On 13 October, Red Bull Music Academy went to London for Revolutions in Sound, filling each pod of the London Eye with a different musical act. One of them was Benji B with special guests The Deviation String Quartet and MC Judah. Here's a video of an hour of mixing UK garage and hip hop with live strings.
posted by sveskemus on Dec 9, 2011 - 12 comments

I Was There When Acid House Hit London and This Is How It Felt by Charles Mudede
posted by Artw on Oct 18, 2011 - 23 comments

Cabaret's Don't Tell Momma performed by a young Judi Dench, or by Molly Ringwald, or Chris Moore, but what would she want with me?
posted by The Whelk on Jul 9, 2011 - 21 comments

For the second year in a row, DJ Earworm has created a mashup video, "Party on the Floor" of all fifteen artists who performed at Capital FM’s 2011 Summertime Ball at London's Wembley Stadium on June 12th. The video premiered during the concert. His official website has more videos and free, downloadable MP3's. Last year's remix: Like, OMG Baby. (His year-end pop-mashups: previously on Metafilter.) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 6, 2011 - 15 comments

San Francisco-based DJ Earworm is best known for his end-of-year "United State of Pop" Billboard top 25 mashups: 2007, 2008, 2009. But in the "off season" he continues to mash popular songs into fun concotions. His latest, "Like, OMG Baby" is a reinvention of Justin Bieber's "Baby," and was shown at Wembley Stadium in London for Capital FM’s 2010 Summertime Ball , where all fifteen of the artists featured on the track performed on June 6th. His official website has videos and free, downloadable MP3's. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 5, 2010 - 27 comments

Who are the grandfathers of noise music? The Nihilist Spasm Band formed in 1965 when eight men, using homemade instruments, began creating noise together in London, Ontario. None of these men were traditionally trained musicians, yet they are often credited as being the major influence behind modern noise music, inspiring Japanese noisemakers like Hijokaiden and Masonna, as well as western artists like Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. [more inside]
posted by threetoed on May 4, 2010 - 28 comments

Something very strange has been happening across London clubland this Spring. The Antsignal has gone up over the city, and the Antpeople have crawled out from their mounds to hail the unexpected return of their insect overlord. An Adam Ant Exclusive by Simon Price [more inside]
posted by a.steele on Apr 28, 2010 - 27 comments

'A site dedicated to songs about London. The only rules are that the songs must be brilliant and that the blindingly obvious numbers are excluded.' The London Nobody Sings takes you on a musical tour of the capital, by bus, train and tube, via Camden Town, Parliament Hill, Portobello Road, Shepherd's Bush, Southall, Tottenham and Tooting Broadway. And if it's too late to take the Underground? Don't worry, the trams may have gone, but you can always catch the Nightbus home.
posted by verstegan on Feb 14, 2010 - 14 comments

Teenage rockabilly group Kitty Daisy & Lewis perform Going Up Country on German TV [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Dec 21, 2009 - 26 comments

Corey Arcangel is perhaps the internet's most infamous hack, masher-upper, digi/net artist. His work stands for a growing culture of artists who run wildly through animated GIF landscapes populated with corrupted data-compressed bunny rabbits and tinny, MIDI renditions of Savage Garden ballads. As the Lisson Gallery, London, opens its archives to Arcangel's curatorial eye, could digi/net art be set to infect the real, fleshy world, like a rampant Conficker Worm? Has YouTube become the truest reflection of our anthropological selves? Are we destined to roam the int3erw£bs like the mythic beasts of yore, hoping, in time, that digi art can free us from the confines of this fleshy void? [...previously]
posted by 0bvious on Dec 8, 2009 - 20 comments

David Goo and the Variety Band have been gigging in London for a few years, but a recent appearance as a soundtrack to an advert could be what propels them to the big time. Merging ska, punk, indie and klezmer influences, read an interview with them here as they speculate on the concept of 'selling out'
posted by muggsy1079 on Jan 21, 2009 - 9 comments

Bandstand Busking have decided to put liven up the underused bandstands of London by, well, you know, putting bands on in them. [more inside]
posted by Helga-woo on Jul 20, 2008 - 7 comments

Death Cab For Cutie. Live, in a Black Cab. One Song ("No Sunlight"). One Take. One Cab.
Also: Daniel Johnston, Bill Callahan, The New Pornographers, The Raveonettes, Okkervil River, Spoon, & The Futureheads.
posted by msalt on May 16, 2008 - 28 comments

UK band The Get Out Clause made their newest video by performing in front of 80 of London's approximately 13 million CCTV cameras, and then requesting the footage via the Data Protection Act. The footage was then edited together into this music video. [more inside]
posted by whir on May 12, 2008 - 60 comments

Paulo in London asks musicians to write him a story on an index card. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 15, 2008 - 7 comments

Go way back into time with a deliciously analog collection of mastermixes from 1980s-era soul radio from London. [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Feb 29, 2008 - 3 comments

Hammersmith Palais, legendary venue immortalised in song, faces demolition. More at NME and BBC.
posted by lapolla on Feb 3, 2007 - 7 comments

Eel Pie Island: the early 1960s incubator and catalyst of the burgeoning R & B scene in Twickenham and Richmond, The young musicians who played there included members of The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, the Small Faces, to name but a few. BBC Radio documentary on Radio 4 (30 minutes). Plus, from about 1964 (?): pre-Wheels on Fire Brian Augur and the Trinity with three-quarters of Steampacket (Long John Baldry, the delicious Julie Driscoll, and Rod "the Mod" Stewart) I guess what with Augur on keyboard, the Steampacket didn't need their pianist, Elton John. youtuber
posted by Mister Bijou on Feb 1, 2007 - 10 comments

Fed up with their bus journeys being blighted by loud music blaring from phones or MP3 players, Londoners strike back - er, by putting up posters at bus stops. Tales of woe and disaster to be found here.
posted by greycap on Oct 30, 2006 - 50 comments

2 years ago I FPP'd FlavorPill, a company that sends out permission-based emails for books (Boldtype), music (Earplug), and fashion (the JC Report). They've since added ArtKrush (it's art, stupid! - nsfw) and Activate (world events) to their aresenal. In addition to the topic-specific mailing lists, they offer city-specific lists for London, New York, SF, LA, and Chicago. Sample issues are archived on the site.
posted by dobbs on Aug 11, 2006 - 6 comments

Inner City Youth, London "In 2002, Simon Wheatley began photographing London's publich housing developments...and was able to obtain a level of intimacy with his subjects that provides a true picture of the daunting project of growing up in the intimate confines of drug use, societal neglect, and poverty." This (Flash-based) narrated slideshow features Wheatley's work, and is a look at the culture...and also the music (grime) "as an artistic response to the place and circumstance, an expression of the violence, bleakness, and neglect..." (via Future Feeder)
posted by tpl1212 on Jul 20, 2006 - 38 comments

Music history rendered on a London Tube Map They say: "Could we chart the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map? Dorian Lynskey explains how a box of coloured crayons and lot of swearing helped." I say: Look also at the comments in the accompanying thread, which features trolling, snarkiness and repetition, beginning with "Why did you do this? What is the point? Wouldn't you have been better off doing something else? Sometimes you media people really worry me." The Guardian are introducing commenter registration on their new blog.
posted by feelinglistless on Feb 12, 2006 - 18 comments

London Underground Warning - very bad language and 750k but well crafted critique of the state of the transport system in London.
posted by Cancergiggles on Feb 11, 2005 - 11 comments

The story of "St. James Infirmary." You thought it was a piece of old New Orleans? Turns out St. James Hospital was in London (and treated lepers), and the song goes back at least to the 18th century (though it used to be sung to the tune of "Streets of Laredo"). Rob Walker's Letter From New Orleans #13 describes the results of his obsessive researches. If you have more info, he wants to hear from you! (Via Wordorigins, a site any word lover should know.)
posted by languagehat on Jun 11, 2004 - 9 comments