Monday, August 27, 2007

Weekender : lying on the couch with Lucozade and a hot water bottle

FREE MUSIC: Could it finally be time for Les Savy Fav to make a move towards the common concensus in the UK? Come on, let's get them on the Album Chart Show and watch Tim Harrington make Sara Cox wet herself in fear. The reliably hopeless ContactMusic describes Let's Stay Friends (September 18th America, 1st October UK through Wichita) as "the Kaiser Chiefs with Pistols and Arctics character". You be the judge of that by listening to The Equestrian.

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Cats On Fire - not to be confused with Cat On Form (Steven Ansell's band before Blood Red Shoes), Cats And Cats And Cats (highly rated post-rockers) or the Stray Cats (nobody will ever confuse them with the Stray Cats) - are from Finland but with their guitars set to 'summer meadow' and inscrutable lyrics would fit comfortably in the nascent Sarah Records sound revival, although they're more like Felt, the melodic Aztec Camera end of Postcard Records and the new wave of post-twee Scandipop. And anyone who reminds us of the Monochrome Set has automatic pride of place round here.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION: "Lead singer Charles has just been voted the roundest person at the band's record company!" This week's YouTube yomp is courtesy of some sort of genius going under the handle 23Daves, who not only kept a VHS of Chart Show Indie Charts between 1989 and 1994 but has uploaded a great wodge of them to the 'Tube. Some of our favourites: July 1989 with the Cowboy Junkies and, as they seem to be in every chart from this period, Birdland at 2; February 1991 in which Video Visuals decide the only way to get kids up and ready to go on a Saturday morning is with My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3; September 1991 with Mega City Four, Chapterhouse, clips of the Moonflowers and Thousand Yard Stare, and a Family Cat video with a guesting pre-Dry Polly Harvey; May 1992's celebrated, fan-converting play of "currently on tour supporting Kingmaker" Suede's The Drowners; November 1992 with the Drop Nineteens, the Boo Radleys' original video for Lazarus with Alan McGee cameoing (what happened to the promised all-star tour video?) and Pavement's Watery, Domestic EP at number one with a picture that excludes Steve Malkmus; March 1993 with a top two unilaterally banned by the show and Huggy Bear's Her Jazz at 3 played at the wrong speed (is it just us who'd like to hear it all at that Beefheartian No Wave pitch?); November 1993 featuring Aphex Twin atop, someone called Seaweed covering Go Your Own Way and Chumbawamba next to Codeine; and March 1994, with Jacknife Lee's old band Compulsion and still hanging on in there at the top, Senser.

FALLING OFF A BLOG: Bloodshed In The Woodshed actually makes us feel better about our own critical faculties - not that they're a bad writer (they very much aren't), but we've always had a concern that we reference people and bands in posts that the layman might have to have a glossary handy for. That was until we saw the write-up on here of Minotaurs, whose singer is described as having "reminded me of Paul Smith (fine so far) initially, and then Jason Bavanandan". Jason Bavanandan from Battle being used as a marker! That aside they've got a keen ear for new music and you might learn something new.

EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: Øyafestivalen is an annual Norwegian festival which is growing in stature year on year, and for 2007 they've uploaded a number of performances from the likes of The Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Roky Erickson, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Gogol Bordello, Architecture In Helsinki, Lady Sovereign, Justice, CocoRosie, Eagles Of Death Metal and the Melvins.

IN OTHER NEWS: Another tribute album! Dig For Fire: A Tribute To Pixies, released in America in November, isn't the first and doubtless won't be the last, but with a contributor list including Mogwai (Gouge Away), British Sea Power (Caribou), Joy Zipper, The Rosebuds, OK Go and They Might Be Giants it has more potential than most.

2 comments:

jamila FUCKING DANCE said...

that is a dreadful comparison made by contactmusic. i'm actually offended! kaiser chiefs my arse.

Anonymous said...

i really don't know what to say.