We Fell To Earth and curious confessions

Only a few days ago I wrote about The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster that mixes rock, punk, rockabilly and goth in their sound. Now I've stumbled upon a band that combines krautrock, shoegazing, psychedelic rock and electro just as wildly and successfully.

We Fell To Earth released their debut album already about a year ago but I didn't discover them until last spring. And for some peculiar reason it took me almost a year to realise just what I had encountered.

Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm so slow it's embarrassing. But hey, better late than never, right? Right?

Anyways, We Fell To Earth consists of two persons: Richard File who used to play in UNKLE and Wendy Rae Fowler who used to be connected to the extended family of musicians playing in QOTSA, Desert Sessions, Eagles Of Death Metal and whatnot. The two camps have met before already and collaborated a couple of times (on previous UNKLE records, for instance) but We Fell To Earth shouldn't be treated as an extension to those collaborations. It's a band with a distict sound and voice of its own - a voice that's eerie, atmospheric and outlandish. At times creepy as well.

For someone who used to love trance music back in the 90's (yeah, I did go to raves and danced til dawn, sometimes even with glowsticks in my hands, if you must know) but later fell in love with 70's psychedelic and krautrock it's a match made in heaven.

Audrey vs. Audrey

To be honest, I'm not sure if there really is a connection or not. But as I was recently watching Funny Face (1957) and this scene with Audrey Hepburn started rolling I couldn't help thinking how Lynch-like it was. The hazy red-tinted background, weird and over-the-top yet cheeky dance moves and a gorgeous Audrey - they're all featured in Twin Peaks as well.



The only difference is that in Funny Face they're all packed in one scene where as in Twin Peaks they're scattered throughout the episodes. And, of course, in Twin Peaks scenes there's always that sinister, haunting undertone.

These guys are insane

But in a very good way. Mixing punk, rockabilly, rock and goth is an ambitious idea but The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster pulls it off. The end result is a wild and frantic mess but it's definitely interesting stuff.

Here's my favourite track from TEMBD's latest, Blood & Fire. Homemade sounds like a mixture of The Ventures, The Gun Club and Sisters of Mercy. Love it.

Dave Grohl - godlike and genius or an idiot?

Godlike and genius, if you ask NME. Grohl will pick up the honour in NME's award ceremony later this spring but seems to have somewhat mixed feelings about it since he considers himself rather an idiot most of the time:



Although I agree Grohl's an excellent musician I have a sneaking suspicion that NME was going to give the award to Lemmy Kilmister but some teen-aged trainee of theirs e-mailed Grohl's management by mistake. After all, both seem to share the same taste when it comes to facial hair which could be a bit misleading. See what I mean?

Photo by Wes Orshonski

I'm happy for Dave anyway and since he seems to be a cheeky monkey I'm sure he'll use every opportunity he gets to make fun of it.

Luckily Grohl's got loads of more interesting things coming to his way in 2011 than the NME Award. For instance, he will appear in the new Muppets movie which I find way more wicked than the NME Award. Naturally, Grohl will be filling in for Animal, who's forced to undergo anger management counseling.

But most importantly, there will be a new Foo Fighters record. Not much has been reported of it yet but as they say, good things come to those who wait.