Introducing | Ghostcat

by Little Miss B, 19th April 2010...

Photograph courtesy of Andy Willsher

Ghostcat are an exotic explosion of dancefloor electronica, pop love and sabre toothed guitars; good time music giving vent to bad, bad thoughts. 

Guitarist Dan Gamble spent his early life hop-scotching between Tokyo and London. Born in Toronto, singer Ali Cat was the guitarist in an all-girl teen punk band at sixteen. By 2006 she was living in in an ‘aspiring art collective’ in Kilburn, also home to Dan. They recruited French drummer Etienne Bellot and Aussie bassist Ben Larsen and began playing raucous live shows sounding half The Kills and half Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Gig by gig they got in touch with their inner dirty dancefloor selves so that by the time they were snapped up by France’s Kuskus label they were as into messing with formulas behind the synthetic filth of Crystal Castles as with The Ting Tings’ pop crunch. 

‘This Is A Bust’ – their first single – particularly encapsulates their oeuvre, a deviant disco skipping tune about boys. The sexy eclecticism of their first album was recorded in the underground studio owned by Prince’s ‘Under The Cherry Moon’ engineer Chuck Norman. They’re now out of the basement, blinking in the pop sunlight and ready to take their rocktronic decadence to all corners.

Ghostcat will be playing at Catch 22 on Kingsland Road on Wed 21st April, with support from Rotkappchen and The Boicotts.





www.myspace.com/ghostcatmusic

To cover or not to cover, that is the question...

Little Miss B, 27th September 2009...


With recording mere weeks away, The Backlash have been battling with a tough decision: which cover track do we spend time and money laying down? Mulling over the pro’s and con’s of many a chanson, I have gotten to thinking: what makes a good cover song? Many would say there’s no real science to it. A track is either good, or it’s not.

For me however, the ‘science’ boils down to two fundamentals: firstly, the relationship to the original (almost unrecognisably different right the way through to exact copy), and secondly, whether the personality of the band is present on the track. Not wanting to come over all X-Factor judge, but have the band/artist made it their own? If you distil it down further, what appeals to me most in a cover song is if the track sounds like a cover, or in fact sounds like a brilliant song in its own right.

One song that almost made my top 5 was The Pretenders' I go to Sleep. Although The Kinks’ original is great, The Pretenders took that song and OWNED it. It eclipses the original. Another example of this would be Valerie by the Ronson & Winehouse. Crappy and slightly annoying song by the Zutons turned into a right good’un by adding some horns and big ole vox. Both these cover versions sound like brilliant songs in their own right, forget the original.

So, here are my top 5 cover songs by lady music-mongers. This is not a definitive list by any means, merely a taster. Tracks that just missed the cut include Letters to Cleo – I Want You to Want Me, Save Ferris – Come on Eileen, Blondie – I’m Gonna Love You Too, and Dollymixture – Baby, It’s You.


5. No Doubt: It's My Life






4. The Be Good Tanyas: When Doves Cry






3. The Raincoats: Lola






2. The Gossip: Careless Whisper






1. Thee Headcoatees: Ca Plane Pour Moi

To read more Top 5's by Little Miss B, click below:

Guilty Pleasures

Bands I Miss The Most