The XX

The XX, consisting of Jamie Smith, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim (former band memeber Baria Qureshi Left in 2009), are a band from london formed in 2005. Their are music style is defined as indie pop/indie rock although personally I feel that they are so mcuh more and you will hear out strong elements of synthie pop-rock and alternative. Their debut (and only) album XX has made it to the platinum in UK, the album placed 9th on rolling stones best of year list and 2nd for the NME best of the year list. The band was also placed at 6th in the NME "The future 50 list". Their songs have been used for various tv series (like gossip girl, lie to me and many more) and specialy their album song "Intro" has been used for many comercials. In september 2010 the band won the Barclycard Mercury Prizefor their debut album (good start with a first album if you ask me).

As always I prefer leaving you with some music videos so you can make your own impression of this band, which I personally consider one of the top (if not the top) up and coming band to look out for in the next years!!!

Uffie on MTV???

So, here I am, about to go to sleep when Uffie appears on MTV... so I think, when did she get famous???
Incase you don't know uffie she's an electro hop artist, born in miami, raised in hongkong and musicaly based in paris she was best known in the french club scene. Her songs were released on the Ed Bangers compilation albums up to now, because as I just found out she released a CD. MOre about Uffie here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffie

What ever happened to... UB40

So, have you ever noticed that some of the greatest bands and musicians ever seem to just disappear out of the nothing!? Well, I just noticed once again after thinking about the band UB40 so I decided to start posting about those gone missing bands! XD
So today let's talk about the great UK reggae band formed in 1978, UB40!!!! I actually have a very strong bond to their music, I used to (actually I think I still have it) have a music cassette from that I got from my mom a bit before coming together with my first portuguese girlfriend so their "best of" cassette ended up being the soundtrack to my first portuguese summer of love!!!! Anyways, enough of my boring youth stories let's get to some facts. As I already mentioned they got together in 1978 in Birmingham and in 2008 Ali Campell (Vocals, Guitar) and Mickey Virtue (Keyboard) left the band and were replaced by Duncan Campell (Ali's younger brother) and Tony Mullings... Some say they're better of since the member change others don't, I won't judge so just check it out for yourself!
I don't want to bore you with the details (and there are alot of details with this band) but if you're really interested in them go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UB40
That's it for this "What ever happened to..."

Plastic Beach

Yes, I'm really going to talk about the most recent album of the Gorillaz, Plastic Beach... it's once again an album filled with critical views on the world but with the right touch of sarcasm, and of course lot's n lot's of high quality music!!!!
Once again Damon Albarn was able to gather up some of the most renowned names in the music industry from all over the world and Jamie Hewlett made the fitting imagery for it!
Let's just take a quick overview as to what artists are being featured on the album:
Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mos Def, Bobby Womack (The one and only legend!!!), Gruff Rhys, Mark E. Smith, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Kano, Bashy, De La Soul, Little Dragon (I think it's only the singer Yukimi Nagano but I'm not sure), Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, sinfonia ViVA, and The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.
The first single called stylo featured Bobby Womack and Mos Def, although it's a good song I still prefer some of the other songs from their album like "To Binge", "Superfast Jellyfish" or "Some Kind of Nature"... but all the songs are great as usual!
You should definetly check out the entire album and not only the songs that they put out as singles!
Listen to it and have fun!
P.S- This'll be my last post for the day!!!

My vampires for this weekend!

So, today let me talk to you about a band I personaly had already heard of but had never really gotten around to listening to.... Vampire Weekend!!!!!
How could I have not noticed these guys before??? I sure as hell don't know, but now that I found them I'm already starting to gather money to buy their two very awesome albums!!!
Okay, looking past my stupidness, let's talk about what really matters, the band and their music!
They're a indie rock band and got together in 2006, their manager is Ian Montone, don't know him??? he's the manager of The White Stripes! (Don't know them??? You better get on youtube and get updated or go google them up or something!!!)
The band is made up from 4 members-

• Ezra Koenig – lead vocals, guitar
• Rostam Batmanglij – producer, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals
• Chris Tomson – drums, percussion, guitar
• Chris Baio – bass guitar, backing vocals

They've released 2 albums up to now, one self named and the other called "CONTRA",
and had had 6 singles up to now, my personal favorites in term of music and musicvideo are "Oxford comma" and "giving up the gun", but anything I've heard or seen from them shouts awesome from every aspect! They're really what I like to think of when I wanna hear some good and fresh indie rock!

Just as fun facts, their most recent music videoclip had the following as gust stars:
Joe Jonas, RZA (of the Wu-Tang clan), Lil Jon and the great actor Jake Gyllenhaal known from movies as Donnie Darko, The day after tomorrow, Jarhead and even Broke Back mountain!
Go check them out cause that's all I can really tell you about them... Have fun!!!

Alternate history as a style

I see brass, victorian clothing and lots of steam...
what could I be talking about??? Well of course I'm talking about steampunk!
For those who are not yet familiar to steampunk, buckle up cause here comes the crash course!
Greatly inspired by authors like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, Mary Shelley and more, steampunk mainly seeks out an alternative history path, where everything revolves around gadgets and gimicks made out of brass, working on steam engines and greatly influenced by the industrial revolution... if you really wanna read more into it google it up or go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteampunkNow let'S get to what matters.... how it looks and what it can do for you! First of all I think that steampunk really has the power to give a soul to the most souless objects.... like for example your PC
It can really style up your guitar solosor it could just give your home the final awesome touch you've been looking for Now you're probably saying to youself "Yeah, well dopamine, that all sounds nice if I wanna dress up for halloween...but I'm not gonna dress up like that in the middle of the year!!".... and that's not what I'm asking you to do, although I would find that awesome I can understand that point of view, so let's see how you can apply steampunk in your daily wardrope....
It's pretty much all about the acessories!!! Let's take a look at this fantastic key neclace in a steampunk style this one is perfect for any girl who wants to have a neclace that she can use to any ocasion, you can combine it to your everyday cloth or wear it to your favorite evening dress...

If you want something for a especial ocasion, no prob!!! How about this wonderfull choker!? Wouldn't that look great with a black dress? You know it would!!!!

Here come's one of my personal favs, a steampunk inspired pocket watch! Now I'm already a great fan of classical pocket watches, but with the steampunk touch it's just a whole new level of awesome added to your wardrope!!!

Now there are a kazillion of other thing that could be modified like a custom ipod


your headphones

or pretty much anything else, and the great thing is that if you have a bit of crafting knowledge and some will of doing it you could make this into a DIY project of your own!!!!

Music, Design & Lifestyle 4 the ppl!!!

Okay, so as the name already says this blog is all about Music, Design & Lifestyle... I know, there's gotta be a few billions of bloggs out there about the same thing but I decided to give it a try anyways!
So let's get this started by talking about a great band that a friend of mine showed me the other day, Miike Snow, you should really go check out their stuff on youtube, specialy the song "sylvia" played live... that song just blew me away!!!! So, where can you get their album???? well the other day I went to a record store that sells alot of indie and underground stuff to get in some info, unfortunately the store owner tells me that the album came out last year and that they had it... but not anymore.... DAMN!!!! so I went to see if I could find it online and it's available on amazon for anyone who's interested!! You can get some more info about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miike_Snow or http://www.myspace.com/miikesnow




Now let's get to the Design & Lifestyle part, more specifically about the fashion aspect, I'll try going around the city to get some pics for you guys! But if you guys are looking for some inspiration that might be a bit more daring then the stuff you see in europe you should go and check out dropsnap.jp , it's pretty much the most inspiring fashion site that ever crossed my sight and I've been a dropsnap addict ever since!!!!