COCKNBULLKID'S POP THERAPY

COCKNBULLKID – that’s it, that’s her name now.
Dropping the prefix “the” is the first sign something’s different about Anita Blay.
Known for her electro tunes of the past, Anita’s turned to pop for her debut album.
Single Hold on To Your Misery (out March 7) is every bit the snappy pop song to which she aspires.



Anita – as CocknBullKid – is part of talent-pushing festival HMV Next Big Thing, a concentrated chance to see the picks of the future – across venues including Camden Barfly, Jazz Cafe and Relentless Garage for the flat rate of £10.
She plays Upstairs at the Garage alongside James Yuill, Trophy Wife and Visions of Trees (Feb 10).

Also chalked up at various venues are Jessie J, The Airborne Toxic Event, Skepta, The Chakras, and Chilly Gonzales (full line-up – www.hmvnextbigthing.com).
In fact, Anita has just settled in a deli after recording vocals for the eclectic Canadian musician Gonzales – who worked on her album – when she speaks to Grooves.
She said: “He’s charismatic, good fun to work with, very much an artist and quite independent. He pretty much makes things happen for himself so he’s good at giving tips and advice on how to make sure everything is yours. It’s becoming harder for people to control what they do. He’s quite old school in the sense that he takes care of every aspect of his career.”

While Anita absorbs his advice, she is well aware of the fortunate position she is in: “Although I’m signed to a big label (Island) I’m with an independent (subsidiary Moshi Moshi). It’s not like everything has to be turned up to 11 and have bells and whistles on. I’ve got the best of both worlds, the muscle of a major but the creativity of an independent.”

Album Adulthood touches on life as a Londoner of Ghanaian descent and some good old teenage angst – to an upbeat soundtrack.
She said: “My parents split up at a very early age and I was separated from my mum when I was about 12 so I grew up with a male patriarchal figure. I wasn’t raised by a woman in the most important times in my youth. While he was doing a stellar job – I love my dad to bits – there are certain quirks/things you can’t help but sometimes attribute to not having a female figure.”

Her father, a bus driver, is so proud of Anita’s work that he keeps all her cuttings.
She said: “Considering he was from a different background, from Ghana, quite traditional, he’s still quite open-minded and I think that’s shaped me.”

Anita grew up in Hackney, torn between where to ally herself – and her confusion over her origins –is detailed on the album.
She said: “The older you get it’s less of a clash and more of a fusion. There’s good and bad but I’ve learned to straddle both, be proud that I’m British and proud to be Ghanaian.”

An explanation of her stage name is also on the album: “A lot of people ask why I called myself Cocknbullkid. I’m not talking about anatomy I‘m referring to a cockerel and bull – it’s another way of saying to spin a yarn, tell a tale, bullshit someone. Something I’m fascinated with.”
At the moment it’s all about pop: “It is a craft writing a pop song – it’s a lot easier to be experimental and waffle on for nine minutes. Now three minutes, there’s something very satisfying about a pop song.”

Making the album has doubled as therapy. Said Anita: “If you’re old enough to be honest about how you feel and put it on a record, hopefully you feel better for it – almost exorcising your demons. I do feel a lot better. I listen back to songs and think wow I don’t feel like that anymore. I’m happy I’ve been honest about it. “

She added: “My dad’s really proud. I’m definitely a hard worker when it comes to music. That’s the only way you can feel any sense of achievement for something because you work for it. My dad’s a bloody hard worker. That’s part of the reason I’m so ambitious because I want to make him and my family proud. I want them to be comfortable, he struggled for so long.”
• CocknBullKid’s website is www.cocknbullkid.com and twitter name is @cocknbullkid

THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT - FROM BLOODSTAINED CARPETS TO WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

A COUPLE of years ago LA band The Airborne Toxic Event took up residency at The Dublin Castle in Camden, staying in “skanky” hotels and living it up in Marathon Kebab house.
They played 30 UK dates, and within six months were playing to audiences of thousands.
Now, having put the finishing touches to their second album they’re about to cross the Atlantic again, this time touring of non-traditional venues like Islington’s Union Chapel (Oct 3).
They’ll also attend the premiere of their DVD All I Ever Wanted – The Airborne Toxic Event : Live From Walt Disney Concert Hall (out Oct 4), which has been accepted into the prestigious Raindance Festival.

Frontman, guitarist, chief lyricist Mikel Jollett is wide awake, it’s 10 am and he’s still at home in LA thinking about packing.
He said: “I get up at like 7am. I know it’s decidedly not rock and roll of me. The last couple of weeks we’ve been finishing this record we’ve been making for about nine months.”
Don’t ask what it’s going to be called, as they’ve got ideas but they’re not letting on.
Their biggest hit to date Sometime Around Midnight, captured the attention of fans, but Mikel’s moved on from drawing too heavily on his previous break-up and says the songs have other stories to tell.
He said: “It’s definitely not a reread of the first record. It’s probably both louder and quieter. I wrote the last record when I was going through a pretty devastating break-up. It was a pretty bad time. On this record there’s some songs about my folks and one about Afghanistan – the hypocrisy of nation building in the context of war. Then there’s some ballads. It’s definitely a different kind.”
Turns out the new album was supposed to be an electro mash-up effort “but we ended up making a big rock record” Mikel confesses.
Back to their stay in Camden, Mikel said: “We got to know Camden pretty well. We stayed in this super skanky hotel that had like bloodstains on the floor. It was such a grimy place, we were sleeping three to a room because we were so broke. I like the Dublin Castle it reminded me of a lot of bars in LA. We liked the rock and roll falafel place (Marathon Kebabs), at night it becomes like a rockabilly night, people dancing and eating falafel. That was the most happening joint in London, I really liked that place.”
Mikel seems thrown by UK music journalist lines of questioning but believes it comes from the right place.
He said: “Everyone always thinks you’re scheming and trying to come up with something clever either how you dress or the aesthetic or the music, something in order to solve the equation of being like the next
huge thing. We do not think like that at all.”
He launches in to a (pantomime) English accent: “(UK critic) "I notice you’ve got your sound, you’ve got The Strokes with a bit of The Clash and Arcade Fire sort of thing, how did you come up with that equation” and we’re like uh.......we don’t know. Actually the UK Press is actually quite polite, smart and enthusiastic about us and I think people seem to understand...Where a lot of the hyperbole of the Press comes from...it’s written by people who literally don’t want to be let down, they’ve sacrificed so much in their lives to be part of it.”
He’s not likely to be found complaining about touring either.
Mikel said: “I used to be a carpenter and my hands were sore – that was work...The people who come to our shows have jobs and work. We don’t work, we travel around and play music.”