All music of the zeitgeist, as we know, is cyclical in nature. Now, it seems the arguments are as well.
See, we've all known all along how weird and singular music message boards are, not least for their invariable enclaves of huge Dannii Minogue fans to this day, but the inevitable big issue at the moment is of 'authenticity' - Kate Nash's accent, Jack Penate's schooling, Lily Allen's upbringing. And, just like every time, the answer comes back - does it matter? This small grouping of people who kind of know each other (plus a few that journos throw in for good luck despite having bugger all in common, like Patrick Wolf and Mr Hudson and the Library) make for an easy collective target in what we must now apparently call the 'LDN' scene, but their detractors are pointing at the targets still not recovered from the slings and arrows of previous musical eras.
See, despite what LDN Is A Victim - a track actually understood by, what, a few journalists and about twenty self-professed insiders in NW1, yet subject of a million music editor thinkpieces - and Hadouken! (thank god they haven't just superglued themselves to any passing fad, eh?) think, people making music for the masses while being of middle class stock is not new. Ask the ultimate "would you let your daughter marry..." band, the Rolling Stones. Or David Bowie. Or Roger 'we don't need no education' Waters. Everyone knows Joe Strummer was the son of a diplomat, and he got chased from pillar to post about it thirty years ago. Damon Albarn found his voice characterising the hoi polloi's routines, and although he went to a comprehensive his father worked in BBC arts programming and lighting design. Resolutely Sheffield working stock Jarvis Cocker may be, but his most famous piece of observational lyricism was about a girl he met at St Martins' College of Art. Playing down your origins is as old as pop music itself, or to put it another way as old as glamorising your down at heel upbringing. The thought seems to be that you simply can't observe the same world as everybody else if your parents might have a trust fund, but we'd guess that Kate'n'Lily'n' co have done what most of their songs are actually about, that is gone out for the night, got drunk and either tried to chat up unresponsive boys or had trouble with the one they already have. Let the young disestablished working class speak for themselves and their circumstances and more often than not you get The Enemy.
And yes, that probably isn't Kate Nash's speaking accent, although we don't have anything to hand to prove it one way or the other, and you'll also notice not nearly as many people brought this up concerning Jamie T, who often sings like he was born inside a Bow bell. But then it's the Guy Ritchie effect - nobody still believes he grew up in a council house, so nobody goes the extra yard for him any more. Middling older readers may remember this coming up in conversation in 1996, when Damon Albarn's accent migrated to Bethnal Green for a couple of albums. You might also like to bring in the late Steve Marriott as a character witness. Or indeed the pre-Mockney accent debate of singers with transatlantic accents, which took up about forty years of vocal-based discourse up until Britpop. We could go on at some length about the spread of Estuary vowels over the last twenty years and the southern prevalence of the glottal stop, but you get the idea. (Conversely, Billy Bragg can sing properly - check out Mermaid Avenue or his Norman Cook collaboration Won't Talk About It - but evidently feels more at ease with his knowledgeable everyman approach singing as he speaks.)
And the real issue with this two-pronged semi-assault? It ignores the centre of the issue which has never really been approached in the negative by the popular press because it would blow the whole gaff more readily than a list of private schools, that of taking the old "write about what you know" maxim and applying it far too readily. You can write about the everyday in an inventive and thoughtful way - much as it pains in light of their work since, the Stereophonics' Traffic is a great example - but not just relating it as a shopping list of eating cheese on toast and texting your boyfriend. Mundanity is not the same as realism - Colin Meloy has never been a Soviet Cold War agent, a 19th century boy chimney sweep or a mariner swallowed whole by a whale as far as we know, but at their core Decemberists songs still reflect human truths and consequences more than Penate's epic tale of being on a train that was late. Instead of making it a game of class war, what actually needs wresting away from the new mainstream is the idea that straight up lyrics documenting real life and 'real life lyrics' are not the same thing.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Monday, August 06, 2007
Weekender : a Paul Coia quiz show about hills
FREE MUSIC: One of the bands we did come to fresh and enjoy at last weekend's Indietracks was Stockholm's Robert Church and The Holy Community. Compatriots The Radio Dept are probably the nearest contemporary comparison we can come up with for their lo-fi resetting of 1988-vintage indie with pop choruses. They have a couple of singles out domestically, one of which contains Steve.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Glasgow's Make Model, featuring the former leader of the much-admired Fickle Public, have, as well as a good number of notable festivals, in the last few months supported both Do Make Say Think and Tiny Dancers, which demonstrates the breadth of their sound if nothing else. There's elements of both indiepop and post-rock tied together and jumbled around a bit, not unlike Broken Social Scene or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at their most inscrutable. Only two tracks and a remix of one of those uploaded, though? There's industrial strength dryers at work on that powder.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: With all that post-punk recalibration stuff coming back in altered forms, it's worth catching up with shortlived scene leaders and always one of its most intriguing bands, Josef K. Super-8 magic brings us some sort of contemporary video for Chance Meeting, while from televisual parts unknown come Sorry For Laughing filtered through the magic of CSO on some sort of gel.
VIRAL MARKETING: Thing about Super Furry Animals' Hey! Venus album is that while it's probably the second worse album of their eight LP career, and even they acknowledge Love Kraft was undercooked, it's still better than most bands' best. With that in mind, from their Cardiff preview gigs come Show Your Hand, The Gift and Neo Consumer.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: "Turn The Page is without self-entitling itself as so an 'entertainment blog' or at least that is our aim". Fair enough. In there at the moment are a Swedish smorgasbord (ha!), Example, a disturbing club remix of Sufjan, Stuart James and a Potter book review.
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: Musicisart is also an mp3 blog, but not like many others you've seen. Again, let's borrow their own modus operandi statement: "words, music and art complete one another. the mission of musicisart is to show how passion creates feeling and to share on the meaning. old and new intelligent selections always inspire will forever include uncensored thoughts, music expressions, intense details to demonstrate sincere and grateful appreciation."
IN OTHER NEWS: Direct from our New Friends Request box, Love Goes On! A Tribute to Grant McLennan is an all-star tribute album to the late Go-Between featuring a damn impressive line-up including Stars, Luke Haines, Trembling Blue Stars, Ed Kuepper (The Saints), The Orchids, The Clientele, Phil Wilson (the June Brides) and Portastatic. That there Myspace features some of the above, which is handy as there's no concrete release date yet, although it's notable everyone concerned is wisely steering well clear of Cattle And Cane.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Glasgow's Make Model, featuring the former leader of the much-admired Fickle Public, have, as well as a good number of notable festivals, in the last few months supported both Do Make Say Think and Tiny Dancers, which demonstrates the breadth of their sound if nothing else. There's elements of both indiepop and post-rock tied together and jumbled around a bit, not unlike Broken Social Scene or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at their most inscrutable. Only two tracks and a remix of one of those uploaded, though? There's industrial strength dryers at work on that powder.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: With all that post-punk recalibration stuff coming back in altered forms, it's worth catching up with shortlived scene leaders and always one of its most intriguing bands, Josef K. Super-8 magic brings us some sort of contemporary video for Chance Meeting, while from televisual parts unknown come Sorry For Laughing filtered through the magic of CSO on some sort of gel.
VIRAL MARKETING: Thing about Super Furry Animals' Hey! Venus album is that while it's probably the second worse album of their eight LP career, and even they acknowledge Love Kraft was undercooked, it's still better than most bands' best. With that in mind, from their Cardiff preview gigs come Show Your Hand, The Gift and Neo Consumer.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: "Turn The Page is without self-entitling itself as so an 'entertainment blog' or at least that is our aim". Fair enough. In there at the moment are a Swedish smorgasbord (ha!), Example, a disturbing club remix of Sufjan, Stuart James and a Potter book review.
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: Musicisart is also an mp3 blog, but not like many others you've seen. Again, let's borrow their own modus operandi statement: "words, music and art complete one another. the mission of musicisart is to show how passion creates feeling and to share on the meaning. old and new intelligent selections always inspire will forever include uncensored thoughts, music expressions, intense details to demonstrate sincere and grateful appreciation."
IN OTHER NEWS: Direct from our New Friends Request box, Love Goes On! A Tribute to Grant McLennan is an all-star tribute album to the late Go-Between featuring a damn impressive line-up including Stars, Luke Haines, Trembling Blue Stars, Ed Kuepper (The Saints), The Orchids, The Clientele, Phil Wilson (the June Brides) and Portastatic. That there Myspace features some of the above, which is handy as there's no concrete release date yet, although it's notable everyone concerned is wisely steering well clear of Cattle And Cane.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
In shops tomorrow: 6/8
Singles
So is this No Cars Go 7" ever coming out? Exaggeration, possibly, but it's been on the release schedule twice already, and sightings this week will be welcomed. Us kids, apparently, don't know. After a tribal-rock album that cemented their position as scary emissaries from the avant-artpop underground, even if we didn't quite get it, Liars trail their self-titled fourth album - note to all bands, never self-title the fourth album, it makes it look like you're out of ideas - with the bruising post-punk as imagined by Buñuel Plaster Casts Of Everything. Bricolage are Memphis Industries' latest, rewiring Orange Juice's scratchy funk element where everyone else took the jittery guitars alone. Limited edition 7" The Waltzers promises much, even if it does sound like a second cousin to Mr Blue Sky.
Albums
This week is really all about Kate Nash, all the chart-bound sound talk ringroading the main issue, that being whether someone whose first gig was roughly eighteen months ago (and hands up who else wants to hear her early "skiffle reworking of Robbie Williams' Rudebox") shouldn't really be advised by even the most cash-hungry of major labels to hang on for a bit and sharpen up rather than put something out this early and leave it exposed to the sterile air of undeveloped potential. Oh, and told her to sing properly. And told her that the "suburban living ennui" lyrical thing is dead, largely because it was shit and we got over that when our Thurman CD singles went to Oxfam. Still, let's hope Moshi Moshi, which put Caroline's A Victim out, have done well out of it all. (It's also worth a seethe that Drowned In Sound's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu-length review finishes "at least she's not Jyoti Mishra". No, White Town were/are great.) Eugene McGuinness' rise, if to a much lower plateau, has been pretty much just as quick, signed to an offshoot of Domino, but at least he's given himself space by putting out his home recordings on an eight-track, about 25 minute mini-album wryly titled The Early Learnings Of Eugene McGuinness. And McGuinness, you can already tell, isn't someone who's going to stand still for long, on various tracks here recalling all points from Morrissey to Jamie T to Willy Mason and so forth. Let's for now call him an antifolk Jeremy Warmsley (again) and mark him down as someone who given time could garner a mass following come this time next year. The reception afforded for Chow Chow's eight-track debut mini-album Colours And Lines is necessarily affected by the recent death of singer/guitarist Iain Smith (they have disbanded but are releasing this with the backing of Smith's family). Sharing a label and producer with the Victorian English Gentlemens Club, they borrow that band's commitedly jagged Pixies/Wireisms and add New Wave synths to produce a kind of intelligent new rave that holds much now unfulfilled promise. To virtually no heralding whatsoever outside the release schedules Gronland, the eclectic Continental label formed by big-selling German Herbert Grönemeyer, is putting out Girl Talk's Night Ripper, the extraordinary intricate mash-up party album that's spent the last year or so setting America alight. The Neutrinos support the Sugababes in their local Norfolk next week, which doesn't make a lot of sense except to whichever booker decided to scare the children on the basis of One Way Kiss, where Stooges-esque garage power collides with Karen Reilly giving it some Polly Harvey circa Dry.
Julian Cope takes a break from ambient experimental meditation tapes and writing a Japanese-based followup to Krautrocksampler, Japrocksampler: How the Post-war Japanese Blew Their Minds on Rock 'n' Roll, published next month (and looking at some rocks, probably) to self-release You Gotta Problem With Me, one CD of stripped down garage rock, one of acoustic politicising. He's fifty in a couple of months. Even he probably didn't expect that. We seem to have missed out on volumes 1 to 6, so we pick up on The Complete Motown Singles Vol.7 in 1967, the year of Jimmy Mack, There's A Ghost In My House, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, When You're Young And In Love, I Was Made To Love Her, I Second That Emotion and I Heard It Through The Grapevine in its original Gladys Knight And The Pips version. Slightly more up to date, Ladytron's Witching Hour electrohouserock excursion grows an extra CD/DVD of remixes and a documentary.
So is this No Cars Go 7" ever coming out? Exaggeration, possibly, but it's been on the release schedule twice already, and sightings this week will be welcomed. Us kids, apparently, don't know. After a tribal-rock album that cemented their position as scary emissaries from the avant-artpop underground, even if we didn't quite get it, Liars trail their self-titled fourth album - note to all bands, never self-title the fourth album, it makes it look like you're out of ideas - with the bruising post-punk as imagined by Buñuel Plaster Casts Of Everything. Bricolage are Memphis Industries' latest, rewiring Orange Juice's scratchy funk element where everyone else took the jittery guitars alone. Limited edition 7" The Waltzers promises much, even if it does sound like a second cousin to Mr Blue Sky.
Albums
This week is really all about Kate Nash, all the chart-bound sound talk ringroading the main issue, that being whether someone whose first gig was roughly eighteen months ago (and hands up who else wants to hear her early "skiffle reworking of Robbie Williams' Rudebox") shouldn't really be advised by even the most cash-hungry of major labels to hang on for a bit and sharpen up rather than put something out this early and leave it exposed to the sterile air of undeveloped potential. Oh, and told her to sing properly. And told her that the "suburban living ennui" lyrical thing is dead, largely because it was shit and we got over that when our Thurman CD singles went to Oxfam. Still, let's hope Moshi Moshi, which put Caroline's A Victim out, have done well out of it all. (It's also worth a seethe that Drowned In Sound's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu-length review finishes "at least she's not Jyoti Mishra". No, White Town were/are great.) Eugene McGuinness' rise, if to a much lower plateau, has been pretty much just as quick, signed to an offshoot of Domino, but at least he's given himself space by putting out his home recordings on an eight-track, about 25 minute mini-album wryly titled The Early Learnings Of Eugene McGuinness. And McGuinness, you can already tell, isn't someone who's going to stand still for long, on various tracks here recalling all points from Morrissey to Jamie T to Willy Mason and so forth. Let's for now call him an antifolk Jeremy Warmsley (again) and mark him down as someone who given time could garner a mass following come this time next year. The reception afforded for Chow Chow's eight-track debut mini-album Colours And Lines is necessarily affected by the recent death of singer/guitarist Iain Smith (they have disbanded but are releasing this with the backing of Smith's family). Sharing a label and producer with the Victorian English Gentlemens Club, they borrow that band's commitedly jagged Pixies/Wireisms and add New Wave synths to produce a kind of intelligent new rave that holds much now unfulfilled promise. To virtually no heralding whatsoever outside the release schedules Gronland, the eclectic Continental label formed by big-selling German Herbert Grönemeyer, is putting out Girl Talk's Night Ripper, the extraordinary intricate mash-up party album that's spent the last year or so setting America alight. The Neutrinos support the Sugababes in their local Norfolk next week, which doesn't make a lot of sense except to whichever booker decided to scare the children on the basis of One Way Kiss, where Stooges-esque garage power collides with Karen Reilly giving it some Polly Harvey circa Dry.
Julian Cope takes a break from ambient experimental meditation tapes and writing a Japanese-based followup to Krautrocksampler, Japrocksampler: How the Post-war Japanese Blew Their Minds on Rock 'n' Roll, published next month (and looking at some rocks, probably) to self-release You Gotta Problem With Me, one CD of stripped down garage rock, one of acoustic politicising. He's fifty in a couple of months. Even he probably didn't expect that. We seem to have missed out on volumes 1 to 6, so we pick up on The Complete Motown Singles Vol.7 in 1967, the year of Jimmy Mack, There's A Ghost In My House, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, When You're Young And In Love, I Was Made To Love Her, I Second That Emotion and I Heard It Through The Grapevine in its original Gladys Knight And The Pips version. Slightly more up to date, Ladytron's Witching Hour electrohouserock excursion grows an extra CD/DVD of remixes and a documentary.
The Weekly Sweep
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Lewis' own
Over on Corporate Anthems we've become what we think is the first blog (the others could have been subject to take down orders but let that be for now) to post tracks from Jeffrey Lewis' forthcoming anarcho-political antifolk crossover album 12 Crass Songs. We're so stoked by this that we're also offering for download for a limited time only his accompanying explanatory comic strip, all 2Mb of it. We've also followed up our earlier embed post by going back into YouTube for a couple more of his illustrated songs, The Legend Of The Fall...
...and The History Of Rough Trade...
...and The History Of Rough Trade...
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Twee of life
So where were we on Sunday, as previously apologised for in advance? At Indietracks, the small but perfectly formed coming together of the glockenspiel/hairslide kids at the Midland Railway Centre in Derbyshire. We've written up a review of the day on our Myspace blog, then changed all the 'we's to 'I's and reposted it on The Art Of Noise. Then we transferred over a few photos*, took out the arty Tramshed At Dusk shots and some of the blurred ones and uploaded them to our Flickr account.
(* If you're in A Smile And A Ribbon, Friends Of The Bride, The Indelicates, The Chiara L's, The School, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, Stephenhero, The Parallelograms, Pocketbooks, Das Wanderlust, MJ Hibbett & The Validators, The Electric Pop Group, Wake The President or Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern, congratulations, you can successfully Google your own band's name. Oh, and we've taken photos of you.)
(* If you're in A Smile And A Ribbon, Friends Of The Bride, The Indelicates, The Chiara L's, The School, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, Stephenhero, The Parallelograms, Pocketbooks, Das Wanderlust, MJ Hibbett & The Validators, The Electric Pop Group, Wake The President or Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern, congratulations, you can successfully Google your own band's name. Oh, and we've taken photos of you.)
Monday, July 30, 2007
Weekender : not afraid of bronze
FREE MUSIC: Seems it's still not going to happen for Spoon in Britain, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga top ten in the Billboard 200 but getting next to no attention whatsoever even in a music press climate that throws its arms out to welcome the likes of the Hold Steady. A shame, as it easily matches up with most things anyone's produced this year for intelligent groove-laden thrills. The single The Underdog may change matters, and luckily that's the track they're giving away.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: School Of Language, rather than our usual stock in trade of some eager nineteen year olds, is a slightly cynical and around about half the block singular older gentleman, David Brewis, now formerly of Field Music but still within the Field Music organisation, or something. It's similar in a way to the band being cut and pasted in whatever your favourite sound manipulation software is, resultantly a little more outside the retro-modern pop box Tones Of Town worked within. An album is apparently on the way soonish, and if you're in London tonight and see this in time they're/he's playing with the Mules and Jonquil at the the Big Chill House in Kings Cross.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: In Britain, when we look for clips of the stars before they were famous we generally have to settle for early videos before properly paid stylists got to them. In America stars are bred virtually from the womb, which means while there's precious little evidence of their days as scruffy urchins the amount of material available for cherrypicking is near enough endless. Even so, there's something almost creepy about this clip of fifteen year old Jenny Lewis from Teen Set video magazine, the concept of a video magazine already ageing it to 1991. Even if you're aware of Lewis' teen queen acting background it's weird to see the these days rarely noticeably cockahoop Lewis playing the smiley, Meg Ryan-admiring, question point-missing, trampoline-using all-American fifteen year old sweetheart. Wonder if she still has all those hats.
VIRAL MARKETING: The only real disappointment we have with the forthcoming Go! Team single Doing It Right is that since we saw them perform it live early last year they've dropped the "G! O! Exclamation mark!" bit from the start. Their 2006 Coachella performance retains it for posterity, however, as it does The Wrath Of Marcie (changed over time from Mikey) from Proof Of Youth, released September 10th. Even earlier last year they were playing Titanic Vandalism apparently at a record store designed to look like a Texan's idea of a London Underground station.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: Dusty Sevens fulfils two puposes - digitalising old vinyl and digging out all sorts of loving nonsense. You can't not love a site that's just finished a Siddeleys-related competition.
IN OTHER NEWS: At last someone brings an emergency stop just in time to music video's longest running joke. The Hello Experiment blindfolds a group of clay sculptors and challenges them to make a replica of Lionel Richie's head.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: School Of Language, rather than our usual stock in trade of some eager nineteen year olds, is a slightly cynical and around about half the block singular older gentleman, David Brewis, now formerly of Field Music but still within the Field Music organisation, or something. It's similar in a way to the band being cut and pasted in whatever your favourite sound manipulation software is, resultantly a little more outside the retro-modern pop box Tones Of Town worked within. An album is apparently on the way soonish, and if you're in London tonight and see this in time they're/he's playing with the Mules and Jonquil at the the Big Chill House in Kings Cross.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: In Britain, when we look for clips of the stars before they were famous we generally have to settle for early videos before properly paid stylists got to them. In America stars are bred virtually from the womb, which means while there's precious little evidence of their days as scruffy urchins the amount of material available for cherrypicking is near enough endless. Even so, there's something almost creepy about this clip of fifteen year old Jenny Lewis from Teen Set video magazine, the concept of a video magazine already ageing it to 1991. Even if you're aware of Lewis' teen queen acting background it's weird to see the these days rarely noticeably cockahoop Lewis playing the smiley, Meg Ryan-admiring, question point-missing, trampoline-using all-American fifteen year old sweetheart. Wonder if she still has all those hats.
VIRAL MARKETING: The only real disappointment we have with the forthcoming Go! Team single Doing It Right is that since we saw them perform it live early last year they've dropped the "G! O! Exclamation mark!" bit from the start. Their 2006 Coachella performance retains it for posterity, however, as it does The Wrath Of Marcie (changed over time from Mikey) from Proof Of Youth, released September 10th. Even earlier last year they were playing Titanic Vandalism apparently at a record store designed to look like a Texan's idea of a London Underground station.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: Dusty Sevens fulfils two puposes - digitalising old vinyl and digging out all sorts of loving nonsense. You can't not love a site that's just finished a Siddeleys-related competition.
IN OTHER NEWS: At last someone brings an emergency stop just in time to music video's longest running joke. The Hello Experiment blindfolds a group of clay sculptors and challenges them to make a replica of Lionel Richie's head.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
In shops tomorrow: 30/7
Singles
A lot of arse is talked about musical reinvention, specifically by tabloid people who apparently genuinely think Madonna hopping between changing dancefloor trends or Robbie Williams going from balladeering boy band member to balladeering solo singer is genuine risk taking. Try, then, dark countrified emotionally charged Saddle Creek-approved anti-folk from one of Test Icicles. Devonte Hynes, the one with the pink guitar who seems to know everybody in the London indie scene, does very well for it too with debut 7" Galaxy Of The Lost, produced by Mike Mogis and featuring Emmy The Great on backing vocals. (Incidentally, well done to nme.com for their recent headline about Lightspeed Champion's debut proper London show, "Jack Penate and The Strokes come together". Penate came on to add guitar to one song, and the set finished independently of him with a cover of New York City Cops. They were about as "together" as Pakistan's Islamic factions.) Not a lot about this week - if A Silent Film have been taking lessons from Oxford bretheren Radiohead they certainly wouldn't be the first, or worst, as demonstrated on cinematic EP The Projectionist. Hands up who thought The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster had bitten the dust? One of the first to emerge from the Brighton scene, in the nearly three years since their last album they've lost a guitarist, been dropped by Island, become labelmates of Luke Haines and who knows what other dark arts. EP In The Garden is their first release in all that time.
Albums
GoodBooks occupy a mildly odd position in the realms of young British guitar bands - never ascended to Next Big Thing status but nonetheless described as a hype band in some quarters, often passed off as something that's already been done even though they were considered original standouts when the bands who were doing it back then were in the process of doing it. In a word of Pigeon Detectives and Good Shoes why it's them who suffer the slings and arrows of misfortune is another issue, but as it is it seems not a lot of people have decided not to like them. Their loss - Control shows a band some steps ahead of much of the pack, a band who value ideas just as much as three chord thrills and far more than aiming for the Jo Whiley constituency, much as they value pop specifics such as, y'know, hooks and choruses. Like the oft compared to Bloc Party, they know their effects pedals and influences outside the post-punk hegemony, in their case the much namedropped by Max Cooke Hot Chip and other alt-dancefloor targets. This isn't New Rave, though, the synths adding to the guitar-fronted rhythms rather than being the be-all and end-all. If nothing else, at least this late in the game it's great to have a first album that isn't a complete waste or letdown. The Wedding Present's mark on John Peel session legend is well-established and was celebrated with a six disc box set in April. What's less well remembered is Cinerama, the band David Gedge formed as a side project to reflect his love of John Barry and his desire to move away from Weddoes guitar squall, did ten of their own between 1998 and 2003, collect on The Peel Sessions' three discs, all of which are also out seperately. Just as many gems, on a comparative count-up, lurk here, as well as covers of Yesterday Once More, All The Things She Said and Groovejet and on the latter sessions Wedding Present songs old (Spangle) and new (I'm From Further North Than You). The eccentric scratchy indie-funk of Cud has worn surprisingly well in parts, and with a one-off date at Summer Sundae festival on the way (inspired by Guy Garvey's pronouncement last year that there are "bad things going on in the world, and I don't mean Cud reforming"?) the big hit album Asquarius and concept debut When In Rome, Kill Me are summarily extended and reissued. A similar treatment awaits The Young Knives Are Dead, despite the band's disapproval of Shifty Disco's re-release of their raw 2002 mini-album debut. We never quite knew where we stood with the Lo-Fidelity Allstars - like Bis, their influence today may be far greater than anyone would have suspected at the time, but for most their best moment was their reworking of Pigeonhed's Battleflag. Best of Warming Up The Brain Farm attempts to act as judge and jury. And whose idea was a Platinum Collection of Suggs' solo material?
A lot of arse is talked about musical reinvention, specifically by tabloid people who apparently genuinely think Madonna hopping between changing dancefloor trends or Robbie Williams going from balladeering boy band member to balladeering solo singer is genuine risk taking. Try, then, dark countrified emotionally charged Saddle Creek-approved anti-folk from one of Test Icicles. Devonte Hynes, the one with the pink guitar who seems to know everybody in the London indie scene, does very well for it too with debut 7" Galaxy Of The Lost, produced by Mike Mogis and featuring Emmy The Great on backing vocals. (Incidentally, well done to nme.com for their recent headline about Lightspeed Champion's debut proper London show, "Jack Penate and The Strokes come together". Penate came on to add guitar to one song, and the set finished independently of him with a cover of New York City Cops. They were about as "together" as Pakistan's Islamic factions.) Not a lot about this week - if A Silent Film have been taking lessons from Oxford bretheren Radiohead they certainly wouldn't be the first, or worst, as demonstrated on cinematic EP The Projectionist. Hands up who thought The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster had bitten the dust? One of the first to emerge from the Brighton scene, in the nearly three years since their last album they've lost a guitarist, been dropped by Island, become labelmates of Luke Haines and who knows what other dark arts. EP In The Garden is their first release in all that time.
Albums
GoodBooks occupy a mildly odd position in the realms of young British guitar bands - never ascended to Next Big Thing status but nonetheless described as a hype band in some quarters, often passed off as something that's already been done even though they were considered original standouts when the bands who were doing it back then were in the process of doing it. In a word of Pigeon Detectives and Good Shoes why it's them who suffer the slings and arrows of misfortune is another issue, but as it is it seems not a lot of people have decided not to like them. Their loss - Control shows a band some steps ahead of much of the pack, a band who value ideas just as much as three chord thrills and far more than aiming for the Jo Whiley constituency, much as they value pop specifics such as, y'know, hooks and choruses. Like the oft compared to Bloc Party, they know their effects pedals and influences outside the post-punk hegemony, in their case the much namedropped by Max Cooke Hot Chip and other alt-dancefloor targets. This isn't New Rave, though, the synths adding to the guitar-fronted rhythms rather than being the be-all and end-all. If nothing else, at least this late in the game it's great to have a first album that isn't a complete waste or letdown. The Wedding Present's mark on John Peel session legend is well-established and was celebrated with a six disc box set in April. What's less well remembered is Cinerama, the band David Gedge formed as a side project to reflect his love of John Barry and his desire to move away from Weddoes guitar squall, did ten of their own between 1998 and 2003, collect on The Peel Sessions' three discs, all of which are also out seperately. Just as many gems, on a comparative count-up, lurk here, as well as covers of Yesterday Once More, All The Things She Said and Groovejet and on the latter sessions Wedding Present songs old (Spangle) and new (I'm From Further North Than You). The eccentric scratchy indie-funk of Cud has worn surprisingly well in parts, and with a one-off date at Summer Sundae festival on the way (inspired by Guy Garvey's pronouncement last year that there are "bad things going on in the world, and I don't mean Cud reforming"?) the big hit album Asquarius and concept debut When In Rome, Kill Me are summarily extended and reissued. A similar treatment awaits The Young Knives Are Dead, despite the band's disapproval of Shifty Disco's re-release of their raw 2002 mini-album debut. We never quite knew where we stood with the Lo-Fidelity Allstars - like Bis, their influence today may be far greater than anyone would have suspected at the time, but for most their best moment was their reworking of Pigeonhed's Battleflag. Best of Warming Up The Brain Farm attempts to act as judge and jury. And whose idea was a Platinum Collection of Suggs' solo material?
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The Weekly Sweep
Early, we know, but we're out all tomorrow.
Animal Collective - Peacebone [mp3 from Obscure Sound]
Arcade Fire - No Cars Go [mp3 from Indietastic]
Burningpilot - Case History [Myspace]
Cajun Dance Party - Amylase [Myspace]
The Concretes - Oh Boy [Myspace]
Effi Briest - Mirror Rim [Myspace]
Emmy The Great - Easter Parade [mp3 from The Daily Growl]
Eugene McGuinness - High Score [mp3 from Eardrums Music]
Foals - Mathletics [Myspace]
The Go! Team - Doing It Right
GoodBooks - Alice
The High Fidelity - Luv Dup
Jens Lekman - Friday Night at the Drive In Bingo [mp3 from The Glorious Hum]
Late Of The Pier - Bathroom Gurgle [Myspace]
Les Savy Fav - Meet Me In The Dollar Bin
Lightspeed Champion - Galaxy Of The Lost [YouTube]
The Rentals - Last Romantic Day [Myspace]
The Rumble Strips - Girls And Boys In Love [Myspace]
Super Furry Animals - Suckers [Myspace]
Whipping Boy - Twinkle [Myspace]
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Who does Jack Penate look like?
Not on the current NME cover, where he looks like a young George Michael, but in proper photos. This has been annoying us ever since we saw the Second Minute Or Hour video, and we'd welcome your suggestions.
Also, does anyone who hasn't already had a go want to do August's Songs To Learn And Sing? We think we've got someone, but best to have a backup. Don't worry, we'll be more organised about that from now on.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
One day
we will compile a Nuggets of Britpop era lost greats, and these will be on it:
If there's any Tiger on there can you let us know? We're not wading through all 230 hits for 'Tiger Race'.
If there's any Tiger on there can you let us know? We're not wading through all 230 hits for 'Tiger Race'.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Sweeping The Nation Covermount 8: '07 In The Shade
Before we do go Steventonwards, it's been a little while since we did one of these, and to be honest it wasn't meant to be this one at all - we've been working on a themed Covermount, which will now probably turn up in the middle of August. In the meantime, have this one on us. Again it's held on Sendspace, although let us know whether you're happy with it and its tendency to delete files without warning or whether you think you can cope with Rapidshare now or something similar.
So this is our selection of 21 summer anthems taken from releases so far this year. Be aware, though, that this is not a straight Best Of The Year So Far - these tracks most seem tailor made for your mp3 player lounging at the local park. There are many great albums and singles not featured here because, when it comes down to it, you don't really need your back yard barbeque soundtracked by the Twilight Sad or Battles. (Although, if you're reading this and have or know someone that owns one of those speaker-filled bass boosted high performance cars, throw out that second hand mixtape and play Mirrored in it. Pedestrians will shit themselves.) Have we had The Great 2007 Indie World Mini-Crossover Summer Anthem yet? In 2006 we were spoiled for choice - by this time last year we'd had Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken and Pull Shapes, with Young Folks and Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above starting to attract radio attention and We're From Barcelona ominously on the horizon. This year? We're not so sure Foundations counts due to how that whole lemon business is splitting the nation, so we're stuffed. Or are we? Stick these on a CDR, go for a drive in a convertible (when it gets drier, and apparently we're coming towards the end of the really rainy season after seven or so weeks) and, well, enjoy yourself, it's hotter than you think.
'07 In The Shade
Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica [Person Pitch]
Softlightes - Heart Made Of Sound [Say No To Being Cool Say Yes To Being Happy]
Au Revoir Simone - Stars [The Bird Of Music]
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great [Sound Of Silver]
Of Montreal - Suffer For Fashion [Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?]
Strange Idols - She's Going To Let You Down Again (The C86 revival gets into full swing)
Those Dancing Days - Hitten (Stockholm teen girl fivesome with an organ)
Bonde do Rolê - Solta o Frango [With Lasers]
Lucky Soul - Get Outta Town! [The Great Unwanted]
The Rumble Strips - Girls And Boys In Love (From forthcoming album Girls And Weather)
Feist - I Feel It All [The Reminder]
Billie The Vision and the Dancers - There's Hope For Anyone (Eccentric Swedes, from the as yet unreleased in the UK When The Ocean Meets My Hand)
The Young Playthings - So Good, So Bad... So Good! [Who Invented Love?]
Land Of Talk - Sea Foam [Applause Cheer Boo Hiss EP]
Modest Mouse - We've Got Everything [We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank]
Field Music - Working To Work [Tones Of Town]
Loney, Dear - I Am John [Loney, Noir]
The Hussy's - Tiger (Sly earworm pop from Glaswegians featuring former Supernaturals leader James McColl)
Sondre Lerche - Airport Taxi Reception [Phantom Punch]
Friends Of The Bride - Buckle Up, Sunshine! (Suave retro/not-retro from Raynes Park Young & Lost favourites)
Ola Podrida - Photo Booth [Ola Podrida]
So this is our selection of 21 summer anthems taken from releases so far this year. Be aware, though, that this is not a straight Best Of The Year So Far - these tracks most seem tailor made for your mp3 player lounging at the local park. There are many great albums and singles not featured here because, when it comes down to it, you don't really need your back yard barbeque soundtracked by the Twilight Sad or Battles. (Although, if you're reading this and have or know someone that owns one of those speaker-filled bass boosted high performance cars, throw out that second hand mixtape and play Mirrored in it. Pedestrians will shit themselves.) Have we had The Great 2007 Indie World Mini-Crossover Summer Anthem yet? In 2006 we were spoiled for choice - by this time last year we'd had Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken and Pull Shapes, with Young Folks and Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above starting to attract radio attention and We're From Barcelona ominously on the horizon. This year? We're not so sure Foundations counts due to how that whole lemon business is splitting the nation, so we're stuffed. Or are we? Stick these on a CDR, go for a drive in a convertible (when it gets drier, and apparently we're coming towards the end of the really rainy season after seven or so weeks) and, well, enjoy yourself, it's hotter than you think.
'07 In The Shade
Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica [Person Pitch]
Softlightes - Heart Made Of Sound [Say No To Being Cool Say Yes To Being Happy]
Au Revoir Simone - Stars [The Bird Of Music]
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great [Sound Of Silver]
Of Montreal - Suffer For Fashion [Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?]
Strange Idols - She's Going To Let You Down Again (The C86 revival gets into full swing)
Those Dancing Days - Hitten (Stockholm teen girl fivesome with an organ)
Bonde do Rolê - Solta o Frango [With Lasers]
Lucky Soul - Get Outta Town! [The Great Unwanted]
The Rumble Strips - Girls And Boys In Love (From forthcoming album Girls And Weather)
Feist - I Feel It All [The Reminder]
Billie The Vision and the Dancers - There's Hope For Anyone (Eccentric Swedes, from the as yet unreleased in the UK When The Ocean Meets My Hand)
The Young Playthings - So Good, So Bad... So Good! [Who Invented Love?]
Land Of Talk - Sea Foam [Applause Cheer Boo Hiss EP]
Modest Mouse - We've Got Everything [We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank]
Field Music - Working To Work [Tones Of Town]
Loney, Dear - I Am John [Loney, Noir]
The Hussy's - Tiger (Sly earworm pop from Glaswegians featuring former Supernaturals leader James McColl)
Sondre Lerche - Airport Taxi Reception [Phantom Punch]
Friends Of The Bride - Buckle Up, Sunshine! (Suave retro/not-retro from Raynes Park Young & Lost favourites)
Ola Podrida - Photo Booth [Ola Podrida]
In shops in four days' time
As we're away turning our clothes brown in a field for the next few days, we need to drop off ideas today for what you should be buying next week. And like last week, decent new stuff is very thin on the ground - great singles band Garbage have a best of out under the inevitable title Absolute Garbage, our fifteenth favourite album of 2006, Joan As Police Woman's Real Life, gains a seven track extra CD, and a band forever on the edge of something big in an American post-Belle & Sebastian cult sense, Bishop Allen, bring out The Broken String. Roots reggae figureheads Culture's seminal Two Sevens Clash gets a thirtieth anniversary buff up, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band re-release program (with a swathe of hitherto unreleased tracks, we forgot to mention last time) is completed with the posthumous Let's Make Up And Be Friendly, and Matador give their now ex-cash cow Interpol's udders one last tweak with radio session and demo six tracker The Black EP. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Is Is EP is one track fewer and older, all the songs predating their first proper release. Finally, who could resist The Goons' Unchained Melodies - the Complete Decca Recordings?
As for singles, Arcade Fire lead the way with a third 7" culled from Neon Bible, the monumental reworking of No Cars Go. Feist goes with the fairly obvious 1234, The Silent League leader Justin Russo's ex-employees Mercury Rev could do with songs like Aeroplanes these days, The Heavy find another untapped retro seam with the mighty glam-funk of debut That Kind Of Man and the Electric Soft Parade's Misunderstanding is more woozy anthemry.
As for singles, Arcade Fire lead the way with a third 7" culled from Neon Bible, the monumental reworking of No Cars Go. Feist goes with the fairly obvious 1234, The Silent League leader Justin Russo's ex-employees Mercury Rev could do with songs like Aeroplanes these days, The Heavy find another untapped retro seam with the mighty glam-funk of debut That Kind Of Man and the Electric Soft Parade's Misunderstanding is more woozy anthemry.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Five out of twelve ain't bad
Funny how every year sees the worst ever Mercury list, isn't it?
Although, parts of this year's is a real headscratcher, and we don't just mean The View and New Young Pony Club. We didn't put Favourite Worst Nightmare on our predicted list because, well, what message does it send the band if it doesn't win, and what message does it send the whole of the rest of British music if it does? Their mate Dizzee Rascal is in a similar position, although at least he has the cold comfort of being able to weigh his work well against that of three years ago. And is Seb Rochford, who guests with Basquiat Strings, never going to get nominated for primary concern Acoustic Ladyland?
It's not as safe a list as many have said - six we'd say are currently well known to the bits of the public with a passing musical interest, one more than last year but well down on 2004's nine. What it does betray is the Mercury's gradual evening out of its scope - in 1997 Roni Size won from a shortlist that found room for John Tavener, Beth Orton, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Primal Scream and, famously, the Spice Girls; a year later Pulp beat off challenges from Peter Maxwell Davies with the BBC Philharmonic, Mark Morrison, Courtney Pine, Underworld, Norma Waterson, Black Grape and the War Child Help album. Maybe, of course, this is merely reflective of the necessarily contracting scope of what music magazines cover, although Fionn Regan has hardly made acres of newsprint. And hands up who was alert enough to spot the Young Knives, whose Voices Of Animals And Men was released four weeks into the qualification period?
No, our main criticism is... well... it's a bit meh, isn't it?
In unrelated news, it's not on Radio 4's Listen Again A-Z but RealAudio fanciers can until Saturday morning still listen back to Shots From The Hip, Andrew Collins' enquiry into whether the music journalist still has a role in this new world of blogging, featuring input from Charles Shaar Murray, Caroline Coon, David Hepworth and, yes, Conor McNicholas, pretty much confirming most of what you suspected about the aim of your all-new, all-Smash Hits After It Was Good-tastic NME.
Although, parts of this year's is a real headscratcher, and we don't just mean The View and New Young Pony Club. We didn't put Favourite Worst Nightmare on our predicted list because, well, what message does it send the band if it doesn't win, and what message does it send the whole of the rest of British music if it does? Their mate Dizzee Rascal is in a similar position, although at least he has the cold comfort of being able to weigh his work well against that of three years ago. And is Seb Rochford, who guests with Basquiat Strings, never going to get nominated for primary concern Acoustic Ladyland?
It's not as safe a list as many have said - six we'd say are currently well known to the bits of the public with a passing musical interest, one more than last year but well down on 2004's nine. What it does betray is the Mercury's gradual evening out of its scope - in 1997 Roni Size won from a shortlist that found room for John Tavener, Beth Orton, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Primal Scream and, famously, the Spice Girls; a year later Pulp beat off challenges from Peter Maxwell Davies with the BBC Philharmonic, Mark Morrison, Courtney Pine, Underworld, Norma Waterson, Black Grape and the War Child Help album. Maybe, of course, this is merely reflective of the necessarily contracting scope of what music magazines cover, although Fionn Regan has hardly made acres of newsprint. And hands up who was alert enough to spot the Young Knives, whose Voices Of Animals And Men was released four weeks into the qualification period?
No, our main criticism is... well... it's a bit meh, isn't it?
In unrelated news, it's not on Radio 4's Listen Again A-Z but RealAudio fanciers can until Saturday morning still listen back to Shots From The Hip, Andrew Collins' enquiry into whether the music journalist still has a role in this new world of blogging, featuring input from Charles Shaar Murray, Caroline Coon, David Hepworth and, yes, Conor McNicholas, pretty much confirming most of what you suspected about the aim of your all-new, all-Smash Hits After It Was Good-tastic NME.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Weekender : one of the most influential blogs on the independent UK music scene, a real alternative to the mainstream
FREE MUSIC: Is it too early for an American Early Years? That band's use of swirling Spiritualized drone in rock structures is echoed in People Noise, a Louisville duo comprising the guitarist from post-punk revival also-rans VHS Or Beta and Boom Bip's drummer. The Killing Fields also suggests a lot of post-grunge and The Bends going on.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Oxford sextet Witches claim to "write songs for people who need warming up on a cold night". Presumably a mid-American shack without central heating, as this smart, intricate songwriting crying out for top class recording - not that these are substandardly produced, it just needs to be great sounding on surround sound systems - contains not so much what the band call "a cross between Radiohead, The Flaming Lips and Love" but definite reflections of Sparklehorse, Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian's tender moments and Wilco when they weren't MOR. They're playing the local hootenanny Truck, which we'll get back to in a moment, at 10am on Sunday morning. What sort of slot is that? Have they done something very criminal?
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: "English football club A.F.C. Bournemouth has been known to play various Pavement songs during pre-match warm-ups. In 2005, following the release of Stephen Malkmus' Face the Truth, an A.F.C. Bournemouth supporter, outraged by the album's alleged lack of artistic integrity, burned Stephen Malkmus in effigy at the gates to Fitness First Stadium." That, we promise you, is on Pavement's Wikipedia entry, with a link to the club's website front page attached so nobody, perhaps rightly, queries what, how or why. For no real reason whatsoever let us show you live versions of Summer Babe and Here, the appearance on Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the unforgettable video to Malkmus' Jo Jo's Jacket plus Shynola making the thing, a process which seems to include precious little Malkmus.
VIRAL MARKETING: So this weekend we return to a point somewhere in a field in Oxfordshire - Steventon, to be precise, for Truck Ten. Much ballyhoo is expected, as much as we enjoyed last year with any luck, albeit somewhat wetter if the ten day forecasts are any judge. Corporate Anthems will be previewing the best of the bill from tomorrow, but before then from Truck Nine Jetplane Landing have uploaded to their Myspace a very unstably shot clip of Effect A Change (from Once Like A Spark) from last year coloured by a crowdsurfing Sam Duckworth, while digging around also finds the end of set closer Acrimony, a professionally shot half of the Mystery Jets' Half In Love With Elizabeth, the festival's own compilation of events and Keyboard Choir and their DIY robots.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: Hip Young Gunslinger, one of the post-Popjustice types but none the worse off for that (apart from how they all like Hadouken!), says it's "about anything, everything and (frequently) nothing from the world of pop". Sounds like our kind of blog!
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: The best interview structures are the easiest, they say. The Line Of Best Fit's 20 Questions puts that to the test, with a brantub of semi-random questioning for Grizzly Bear, Jeremy Warmsley, Lucky Soul, iLiKETRAiNS, The Thermals, the Mystery Jets, Mark Ronson, Loney Dear, The Kissaway Trail, Fields, The Hussy's, The Hold Steady, The Album Leaf, Tracy Thorn, Giant Drag and, blimey, Siobhan Donaghy.
IN OTHER NEWS: The 2007 Mercury Music Prize nominations are announced on Monday, and after our 7/12 and 6/12 efforts of the last two years we feel duty bound to have another go at what the judging panel will select as the year's twelve best British albums. So, advance congratulations to: Acoustic Ladyland, Amy Winehouse, Bat For Lashes, Beverley Knight, the Cribs, Jamie T, Jarvis, Klaxons, Kris Drever, Maps, Scott Matthews and The Good The Bad And The Queen. Award night is 4th September, and we're confident in stating that this list will be more accurate than Scotland On Sunday's confident prediction of nominations for Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright.
HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Oxford sextet Witches claim to "write songs for people who need warming up on a cold night". Presumably a mid-American shack without central heating, as this smart, intricate songwriting crying out for top class recording - not that these are substandardly produced, it just needs to be great sounding on surround sound systems - contains not so much what the band call "a cross between Radiohead, The Flaming Lips and Love" but definite reflections of Sparklehorse, Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian's tender moments and Wilco when they weren't MOR. They're playing the local hootenanny Truck, which we'll get back to in a moment, at 10am on Sunday morning. What sort of slot is that? Have they done something very criminal?
VISUAL REPRESENTATION: "English football club A.F.C. Bournemouth has been known to play various Pavement songs during pre-match warm-ups. In 2005, following the release of Stephen Malkmus' Face the Truth, an A.F.C. Bournemouth supporter, outraged by the album's alleged lack of artistic integrity, burned Stephen Malkmus in effigy at the gates to Fitness First Stadium." That, we promise you, is on Pavement's Wikipedia entry, with a link to the club's website front page attached so nobody, perhaps rightly, queries what, how or why. For no real reason whatsoever let us show you live versions of Summer Babe and Here, the appearance on Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the unforgettable video to Malkmus' Jo Jo's Jacket plus Shynola making the thing, a process which seems to include precious little Malkmus.
VIRAL MARKETING: So this weekend we return to a point somewhere in a field in Oxfordshire - Steventon, to be precise, for Truck Ten. Much ballyhoo is expected, as much as we enjoyed last year with any luck, albeit somewhat wetter if the ten day forecasts are any judge. Corporate Anthems will be previewing the best of the bill from tomorrow, but before then from Truck Nine Jetplane Landing have uploaded to their Myspace a very unstably shot clip of Effect A Change (from Once Like A Spark) from last year coloured by a crowdsurfing Sam Duckworth, while digging around also finds the end of set closer Acrimony, a professionally shot half of the Mystery Jets' Half In Love With Elizabeth, the festival's own compilation of events and Keyboard Choir and their DIY robots.
FALLING OFF A BLOG: Hip Young Gunslinger, one of the post-Popjustice types but none the worse off for that (apart from how they all like Hadouken!), says it's "about anything, everything and (frequently) nothing from the world of pop". Sounds like our kind of blog!
EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: The best interview structures are the easiest, they say. The Line Of Best Fit's 20 Questions puts that to the test, with a brantub of semi-random questioning for Grizzly Bear, Jeremy Warmsley, Lucky Soul, iLiKETRAiNS, The Thermals, the Mystery Jets, Mark Ronson, Loney Dear, The Kissaway Trail, Fields, The Hussy's, The Hold Steady, The Album Leaf, Tracy Thorn, Giant Drag and, blimey, Siobhan Donaghy.
IN OTHER NEWS: The 2007 Mercury Music Prize nominations are announced on Monday, and after our 7/12 and 6/12 efforts of the last two years we feel duty bound to have another go at what the judging panel will select as the year's twelve best British albums. So, advance congratulations to: Acoustic Ladyland, Amy Winehouse, Bat For Lashes, Beverley Knight, the Cribs, Jamie T, Jarvis, Klaxons, Kris Drever, Maps, Scott Matthews and The Good The Bad And The Queen. Award night is 4th September, and we're confident in stating that this list will be more accurate than Scotland On Sunday's confident prediction of nominations for Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
In shops tomorrow: 16/7
Singles
Inevitably, then, it's beginning to look like, having signed to a major label, GoodBooks then get trampled underfoot in Columbia's attempt to take, well, other acts towards the big time instead. In this case, the current priority promotion of chancer du jour (jour being some time last summer for a couple of hours) Ali Love. A shame, of course, especially as they've now got up to the big one, Passchendaele, released two weeks before the ninetieth anniversary of the titular battle and the first/best evocation of their combination of the smart end of 2005's International Year Of Jerky Post-Punk with something 'other', more electronic and somehow romantic. Radio's loss. On the other hand, you can see why daytime radio would want nothing to do with The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, abrasive cross-purpose artrock in a blender whose debut album came from nearly nowhere to blow us away nearly a year ago. Apparently they're getting set for album two before the end of the year, preceded by a limited edition double A-sided 7" of La Mer, which we haven't heard, and Stupid As Wood, which we have as it was the one of the eponymous debut's Santiago-and-Deal-breed-Colin Newman highlights. Still no online sign of Bang The Tin, the Pancake Mountain acoustic revision of Ban The Gin. And if they're never going to become Edith Bowman's Top Rated choice, then we have about as much of a chance of Virgin playlisting as XX Teens, whose Darlin' has earned them Fall comparisons that seem barely warranted until you hear how the usual jumble of Norman Collier effect guitars and slurred shouting has been augmented by steel drums, synth-brass and little regard for a mix that seperates any of it out. And to think they just stand there. BC Camplight made a cognescenti splash early last year with his Brian Wilson/Todd Rundgren debut album, and the first sight of his second collection of experimental chamber-pop is Lord I’ve Been On Fire; Loney, Dear backs up his own rising standing on Saturday Waits; well after the album event Jarvis sneaks Fat Children out on both sizes of vinyl; and the Rakes, currently to be found in the folder marked 'Big First Album, All But Forgotten By Second', release what should have been the hit had they not first given it to a Hedi Slimane compilation, The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect.
Albums
Blimey, really not a lot about this week. It's so quiet out there, especially for new releases, that we're shoehorning in an import-only album released in North America on Tuesday. It is, however, Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, Arts & Crafts' six song entry into the glorious world of Los Campesinos! Completists note, it's both sides of the two British 7"s, a cover of Pavement's Frontwards (it's on the Watery, Domestic EP, which now forms part of Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe, which you have in your collection because you're good people) and Clunk-Rewind-Clunk-Play-Clunk, a new song that, while boasting a great title, doesn't have quite as great a title as some of the unreleased songs down the bottom of the charts on their last.fm page. There have been moments in the couple of months since we've made this discovery when we've considered not sleeping until we've heard Snap! Crackle! They Put Me In A Foster Home! As for records you can buy over the counter in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, while we wait for a new dEUS album - being recorded in their own studio for release early next year, apparently - Pawlowski Trouve And Ward is a three way split album of solo material by Mauro, Rudy and Craig, the three lead guitarists in the band's history, all unsurprisingly but no less welcomingly leaning towards the sphere of avantgarde indiepop the Belgian outfit have long made their own. The Tindersticks were believed to have stopped being a glamorous glum-chamber rock concern when Stuart Staples took his Vic Reeves club singer basso profundo on a solo sojourn, but word is that he merely split the band around him and is planning to put out a record under the band name with his current touring compatriots. Worked for Status Quo. The Complete BBC Sessions happily includes the sessions they did for Mark Radcliffe's first and last Graveyard Shifts and reminds us that we once saw Melanie Sykes introducing their video on MTV. Even a cult concern can have a Return To Form Album, and Robyn Hitchcock's was 1999's Jewels For Sophia, back out in its full Cheese Alarm glorious oddness pomp. Having left Peter Buck and the other Venusian 3 to REM duties he's currently touring with backup from John Paul Jones. You know that the sportswear/rap crossover has hit a pretty pass when MF Doom gets to personalise some Nikes, so reserve your DOOM Dunks and kick back with the CD and DVD reissue of Mm.. Food, his food-as-metaphor concept breakthrough of 2004.
DVDs
What differentiates Inside The Smiths from the rest of the low budget, low copyright-adhering unofficial DVD biography brigade - Johnny Cash: Music In Review, for instance - is that Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce are the centrepiece of it. So no, no music, but plenty of unheard stories, the odd local luminary (Hook, Shelley, E Smith, erm, Ricky Wilson) backing up the claims to greatness and no sense whatsoever that, whatever small talk Morrissey and Marr retain, this is paving the way for a reunion.
Books
A good ska group needs a good bassman, and fulfilling the danciest of bottom ends in the Specials dance party was Sir Horace Gentleman, also known as Horace Panter (which isn't his real name either, but no time for that now). Apparently he was one of the stumbling blocks behind the planned 2004 reformation, which seems odd as he was in the late 90s version of the band, but anything that pisses Simon Jordan off is fine by us. He's got an autobiography out, Ska'd for Life the uninventive title, telling the story from Coventry Automatics to post-Dammers collapse. Perverted By Language: Fiction Inspired By The Fall has been out for a couple of weeks but we didn't get round to mentioning it before - 22 short stories inspired by Fall song titles, penned by Stewart Lee, Kevin 'Local Man Ruins Everything' MacNeil and some people we've never heard of.
Inevitably, then, it's beginning to look like, having signed to a major label, GoodBooks then get trampled underfoot in Columbia's attempt to take, well, other acts towards the big time instead. In this case, the current priority promotion of chancer du jour (jour being some time last summer for a couple of hours) Ali Love. A shame, of course, especially as they've now got up to the big one, Passchendaele, released two weeks before the ninetieth anniversary of the titular battle and the first/best evocation of their combination of the smart end of 2005's International Year Of Jerky Post-Punk with something 'other', more electronic and somehow romantic. Radio's loss. On the other hand, you can see why daytime radio would want nothing to do with The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, abrasive cross-purpose artrock in a blender whose debut album came from nearly nowhere to blow us away nearly a year ago. Apparently they're getting set for album two before the end of the year, preceded by a limited edition double A-sided 7" of La Mer, which we haven't heard, and Stupid As Wood, which we have as it was the one of the eponymous debut's Santiago-and-Deal-breed-Colin Newman highlights. Still no online sign of Bang The Tin, the Pancake Mountain acoustic revision of Ban The Gin. And if they're never going to become Edith Bowman's Top Rated choice, then we have about as much of a chance of Virgin playlisting as XX Teens, whose Darlin' has earned them Fall comparisons that seem barely warranted until you hear how the usual jumble of Norman Collier effect guitars and slurred shouting has been augmented by steel drums, synth-brass and little regard for a mix that seperates any of it out. And to think they just stand there. BC Camplight made a cognescenti splash early last year with his Brian Wilson/Todd Rundgren debut album, and the first sight of his second collection of experimental chamber-pop is Lord I’ve Been On Fire; Loney, Dear backs up his own rising standing on Saturday Waits; well after the album event Jarvis sneaks Fat Children out on both sizes of vinyl; and the Rakes, currently to be found in the folder marked 'Big First Album, All But Forgotten By Second', release what should have been the hit had they not first given it to a Hedi Slimane compilation, The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect.
Albums
Blimey, really not a lot about this week. It's so quiet out there, especially for new releases, that we're shoehorning in an import-only album released in North America on Tuesday. It is, however, Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, Arts & Crafts' six song entry into the glorious world of Los Campesinos! Completists note, it's both sides of the two British 7"s, a cover of Pavement's Frontwards (it's on the Watery, Domestic EP, which now forms part of Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe, which you have in your collection because you're good people) and Clunk-Rewind-Clunk-Play-Clunk, a new song that, while boasting a great title, doesn't have quite as great a title as some of the unreleased songs down the bottom of the charts on their last.fm page. There have been moments in the couple of months since we've made this discovery when we've considered not sleeping until we've heard Snap! Crackle! They Put Me In A Foster Home! As for records you can buy over the counter in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, while we wait for a new dEUS album - being recorded in their own studio for release early next year, apparently - Pawlowski Trouve And Ward is a three way split album of solo material by Mauro, Rudy and Craig, the three lead guitarists in the band's history, all unsurprisingly but no less welcomingly leaning towards the sphere of avantgarde indiepop the Belgian outfit have long made their own. The Tindersticks were believed to have stopped being a glamorous glum-chamber rock concern when Stuart Staples took his Vic Reeves club singer basso profundo on a solo sojourn, but word is that he merely split the band around him and is planning to put out a record under the band name with his current touring compatriots. Worked for Status Quo. The Complete BBC Sessions happily includes the sessions they did for Mark Radcliffe's first and last Graveyard Shifts and reminds us that we once saw Melanie Sykes introducing their video on MTV. Even a cult concern can have a Return To Form Album, and Robyn Hitchcock's was 1999's Jewels For Sophia, back out in its full Cheese Alarm glorious oddness pomp. Having left Peter Buck and the other Venusian 3 to REM duties he's currently touring with backup from John Paul Jones. You know that the sportswear/rap crossover has hit a pretty pass when MF Doom gets to personalise some Nikes, so reserve your DOOM Dunks and kick back with the CD and DVD reissue of Mm.. Food, his food-as-metaphor concept breakthrough of 2004.
DVDs
What differentiates Inside The Smiths from the rest of the low budget, low copyright-adhering unofficial DVD biography brigade - Johnny Cash: Music In Review, for instance - is that Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce are the centrepiece of it. So no, no music, but plenty of unheard stories, the odd local luminary (Hook, Shelley, E Smith, erm, Ricky Wilson) backing up the claims to greatness and no sense whatsoever that, whatever small talk Morrissey and Marr retain, this is paving the way for a reunion.
Books
A good ska group needs a good bassman, and fulfilling the danciest of bottom ends in the Specials dance party was Sir Horace Gentleman, also known as Horace Panter (which isn't his real name either, but no time for that now). Apparently he was one of the stumbling blocks behind the planned 2004 reformation, which seems odd as he was in the late 90s version of the band, but anything that pisses Simon Jordan off is fine by us. He's got an autobiography out, Ska'd for Life the uninventive title, telling the story from Coventry Automatics to post-Dammers collapse. Perverted By Language: Fiction Inspired By The Fall has been out for a couple of weeks but we didn't get round to mentioning it before - 22 short stories inspired by Fall song titles, penned by Stewart Lee, Kevin 'Local Man Ruins Everything' MacNeil and some people we've never heard of.
The Weekly Sweep
Friday, July 13, 2007
Stand-in in the way of the remote control
Tonight's Friday Night Project on Channel 4 is being presented by a radical feminist associate of Calvin Johnson whose band's current album was produced by one of Fugazi and came out on Kill Rock Stars.
Does this compute for anyone else?
Does this compute for anyone else?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Too much perspective
One of the little joys we have in life is reading Brian Reade's weekly column in the Mirror, because he is, frankly, the worst columnist in Britain. Not in the Richard Littlejohn/Garry Bushell sense, but in the "and you did full journalistic training, did you?" sense. Today, however, in his oh so sarcastically hilarious critique of Live Earth, he manages a new personal best:
SO MANY old pop groups are reforming it seems like a long round of the game in Never Mind The Buzzcocks where we're shown five pensioners and guess which one used to sing.
Still, there's no disputing that Genesis, The Police and Spinal Tap contributed something that none of the kids could bring to the Live Earth concert. Carbon footprints with walking sticks next to them.
Do you think someone should tell him?
SO MANY old pop groups are reforming it seems like a long round of the game in Never Mind The Buzzcocks where we're shown five pensioners and guess which one used to sing.
Still, there's no disputing that Genesis, The Police and Spinal Tap contributed something that none of the kids could bring to the Live Earth concert. Carbon footprints with walking sticks next to them.
Do you think someone should tell him?
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