#6: P.F.O. (Primary Footwear Objective)

Happy Friday people, something of a double post this...

Tomorrow night (Saturday March 1st), Primary 1 supports Metronomy at Manchester 's Roadhouse as part of the latter's UK tour. Signed to Erol Alkan's Phantasy Sound label, dancefloor friendly and easy on the ear, don't be surprised if this young man follows a certain Calvin Harris to the top of the pops.

Primary 1 also play a handful of dates with hot French outfit The Shoes in March. And lo, the collaboration doth come forward. They've spent the first month of the year recording together in France which presumably came from the fact that The Shoes remix of Primary 1's 'Hold Me Down' is bloody amazing. A great nagging vocal strapped to an addictive beat.

Check out some of their collective work to date:

MP3 Primary 1 - Hold Me Down (The Shoes Remix)
MP3 Get Cape Wear Cape Fly - Waiting For The Monster To Drown (The Shoes Remix)
MP3 The Shoes - Knock Out (80Kidz Remix)

Hold steady,
JC

#5: Slippery When Wet

Another night, another gig, another clutch of Shoplifters-approved quality covers.

Eels mainman E lifted the roof off the Bridgewater Hall tonight with a setlist of 20+ tracks from their back catalogue. And in amongst 15 years of tunes E and his sparring partner The Chet rolled out Led Zep's 'Good Times, Bad Times' and Dylan's 'Girl From The North Country' with breathtaking results.

Have a listen to the latter and the band's cover of 'Falling In Love' from the recent 'Best Of & Useless Trinkets' retrospective.

MP3 Eels - Girl From The North Country (Bob Dylan Cover)
MP3 Eels - Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis Cover)

Hold steady,
JC

#4: You know me better than some, but not all.

Seeing as JC has taken to posting stuff up here with such aplomb, I figured it was about my turn to post something before you all started calling me lazy or something.

For those of you somewhat in the know, Roisin Murphy (formerly of Moloko) put out one of 2007s best albums in Overpowered, following on from her Herbert produced effort of 2005. While last year was a great year for female vocalists (Kylie, Kathy Diamond et al all released belters) Roisin's was one of the most rewarding, and great to see someone we've all got great dancing memories of finally back at the top of her game.

"You know me better" is the third single to be taken from Overpowered, and is backed by some chunky mixes from Trevor Loveys and Nightmoves. All of them are pretty good to be honest, though I'm favouring this mix as I'm in a disco mood today.

MP3 Roisin Murphy - You know me better (Nightmoves Remix)

And as a little bonus, seeing as it's my first proper post and all, here's Roisin covering "Standing in the way of control" by Gossip on some Channel 4 programme or other. Enjoy.

#3: Steady On...

You may think Shoplifters is only about ass-shaking electro. Not true.

We also have a softer side. A side that enjoys drinking cheap lager, talking about hot women and punching the air in time to songs about cheap lager, hot women and punching the air.

Or something.

Anyway, Grammar and I went to see The Hold Steady at the Academy tonight and once again they proved to be the greatest purveyors of bar room rock n roll this side of The Boss.

They've also recorded a few nifty covers including a Bob Seger classic and a Dylan track for the recent biopic I'm Not There soundtrack.

Grab a beer, kick back, check them out...

MP3 The Hold Steady - Against The Wind (Bob Seger Cover)
MP3 The Hold Steady - Can I Please Crawl Out Your Window
(Bob Dylan Cover)

Hold Steady indeed,
JC

#2: One Word: "Beeper"

Honestly, how could I not kick off my first MP3 post with this little blinder?

Following the recent signing of The Count / Sinden partnership to respected indie Domino (the home of These New Puritans / Four Tet / The Kills / Arctic Monkeys / Franz Ferdinand don'tyouknow...), this favourite from 2007 comes back bigger and bolder with a Kid Sister vocal and a tasty Fake Blood remix.

Since the Shoplifters mantra is to only play remixes and covers it's taken a while to legitimately get this into the set. Expect it to stick around...

Check the remix, check the video. Both very fine and the potential for some inter-Domino remix action is an attractive prospect.

MP3 The Count & Sinden - Beeper (Fake Blood Remix)




Check the dates and more here

Hold Steady,
JC

#1: Howdy

...and as is only fitting for the first 24 hours of a new blog, I figured it was also time for me to contribute before getting slack in the coming months. Ahem.

Either way, the next Shoplifters night is March 13th. Beers all round then...

Hold steady,
JC

#0: Welcome.

Hi there! This is the first post on the brand new Shoplifters blog. For those of you unfamiliar with us, we run a monthly night at the Bay Horse in Manchesters Northern Quarter, where we play all kinds of mashups, remixes and covers to the delight of our friends who like to prop up the bar whilst listening to some quality tunes.

Expect to read about and hear alternative takes on stuff you know, and remixed and refunked versions of tracks you're not so familiar with. Either way, we're here to showcase some of the best remixes and covers we can find, so feel free to email stuff you think we might like to westealmusic-at-gmail-dot-com.

Inabizzle.