Teh mentalZ

Hey users,


While it isn't one of the message boards i frequent very often, Last Fm seems to have quite a vocal community. They seem to find tiny bugs with the site and get into a frenzy, they always want people banned, and a while back, there was outrage when Last Fm decided to change it's rubbish design.







I decided to check out the boards during a study break yesterday and came across some uproar on the message boards about cheating :O

Last FM is of course one of the best things on the net. There isn't exactly a way to describe how useless it really is, except to keep a shoddy record of the music you listen to and to give you somewhat vague references. My favourite part of it is watching the playcount rise by one to a brand new number. It's an excellent substitute to watching the percentage of one of your downloads slowly rise (everyone does that i've recently discovered).

Anyway, it turns out Last FM has turned into a competition of sorts. People are supposedly leaving their computers on 24/7 and have special programs to skip tracks over and over. While we here at FTCZ have often ridiculed people that have listened to 500,000 tracks in the past 2 years as being super losers, it may actually be the case that they are excellent cheaters at something that you can't really cheat at.

And for our amusement, Last Fm users have once again come to the rescue with their over the top anger. They've called for bans of the users and taken pics of people's last fm homepages before circulating them, and funniest of all, they've scrolled through people's 200,000 strong play histories and checked if songs have played all the way through.

We thought the Last Fm groups were insane with their interview processes, but now we know that the craziness is a site-wide phenomenon.

On a wee note: why must the people that do get 200,000 plays only play the gloomiest looking metal music? You think they'd put something a bit different in there to mix it up but that isn't the case :(

Also, Happy Paddy's Day everyone! We're not really into the holiday (in fact the only time i've gone out on the day was last year when i wasn't even in Ireland).The 3 members of FTCZ will all be studying, but there's always aa excellent chance we'll give up and do something :)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs = teh best :D

Hey users,

As the title of this post shows, this is destined to be an absolute suck up to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs which is pretty much what you should expect from FTCZ by now. We're a bit YYYs crazy here.

So...as you know, the band moved up the release of the new album after that terrible rip of the new album started doing the rounds on all the invite sites. And according to Pitchfork i believe, Kanye started posting it on his blog also.

Anyway, who cares how it got released (definitely not us - we're far too self absorbed to be thinking about something like that). It's here! And we can confidently say we absolutely heart 'It's Blitz'.

It's a good thing too. Because if it turned out bad, i wouldn't feel right about hanging that giant Karen O poster beside my bed (you know the poster - everyone has it). Thankfully, for the 3rd time (i'm not counting the EPs obviously.Those are only a'ight) its all gone according to plan.

NME have a big thing about them being disco or something in this week's issues which is hitting newsagents tomorrow morning. Well...most newsagents.There's still a few stragglers which i've noticed try to tout the old issues as long as possible. It's not all that disco though. It doesn't have the Nick Zinner, trademark guitar heavy sound some of the time, but ya know, it's still got plenty of guitar since 1/3 of the band are professional guitarists.

"But Kill Kill (a long abandoned nickname someone gave me), is it as good as the first two albums? Or should i simply invest my money in those brill topman tshirts that say things like 'oh hai' or something similar?".

Well reader...while it's early days, we're gonna jump the gun and rank it second best since Fever To Tell is a contender for best album ever and near impossible to compete with. FTCZ highly recommends the album and recommends seeing the band live and reading all their interviews and buying all their merchandise also.

We're YYYs fanatics and not ashamed!

Teh LabelZ

Hey users,

FTCZ have been having some pretty long days recently. Mr. A and myself have been hitting the books pretty hard, while B is having a meltdown because his final year project probably won't work. I think it's fair to say we're in need of some good luck in the near future. We don't really mind at whose expense it may be.

But anyway, on to what we talk about most (that's music for the dimmer readers among you). Yours truly had a long day of shopping in various womens' clothing shops in search of adequate birthday presents, which is the most head wrecking thing in the world for guys. It didn't help that i somehow ended up modelling some girl accessories much to the amusement of some very attractive girls. I can't remember what made me think it was a good idea.

Anyway, to keep me company on my ipod as I trekked to various stores across the city, I decided to listen to Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6.

FTCZ isn't usually into purchasing compilations, with he exception of that Rough Trade one a while back (bad idea), but this compilation struck us as something we might actually like.

And wow were we right :D

To be fair, it does have a lot of bands which we listen to anyway which made it more of a safe purchase than some daring risk. It's got La Roux and Digitalism and Fischerspooner and HeartsRevolution (they're one of our bands to watch).

The best thing about compilation of course is the bunch of obscure people they shove into them too. Our faves are David E. Sugar who is well cool, and last week's stars of 'Skins' (can they do no wrong???) You Love Her Coz She's Dead.

Who would have thought that we'd be getting a British version of Crystal Castles in 2009? They're absolutely awesome and have the FTCZ seal of approval after a handful of singles. We'll be writing more about them soon. And we'll defo be writing about Skins very, very soon. Note to any girls that are rocking the Alice Glass look: I will go out with you. Please forward your details.

In conclusion, if you're cool, you gots to get hold of this compilation. FTCZ demand it!

Teh Tundra Picz :O

Hey users,

As most of you know, FTCZ decided to go to hip electronic musician Max Tundra a while back for reasons that we can't remember. I think we got a little caught up in the moment or didn't want to do assignments or something. As well as being asked our age at the door (not sure what that was about - we looked the part!!!), the FTCZ crew were the only 4 people in the room that weren't sporting the generic gig-goer beard. We were a little regretful that we didn't unleash our usual rainbow of glowsticks upon their late 20-something, bohemian fashioned eyes.

As for the gig itself, it wasn't as impressive as live reviews on Pitchfork had led us to believe.Max Tundra of course decided to be a little blurry and we think it might have been because he may have taken too much caffeine (we're serious).



Poor old Max compensated for being a one man show by doing this mental dance that made it rather difficult for the dancers among us to follow. I think he was hoping that such enthusiasm might encourage his fellow old people to do a bit of a dance. They didn't really.

As a result of all this, the very cool gig-goers that attended were left a little bemused.

This crazy older guy in a jumper was letting loose while us cool young people were wondering what was happening and making V signs at each other (V is related to that incident with Duff-V of course).

All in all, Max was ok but the crowd killed the buzz a bit. It's sort of what you expect when you unleash old people on Cork really. FTCZ will stand by Mr. Tundra and see him in the future hopefully. Not in Cork though. No sir. Perhaps up here in Dublin :D

We're on Twitter for some reason..

Hey users,

For some reason we've decided to be on Twitter. Consider it the consequences of a long day at college because we promise to neglect our twitter account like you wouldn't believe.

Proper updates coming soon. We have very strong opinions on the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. Stay tuned....

High friends in places (song reference for the 1st time ever)

Hey users,

As you know we like to keep promises around here. And by that, we often run out of ideas and have no choice but to steal our old ones. So be sure to look out for our terribly photographed/reviewed TV on the Radio/Max Tundra gigs very soon. The photos are so bad, you'll think you actually were me in the drunken, pilled-up state i seemed to be in.

In the meantime, it's time to moan about a band we actually like: High Places.

As a contender for making the greatest EP ever, and one that i couldn't stop listening to when i was in France last year, High Places will always have a place on my iPod. We can forgive them for looking grubby and not very rockstar-like (i had to rephrase that a few times - you can word that really weirdly). Greeting The Light is defo one of FTCZ faves from last year too (as long as you don't ask those other losers - why am i always the one blogging???).

When they got used in last week's ep of Skins, they even prompted queries as to who they were from a room with 6 girls and me (I couldn't have been more miserable). You'll be pleased to know i was annoyed enough from there raunchy girl talk that i didn't tell them. Girls need to learn manners. Especially girls following this blog.

But upon revisiting their rather expensive debut LP (i forget how much, but i paid lots), the love disappears a little. It's a massive case of 'what were they thinking???'. I guess they thought being music types gave them room to express themselves. How uncool of them. They should have tried to express themselves in defined ways.

But despite this, we have faith in our bands around here. Unless they've been awarded the poison pill that is our album of the week of course (none will ever come back from that - nobody that's gotten it has had any real success).

But as for High Places, we see them getting back on that horse and getting the job done right next time. That or we'll give there next album our 'album of the week' title. So be warned....

La Roux is la quiet (we're clever like that)

Hey users,

Of all teh hype bands and singers this year, there are a couple that are missing key qualitites. While with bands like the Chapman Family, it's a case of missing talent (we really, really don't like them. Avoid! They're disgusting to even look at), with La Roux it's a case of not seeming very talkative, despite her really cool hair.

Having read our fair share of articles about her, and even interviews, she doesn't seem to say much or leave the oh-so-humble vibe or the really out there persona that female musicians give off to make them seem cool. I mean, how are we ever supposed to really know her if we can't lump her into either of those categories.

Then, during Channel 4's broadcast of the NME awards in the wee hours of the morning the other day, she performed on stage with Franz Ferdinand. Only she didn't go on stage with them for a while. Or say anything quippy. Or smile. She's no Little Boots by any stretch clearly :/

While FTCZ is pretty indifferent about celebrity, we do tend to be nicer to people who seem nice. Well...not really. But if you do come off as nice, we certainly can't fault you for it. I'm sure she'll come off a bit better as we get closer to her actually releasing an album, but in the meantime, we'll just have to make do with her really cool songs. Be sure to get a hold of some of 'em.

Oh noes! Teh hype!

Hey users,

You think you're doing ok. There's nothing wrong with your usual routine and then *bam*, out of nowhere there's something better. And as you well know, this blog loves nothing more than to leech on to something at the first scent of cool coming from it.

In the past, we've had a preference for Grooveshark when it comes to streaming free music.
Grooveshark has been perfectly fine. It seems to do an adequate job. It has all teh choonZ that we hear about on drownedinsound and last fm and plenty of stuff from the non english speaking world too. Not that any of that is any good :P As you can see, we love nothing more than angering the FTC community.

Anyway, it was disheartening for FTCZ to see that Grooveshark is no longer the 'it' streaming service on the net. That title seems to have gone to Spotify.

This smug snot green logoed website seems to be endorsed by everyone. We'd gladly praise them so we could fit in with the cool crowd but unforunately it's not available in Ireland without an invite yet :( It's available in the UK though which happens way too often. Kind of pity we're not in the UK clearly, despite Sky News' attempts to include us :/

So in the meantime, we'll remain firmly pro-Grooveshark, until one of you loyal readers sends us an invite to Spotify of course. Then we'll radically cahnge our opinions i'm sure :D

Teh FestZ are coming!

Hey users,

As we mentioned in our last post, we've been searching for an awesome festival to hit up this Summer. Oxegen has been completely overrun, so that's a big no-no. The same with T in the Park (which is sold out anyway - i guess we could very well not see the YYYS :O ).

The homies in Edinburgh have been talking up the Belgian festivals, but FTCZ has cast it's several eyes towards the Isle Of Wight for Bestival!

Bestival gives off the same vibe as Electirc Picnic did last year (but without the genuine fear of ending up married after a large quantity of Buckfast - :S ).

"But Cillian.we know nothing of this year's line-up - at least talk about who's playing."

Ok reader, we shall.

On the card this year is MGMT, Fleet Foxes, Klaxons, Seasick Steve, Florence And The Machine, Little Boots, Friendly Fires, Bat For Lashes, Diplo, Squarepusher, Passion Pit, Dan La Sac V Scroobius Pip, Fujiya & Miyagi, and loads of other which i would type if i had the time.

Lets hope it's got the awesome vibe and weather as Electirc Picnic did last year!

Oh yeah...her :)

Hey users,

It's a crying shame when bands we like disappear of our radar (we're looking at you Jamie T - we're glad we saw Calvin Harris instead of you that time now), so when they pop up again we tend to get a little rush of nostalgia and excitement, just like when old bands reform for old people of obselete generations (we're really not kidding - we're very ageist on this blog and in real life).

So hats off to Bat For Lashes for finally releasing a second album :D




As you all know, Natasha Khan is really hot and if one were to want to woo FTCZ, all they'd have to do would be look like her. So you'd think one album would be all she'd ever have to release since she can get by on her looks, yeah?


Wrong user! Completely wrong! Khan has instead decided to release a second album, so that means April is going to be bringing us helping of both Bat For Lashes AND YYYs. Couple this with Passion Pit in May and we're all set for Summer :D FTCZ are thinking of going to Bestival this year (possibly on a joint expedition with renowned fashion blog SaveourShoes), so we may very well see Natasha Khan in the flesh.


It's out on April 6th. But it is somewhat possible that one could hear the tracks earlier (that's a hint of sorts).


Here's hoping there's a big Bat For Lashes poster with the album. We've become a little disillusioned with free posters since the Crystal Castles incident (who on earth gives away 1/4 of a picture?!?).