Earlier on I went to Pure Groove, a North London record store which has somehow previously escaped my attention, to see indie folkster Emmy The Great play a very cosy and rather beautiful instore gig. I managed to end up without much of a view (and stood next to Jeremy Warmsley) and she only played five songs, including an Adam Green cover. That was ok though because all were as wryly amusing as theu were pretty and her own songs were so despite all being new to me. And calling M.I.A. a bitch for refusing to guest on the song named after her was pretty funny too.
Head over to The Daily Growl for mp3s of a recent Xfm session including the aforementioned "MIA".
20.8.07
The Crimea - Requiem Aeternum
mp3
There's not that much similarity musically between The Crimea and My Chemical Romance, I'll grant you, but they've long struck me as being a little bit emo nonetheless. Mainly it's thanks to singer Davey MacManus, with his breathless raw emoting of words that spill out of his head uncontrollably with a total absence of self-censorship: hilarious, awkward and despite his actual age often painfully teenage. Partly as a result, on debut Tragedy Rocks they were equal turns brilliant (joyful sort-of-hit single "Lottery Winners On Acid", the hallucinatory rant of "Opposite Ends") and really frustrating.
On their follow-up, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, he produces just as many bizarre and endearingly misguided lines ('Hell is a crowded room/Heaven's just got you/Naked on all fours' takes something to pull off so well) but this time nothing misses. The band have expanded their sound effectively, still resembling a more earthbound Soft Bulletin produced on next to no budget, but fitting in all kinds of effective arrangement tricks to give force and grandeur for MacManus to both revel in and poke holes in with his wry wit. And when they reach, however tentatively, for the emotions there's just enough depth that it really works this time, as "Requiem Aeternum" demonstrates.
Best of all, they gave away the album for free on their website in adavance of its release, and it's still there. This will be the way for more and more bands soon, I'm guessing, although it's just served as a pretty decent advocate of buying the real CD for me. Without its liner, I would have no idea that the ghostly female voice that drifts into "Requiem Aeternum" is one Amy May of Paris Motel, my favourite new band who I discovered coincedentally around the same time as being wowed by the song.
There's not that much similarity musically between The Crimea and My Chemical Romance, I'll grant you, but they've long struck me as being a little bit emo nonetheless. Mainly it's thanks to singer Davey MacManus, with his breathless raw emoting of words that spill out of his head uncontrollably with a total absence of self-censorship: hilarious, awkward and despite his actual age often painfully teenage. Partly as a result, on debut Tragedy Rocks they were equal turns brilliant (joyful sort-of-hit single "Lottery Winners On Acid", the hallucinatory rant of "Opposite Ends") and really frustrating.
On their follow-up, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, he produces just as many bizarre and endearingly misguided lines ('Hell is a crowded room/Heaven's just got you/Naked on all fours' takes something to pull off so well) but this time nothing misses. The band have expanded their sound effectively, still resembling a more earthbound Soft Bulletin produced on next to no budget, but fitting in all kinds of effective arrangement tricks to give force and grandeur for MacManus to both revel in and poke holes in with his wry wit. And when they reach, however tentatively, for the emotions there's just enough depth that it really works this time, as "Requiem Aeternum" demonstrates.
Best of all, they gave away the album for free on their website in adavance of its release, and it's still there. This will be the way for more and more bands soon, I'm guessing, although it's just served as a pretty decent advocate of buying the real CD for me. Without its liner, I would have no idea that the ghostly female voice that drifts into "Requiem Aeternum" is one Amy May of Paris Motel, my favourite new band who I discovered coincedentally around the same time as being wowed by the song.
13.8.07
Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails
mp3
[spoiler warning: plot and/or ending details follow]
There aren't many songs that need one of those but it feels sort of appropriate here. If you haven't heard it yet, you're better off clicking the link before reading this. Go on! The element of surprise is a large part of what made this song such an amazing first time listen, though it stands up very well indeed to repeated album listenings.
But before we get to the spoilers, some background first. The Stage Names feels a bit of a reaction to Okkervil River's previous record, where they wrote an entire album around one song by someone else, the Black Sheep Boy of its title. This time, they limit themselves only to 50+ years of rock and roll history and archetype. Throughout, Will Sheff's really funny and perfectly fitting lyrics are steeped in allusions and references, from the add-one-on songs of "Plus Ones" (TVC16, 51 ways to leave your lover...) to meeting bitter declarations that 'you look your age/which is 37 by the way/and not 28'.
Then, at the end, we reach "John Allyn Smith Sails" as the frazzled rock anti-star of the album's very loose narrative crashes and burns completely. It starts off as a sad acoustic ditty, which is pretty excellent in its own right, and has to be to not just seem like a precursor, so that the big move can make its proper impact. It's timed to perfection, because you get just long enough to get a thrill of recognition from just the musical allusions to "Sloop John B" that creep in, before they launch head on into a ragged, cathartic cover of it. It's as if, after being soaked too long in rock legend, even the wish to escape can only make it past with the protective shield of a familiar song, and it's a terifically odd and affecting way to end an album.
Though, of course, it does rely to a certain extent on your knowledge of the song. Which got me thinking about other songs based around the album that contains the most famous version of "Sloop John B". I can't think of enough for the whole tracklisting of Pet Sounds yet but there are a few. Hello Saferide's excellent recent single takes an inversion of "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" as its starting point, and she has a new song based around her ideal person being the one who is just like "God Only Knows". Kaiser Chiefs' "Caroline, Yes!" doesn't really go much past the title. My favourite other one is Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's "Spanish Dance Troupe" which distills "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to its one line essence for a haunting closing mantra.
Am I missing anything obvious?
[spoiler warning: plot and/or ending details follow]
There aren't many songs that need one of those but it feels sort of appropriate here. If you haven't heard it yet, you're better off clicking the link before reading this. Go on! The element of surprise is a large part of what made this song such an amazing first time listen, though it stands up very well indeed to repeated album listenings.
But before we get to the spoilers, some background first. The Stage Names feels a bit of a reaction to Okkervil River's previous record, where they wrote an entire album around one song by someone else, the Black Sheep Boy of its title. This time, they limit themselves only to 50+ years of rock and roll history and archetype. Throughout, Will Sheff's really funny and perfectly fitting lyrics are steeped in allusions and references, from the add-one-on songs of "Plus Ones" (TVC16, 51 ways to leave your lover...) to meeting bitter declarations that 'you look your age/which is 37 by the way/and not 28'.
Then, at the end, we reach "John Allyn Smith Sails" as the frazzled rock anti-star of the album's very loose narrative crashes and burns completely. It starts off as a sad acoustic ditty, which is pretty excellent in its own right, and has to be to not just seem like a precursor, so that the big move can make its proper impact. It's timed to perfection, because you get just long enough to get a thrill of recognition from just the musical allusions to "Sloop John B" that creep in, before they launch head on into a ragged, cathartic cover of it. It's as if, after being soaked too long in rock legend, even the wish to escape can only make it past with the protective shield of a familiar song, and it's a terifically odd and affecting way to end an album.
Though, of course, it does rely to a certain extent on your knowledge of the song. Which got me thinking about other songs based around the album that contains the most famous version of "Sloop John B". I can't think of enough for the whole tracklisting of Pet Sounds yet but there are a few. Hello Saferide's excellent recent single takes an inversion of "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" as its starting point, and she has a new song based around her ideal person being the one who is just like "God Only Knows". Kaiser Chiefs' "Caroline, Yes!" doesn't really go much past the title. My favourite other one is Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's "Spanish Dance Troupe" which distills "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to its one line essence for a haunting closing mantra.
Am I missing anything obvious?
11.8.07
Chartsengrafs - We can work without the perks
It's a second week on the top for Timbaland, once again thanks to lack of other worthy challengers as much as any particular momentum of its own (see: Fergie back up to 3 again). That seems to be a bit a theme this year. But it's okay, because our unlikely new entry at number 5 is "With Every Heartbeat" by Kleerup featuring Robyn! That's twenty places higher than Annie ever got, just in case you're counting, and... well, actually we'll leave it there, because it seems like there's going to be even more to be excited about on that front next week. Although I will say that I listened to Robyn's previous top ten hit from 1998 "Show Me Love" the other day for the first time, and it's not an experience I'm too keen to repeat.
Newton Faulkner sneaks up to 7 in the brief moment he has before being made irrelevant by the 'James Blunt's new single isn't the worst thing ever' shocker, and the top ten is rounded off by the continuing advance of Plain White T's and their brand of sappy pleasantness.
Yves Larock at 13 is one of a dying breed of summer dance hits, with rises for Beyonce (17) and Amerie (21) somewhat less rare. A somewhat censored version of "Pussyole" at 22 leaves Dizzee Rascal still a way away from his only proper big hit but does see his album make a re-entry to the top forty at least. The Coral's moment has sadly well and truly passed at 25, and relief that the Simpsons theme is falling down is tempered by that fact that it's joined by "Spider Pig". What else do we have in the top forty? Er, Amy Winehouse, The Cribs and Graham Coxon teaming up with Paul Weller, in descending order of both positions and excellence.
In the albums, Paul Potts is still number one, holding off new entries from Newton Faulkner and Amy MacDonald. Prince's Ultimate at 6 won't be in nearly as many homes as Planet Earth, but also in fewer bins. Next week: The nation needs Kate Nash and doesn't want to wait.
9.8.07
Of Montreal at Scala (02/08/07)
First of all, the organisation/security at Scala has completely gone to shit and has put me off going there again (although there will always be exceptions). Having to queue outside for half an hour when turning up an hour after doors open, so that they can search every single person and then have them queue again for the understaffed box office to collect their tickets is stupid, and I was clearly far from the only one to completely miss Pull Tiger Tail's set as a result.
But that aside, it was a really enjoyable gig. I didn't know that much about what to expect but was taken right away, both by the fact that they kicked the set off with the awesome one-two of "Suffer For Fashion" and "Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider" and that they put on such a bizarrely extravagant show. There was a big glam rock thing going on with their (hilarious) outfits and Kevin Barnes' somewhat Bolanesque performance which was not something that I'd really thought of from the album before but makes sense now. And then on top of that were pretty cool projections and, oh yeah, the two guys in black lycra bodysuits with mirrorball faces running around, bursting balloons and crowdsurfing.
Music mainly came from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? which was fine by me as I don't know much of the older stuff very well and its dense pile-up of melody and meaning has sneaked its way to a position as one of my very favourite albums of 2007. "She's A Rejector" was pleasingly manic and the sleazy funk of "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" was cool and funny in equal measure. The bravest move was playing the whole ten minute trip that is "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" but they pulled it off, going way beyond repetition to totally brainwashing groove and pairing it with the total contrast of "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse".
There were a couple of enthuiastically met trips into their back catalogue too, including an inevitable encore of "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)" which was introduced as a song that they can no longer play in their own country, presumably referring to the whole Outback Steakhouse thing. It definitely served to increase my interest in finding out more about a band capable of great things.
But that aside, it was a really enjoyable gig. I didn't know that much about what to expect but was taken right away, both by the fact that they kicked the set off with the awesome one-two of "Suffer For Fashion" and "Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider" and that they put on such a bizarrely extravagant show. There was a big glam rock thing going on with their (hilarious) outfits and Kevin Barnes' somewhat Bolanesque performance which was not something that I'd really thought of from the album before but makes sense now. And then on top of that were pretty cool projections and, oh yeah, the two guys in black lycra bodysuits with mirrorball faces running around, bursting balloons and crowdsurfing.
Music mainly came from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? which was fine by me as I don't know much of the older stuff very well and its dense pile-up of melody and meaning has sneaked its way to a position as one of my very favourite albums of 2007. "She's A Rejector" was pleasingly manic and the sleazy funk of "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" was cool and funny in equal measure. The bravest move was playing the whole ten minute trip that is "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" but they pulled it off, going way beyond repetition to totally brainwashing groove and pairing it with the total contrast of "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse".
There were a couple of enthuiastically met trips into their back catalogue too, including an inevitable encore of "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)" which was introduced as a song that they can no longer play in their own country, presumably referring to the whole Outback Steakhouse thing. It definitely served to increase my interest in finding out more about a band capable of great things.
Sooo much better than the single artwork
Amazing followup to the Hard-Fi record thing from over on Popjustice:
Yes, that's taken in Music And Video Exchange, and yes, we all know that's what most promos are for.
Yes, that's taken in Music And Video Exchange, and yes, we all know that's what most promos are for.
7.8.07
2.8.07
Chartsengrafs - I ain't got a motorboat
Kate Nash turns out to to be cruelly denied at the last. By 16 copies. Instead it's Timbaland who rises to number 1, becoming the first act to score two this year and matching last year's Nelly/Justin assisted duo of Timbaland produced chart toppers. "The Way I Are" still sounds the more reasonable of the two to be there too. Not much happening after that in the top ten bar Groove Armada's fine "Song 4 Mutya" making it up to 8. It feels like forever since everyone (ok, Popjustice) was first raving about this, but it's actually only just been released and doesn't seem to have suffered too much as a result. Oh and Mika is just below. Yay!
And Manic Street Preachers' placing of 10 with "Autumnsong" is a fairly useful gauge of the state of the market since the same 10,000 people buy all of their releases - it says things are doing a little better than when their last three (no.2) singles came out.
Newton Faulkner is new at 16 and the best words on him go to John Cunningham - 'I wouldn’t have thought robots could be such big Jack Johnson fans'. Although that doesn't mttnion that his voice kind of sounds like Johnny Borell at his worst. Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive" goes to 18 on downloads despite the hordes still buying "Umbrella". That puts it one place ahead of Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. That's where charting downloads gets us, people. Actually, I take that back, at least it isn't "Working Class Hero".
Plain White Ts were all over the radio in California, and now I get back just in time for the first rumblings of the same thing happening here with them at 26 well ahead of a physical release. Sort of pretty song, but does just make you wonder how Deat Cab For Cutie never managed to have a hit here. Meanwhile if anyone can explain what Take That's "Shine" is doing back in the charts at 29 I will be grateful. I'm half surprised not to see "Chasing Cars" there anywhere actually. And that's about it for singles, bar Yves Larock and Funeral For A Friend sneaking in at the very bottom of the forty.
Albums see Paul Potts still at the top and likely to be there for another week yet at least. Timbaland's steady rise takes him to 2, which is sort of a surprise - it's the type of album that usually tends to see strong steady sales, but nothing that high charting. Kings Of Leon at 4 is also a headscratcher, The Enemy see a fall from 2 to 9 and Garbage's Absolute Garbage at 11 turns out to be a greatest hits and not one of these crappy things.
Next week: Robyn! I don't even know what song, since I thought "With Every Heartbeat" and Music Week claims "Konichiwa Bitches", but still, Robyn!!
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