If you are a user of Ableton Live software and a fan of Hot Chip or just a fan of me generally, you may find the following video diverting, interesting or thrilling based on your level of enthusiasm for any of the above. Thanks to Graham and everyone at Ableton for doing such a nice job. Believe it or not they've even used some kind of nice visual effect to make me look better which I really do appreciate.
Blink and you might have missed it, but Hot Chip recently received a truly great honour when the producers of FOX network's seminal television programme 'So You Think You Can Dance' rubber-stamped a dance routine featuring Sticky's 'Dirty Pop' remix of our song 'Wrestlers'. We might have missed out on a Mercury Prize and an Ivor Novello Award but with this triumph we have reached new ecstatic heights - so God Bless You Rupert Murdoch.
:(
We recently pointed out the similarity between our telecaster and the one used by Ween, which was very pleasing to me personally. Having seen Neil Young recently at the Werchter Festival in Belgium, I did a little research into his guitar, "old black", which we saw in action, at the side of the stage, in his epic set closer, No Hidden Path. It turns out that amongst the heavily-customised features of this legendary axe, there is a Gibson Firebird pickup; the Firebird being the guitar that Alexis uses on stage, you know, the one with the chrome silhouette of a reclining naked lady on the front. So that's another little technological link between us and one of our heroes.
By the way, our festival run this weekend was hard work but fun, and we had more fun on stage at Werchter and Roskilde than we've had in a long while - thanks be to the crowds and the fans that spurred us on. Arvika in Sweden was a refreshing change from the normal festival setup - a completely non-commercial, home-made-style festival in the wilderness. Next weekend we're a little closer to home, performing at Oxegen in Ireland and T in the Park in Scotland...
Here is a link to a video that our dear friend Lindsay Pollock made for us several years ago. Originally it was intended for our chart smash 'Boy From School' but those in the know dictated that it was too strange for popular taste. Since then Lindsay has revisited the material and cut it to the sounds of our non-chart eligible smash 'Colours', in a version that was recorded live for the BBC some years ago.
OLD VIDEO FOR THE HOT CHIP SONG 'COLOURS'
The site it is from is a new blog called Me Laughs Me Eyes which me & Lindsay have made. Among other things, we have recently added an MP3 of the full version of Felix & Al's song 'The Stone That the Builder Rejected', which was recorded under the name Lanark and featured on the 2007 DJ Kicks compilation. We will also be serializing the autobiography of Mr T., so keep checking back for updates.
Click below to see the first in a series of six Hot Chip behind the scenes videos!
Come back every Tuesday for the next five weeks to watch a brand new episode.
#1 (release date June 10)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vo5JoZS4TjA
We've just recently returned from a bracing tour of the bottom-right area of europe, bringing our peculiar brand of flange-pop to Croatia, Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany. Some of the vegetarians in the band were faced with sparse meal choice, but apart from this very slight inconvenience the tour was pronounced a success. Many thanks to all of our fans who turned up to the shows and festival appearances; and if you weren't fans and were more just curious types, then I hope we helped pass the time in an entertaining manner.
Meanwhile, here's a video for a song off our previous album, "colours". It was made by Lindsay Pollock and helps pass the time in an entertaining manner.
the next Greco-Roman event will be on saturday 14th June at Jacks in London Bridge. We will be announcing full details soon but I just wanted to let people know the date. It will be open all night and will feature an excellent range of DJs and live bands. take care, Joe
We didn't play at the Gatecrasher festival yesterday, and would like to apologise sincerely to any fans who bought tickets and may have wanted to see us perform there. The stage was deemed unsafe by our technical crew, and it looked like any performance would have been short lived, as our equipment would soon have short-circuited in the rainy conditions, with the additional possibility/probability of our good selves receiving hefty electric shocks. So after long deliberation we had to cancel the show, and we were not alone in making this decision, as I believe other bands also could not play the main stage.
So again, we regret the way the situation panned out, and hope that people might have the opportunity to see us at some of the other UK festivals we're playing this summer, including Glastonbury and Bestival.
Kind regards,
Hot Chip
Oh, and my prayers have been answered, the site's colours have changed
The World Cafe will be broadcasting a Hot Chip session on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008.
National Public Radio's World Cafe with host David Dye can be heard on nearly 200 stations nationwide. In the US, you can find your local station by scrolling to the bottom & choosing their state under "Find a Program Broadcast Time" at the following link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/stations/schedule/?prgId=39
Or worldwide you can listen online to the WXPN/Philadelphia stream Monday through Friday, 2pm to 4pm Eastern Standard Time by going to:
We played a festival recently called ATP; it was very excellent and we all had a good time, even though it was so hot on stage that
a) I nearly passed out
b) I was sick in my mouth a little tiny bit
c) one of my contact lenses kind of dissolved and melted in my eye. But that was more to do with the sweat and suncream I think.
Anyway, the night before we saw a band called Ween who were kick-ass brilliant. The rest of the band already knew their music, but I didn't and I still had a great time watching their marathon two-and-a-half hour set. I enjoyed Dean Ween's guitar playing very much, and so I was very pleased to find out that he uses the same guitar pickup as us; a seymour duncan "Hot Rails" in black. So I felt vindicated in my choice of pickup, even though the other boys sometimes think it's a bit "much". Dean's guitar is pictured above...
