In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
Turntables are becoming as much a part of a touring rock band these days as a guitar or the lead singer’s skinny blue jeans. But it’s still a novelty when someone actually knows how to use them.
Kid Koala is no rookie. After four solo albums all promoted with elaborate interactive tours, and opening slots for the likes of Radiohead, Bjork, RJD2, DJ Shadow and Beastie Boys (on their Hello Nasty tour, no less), the man knows his way around the booth.
By association, then, Kid Koala’s project called The Slew was a guaranteed success from the outset, despite the outlandish nature combining his fusion-jazz turntable leanings with a hard-rock rhythm section.
Making up The Slew is Wolfmother’s rhythm section (bassist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett), as well as Koala’s frequent collaborator Dynomite Dan (Dylan Frombach), under the studio direction of Mario Caldato Jr. (who produces the Beastie Boys).
Koala (nee Eric San) spent the last four years in touch with Grammy-winning Australian rockers Wolfmother after meeting them at a gig in Montreal. As the blueprint for The Slew began taking shape (originally planned as a score for an as yet unreleased film by some unnamed industry friends), San pitched the idea to the rhythm section and before he knew it, they were coordinating a North American tour in between what San called Wolfmother’s “planetary non-stop world tour.”
“There’s an insta-vibe,” San tells andPOP after the first two shows in Vancouver and Montreal. “You walk in and think, ‘Oh cool, something’s going to happen here.’ So far the response has been pretty raucous, in a good way. There was a mosh pit going last night [in Montreal] – the first one of my career.”
It’s a more organic tour than San is used to though, as his elaborate live shows have become something of his calling card. For example, The Short Attention Span Theatre in support of his 2003 release Some of My Best Friends are DJS featured three DJs on 8 turntables and included a bingo tournament at intermission. (Yes, there was an intermission.)
The most remarkable part of this tour though is simply the volume.
“This is way louder. I play loud when I DJ,” says San. “That energy of playing off someone else who is also playing – on record you can react to what’s on the record but the record can’t react to you. We’ve had to adjust, use special spring-loaded turntables that are shockproof to all the rocking out and jumping around that’s going on. It’s a way more visceral, physical show.”
Because the tour had to come together in such a hurry, there was no chance to campaign “100%,” Kid Koala and The Slew’s debut album. Instead, Ninja Tune posted a full steam of the album – which was available on their website until Nov. 1, setting the tracklist straight since illegal and incomplete links floated around online all summer. That’s not to say that hard copies disappeared once the tour ended – “100%” will be available in CD or double vinyl LP format Nov. 24.
“Even if I’m watching my favourite band in the universe, if they choose that night to play all new material, I feel like, ‘Aw man, I wish had heard some of these tunes before,’” says San. “This is just facilitating more fun for the audience. It’s the DJ side of me. It was that simple really, an easy decision to make as far as making it available.”
But San rarely stops there when it comes to his releases. His debut album, “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome,” included a video game and a graphic novel – both of which he produced – and he continues to raise the bar with each record. Once the Slew wraps up the last leg of their international tour in Beijing, San will return to his solo work to finish up “Space Cadet,” a graphic novel with an accompanying soundtrack.
Last winter, San hosted a series of concerts in Montreal called Drawing To, that he says influenced this latest record ambition – that and his recent fatherhood. Manning the turntables, San provided a blend of chilled out jams, in no way danceable in the traditional DJ sense, instead encouraging his audience to bring their work or knitting or a paper and pen.
“It was a pre-emptive test to see if the audience could handle a night that was down-tempo and mellow,” says San. “Space Cadet is a book about isolation. We’re trying to see if we can get people to wear headphones and transmit the turntables to their headphones. It’s communal but everyone has to be in their own head too, which I think is the only way to bring the theme of that thing into context in a live situation that would make sense. Its truest to how the records were made.”
Although having a baby daughter around the house somewhat explains the quieter atmosphere, San has always leaned toward soothing sounds, surviving on a self-professed diet of Billie Holiday and Thelonius Monk.
It sounds like The Slew would be a stark departure from the smooth crafting Kid Koala fans are used to, and although the sound even just on record is louder and more aggressive, there is still that element of the original cool to the music. The album is laden with familiar Wolfmother-as-Led-Zeppelin guitar riffs, sluggish backbeats and scratched out soul vocals, a combination that would otherwise be jarring were it not for San’s electronic mastery.
Despite it being a collaborative effort, there is a reason San’s tag is the first part of the project: Kid Koala and The Slew is just another one of his crazy ideas.
“I’m not an artist that sells enough records that I can even pay rent off record sales,” says San. “If they buy tickets, that’s one thing. But musically, I didn’t get into music to make big fat radio singles or giant dancefloor anthems. I made music that I wanted to hear, whether its commercially viable or not. With The Slew, we just wanted to make a record we wanted to hear that we hadn’t heard yet, or at least not quite this way.”
