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Yes it’s that time of the month folks! No not THAT time of the month, I’m a bloke! It’s time for a brand spanking new Monthly Playlist. Woo!!! Click on any of the images and it'll take you to the list - FOR FREE!!!

For some reason this month I have got American TV themes in my brain and that helps to explain a good proportion of the choices with the majority coming from the HBO stable. The tunes that fall into this category in this months playlist are the Blind Boys of Alabama version of “Way Down in the Hole” off of The Wire Series 1, “Woke up this Morning” by Alabama 3 off of “The Sopranos”, “Superhero” by Jane’s Addiction from “Entourage” and “I Need a Dollar” by Aloe Blacc off of new HBO series “How to Make it in America”.

I am yet to watch an episode of “How to Make it in America” but I know its going to be awesome. HBO cannot make a bad programme. Look at their back catalogue “The Larry Sanders Show”, “The Wire”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “Six Feet Under”, “The Sopranos”, “Deadwood”, “True Blood”, “Entourage”, “Flight of the Conchords” and “Sex and the City”. That’s a CRAZY list right there. And yes I’m actually one of the few blokes that openly like SATC…so ner!

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So I stepped out of the Lady Garden gig and saw them hanging around so I went up and told them they were awesome and took a picture of them all – its an exclusive! Woo! I then hightailed my sweet ass back across town again for my appointment with “Stiflers Mom” off of the American Pie Trilogy.

I stepped into the room and saw one seat in the audience front and centre but it was next to an overtly obese chap and these seats were smaller than plane seats. It was clear that no-one else wanted to sit next to him but I though “I’ll take a hit for the Kobestarr team” and sidled up to the incredible mass. Moments later Stiflers Mom, the original MILF (or Jennifer Coolidge if you must) steps out from behind the curtain. Woah! She is certainly a striking woman standing at well over 6 feet tall in heels and shoulder length Hollywood blonde hair and a small handbag. I have to admit that the sole reason I went to the show is so that I could say that I saw Stiflers Mom but her show was genuinely hilarious. Telling stories about her life and trying to break into the film business. Jennifer is proper funny – playing the blonde card a few times but with style.

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Yay! Lots of posts this week - this one I had to pop in earlier than I thought as I thought it was being released later but this is coming out on Monday! Dammit! Its a big tune tho so its should hit you square in the chops for this weekend!

Katy B looks like the South London version of Joss Stone. Lets hope she doesn't go as stir crazy as her sister from another mother! Katy is the latest lady in the Lady Season and comes to us via the awesomeness of Dubstep. 

The tune that should be reverberating round your eardrums now "Katy's on a Mission" is her first single and is in partership with Dubstep Leviathon "Benga". It is best served loud so whack some decent headphones on or plug your computer into a phat HiFi and turn that dial to 11. Read full post »

I have had an argument with many a so called film buff about what the best film Trilogy is of all time. The big hitters that have always come into the discussion have always been Back to the Future, Star Wars, Indiana jones, Godfather, Die Hard, Matrix, Lord of the Rings and depending on who I was speaking to American Pie, El Mariachi and Three Colours. Someone once tried to put Beverly Hills Cop in the mix. I slapped him. Hard. Since the last discussion Toy Story 3 has been released and has to be in the Top 3 straight away! Each film in the series gets better and better and that disobeys the laws of Trilogydynamics!

My favourite has always been the Back to the Future triology and I will happily argue that till I’m blue in the face. The argument is easy now that Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Die Hard and American Pie aren’t trilogies anymore. Lord of the Rings is boring, Godfather and Beverly Hills Cop 3 are both chronic and Matrix becomes a sham of a mockery after the first instalment. That leaves Back To the Future, El Mariachi and Three Colours. I have seen the BTTF trilogy at least 193,364 times compared to once each for the other two so there you have it!   

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I first went to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2009. I went by myself as the lady I was seeing at the time dumped my ass (ahhhh) in the month before we were supposed to go together, but I had a mega time anyway (yaaaay!). After that weekend I promised that I would do my best to get there every year such was the awesomeness of the place.

Edinburgh itself is one of my favourite ever cities! I first went for a friend’s stag do and remains the only place I have been to on a stag and wanted to come back to without the promise of alcohol fuelled debauchery!

I arrived in the city on the Thursday 5th and quickly ambled up to the Royal Mile and picked up the tickets that I had reserved. Whilst there I took a stroll up to the castle like a true tourist and took pictures of all of the fixtures and fittings as well as the obese American families on group waddling sessions. I went to meet my friend Tammy and her boyfriend Piotr on Princes Street and took an ace street performance of a man on a huge unicycle. I would be staying at Tammy’s awesome pad over the weekend so much love to her and her flatmate Anita for the accommodation!

I only managed to make it to one show that day and that was one of my old time favourite comedians Stewart Lee who used to partner Richard Herring on TV shows such as “Fist of Fun” and “This Morning with Richard not Judy”. Stewart was there in a show called “Vegetable Stew” and was using the fringe as a testing ground for material that he is developing for a new TV show. The venue was the Stand up comedy club and is the kind of place that I thought only existed on TV where there are small round tables in a small room that would have been filled with smoke 6 years ago. The stage was a semi circle of just over a meter in diameter and raised half a foot off the ground with tables and chairs pressed up against it. I already knowing his acerbic and biting nature, somewhat masochistically, took one of these seats. Wearing a Superman hoody…. I was expecting and waiting for abuse! Read full post »

Hey y’all! Sorry, Ive been a way for a while, but I’ve been busy writing so watch this space as the posts will be coming in thick and fast for the next few weeks at least!

I’m bringing you back to the “Ladies Season” that I have going on and will bring it back to the American Folk with “Lissie” at the helm. I first saw her on the Jools Holland show back in May singing her song “Oh Mississipi” with Jools accompanying her on the piano. That show in particular had quite a folky theme with Mumford and Sons and Joana Newsome playing as well as Hole lead of course by Courtney Love, though are not folk in anyway!

Lissie stood out for me in particular in that show partly because I had never heard of her before and partly because of the stripped back and humble but confident nature of the performance. In spite of this initial impact I failed to investigate what else she had to offer. I luckily stumbled upon Lissie again a short time ago whilst doing a youtube search for Ellie Goulding and found a duet “Everywhere I Go” that they had done together and thought “DAYUM!!” - I gotta to find out more!! So that’s just what I did! Here is that video for you all to see!

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Welcome to the first of Kobestarr’s monthly playlists!! Each month I’ll be posting a list of songs and artists that have been turning my head of late and are special enough that you should have a listen to them. All you have to to is CLICK THIS LINK HERE or the Spotify logo below, which will take you to my playlist on Spotify where you can subscribe to the playlist. If you aren’t on Spotify you should really sign up as it’s ace and free! I apologise to those people who regularly visit Kobestarr from countries such as The USA who can’t access Spotify at the moment. Hang fire! I’m sure it will be coming your way soon.

In fitting with my eclectic tastes there is no real rhyme or reason behind the tunes just what has grabbed me in the preceeding weeks. I don’t think you’ll like every song – I think that may be quite bizarre if you did, but if you do I would certainly like to meet you! Some songs are old, some songs are newer, all in my opinion are MEGA. Read full post »

When Janelle Monae first stepped out of the hairdressers with her hair fashioned as you can see now Elvis turned in his grave to get a better look. He muttered “uh huh huh” in approval and then turned to back to his eternal sleep.

What…Am…I…On…About?!?

The point is she has mad crazy Elvis hair and looks good with it! My good friend Tammy off of City of Lost Souls was the one to bring Janelle Monae to my attention and thanks very much to her for that. Janelle is the second lady in my womens season and resides in a completely different genre to Kristy Hanson who I talked about in a previous post. Janelle is a multi talented singing and dancing machine as you can see in the video for the tune of this post “Tightrope”.

She comes from Kansas City in the states before heading over to the Big Apple to study at a fame academy with the aim of living it up on Broadway musicals but then decided against it. She managed to hook up with Big Boi from Outkast who got her involved with their album “Idlewild”, which came out in 2006. Read full post »

Warning! This post contains one of the most ridiculous pictures I have ever been involved in. I have a fondness for wearing hats but I’m not entirely sure why. It may relate to my childhood and the adverts where the man from Del Monte would go to different countries and the way he liked to say "yes!". That and the state of euphoria that word would induce in the gathered masses that had travelled from miles around hoping for a positive review of their juice!  As a child it must have imprinted on my mind - you wear a hat, you say yes all the time, people love you – cushdy! My bonnet of choice tends to be a black trilby that is worn whilst to accessorise anything from waistcoats to hoodies on a night out to sat on my sofa watching E4.

A couple of months back during a detox/teetotal phase I was in the magnificent “The Northern” a bar in the Northern Quarter, Manchester, throwing shapes on the dance floor to a bit of Stevie Wonder with the trilby on at a jaunty angle. I had been out with people that I used to work with but they had either sodded off home or pulled so I was riding solo and sober. Whilst in mid flow I was tapped on my back and turned round to be confronted by a small lady, Jo, who was wearing a similar hat at an equally lively angle and was pointing and laughing at the top my head. I didn’t catch what she said to me, but after we exchanged a mutually appreciative “high five” we quickly went into what is best described as a trilbyfied dance off. 

During the dance off we exchanged a few pleasantries but she must have quickly latched onto the fact that I had been abandoned by my mates, “who are here with?” she asked. “No-one” I replied honestly, still head nodding and shoulder shrugging to the music “my friends are all shit!”. I returned the question back to her, “I’m here with my friend Damon and a couple others”, she said pointing at the bar. I looked over to where she was pointing to see a shortish, portlyish, bearded Mancunian dude wearing a tea cosy beanie; he had been watching me dancing with his mate. “Your friend is Badly Drawn Boy?” I asked. “Yeah that’s him!” she answered, not breaking her dancing stride. “Sweet!” I thought, still very much in boogie! Read full post »

I first posted about the Nas and Damian Marley collaboration waaay back in February after hearing the big tune "As We Enter", which would later serve to be the lead single and the first track on the album "Distant Relatives". The album came out in May and shortly after i saw a poster for the tour whilst cycling through Rusholme in Manchester.

I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard anything before seeing the poster and that they would be playing at the Academy, which is a magnificent place to see any gig! I spoke to my boy Dan about the gig shortly after buying the tickets up and talked about what we would want from the show. The conclusion that we came to was that we wanted them to each come on seperately and do their own material, kind of supporting themselves, then set the place alight when they come on together at the end smashing out all of the big tunes from the album.

What actually happend was very close to that reality. Before they came on the stage Miss Dynamites brother and Kobestarr favourite Akala warmed up the crowd -showing the world that he was a more than capable MC. After Akala's departure the DJ comes to the stage and within the 20 minutes he is there managed to play and mix in 3492 different songs that spanned the whole Hip-Hop and Reggae back catalogue with all the fluidity of a jellyfish. OK - don't really know what that means, but he played a hell of a lot of tunes and it was smooth (criminal).

A red hat wearing, x-ray bespectacled rastafari then comes onto the stage giving the DJ the signal to drop the beat. Nas and Marley burst out on the stage to "As We Enter", their hit tune. They can't be playing that already? Can they? Nah....they were toying with us!! The beat turns and quickly steps into the second track on the album "Tribes at War". Read full post »