I’ve been picking on the 90’s and 00’s lately so I’ve picked one that goes back a bit. The Wurzels – Combine Harvester. I came across this on a compilation I had of songs from the 70’s. Just bizarre. Sure it’s a novelty song… but why about borrowing your neighbour’s combine harvester? I guess that’s what happens when too many Guinness are consumed in an afternoon and you decide to cut a record.

The Wurzels practically invented the “Scrumpy & Western” genre, which refers to music from England’s West Country. They had a massive hit in 1976 with this number and still perform to this day. I’m sure only when they are loaded to the eyeballs.

Nova 96.9 Brekkie – Paul Dempsey interview by theinsound

When the gent “from the Herald Sun” rang and asked for the release date of Patrick Dempsey’s new album, I thought “aww, poor thing, he’s a bit mixed up” (we do get some very mixed up folk ringing here on a regular basis) – anyway, aside from the fact they’re both good-looking blokes, I didn’t think anyone could get McDreamy mixed up with our Aussie master of songwriting and musicianship (although, actually, it turns out someone did, teehee).

On correcting him, and then realising it was Merrick, Rosso, Kate Richie and Paul (not Patrick) himself, I can say I was preeetty relieved not to have made the error myself (can you imagine!). Paul (again, I emphasise, not Patrick) Dempsey is one of our absolute favourites here at EMI HQ so I can’t imagine any of my colleagues getting that one wrong.

The Nova crew were really lovely though and it was definitely a bit of a laugh. And Paul was wonderful as always in the interview…
Will be particularly wary of any such calls in future, say for Billy Allen or the Arctic Primates. Guess that’s the universe getting back at me for all the prank calls I made with my sister as a kid.

Lily owns the cover of ELLE UK for October. And lucky girl that she is, a bevy of designers created clothes especially for her especially for this cover.

Lily’s new single ‘22′ is out now with a couple remixes. Take a listen in the soundcloud.
Lily Allen – 22 Bsides by theinsound

Watch the Behind-the-Scenes after the jump and you can see it takes a small army / glam squad to make these shoots happen. We are coveting the Burberry metallic trench. Would it go with my low-top Cons? Doubtful.

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We just blasted the David Guetta One Love continuous album mix in the office (go listen yourself on inthemix.com.au) and have found myself exhausted by the end of the 66mins of power-urban-pop-euro-house-beats. Phew!

It wouldn’t be understatement to say that it does indeed provide “that fiya fiya fiya for the dancefloor“.

Check out the excessively charming Guetta explain what it’s like working with a foot-long list huge stars and the ethos behind his album One Love. In short, electronic music from Europe meets urban culture from America. Why didn’t anyone think of that before!?

Note to self: when interviewing the world’s #1 House DJ (or any other iber-talented musician), perhaps don’t sing their own tunes back to them. Pretty sure that is a cardinal music sin.

…and filmed an enlightening tutorial on the tedium, precision and good humour required in the making of the stop animation clip for Hand Me Downs.

I was down at the shoot and can tell you firsthand, there were thousands upon thousands of still photos taken. Quite a process. And so many clothes! Turns out you can ask Vinnies for literally a ton of clothes and they’ll deliver it to your door. We all sifted through and went home with some good finds.

Watch the Behind-the-Scenes and the resulting ‘Official’ clip.  The digital single of Hand Me Downs is out Aug 28 and includes Bob’s cover of Lily Allen’s Not Fair.

I know what I’M doing this NYE: dancing my butt off to LCD Soundsystem with all my friends (haw hawww…) at Pyramid Rock 09-10.

Now we just need someone with a car. Who’s up for a roadtrip to Victoria???

• EMPIRE OF THE SUN
• LCD SOUNDSYSTEM (DJ SET)
• THE CAT EMPIRE
• FAKER
• SOMETHING WITH NUMBERS
• UGLY DUCKLING
• THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
• ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
• THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
• BLUE KING BROWN
• THE DRONES
• TAME IMPALA
• BADDIES
• VAN SHE
• THE BOXER REBELLION
• GRAFTON PRIMARY
• BLUEJUICE
• BUMBLEBEEZ
• KRAM
• DEAD LETTER CIRCUS
• PONYTAIL
• TELEPATHE
• THE JUAN MACLEAN
• PHRASE
• THE FUMES
• ASTRONOMY CLASS
• SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR
• WE HAVE BAND
• CASSETTE KIDS
• BONJAH
• MM9
• REGULAR JOHN

JET don’t really do subtlety… they tend to specialise more in loud, in-your-face, unashamed ROCK. Shaka Rock, to be exact.

So, why am I not surprised by Nic Cester’s statement that the band would “very much appreciate it if you would go and buy our fucking album“??

Can do from this Friday, Mr Cester… but in the meanwhile, you can listen to Shaka Rock in full over on JET’s myspace profile. And yep, that’s a global premiere exclusive. Thanks for the preview boys! Pick it up from iTunes on Friday.

Trawling through my 2008 playlist, I re-stumbled across this utterly brilliant video for The Last Shadow Puppets‘ The Age of the Understatement. Videos don’t get much grander than this: sweeping shots of Mother Russia, towering iconic onion-domed Moscow architecture, ice-rinks, Orthodox priests, a rousing chorus of Russian soldiers… and Alex Turner (yannow, that chap from the Arctic Monkeys) and Miles Kane riding Soviet tanks.

And what a thundering tune! Beats Muse’s Knight of Cydonia right outta the water.

The clip was directed by Frenchman Romain Gavras (son of filmmaker Costa Gavras, but clearly a damn good director in his own right). Romain also shot Simian Mobile Disco’s I Believe and Justice’s Stress, and is a cofounder of the collective Kourtrajmé .

Sisquo – Thong Song = Soft porn alert.

Oh Sisquo… what were you thinking? Actually I could probably answer that myself.

I love that all you have to do to have a catchy song is repeat the last word of each sentence twice. Try it with me now… now, now. See, there’s a hit right there… there, there.

The worst thing about this song is that it earned Sisquo 5 Grammy nominations. Say no more… apart from… see you in hell… hell, hell. Damn that is catchy.

Paul Dempsey took over the Apple store in Sydney on Tuesday night to perform as part of the Live From Sydney series presented by iTunes.

True to form, a solo Paul treated fans and pedestrians to a number of tracks from his new album drawing them in with every song and every tale in between.

It was a perfect setting with perfect sound delivered, this EP (to be released shortly) will be a fans favourite for sure.

Check out some of the pics below from Tuesday!