Oh Maybe I Should Mess Around With Somebody Else's Wife

Is sounding like The Smiths fashionable again? Or does it ever completely go out of fashion in indiepop circles? These are the questions on our quivering lips on listening to 'Oh Maybe I' from East London's hotly-tipped Chapel Club.

Chapel Club - O Maybe I (Official Video) from Chapel Club on Vimeo.

And the answer's yes and no respectively, when it's this good.

Cling On

Who said you can't rely on Banks in a recession? Interpol vox Paul Banks's solo project Julien Plenti sees fruition with the release of debut album 'Skyscraper' on August 4, so this sneak peak of 'Cellophane' (complete with unofficial DIY montage) should ensure things are kept nice and fresh in the meantime.



OK, that's a wrap.

Let The Outside In

This week's Single Of The Week is on a totally topical tip, so as Britain swelters away in a welcome heatwave, Swedish stunner Name The Pet offers a hymn to sunshine, shimmering pop loveliness given suntan motion by some delightful disco propulsion.

Name The Pet - Sunshine [Official Video]


But remember, popkids of all ages, don't forget the suncream! (via newly-NME adopted I Am The Crime)

Distance Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

Missed the chance to see Polly Scattergood live a few weeks back due to an unfortunate set of circumstances (she's playing Bristol's Dot-to-Dot, though, so we should catch up with her then). 'Please Don't Touch' isn't our favourite cut from her really rather good debut album (that'd be a toss-up between Bunny Club and Nitrogen Pink), but it is perhaps the catchiest, and is thus a pretty astute choice for single, and gives this Bank Holiday week the bouncy kickstart it needs.

Obscura The Better

In all the excitement of...well, let's just say, life itself, we haven't gotten around to posting a Single of the Week thus far, and to cheer ourselves up after the sad news of the genuinely great JG Ballard's passing, and because it's another smashing song from one of Britain's most consistently excellent pop bands, we've selected Camera Obscura's 'French Navy'.



A rum choice, we sure you'll agree. Camera Obscura are set to headline Indietracks this year, we'll be going, and we think you should be, too.

Beware The Ideas Of March

We interrupt this deadspace to give you a brief rundown of some of our favourite choons we've been listening to this year that we've hitherto not referenced on this 'ere blog. Most of these tracks are available through the usual download/retail outlets - use and enjoy.

1. 1901 - Phoenix
2. World News - Local Natives
3. Seven - Fever Ray
4. Enemy Within - Frida Hyvonen
5. Anti-Valentine - The Very Sexuals
6. magicweather - Alessi's Ark
7. Snore Bore Whore - Fight Like Apes
8. San Francisco - Jill Sobule
9. Outlaw Pete - Bruce Springsteen
10. The Last Of The Melting Snow - The Leisure Society
11. A Threaded Needle - Lotus Plaza
12. Flicker And Flutter - Future Islands

More updates soon (famous last words, we know, but...)

Spring Time

Polly Harvey! Wet 'n' Wild! In a bouncy castle! Press play!

If You Freeze Tomorrow, Come Back Lucky

With light snow forecast for the next 24 hours, the above lyrics are good enough excuse to make Ladytron's 'Tomorrow' Parallax View Single Of The Week. Not that we need an excuse, as the song is ace, the video is beautiful, and 'sides which, it's our website and we rule!



Some gig reviews and a match report imminent, 'til then, keep it PV!

Alarms And Surprises

Not one, but two Singles Of The Week to compensate for the paucity of PV content so far this year. The Boxer Rebellion have been a band I've happened across on record and live here and there, but recent single 'Evacuate' raises their game several levels, probably the best new rock song for racing the pulse since Kings Of Leon's 'Sex On Fire'. Their second album 'Union' can be downloaded via ITunes for £4.74 which represents excellent value-for-money during the economic downturn, offering as it does widescreen mainstream guitar choons with post-rock trimmings that complement but never obscure the melodic flow of the songs. Nothing on it however quite matches the adrenalised momentum of 'Evacuate'...



If you're looking for something less obvious and mainstream, Fever Ray the new solo project from Karin from The Knife offers considerably more slower-burning thrills if taster single 'If I Had A Heart' is an accurate reflection of the rest of the album. The intriguing video certainly adds to the overall unsettling vibe.



Finally, another budding offshoot worth keeping an eye on is Lovers Love Haters which has Deborah Cohen transplanting The Organ sound into her new project with impressive results (found via Totally Twitterpated).

Further Explanation Unnecessary

From the ashes of Million Dead, Frank Turner has carved himself a cultish solo career that could break into the mainstream with the creditcrunch-crushing wisdom that lies within 'Reasons Not To Be An Idiot'. This idiot's guide to not being a dummy is sunny enough to light up the life of the SADdest person this winter, and thus perks up Parallax View with a well-deserved Single Of The Week.

That's The Last Time We Use The Phrase 'Honest, Guv'

Goldfrapp/Eugene McGuinness, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, Saturday October 25 2008, 8pm.
Fleet Foxes, Space2, Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham, Friday October 31 2008, 9pm.
Aurora Plastic Monster/StRANGEtIME/The Sweethearts/Sweet Talk, 444 Club downstairs at The Sunflower Lounge, off Queensway, Birmingham, Saturday November 8 2008, 8.30pm.
Neon Neon/Yo! Majesty, Glee Club, Hurst Street, Birmingham, Monday November 10 2008, 8.30pm.

Apologies for the recent gap in Parallax View transmission. To get things back started here's a whistlestop runthrough of a few gigs we've been to recently. Starting with Goldfrapp in Wolves, who were supported by Eugene McGuinness who was as personable as his songs were unremarkable, an adequate stopgap mebbe for folk awaiting the new Jeremy Warmsley album, but what's that? There's a new Jeremy Warmsley out? Ah well, Eugene, there's always reality TV. A less modest return is reaped by headliners Goldfrapp, ostensibly here to promote the lovely 'Seventh Tree' collection but mostly getting more reward live from the squelchier dance numbers from their glam stomping mid-period, although 'Caravan Girl' from their latest also travels exceptionally well.

Hallowe'en saw your feeble freak looking pale and ghastly, but we'd left our mask at home, we were just feeling ever so faint from the deadly combination of heavy coat, hot lights and a packed crowd. Bottled water and some fresh air at the back restored our spirits, along with a performance from Fleet Foxes that manage to move less through energy than through a certain transcendence. Overall, they're a bit more jammy, noodly and loquacious compared to their recorded output, but when things click they're genuinely spellbinding.

A week later, a hastily-rearranged line-up sees frequent Parallax View picks StRANGEtIME in lively, rattling form despite arriving with a cymbal short of a drumkit and brandishing some intriguing new songs. Also on the bill were Norwegian rock trio Aurora Plastic Monster who were bold, bruising and Brit-baiting, and The Sweethearts, who perhaps put more effort in their make-up and clothing than in finding genuine musical inspiration. In contrast, local teenagers Sweet Talk were raw and revelatory, with lead singer Amelia proving compulsively watchable working through her range between sex-kitten purr and death-rattle roar, providing perhaps the missing link between Poly Styrene and Courtney Love on songs like 'Pin-Up Girl'.

Two days later, Yo! Majesty nearly have us call the bar staff to get ready with the defribilators when their electronic bass threatens to jumpstart our hearts into the next lifetime. The energy doesn't let up throughout a breakneck set in which they realise their stated intention to get the crowd sweaty and stinky, giving due props to President Elect Obama and exhorting the crowd of anoraked geeks to 'Fuck Dat Shit' to surprisingly little resistance. If they'd have rocked our boat any more we'd have been overboard and swallowing fish.

Main act Neon Neon were relatively sedate, with Gruff Rhys' laconic charm and deadpan placard prompts for 'Applause' easing the audience through a near-chronological rendition of brilliant retro-futurist concept album 'Stainless Style'. Back-projected images of Raquel Welch and cameos from Har Mar Superstar and Yo! Majesty add some kinetic propulsion to the kitsch, with 'Sweat Shop' perhaps working best of all on the night.

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 -

Tennessee Silly'uns

Everything we've ever heard before from The Hold Steady has left us feeling 'hmm...okay'. Until now, that is, with the release today of 'Sequestered in Memphis' (streamed in full on their MySpace page), which takes their Springsteen/Costello schtick and delivers it several levels up with a barnstorming chorus which we intend to roar loudly when we're drunk very often indeed.

More fist-pumping fun than a Nadal/Federer five-setter, then, but if you feel the need for intellectual justification for enjoying a choon, wordnerds can glory in the bands' purloining of 'sequestered' into the rock lexicon, stealing for themselves a Parallax View Single Of The Week, in the process.

Parallax Jukebox

20 tunes to celebrate the fact the sun's not just got its' hat on, but is wearing it at a rather jaunty angle. Number One on the jukebox is released as a single this week, and therefore can be considered Parallax View Single Of The Week, with the artist(e) no doubt celebrating this honour when touring at the end of the month!

1. L.E.S. Artistes - Santogold
2. I'm Good I'm Gone - Lykke Li
3. Homecoming - The Teenagers
4. Black And Gold - Sam Sparro
5. Sirens - The Whip
6. Century - The Long Blondes
7. I Lust U - Neon Neon
8. Alice Practice - Crystal Castles
9. My Sunken Treasure - The Duke Spirit
10. Black Cat - Ladytron
11. Cross My Fingers - Laura Marling
12. Midnight Man - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
13. Cerrone Cologne Houdini - Goldfrapp
14. You're On My Fighting Side - Lacrosse
15. Paper Planes (MIA cover) - Panda Riot
16. Don't Look Down - Flaxenby
17. Profile - StRANGEtIME
18. Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks - Los Campesinos!
19. Clash - Victoria and Jacob
20. I Can't Do Anything - Strawberry Fair