ComicCon: It begins...

Well I never. Here I am in sunny San Diego, and my first ever visit to ComicCon. It's like some kind of Geek Sundance, and everyone who is anyone in the entire worlds of cult film, TV, books, games and, ahem, comics is here, either showcasing or just showing off.

Already we've seen Ghostbusters, Stormtroopers, Batman and Robin, and that was just people dressed-up in the lobby.

In a second I'm off to (surprise surprise) the Doctor Who panel, with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and most excitingly of all, Steven Moffatt talking for the first time in public about taking over the series.

But probably a bigger deal in the States is the Torchwood panel right after - Torchwood being BBC America's biggest show ever. Barrowman, and the actors who play Tosh and Ianto will be there, and so will I. Oh yes.

I Got Six Correct!

The Mercury nominations came out today. Of the 12 (well, 13), I predicted yesterday, six of them were in there. Have to say I was delighted to be wrong about Elbow, not so delighted to be wrong about Adele, but extremely delighted to be right about Neon Neon.

Here is the full list, with correct predictions in BOLD!

Adele - '19'
British Sea Power - 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
Burial - 'Untrue'
Elbow - 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
Estelle - 'Shine'
The Last Shadow Puppets - 'The Age Of The Understatement'
Laura Marling - 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
Neon Neon - 'Stainless Style'
Portico Quartet - 'Knee-Deep In The North Sea'
Robert Plant And Alison Krauss – 'Raising Sand'
Radiohead - 'In Rainbows'
Rachel Unthank And The Winterset – 'The Bairns'

Mercury Predictions: And a few that won't

These albums will be hot on everyone's tip list, but something just tells me that they won't be. We shall find out tomorrow!

The Pigeon Detectives: Emergency
Okay, so they sell heaps, but surely even the Mercury panel wouldn't be this cynical… would they ?

Adele: 19
Being slightly apparently cooler than Duffy, this might just have edged her if it wasn't for the made-up Brit Award leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth. So the panel will stay well away.

Mystery Jets: 21
To my mind the best indie record of the year so far, but it doesn’t seem to have really crept up to many other people’s radars.

Elbow: The Seldom Seen Kid
This might've been a shoo-in if it wasn't for the gloom-rock ticket being taken by Radiohead and Portishead for sure.


Lightspeed Champion: Falling Off The Lavender Bridge
Six months ago, for sure – but since the Lightspeed thing proved it really didn't have legs, I wouldn't be so sure anymore.


The Enemy: We’ll Live and Die In These Towns
Deserving as it is, The Enemy are a band of the people, which mean most people on the panel will probably reckon them common and not criric-worthy. Shame.


Coldplay: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
Sure this might be their best album ever, but something in my waters says that Coldplay are one of those bands destined never to win it/ The same boat as Elbow really.

Mercury Predictions: The 12 That Will

Tomorrow is the most exciting / most boring day in the music industry calendar! It's the announcement of the Mercury Music Prize nominations, supposedly the long list of the 12 albums of the year.

Being painfully predictable, I used technology and science to try and predict who'll make the list. This is what I concluded, plus one for luck. (Well, a boy needs a margin of error from time to time)

Burial: Untrue
Ticks all the boxes: cool enough and they tend to go for innovation. Pretty much a dead cert to win from where I'm standing.

Duffy: Rockferry
Of the two white soul ladies who've been owning the chart this year, I'd say Duffy will wing it, because Adele pissed everyone off with that made-up-Brit-Award debacle.

The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age Of The Understatement
Maybe too obvious to win (this isn't the Turner Prize, after all), but this is exactly the sort of thing Mercury people like.

The Ting Tings: We Started Nothing
Nobody's pretending this is a brilliant album except, probably, the people voting here. It's a teensy cool and it's selling bucketloads.

Portishead: Third
Both brilliant and critically acclaimed. Probably won’t win though, having been there before.

MIA: Kala
Is this eligible? I think probably so. I also think it should probably win.

Estelle: Shine
Despite the embarrassment to the industry of Britain not being able to break her, they’ll still claim it as their own.

Neon Neon: Stainless Style
A curveball perhaps, but as it’s probably my favourite album of 2008 so far, I’m sticking it in.

Kate Nash: Made Of Bricks
I know, I know, but it’s just painfully obvious this one.

Radiohead: In Rainbows
Most likely there'll be a stand-off between the tastemaker types who want to reward the honesty box thing, and the industry folk who will want to do the exact opposite. Less cynically, it should just make it cos it's simply the best they've done in years.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Raising Sand
Obvious token folkie nomination with the added bonus of being one everyone else has heard of. But does it count as British?

Kathryn Williams: Two
Barely know a thing about her, other than it’s another obvious one for the grown-up ticket.

Foals: Antidoes
Perfect for the hipster ticket, but probably won’t win. Well, it’s just not as good as everyone thinks, is it?

What's this a picture of?

Surely not the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters? Pixellated? Why yes! The reason? September will see the return of Ghostbusters Mania, which I think we all agree, the world needs. Yes, it's Ghostbuster The Video Game, which is the closest we're going to get to Ghostbusters 3. Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis have written the script, and the original cast are all back to do the voices. That's just one of the things I'll be going to preview. Hurrah! There's a sexy preview here.

On Wednesday I have the privilege of going to ComicCon in San Diego - basically the Gell South By Southwest, where everything in the worlds of cult movies, telly, books and, yes comics, will be showcase.

Check the blogs here!

Biffy... Seconds To Mars?

Good old Biffy Clyro aren't resting on any laurels since their breakthrough success with the 'Puzzle' album. New single 'Mountains' was recorded in Los Angeles with Gggarth, and it's released on August 25.

I wrote what I'm pretty sure was the first review at the Download Festival.

All set to be the biggest hit to date then - well, somebody certainly thinks so judging on the audacious video. Chessboard metaphors! Evil Simon's goth head-dress! Good Simon's anguished expressions! It's all a bit Jared Leto. Except, of course, with decent tunes, like

Rise against... Racism?

Just got back from Rise at Finsbury Park. This, remember was the free anti-racist festival that Boris wouldn't allow to be anti-racist anymore. Thankfully I didn't witness any incidents of racism, but if I had, would they have been reprimanded? I'm not sure.

CSS were pretty sexy, and thankfully they didn't go into any more of the financial dirty-laundering rants they seem to have taken to lately. Also, Lovefoxxx wore a very cool yellow and black stripey catsuit.

But the day belonged to Jimmy Cliff. Okay, so it wasn't quite as brilliantly life affirming as Eddy Grant at Glastonbury, but still pretty wonderful world, beautiful people sorta 'vibe'. And the true presence of a legend that, somehow, felt more exciting than it woulda been to watch REM at T.

Although they probably didn't get the sound cut mid-song because the program was running late. We can only imagine he was going to finish with 'The Harder They Come' if he'd got the chance, so here it is.




Or 'I Can See Clearly Now', tho he might have played that. I can't remember.

She & Him (& Me) in The Guardian Guide

Today my feature on She & Him is published in The Guardian Guide. If you don't already know, this is the amazing country pop duo formed by Zooey Deschanel and M Ward. Their album, 'Volume 1' is released in the UK by Domino next week after coming out Stateside on Double Six in March.

You can read the full story by clicking here. And if you like what you hear, you can watch them perform 'Change Is Hard' on the Craig Ferguson Show by heading over here.

More? How about these quotes from the delightful Zooey that didn't make the cut? Added value baby!

ON NOT PLAYING THE DEMOS TO ANYBODY UNTIL M WARD
“Its not like nobody had heard it. Some friends and family had heard stuff, but I was pretty shy about it. I mean, I just didn’t want it to put things out out of context. I just don’t like to release things out into like the world until they’re done, because I think that’s actually how things get judged. You’ll read reviews online of movies before they even have a final cut, and that’s so lame, because when things that are in process, things can get so much better once they’re done with process. And you need to have some confidence in the process. You don’t want to release them into the world because people get the wrong idea about things. And they’re very personal, so I just felt like they were precious and not things that I wanted just anyone to hear.”


ON RECORDING IN PORTLAND AND BEING FROM LA LA LAND
“Well I always wanna go back to Los Anegles. I’m from here and its actually; I know a lot of people put it down, but it’s a really lovely wonderful place. There’s a good artistic commuity here. Portland’s a place that… I love that I get to travel a lotm because LA is home and my family’s here and… but I like to go to other places too, so it’s actually good for me because I get to travel a lot and explore places. (Portland is such a creative community), and I did have a tremendously fun time. Its always hard to leave when its that much fun.”


ON BEING KNOWN AS A GEEK ICON IN THE UK
“Well actually I think its’ funny… it's just interesting talking to you in England, because I’ve done 40 movies, and most of them were on like either comedies, dramas romantic movies. I’ve only done two Sci Fi movies, and you just mentioned both of them! So I’m like, that’s like two out of 40! It’s a very small percentage of movies that I’ve done that have been genre. I’ve actually done a lot of independent movies that are romances. My favourite thing to do and the thing that I am the most connected to are character-driven movies that are about people are their relationships and interaction. That’s what I feel the most connected to. Although its fun to do bigger movies that are in different genres than I usually do. I like to mix it up.”


ON WHY TIN MAN WAS SO SHITE
“Yeah you know, I saw -kind of sometimes don’t get to see all of the stuff I do, especially if its on TV – I’m just not big on watching myself. I saw the first episode, I liked it, it was good.
“I hadn’t really worked in a little bit, and it sounded like fun and I’d actually just finished making the record and I hadn’t worked in a while and I just thought, I was thinking about taking a break from acting for a while, and then I thought well I could just do that and it’ll be fun, but then after that I just worked for a straight year and a half.”

Return of the Popstar Jokes: Blaine Mystery Jet

Remember when my interesting popstar jokes strand was the most popular thing on the whole entire internet? Well now it's back!

Here's my current favourite indie musician, Blaine Harrison out of the Mystery Jets, out at a function at London's Aka Bar in aid of a very good charitable cause called Attitude Is Everything, dedicated to disabled access to music venues.

The Great NME Glastonbury Sundance

Glastonbury was (mostly) sunny this year and restored everybody's faith. We like to think that it had something to do with the that we roped in for a special sundance at Hyde Park the week before.

Judge for yourself?

Welcome, Children

Hello, my name is Daniel. We might know each other, or we might not. In any case, I used to blog a lot, then I got kind of tired of the internet and waited in the real world, predicting its demise.

This has yet to happen, so I'm starting up again, this time with a clue what I'm doing. Here you'll find links and descriptions to my journo work, updates from what my bands are up to, randomised gossipmongering and just stuff that is really cool. Stay and play, or indeed, ignore. It's up to you.