Monday, October 17, 2005

No Hits 10.17.05

If You Want (Radio Edit) (mp3) - Tom Vek

C-C (You Set The Fire In Me) (mp3) - Tom Vek

I first caught Tom Vek's video for "C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)" a couple weeks ago and my immediate, gut reaction was this guy's gonna be a star. I mean, there he is marching around with weird puppets in some sort of 18th Century get-up, dirt smeared on his face, looking so cool and sexy and unselfconscious. Yeah, I've got a crush on him.

Vek gets compared to Beck. As in "the British Beck" or "he's no Beck." I don't know that he's trying to be. But, ya know, their names rhyme, they've both got that blond, floppy-haired boyish look and they're both fond of genre hoppin', so I can see why'd you'd confuse them. Maybe if Beck didn't spend his teens smoking pot and absorbing American junk culture and and instead did fun club drugs while listening to a lot of Can, New Order, Talking Heads and hell, Suicide and DNA . . . Let's put it this way, if Vek lived in New York he'd hang with the DFA crowd, not Sonic Youth.

His debut LP, We Have Sound is already out in the UK. It's released stateside October 25. Vek recorded it in his parents' London garage, playing most of the instruments himself. (That's right, one of those heartwarming DIY stories we all lap up like thirsty kittens.) Lyrically, Vek isn't all that interesting--mostly singing about girls from a familiar everybloke perspective (think Mike Skinner with less clever wordplay). But his delivery is expressive and he lends import to words through creative phrasing and little vocal swaggers. And the music, with its bass n' drums driven funk and arty guitar and keyboard touches is fresh and fascinating.

Visit the Tom Vek video library. And his tour schedule for the rest of 2005, including U.S. dates. Also, archived performance of Vek's visit to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Tom Vek

Mashup by Cheekyboy: We Ain't Saying Our Goodbyes (mp3) - Tom Vek vs. Cheekyboy

More Cheekyboy stuff here.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi
the mix you have was an unfinished demo i did a while back - unfortunately the master was accidentally wiped before i could sort the levels. I loved the Tom Vek track so much I put it out. Thanks for listing it on your site.
Hope you enjoy it

cheekyboy

7:54 PM  
Blogger Amy said...

Thanks for making it and being cool about letting us link!

8:24 PM  

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