Ladytron: The Joy Of 6

Britain's Best Pop Band Ever(TM) Ladytron played the final gig of their Light and Magic tour last night at the newly-opened Carling Academy in Liverpool (the venue I believe that used to be known as The Lomax). Missed it? Yup, me too - I was busy turning my brain into liquid on a stag night on Birmingham's Broad Street. Luckily though, they played some tunes from the concert on the Steve Lamacq show this afternoon on 6 Music. These were two cover versions - their already legendary take on Tweet's 'Oops (Oh My)' and their rendition of the classic Cabaret Voltaire tune 'Nag Nag Nag'. During an interview with Steve, the 'tron revealed they had difficulty making out all the words to the last track, but the problem was solved when Richard H Kirk from CV dictated the lyrics over the telephone to singer Mira Aroyo.

Lamacq advised that these songs (plus others) would be available on the 6music website sometime over the weekend so it'll be worth checking back. Other Ladytron news included the fact that they are releasing a 'Back To Mine' style compilation called Softcore Jukebox (featuring tracks from amongst others The Fall and The New Fast Automatic Daffodils plus the vintage rave anthem 'You've Got The Love' by The Source featuring Candi Staton) and the alluring Aroyo will be embarking on a whistlestop DJ tour of North America in order to support this (I have a couple of requests for Mira but because of the restraining order I won't be able to deliver them personally). Ladytron are in the process of writing new material for their third studio album which has a tentative release date of September 2004.

The support band for Ladytron last night were new Domino Records signings Franz Ferdinand who have been getting a fair amount of media hype lately. Judging on the couple of live tracks Lamacq played this afternoon though, these plaudits could be (for once) merited. Sounded like a terrific gig.

Also on the Lamacq show I heard a great track ('The Execution Of All Things') from a band called Rilo Kiley a Los Angeles-based quartet on Saddle Creek records headed up by former child-star actress Jenny Lewis (she featured in the Angelina Jolie teen lesbian drama Foxfire and escorted Jake Gyllenhaal to the Donnie Darko premiere). The track is available to download from their website and the band play the Camden Barfly in London next Friday (Sept 26th). Rilo Kiley play crisp and tuneful indie-pop and have a sound not-too-dissimilar to The Delgados and you can check out a ruck of live mp3s from the band available at this fansite and you can find some of Jenny's vegan menus listed here.