I had a ludicrously awesome time last night at Abbe May’s LP launch. MC’ing comes pretty naturally to me and the backstage area was STUPID AWESOME, so it was a bit like a house party where one of the rooms happened to be a stage with about 700 people in front of it that I got to have a chat to every so often. I dressed in my new cloak (which smells of putrid community theatre backstage areas and dead nannas) and rocked out a vampire look. Photos soon.

Her record, if you haven’t heard, is amazing. It’s got the glammy stomp and occasional divesions into psychadelia that I love about T-Rex, soft and sexy girl-crooning and a serious case of the bluuuues. (Good blues.) In their best moments, the band sound like they have stumbled on something simultaneously very dumb and totally ingeonous, which is what good rock music should do methinks.

Anyway, it’s a great album; this is the second single off it, which features Perth spoken word guru Dosh Luckwell as some kind of wierd dust-throwing shaman, who last week was responsible for a mega-highlight of my single launch, doing a drag striptease to Tom Jones’ She’s A Lady.

The highlight of my night last night was an impromptu freakout with Rex Monsoon; I was acting as hype man for his DJ set and he’d planned to drop Enya’s Orinoco Flow as the cue song for the lighting guys to set the stage for Ms. May’s set. As he pressed play and I mentioned it was time to prepare for the headliner, the sound guy came up and told me they needed another song to prepare. So, we were standing behind DJ decks, playing Orinoco Flow to a rock audience for no real reason. So I kicked into stadium-techno MC mode and got my Prodigy on, “rapping” (quotation marks indicate badness) and hyping the track up as hard as I could. I hope it was amusing. It’s hard to tell in a venue like The Astor. Regardless, it was five of the most fun minutes of my life.

Don’t click on this.

I love being Tomás Ford.

So, obviously, if you haven’t gotten yourself a copy of my single I Feel Dirty or checked out the life alteringly amazing video clip, you should do that. It’s one of them, whaddyacallit, viral sensations, innit.

But onto other things now. My longtime gigging buddies in the Voltaire Twins are also unleashing their new single Animalia and it’s killer. More of a late night sway-er than a dancefloor killer, it’s got that whole wistful, sparkly electro thing going on that all the kids love at the moment but with the added bonus of some really interesting synth programming (the offbeat percussive, wierd arpeggiated, delay-ey textural synth stuff that comes in halfway through makes me feel very positive emotions) and the kind of sound where you can tell they’ve built up their synth chops through years of gigs and releases. I dig it. Anyway, enough adjectives, it’s streaming here:

Animalia by voltairetwins

I’ll be blogging like this more and more, by the way. This is the start of me clogging up your RSS feed with awesomeness.

THIS IS A HAPPENING THING.

You need to go to http://ifeeldirty.tomasford.com, like, RIGHT NOW. You can get a free copy of the single over there. As of right now. I’m a little bit excited.

Here’s the video, in case you need convincing to click over to the subdomain…

Dear Future Me,

This is what your website used to look like. Now it is slightly more colourful.

Much love,

Current Me

Drum Media Perth, who I write for, decided that the best candidate for interviewing me was myself. They were probably wrong; chatting to myself was laughably torturous. I’m still reeling. The finished result is one of my favourite bits of press ever. Check it out:

The new single cometh.

Tomorrow.

Here.

Hey you,   

Do you like fun? Do you like amazing live dance music shows? Do you like karaoke?

If you have answered:
A)    Yes.
B)    I guess so, or
C)    Oh my god, what kind of fabulous party are you throwing! You’ve got to tell me. Tell me! Do it! Tell me!

… then please accept my invite to join me for THE BEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE.

Given the awesomeness of my new single I FEEL DIRTY and the long process to get it released, a bog standard launch gig didn’t seem appropriate. Instead, I’ve opted for an EPIC KARAOKE THROWDOWN. It’ll run from 8pm until venue closes at Ya Ya’s in Northbridge on SATURDAY AUGUST 6.

I’ve called in favours from around the Perth music scene (to be revealed in the coming weeks) to make sure we’ve got a lineup of karaoke guests that will shock and awe you, plus you’ll be able to sing yourself. There will of course be my full on, multiscreen TOMAS FORD live dance music experience at 11pm, followed by open karaoke slather.

The single, I FEEL DIRTY, is a pop-sized blast of sweaty, intense punk disco. It came out of my early shows; I’d play a full-on show and then bundle my equipment into suitcases and run with them to make it to the last train home. The song revels in that feeling of being a sweaty mess, covered in fading makeup, bruises, a ridiculous costume and glitter. Being the weirdest person on a 2am train can give you the oddest feeling of invincibility.

The single comes with a video clip directed by VIS Productions that is probably the best video clip ever (see the poster image for a taste). I’ve also arm-wrestled some remixes out of some of my favourite Perth producers; Naik, Obscotch, Yarkhob, Able and KNO Agents. You’ll be able to get it as a “Pay With A Tweet” (or Facebook post) FREE DOWNLOAD from this website (which is about to be radically altered) from lunchtime on FRIDAY AUGUST 5 - the day before the launch. You can stream a tasty preview here:

I Feel Dirty (Single Mix) - Tomás Ford by tomasford

But I’m digressing. What you need to know from all this is that you are personally invited to come to my launch party on Saturday August 6 at Ya Ya’s In Northbridge. It just won’t be the same without you there. I implore you to cancel any of your other plans and join me.

Much love,

Tomás Ford

TOMÁS FORD’S I FEEL DIRTY SINGLE LAUNCH & KARAOKE THROWDOWN
8PM UNTIL THE VENUE CLOSES
SATURDAY AUGUST 6
YA YA’S, 147 James Street Northbridge
TICKETS $15 + BOOKING FEE FROM MOSHTIX.COM.AU

As a side note to this press release, this is a limited capacity gig and I would prefer if it was full of awesome people like you. So please book now at MOSHTIX.

It’s been a while since I did a music post on here - actually, it’s been a while since I posted; I’ve been hard at work on the I Feel Dirty single (announcement tomorrow about that, actually) and redesigning my online stuff and haven’t had time to use my typing muscles.

BUT, I scored a bunch of records from the second hand shop around the corner from my house today. All great Australian stuff; Peter Allen’s Taught By Experts, INXS’ Listen Like Thieves, The Triffids’ Born Sandy Devotional, Skyhooks’ Living In The 70’s and what a fairly obscure collection of late 80’s Kylie Minogue 12” mixes. I’m a big fan of extended club remixes from the late ’80s, the way some of those awful-tastic pop tunes sound when spread over five or more minutes is a beautiful thing.

LP Cover: Look! It’s Mandurah before the CUB’s!

Now that I’ve managed to pull myself away from Kylie, I’m getting deep into The Triffids. They’re a Perth band from the 80’s, if you’re from out of town - if you’re from here I’m probably stating the obvious. I’ve had (and grown to rather love) thier record Calenture for years, oddly enough after Kylie Minogue and Jimmy Little did a pretty great cover of Bury Me Deep In Love about a decade ago. For ages people have been telling me to get into their other stuff, but I underestimated how right they were. The songwriting and arrangements are perfect.

Sorry, I’m not being very articulate. I’ve been writing my own press releases all day and it’s messed up my ability to make accurate use of adjectives. But go get yourself a copy of this record. They had a kind of cult success that these days would be considered actual success, but nothing like what they deserved. This is the song everyone always talks about… I like it better in the context of a full album, but it’s rather splendid.

I think one of the things that gets me excited about this record is that it paints a picture of WA captured just prior to my starting to live here as a kid (I was born in Adelaide). I can already imagine the outlines of the geography the song lyrics are talking about anyway, and the songwriting fills in the gaps. Anyway, this platter is doing more flips on my record player than a disco gymnast, so I thought I’d get evangelical about it at you. Born Sandy Devotional by The Triffids. Go get it.

You may not want to take my advice though… if this album hadn’t been in the second hand shop, this could have just as easily been a piece of evangelism about Kylie’s Made In Heaven (Maid In Australia Mix)…

I’m putting on this spoken word show that I think you should come to if you live in Perth. It’s many of my own favourite local spoken word performers alongside the brilliant Randall Stephens from Victoria. I’ll be MC’ing, entry is free and… well… you have no excuse really. C’arn.

The Painkillers’ launch last night was a blast. They invited me to howl out their classic Love Cancer, as posted below. It looked and sounded something like this: