Bloc Party Wants You...

To make their next video:

Bloc Party are giving fans the chance to make their own video for their new single 'I Still Remember'. The single is released on Monday 9th April. Fans are asked to submit a full or partial video for the song to a dedicated YouTube group where they can be rated and commented on. Winners will be chosen and the winning clips will be edited together to create a new video that will be featured on BlocParty.com and on the Bloc Party vCast. All winners will also receive a pair of tickets to the UK date of their choice on the band's upcoming sold out tour. For more information and rules, visit www.blocparty.com/youtube

What's your fondest, unrequited homosexual/bisexual memory? Give it up for Bloc and gain the respect of millions of fans, or lose it. That's the best part, it could go either way. Kind of like the theme of the song. If you don't know what I'm talking about just refer back to here. And major props to Kele for such candid honesty, bravery, and directness in his lyrical direction on the new album.

Oh, by the way Bloc Party put on one hell of a show. More on that coming later.

IFRS - Writing Competition: Assignment Two

I'm elated to announce that I have just submitted my piece for the current "I'm From Rolling Stone" contest, which complements their MTV-based reality show. Here's the dirt:

Now let’s say you got the chance to shoot the breeze with your favorite living band or artist for a Rolling Stone profile. What questions would you ask? Tell us 1) who you’d interview and 2) what ten stellar questions you’d ask. Intelligent, well-informed, provocative, off-the-wall or poignant — the goal is to do your homework and then craft inquiries that will elicit compelling answers and reveal something about the interview subject.

Contest rules and submission form live here.

My submission follows below:

10 Questions for Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke:

1) After the breakout success of your debut album, "Silent Alarm," the band catapulted from performing in small clubs to full arenas. Was this an intimidating time for you?

2) Bloc Party originally signed on with Panic! at the Disco's fall tour. Given that the audiences for the two bands are very different from each other, do you think it worked out for the best not to have completed the tour as a result of Matt Tong's collapsed lung?

3) Your new single, “I Still Remember,” reportedly explores the theme of latent bisexuality. Is that topic risqué even in modern rock?

4) You have talked about not hiding behind abstraction on the new album. How do you, as a songwriter, go about writing more directly and clearly to your audience?

5) Your new album, “A Weekend in the City,” has been described as being about the living noise of a 21^st century metropolis. In this way, is the record almost like a concept album?

6) What was the experience like of working with producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol) on the new album?

7) “A Weekend in the City” has reportedly leaked on the Internet. Do you think this will adversely affect the commercial success of this greatly anticipated record?

8) The song “Where is Home” is said to explore issues of race in England. Do you feel this topic isn’t explored often enough in pop music and, if so, why do you think that is?

9) On your upcoming U.S. tour you will be predominantly hitting theaters as opposed to clubs or arenas. Why do you prefer theaters to others types of venues?

10) What message do you ultimately hope people take away from “A Weekend in the City?”

Bloc Party Still Remembers How to Rock

Bloc Party is coming stateside. Billboard reports that the U.K. buzz band has unveiled the following North American tour dates:

March 11: Seattle (Paramount Theatre)
March 12: Vancouver (Orpheum Theatre)
March 13: Portland, Ore. (Crystal Ballroom)
March 15: Austin, Texas (South by Southwest)
March 17: San Francisco (Concourse Exhibition)
March 19-20: Los Angeles (Wiltern Theatre)
March 23: Chicago (Congress Theatre)
March 24: Detroit (Royal Oak Theatre)
March 25: Toronto (Kool Haus)
March 27: Montreal (Metropolis)
March 28: Boston (Orpheum Theatre)
March 30-31: New York (United Palace Theatre)

Billboard also reports that opening acts will be rotated among The Strokes' Albert Hammond, Jr., Final Fantasy, Sebastian Grangier, The Like and Smoosh.

Meanwhile, MTV2 has an exclusive video premiere of Bloc's first U.S. single, "I Still Remember." The Aggressive-directed clip is available here.

Additionally, Reuters recently shed some new insight on the band's forthcoming sophomore effort, "A Weekend in the City."

"A Weekend in the City," particularly on its back half, is dominated by slower, richly textured songs that stretch into pop/rock territory.

"It's got everything that makes a Coldplay song, plus more," bassist Gordon Moakes says of the band's more introspective material. "It has a lush sound without being too syrupy."

It also features much more direct vocals from frontman Kele Okereke, who makes a big leap as a songwriter and lyricist on this loose song cycle that thematically mirrors its title.

"I wanted to make something that could be more easily understood, without dumbing it down," Okereke says.

The article mentions the aforementioned headlining March U.S. tour and also confirms 3 more domestic visits before the end of 2007.

With the newly released single plus "The Prayer," there is no doubt that Bloc Party is on the list of most anticipated albums of the year and quite near the top to boot.

What are on your list of the most anticipated albums of the year?


For more on Bloc Party: http://www.blocparty.com

2007 Previews: Bloc Party

British post-punkers Bloc Party will release their next album, the follow-up to their critically praised 2005 debut "Silent Alarm," on February 6. "A Weekend in the City" is led by the brand new single "The Prayer," which is already getting airplay in their native Great Britain. In describing the upcoming album, MTV clues us in on how the band is moving forward but with no less musical or lyrical complexity:

Over glitchy vocal samples, piston-like drums, swooning synths and prickly guitars, Okereke weaves 11 tales of big-city life, darting between overly lonely narratives about dead-eyed teens, morning commuters, business executives and coked-up clubgoers, while capturing both the fleeting moments of beauty and soul-wrenching nights of desperation that come with 21st-century living in a faceless, unforgiving metropolis.

"A lot of the ideas for these songs came to me whilst we were touring last year, and I was coming back to the U.K. intermittently and seeing friends that I was at university with," the singer/guitarist explained. "They're all working, all commuting, all getting drunk on the weekend. And no one seemed to be particularly happy. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have this real sort of incongruity between what they thought life was going to be and what life actually was. And I wanted to capture that real sense of optimism fading against the grind and routine of everyday life. It's about getting lots and lots of different perspectives; all the songs are different voices: a teenager, a commuter, an executive type — all these snapshots of people that paint one large picture.

And Bloc Party certainly have had a bustling go of it in the last few years, following "Silent Alarm" with a remix album and several EP's, which included the release of last year's hit "Two More Years". They were also originally a part of the, "Nothing Rhymes with Circus" tour headlined by the pop-punk darlings Panic! at the Disco. Drummer Matt Tong's health brought a quick end to that venture, forcing Bloc Party to cancel the rest of their dates on the trek. But the quartet has regrouped and will begin an overseas tour next month that runs through the middle of March.

As for "The Prayer," it begins with a deep intoning chant which serves to evoke the spiritual undertones of the title, and sets up lead singer Kele Okereke's unrestrained vocals as Tong's drums dutifully play along. Moments later the noise-rock grooves reminiscent of "Silent Alarm" pound in, layering in the second tier of the band's signature multi-layered sound. By the time the chorus arrives, the aesthetic dissonance of guitarist Russel Lissack's chopping guitars moves into a 'synthier' sound and Okereke's insistent harmonics raise the urgency and immediacy of his message:

Tonight make me a unstoppable
I will charm, I will slice,
I will dazzle them with my wit
Tonight make me a unstoppable
And I will charm, I will slice
I will dazzle I will outshine all

(lyrics courtesy of Sing365.com)

You can listen to and watch the reality bending video for the single: The Prayer - Official Video at YouTube.

Alternatively, you can listen to the track (minus the video) at the official Bloc Party MySpace page.

For more: http://www.blocparty.com.