Music to drink tea by
Archive for May, 2010
Shoes and Socks Off
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Meet Me in St. Louis were one of those bands that everyone seemed to love a few years ago but I never managed to get into. I didn’t dislike them, but the odd songs I did hear never really clicked. I always assured myself that I’d get round to giving them a fair listen eventually, but once they called it a day, they just fell by the wayside. Shoes and Socks Off on the other hand I have made time for, and I’m very happy that I did. Consisting only of Tobias Hayes, frontman of MMiSL, the project is an incredibly stripped down affair, but that’s only in it’s favour given how damn good this man’s lyrics. Below you’ve got one of his own, I’m a World Class Assassin, and an excellent cover of Nirvana’s Lounge Act.
MP3 Shoes and Socks Off – I’m a World Class Assassin
MP3 Shoes and Socks Off – Lounge Act
Don’t Blame Yourself, It’s In Your Blood is a 3CD set of pretty much everything that Shoes and Socks Off have recorded. It’s packed full of rarities, videos, artwork and all that nice stuff. Best of all, it only costs £10 and is available from Big Scary Monsters. A new album will follow later on in the year.
Great British Hopes: Kid Canaveral
11 year ago
I very briefly wrote about Kid Canaveral a couple of months ago after stumbling across them on Bandcamp. I posted up their song Good Morning, which was a lovely little indiepop song, but if I’m honest, I didn’t give them much thought after that. Then a few days ago a copy of their upcoming full-length album dropped into my inbox, and suddenly everything that made that song great came flooding back. Twelve times over. Shouting at Wildlife easily has the potential to be the next big break-out indiepop record. It’s a suitably upbeat record that has some of the best tongue in cheek lyrics that I’ve heard in a while. There’s a sequence on the wonderful Smash Hits about an indie snob’s date that had me grinning like an idiot. What makes the album really work though is that it doesn’t go all out in one direction. There’s a decent dose of melancholy thrown in here too that recall the sound of Ballboy, and not just because of how much both bands wear their Scottishness on their sleeves. If this were a year where Allo Darlin’ and Standard Fare hadn’t put out astounding debut albums, this would almost certainly be a strong contender for my album of the year. Not that there is any shame being just behind those two, and I truly hope that Kid Canaveral can find the audience they deserve.
Kid Canaveral’s new single, You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night is out today, and you can stream all three songs from it above. You can also click through and buy it from Bandcamp for a mere £1.49. The album, entitled Shouting at Wildlife will be released on July 5.
Indietracks lineup takes shape
01 year ago
in Indietracks, Videos
Video: Indietracks 2009 in 7 Minutes by LastNightFromGlasgow
The Indietracks lineup seems to be pretty much complete now (though a few more bands are still to come) with Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now and Slow Club both being added to the bill. Perhaps more excitingly though, the day by day breakdowns have now been announced, giving us a festival that looks something like this:
Friday
Everybody Was In The French Resistance…Now, Allo Darlin’, Veronica Falls
Saturday
The Primitives, Love is All, David Tattersall, Ballboy, Stars in Coma, White Town, The Orchids, Boy Genius, Cineplexx, The Smittens, The Just Joans, Burning Hearts, La La Love You, The Callas, Betty and the Werewolves, This Many Boyfriends, Linda Guilala, The Give It Ups, The Felt Tips, Foxes!, The Hillfields, Urbantramper, Paisley and Charlie, Micktravis, Jam On Bread, Lime Chalks
Sunday
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Pooh Sticks, Pale Sunday, Slow Club, Springfactory, Stars of Aviation, Shrag, Secret Shine, Sarandon, The Cannanes, Internet Forever, The Sunny Street, Printed Circuit, The Blanche Hudson Weekend, The Millipedes, The Loves, Onward Chariots, Winston Echo, Standard Fare, MJ Hibbett and the Validators, Be Like Pablo, The Specific Heats, Mexican Kids at Home, The Middle Ones, Yokoko, Clint Play People
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. On a personal level, the lineup is quite nice for me with a decent split across the days of the bands that I like, though it looks like Sunday has the possibility of being clash central. Not that it matters too much at Indietracks though. I had great fun last year watching bands I hadn’t even heard of even if I didn’t get to see all of the ones I would have liked to.
Indietracks takes place between 23-25 July at the Midland Railway Centre in Swanwick, located a little way off of the M1 north of Nottingham. Bands play across four stages, one of which is located in a moving steam train. Various workshops and discos happen around the site, and it’s quite simply the nicest place you’ll ever go. Tickets cost £60 for all three days or £32.50 per day, and can be purchased here.
Singing Bridges – Edith Keeler
11 year ago
in MP3s
I’m in an odd position when it comes to my music tastes, particularly in recent years. I certainly lean heavily toward indiepop at this point, as demonstrated by the route this blog has taken (entirely by accident). But then there’s the other side of me that enjoys stuff that rocks the fuck out. I’m talking more of the Dananananaykroyd end of the spectrum here. I suppose the leap between the two isn’t too difficult. You only have to slot Los Campesinos! in between for the ideal middle ground. Still, there are few bands that really serve both the twee and the heavy. I’m not entirely suggesting that Singing Bridges do feel this gap musically, but in terms of tone, they slot right in there. The indiepop sensibilities are there right from the start. Hell, the song here even wears it’s Star Trek references on it’s sleeve. But there’s also a heavier slant that recalls 90s US indie bands like The Breeders or even Sonic Youth. It’s a strange place for a band on a label like Skipping Stones to inhabit, but on it’s own terms, it absolutely works.
MP3 Singing Bridges – Edith Keeler
The Three Trains EP is out now on Skipping Stones Records.
Video: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Higher Than the Stars
01 year ago
in Videos
I like the way that The Pains of Being at Heart do things. The band are about to release a new single called Say No to Love, and so here, for no real reason, is a new video for last year’s Higher Than the Stars. It’s not a single, nor is it new, and yet here is a brand new video that manages to be absolutely suited to it. The band have gone from being a band I sort of liked a few months ago to one I can’t stop playing now, and songs like this are the reason for that. That they will be closing out Indietracks on the Sunday night couldn’t be more perfect.
New: Maths and Physics Club – Jimmy Had a Polaroid
01 year ago
in MP3s
I was starting to get a bit worried about Math and Physics Club. After their debut album came out, everything seemed to go quiet, and combined with the fact the band hardly seem to play any shows, it looked like they could quickly disappear. Thankfully this isn’t the case though as the band have appeared with not just a new song, but a new album as well. Their 2007 self-titled album was one of my favourite’s of that yet, full of charmingly upbeat pop numbers, and Jimmy Has a Polaroid doesn’t look to change that formula too much. Sure, it’s a little more rocking and the vocals are more focused than before, but it’s undeniably shares the same pop sensibilities.
MP3 Math and Physics Club – Jimmy Had a Polaroid
Jimmy Had a Polaroid is taken from the band’s upcoming second album, the delightfully modest I Shouldn’t Look as Good as I Do. It’ll be released by those super people at Matinee Recordings in June.
Cover: Cats on Fire do White Town
01 year ago
Now if you’re around my age, you’ll likely have vague memories of White Town’s number one single Your Woman from 1997. If you’re anything like me, you probably didn’t think that much of it at the time either. White Town (actually just one man, Jyoti Mishra) never reached such heights again afterwards and were quickly written off as a “one hit wonder”. In the years since, White Town have kept recording and has negotiated himself into the current indiepop scene, which will even extend to a slot at this year’s Indietracks festival.
Which leads us to this cover. Cats on Fire have been covering this song live for quite some time now, and it’s become something of a staple in their setlists. The above video was from the last Indietracks where it went down a storm. I’ve long maintained that lead singer Mattias Björkas can make virtually any song sound superb purely by virtue of his voice, and this is no exception. While in retrospect, the original White Town version is far better than I ever thought at the time, this is just lovely. The vocal dominates, making the gender skewing nature of the original even more pronounced.
The song is featured on a new compilation entitled Dealing in Antiques. Collecting no less than 20 Cats on Fire recordings dating from between 2002 and 2010, it will be released on May 12 in both North and South America on the absolutely brilliant Matinée Recordings. It’ll also be released in Europe on the same day via Johanna Kustannus.
Tender Trap – Girls With Guns
0“Amelia Fletcher never meant anything to me” declared Los Campesinos! on The International Tweexcore Underground, and for the longest time, I was just like them. My journey through indiepop has been a largely backwards one, with many of my discoveries only through the modern bands that are influenced by the bands of the past. A few years ago was the first time I heard Fletcher’s seminal Heavenly, and more shockingly, it was only last year that I first listened to Tallulah Gosh. It took me a while with Heavenly, and I went through quite a long period of reasonably enjoying them but not much more. Some time on though and I regard The Decline and Fall of Heavenly as one of my favourite albums.
For the last decade though, Fletcher’s talents have been located within Tender Trap, not to be confused with a bafflingly more popular band with a similar name. Tender Trap used to slant more toward an electronic sound, but now seem to be heading back toward a sound more in line with Fletcher’s previous bands. Adding to this, Elizabeth Darling of the oft-praised on here Allo Darlin’ is now a part of the lineup, somehow finding time to be in more than one top notch band at the same time. Girls With Guns is a great little single with a half-hilarious, half-disturbing video that doesn’t hide the fact it was made on a shoestring. I might have been late jumping on the Fletcher bandwagon in the past, but I’m certainly on board for the band’s upcoming third album now.
MP3 Tender Trap – Girls With Guns
Tender Trap’s third album, entitled Dansette, Dansette will be released sometime in the summer on Fortuna Pop! in the UK and Slumberland in the US.
