Music Related Articles of a Critical Nature

What I want

2009-08-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Leaping from the decaying violence of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring to the melancholy lace-sewn harmonies of Why?'s new record Eskimo Snow, I'm looking for something that burns my nerves through touch. I'm looking for something so inherent to my nature that I can wrap my yo-yo moods up between them like a cats cradle of dangerous bile and sugary sweetness. I want emotions stretched to breaking point so that when they spring back, they've contorted into unrecognisable feelings. I want my moods stroked then plunged into hitherto unknown states - I want to feel angry, sad, scared and joyous all in delicious ambiguity. I want to find relaxation in discordance and discomfort in perfect harmony. I want lyrics to shear my head of uncomplex thoughts and indulge my love of language, wordplay and intonation.

I don't think this is too much to ask either.

In No Particular Order: Albums of 2009 - as of 23rd March 2009

2009-03-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

Mastodon - Crack the Skye: phenomenal is a word used far too often, but is more than appropriate for this seven track, fifty plus minute epic piece of progressive metal music

Propagandhi - Supporting Caste: lyrical genius and intense, emotional playing within pop-punk boundaries, it's a record which should have the power for social change, and will at least become a landmark in their already righteous history

Mono - Hymn to the Immportal Wind: embracing classical movements within standard post-rock cliches, Mono continue to craft luminescent soundscapes of beauty and bitterness

Micahcu and the Shapes - Jewellery: a DIY masterpiece, pop music started at Year Zero with homemade instrument and a sense of adventure that rivals any album made in a long time

The Thermals - Now We Can See: it's a Thermals record! Nuff said.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion: natural beauty as danced and interpreted by tropical electricity

Others bubbling under:

Hatcham Social - You Dig The Tunnel, I'll Hide The Soil
Asobi Seksu - Hush
Women - Women

What I Mean When I Say You're Really Bad

2009-02-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last few months (okay perhaps the last hour or so) thinking about what I'm doing (okay, so this occupies almost every waking though between thinking about food and thinking about sex). What am I doing? Well, I tend to write about music in all it's variant forms: I criticise music, whether entire records or single songs. I conduct and transcribe interviews and write features based around the answers musicians give to questions I ask. I research and write industry press releases on amp endorsees and on new microphone equipment. I listen to lots of albums and go to lots of gigs. I occasionally get paid to do this.
It's occured to me that more and more, I'm fighting for something. I'm fighting for the things that are important to me - the notion of music as communication and expression - to be heard over what is important to other people - the notion of music as a way of making money and, consequently, a living. Now, I certainly feel that artists (for that is indeed what musicians are) should be paid for their work. I think what they create is worth paying to listen to, to indulge in, to experience. I don't however, feel that it can ever be considered a career choice. I may well have written silly things about bands "making it", but I never truly believed in this notion. Rather I've bought into what people want to hear, to make them listen to more important things.
But I guess I shouldn't lie to them anymore. Look. If you want to make a career out of music, can I suggest you stop and do something else. It's ridiculous. This goes for anyone thinking they can become an A & R scout or a music journalist too. I will say as much to the O2 class I'll be taking on March 5th. Why? Because I don't believe you've thought it through. There's no money here.
I adore music. I think it's incredible. It's a form of communcation which predates language. I find it astonishing that "dead" languages are allowed to die out. The knowledge contained within the literature and in the heads of the speakers of these tongues are being lost as a result. So, if music was to be eternally streamlined into manufactured rubbish, or severed into commerical pieces, it'd be pretty depressing. Of course you could say that most people haven't got anything worth saying. I believe everyone has something to say, and it enriches the human experience for them to say it. THe fact that we have so many ways of expressing things is one of the main reason I adore writing: I can take humour, sarcasm, irony, foreign expressions, classic phrases, quotes, similies, analogies, and countless other linguistic tricks (rhyming!) and splurge them onto a page to communicate whatever I want. It's art in itself.
What am I trying to achieve? I guess, like anyone, I'm trying to work out who I am, why I'm here and try and have fun while I'm doing this. These questions aren't necessary to answer - in fact they're futile - but it's part of the human condition and therefore I'll willingly explore how I feel and my place in the world. Music plays a big part in this - it's not just sounds to me. It's an emotional cavern that reveals catacombs so deep, they may well inhabit the entire universe.
My way of exploring is listening, retaining, talking to the artists and working out my own way of presenting their music, art and ideas. I think our own interpretations of others' efforts are as important as making our own. Hell most art is derivative of others' ideas. What we find worth in makes us who we are.
I know this sounds like pretentiousness to a lot of people - but that's your perception and it's incorrect. Not once have I pretended to be anything but myself. Self-indulgent maybe, not pretentious. Look it up. It's such an overused word.
So why do I do what I do? You know what....I don't know. I just do it. It's exciting and sometimes it's boring. Sometimes it seems worthy and sometimes it doesn't. I know I can't make a living this way, but I do. I have so many other ambitions, yet it seems amazing to me that I've managed to write things I'm proud of and learnt so much along the way. Believe me, the industry may well be collapsing, but I'm finding it fascinating. I feel sorry for good people who are losing jobs. That's terrible, especially as it's these people who have done the tiny amounts of good in this business.
But then, look at Ian MacKaye. He survived. He became a major influence and stood up for what he believed in and still does. He's changed the world in his own tiny little way. So, why can't we think this way? Why can't we, instead of thinking "this is my career" think, "this is what I do". There's a difference between a job and who you are. If you can combine the two yet keep them separate, then kudos.
So, whether anyone notices or not, I tend to have a pretty strong message in my features - it may be an anti-industry thing, it might be an encouraging positive message to new bands....I always try to have a point beyond what the "story" is. The story is never the band talking to a journalist. The story is the one I'm telling and using the band as the centrepiece. Sometimes it comes across as sensationalism, which is a shame. A lot of the time it hits the mark.
My point is this: write music to express who you are. Don't write it for other people or to sell to other people. Other people won't buy it usually anyway, so you'll have to give it away free and if you're doing that you'd better make sure you want others to hear it. It's a privilege for someone to listen to you - they don't owe you a living. By the same token, neither do you owe them anything if they buy stuff (though it's nice when you're thanked). If I criticse you, either positively or negatively, it's because I'm interested enough in your efforts to do one or the other. This is a great thing. If I completely pan something, I will still try and eke out something worth learning from it. If you choose not to read or listen, then that's great! You're simply doing something you want to do and not expecting others to like it: the purest form of expression.
I want to fight for more important things. I do already, in my own little way. Music is a great place to start though, agreed?

2009-02-16T10:13:00.000-08:00

Following on from my, as yet, incomplete Radiohead defense, I'm gonna follow it up with another relatively huge band that, perhaps, a lot of people think I shouldn't like.

There's something undeniably magnetic about The Smashing Pumpkins music. They basically took the prog and stadium rock of the 70s and early Eighties and tooled it up for the nineties. How does it work?

1) Billy Corgan's guitar work
Huge riffs, often multi-tracked almost to oblivion, solos whose role it seems to be to jettison into space at the earliest opportunity, effects used to reverberate around your head, his arranging of those mystical and bludgeoning guitar lines, feedback, harmonies, fuzz upon unending fuzz.....even on Adore (the anti-rock record) there's some beautiful guitar work underlying the drum machines and synthery.

2) Billy Corgan's voice
A Marmite voice for sure - it's could be borderline terrible but it's uniqueness and utter conviction made The Smashing Pumpkins sound like no one else. It somehow suited the utter chaos going on around it, to the point where it sticks out more on Zeitgeist (arguably their heaviest record) even with the guitars sounding like war machines.

3) Prolific
This can be a horrendous thing 1) quality control and 2) difficult to know where to start and continue
Basically, I thing the Pumpkins are a band that started off pretty mediocre really - Gish isn't great apart from the first four songs and Tristessa - before leaping to greatness almost instantly. Suddenly, after Siamese Dream, we had a B-sides, rarities and outtakes collection, a follow-up album that was 2 discs long, a box set of EPs etc., a 16 track single album and then a proposed double album with three EPs of off cuts. Just take a look at the digital rarities collection - how many songs? What's more, there's hardly a dud among them. Which is, frankly, terrifying. Even now, after the alright come back album Zeitgeist, we have had a great little acoustic EP American Gothic, two new singles (G.L.O.W. and FOL - what's with the initials?) backed with Superchrist and Gossamer, and promises of more releases along those lines.

4) Album quality

GISH
As I said earlier, pretty average but half of the album is actually brilliant. I Am One and Siva are defining moments in the Pumpkins canon, with riffs and solos and "reset" ideas all punctuating them. Rhinocerous is a great example of the future for Billy's longer songwriting (this actually being one of the best actually). Tristessa is a great pop rock song and Bury does its job. For a debut, 5 classic songs is damn fine.

SIAMESE DREAM
In scope and ability this record is outstanding. Beginning with the drawn out drumming and open stringed riffing of alt rock pioneering Cherub Rock, it's almost Corgan saying: "This is how we sound, and Cherub Rock is our genre". The guitars are charged with shuttle thrusters, sounding thicker, heavier and bolder than any guitar sound ever has. With the Drop D ascending riff of Quiet, it sounds like some threatening death rock album. Come Today though, melody leaps to the forefront - an ice cream truck tune being filtered through metal histrionics - and all bets are off. Soma's gentile-multi layering of reverb and guitars before almighty explosions show Billy's imagination rocketing away. Album highlight, Mayonaise, is penned by both Corgan and Iha and showcases alternate tunings and dynamics at the core of what they do. Silverfuck is a real overstep, proving to be drawn out and pompous but giving a threat rather than a real warning shot. It's still got something which is jucily metallic. Followed by Sweet Sweet's lullaby before the luxiorous Luna, the record is a massive triumph. That's without mentioning the album's acoustic centrepiece Disarm, one of the most simple and elegant songs in their catalogue.

Pisces Iscariot
Released between their breakthrough masterpiece and their commerical goliath peering round the corner, this covers B-sides, outtakes etc. and really shows how prolific Billy is - and how consistent he can be. It openes with the beautiful and aptly named Soothe. When Billy's voice breaks, with the proximity of the mic, it sounds honest and cutting. Billy's phaser effect gets a major work out on a lot of these songs, twisting, revolving and spiralling around his solos, mutating them as you listen. It even gives a showcase for James Iha's first solo songwriting effort for SP: Blew Away. It's sweet, but inconsequential, a lot like the man's solo album. Pissant is a real angry, fast number, very different to what's come before, but an indicator of what was to come. Perhaps my fave is Hello Kitty Kat, a real distorted mess of a song that echoes a heavier Mayonaise. You can practically hear the speakers imploding in protest at the destroyed mix. Though quality depletes towards the end of this collection, Corgan's solo cover of Landlisde is lovely. Basically this could've been the band's third record and people would still love it, but they may not have been half the band they become.

Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
Disc 1
Jaw droppingly long, yet instilled with quality beyond it's number of tracks (28). Beginning with a piano intro and synthesised strings, it bursts into Tonight Tonight (the first Pumpkins song I actually properly listened to, as I wasn't into their heavier stuff like Bullet With Butterfly Wings at the time). This dramatic, orchestral sweep is so far and away from the distorted guitar symphonies of yore that it seems nonsense to expect anything but a huge break away from Siamese Dream.
Stirring as it is, though, it gets torn apart by the following two tracks. Jellybelly sounds so fiercely distorted, it might as well be on fire. It's actually insane. There's an excruciating build up two thirds in which more than proves Billy wasn't done with abusing guitars and studios by a long shot. The staccato harmonic riff of Zero follows, showing a direct, vicious, stabbing arrangement that uses far less multi-tracking and far more emotion. The solo is sheer pitch shifting, ring modulating, octaving genius. Here Is No Why, relatively calm, is one of the greatest Pumpkins songs in it's clever melodic nuances and percussive chord playng. And that solo too. Minor US hit Bullet With Butterfly Wings follows, and, with the video, really brings to the fore the gothic chic that would become the SP's central theme for the rest of their career. Dark, metallic, lyrically devilish - it's their trademark track in the eyes of many. It's arguably also the first real screaming we get from Billy. To Forgive sticks out after so much heaviness, yet still resonates as an important transitional track almost halfway through the first disc. Barely played guitars shiver underneath Billy's laments. Hints of electronica slip out here too. An Ode To No One seems incongruous after such ugly beauty. It's a proper brutal sleaze metal thrash out. Love is another contrast, a fuzzy minimal trudge through static and Billy's nasal whine. It's extremely effective, like having a shower in guilt and shame. At about 2:44 is one of the album's many sweet spots. The insane filtered solo is haunting. Cupid De Locke feels like a bubble bath and a sleep on a cloud after Love's grime. Then Galapogos returns to Soma territory, with gentle arpeggios washing you upon a beach. Though slow to start, it eventually turns into a shifting, granular sifting sound. It's arrrangement is clever and affecting. Muzzle, though pretty standard rock, is so triumphant, it stands out as one of their best songs and shows that even when Billy strips it all back to its roots, his common thread is a sense of melody. By this time your sweating from the effort of listening, knowing there's still thirty tracks to go. Porcelina Of the Vast Oceans gives you a prolonged two minute intro, though one adorned with peaks and troughs after the injection of adrenaline from Muzzle. It then alternately drifts and jolts you across it's nine plus minutes. It was the perfect set opener for their Zeitgeist tour in 2008. In some wasy it's the perfect SP track. THe final disc ends with the whispering James Iha ballad, Take Me Down, which is actually beautiful.

Disc 2
It ricochets you into life with the noisy, pick scraping thirty seconds intro to Where Boys Fear To Tread. A discordant, sludgey opener, it's a real antithesis to the last third of the first disc (albeit with added doo-wop backing vocals). That's even before the most violent track, Bodies, comes screaming out of the (hell) gates with it's drop D octaving and full-bloodied screaming from Corgan. It's incredible. Thirty-Three, the weakest single from the album, still sounds lovely in context although it's the awkward acoustic atmospherics of In The Arms of Sleep that overrides it, meaning Thirty-Three is stranded between two album highlights. Then the best single from the album, 1979, is next; Billy's New Order tribute. A wonderful song that should be remembered as an all time classic. Following this is one of the two most fucked up mixes on the album, Tales of a Scorched Earth (X.Y.U. is the other). It sounds stupidly lo-fi and ridiculous in the album, and basically destroys the flow of the second disc. It's a fair enough rock out, with Corgan's most throat-burning vocal performance. But fighting through mic distortion you couldn't tell anyway. Luckily the gorgeous, wobbly layers of Thru The Eyes of Ruby and the simple acoustic picking of Stumbeline peel away those nasty memories. X.Y.U.s blistering rock ends the distorted section of the album, being throwaway and pointless, yet still feeding us the requisite distortion quoitant for an SP album. The last five tracks are strangely quaint and seem pretty poor, though they all suit the theme of the album, but they're almost embarassing efforts after such a trawl through Billy's imagination. It could be argued these stripped back melodic songs are a worthy rest period for the listener, but they're more likely to be skipped completely. By Starlight is the best of them. Strangely Lily (My One and Only) was dug out for the 2008 tour, which made sense live, but it's really not a creative high. It ends, appropriately, with all four voices of the band - finally united - on Farewell and Goodnight, on a sweet lullaby for the weary listener.
Overall, it's an incredible achievement which no other band of the era come close to matching.

ADORE
Having realised he could write songs without electric guitars, distortion, riffs and evne a drummer (there's more to this obviously, but it's funnier to just leave it at that), Adore became something altogether more intriguing. From the opener To Shiela's gentle beginnings, it's strange to be greeted by the throbbing synth bass of Ava Adore, somehow heavier than some of the guitar tracks from Mellon Collie ever managed. It's one of the cleverist modern singles in decades and continues to wow with it's minimal depth. Here the album explodes into a sinister, murderous, lamenting epic, feeling deeper and longer than Mellon Collie as the mood perpetuates the entire album, rather than hopping genres like the double-disc of yore did.
The electronic Daphne Descends is like shivering death, Once Upon A Time is a tear-jerking ode to Billy's dead mother, Tear is like being pulled from death's grip into bleakness, Crestfallen is a devastating musical journey of loss. After all this shadowy blackness, Appels and Oranjes is a glorious, unrepetant dance number that revels in it's contrary nature. It's excellent. Pug returns to Ava Adore's earlier rock ideas, while still forgoing obvious multi-tracked riffs. The last handful of tracks seem patchy but are well sequenced. We have The Tale of Dusty and Pistol Pete's country-esque story, Annie-Dog's cracked voice and piano lull, Shame's severe atmospherics before the heavy synth crescendo of Behold! The Night Mare (another track resurrected successfully for the 2008 tour). The final two tracks, For Martha and Blank page, are two brilliant, underrated songs in their canon (as is Night Mare). 17 is merely obliuque piano feedback - a strange, disconnected end to, what is probably the best SP album, while being chronically underloved by critics and general public. It's such an all pervading work, it may aswell be their masterpiece.

MACHINA/The Machines of God
Which is why, when the uber-distorted bass and guitar of opener The Everlasting Gaze kicks in, every fan the world over celebrated. It's a fantastic reminder that SP are incredibly adept at crafting songs that work in stadiums and living rooms. The right blend of riff and atrmospherics thunders through this collection. However, it's the first time you feel the flaws really hold back the artistry on display. Raindrops and Sunshowers sounds like a tip of the hat to Adore so as not to show they've forgotten their best period....but it brings and overly Eighties feel to an album that needed to sound alien. Stand Inside Your Love is a cracking single, all jangling intro riffs and bellowing, lava stream chorus. I of the Mourning, through lyrically dire, is one of the most effective songs on the album, it's distant, haunted echoes retaining that Eighties feel, while still sounding like SP. The countermelodies featured in The Sacred and the Profane are the best thing about the song, while Try Try Try was an inexplicably popular single. It's a relentlessly dismal song that somehow resonates with fans. Certainly it plays a part in the album, but it's not a song I choose to listen to very often. By Heavy Metal Machine, it seems clear that this album is hitting buttons, but not to the same extent or to the same effect. It's a fuzzed up monster, but really feels quite novelty (apart from the chorus, which is wonderful). THings get forgettable fro here on in. Though there are peaks (the utter weirdness of The Imploding Voice, the melodic pop high of Wound, the delightful fast gentle-punk of closer Age of Innocence) and clear trudges through boredom (the ten minute Glass and the Ghost CHildren, the overwrought electronics of The Crying Tree of Mercury and Blue Skies Bring Tears). There are some memorable moments but overall it's a massive drop in quality.

MACHINA II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music
The second half of the proposed double LP starts, bewilderingly, with a real balls to the wall punk number, Glass. Then comes the industrial thrash of Cash Car Star, a live favourite. Dross continues this sleazy rock intro, seemingly in keeping with the loose "rock star" concept behind the MACHINA set. It's still vastly different to the mammoth polished Eighties sheen that dogs Machines of God. Real Love, a track rescued from the download-only ghetto by the Greatest Hits set, stands out as the blistering, fizzy epic single (that never was). With a lot in common with Stand.. it's infinitely sweeter and less bombastic. Go is a dismissable diversion, while Let Me Give The World To You is the almost cynically targeted commercial single (that never was...again). Acoustic baked, half-hearted verse melody, it's not great. Infact the next few tracks are just fodder until the almost unlistenable White Spyder - not because it's bad but because of the vinyl-to-mp3 transition everything sounds drowned out by the heaviness of it. It's in fact one of the best chugging rock songs they've ever produced. There's still four tracks after this. They're as bad as the last part of Machines of God. Pretty dire as far as records go, though there are definite stand outs in their catalogue not to be missed in the first third.

ZEITGEIST
Comprising only of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain, this record could well be their heaviest. It's drenched in droning open strings, harmony voices and noisy guitar playing, easily matching the hardest moments on MACHINA/The Machines of God. Initial impressions were pretty poor. The songs sounded cliched and messy, but reassessment sees it's probably more consistent than either of the MACHINA dual set.
The primary problem is the weakness of the lead vocals, somehow not as powerful in the face of these walls of guitars and Jimmy's drumming. Perhaps this is why the harmonies are all over the place. THe other problem is the prolonged jamming found on United States (an unfortunate live set staple) and the drawn out death of Pomp and Circumstances and For God and Country. These tracks hark back to Silverfuck, Ghost and the Glass Children and the other worst excesses of Billy's guitar work outs. It may be these indulgences that make That's The Way (My Love Is), Tarantula, Bring The Light, (C'Mon) Let's Go and Bleed The Orchid sound comparatively brilliant. Overall it's quite a drab album, with little light and shade but still hangs together better than MACHINA's overlong work. On this evidence, however, there's no debating the reasons for their rejection of the album format from now on.

Overall, The Smashing Pumpkins are a band everyone loves to hate and Zeitgeist was seen as a massive failiure, to the delight of those who see Corgan as a massive egotistical rock dinosaur. Nevertheless, his earlier work cannopt be ignored.
Steve Albini reckoned SP were "made of and for the mainstream". This is probably entirely true - Billy's lullaby melodies are pretty pop - but it's the uneasy pairing of interstellar-bound guitars, arena rock pomp and elegant melodic ideas that make them what they are. Mainstream they became, but only in a climate where grunge became a household name could they have even began a career in music. If there is a modern equivalent - a baffling success that is, nevertheless, deserved - it's Muse. It'll be interesting to see what happens now they've hit their peak.

Band of the last seven days - Radiohead

2009-02-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

It had to come sooner or later. They don't need any introduction though I may need to explain why I find Radiohead to be perhaps the one band that seem to encompass almost everything I love about music.

How they got to be so popular is beyond me. I never ever expected them to be the behemoth they are now, dividing people into fans and people who don't understand them (this is a joke, obviously). In fact, I despised them once upon a time. A youngster, having heard perhaps one or two of their songs, I remember looking at that hateful artwork on the cover of The Bends, recently released and innocuous, and proclaiming that that was one album that I would NEVER buy.

Since then I've bought it twice; the second time was to replace the scracthed, worn out CD copy I had bought previously. I will buy it a third time on vinyl as it belongs in my record collection of favourite albums of all time.

But why so much love for this rather forlorn - some may say depressing, boring - band? Let's count the ways shall we?

1) Johnny Greenwood's guitar work
At the time I actually started to appreciated The Bends on a cassette copy my friend insisted I listen to, there was one thing that stood out amongst all the high points. It wasn't Thom Yorke's voice - it was always about Johnny Greenwood's (and t, to give credit where it's due, Ed O Brien's) pioneering guitar explosions. Seemingly spliced from blues and rock with an extreme amount of futuristic filters and ideas, his strange lead parts and interesting textural use of a tremelo pedal on tracks like Planet Telex and Bones made me sit up and get very excited indeed. Not only was his playing extraordinary but so was watching him play: long hair obscuring his face, he thrust his strumming arm directly downwards, as if trying to break the strings from pure force. He wore some kind of arm guard so as not to brutalise his flesh. It was an incredible thing to watch. Pretty quickly, my favourite guitar part of all time was that impossible high, pitch-shifted note that rings out and fluctuates in tone for about 5 seconds in Just.

2) Their music is uplifting
Buh? Are we talking about Radiohead? The guys who make "music to slit your wrists to"? Well, yeah. Their descent into despair somehow electrifies me, making me smile and want to celebrate life. Certain stirring moments like the falsetto backing vocals coming in during the second verse of There There, or the climax of Let Down and even the band's self-confessed bleakest song, Street Spirit (Fade Out), when Thom Yorke bursts into the closing coda of "Immerse your soul in love" is both chilling and warming. Their intensive structures, the brilliant musicianship and, most of all, the overall atmosphere of Radiohead's material does nothing but motivate me and make me want to shout from the rooftops and sing all day.

3) Innovation
Sure, even when they were making pretty standard rock songs on Pablo Honey and The Bends, they weren't shockingly original or anything. Nevertheless the ideas, riffs and vocal lines always had something unique about them. Their layering of certain guitar ideas, the directions the songs would take and Yorke's way os seamlessly flowing over it with his sublime vocal range all constituted something different.
By the time OK Computer started messing with the formula a little, Kid A seemed inevitable. The album that turned people off because of it's inaccessibility or got people interested after that boring rock rubbish was a brave and interesting move. Kid A is undoubtedly a brilliant work, which was actually still pretty standard as far as structures went. Amnesiac seemed, in comparison, like offcuts thrown onto a record. Hail To The Thief merged the two styles perfectly while In Rainbows is actually the perfect Radiohead record. Throughout they're messing with ideas, trying to stay away from the bombastic arena rock that makes U2 and Coldplay so tedious. Though often thrown together, it's clear that Radiohead have very little to do with what those bands seem to be about. If anything they ahve more in common with Muse, except Muse are, again, very predictable in a prog-rock for the 00s kind of way.

4) They are NOT flawless
This is important. I am not a rabid, love-everything fan. They've done some attrocious music in their time. I think you can get a better persepective on a band from their mistakes or bad points. In this case Pop Is Dead (terrible, although still enjoyable to listen to), We Suck Young Blood (tedious and griping), How Do You? (similar to Pop Is Dead but less emabarassing), Pull/Pulk (a bit pointless? sounds like machinary running in the back of your mind), Treefingers (nice but ultimately redundant), Exit Music (good, but goes on a bit)....there are other things. However, there are so many high points in their catalogue which makes these throwaway songs seem like studio larks.

5) Albums are most definitely albums
Everything from artwork, presentation to the flow of the tracks. The general exception is Amnesiac, which I've never really felt works as an entire record and a recent listen has confirmed this.

6) Consistency
Each album, with each of their flaws, has an incredible amount of brilliantly written songs on them. Here's what confuses me - the kind of bravery and esoteric ideas, within their own songwriting framework - does not lend itself to commerciality. I mean, why do people like this band on such a scale? I know why I like them, it's all explained above, but their commercial aspect has always and will always buffle me.

Band(s) of the Day(s) 29/30/31

2009-01-29T06:07:00.000-08:00

Hi. No bus escapades recently, but rather being busy and rediscovering an uncontrollable passion for music. This has been helped by the following bands.

Kit Richardson

Courtesy of the lovely Ellie Coden from Fierce Panda, Cool For Cats is a regular night last Tuesday of every month, named after her very own offshoot label. She usually collects together a diverse and pretty good set of bands. Tuesday just gone she excelled herself with two incredible acts.

First up was Kit Richardson. I know very little about her, apart from she must like Jeremy Warmsley because I met her at his stint at the Lock Tavern last Sunday. This is uninteresting but her music is the antithesis of uninteresting. I've not been as exhilirated by an artist as I was by her performance that night. Announcing that she was "really fucking scared" one song in, she promptly chose not to show an ounce of fear. Diving into her high register, experimental delivery - backed by her own keys, a wonderful cello player, bassist and drummer - her songs weave, duck and dive like Regina Spektor's most tuneful moments while easily forging her own path. Clearly inspired by excellent musicianship, her songs never lose sight of the power and emotional potential from choosing a weaving path rather than a direct route.

www.myspace.com/kitrichardsonmusic

Violet Violet

Headliners this Tuesday, Violet Violet take riot grrl, have fun with it, turn it on it's head and make music that is unbelivably clever within its self-regulated punk template. The three ladies all use their vocal talents - sometimes to astonishing effect. One example is the clever "echo" effect they used during one song, or the indescribable backing vocals that seemed to 'dip' during a different one. They have plenty of completely brilliant songs that seem to run circles around contrived and pre-packaged "girl" music. Shudder. Anyway, so impressed I even let them keep my pen.

www.myspace.com/violetviolet1

Propagandhi

An update to my ealier post because, frankly, I hate rules and I don't play by them very often if I can get away with it. Here I can. So, for those who weren't listening first time (that's everyone because no one reads this thing), Propagandhi are back.
Why is this important? Well, try and comprehend this: Supporting Caste, their fifth full-length studio album, both excites and scares the shit out of me. It practically moved me to tears today...and it's a punk album. I ADORE the fact that the artwork has a graphic drawing depicting the band cooking and eating the remains of 'post-vegetarians'. Several times throughout the lyric sheet they make (semi) jokes about wanting to eat such people. The song Human(e) Meat starts with someone screaming as their limbs are sawed off. The lyrics are a frightening, detailed pastiche of, one imagines, the same reasons people use for eating animals but, in this case, for eating "fermenting-festishist" and chef Sandor Katz. It's incredible. I'm afraid to post lyrics word for word for the song Night Matters, about the separation of families and friends due to war through the eyes of refugees and survivors. I want to, because it's very moving. Again, try and imagine shedding a tear to punk rock.
Of course there's a great deal of humour in the record, as there has been in every record they've done. I must reiterate too: BUY Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes. Hell, it may even change your mind about a few things.
Anyway, expect a huge update about Propagandhi's return again when I feel I can publish lyrics etc. I adore this band. In the meantime, go to their website and read all they ask you to. It's all very interesting and may well inspire you to do more...

Band(s) of the Day(s) 26/27/28

2009-01-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

Hello. I missed my stop on the bus last night by falling asleep. I've never done this before in my life, and therefore think my life has turned a corner. Anyway, as this gives you an indication of how tired I am, please forgive these late'uns.

Death From Above1979

With one album proper of devastating dance thrash, this drums and bass duo were playing at being the pop Lightning Bolt, or perhaps just playing dancable pop songs with the most basic of all rock music requirements - a rhythm section. Either way, their music is fantastic bundles of noisy riff-strangulated anthems. The thing that makes this band stand out though, is their dedication to making you move. The fact that a remix album was released keeping a lot of the original elements from the songs intact makes you realise how cleverly constructed each track was. But forget that...its the pure passion and energy flowing from these songs. They burnt out quickly (though you can find one in MSTRKRFT and one in Sebastian Grainger and the Mountains), and left us with an indelible mark via their kerosene-fuelled love songs.

Pull Out (with excellent and colourful description of the songs lyrical content)

Liars

Having made two of my favourite albums of the 00s, Liars are a law unto themselves. Starting with the funk-punk demolition of They Threw Us In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, they then progressed/regressed to a screeching, stuttering concept album about witches called They Were Wrong So We Drowned, followed by another concept album about two fictional characters called Drum and Mt. Heart Attack which revelled in percussion, drums, rhythms and foregoed melody and finally made a self titled record in which, vocalist Angus admitted, "we actually tried to write songs this time". All of these records are essential - Drum's Not Dead is an incredible, atmospheric achievement which has little to do with virtuosity and a lot to do with texture, emotion and ambition. Be prepared for a wild ride is all.

Mr Your On Fire Mr

Broken Witch

Let's Not Wrestle Mt Heart Attack

Plaster Casts Of Everything

Mixtape:
Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/0Blk6RWzubgNXgc4vBcVxJ

1) There's Always Room On The Broom (from They Were Wrong So We Drowned)
2) Let's Not Wrestle Mt Heart Attack (from Drum's Not Dead)
3) Freak Out (from Liars)
4) It Fit When I Was A Kid (from Drum's Not Dead)
5) Broken Witch (from They Were Wrong So We Drowned)
6) Drum and the Uncomfortable Can (from Drum's Not Dead)
7) Cycle Time (from Liars)
8) Be Quiet Mt Heart Attack (from Drum's Not Dead)
9) Protection (from Liars)
10) The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack (from Drum's Not Dead)

At the Drive-In

Are you crazy? This band was always going to be here somewhere. Why? Because despite some guy on a messageboard a few years ago arguing with me that this band just ripped off Drive Like Jehu and therefore I shouldn't like them as much as I do, this band just tore my head off when I finally listened to Relationship Of Command. It was also my first real experience of Q being so severely wrong that I think the magazine should be exterminated. They are never ever right. Anyway.
At the Drive-In combined all sorts of guitar sounds, threateningly violent tones, Cedric's intense, Daryl Palumbo-type delivery and the incredible live show...something I never got to see. Nevertheless, both their breakthrough album and In/Casino/Out are fantastic rock records and were far more focused and exciting than their creators now give credit. Shame.

Arcarsenal (yes, this is incredible - respect for walking off early too, a protest at the moshing/slam dancing that ended up killing a young music fan that day at Limp Bizkit's set)

Pattern Against User (purely for the dedication to the Fall and the anti-crowd surfing shout AND for how shambolic they could be melody wise)

One Armed Scissor (absolutely thrilling, yet an indication that things were about to fall apart)

Rolodex Propaganda (probably one of the best live performances ever)

Mixtape:
Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/0Nxb9JzsFTF0bNYutBU00z

1) Cosmonaut (from Relationship of Command)
2) Pickpocket (from In/Casino/Out)
3) Fahrenheit (from El Gran Orgo)
4) Sleepwalk Capsules (from Relationship of Command)
5) Napoleon Solo (from In/Casino/Out)
6) Picket Fence Cartel (from El Gran Orgo)
7) Extracurricular (from At the Drive-In/Sunshine split 7")
8) Catacombs (from Relationship of Command)
9) Transatlantic Foe (from In/Casino/Out)
10) Invalid Letter Dept. (from Relationship of Command)

Band of the Day - 25: Boysetsfire

2009-01-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

There's no doubting my perchant for socially conscious, politically active and justifiably motivated bands (having discussed Fugazi and Propagandhi already on here). Boysetsfire were discovered courtesy of a college friend who gave me a tape (yes a tape) of After the Eulogy, their most recently released record. It ended up having a massive effect on me. It was funny how so many other people felt the same when I gave them a copy too.
They'e part of that melodic hardcore genre so popular during the late nineties, early 00s but they had far more to say than most - plus Nathan Gray could actually sing incredibly well. THey had a brief foray on a major label (their weaker material found on Tomorrow Becomes Today) before quickly being sent packing to Burning Heart for what became their final album. Finding random tracks from long out-of-print EPs was a delight with this band. I found Thursday, At the Drive-In and other such bands around the same time and it informed my musical tastes forever. Boysestfire will always make me feel like throwing all my weight behind a cause, something I believe in. Sometimes I feel like I let down that young, shy nineteen year old who really believed that despite being unpopular, quiet and unloved (sniff), he could do something incredible. Sorry lad, I didn't manage it for you. Boysetsfire will alwys give me the hope they wanted to instill in people, even if it seems wasted - it's worth remembering that it's not, by a long shot.

Mixtape:
1) Pariah Under Glass (After the Eulogy)
2) The Tyranny of What Everybody Knows (In Chrysalis)
3) My Life In The Knife Trade (After the Eulogy)
4) Voiceover (In Chrysalis)
5) Vehicle (This Crying, This Screaming...My Voice Is Being Born)
6) Curtain Call (Live For Today)
7) Handful of Redemption (Tomorrow Comes Today)
8) Nostalgic For Guillotines (The Misery Index: Notes from the Plague Years)
9) Rookie (After the Eulogy)
10) (10) and Counting (The Misery Index: Notes from the Plague Years)

Band of the Day - 24: Dizzee Rascal

2009-01-22T06:30:00.000-08:00

Not a band. Don't care.

Dizzee Rascal is one of the most passionate musicians about music that I've met and interviewed. He can't get up without something musical going on as he gets out of bed. So he said. In my opinion, Boy In Da Corner is an extremely influential debut and one of my favourites of all time. Whether its the saturated, noisy scuffling that constitutes the music, or his impressively honest and cynical flow I can't say. I'd imagine, like all things I like, it's the ambidextrous nature of the whole thing. Certainly, the oppresive darkness and wandering viciousness of the first commerical grime record and its follow up, Showtime, captured my imagination and inspired me in a way that not many rock records ever have.

Mixtape:
Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/1BKBOd74k2LEpxfJAxxoj1

1) Sittin' Here (Boy In Da Corner)
2) Stand Up Tall (Showtime)
3) Brand New Day (Boy In Day Corner)
4) Do It (Boy In Da Corner)
5) Everywhere (Showtime)
6) Sirens (Maths + English)
7) Respect Me (Showtime)
8) I Luv U (Boy In Da Corner)
9) Imagine (Showtime)
10) Jus' A Rascal (Boy In Da Corner)

Band of the Day - 23: Pixies

2009-01-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

I believe in retrospective reset points in rock where a band appears that has relatively little impact at the time, but actually makes a meteor sized crater, completely changing the face and landscape of popular rock music forever. The Beatles were the catalyst, Hendrix was one, The Ramones were another but everyone knows this. It's only now people realise Sonic Youth changed everything. It seems we're in a greater position to acknowledge these changes pretty quickly after they happen.
Pixies were another band who changed everything. Frqankly, there is no one out there who have done what Pixies did. You don't believe me? Songs of sex and death, sometimes sang in Spanish, male and female harmonies, screaming, piercing lead guitar, thrashing guitars, science fiction, surf-rock, disturbing imagery and some of the best pop songs ever created. This sort of band doesn't appear very often, if at all.
The sheer lunatic brilliance of the Steve Albini recorded Surfer Rosa - a violent, colourful outburst from imaginations clearly expanded in some narcotic, far-reaching way - is one of my favourite records of all time. It's savage, innovative, unbelievably melodic and excruciatingly superb. I find it difficult to cope with the fact that a person might dislike this record. Sure, it's devoid of production polish, it's confrontational, it's noisy, it's offensive - but it's still packed with lightning fast tunes, gorgeous harmonies and broke the idea of alternative pop songs into the present day.
Then there's Doolittle, Bossanova, Trompe Le Monde, the Come On Pilgrim mini-LP, their B-Sides, their live shows, their side projects (The Breeders, The Amps, Frank Black solo...). The effect they've had on me is clear; anything with the bravery to scour the human underbelly, the disgusting dark thoughts we all conjure up in our lowest (and highest) moments, and their sonic invention in the realms of popular music make this one of a handful essential bands to anyone. Investigate and adore.

Mixtape:
Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/13mD0uEQx9mwl5NfmcubBv

1) Bone Machine (Surfer Rosa)
2) Broken Face (Surfer Rosa)
3) Gouge Away (Doolittle)
4) Velouria (Bossanova)
5) Letter To Memphis (Trompe Le Monde)
6) I've Been Tired (Come On Pilgrim)
7) Debaser (Doolittle)
8) The Holiday Song (Come On Pilgrim)
9) Something Against You (Surfer Rosa)
10) Tame (Doolittle)

Band(s) of the Day(s) 19 - 22

2009-01-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

So one step forward, four steps back. Kinda feels like each time I catch up and feel good about things, something happens and I'm almost worse off than before. Kinda like my bank account really (sigh).

The Age of Rockets

A friend of mine worked with the brainchild of this project on their own little duo the Mercenary Rhymes. Andrew Futrall has written two albums worth of teary-eyed electronica-pop with both albums having a dstinctive flavour - last year's Hannah was orchestral led excellence.
Listen: www.myspace.com/theageofrockets

Propagandhi

On this eve of Obama's inaguaration, we'd all like to think America's problems will be swept away. More likely, they'll be swept under the carpet. This means Propagandhi are as relevant as ever, which is good because they have another album on the way. Now, possibly unlike most bands featured here, I'm not enamoured with everything they've done. However, it's their third record Todays Empires, Tomorrows Ashes that is more than shining light - it's an incredible, righteous and irrefutably brilliant political record, maybe one of a handful in the world. Nothing feels contrived, its sense of humour is plastered all over the lyrics, while the seriousness is shocking and more than a little riling. They tackle all their favourite subjects with intelligence while their music is fast, rousing, technical and exhilirating. Incredible.

Albright Monument, Baghdad

Rings

Formerly First Nation, Rings' debut album Black Habit was an astonishing piece of work which stirred in feminism, concentric circles and musical mantras that echo and hypnotise. Semi-improvised, these tribal repetitions and haunting refrains made for one of last year's greatest albums. I know very little about them, and thats a really good thing in my opinion.

www.myspace.com/firstnationlove

Neil Young

I can't even attempt to put into words what an influence his entire back catalogue has had on music and what it means to people. Could I even do a mixtape? No not really. I only own Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Goldrush, Harvest, Tonight's the Night, Rust Never Sleeps and Sugar Mountain. So, why not use Spotify to have a listen to his back catalogue and let it seep in gradually? It could take you a long time, or you could be at a time of life where it all makes sense. 27 seems to be the optimum time...

Band of the Day 18 - The Arc People

2009-01-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

Promising myself a vow of relative silence over these guys, giving them time to develop, making sure they feel ready themselves, I'm breaking this now, as it's got to a point where they now have a live band and are releasing a single. I discovered them - or rather, they contacted me - via myspace and the two brothers, Marcus and Miles, had recorded some demos without names. One of these was the brilliant Light Streams. Struck by their ambition in the arrangements and the baritone vocals, excitement got the better of me. Luckily it also got the better of other people. Having seen them play with their full band, it's clear theres a talented lot here and all it will take is time and increasing songwriting risks before The Arc People become a long-term favourite. They're definitely a band I have nothing but admiration for, so I'm hoping their promise extends to excellent results this year.

www.myspace.com/thearkpeople

Band of the Day 17 - Micachu and the Shapes

2009-01-15T01:47:00.000-08:00

Finally catching up with yourself is a beautiful thing. :)

I will start with this opening statement: DIY in music - a subject close to my heart - has been marginalised and contained for a long time. You can refer to one of my earliest posts about how the mainstream press went about that. Now, however, it is being celebrated in far more honest ways. When I found my next Band of the Day on the cover of Plan B, it was the first time I've been utterly compelled to read the cover story of a magazine since I can remember. Not only that but a feeling swelled up inside me - something along the lines of utter excitement. For once, it seems, these meshing of words, sentences, syntax and ideas collided with the subject itself and made something worth reading. No, not just worth reading but perhaps essential reading.
Enough. Let's examine Exhibit A:

Micachu and the Shapes

Y'honour, I must confess, here now under a vow of trust, that I hated the Micachu album when it was sent to me late last year. I viewed it as ridiculous, childish rubbish. Instead of throwing it angrily into the bin though, my mind knew, deep down, that a) I was missing something and b) I may well have to review this album in time. Lo and behold! I had to review the album. After hours of listening, trawling through the contents of this hyperactive, messy, lo-fi, off-key extravaganza of a record, it clicked. After hours of tearing my hair out trying to figure out what words might do this unique imaginative platter justice, they leaked from my fingers and onto the Word document. Frankly, Jewellery is one of the most exciting, unfathomable records I've heard in ages. I still don't know if I can really enjoy the whole thing. It's scatterbrained, inventive and perfect for attention spans that are merely a fan rather than a wing. I don't even know if this sentence makes sense, but this certainly does - even if it doesn't.

Live show

Lips

DIY, to me, is music that wouldn't exist unless it was done in this way. In other words, it's the only way we're going to find new ways of expressing ourselves musically. Money can help, but carving out your imagination and presenting an ice sculpture - or a pile of rubbish - is infinitely preferrable to spangly production and guest superstars. In fact, I'd trade all that for one of Micachu's home-made instruments. Call me mad if you like - I just despise mediocre records.

Band(s) of the Day(s) 15/16 - Nelson/Abe Vigoda

2009-01-14T06:15:00.001-08:00

Hi. I have band for you.

Nelson

Parisian twenty-somethings Nelson are currently working on what will be their second album and it's about time people took notice quick sharpish. Why? Well, leaping from their melancholy, Factory Records-influenced debut Revolving Doors they've embraced the happy - as evidenced by last nights Artrocker Fest headline slot. The band are a revelation live, swapping instruments, all singing, all performing as if their little lives depend upon the energy they get from the crowd. Anything to work us up from dancing, using a radio to sample static, thrashing their guitars - see my little bit of wordz on it http://www.artrocker.tv/reviews/article/artrocker-festival-night-two
Anyway, truly brilliant songs and their new stuff is sounding more than promising - they sound like vital, urgent anthems.

Abe Vigoda

If you split this band open they'd probably spill out a bewildering array of viscous colours. Using tropical melodies as a starting point to ACTUALLY create noise in tuneful shapes means they're one of my favourite discoveries of recent times. Live they are borderline chaotic, as you'd expect, but always hitting those evergreen sweet notes they swim in. Skeleton, their only UK release, captured my imagination in a way similar bands really didn;t. Why? Again, it's because of the noise factor - the unexplainable descent into discordant fizzing and weird off-key elements that actually seem to provide a symphony of sound, for that split second they resonate.
Incredible.

Dead City/Waste Wilderness

Bear Face

Band(s) of the Day(s) 12/13/14 - The Thermals/Converge/Frank Turner

2009-01-12T09:30:00.001-08:00

So now I owe you all three of the bastards....

The Thermals

With news that their new album is being prepped for February release, and that theya re back in the UK, it's about time you all gavbe into the temptation that is The Thermals. Garage rock with smarts, sexiness and energy by the socket-load, this trio have delivered three delicious albums of the same song. Luckily that song is amazing.

Agreed? Good

Mixtape:

1) No Culture Icons (from More Parts Per Million)
2) Here's Your Future (from The Body, The Blood, The Machine)
3) Time To Lose (from More Parts Per Million)
4) Our Time (from Fuckin A)
5) It's Trivia (from More Parts Per Million)
6) God and Country (from Fuckin A)
7) A Pillar Of Salt (from The Body, The Blood, The Machine)
8) Goddamn the Light (from More Parts Per Million)
9) Returning To The Folk (from The Body, The Blood, The Machine)
10) Back To Grey (from More Parts Per Million)

Converge

Frankly, one of the best technical and brutal albums I've ever heard comes from this band. That would be Jane Doe. Incredible work, and I've always maintained that if I ever went to a gig of theirs, I'd probably end up dead. Here's why:

Locust Wrath

Concubine

And because there are absolute dicks in the metalcore scene...

Purchase and watch the Long Road Home for extensive coverage of what they get up to live.

Mixtape?:
1) Concubine
2) Fault and Fracture
3) Distance and Meaning
4) Hell to Pay
5) Homewrecker
6) The Broken Vow
7) Bitter and Then Some
8) Heaven in Her Arms
9) Phoenix in Flight
10) Phoenix in Flames
11) Thaw
12) Jane Doe

Yeah, so what? It's Jane Doe, in full. You can't rip tracks out of the heart of the top metalcore-influenced album of all time. It would be like dissecting your pet dog. You just don't do it.

Frank Turner

Because he's already on this blog lots AND his previous band have been a Band of the Day, I'm gonna try and NOT mention him for the rest of the year on here. It's only fair. So, he's a folk superstar now is he? Well, he's paid his dues and more. Acoustic open mic nights in Canonbury pubs, playing at peoples flats for no pay - he's done a lot. With two full length albums, a compilation of rare and unreleased stuff and a third album being written and recorded for this year, you should hear a bit more from our Frank. Why is he here? Because without his songs, a friend would've contemplated suicide, another would feel lost and unloved and I wouldn't have gone to half as many gigs in the last three years. Oh, and I like his lyrics and stuff, yeah?

The Real Damage (in tribute to the recently burned Nambucca, which is where the projector montage pics were shot - I'm in one of them, tucked away at the back at 3.10)

Casanova Lament

My Kingdom for A Horse

Mixtape:

1)I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous (from Love, Ire and Song)
2) Nashville Tennessee (from Campfire Punkrock EP)
3) The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (by The Postal Servivce from The First Three Years)
4) Father's Day (from Sleep is For The Week)
5) Love Ire and Song (from Love Ire and Song)
6) The Outdoor Type (from Jonah Matranger/Frank Turner split vinyl)
7) St Christopher Is Coming Home (from Love Ire and Song)
8) Wisdom Teeth (from Sleep Is For The Week)
9) To Take You Home (from Love Ire and Song)
10) The Ballad of Me and My Friends (from Sleep Is For The Week)

Band(s) of the Day(s) 10/11 - Glassjaw and Gossamer Albatross

2009-01-09T03:42:00.000-08:00

They went in two by two....

Glassjaw

Imagine being at the end of your tether, feeling as if everything you've worked for, every time you've been polite, lovely and charming individual has been for nothing because the tall fucker with a unhealthy disrespect for women has grabbed that gorgeous, intelligent girl you were getting on with. Now imagine your mind being torn asunder by Pretty Lush - the first track on Glassjaw's debut album Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence. Suddenly the world makes more sense. The rage, the misogyny (never something I approve of in any context, but for this band I make the exception because the anger would not be fully formed without this utter, self-destructive contempt for Daryl's imaginary evil female), the brutal spiked melodic guitars, the incredible vocal delivery - this album basically napalmed my entire late teenage life. It's still unbelievably potent - it is like being pummelled by ill feeling and righteousness. Worship and Tribute stripped the focused anger and spread it over lots of topics (notably war and 9/11)and proved that glassjaw only make records when they feel the need and enough reason too. That's why this band are one of the most influential and emotionally strident of my life. Perhaps the most stinging moment comes at the very end of the debut album's title track. After screaming his heart out, Daryl sounds like his breath is hitching - perhaps he's in tears? I've always imagined him to be - while the guitars feedback and crescendo around him. A few seconds later and he's pleading: "You don't need another one do you?" to the engineer. Sobering.

When One Eight Becomes Two Zeros

Tip The Bartender (sound bad, energy off the Richter scale)

Mixtape:
1) Pretty Lush (from Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence)
2) Piano (from EYEWTKAS)
3) You Think You're Fucking John Lennon?(listen at Glassjaw.com - after about 2 minutes of percussion)
4) Radio Cambodia (from Worship and Tribute)
5) Two Tabs of Mescaline (fron Worship and Tribute)
6) Babe (from EYEWTKAS)
7) Pink Roses (from Worship and Tribute)
8) Lovebites and Razorlines (from EYEWTKAS)
9) Ry Ry's Song (from EYEWTKAS)
10) Tip The Bartender (from Worship and Tribute)

Gossamer Albatross

This lovley, charming bunch of youngsters make dramatic, orchestral tinged and slightly barmy music that appeals to the eccentric in all of us. Well, in me at least. The disarming vibrato of the vocals, the subtle string melodies and the disturbing lyrics all compounded by the fact that these guys are still doing their A Levels makes for one of my favourite new bands. Yep.

Whispered Thoughts

Live at This Ain't No Picnic 2008

Band(s) of the Day(s) 08/09 - Gentle Friendly and Fugazi

2009-01-07T04:59:00.000-08:00

Shut up.

Gentle Friendly

Having heard the Night Tape EP last year, I made sure it wasn't one of the CD's that I regularly recycle. Throwing together reverberating keyboards being used as drone funnels, time changes, yelling and a general sense of anarchy sealed inside the restrictions of melody, Gentle Friendly excite me.

Fugazi

Every word I've written about Fugazi fails to convey how important they are. Everytime I hear or see something new that I haven't heard or seen before from them, I'm left gawping like some half-wit. I FINALLY started watching Instrument last night, and there's no doubt it's one of the most important musical documents of our time. That combined with their 6 albums and various EPs of work, the fact that their live shows were entirely unscripted and that Ian McKaye has always forged his own path, this petty little paragraph cannot do any justice to them. Perhaps it's best to just watch, listen and learn.

Turnover

Waiting Room

Blueprint

Mixtape:

1) Waiting Room (from Fugazi EP)
2) Caustic Acrostic (from End Hits)
3) Life and Limb (from The Argument)
4) Bed For The Scraping (from Red Medicine)
5) Styrofoam (from Repeater)
6) Burning Too (from Margin Walker EP)
7) Latin Roots (from Steady Diet Of Nothing)
8) Epic Problem (from The Argument)
9) I'm So Tired (from Instrument)
10) Last Chance For A Slow Dance (from In On The Kill Taker)

Band(s) of the Day(s) 07/08 - Sonic Youth and Three Trapped Tigers

2009-01-05T06:03:00.001-08:00

Fuck sake. I'm annoying myself now. Two for the price of one again.

Sonic Youth

Without Sonic Youth, I don't think I'd understand music quite as much as I do now. Even with fifteen studio albums to their name (and that obviously doesn't include any of the SYR recordings - most of which are live anyway - and the Ciccone Youth LP) I still discover new beauty and ugliness in what they do. Yes, there are passages of pure noise but the invention and discovery from the self-titled EP to the melodic heights of Rather Ripped is truly astonishing. Below are several videos, most live, which go from accessible to unlistenable and then, the final one, back to mainstream. This only gives a snippet of what the band have achieved and barely an iota of what has inspired thousands of other bands. Without Sonic Youth, rock music would've died a long time ago.

Teenage Riot

Brave Men Run (In My Family)

Burning Spear (why don't bands do this sort of thing anymore?)

Inhuman (on Brighton Beach!!!!)

The Empty Page

Mixtape:

Spotify Link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/5HRWmAEtvkhPRtggJ8X2Tp

1) Death Valley 69 (from Bad Moon Rising)
2) Dirty Boots (from Goo)
3) Shadow Of A Doubt (from Evol)
4) Sunday (from A Thousand Leaves)
5) The Good and the Bad (from Sonic Youth)
6) Shaking Hell (from Confusion Is Sex)
7) The Sprawl (from Daydream Nation)
8) Plastic Sun (from Murray Street)
9) Stereo Sanctity (from Sister)
10) The Diamond Sea (from Washing Machine)

Three Trapped Tigers

They make me want to scream their name from rooftops. Like swizzle sticks dispersing through molten magma, Three Trapped Tigers magnify the elements of math-rock labelled bands, process it through their own warped inventory and disperse it like thunderous electronic armies. Incredible. No videos, but check out their myspace for evidence of what I'm saying.

http://www.myspace.com/threetrappedtigers

Band(s) of the Day(s) 05/06 - Million Dead and Salem

2009-01-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

I'm not meant to be doing these in twos, so I'm already failing in my mission to provide you with a band a day. I'm sorry.

Million Dead

Once every few years there's a band that seems to completely define your musical viewpoint, lyrical leanings and passion for music. Million Dead was that band from 2003 to 2005. Within two albums, a handful of B-sides, EPs and rarities and, of course, their lethal live shows, Million Dead captured my early twenties and magnified them. Frank Turners incredible lyrics and fiery delivery provided the perfect foil for the blitzkrieg intensity behind - whether the minimal, wiry guitar of Cameron Dean or wild histrionics of Tom Fowler was driving it. That they've wrote and recorded at least four of my favourite songs of all time and that they mean so much, makes them one of the best bands of my entire life. Listen good children.

Living the Dream video - a song that sums up how I feel about music

Pornography For Cowards - abrasive, exhilirating, at the final London show in 2005

Sasquatch - one of my favourite songs ever; the end is just devastating

The Rise and Fall into My War by Black Flag - this is the only band I can imagine MEANING it this much.

This last one shows you shouldn't throw beer on drummers. Ever.

Finally a 10 track mixtape:

1) Bread and Circuses (from Harmony No Harmony)
2) Smiling At Strangers On Trains (from A Song To Ruin)
3) Sasquatch (from Living The Dream CD single)
4) (Tonight) Matthew (from Living The Dream 7" single)
5) Hipsterclad and Clueless/Epilogue (from Million Dead EP Two)
6) Asthma (unreleased from I Gave My Eyes To Stevie Wonder sessions)
7) Breaking The Back (from A Song To Ruin)
8) It's a Shit Business (from I Gave My Eyes To Stevie Wonder single)
9) Living the Dream (Harmony No Harmony)
10) The Rise and Fall (from A Song To Ruin)

Salem

Salem are one of those continual mutations from electronic roots which has turned into grimy, terrifying possibilities. Really one of the most exciting things I've heard since Crystal Castles - okay so they didn't deliver on their early promise, but I can't see how Salem can fail to. Forget Dubstep - this is the real sound of uneasy listening.

SALEM - DIRT from ACEPHALE on Vimeo.

Band(s) of the Day(s) 03/04 - Tubelord and Pavement

2009-01-01T01:29:00.001-08:00

Because I didn't do this yesterday for obvious reasons (that's right - I forgot), I get to do two bands of the day, because I'm a good looking rebel who plays by his own rules.

Tubelord

Being innoculated against their sheer melodic-influenza (or being naturally immune you unlucky people) feels like it would be the only way you could dislike Tubelord. I hear Biffy Clyro, Idlewild and Saves The Day in what they do, and this is of course incredible.

Pavement

I'm currently re-obssessed with Pavement, perhaps due to the reissue of Brighten The Corners, the first Pavement album I heard and finally understood. I have a theory, and the theory is this: the best bands of all time are bands where you just wonder why they thought it was a good idea to go into a studio and record. This isn't derogatory - I just can't fathom why anyone would spend money to record music that other people almost certainly wouldn't like; except they did. I'm so glad Pavement's five records exist and that I've heard them, something which is further enforced by the fact that even with around 30 extra tracks on the deluxe editions, they are flawless pieces of work.

An (obvious but amazing) 10 track mixtape then:

1) Stereo (from Brighten The Corners)
2) Zurich Is Stained (from Slanted & Enchanted)
3) Cut Your Hair (from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)
4) Grounded (from Wowiee Zowiee)
5) Date with IKEA (from Brighten The Corners)
6) Flux = Rad (from Wowiee Zowiee)
7) Shady Lane (from Brighten The Corners)
8) Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite at :17 (from Slanted & Enchanted)
9) You Are A Light (from Terror Twilight)
10) Gold Soundz (from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)

Oh and if you're at all wondering what the hell I'm doing up so early on New Year's Day...well, I'm going to work in an hours time, so WHO WINS HUH?!! WHO WINS??!!! It's probably you guys.

Band of the Day - 02: Mogwai

2008-12-30T06:51:00.000-08:00

"Music is bigger than words and wider than pictures." The most powerful set of words put to ominous, soothing static before the gentile rolling bass sets in.

Oh Mogwai, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

Having recently purchased Young Team, Mogwai's debut album, in it's repackaged 10th anniversary edition, I felt it necessary to remind myself why Mogwai - of all the post rock options out there - seem to have such an effect on me. Travelling back from Tunbridge Wells to Archway, Young Team soundtracks the journey. Every rubble strewn garden, each smoke chimney stack spouting out billious white clouds, masquerading as cumulus, each wandering soul following their own path - it's all filtered through Mogwai's anti-melodies (melodies which don't seem melodic, but rather rhythmic and elemental rather than harmonic and emotional) and heart-stopping, thunderous dynamics. Like Herod, for instance, scares the shit out of me.
My first experience of Mogwai was a chance purchase of Come On Die Young. The first track, Punk Rock, is one of the most thrilling, brooding and intense openers to any album. Iggy Pop's fascinating monologue about the violence and freedom of his music running counterpoint to a carefully plucked arpeggio ringing throughout, it's truly one of my favourite pieces of music.

Mogwai are a constant - they don't need to reinvent or innovate - they simply exist and seethe. Their first four records are sublime, with Rock Action and Happy Songs For Happy People all containing highlights. Mr Beast is certainly a great record too, but at this point they've said all they've needed to say - now they are simply satellites orbiting around a sphere they helped create with chunks of their creativity, and consistently threaten to tear away from the gravitational pull.

Here's an example of why Mogwai should never go unheard.

If you haven't fallen in love with this, maybe music isn't your thing.

A 10 track mixtape, which will accompany all bands who have more than one album release.

Spotify link: http://open.spotify.com/user/artbaretta/playlist/2zxpX4XLr2Ojq9AHsp6Kah

1) Punk Rock (from Come On Die Young)
2) Like Herod (from Young Team)
3) Killing All the Flies (from Happy Songs For Happy People)
4) We're No Here (from Mr Beast)
5) Sine Wave (from Rock Action)
6) You Don't Know Jesus (from Rock Action)
7) My Father The King (from My Father The King single)
8) Helicon 2 (Max Tundra Remix) (from Kicking A Dead Pig: Mogwai Songs Remixed)
9) Kappa (from Come On Die Young)
10) Mogwai Fear Satan (from Young Team)

Band of the Day - 01: Foot Village

2008-12-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

Hello. Because every blog does it, I'm doing it too. I'm choosing a band a day every day, per day. Because I can. Also because I want to show how much I give a shit about trends, hype and looking for the NEXT BIG THING, each band will be what I want to talk about, whether they're new in 2009 or were new in 1934. I don't care.

Anyway, one of my favourite singles of 2008 was Clubtraxxx by Foot Village. (Go dig up the Artrocker copy with it in - it's clearly the best single review of the year). Can you see why I love them so?

Rants In D Minor

2008-12-29T04:56:00.000-08:00

Musical movements Brad doesn't understand:

1) Dubstep

Isn't this just garage and two-step in a headon collision with grime? Perhaps one of the least exciting genres of dance music ever.

2) The New Eccentrics

The new No Name?

3) Darkwave

BOTH versions of it. There has been little good music from the current trend for wearing black and making a boring, droney racquet. Go listen to Earth or Sunno))) you fucking bores.

4) Anti-Folk

But...you sound like folk to me!

My End-Of-Year In Lists

2008-12-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

From the snappy, clever, witty Los Campesinos! related title to the final, award winning (I gave it to myself, alright?) sentence at the end, this is clearly going to be the most important thing you'll read all year.

First I'd like to take time out to reassure you that this will NOT be my Top billion albums of 2008. For that go to www.myspace.com/playmusicpickup to see my Top 5's. What it wil be though is a list, in no particular order, of the albums that got little or no attention whatsoever. Knicked wholesale from Drowned In Sound, my list is different to theirs, just so no one notices. Oops.

School of Seven Bells - Alpinism

Cursed with the late-in-the-year (better than being Late Of The Pier - arf) syndrome, this glorious shoegaze scenic-scope debut - featuring an ex member of the godawful Secret Machines - is actually one of the best things I've heard in ages. Painted with the scrapings of Alpine air, it feels as if it's floating above and beyond most people's pop horizons. Forget MGMT (if you can stop being reminded about them every ten seconds by EVERY list this year), this was the soaring pop gem of 2008.

The Chap - Mega Breakfast

Making as much sense as trying to literally split hairs, The Chaps electronic-leaning hyper-eclectic blend is both fascinating and hilarious. Taking themselves seriously about a tenth of an iota, this playful, explosive and innovative record shouldn't be ignored. This band has been around for ages, and this record represents the point where they became an extremely engaging concern for the UK.

Shield Your Eyes - Shield Your Eyes

Seriously, I've been banging on about these lot for an age. Why? Because I adore Meet Me In St Louis, one of the saddest losses of the year. Still, never mind because Toby found himself with long-term musician buddy Stef and formed one of the most violently surprising prospects I've seen in ages. Their album was recorded live, in a circle with mics dangling from the ceiling. Stef practically tore his guitar apart playing the songs - bending the neck, tearing strings off, detuning, his rapid-fire Rory Gallagher-inspired blues-esque attack laden with extreme pinch harmonics and off key chords. His rough vocals leave room for Toby's effortless delivery. THe whole package - octopus percussion, dramatic bass riffs - all feel like the collapse of sanity, yet represent heartbreak, love and an enormous amount of passion. It needs to be channelled through many, many ears.

Rings - Black Habit

A feminist boxing glove of an album, its occasionally improvised nature means tunes dwindle and skate around the outside of accepted harmony - which is naturally a very good thing. Speaking of natural, it all feels like the whole album flows even in the face of musical obstacles. It's a flood that threatens to rise and rise until you're engulfed. You soon are, and there's little you can do but get carried away.

Abe Vigoda - Skeleton

Perhaps more well known than the others above due to the band's association with The Smell - and by extention, No Age, HEALTH and Mika Miko - yet no one bothered to point out that its wild experiments within a strangely tropical wasteland was an overwhelmingly positive thing in 2008. It could be compared to another inescapable record (Vampire Weekend's debut) yet, ambiguously, it's so far removed in approach, ambition and vibe that they may aswell be alien languages in comparison to each other. This, as you may well know, is a VERY good thing, regardless if you like VW or not.

Frank Turner - Love, Ire and Song

Criminally demolished by critics, these people just aren't listening with their hearts. I find it hard to abandon my emotions when indulging in music, so it's obvious that Frank's passionate, poignant and amusing tales of excess, heartbreak and life would hit a resonating key. Yes, his lyrics are skillfully moulded pottery with ornate artwork carefully painted upon them within a ramshackle house of rock, but that house is a fun, melodic and vibrant place. Mandolins, timpani and fiddles give streaks of colour to solid songwriting that should capture the hearts and minds of anyone who's ever had any experience of life, good or bad.

These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid

So it took six months to get it into this journo's stubborn skull that this band have produced one of the most exciting debuts in recent times, but I got there. It's the brutality of simplicity. Drums are singular, purposeful thuds; electronics are subtle or seething; samples are blaring urban mayhem; guitars are stuttery, post-punk bleakness - and the vocals. The vocals are strident, walking tall amongst a clutter of menacing shadows - it's a young man walking down an alley spitting out the most insane couplets to all and sundry, DARING them to challenge him. Brave bold and boastful, it's worth it's entire weight in soul.

This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You

While I could never claim to be a wild fan of post-rock, I definitely adore certain records. This one has yet to settle into my mind yet it's beauty, severeness and boiling fury hasn't passed me by. It's an album where the sounds of the universe turning are more important than the microcosm of Earth. It resonates frighteningly with each listen and, like Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky and Do Make Say Think before them, there's no doubt that instrumental music speaks volumes to those attuned to it.

I defy you not to love these records. They are just as worthy of being in any Top 10 records of 2008, but they are, by and large, not. Not even my own, and I feel ashamed of that. Actually, SYE is, but I've only just discovered School of Seven Bells and the others lit up my year more than most records. Notable mentions to Gang Gang Dance, Autechre and about twenty other incredible records. This may need updating tomorrow.

The Future's Bright

2008-10-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Some positivity needs to be injected here before I go off onto some further furious missive.

Recently, the fertile lands of the UK have norn forth a plethora of incredible bands. I would like to take this time to eulogise about some of them

Shield Your Eyes

I was the lucky recipient of the album this morning and, bearing in mind my PC only has one (left-hand) speaker at the moment, this might well be the best thing released all year. Containing Toby ex of MMISL, the record is an unfathomable blend of dizzying styles. The guitar noises - every squeak, fretless bend, pinch harmonic, divebomb - sound like faulty machinery transcending the digital age and imitating heavy metal. Time changes are de riguer and happen every 6 seconds or so, vocals remain passionate, resolute and angry throughout and the end result is of a mess resembling order.

Blakfish

New post-hardcore heroes - their EP See You In Another City is chock full of dramatic dynamics and throat stripping refrains. ANy EP that begins with a song called Preparing For Guests about not wanting to clean your house - including at least three of my favourite riffs and a tapping solos and outro and the lyrics "No one comments on the state of this house..it's like we're lying to all of our friends, this place will never be this tidy again" "Give me a strong reason to not have to bother to hoover my room, I've even tidied up all my shoes" - is probably the best EP released this year. The solid state of Jeremy Kyle Is A Marked Man is delightful and, what's more, apparently they're incredible live.

Tubelord

I recently described these guys as "Saves the Day meets Biffy Clyro". It's pretty accurate if I do say so myself. Their incredible use of harmonies, gentle guitar parts, violent explosions of distorted wreckage and brilliant musicianship is at the heart of the band. The icing on the cake is the high-pitched lead vocal, the singer's insistent on raising and lowering his knee in time with the music live, and the complete nonchalance with which they deliver these complex, emotionally driven songs. BSM single Feed Me A Box Of Words is already an anthem in the making and I can't say enough about how good this little band is. So I'll stop there.

That's just three. I could also wax lyrical about Cats In Paris, Alan MX, And So I Watch You From Afar, Copy Haho and Gossamer Albatross. But you should just go listen yourself and then recommend me some bands that are incredible.

I Is Music Journalist (The Continuing Saga)

2008-07-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

"Only the truly ignorant could deny that MGMT are one of the most ambitious, audacious and truly great new bands in a longtime."

No. Only the truly ignorant can dismiss the opinions of legions of people who will admit to liking Time To Pretend but see MGMT as nothing but a hollow, musical menangerie of boring influences and even more boring melodies. I mean, fuck anyone who thinks this is even a coherent statement. Even if I said this about These New Puritans or HEALTH, it wouldn't be true. How dare anyone call another music fan ignorant for disliking a band, their attitude or even their dress sense?! Of course, if it was in jest or with a nudge and a wink, fine. But it isn't. It's spiteful, nasty and superior.

So: MGMT are fucking awful. Deal with it.

Taking Them Down A Peg

2008-05-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not one for excluding anyone from creating music, sounds, noise and releasing it into the public domain, nor am I against anyone attempting to contribute to the industry surrounding all these individuals making music, sounds and noise. Perhaps though, there should be a far more even playing field for everyone to engage on.

This means NO MORE records from the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Aygness Deyne, Paris Hilton and whoever else already has a career and wants to inflict their musical tastes on us. I also resent articles written about famous musicians daughters being in the industry = Scarlet Page is NOT the fucking best photographer in modern music. She photographs boring bands in a completely bland way. Why the hell are we celebrating he-- oh, yeah. Because she was born from the loins of the guy who penned Stairway To Heaven.
Well then, the day Scarlett Johansson gets on the cover of NME is the day music di-- shit.
Okay, the day someone named after a fruit gets famous for being related t--- hang on, there's at least two of them.
Erm...the day bit part actors get hyped to the extreme in bands with stupid names is-- ah, that git from Peep Show.

These are all sticking points for me. I'm not particularly vehement against them of course - as I explained above, I'm not AGAINST these people taking part. Perhaps, though we can reserve the pawing, worshipping and column inches for actual musical relevance rather than celebrity status. Is this too much to ask? I suppose the other problem is musicians being thrown into celebrity status. Perhaps they should be banned from tabloid front pages too. I'm all for that.

I Is Music Journalist (IV)

2008-03-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

You know the drill. First the offending example:

"Frank Turner is back. Whether you like it or not. The Winchester songwriter with dodgy hardcore roots and political pretentions (brought on by a penchant for Billy Bragg) promises a more mature and reflective approach to his craft on this, his second solo album. A modernist nod with a touch of irony, ‘I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’, is an intriguing song title, and one that is let down by a tedious trawl through Frank’s mates' names and their boring hobbies presented in a sort of English Dashboard Confessional strum-along shout-along, almost rousing but always embarrassing celebration of being a bit privileged and a bit arty and a bit like everyone I went to sodding school with.
The theme continues with recent single ‘Photosynthesis’, in which Frank sings about how he refuses to grow up: “All my friends are getting married, and mortgages and pension plans… I won’t sit down / and I won’t shut up / and most of all, yeah, I won’t grow up.” Maybe this is an uplifting rallying cry for some ‘young adults’ but frankly it riles me. Does this make you better than them, Frank? Does it really? Because to me it just makes you sound spoilt, spiteful and insubstantial, and I’ve never felt more like I wanted to stop listening to Blink 182 and get a job in a bank, lest I turn out like you.
I first saw Frank playing in a beach hut in Cornwall. His performance was brash and assured and pretty impressive. Very much a natural successor to the urbane folk of the Dylans and Braggs of yesterday, but lyrically awkward at times. “That’ll change,” I thought. Nope. Frank’s got a strong voice, but, like so many, he’s just shouting above the din of mediocrity for the sake of shouting. He has absolutely nothing to say. Inasmuch as you couldn’t here (SP) what they were saying, Million Dead might even have worked better (though let’s not call for a reunion tour just yet). ‘Love Ire & Song’ is a great example of this. Frank’s riling against “idiot fucking hippies” who ruined his enjoyment of whatever protest march he last got drunk on is as crass as his insistence that “Your parents let the world all go to shit”. The latter line is as inane and embarrassing as his former revelation that “Thatcher fucked the kids”. (Really, Frank? Why don’t you write a fucking song about it. Oh, wait…) This is protest music for people with no understanding of or interest in the world around them and the way it works: It’s as myopic and hateful as any proper ‘hippie shit’, any goth niche drivel or any nazi reggae. I can’t imagine a viable demographic outside of his guest list.
His love songs aren’t much more enlightening; “Who’d have thought that a French kiss from a Parisian girl could capture an English boy?” Erm, everyone? It’s a shame that this song’s so lyrically trite because otherwise it’d be one of the few with a powerful enough composition to save this record some face. As it is, it comes across as deeply immature and, sadly, shows none of the progress in song writing that’s been promised. Closing track 'Jet Lag' makes one yearn for a parachute. Save it for open mic night at The Railway Inn, mate. Amongst the endless Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Levellers covers these songs might stand out, but in the cold light of the record shop, I ain’t buying it."

Now I declare my interests.
First up, this was pulled from a website called Playlouder.com which is just a mess of album images and words. I don't understand what it's meant to be and certainly isn't that important. As far as I can tell it's a reader review. I can't actually find the review on the site anymore (hence no link).
Second, I'm a massive fan of Franky T. His band Million Dead is one my favourite post-hardcore bands of all time, and I love my post-hardcore. His solo EP and album will never be erased from my mind, my history or my life. They mean far too much. I've met the man himself on many an occasion and interviewed him three times. I even went to the album launch party a few nights back.
Now let's actually see what's wrong with this review.

"The Winchester songwriter with dodgy hardcore roots and political pretentions"

Correct, he's from Winchester. Dodgy hardcore roots? What? A man who played in two major hardcore related bands (that'd be Kneejerk aswell as MD) in his teens and early twenties, has seen every major and minor UKHC band that ever existed and imploded - check out his UKHC tattoo on his arm and I'd refer you to an hour long drunken conversation in a Birmingham hotel bar about the hardcore scene that he and I engaged in back in 2006 - and survived tours with little food or sleep. He's as skinny as a rake for fuck sake! Thats borderline malnutrition. Have a look at early Fugazi live shows, and see how fucking skeletal they were! There are reasons for that. It's called not being able to afford to eat. MD played upwards of 200 shows between 2001 and 2005. Frank, a man educated at Eton, has definitely paid his dues. Fuck off.

"A tedious trawl through Frank’s mates' names and their boring hobbies presented in a sort of English Dashboard Confessional strum-along shout-along, almost rousing but always embarrassing celebration of being a bit privileged and a bit arty and a bit like everyone I went to sodding school with."

Sucks to be you. It's hardly a celebration of being privileged and arty. I'd say its more a celebration of having friends who are as committed to their music, and the music of others, and having as good a time as possible on as little money, kudos or love as they receive or earn. It's a call to arms as much as a self-deprecating dig at their own ambitions.

"Lyrically awkward at times." "He has absolutely nothing to say."

Frank is one of my favourite lyricists. Why? Because he absolutely has something to say with almost every sentence. You just have to take half of what he says with a pinch of salt. See, as a reviewer, I try my hardest to avoid analysing lyrics. This is partially because I criticsed a Million Dead lyric once, out of a desperate attempt to fend of criticism about my reviews which always seemed overly positive, and got totally demolished for it, despite the fact that Frank had also got the wrong end of the stick with what I was criticising. The main reason though, is that lyrics are open to intepretation just as much as they are personal to the writer. Here, this guy comes off as a humourless and rather staid personality. He seems to have missed such gems as "If music was the food of love then I'd be a fat romantic slob", "Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and about furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, and they help us with remembering that the only thing thats left to do is live", "I'm not as awesome as awesome as this song makes out, I'm angry underweight and sketching out, I'm building bonfires on my vanities and doubts" and some others. The last line also shits on accusations of being "spoilt, spiteful and insubstantial" and thinking that "this make(s) (Frank) better than them". Lesson: if you're going to make accusations, make sure you back them up with solid evidence and not conjuncture.

"This is protest music for people with no understanding of or interest in the world around them and the way it works"

No, this is protest music from an Eton educated rebel who is educated in vast amounts of European history, has travelled around the globe while touring and with friends and is actually pastiching his own sense of disappointment at the hypocritical efforts of said protests. C'mon! Isn't it bloody obvious!

"It’s a shame that this song’s so lyrically trite because otherwise it’d be one of the few with a powerful enough composition to save this record some face.
As it is, it comes across as deeply immature and, sadly, shows none of the progress in song"

This song is based on intensely personal experiences - if it's a little lyrically immature, for fuck sake the guy was in love when he wrote the song! You're gonna come out with a few stumbling lines aren't you! That's why it's so affecting - what love song has ever gone through psychological and philosophical meanderings, and has managed to make you cry? That's right, none. They are all lyrically trite, but they will still be evocative and beautiful. The moment where the crescendo drops and Frank starts singing "So honey, when you're lonely on the road, you're all on your own, hanging out sad at the back of the country show, picture me there with my hat down low, a smile upon my face to let you know I would like to take you home" has made me well up on many an occasion. Not to mention the fact that he gets to briefly mention about "King's blood on the tricolour". That's history good!

"Closing track 'Jet Lag' makes one yearn for a parachute."

Nice juxtaposition of flight reference as criticism. Exactly what has the writer criticised though? What is it about Jet Lag that is so offensive? He hasn't even said why you'd want a parachute. What were you doing flying in the first place? Perhaps you should never have got on the plane.

Here is my main point and why this review gets to me. There has been no effort to criticise the music in any meaningful, expressive or intelligent way. These are three different things, and not all of them are essential to any review. You can be expressive without being intelligent (the best kind of scathing reviews) for instance. Here, though, there is only hate being spewed in the direction of Frank which comes across almost as jealousy. There is no attempt at explaining just why the music is so despicable, only that the lyrics make Frank sound "arty and privileged". What's wrong with a musician having these characteristics anyway? Have you ever met Frank? You'd soon reassess this assertion (after he's reassessed your facial features - THIS IS A JOKE EVERYONE).

Anyway, further examples of spiteful attacking journalism go here: http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_album.php?id=6602
Then see the rebuttal and the rebuttal of the rebuttal.
Call me a hypocrite if you like, but at least I fucking admit it. Oh, and I don't believe I've ever, EVER got personal. Unlike the rebuttal. Which is fucking inaccurate. I have a full head of flowing locks thank you very much. Balding indeed. Twats.

PS. That Soul Destroyer review is the worst review I've ever written. Period. It's fucking awful. I must've been so tired. But the rebuttal to the rebuttal is excellent. One of the best rebuttals ever written. I regret nothing.

List 3 (Yay-Centric!)

2008-02-27T14:44:00.000-08:00

Awww.....this will be the last list for a while. But I just had to post my excitement at finding these stashed away in the drawer.

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Husker Du - Everything Falls Apart and more.../Warehouse
Bloc Party - EP
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

I thought I'd lost these! Basically you should listen to these along with everything mentioned BELOW.

Soon, I will write something of interest. I promise.

Guitar Hero (List 2)

2008-02-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

I've just realised what a sad sorry state the legacy of guitar heroes is in. Right now, think of all the up to date popular bands of the moment - Hadouken!, The Enemy, Joe Lean, Foals, Fall Out Boy, Paramore....
Amongst them, there is not one guitar hero. There is not one maverick, intensely exciting guitar manipulator who crosses lines, punctuates music with noise or will pioneer a new style.
All I can do is look to those who have inspired me.
Jimi Hendrix - not the bluesey, widdley Hendrix that everyone seems to make up in their heads having not listened to a note of his music, but rather the guitar-shagging, feedback-howling, Star Spangled Banner-mangling fiend who set fire to his guitar, allowed his sound to degenerate into a sonic mess and genuinely reached for the stars with his sound.
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins - a man who tracked 40 guitars onto one song in order to destroy planets with it.
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine - a hip-hop enthusiast who wanted to put DJs out of business by replicating whistle calls and vinyl scratching on guitar.
Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo of Sonic Youth - a duo who followed the teachings of Glenn Branca (a man who would create "human chords" by tuning a guitar's six strings all to one note and subsequently compose a chord from separate players) by jamming drumsticks under the strings of the twelfth fret, using contact mics attached to drills upon pickups, who scraped, pulled and abused the guitar as much as played a note.
Spiral Stairs and Stephen Malkmus of Pavement - who played beautiful passages of country-esque clean melodies, dropping countless bum notes into their arpeggios and then blasted the cobwebs with ugly, broken distortion.
Dave Knudson from Botch/Minus The Bear - his reverb soaked, melodic patterns fill the air with electric neon lights and rugged textures the Edge could only wet-dream of.
Kurt Cobain of Nirvana - a troubled young man who frequently disregarded harmonic theory and played with violence and emotion.
Ian McKaye and Guy Picciotto of Fugazi - two hardcore pioneers who bled reggae and emo -core influences, creating awkward, vibrant and angular sounds which verged on metal.
Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs - a simple garage punk riffer who seemed more concerned with learning detuned death metal inbetween recordings, yet ended up garotting, caressing and tickling you with the simplest sounds.
Matt Bellamy of Muse - taking after his heroes, he summoned spaceships and solar systems with his hyperactive classical style loaded with distortion and built-in Kaos Pad fury.
Dave Lake of KaitO - one of the hardest losses of recent years, Kaito's guitarist loaded his frontwoman's simple chords with the most avant-garde explorations of noise/melody heard in the last five years.
Graham Coxon of Blur - seriously. Listen to his playing on Country House, then listen to This Is A Low, then listen to the stammering riff of On Your Own, then listen to the solo of Country Sad Ballad Man. A guy who used to throw his Telecaster into the air as high as possible at gigs to see what it sounded like HAS to be worshipped.
Dylan Carlson of Earth - picture this: Dylan walks on stage, turns the amp on, turns up the volume, leans his guitar against the amplifier so as to promote vibration feedback then steps out into the crowd. 40 minutes later, after the drummer has exhausted himself, Dylan emerges from the crowd, switches off the amp and walks off stage with his bandmates. Truly a genius.
Glenn Branca - I've mentioned him already, but just check out one of his solos on youtube. Since when did pick scrapes, mind-melting volume and total atonal noise constitute a solo? Probably since he did it, and guitar playing/music/the world is all the better for it.
William and Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain - without any intention of learning to play, William would hang a guitar round his neck like bling and allow the guitar to howl with feedback. Better than a Slash solo.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine - used a different set of effects pedals for each song and warped the speakers of hundreds of indie kids with Loveless, an album that took five years in a studio and bankrupted Creation Records, mainly because Shields fucked up the guitar mixes with insane walls of noise.

I could go on forever. There are so many players who make me want to un-learn the guitar, piece together masterpieces of eternal musical/experimental value and wreck eardrums. What are the youth doing about it? Listen to Health, Crystal Castles and School of Language. Listen to Die! Die! Die! and Popular Workshop. Listen to anything where guitars don't sound like guitars, or do sound like guitars, but like you were the one who invented the instrument, and be inspired to wreck the legacy of assumed guitar heroes forever. I never ever ever want to hear 12 bar blues played in my presence again. I never want to hear a classic rock riff played in front of me. I want to hear people who can't play. I want to hear people who would rather use the acoustics of the room coupled with overloading homemade pedals to capture something that may never be played again. Let's do it. Let's burn the blueprints, the chord maps, the tablature, restring our guitars with random guages and start playing with fish hooks attached to our fingers. I can't imagine anything more exciting than this.

Let's Get Positive (List 1)

2008-02-24T08:14:00.000-08:00

Things around here have been far too negative of late, and it's bringing me down. So let's reflect on the fact that, two months in, I have heard some incredible music:

Health - Health * Yes I know this came out last year but it's official UK release is Feb
Autechre - Quaristice *Yes I know it's their ninth album, but it's fresher than anything else I've heard this year
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing *Yes I know its pure noise, but on this showing, that's far better than melody
Les Savy Fav - Inches * Yes I know it's a reissue but I don't give a flip, it's still snap crackle and pop
School of Language - Ship From Shore* Yes I know it sounds like Field Music but this should be encouraged wherever possible
Envelopes - Here Comes The Wind* Yes I know they have a boring name, but they are the musical equivalent of exploding space hoppers piloted by Oompa-Loompahs
Chris T-T - Capital *Yes I know it's the end of a trilogy, but it gives Godfather a run for its money
Frank Turner - Love, Ire & Song *Yes it's so much better than the excellent 2007 debut
This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You *Yes, just turn the volume up
Charlottefield - What Are Friends For *Yes without a bloody question mark, it's a statement
MIT - live at Barfly *Yes I know the album's disappointing but live they are INCREDIBLE

This is without mentioning Shield Your Eyes (ex MMISL), Maths Class, MGMT, Vessals, Throats, and countless other musics I have yet to discover.

Also I've been digging through my archives, and look what impossibly amazing gems I rediscovered (for the sixtieth time)
Pavement - Their entire back catalogue apart from Westing and Wowiee Zowiee which I don't own
Fugazi - Steady Diet Of Nothing and The Argument
The Appleseed Cast - Mare Vitalis
Mineral - The Power of Failing (specifically Parking Lot)
Love Is All - Nine Times The Same Song
Weezer - Pinkerton
Mogwai - Come On Die Young and Rock Action
Sonic Youth - their entire back catclogue apart from Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped, Jet Set... and NYC... which I don't own
Blood Brothers - Crimes
Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

...and loads more.

Look at the happy smiles on yours and my faces!!:D
Back to regular service as soon as someone pisses me off again....

I Is Music Journalist (III)

2008-02-17T06:12:00.000-08:00

You know, I don't intentionally go out searching for material from other music journalists to criticse, but it just seems to be open season right now. Check this appalling piece of music journalism:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/dizzee-rascal-i-still-get-the-bullshit-that-black-boys-get-783288.html

Sarcastic? Attempting to inject some comedy into proceedings? Admits he can't be arsed to think up good questions (well, he admits he's going to give up, meaning he hasn't held Dizzee's attention, so the implication is there)? This is terrible.
Now speaking from experience, Dylan Mills isn't an easy interviewee. He does come across as disinterested and rather irritated with the fact that he has to be there in front of you, answering your questions as if under interrogation. He admitted during my interview that he understands the role of the press, and just does it because he has to. Fair enough.
Now, where Cole went wrong (bearing in mind that I definitely understand that sometimes interviewees have bad days) is that he never engaged with Dizzee. He didn't talk about music for a start, and if he did, he didn't follow it up because he wanted something jucier, something more tabloid or sensationalist. Now, this means, that the interview should never have been printed, or even commissioned in the first place. Dizzee Rascal becomes animate, interested and respectful once you're talking about his music, or any music. He lives for music. He can't start his day without it. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most passionate musician I've interviewed about music itself. This was our common ground - I enjoyed my time with Dizzee Rascal, and I believe the feeling was mutual. For Cole to get sarcastic because he wasn't getting the responses he wanted is unprofessional and condascending to Independent readers.
Once I get the PDF of my Rascal piece for Playmusic from the relevant people, I will link to it/post it here for comparison. Frankly, my article blows this professional journalist's out of the water. Do we REALLY still want to read shit like this? REALLY??

I Is Music Journalist (II)

2008-02-13T12:14:00.000-08:00

I found this today. Sigh....
"But these things only get truly offensive when the audience gets some of the steaming action. At least the singer with The Dismemberment Plan had the good grace to crap in a towel which he then wrapped in a plastic bag before he threw it into the crowd one hungover Sunday morning at Reading Festival."

Question: who was this written by and for what blog, on what website?

Answer: someone whose writing I so admired that it convinced me choose this route of poverty to write for music magazines. It can be found on his blog on NME.com.

The Dismemberment Plan = emo pop
The Dillinger Escape Plan = jazz-flecked metalcore
Mark Beaumont = wrong
Me = sigh

*sigh*

I Is Music Journalist

2008-02-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

Okay so this is perhaps the worst case of journalism (online or otherwise) I've ever seen.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/les-savy-fav
(I hope this article doesn't get removed otherwise you're just gonna have to trust me)

What I'm really hoping is that he's not actually employed by The Word - whose blatantly false slogan atop their magazine and website is "Home of Intelligent Life on Planet Rock" - and that this writer hacked their website.
Seriously - it must be a reader review. Not that I think he reads much. When a journalist admits to not knowing anything about a HEADLINING act - there are two questions that spring to mind: 1) What the fuck are you doing there and 2) Isn't part of your job to, well, research what you review/criticise?
What I despise more than his indecent dismissal of Future Of The Left is the fact that his highlight was Los Campesinos! Hell, I didn't see them, but I don't care. It smacks of HOT FOR 2008 bias. Los Compesinos! are a great band, but to say Les Savy Fav are "slightly arty shouty punk metal" pretty much demonstrates, to me at least, that this guy should not be writing for the website of a magazine that I thought I respected. Fucking hell.

Music journalism these days is utter tosh. The majority of higher profile writers are terrible, ill informed and not at all entertaining. I could ramble on about a one-man crusade that I'm waging, but that's not true because there are tonnes of amazing writers out there - except they are writing FOR FREE. How is this fair? Sure, shit writers don't necessarily get money too, but then they shouldn't even be writing.
Now you're probably thinking: "Oh you're clearly a FOTL/LSF fanboy who doesn't like this writer's opinion". Fuck you. Fuck you and your judgmental idiocy. I love both of those bands, but anyone with basic reading skills can see that the opinions have practically been spat onto the keyboard and the phlegm smeared across keys which the spellcheck has picked up and formed into actual sentences.
Well....perhaps not. But the only entertainment value here is in this display of incompetence of this man's (boy's?) literacy and journalistic skills. I could now trail the internet searching for other examples that rile me, but I've got far too much to do. I just despair that as I write about bands I love and hate - yet still create pieces worth reading, if only for enjoyment - with passion, conviction and talent, others are squandering web space (which is pretty much infinite, but it's still a bad use of space) with this utter drivel. Seriously, fuck substandard writers and ESPECIALLY lazy music journalists. Go read about/listen to bands that have been around for a decade before you review them. It's not hard. It's in fact your fucking job.

PS Brad apologises for any bad grammar or spell-check failiures in the body of this post. He is clearly fucked off enough to not bloody care.
PPS. Expect more shitkicking of terrible music journalism at a later date.

Bands To Avoid in 2008 Part One

2008-01-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

1. Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong
I have not heard a convincing reason why these indie fops should be considered anything other than well-connected industry players. At least The Strokes had some good tunes. The only possible defence has been their single Lucio Starts Fires, which is already the least memorable tune of the past 6 months. They are truly unremarkable to the point of needing to be burned.
Instead: anything. Seriously anything.

2. Foals
Pitchfork are already up their arses, which is surprising because Yannis is already taking root up there himself. Sure, their first shows were lively, diverting and fun, but it's mildly depressing that this incarnation of rippling math rock is going to supercede Battles and Don Caballero in popularity. Don't be suckered in.
Instead: Popular Workshop - intense, passionate awkward Sonic Youth-inspired noise

3. The Courteeners
Your bullshit detector should've already dismissed these lads as NME fodder, which they are. This year's Reverend and the Makers or The Enemy, we seem not to have realised that big mouths weren't why Oasis did so well. They had a knack for a fantastic tune too. Something these lads just don't have.
Instead? : Glasvegas - emotional, Scottish-Walkmen.

4. The Ting Tings
More and more bands are about image, fame and "the sound of now". This is why they should all be ignored in favour of amazing bands that went before. This pop duo, sounding like a more bolshy Kate Nash, gives you all your "everyone is a fucking sucker" needs.
Instead?: Operator Please - Australian, write actual tunes, with violins

5. Duffy, Adele, whoever else wants to be Amy Winehouse
Look. Winehouse is REALLY fucking good at what she does. Other people...they just aren't. Why these two were picked for the top of the wise old BBC's Sounds of 2008, I can only imagine. They are contributing nothing to the canon of soul songs which informed me of what emotional music is really about. They are just boring the passion out of me.
Instead?: Emmy The Great, Frank Turner, Jacob Golden - three singer songwriters with soul, lyrics and great songs.

The Best Records of 2007 That You Ignored

2007-11-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

A quick blog to fufil my occasional blogging quota. I hope to do this a lot more often pretty soon. Basically: I've had a few major disasters this year, the most critical being the malfunction of my precious 350GB external hardrive, with pretty much everything I've ever written or taken a photo of trapped inside, inaccessible to anyone but a group of people who can get the poor blighters out for the price of around £400 - £800. Also ensconsed within is every shard of the 120 GB of music I had stored on there. As a result I've had to get the hard copies out and start burning them back to my PC. However, while doing this, I've realised just how many amazing records were released this year and how little attention I've given them all. It's been a tough year to hear everything I've wanted to and it's only now that I'm forced to listen to snippets as they replicate themselves onto the internal storage device inside this renegade computer that I've missed out on some astonishing listening. So have you lot. Don't lie. I know you have. So a quick sentence about each...so far.

!!! -Myth Takes
Funk that actually rocks, !!!'s third record is a loose, passionate, vibrant record.

Emmure - Goodbye To The Gallows
While everyone was pissing themselves over a band me and my cohorts were talking about last October, Emmure came out with the heaviest album I've heard all year. Aggressive and peerless.

Dog Day - Night Group
A review appears somewhere early on in my blogging exploits. It's not gonna change the world but it will certainly remind it how much power the Pixies wielded in 1989.

Tiger Force - A Wasp In A Jar
About ten minutes long. Eight tracks. Fun in extremely small doses. Excellent.

Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere
I haven't even listened past track 2 and it's already turning out to be one of my favourite records this year.

65DaysofStatic - The Destruction Of Small Ideas
Glitching, distorted post rock that sounds as clinical as it does destructive.

Explosions In The Sky - Suddenly, I Miss Everyone
OK so no one forgot this, especially as they're curating ATP next year, but just for The Birth And Death of the Day, this deserves t be forgotten, then rediscovered each time you listen to it.

Desperado - Thugs
Hardcore Refused style - and it's as brutal as it is melodic

The Narrator - All That To The Wall
I know nothing about this apart from it's hyperactive and brilliant

Prinzhorn Dance School - S/T
No one talked about this band despite it being on DFA. It's minimalist, mornic and intense. I love it.

Cutting Pink With Knives - Populuxxe
Maybe you didn't even know about it. Possible the most invigorating record this year.

There's so many more. Also, look out for a lovely blog entitled Bands You Should Avoid In 2008.
Hurridly signing out. Brad....

Meet Me In St Louis

2007-09-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

So, I don't think I've waxed lyrical enough about the Meet Me In St Louis album.
Here's my subba-cultcha review: http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_album.php?id=5989

But in addition:

I have spent the last thirty to forty minutes just sitting here and admiring the Kalashnikov noise that stutters and spits out from minute one of Variations On Swing. Math rock is the term that would probably best describe what they do, but unlike some other exponants, there is very little screaming and very little repetition of ideas within songs. In fact, there aren't many moments that could be called typical song structures.
Even the token acoustic song, Sorry, I Beat Up The Bathroom, sounds like no ballad I've ever imagined. It's brutal, meancing, harrowing, beautiful and utterly beguiling. Fuck Foals. They are unbelivably overrated. Maps and Atlases are great but MMISL have captured my imagination far more than those Americans. It's like Million Dead all over again - innovative guitar work, a thundering rhythm section and a brilliant vocalist. I never thought I'd say that.
When all is said and done, when my day has been tiring and frustrating, when my week has been a series of ups and downs, this can soundtrack my mind's pulsating schizophrenia.
Now to listen to Smiling At Strangers On Trains.....

Stupid Names In Rock Should Be Culled

2007-08-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

While our British summer collapses under the weight of blanket rainclouds, I just thought I'd ward you off from this band....

I'm just gonna quote this piece of eloquent put down by yours truly - to be seen in it's entirety in the current Artrocker issue in my part of the Latitude review - about a band and I'd like you to take it on board.
"Joe Lean and his (sigh) Jing Jang Jongs are a terribly mediocre but (apparently) stylish outfit. Joe Lean is one of the weakest frontmen this correspondent has ever seen. To hear that they have been signed to a major is, frankly, worthy of a riot. Which this lot aren't."

Now, if you choose to, go see what the NME wrote in last week's issue and dismiss it entirely. The rot MUST stop here. I am sick, sick, sick of untalented men dressed like The Strokes (or how they think The Strokes might dress in 2007) making music that was boring when it was popular first-time round. I could rant about so many bands, but this one we can stop early. We can cut them off at the pass. How? By never, ever, mentioning them again...unless you use my quote, in which case, go nuts.

More vitriol to come. Please brace yourselves, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Also, for those of you I mentioned a blog entry called Thurston Moore Is My Dad to, well it's been put on hold til I make it better. It deserves to be better. ALSO, aswell as my band ranting and occasional reviews here I have another project taking shape very slowly. It's gonna be fun though.
Finally, read Artrocker (Underage Artrocker coming this Saturday with the usual standard one!), Notion (fine work this month lads and ladies, specifically Rene and Lucy), Rock Sound (100 this month!!), www.subba-cultcha.com (look out for Minus The Bear and Liars features) and Playmusic PICKUP, for my stuff. But don't read Tuned. That shit is awful (just look at their current cover, seriously).

Tirade Against The Converted

2007-07-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Listening to Drive Like Jehu's 'Turn It Off', it's scouring, angular rhythms perfectly soundtracking the end of one HELL of a day, it reminds me that there is so much in the music world which helps me, heals me, makes me feel alive that would, in other people's eyes, be switched straight over to something safer like Chris Moyles' inane drivel. Whether that's safe or worthy of a government ban is a debate for another time.
Funnily enough Chris Moyles was briefly referenced earlier today by a young lady when hearing a most amusing song being played on Radio 1. She heard it, imagined it to be Chris Moyles doing his hilarious (read deathly boring) pastiches (read lame re-write) and left it at that. In fact, it was Gorgol Bordello's 'Start Wearing Purple'. How could she dismiss this, admittedly ridiculous sounding, but awfully fun, gypsy punk riot as, well, a shamefully tired DJ ridiculing some far superior talent?
Easy.
It's not aimed at her. So, will people stop going on about how their favourite bands have gone 'commerical'. I fear this to be the crybaby holler about Liars' new self-titled effort (commercial? well, only in the way that The Stooges or the Icarus Line is commercial). There is no chance that your favourite band will appeal to many music listeners outside of your little circle of Pitchfork, Cokemachineglow, Drowned In Sound friends.
People don't want to be challenged or confronted. They want to escape and dance and laugh and shoot rainbows out of their eyes. They don't want to feel like society is being ground underfoot by cogs of death or be shocked into action by yet another ambient (read boring) independent thinker.
Hell, if you're so bothered stop saying Slint's Spiderland is your favourite record (please never say this in my presence....that is bollocks) and start doing some charity work. I mean REAL charity work, where you go build schools and houses and toilets and provide running water for third world countries.
Don't force people into thinking they are inferior for their music tastes - they are just as valid as yours. You just happen to want to explore music's 'outer regions' rather than warm your cockles to the newest Coldplay heart-warmer.
I count myself as someone who likes to hear noise, sonic manipulation and fierce experimentation but sometimes, you know, I'm quite happy to hear something beautiful like Low's 'Breaker' or the gorgeous soul stylings of Jeff Buckley's 'Everybody Here Wants You'.

Really I just want to rant about unreliability of people, their unrealistic expectations and the fact that they can only blame themselves for their mistakes, but I'll save that for a poor unsuspecting friend's ears instead.

When Did DIY Get Marginalised and Marketed?

2007-07-02T02:24:00.000-07:00

1. Rihanna - 'Umbrella'
2. Kate Nash - 'Foundations'
3. Enrique Iglesias - 'Do You Know?'
4. The Enemy - 'Had Enough'
5. Lee Mead - 'Any Dream Will Do'
6. The Hoosiers - 'Worried About Ray'
7. Jack Penate - 'Torn On The Platform'
8. Kelly Rowland ft Eve - 'Like This'
9. Calvin Harris - 'The Girls'
10. Reverend and the Makers - 'Heavyweight Champion Of The World'

What is this you ask? The top ten worst songs this year? The ten artists Brad would most like to exterminate to make a better world?
No, inevitably it's the UK chart top ten. Now, everyone knows the singles charts mean NOTHING anymore. So why the hell have I posted it up here like it's all significant and interesting?
Well, because the NME told me it is. NME.com to be precise. I'm told by those wise people that this is "an exceptional week for the DIY London scene".
Erm.........okay. Kate Nash (villified and lampooned in that extremely worthy effort 'LDN Is A Victim', justifiably) and Jack Penate are from London. That's it. Is THAT an EXCEPTIONAL week for the LONDON DIY SCENE? What the FUCK is the London DIY scene anyway?
They cite The Enemy, Reverend and the Makers and miss out The Hoosiers entirely. Despite the fact the first two acts are two of the worst, most tedious boring acts I've ever heard come out of this country.
This is not exceptional. This is a travesty. To report that there are ANY acts involved in ANY London DIY scene in the chart is bad, bad journalism. This actually makes me furious. On this showing (and I will admit that the NME really does know better) it seems as if these news writers wouldn't know DIY if it painted their entire fucking house. There is a huge amount of bands in London that have trudged across their home city and the rest of the UK playing to anyone and no one, putting on club nights of their own for other bands to play, playing free shows, playing (on rare occasions when promoters are utter cunts) pay to play shows, recording their own demos/EPs/singles and releasing them with money saved from part-time jobs and not eating. There are fanzines promoting these bands, bands that have been playing for YEARS, where mainstream magazines (or elitist, sniffy websites) won't promote them because, well, they weren't fucking looking hard enough.
THIS is DIY. Hell, I'm not gonna come across all high and mighty and list them, because, frankly, I don't try hard enough either. All I know is that Kate Nash and Jack Penate have nothing to do with DDD, Tim Ten Yen, Popular Workshop, Bolt Action Five, Das Wanderlust, Fight Like Apes, Cuckoo's Nest, The Sailplanes, Untitled1961 etc. (yes I know not all of these are London bands, and also know these are all pretty popular - yet THESE bands/artists are more indicitive of a DIY scene than those in the chart).
What would be truly exceptional would be if Popular Workshop's 'William, It Was Really Something' hit the Top Ten in October. Then we could all celebrate.

Walletsnatchers of the World RE-Unite!!

2007-06-27T04:59:00.001-07:00

We are all drowning. Drowning in a sea of yesteryear, populated by the sharks (that were jumped) and tired old fools of bands long since passed on from this mortal coil. Suddenly, we are beseiged by the soft spongy flesh on clammy hands of resurrected bands desperate to reclaim their abdicated thrones. What are we to do, fair citizens of the planet?
It seems another attempt at breaking down our defences has arisen. A band known as The Verve have set aside their differences (or rather the differences between one slightly skeletal ego-maniac with a failing solo career and one arrogant, proud overrated guitarist who has done nothing since Urban Hymns) for a short tour of these isles.
Where will it end? The Police, The Stooges, The Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, Gang of Four, Pixies - all with their own wave of rancid hype and expectation, soon to come crashing down on us poor, originality-starved saps so willing to endure the sounds and ways of the past. How we mutilate our bank accounts to see these fallen bands attempt to relive past glories! How we suffer the bleatings of 'long-term' fans who claim that they were indeed there first! How we skewer and garotte the hopes and dreams of brand new, exciting young bands willing to play anywhere for no money in order to be heard, by supporting these bloated has-beens!
When will the revolution start dear brothers and sisters? When will it come to pass that the people of Earth stop asking for the ability to download Beatles songs onto their itunes or for their favourite band when they were 12 to reform for a few forty-quid-per-ticket shows? When will sneering nay-sayers cease the endless chattering in defence of these actions, such as: "Why deny new fans the chance to see a band before their time?" Why? Because they have their own future has-beens to cling to, bands that mean more to them than life itself. If we deprive these kids of their right to a modern musical journey, could it be that they lose interest in music altogether? Maybe they will start disowning bands with the disheartening slight: "I've heard it all before." What will become of music?
I implore those who have the ability to stop reformations of these kinds - use your powers, your will and your strength to save music and stop it becoming this endless quagmire of underachievers and glory-hunters.
Do the right thing. Kull the old guard and restore the balance.

The 'Next Album' Dilemma

2007-06-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

More and more this question keeps popping up: I have Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. What do I buy next?

You could apply this to any artist with huge kudos and critical acclaim with a massive back catalogue. However, Sonic Youth really ARE a problem.

So you've got their most fawned over, commercially viable release....where the hell do you go from there? Well let's try and come up with a scientific formula shall we?

There are twelve tracks on DN. For simplicities sake though lets take just four of them. 'Teen Age Riot', 'Silver Rocket', 'Kissability' and 'The Sprawl'.
Now these tracks are going to determine where to head in your SY journey next. It's simple. Giving them a rating one through four with 4 being your favourite and 1 being your least favourite (there are no bad tracks on Daydream Nation) you can then decide which way your heart is telling you to turn. It's like one of those adventure books where you choose which door to take and turn the page it tells you to go, only less fun and more rewarding.

So say 'Silver Rocket' is 4 and 'Kissability' is 1. I determine from this that you prefer their more direct approaches, with punk sensibility and the occasional noisy interlude, whereas 'Kissability' has Kim Gordon's vocals on it.
So, I'd say Rather Ripped (despite having Kim on it) is easily your next choice. However, if it is reversed I would probably head towards Goo - simply because it has 'Kool Thing' on it.
Now, if you enjoyed 'The Sprawl' and it's extended noise passage, this is a VERY good thing because this is probably 7/10ths of the whole of their output. I would point you towards Sister or any of the 'New York' triology (NYC Ghosts & Flowers, Murray Street and Sonic Nurse).
If you're well into 'Teen Age Riot' head towards Dirty or Evol.
Now if you find yourself awarding 'TAR' and 'SR' a 4 and 3 respectively - definitely hit A Thousand Leaves and Washing Machine while giving 'The Sprawl' and 'Kissability' the same marks will leave you in the corner of the more noisy and experimental Bad Moon Rising, S/T debut or Confusion Is Sex.
For the record, the hardest LP to listen to is NYC Ghosts and Flowers. Both Goo and Dirty have 'pop' hits as does A Thousand Leaves. Their most complete albums are Murray Street, Rather Ripped and Sister.

So this is how it goes.
TAR - Teen Age Riot SR - Silver Rocket TS - The Sprawl K - Kissability
The only ones used in an equation are the two highest marked albums:

TAR + SR = ATL / WM
TS + K = BMR/SY/CIS
TAR + K = G/BMR
TS + TAR = MS/SN
K + SR = E/RR

and so on...
Of course what complicates matters is that there is one more major SY album (namely Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star) to be heard. So let's just say this - buy something by Sonic Youth, give it three weeks of your precious listening time and, if you never listen to it again, you are a Sonic Youth fan and should proceed to buy all the albums in any order you like so you can fill up your CD rack and show off your collection to your mates.

Review: Reuben - In Nothing We Trust

2007-06-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

Out today Reuben's third album In Nothing We Trust is quite simply one of the most surprising releases of 2007. From the opening strains of 'Cities On Fire' you have no idea what to expect. It's loose, clear guitar clashes seem to waver on the brink of falling apart. Suddenly Jamie's fiercest venom is hacked up with some volcanic chord shapes. The track exhumes some long forgotten art of tearing your face off. An opener to be reckoned with. Within a couple of minutes it's changed tack to a solid, chilling singalong, something you'd never have thought Reuben were capable of if you'd only listened to second album, and rather laboured anchor record, Very Fast, Very Dangerous. "Where are your books and your memories?" Jamie asks while his guitar spins out a web of triplet notes, as if firing hundreds of tiny barbs toward your ears. "We BURNED them all......We BURRRRRRRNNEEEEEEDDDD!!!!!" It's all shockingly good. And that's only the first four minutes of the album.
We then get the unassailable 'We're All Going Home In An Ambulance'. I guess you could call this typical Reuben from 'Blamethrower' or 'Freddy Kreuger' era singles. Except it's close to six minutes long. Screams, violent kick drums, disjointed chord stabs all break out into a riff that sounds like a juggernaut about to flatten your house. A terrace chant to rival the skull crushing thuggery of a Millwall gang jeers before a heavy metal, palm-muted breakdown defies any time signature. At this point we're barely three minutes in. A quick drum flourish leaves the bass grinding away while Jamie's pained arpeggios slip over the top. Before long we're back into a singalong that establishes itself into an outro of gobsmacking adrenaline.
These two songs are indicitive of what you should expect - Racecar Is Racecar Backwards on synapse wrecking steroids. And yet so much more. It is the best Reuben album by a long way. The other surprise on the album is the beautiful acoustic lament 'Good Luck'. With a lyrical approach that references itself as childish and "not progressive", it's left all that more poignant. If you've ever been sacked or dumped or just plain disappointed (that's all of us then), this will have you chanting the pay off line "If you hurt me, I will hate you, If you hurt me, I will erase you."
There are songs here which sound utterly ridiculous at first: 'Deadly Lethal Ninja Assassin' initially sounds like an Offspring song, but it's undeniably catchy and has YET another excellent outro. Frank Turner joins in seamlessly with the final lines and it's another triumph for the British underground rock troupe.
'Crushed Under the Weight of the Enormous Bullshit' starts as a horror movie stabbing (listen and see what I mean) while namechecking Everytime I Die and Glassjaw's Worship & Tribute while Jamie points out that your initial excitement about music is so hard to recapture.
Agony/Agatha has Jamie explaining the song as the band play, bit by bit. "Just a big bass line and drums, got guitarists sucking their thumbs for a bar or two that's how to do it...." It's almost like some sort of post-modern songwriting course for rock fiends. It's brilliant.
Perhaps the highlight, paradoxically, is the very Reuben-esque 'An Act of Kindness'. It propels itself along familiar lines and rhythms but with all the confidence and learned approach of a band who've been doing this for more than long enough. A final mention must go to 'Suffocation Of The Soul', Reuben's 'Kashmir'. An epic seven minute track that suffuses drum machines, molten guitars, blended vocals and an intense final rock out to match, and thump into the ground, pretty much any American metal band you can mention.
So, what we have is Reuben finally delivering an album that can encompass all we thought Racecar... promised and the fury of their I-can't-believe-there's-only-three-of-them live show. It's been a long time coming but we can finally embrace them as we always should have.
What's surprising is that we ever doubted them at all.

Why I'm Not Bothered About Glastonbury

2007-06-22T06:17:00.001-07:00

I'm just not. 'Nuff said.

Live Review: Silversun Pickups - Water Rats Theatre

2007-06-22T06:04:00.001-07:00

*this was their first ever show outside of North America*
It's only about halfway through the show when a companion whispers to me: "I don't like the way his eyes cross." I nod my head with a vague smile on my lips which suggests that I know exactly what she is talking about. It's only then that I look deep into those visual receptors. Goddamn, he's eyes ARE crossed! Brian Aubert is blindly flailing at his guitar and grinning as his band practically burst into flames in trying to anchor the smothering fuzz crawling through the speakers.
Clamping a vice around our ears and heads with a noise so vibrant and penetrating that we can forgive oncoming deafness, it's clear this highly textural experiment in popmusic is reliant on noise and volume as much as melody and harmonies.
Gobsmacking use of brief recycled feedback and tremelo effects threaten to subsume the songs but they are always saved once Brian and bassist Nikki Monninger's disarming vocals are glued together in some kind of beautiful siren song. This band have been playing for a loooooooooong time now and it shows.
Treated to album cuts such as the resplendent 'Well Thought Out Twinkles', the audience here all leave once SSPUs are finished, leaving headline band Windmill with a half empty venue to play to. I guess the eyes have it.......................(sorry).

Billy Corgan 'Adore's the dollar: foregos credibility and fans

2007-06-22T05:52:00.000-07:00

Zeitgeist will be released in four different versions through major corporate outlets. There are specific editions for Best Buy, Target and itunes and a normal boring version for everyone else. Each of the three special editions will have a specific bonus track on each one. Excellent. Now THAT's value-for-Billy's-wallet right there. I cannot enthuse enough about how disgusting this is. It's hard enough for poor, struggling music fans without a new Smashing Pumpkins album being released. I mean, we were already devoid of originality and talent being pushed by major labels, and what with independent record stores closing down, our choice is becoming ever, ever limited.
So this is what we do - don't buy Zeitgeist. It'll teach baldy a lesson. Instead buy Handsome Furs, Silversun Pickups, Shellac, Asobi Seksu, Girls Aloud ...anything but this. This goes double for fans in the UK (because of the exchange rate - it's like depriving him of the average weekly wage of a New Orleans waitress per album). Of course no one is reading this, but it'd be funny if they were.

Review: Dog Day - "Night Group"

2007-06-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

Oh how I've missed Pavement. It took me until Brighten the Corners before I understood Malkmus and co's entwining American threads but once I followed them, I appreciated the warmth and comfort their skewed pop afforded me.
Now, you are more than likely hearing the tinpot, lo fi buzzing, wiry guitars and half-spoken American drawl almost regularly. This is testament to Pavement's gargantuan efforts, originally perceived as laziness.
Arguably the same could be said of Dog Day's new effort. Jangling and jiving like the Pixies and Husker Du crossing swords with Dinosaur Jr, it's all very familiar. Still, when it's familiar in a way that makes you want to listen to this alongside Doolittle or Bug then that's not necessarily a negative.
'End of the World' is rightfully placed in the front of the record meshing harmonies, scathing guitars and a simple three note bass line - it's like a welcome home party. It's an album that warns you exactly how it's going to go and then follows that path rigidly and never stumbles off the edge. Safe? Undoubtedly. Unexciting? That's in the ear of the beholder. Personally, the little thrill I get from a well placed melody upon a clever little chord sequence maybe shows me up for the easily-pleased music critic charlatan I really am. Pfft. As if I care what you think.