Saturday, March 06, 2010

The Music That Made... Standard Fare

Sheffield has been a fertile hunting ground for indiepop in the last couple of years, and here might well be its breakout band. Standard Fare are a trio who take inspiration as much from Orange Juice and the Lemonheads as your C86 brigade, and their debut album The Noyelle Beat, released March 29th on Thee SPC (preorder here), is capable of making you move and ruminate simultaneously, already a highlight of a not especially fallow year. They're playing a couple of shows at SXSW; later in the summer they're at Indietracks, and days before that they're playing our Indietracks warm-up show, of which more nearer the time. For the meantime, here's how they grew:

First single bought
Danny (guitar/vocals): Suggs - Cecilia
Emma (bass/vocals): Eels - Beautiful Freak
Andy (drums): I think the first single I bought was Nelly - E.I. Hah! oh dear, which is horrendous, completely different to what I listen to now...

First gig voluntarily attended:
Danny: The Stereophonics supported by Feeder; it was in Feeder's rock-ier days with Jon drumming and I thought they were the better band on the night. My two mates missed them 'cause they were too busy trying to get served for beer, they were pretty gutted.
Emma: I think it was Embrace in Sheffield and me and my best friend were being pushed around by all these big men with beer - not a nice experience.
Andy: I went to see Blink 182, in Birmingham. All the standing tickets had gone so we had to get sitting tickets instead, still really enjoyed it.

The record that most made you want to get into music:
Danny: Green Day - Dookie
Emma: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Andy: When I was young my mum played a lot of 80's rock around the house, really loud! Alot of AC/DC, I think the song I remember most is You Ain't Got a Hold On Me.

The three headliners at a festival you were curating:
Danny: Can they be from the past? If so then The Clash, The Buzzcocks and Nirvana. If not then The Lemonheads, Alkaline Trio and The Distillers ... I'm pretending they're still going.
Emma: From your blog it looks like we can take artists from the past in which case it would be Janis Joplin, Fleetwood Mac Tusk era and Sam Cooke. Contemporary artists would be The Cardigans, The Be Good Tanyas, and Blondie (on a Parallel Lines reissue tour).
Andy: The Clash, Jimi Hendrix and The Eagles

A song not enough people know about but everyone should hear:
Danny: Lemonheads - (The) Door; it's easily the pinnacle of epic rock songs, if people discovered it then there'd be air guitar battles going on everywhere, in the streets, in the supermarket, on the playground. It's honestly that good!
Emma: There's too many! I can't think of one song everyone should hear. The song 'Passing Through' by Dick Blakeslee (Pete Seeger version) was sung at my Grandfather's funeral and he sang it to his children and we sing it every year as a family where his ashes were buried. It's a very good song about life and death and makes me feel a lot.
Andy: The song is called William and it's by a band called 'The Others. The album was a strange find really, it was the artwork that attracted me to it, I'd not heard of them before. And now so glad that I decided to buy it.

A song you'd play to get people dancing:
Danny: Jimmy Eat World - The Authority Song
Emma: Candi Staton - Young Hearts Run Free
Andy: It would have to be Stevie Wonder - Superstition, you can't help but want to dance to this song.

The last great thing you heard:
Danny: Nat Johnson playing acoustic guitar live and using a loop pedal to layer up guitar parts, vocals and finger clicks, it was pretty damn impressive!
Emma: I've been listening to Electrelane again and their records are truly great! Especially No Shouts No Calls for the more accessible needing like me. And yes, Nat's pretty amazing too!
Andy: A d'n'b song produced by Netsky called I Refuse. I absolutely love this song, it's really well produced. The beat is what I'm most interested by, its not the usual generic d'n'b beat, and I think that's why I like it so much.

Your key non-musical influences:
Danny: Musical influences are a pretty huge part but otherwise, for me, it's probably still living in the small town I was born in and working in the quarry where generations of my family have worked; sometimes it's a great feeling of security, but other times it feels quite claustrophobic.
Emma: The past and the present. Richard from the Poison Girls gave me my first guitar and taught me the (Sex Gang Children) song I've Done It All Before. (Emma's mother was an early member of the anarcho-punks)
Andy: Will Ferrell, William Morris and William Shakespeare

Your favourite new artist:
Danny: The Runaway Kids. We saw them play the other day and the guy's voice and the whole early 90's punk-grunge sound they've captured, gave me that 'quick! I need to phone my brother! He needs to know how good these guys are!' feeling.
Emma: Allo Darlin' are fantastic live, I'm really loving seeing them.
Andy: I saw Exlovers last weekend, and I really enjoyed their set, really nice melodies!


Apparently recorded all of two and a half years ago, and at the mercy of a student TV director, recent single Fifteen:

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