Not on the Guest List

Mystery (Jets) Solved by Q&A

Oh those Mystery Jets - oh so mysterious! Their new single "Young Love" is out today!! Pretty much the moment they sent out a myspace bulletin (the night before V-day) announcing the arrival of their music video for the tune, I was plagued by four questions, but before we get to those, let's have a quick chat with William (who handles lead vocals on the track) shall we? He brings up stalking by the second question. Out to steal my heart a little?

Was "Young Love" written in response to a specific situation or an ode to young love in general?

Written more in general really, although there are a number of different situations over the past years which the song draws from. I'll keep the details under wraps....

If literally all you had to go on was the girl's name, would you really go door to door? Or would you have to know the name and maybe a few of said girl's acquaintances and general area of residence before taking up the task?

Yes, I would go from door to door, we're not lying you know. Obviously postcode and address details would be greatly appreciated, but then we are getting into stalker territory aren't we?

What is currently the most perplexing question on your mind? Can be related to anything at all... 

What colour shall I paint my walls?

How important is your blog to you and why?

Really important; it's where all our little passions come out. All the things we love get a mention on it. It's good to write with an awareness of other people reading it. It's a discipline.

How many blogs do you subscribe to?

I subscribe to none, but read lots of music blogs.

Back to the video at hand for "Young Love":

My questions upon watching were:

1) Is it truly possible to love them more?

2) Are they themselves sure they've collaborated with Laura Marling and not say... Emmy the Great?*

3) Gasp!!! Has resident patriarch Henry left the band? He's noticeably absent from the video...

4) And who is the director?

For a few, the answers came to reveal themselves in a multitude of different ways:

1) Ummm.... apparently yes. Rather unsurprisingly enough. That was answered in the first second.

2) *=Not a serious question in the least... just a reference to being on the Patrick Wolf/Lightspeed Champion tour trail with Dev in November. Everyone got confused when it came to his Lavender Bridge collaborator. At one point in Bristol he took a quick call from Emma during a radio session. He then informed the DJs that he hadn't talked to her almost since their time in Omaha and that she was talking about their song "Everyone I Know is Listening to Crunk" during the short convo. Minutes later he was asked if Laura Marling had supplied the female vocals for his tracks. Weren't you just listening???

3) Henry's still in the band!!!! I guess I just don't brush up on their Wikipedia often enough, but some mysterious folk by the name of 9 & 12 supplied me with the positive answer. Just cutting down on live and press appearances, but very much still apart of the band!

4) Still unknown.... But as Scully and Mulder have taught me, the truth is out there...

Buy "Young Love" digitally today or pre-order the single in physical form. All 3 formats for only 4 pounds or 4 thousand USD (nah.. only a little more than eight dollars, but it feels like 4K). 2 x vinyl plus the CD single is out on March 10th.

I spent my Sunday dancing along to multiple versions of "Diamonds in the Dark" and Lykke Li's "Little Bit." You can too:

"Diamonds in the Dark (Dusty cabinets Remix)" Mystery Jets MP3

Linktime, linktime, linktime...

Mystery Jets Blogspot: Behind the Bunhouse - we may differ in opinion on MGMT (they like 'em, me...ehhh...) but have many other bands in common from Band of Horses to Arcade Fire in the live realm and they were one of the first to note the brilliance of Late of the Pier back in February 2007 and then revisit the band again in June talking up "The Bears Are Coming," which I got Late of the Pier themselves to talk up

Mystery Jets myspazz

They DJ!

I bumped into William at the Klaxons afterparty at Kitts in December in London

I filmed Mystery Jets doing a magical in-store at HMV in Glasgow back in March 2006. Watch it!

As for William's great paint dilemma, I'm thinking he should select a nice green tea shade of paint. It's proven the most calming plus it looks pretty cool and can accent nearly anything. Oh, and to avoid bright red at the very least...

To help:
Restful color schemes you'll just love waking up to

Let nature inspire colour choices

How many other music blogs are linking to paint selection articles today?

Does Aesop Rock rock?

I wouldn't know. He was supposed to do a three song set after his in-store signing at Upper Playground but after over an hour of waiting, no set in sight, and constant hounding on behalf of sales agents I ended up giving up on him performing
I guess they arranged it that way on purpose. Typical set up is performance first, signing after. Most people are only coming for the performance, and all that want autographs can wait the undetermined time it takes for them to get through the line
But how it played out in this instance was signing first-three song set "after" at the clothing store (not typical fare for musician or book signings). Well-the signing began at 3pm and just kept going. Signings take a long time-especially when small groups of people continue to keep coming to get their items signed-continuing to drift in for over an hour after start time. It was uncomfortable because the store didn't and wasn't going to enforce any cut off either. And semi-uncomfortable for those who actually got things signed (unlike me) as it took maybe 7 seconds for their item to get signed. And then they just had to wait. And no one could leave because there was no idea given for a set start time. It was like being held captive-one couldn't leave because there was zero time frame.
So with no estimated end time and no cut off people were forced to stick around and shop or pseudo shop, or just hover
Looking at a cool shirt with the screen printed faces of comedians-all present, past and present in terms of popularity including Steve Martin and Dave Chappelle. Checking the size of the shirts (which were listed on an entirely different part of the shirt than the price tag), one heavily tattooed sales agent interjected "All our shirts are twenty two dollars". Pretty odd first point of communication. I wanted to make either a skirt or a dress from it, much like I did with a XXL shirt I got from the Roskilde festival and one I picked up at Mary's Club ala Ana Matronic. Later, still waiting and lingering between the store floor and their in house gallery and trying to determine when they'd actually be rocking the mics as the line for signatures had since dissipated sales agent came up once again-there were tens and tens (god I love that) of people in the store and I was clearly not there to shop-looking in the direction of the signing table with my camera in hand, completely detached from the sales floor
Trivia I picked up in my wait as the signing continued:
Aesop Rock's sister lives in Portland and he has spent plenty of previous time here as well.
Very ill conceived set up for the signing seemingly set up like that for the sole benefit of the store-forcing people to shop by forcing people to wait out the signing

Can't Stop Won't Stop? Well, I guess that would still hold true. . . since it never started

Pitchfork: Aesop Rock Writes "Children's" Book

Pipettes pull shapes

Didn't like them until this.

Is the love interest a guy from the Automatic? Because someone once said one of the members looked like Tom Welling and the guy in the video looks a bit like Tom Welling. Doubt it's him in this vid though.