Awesome Colors

I got punched in the face last night.

There I was stood staring in awe as Thurston Moore screamed the lyrics of a hundred hardcore anthems, printed neatly onto sheets of A4 paper. J Mascis stood behind him ripping through feedback, Jonah from Fucked Up shredding his bass. And there I was, mouth open, eyes to the clouds. And there he was, 180 pounds of stage diver, flying fist first into my face.

I’ll save taking a fresh photo for tomorrow when the bruise is really shining. Right now I just look like a newly born puppy….

So that was pretty much the end of my evening. The Ecstatic Peace showcase was beyond amazing though. Talk Normal sounded incredible, Viv Albertine was great, Lord Jeff, Black Helicopter… But the real stars for me were Awesome Color. Wow. I liked what I’d heard before but live, I think they were the first act to properly blow me away this SXSW.

I tried to tell them this after the show and all I could come up with was “Hi, that was awesome… uh… I mean great.” Nice job, Jen.

Other highlights of the day included Stricken City, meeting Gwar in the Convention Center, and a killer set from Washed Out and Small Black. Everyone went pretty insane for the ‘Despicable Dogs’ into ‘Feel It All Around’ moment.

Also worthy of a mention are Cloud Nothings. They’re from Cleveland, they have a record out on Speakertree and they play driven, fun, indie pop. It’s funny actually because they were a lot fiercer live than I’d expected, the pop element of some of the tracks I’ve heard online seemed to be replaced with a kind of slack determination. At times it bordered a more aggressive indie rock, but I think that was just from the drummer smashing away with his back to the crowd. Watch…

Anyway, I need to leave my hotel room in about 9 minutes so I’d best go. It looks like rain. The one day I need to wear sunglasses.

Awesome Color: “Transparent”

Cloud Nothings: “Hey Cool Kid (Memoryhouse Remix)”

Washed Out: “Feel It All Around”

Small Black: “Despicable Dogs”

Washed Out & Small Black

Cloud Nothings

Demolished Thoughts

Pill Wonder

Good Morning from Austin, Texas. This morning is awesome because it’s the first morning, ever, in my history of attending SXSW that I don’t have the slightest hint of hangover. I out-beered myself yesterday daytime so called the drinking quits around 10pm. I’m saving myself for the Ecstatic Peace showcase tonight. Expect a very brief and poorly written update tomorrow.

Yesterday was all about hanging out. I spent most of the day with Michael Azzerad who’s a great writer and brilliant to hang out with as he has loads of ace stories about going on tour with Guided by Voices and stuff. He took me to an outdoor show at the French Legitation Museum. Real Estate played and were fantastic. Dum Dum Girls played and were dull.

We walked for an eternity through the suburbs to find a house show I’d seen advertised on a blog. We got there just in time to watch Coasting who I really enjoyed. Two girls playing fuzzed out, lazy post-punk, although the drummer was great. Then this other band started setting up on the sheet of plywood used for a stage. They had two kits and two laptops and, to be honest, I was expecting them to be rubbish. So of course, I was wrong and they were great…

This is Pill Wonder. They’re from Seattle and they just released a record on Underwater Peoples. Live, they play percussive indie rock with plenty of energy and they actually looked like they were having fun, which is always a win. Here’s a video of them performing…

Yesterday evening was a bit of a fail. Eagle Seagull weren’t as good as their name, and I bumped into YACHT on 6th and followed them to see some band that turned out to be one of the singers from Hercules and Love Affair’s new project. It sounded like a less good Hercules and Love Affair.

Explode into Colors were good, but not as impressive as their drummer who kicked ass. Male Bonding were great but then I felt bad watching them when there was so much other stuff on, so I left and tried to get in to see Bear in Heaven. I didn’t realise The xx were playing the same venue. FAIL.

I ended up watching White Denim with my friend Grace and eating all her M&Ms (thanks Grace). The party never ends.

Real Estate: “Beach Comber”

Coasting: “Hots For Teacher”

Pill Wonder: “Wishing Whale”

Explode Into Color: “Two For Jazz”

Happy Birthday

Hello, I’m Jen. I’m on holiday at SXSW in Austin Texas watching bands, drinking beer and lounging by the rooftop pool. I’ve decided to take a few minutes from my busy showbiz schedule everyday to write some words on here about a band you might like.

The reality is it’s 1pm and I’m sat in my musty hotel room trying to rid myself of a hangover before today’s drinking begins. There are about 20 day parties and 135 bands on my list for the afternoon and I have no idea what to even try and make. So instead here’s a band I saw yesterday.

They’re called Happy Birthday. There are three of them in the band, and they come from Brattleboro in Vermont, which is actually a real place and not made up (as I had assumed). Here’s a video of them playing….

Kyle from Happy Birthday also plays in Witch and it turns out he saw me at ATP last Christmas which is very strange. It’s not the reason I’m writing about them here though, oh no. Happy Birthday have that kicked back live swirl of Girls but with a slacker snarl and an ambush of tempo changes. They’re signed to Sup Pop over here and about to tour with Vivian Girls.

I saw them at the True Panther showcase yesterday evening. Also playing were Magic Kids, Harlem and The Smith Westerns. To be honest, it was difficult singling out one band to write about here. Hunx and his Punx also played…. They were not so good.

My choice was made even harder later when I managed to jump the (huge) queue for the IAMSOUND party (thanks David) and stumble into what could be one of the best line ups of my little life. Fools Gold, jj, Sleigh Bells and SALEM. MEN played too but we won’t dwell on the negatives.

jj were breathtaking, although Elin seemed quite nervous. Joakim, the guy who writes all the music spent the entire set stood on stage next to her with his hands in his pockets as she sang over a backing track. It was all very strange.

I have more videos but the internet here is slooooooow so you’re going to have to wait to see a drag queen introducing SALEM I’m afraid.

Happy Birthday: “Girls FM”

jj: “My Way”

Sleigh Bells: “A/B Machines”

The Smith Westerms: “Give Me Some TIme”

Magic Kids: “Hey Boy”

SALEM: “Frost”

Harlem: “Friendly Ghost”

The Smith Westerns

Sleigh Bells

SALEM

Magic Kids

Harlem

Having been brought up in the Black Country (don’t know it? check Wikipedia), emigrating to East New York, Brooklyn and then ending up in Massachusetts, I’ve had a lot to think about in the last few years. Not least was the evolution of urban music, British and American, and the differences and similarities between the two continental strains. I’ve been passionate about hip hop for many years now, and I grew up as British urban music went through many phases. Some of you will know what I’m on about here – I witnessed a very specific development, especially in Birmingham which quickly latched onto jungle and then 2-step and in more recent years baseline and funky. This, mashed up with hip hop, was the basis of my club going; sure techno and house were fine, but it didn’t have the energy or the swing I really wanted, and it never went so well with a Wray & Nephs. Now that I’m in the US it’s harder to see and hear the way things are going down back home, but much easier to get a grip on the state of hip hop, something that, despite everything, we tend to miss in dear old Blighty. It just means I have to keep up via merciless vinyl buying and Youtube surfing… so when Rich at TLOBF asked me for a column I thought it would only be fair to share.
Continue Reading

Quality’s Treat.

Quality Drama. Royal Opera House. Radio4. The Times. Latitude festival. Factory Records. Radiohead. Tate Modern. Edinburgh Festival. These are some of the things that make Britain Great. There is more, of course. Much more.

There’s also Eastenders, Billy Elliot The Musical, daytime radio, Hugh Grant, Hello magazine and N-Dubz. All are also done well here. And very popular they are too.

You might be feeling the S word here circling high in your mind. Snobbery? Probably. Continue Reading

The word ‘genius’ gets banded about a lot, especially by music scribes. Sometimes it is well placed, 99% it is completely off the money.

This month, the word ‘genius’ has been thrown in my face a lot by employees of Apple Incorporated: “I’m sorry sir, you’ll have to see a genius” or “hold on a second, I’ll get a genius to see you.” Really, it doesn’t take an Einstein to replace a fan in a laptop or replace an iPhone with a dodgy headphone socket that seems to dub all my music. On the other hand, it does take an Einstein to figure out why Apple don’t seem to be able to make a product that doesn’t break within seconds of its warranty running out.

But credit to Apple, their geniuses managed to replace my phone and a jet engine-aping Macbook fan with zero cost to me, they also provided me with a clean iPhone free of any music whatsoever. Continue Reading

It’s disaster time, and the stars are out. Having now heard the appalling single for Haiti, I can firmly say that it is a song I never wish to hear again. But that does not mean I disagree with the principle of the song. For the millions of people that watch X-Factor and relentlessly buy shoddy covers of classic songs because some schmaltzy kid down on his / her luck sings it with a broad enough appeal, this is their way of donating.

Continue Reading

In a recent interview with The Line Of Best Fit, I briefly mentioned how much the natural landscape has played a part in my recording process. This connection is apparent in many of the titles which appear on my albums – names such as “Box of Birch” and “Crow Autumn”, which can’t help but conjure something grounded in earth, and bound by the seasons.
Continue Reading

When anyone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them that I criticise people for what I can’t do myself. I can’t write or perform music and I can’t play Rugby League. But yet I write on both these subjects, and criticising people for doing these things infinitely better than I could myself is my way of paying the rent. Call me a professional hypocrite…

Getting paid to write about music sounds ludicrous in itself, John Peel once wrote about being on the radio, “I’ll laughingly call this ‘my career’”, because the concept of simply playing music and being paid to do it was (and still is), quite frankly, too good to be true. Peel couldn’t even do it well most of the time, playing the wrong tracks at the wrong speeds. And it’s the same with writing about music and (just about) keeping the wolves from the door – there are probably a million worse ways to get by in life.
Continue Reading

Meursault

Scotland’s music scene is in rude health. Bands are blooming like it’s spring-time and the support of bloggers and punters has created a biosphere of creativity. So, in the first of what’s to become a regular column, Billy Hamilton – co-editor of The Scotsman’s Under the Radar new music site – delves deep into its tartan-toned landscape. At the bottom of the post, you can download a free mixtape featuring all of the bands mentioned.

If 2009 was Scotland’s cultural homecoming, then 2010 is the year its musicians need to pack their bags and finally move out.

For the bands that enthralled local gig-goers last year, the next twelve months are critical. Sure, the swollen cyber-palms of backslapping bloggers suggests a limited degree of success beckons, but true worth can only really be gauged if the tartan-kilted nest is vacated for a sojourn to more robust climes down south.

One glance at the upcoming gigs of our lauded young ‘uns shows a burning want to remain within the ball-court that begins and ends on both sides of the M8. Granted, there’s an admirable grit in believing success lies beyond fellating the barnacled cock of Big Ben, but even if the thrill of being sucked into a whorehouse of in-store shows and vacuous T4 slots isn’t your game, the possibility of discovering new audiences should be incentive enough.

In recent years, the most successful (and by successful I mean in terms of collecting critical adulation) Scottish bands to seep into the national hemisphere have been 4AD’s Broken Records and FatCat Records trio The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Yes, they may be enrolled on national labels but these acts had already proven themselves as capable wooers of unfamiliar crowds; each band confident in its ability to unravel the crossed arms of cynics based purely on their music. And it’s this sort of confidence the new breed of Scottish act has to exude in 2010. They need to move away from the Scottish music scene’s cotton-wooled bosom and furrow a pathway through the UK, not just across the Central Belt. Almost certainly, many will fail and return to familiar haunts to be consoled by familiar faces but, hell, at least they tried; at least they can say they gave it a stab, even if they didn’t draw blood.

Positively, 2009 saw the likes of Meursault, There Will Be Fireworks and Panda Su make their first tentative footsteps south – 2010 needs to see this turn into a concerted effort on a broader scale. Many a promising Scottish act has rotted in the gutter because of a lack of national exposure. To avoid joining them, the new batch of Scottish music makers needs to grab its future by the balls because, quite frankly, no one else will.

So, this inaugural dip into the Scottish music scene is not a start of year tiplist. It’s more a roll call of the bands that are closest to being ready to step up and make the breakthrough from local heroes to national runners. Continue Reading

The Drums

We gave the hysterically contested BBC new bands list a spin in the office on Friday to see what everyone is getting so worked up about. For those who don’t know: a bunch of pundits and industry types each pick out 3 bands they think are gonna do well this year, and the votes are aggregated to a shortlist of 15, then narrowed down to 5 Next Big Things. The five winners each get a resoundingly crap short film made about them. Even the allegedly easy going and profoundly easy-on-the-eye Ellie Goulding (the eventual winner, incidentally) is somehow made to look like a special needs jogger.

So: the list. There’ s a lot of stuff that sounds precisely like it belongs in the pop mainstream, which is maybe the point. Marina & The Diamonds for example – nice looking and dynamic sounding but basically entirely unchallenging, soulless and tuneless, a bit like the vacuous braying of Florence & The Machine, who probably topped the list last year. There’s some half arsed 80’s style pop from the seriously average Hurts, who apparently made their video for £20 (at the time of writing we don’t know what the £20 was spent on – catering, maybe). Delphic are achingly dull. There’s an execrable MC on there who’s name I forget. And a bunch of other Actually Really Not At All Good stuff. Daisy Dares You I mention only in case it brings people to this blog via Google searches. If so: Shizer Minelli bruv, can you not search for something better?

But anyway, enough bitching. The list contains some exciting bands, and a few good prospects. Continue Reading

To bring 2009 to a close, Oh! Canada has conducted a survey to discover some favourites, uncover a few hidden gems and give some tips as to what 2010 might have in store for the Canadian music scene. Some answers were short and sweet, some long and drawn out. Some struggled to name just one act, while others tipped themselves for success. So without further ado….here is the Oh! Canada survey for 2009. Continue Reading

Have TEN years really gone past? Madness! 10 years ago I was graduating with my whole life ahead of me… I’d never heard of Jens Lekman, Wilco or The National… my entire life sprawled in front of me like a contented cat in front of a fire… Where did that time go? As 2010 (the most sci-fi of all years) sharpens into view, it gives us a chance to look back. To have a think about the albums that have been released in the last 10 years and what they mean to us, how they’ve affected us and how they’ve augmented our lives. Without some of the albums on this list, like Wilco for example, TLOBF wouldn’t have existed. Myself and Mr. Thane would never have met. How scary is that?

So, we got our splendid team of writers to nominate their favourite albums of the last 10 years. This is what we reckon are the best, and must hear, albums since the noughties arrived!

= Listen on Spotify

Continue Reading

There’s something pure and untainted about Frankie & The Heartstrings. Mr. Thane hit it on the nose recently by saying you have to REALLY search to find anything out about these guys. Having only just released their debut single, on their own Pop Sex label, 2010 is going to be the year when they can finally cast off their shitty day jobs.

There’s an air of The Smiths in their pomp and swagger, whilst their tunes seem to distil all that’s been great about British pop music in the last 20 years – acres of guitar hooks, sing-along choruses and a eye for something a little different.

The band answered our emailed questions last week, and shared with us their favourite albums of the year as well as the best description of their band yet…
Continue Reading

Jingle jangle jingle jangle… Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the Indie Unicorn shaking it’s mane in your direction. Munch Munch ride on it’s muscular body, shouting and screaming in wondrous voices as they gallop across the musical landscape of 2010.

Three lads and a lady from Bristol who are the missing link between Broken Social Scene and the power-pop stylings of early Weezer, you know, when they were good… It’s the charged rumbling chords of their synth’s, turned up to 11, combined with their rambling vocals that seem to suggest they’re having the biggest party in the world… and YOU’RE invited. Ace.

We asked them some questions, they responded, and even gave us a seasonal Spotify playlist! Result.
Continue Reading