravel the in-jokes over at Power To The People! and Awesome Pals. Co-conspirators at the latter site, Los Campesinos!, also have their very own blog where they ask the very reasonable question 'so what do you want to know?'

For fans of Bob Dylan there's an mp3 of the cheerfully-entitled 'Beyond Here Lies Nothin' from his forthcoming album available for free download from the official site. Bob's voice is more cracked than ever but the choon chugs along rather nicely and successfully whets the appetite for the full record.

And finally, we know it's getting harder for music promoters to tempt punters to part with their hard-earned but the organisers of the recent Kraak Music Festival in Belgium appear to have taken a possibly literal and certainly NOT-SAFE-FOR-WORK approach with their invitational poster...

Easy On The Sauce, Cupcake, This Is Serious

Happy New Year to all our readers, amazingly there's still a few of you out there, despite the sparsity of updates in the last few months. Unsure to what sort of degree that will change in 2009, but here's a few links to get things kickstarted and see where it takes us.

853 describes Ladytron's Velocifero (our favourite album of 2008 lest ye forget) as a damb squib, but gets most other things right reporting from the frontline of south-east London.

I Am The Crime is a cool Swedish music blog run by hot Swedish music blogger Cecilia.

Robyn Wilder reveals her Top 10 embarrassing childhood crushes. Includes Dudley Moore dressed as an elf - there's hope for Dead Kenny yet then, eh Robyn?

Meanwhile, an interesting art blog - At The Moment.

West Ham's Congolese left-back Herita Ilunga also has blog (albeit in French, malheuresement).

Matt Smith has been announced as the new Dr Who. We saw Matt in That Face at the Royal Court just over 18 months ago, and he's a talented actor with a lot of energy who should do well.

The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2008 (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) features a heavy smattering of former TV actresses like Neve Campbell, Mischa Barton and Eliza Dushku (gesundheit!).

Heather Locklear's mugshot. What would TJ Hooker say?

Worth seeking out on DVD...Alan Rudolph's surreal cartoonish romantic thriller Trouble In Mind available on R2 for the first time.

And finally...the results of the Music Bloggers Poll of Polls are in and again 7 of our Top 10 made the cut. Thanks again to Simon for compiling the chart.

Manic Mondo

Because the internet would just be boryn without a bit of Robyn, we start off this Monday mini-mitherpiece with some self-styled self-regarding nonsense from the suddenly big and bossy Ms Wilder. Titbits include revelations about wandering through London with her blouse undone to the waist, but it's not just blogging ninja divas who suffer from wardrobe malfunctions, as Rihanna shows in this set of dubious-safety-for-work photos, proving that not even an umbrella (ella, ella, ella) could hide your blushes when it's that nippy out.

Raising our eyes from the gutters to the stars somewhat, Warren Ellis gives a sceptical glance back at speccy sci-fi boffin Joe 90 (via LMG) and Carl Hiassen's Lucky You is being adapted for the British stage. Elsewhere, various bods recall this year's Indietracks; On Dancefloors is a Bristol music blog with a funky attitude; In Pictures: Kate Bush is 50 and, remember Cardiff pop kids, Tell The Police The Truth.

Bloggers don't so much fade away as they do diversify, a case in point being Creepy Lesbo's Slash Media (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) in which she samples some of modern pop culture's gashtronomic delights. Skin Flicks is much more safe for work, although as he considers himself to be a very angry man and is found pleading for fallen women to be shown to him, maybe due caution should be shown after all.

Meanwhile, the undisputed star of Bristol's Dot-to-Dot, the inimitable Big Jeff, has MySpace.

And wherever else your browser points you, remember, Jesus Can See!

Dead Kenny's Behrami Army

To celebrate our beloved West Ham finally making their first major signing of the summer in Valon Behrami, a Kosovan-born Swiss international right back, whose crazy hair and tats should see him fit in well with our long history of 'eccentric' full-backs, Parallax View sees fit to empty our favourites folder for you to pick 'n' mix -

More reasons to be cheerful as Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong shelve their debut album. Seems like an 8/10 rating from the NME doesn't amount to a hill o'beans these days!

We've cut back our gig/festival-going in the last month or so, but some good folk have put the hours in during our absence -

Drowned In Sound review Supersonic 2008.

Ben SWSL's Glasto 2008 Diary.

Sweeping The Nation reviews Truck festival.

Last Bus Home reviews the Lovebox Weekender at Victoria Park.

Troubled Diva reviews White Denim at Nottingham Bodega.

In other news -

Rock drummers are top athletes.

Attachments' Amanda Ryan is to play Cathy in Birmingham Rep's upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation.

Twenty Major's cure for another boring summer.

Scary Duck on passive-aggressive notes.

Lydongate? Johnny's Behaviour Rotten? Swells on the 'racist' rickus (via RussL)

Careless Genes shows us how to make home-made peanut butter.

Birmingham's Flapper and Firkin faces demolition. (via Pete Ashton)

NOT SAFE FOR WORK eye candy if you like the idea of a Japanese Cheryl Cole lookalike with F-cup depth to her personality - Suzuka Ishikawa (20): REMINDER: NOT WORK SAFE.

M.I.A. and Santogold Get It Up together.

Cat With A Theremin (via just about everybody, it seems).

And finally, we did get to a gig last night, review to follow shortly, but here as a taster is one of the bands, Red Pony Clock, and their silly promo for My New Best Friends. If you like what you see/hear, they'll be playing the Indietracks festival in Ripley, Derbyshire this weekend -

Feb And Groovy

In which we empty our pockets of loose change. Spend it wisely, readers!

In response to a request from Ben as to where you can get hands on a copy of David Byrne's cover of The Fiery Furnaces' 'Ex-Guru' here's a link to the mp3 and also details on how you can buy a copy of this goofy goodness.

Sweetness And Light:The Miki Berenyi Interview 2008. Miki's still so fine at 40, and contributing to a couple of new records (via Sweeping The Nation).

Steel yourself for the Iron Man trailer.

Yow, that's gotta hurt: Qui frontman David Yow hospitalised with collapsed lung.

Jack Nicholson on seduction:: 'I don't do any tricks. It's just animal magnetism.'

Chris Cleave's excellent novel Incendiary which features a troubled young woman learning to cope with losing her husband and child in a terrorist atrocity at an Arsenal game, has been made into a feature film starring Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor that premiered at last month's Sundance Film Festival.

The Constantines release a new album Kensington Heights through Arts & Crafts on April 15.

Sad news emerging this month that the great J G Ballard has advanced prostate cancer.

This sad, too: Roy Scheider RIP.

RussL re-designed.

Health Warning: Don't Try This At Home.

Birmingham-based circus artiste Emilia Arata (picture borderline safe for work) supplied the eye candy for last month's Big Brother Celebrity Takeover yawnfest.

A cautious recommendation to What I Killed Today, in which a vet eulogises the animals he's euthanised. (via LMG)

On a much happier note it's full speed ahead for a new Ladytron album, entitled Velocifero, due out on Nettwerks Records on June 3.

And finally, a new music tip for 2008, in the shape of Laura Groves. Missed the 20-year-old Shipley lass's show last night at the Bearded Magazine launch party in Birmingham's Sunflower Lounge, but these songs on her MySpace page are striking and distinctive. The Kate Bush comparisons are inevitable, but, for once, pertinent.

Gig review ketchup soon, you saucy devils.

Blast Off

Happy New Year to all Parallax View readers everywhere. Yeah, even you.

Out with the old and all that, so let's get this party started with a crudely ripped linkdump.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Robyn's back for another Wilder reunion with the internetwhatnot.

Here's something to put a lightbulb in your milkglass: Hitchcock Blonde. Writer/actress, yeah we know.

Live recordings from Supersonic 07 includes our pick of Gig Of The Year, Beestung Lips!

Kevin Greening RIP.

Steve Gerrard Rock Photographer. He shoots bands for three score.

Simon has again lovingly compiled the UK Blogger Poll of Polls for Albums of 2007. 7 of our top 10 made the 50.

Still feeling listless? The Top 10 Celebrity Sex Moments of 2007 are unsurprisingly NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

On a similar UNSAFE FOR WORK tip here's the list you've really been waiting for: The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2007 with pictures and movie clips attached to get your boss hot under the collar.

Another blog of note: Thomas Moronic.

And finally, the first of our music tips for 2008: Ida Maria a Swedish-based Norwegian with a distinctive rockchick rawr, who's playing a couple of gigs in London later this month.

Feeding Frenzy

In no way a method of prevaricating further before delivering our Summer Sundae Weekender review, and in no particular order, let the linkdumping commence -

Page2RSS.com will create an RSS feed for this site so Dead Kenny won't have to. It's not hard work, just put the URL in the box provided and they will let you know whenever PV is updated. (info kindly provided by Pete Ashton.)

LiveJournal Community for people to share photographs of Abandoned Places. Wonder if LiveJournal counts as an abandoned place itself these days?

Unedited transcript of interview between authors Toby Litt and JG Ballard.

Birmingham's Pub Toilet Halls Of Shame And Fame.

Cronenberg's Eastern Promises to open London Film Festival on October 17. (trailer can be viewed here.)

Former West Ham player Jeroen Boere dies aged 39.

Cold War Quiz. The world seems to fall around your ears if you anything wrong. Is that how it felt for JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Another quiz, this time asking How Manky Are You?.

Sheffield's Letters and Colours have seemingly been washed away in the rain.

And finally...Telford thieves think big. That's really a haul of shame (via Phill).

Uncool List

First up, congratulations to my brother Mark and his wife Gabrielle on the birth of their daughter, making Dead Kenny an Uncle for the very first time, as Madonna might once have sung. In honour of this occasion, here are some other pressing deliveries...

Russ L on The Spotted Dog's spot of bother.

Ben fills his blogging boots with a Glastonbury 2007 diary.

The new Interpol record is a new Interpol record, and thus a mighty thing of wonder indeed.

Hitflip sent me a nice t-shirt.

Billy Bragg's doing his bit for jailhouse rock.

A new Peter Greenaway film is imminent.

Ambition novelist Nirpal Dhaliwal on Emily Parr's 'David Brent moonwalk'.

Robyn's still blogging. This makes us happy.

Simone Radway is a photography graduate based in Birmingham looking to assist fashion and portrait photographers.

This is where your correspondent will be at this weekend.

?

The new Paul Schrader film, The Walker, opens in the UK on August 10. Looks like a modern riff on his American Gigolo with Harrelson getting Wood-y as a gentleman escort.

Fingerjig is an online typing game (via Graybo)

Still game? Pac-Man's skull found.

West Ham Till I Die is Iain Dale's West Ham diary, getting a reputation for reliable pre-press scoop. This close season has been a little too close for comfort, if you ask me.

Drawing things to a full circle...10 things to do before you die.

Peter, Bjorn And Gone

We begin with some sombre news that left us feeling flatter than Beirut as Victoria Bergsman has left The Concretes to concentrate on a solo career. We know that The Concretes are a solid unit containing multiple songwriters and vocalists, but Bergsman has a unique delivery and dry stage banter that will be difficult for the Swedes to replace. It does though kinda explain Bergsman's recent diversification - as well as singing on Peter Bjorn and John's recent PV Single Of The Week 'Young Folks', she's credited with providing Camera Obscura with haircuts on their latest long-player 'Let's Get Out Of This Country'...

Simon Sweeping The Nation went to the Truck Festival at the weekend but all we've got to show for it so far is this blurry but still fantastic photo of Dead Kenny's summer crush Emmy The Great in a seriously short skirt. It has to be said we'd have had difficulty finding our focus in the circumstances, too.

In theatre news, a new Terry Johnson play is always something of an event (eg. Insignificance; Hitchcock Blonde) so book early for a limited four-week run of Piano/Forte at the Royal Court Theatre. Sopranos star Alicia Witt and Kelly (Mrs Henderson Presents) Reilly head the cast.

This year's Big Brother we can take or leave, but what is certain is that contestant Imogen Thomas's ex-squeeze is a dastardly dick for releasing a home sex video purporting to feature the purrty Welsh miss in a rarebit of graphic action. But we admit we still looked at the NOT SAFE FOR WORK evidence (purely to identify the culprit concerned, 'course). Time and motion students can download the EXTREMELY UN-WORKSAFE full video from here.

Random Reading-bashing always provides an amusing diversion.

'Night, Warden.