benrca’s blog

and apparently i'm the only one. but i cant be bothered with CDs anymore - i cant afford a flat thats massive and am fed up of tripping over cds i bought years ago. with itunes, i know where long lost music is when i need to find it, dont have any clutter and can make mix-tapes like i did when i was 12.

this week's album i bought was the idlewild greatest hits, which is great. i interviewed them when i was a student journalist so feel old now.

still listening to zarif and the script. and in my pure pop world im very excited about the leona lewis video...

except i dont like the noodley guitar one at the end. then i read its about those blokes trapped in the mine in australia and felt guilty. i am going to hell.

obviously, im self obsessed by getting the title wrong. and the fact it's really the nextmen featuring zarif. but im a bit tired, so what can you expect?

video is here. i really like zarif and am really looking forward to working with her. her solo stuff is really cool and all over her myspace so you should go listen right now.

as i said before www.myspace.com/zarifmusic.

you'll notice none of these are a drumming monkey. but i do like the following:

zarif - somethings got me

www.myspace.com/zarifmusic

rilo kiley - silver lining

www.myspace.com/rilokiley

robyn - be mine

duran duran - falling down

if you check out the charts at the moment, a couple of favourites are starting to bubble through. ross has broken into the top 40, which is very exciting and the start of a massive campaign that all kicks off now. and of course hellogoodbye has been a massive hit. it's in the top 10 on downloads alone, which is very exciting. unfortunately the evil scooch are also in the top 10 so we need to

 work on a way to eradicate them. maybe we can hire terry wogan to do something.

oh and on the live scene i went from grimy camden to shiny sheffield (home of arctic monkeys, pulp and a really weird arena in the middle of nowhere) last week to see justin timberlake. the show is pretty amazing, although i had to miss the last bit. unlike some of the other huge US stars, JT makes an effort to engage with the audience and did some cool stuff. and the dancing was pretty amazing. plus we did meet and greets, where lucky fans who won comps on the justin uk site got to watch Justin soundcheck backstage

and meet him. all went well, which was a relief. it's always worrying that the fans will miss out because theyre late or something. and you dont want to incur that wrath.

but the mania scared me a bit - it's been ages since i've been to a show where the girls were screaming so loudly. funnily enough, the last one was Lil Chris, where the girls were actually louder than the Justin fans. and that was in London, home of the sour faced audience.

anyway watching the full show in London, so excited about that.

oh and i've got Prince tickets for september. very excited because ive recently become obsessed with Purple Rain. im a bit scared because a mate said he's seen him twice and one time was amazing, another was awful. crossing my fingers it will be amazing, obviously.

 

we all had an excursion to camden earlier this week to check out ida maria at barfly. i dont much ike camden, since it's all grimy goths and crack houses, but she was absolutely amazing. i heart her.

 

you should too. look at her myspace right now.

you havent seen the Ross video yet have you? no you havent. so here it is.

 

it's very good isnt it. loads of stuff is about to kick off with ross, which will be amazing. about time too - i've been working with ross since last april, so everyone feels ultra excited that it's about to finally happen.

not sure if this is of any interest to anyone, but outside of work im on the committee of this big gig/event that's due to take place in the autumn. it's tentatively titled wasted youth, and is raising awareness/cold hard cash for Papyrus, a charity that aims to prevent suicide amongst young men.

 

it all came about because my best mate's brother committed suicide over Christmas, so it's an attempt to try and make something good out of something horrible and shitty.

 

anyway, the behind the scenes stuff is going to be filmed for a TV show (which means you'll see my ugly mug on the TV soon) and we're in the process of booking a lovely big venue and some good bands, but on the look out for more. if anyone is interested in helping out, anything would be appreciated. give me a shout.

the robyn gig last night was as swede-poptastic as you'd want last night. highlithgts - the random use of two drummers for Who's That Girl, the random covers of Buffalo Stance and Push It and also the randomly brilliant grunge-lite version of album track Bum Like You.

mr kleer-up himself was there on drums/guitars/keyboard/electronic stuff and their Every Heartbeat track was ultra cool.

oh and she did show me love at the end of the evening as an encore and danced like an absolute loon. hooray!