Beck In Action

So, the first taste of the new Beck record has been put out in the form of 'Chemtrails', which you can hear at www.beck.com and myspace.com/beck. It's total psych-pop and sounds like something straight out of a drugged up Sixties soirée. He's been working with the producer Danger Mouse on the album, which is due out early this summer.

Apparently, 'Chemtrails' isn't going to be released as a single, so it might be a truer reflection of the sort of thing we can expect from the new record. Still, Beck is capable of turning out super pop hits, and we wouldn't mind hearing another one of those from him.

Let is know what you think of the single over on the AU Forum

Even more Fighting With Wire excitement

The better those Derry boys Fighting With Wire do, the more nerdily excited we get. Watching MTV2 last night and up pops their video for 'Everyone Needs A Nemesis' at Number 4 in the MySpace chart. They were described as 'scruffy' on the ticker text that runs along the screen, which was pretty funny. If you've got a minute pop over to and give them a vote.

They've also been garnering a bit of coverage on the beeb too, from the One Big Weekend festival that they played at. Zane Lowe is continuing to give them massive props, which is excellent, and apparently they've been getting a fair bit of airplay on Radio 1. Here's a bit of footage of the interview (which we found over on the Smalltown America blog, plus a link to a few tracks from their set on the day.





A few live videos can be found here.

AUTV: Two Door Cinema Club

We recently posted up the excellent Brian Philip Davis directed video for Two Door Cinema Club's 'Undecover Martyn' track. It's ace, dig into the archive there and check it the flip out. To follow this up, and to further extend out massive love for the dead ace Bangorians, we got the band down to the NvTv studio to have a chat with AU Magazine Editor Francis Jones, and to play a few songs live as well.

It's a brilliant wee session and is well worth investing thirty minutes of your very valuable time in. And seeing as you're reading this now, you may as well carry on and watch it below...

AUTV: The Flaws

Things have been uncharacteristically quiet on the blog front this past fortnight, this is due to the finishing and arrival of the latest issue (see it there in the right hand column, isn't it lovely?), plus we were doing a load of TV stuff. All will be revealed in the next few posts.

First up, can we draw your attention to this delightful live session with Irish indie-rockers The Flaws. They swung by the NvTv studios for this stripped down set ahead of their gig in Belfast, and very lovely they were too.

Five To One: Old Skool Games

With The Best Game Ever (copyright: everybody), Grand Theft Auto IV just released, we thought it was time to tip our hats to the thumb-botherers of yesteryear. Get the Sodastream on the go, dig out your Global Hypercolour attire and enjoy...

5. Streets of Rage
An ultra-violent side-scroller for the Sega Megadrive, Steets of Rage combines all the best that computer games can offer; the ability to 'accidentally' grab your team-mates, slam them into the ground, and then S&M bitch attackers with a big lead pipe. Remember the ever-present fear you'll accidentally jab the C button and have to wait five minutes while the animated police arrive and nuke the empty screen with their rocket launchers? Precious days when a 64 bit console was the stuff of a madman's dream.

4. Super Mario World
Mario had it all. The unassuming Italian American plumber with the wee hat and rather gay moustache really came into his own on the SNES. By adding a flying cape and the Deepthroat-inspired gobbling dinosaur Yoshi, those Japanese compu-fiends made the most playable game ever. With something like a hundred levels, it seemed massive when it came out in the early 90s - causing God knows how many fits and cases of extreme short sightedness when it did.

3. Bubble Bobble
Could it all have been so simple? Nowadays kids are only satisfied by world-spanning bloodbaths where 'points' and end-of-level baddies give way to tearing enemies' faces off and online nerd-offs. Back in the day, two dayglo dinosaurs boking up bubbles were all that we needed. The music is still the anthem of a lost generation, bringing tears to eyes and choked "do-do-do-do-do"s to their lips. It had so many screens to complete that Nintendo had a phoneline to ring if you completed it - a monster.

2. Street Fighter
As Survivor sang, "It's the thrill of the fight." And Street Fighter 2 is chock full o' bust-ups. What made it a classic were the wee things: the people who stand behind the fighters ding that "fist-goes-up, fist-goes-down" thing (man, they're into it) or Chun-Li's happy-as-Larry victory dance. Aside from the blistering ruckus on hand, the character voices alone were a symphony of coolness: close your eyes and listen to "Tiiiger uppercut!" and "Hadouken!" (not the band) - it's like being in the womb.

1. Paperboy
The concept sounds ridiculous: let's make a computer game for kids, about child labour in suburbia - but the result was explosive. it made paper routes seem like an assault on Dieppe with barking dogs, men with hoses and bits of brick lying in the path of the valiant deliverer of good tidings. Other ideas from the same stable, like 'Altarboy' and 'Chimneysweep' never made it...