Music Blogs

Greetings rockers. So last week we told you all about Lightspeed Champion, the new airy new project from former Test Icicles man and general indie It Boy, Dev Hynes. And they don't call him an indie It Boy for nothing. Last night he launched his album Falling Off The Lavender Bridge (which scored a neat 9/10 in last week's NME) at hot London indie night White Heat. But he didn't do anything so boring as, like, actually playing any of the songs on his album.

No, instead Dev got by with a little help from his friends. Specifically, Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys, his mate Joe Edwards from the Rascals, Freddy Gouw from Semifinalists, and Fred Les from a band called Ox.Eagle.Liom.Man. Calling themselves the (ahem) Pun Lovin' Criminals, they motored through a bunch of indie classics like Von Bondies' (remember them?) "C'mon C'mon," Interpol's "Slow Hands," the Vines' "Get Free," and the Strokes' "Reptilia." Kelly O was in the crowd, but then she gets everywhere. Exciting, no?

Otherwise, this has been a special, symbolic week up in NME Towers, since our blanket favourite band, the Cribs, have finally got their cover! I make no secret that they're my favourite English band and I'm not alone: These three punk-popping Huggy Bear obsessives are pretty much the only band the majority of the office agree on, and over the last five years and three albums they've convinced the rest of the country. And rather than wallow in success, they've started a three-man crusade against what we in the U.K. call "Tesco Indie," identikit indie bands with a lot of market demographic analysis and not a lot of soul. We could name names...

They were supposed to have our cover last year, around the time of third album Men's Needs Women's Needs Whatever, until the late and great Factory Records boss Tony Wilson died, and we pulled the issue apart in tribute.

Well, the good news is that now they're headlining the ShockWaves NME Awards Tour, and they've earned their special place in NME history after all. If you don't know who we're talking about, here's a clip of them showing me round their practice space last year:

This week I've mostly been bodypopping to Made In The Dark, the incredible future-disco third album from Hot Chip. Their new single "Ready For The Floor" was debuted at your Coachella Festival last year, and despite rumours it was originally written for Kylie (which turned out not to be true) it's an early contender for single of the year.