After you guys chose Lovelle as the UK ambassador on the Pepsi-back Akon single “Oh Africa”, the time has finally come!

On Sunday (31st January), the single will be released, and we all hope it gets to number one!

The song, featuring Akon and Keri Hilson (pictured with Lovelle, right) is giving proceeds from the sales to helping underprivileged African youth. Akon’s Konfidence Foundation, (Konfidence.org), will be one of the main charities set to receive a portion of the proceeds.

Check out konfidence.org to download the track, and check back here next week for more information and videos!

Maxcast Team

Fade’s Tour Diaries™….. part.3 in an intermittent series…

(or musings from across the globe.)

The Adelaide Shuffle

Not only does water run away down plug-holes the other way in the southern Hemisphere, but their dance moves have a distinct funk of their own. The Adelaide-Shuffle (modified from the erstwhile Melbourne-shuffle) is a spectacle to behold. Kind of like the Running Man, mixed-up with what we used to call the X-man in 1990, then sped-up and stripped of any recognisable “dancing” characteristics and replaced with the unsexy frenetic stomp of a wooden-legged man dealing with too-high a treadmill setting. People seem to bust this local move out at any given moment all over the club, for a burst of about 30 seconds of cardio intensity like a mating-ritual for ephedrine-drunk robots. It’s bad enough when the boys do it (and let’s face it, what dance move isn’t?) but some girls get involved too. It’s a wonder any pro-creation gets achieved at all in Southern Australia. This won’t be seen in a club near you soon. [*sauce got some footage tho…]

E-Cup Bolt-ons

The best self-description of a pair enhanced-breasts I’ve ever heard. Brisbanites don’t mince their words. They also party harder than anywhere else we’ve been this year. And look good while doing it. All year-round sunshine does wonders for keeping-up your beach-bod credentials and yet manage to never take yourself (or indeed anything) too seriously. The Monastery, Brisbane, we salute you. You bring the party.

The Return from Oz

22 hours in the air is just wrong. But coming down for one hour break to visit the toilets in Singapore airport is the most unexpected dose of luxury, your long-haul economy traveller can experience. [*pic attached] They are plusher than any of the hotels we’ve stayed in on this tour. They are nicer than my own bathroom at home. They are nicer than my whole flat tbh. Like when u go into a really flash restaurant loo and wished you lived there. (we all do that….right?). There is even an attendant guy actually cleaning- all the time- instead of offering you Chupa Chups and a £5 squirt of Hugo Boss. My parting tip to anyone flying-out East is to save your ablutions for Singapore airport.. and don’t do any home-improvements before you’ve taken notes there.

Now that I am actually in a band, keeping up with what’s hot or what new and good feels a little bit too much like hard work. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that I don’t listen to music anymore but I usually just stick with the classics like The Jam, The Stones and Pink Floyd – they just never fail to inspire me. However in March we were supported by Manchester’s Twisted Wheel (www.myspace.com/thetwistedwheel) and they were awesome! I was really impressed with not only their songs but their ability to totally rock out, echoing the rawness and excitement of the clash with sheer coolness of The Stone Roses. They’ve got that real Northern Soul vibe going on (unsurprising really as they got their name from Manchester’s famous northern soul venue).

Give it a few months and Twisted Wheel will be selling out venues such as Academy 2 and giving the Courteeners a run for their money which can only be a good thing!!! My favourite songs are  ”Strife” and “You Stole The Sun”. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what the abstract lyrics are about; I am sure they mean something but with all the beer and bodies flying around at their gigs, you won’t have time to dissect them either!

Also check out Charli XCX www.myspace.com/charlixcx I saw her at a gig in London recently. I thought to myself “oh God more Hoxton dribble” but her songs are just amazingly crafted pop songs and she writes and produces everything. At 17 years old she’s very accomplished as a musician and performer. You heard it here first!

Tom

A gay day in Sydney
Day off in Sydney. Juice bars everywhere. They juice everything. And there are NO fat people. I get involved- apple, spinach, celery, spirulina and carrot. Yeah, pretty much like it sounds. And I hit the gym. Just me and a whole lot of bigger, fitter, balder gay men. I need to spend a lot more time pressing bench to fit in here. I look a lot better in Vauxhall.

It’s the evening again. Haven’t seen much daylight since the UK. Jetlag has turned us into vampiren. Works with the UK studio-tan nicely. Strong look. What is it with coloured shots here? Everyone keeps making us drink pink “wet pussies” and this horrible green Agua stuff. They all taste like sweet poison. I’m refusing any drinks that aren’t clear liquid till we get home.

Sydney set @Oxford Art Factory… DJ on after us was so wasted at one point he came on DURING our set and started looping the tune we were playing. Then he stopped it and put his cd in the deck! Sauce and I stood there, incredulous…looking at each other, mouths hanging open. We had to walk him off. 5 mins later he was back- said.. I really like this track- I said “thanks”. “Shall I put mine on?” he said, eyes rolling-round in his head. Er… no. Go away, please. Then as we come round the decks for the last tune, dj-spaceman manages to think we’ve left and stops the track dead- leaving us hanging out the front. Genius. Then he couldn’t get the other deck to work, because he “couldn’t see it”. I thought we got messy behind the decks. Humbling. Bumbling. Mumbling.

Plane to Perth
In-flight trailer for the musical “Wicked”. Such an inexcusable pile of turgid nonsense, I have not seen in a while. There are few things that make me more despairing of human-kind than the knowledge that enough people actually enjoy such rubbish enough for the whole genre to have not gone the way of cock-fighting. Banning is too weak a message to send to musicals. They need to be driven underground. “My character has such an interesting story, such depth and so many great songs to boot” said the wicked witch of the wherever. Oh please shoot me. And the in-flight feature film on the one big 80s-style screen at the front of the cabin is… Angels and Demons..
Christ.

Cairns
Fashion TV are looking for Australia’s next top model, or something, in the club we’re playing in. Six contenders left to go national. I was planning some R&R in hotel after the flight, but duty calls. Self-appointed guest judges… Sauce and I sit next to the actual judges and no-one really knows if we’re supposed to be there or not, so we get to look like we are. Which is pretty much how we run our whole lives.

The birds are really loud in Cairns. REALLY loud. Like being in the Hitchcock film. Quite unnerving as you walk near a tree that’s branches are screaming at you. That and rowdy Clapham-ites who’ve made it home insisting on high-fiving you in the street. Gotta be both hands apparently. I need more sleep for this.

Two double beds in each of our hotel rooms. So decadent when you’re not sharing with anyone else. Which bed do you go for? Only one night… bit of both? Seems such a waste to only sleep in one. Like the complimentary shower-cap. Has anyone actually used one of them in a shower, ever? I used to collect them. Just in case they came in handy. After 5years of touring and a lot of time to think, I concluded there really is no other use for shower-caps. And the sewing kit?? Darning on the spare bed. We’ve all dreamt of that. And the phone by the bed that has a high-low switch but no bloody off so they can always ring u in the morning stupor and “check” what time you are checking-out. I checked-in 9 hours ago. You really need my room before 12 o’clock so you can check I didn’t sleep in both beds? And breakfast. What is the point of breakfast that exists only in that worm-hole of time between 7am and 10am when no self-respecting hotel guest is of this planet?

Perth on a bank-holiday really is closed
And the Seasons hotel sub 56k dial-up internet has slowed my life down to GMT. I need the 7hrs ahead to get anything to happen before London goes to bed. Rubbish. To think this is how the internet used to be. My brain can’t go slowly enough to do all the things I need to do online at the pace they’re actually occurring.

The Drums are Florida natives (now transplanted to NYC) and have established themselves as a ground roots pop phenomena, with their mainlined and almost irresistible pop music. Debut single ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ almost defies people not to love the Drums. With their influences ranging from Factory Records and the sort of sunshine pop a teenage Brian Wilson used to write, it all morphs into a perfect soundtrack for a jerky, geeky, and quirk-laden ride down to the Beach. The pop aesthetic offers a sense of nostalgia in the grooves; yet, the anxiety of their Peter Hook-like bass lines, underpins everything with a rushing urgency of pure, jangled, nervous pop.

For the Drums, pop is not a dirty word. ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ is a hand dealt with pop and possibly the best use of whistling in song since Morricone and Peter, Bjorn and John’s modern classic ‘Young Folks’. It harkens back to the days of innocence retro charms of the 50s (so much so, it is almost as if Jonathan Richman imagined them one afternoon so he wouldn’t feel as lonely). It makes sense for the Drums’ lead singer Jonathan Pierce and guitarist Jacob Graham to have initially met at a summer camp when they are kids. Their music is a peon to days past filled with sentimental vibes of innocence and happiness. ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ is no retread. The Drums music is made without a trace of cynicism or irony and I gotta say – the world is better for it.

Alan