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Exposure: Chromeo provide the soundtrack to Piper's sex scene in Secret Diaries of a Call Girl

On the rise: P-Thugg and Macklovitch

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The influence of Billie Piper on an electro-funk duo and a look at the perfect songs for Halloween night.

BILLIE GIVES THE BOYS A LEG-UP

Now that music television is reduced to late- night background noise for the inebriated, new bands have a better chance of breaking through with TV dramas that your mother wouldn't like.

Beth Ditto wouldn't be the woman she is today without Skins, the E4 show about teenagers having sex and taking drugs. Once her band Gossip's Standing in the Way of Control appeared on Skins, Ditto had a hit.

Could a soft-focus sex scene featuring Billie Piper in ITV2's The Secret Diaries of a Call Girl now spell the same success for Montreal electro-funk duo Chromeo? The energetic performance of Dr Who's former assistant set to Chromeo's new single, Bonafied Lovin', has certainly excited internet users.

"I saw it on YouTube," Chromeo's David "Dave 1" Macklovitch tells me. "It's funny. I love Dr Who, I used to watch it as a kid."

Coincidentally, Chromeo (below) are on Gossip's label Back Yard, so they know they can expect a large cheque for the TV use of the song, released as a single on 12 November.

They've already attracted star supporters too - they're tipped by Kanye West on his blog and Sara Cox on Radio 1. Their album, Fancy Footwork, is out now and their Scala gig on 28 November will feature the life-sized girls' legs that hold up their keyboards on the album sleeve. But that apparently annoyed Beth Ditto.

"F*** the Gossip because they got offended by our album cover," Macklovitch complains. "They're stupid. They saw it as something that would offend a feminist person, which is crazy, because my mum's a big feminist and she loved it."

Between tours, Macklovitch is pursuing a PhD in 18th-century French literature at Columbia University. And the New York-based Chromeo are also students of that much-maligned musical decade, the Eighties. Hall & Oates are "heroes" and in the official video to the single, they pay homage to Dire Straits' Money for Nothing and its blocky computer graphics.

When Macklovitch tells me that Jamiroquai were also a formative influence (when he and P-Thugg were schoolfriends in the early Nineties), I can't help noting that Chromeo is a hot band with uncool credentials.

But, he insists, "It's not irony - we're open-minded dudes."

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the YouTube community, whose complaints forced the removal of Piper's post-watershed sex scene in episode three from the site. You can still find it, though, at www.itv.com/Drama/contemporary/TheSecret DiaryofaCallGirl - to check out Chromeo, of course.

SONGS TO GET YOU INTO THE GHOULY GROOVE

Opening emails isn't always exciting but a shiver ran down my spine when I saw my invitation to the March of the Dead. A Halloween special, it's a musical parade setting off from Hoxton Square at 7.30pm next Wednesday and heading along Kingsland Road.

Masks and lanterns are promised, along with sinister folk tunes from songwriter Matthew Robins that recall the soundtrack to The Wicker Man. You're invited, too, at www.my space.com/halloweenmarch.

In fact, 31 October has some of the best tunes. As well as The Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers (sadly, Pickett joined the spirit world himself this year), there's The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show - a superior creepy party anthem.

Goth-rock fits the horror theme nicely and Bauhaus's Bela Lugosi's Dead (with its chant of "undead, undead") can't be topped. The Horrors' Count in Fives and The Birthday Party's Release the Bats are good, too - though not for older family members.

Is There a Ghost?, the current single from Band of Horses, will keep things up to date. As will Ryan Adams's Halloweenhead, from his Easy Tiger album.

If you want to howl at the moon, Warren Zevon's hilarious Werewolves of London is the tune. Also recommended are Halloween, by Siouxsie and the Banshees, I Drink Blood by Rocket from the Crypt and I Put a Spell on You by Screamin' Jay Hawkins and anything from Fur and Gold by Bat for Lashes.

Vinyl trainspotters may be able to locate the fantastic remix of John Carpenter's Halloween theme by Arab Strab (under the name Ben Tramer). But the flesh-creeping original is simpler to download. All available on iTunes.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO...
Jack Johnson
Sleep Through The Static (Brushfire)

Hawaiian surfer dude Jack Johnson sold millions of his In Between Dreams album thanks to its soppy acoustic ballads. Sleep Through the Static, which comes out in February, is his comeback (if you ignore his children's movie soundtrack Curious George, and you really should). While it won't shock any of his fans, he has found a new urgency and he's even added electric guitar.

The single If I Had Eyes has a sunny, funky feel, while Enemy features a lovely, woozy intro of which any Americana band could be proud.

Johnson also sounds a bit less pleased with himself and the lyrics are obviously more personal, although that probably explains clunkers such as "She gives me kisses on the lips, just for coming home" from Angel.

The anti-war title track boasts a reggae vibe and unwisely rhymes "toy tanks" with "banks". It's pleasant enough - but as a protest song, about as incendiary as Norah Jones.

 

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