The Loose Cannons ‘Superstars’ Scissor Sisters ‘Laura’

For me, singles are very useful in spotting new talent and this week I received two of great interest.

It’s been a pretty ordinary year for dance music but The Loose Cannons have spiced things up a bit with this storming single, Superstars. And if funk with the dirtiest of beats is your thing, better start getting fit to dance to this mother… The Loose Cannons are two guys. Lord Fader, who, quote, ‘…with the Mac mouse in his hand he knows the secret of how to make a bass drum so fat that it’s been deemed ‘at risk’ by the British Heart Foundation.’ Superstar is indeed a heavily beat driven ditty that I’m pretty sure will be bursting into the charts and onto the dance floor big time. But what’s this? A melody! Enter Kaiser Saucy, the other half of this dynamic combo. He’s the guy responsible for injecting the door-opening, brain-lodged melody into this number. Combined, the guys have come up with a dancefloor winner with a one-liner lyric I can’t understand but which doesn’t really matter. The EP I received has four great mixes including the original version, a radio edit, Peshay single mix and Those Pesky Kids mix. You’ve been warned!

About The Loose Cannons

Kaiser Saucy & Lord Fader would like to welcome you to Cannonia with the imminent release of Superstars, probably the most addictive funked out extravaganza that you will hear all year. Following their recently acclaimed Handbrake (Out 4 The Nite) single on Casual Records, DJ sets from In The City to Manumission and triumphant live performances at Return To New York and across the capitol, Superstars is released on 03/11/03 on Island Records, backed by a series of remixes and live dates to be announced.

The Cannons were born perhaps 3 years ago, forged largely from one fortuitous occurrence: the boys were Djing at a movie wrap-party in Soho when no less a celestial behemoth than Bootsy Collins his-self turned as he was leaving and bestowed upon them that most beautiful of burdens; “keep the funk alive, fellas” he said.

From that moment on Fader & Saucy have worked every-damn-day as funktopic missionaries, striving in their small way to make a difference, man. First as DJs, taking their inimitable brand of Jump-Up, Jump-Up Smash-It-ness as far afield as New York, Chicago and Tokyo. They then expanded their mini-empire to encompass promoting, running the legendary Name The Nights in Soho and at the beginning of 2002 the boys took their first small steps into the heady world of remixing. Less than a month later, on a wintry Friday morning, a cry was heard emanating from behind a poorly soundproofed door: “Bollocks to this Fade,” it said, “let’s make our own shit…” and thus Rhythm & Dirt was born.

Superstars has been rubbed up and down, polished and snipped in all the right places, and looks set to smash your skull with its throbbing bass and addictive vocal refrain. The track comes with mixes courtesy of Boris D’lugosch, Peshay, Jeremy Wheatley’s take on the original and a lovely little tripped-out scorcher by Those Pesky Kids just in time for Sunrise. Their debut Long Player MEKE THE FACE is set to drop onto your consciousness in early 2004, produced by the boys themselves at their Children’s Television Sweatshop studios in Cannon Heights. And once they’d made it to their enth degree of satisfaction in-house, they found they could deny the bass no longer and set it loose amongst such bottom end luminaries as Etienne De Crecy and Brixton’s finest, Roy ‘The Tubmeister’ Merchant, who relished the chance to take on Mixing Detail.

And now for something completely different. USA five-piece band Scissor Sisters’ single, Laura, is going to scream into the charts and for several good reasons. It’s fresh, inventive and original rock. It possesses an irresistible funky beat that will go down a storm on radio and dance clubs. It’s got a humdinger of a melody. It’s got a simple but good set of lyrics sung by a vocalist who means business. It’s just a great song and as all good singles should do, provides a strong hint to the quality of a forthcoming album. In the lighter pop/rock stakes Scissor Sisters are about to create waves; those big ones that flatten homes and leave ships stranded on highways. I kid you not!

About Scissor Sisters

Creative sparks first ignited five years ago, when a then 19-year-old explosion of energy called Jake Shears was introduced to a multi-instrumentalist who goes by the title of Babydaddy. Fired up by a passion for solid songwriting and off-the-wall humour, they joined forces to write hook-studded tunes, adopted NYC as their home - and agreed on a cheeky name that’s caused confusion and provoked many blushes in turn. ‘None of us are lesbians, though,’ say Scissor Sisters, helpfully.

Sex, inevitably, plays a significant part in the music. After all, Jake discovered a knack for performance during his successful stint as a go-go dancer, to raise funds for a European college trip. “I’m so grateful that I went through that phase of dancing on bars for dollars!” he says. “It made me totally unashamed to go crazy. Once you’ve taken your clothes off in front of hundreds of people, things get a lot easier.”

Shameless? Absolutely - and infectiously essential, too. Scissor Sisters bring together rollicking guitar riffs, throbbing synths and a whole bunch of wicked lyrics. Their influences skitter through glimmers of vintage Bowie, Roxy Music and Elton John to Giorgio Moroder, burlesque theatre and rock opera. At college, Jake had majored in Fiction Writing, and numbers like the catchy glam rockin’ groove of their debut major-label single Laura (’I gotta give myself one more chance/To be the man that I know I am‘) weave feature-length stories through song. Sometimes, it sounds like they’re partying hard on cheap champagne; at other points, the moods are downtempo and beautifully, surprisingly wistful: radio-friendly soundtracks for the morning after.

Music this sparky calls for a suckerpunch live presence to match, and before they were honing their studio skills, Scissor Sisters were whipping up a storm with their shows: on home turf at first, and more recently extending to Europe (in Barcelona not long ago, one impressed spectator described them as ‘a life-changing experience‘).