Girl Aloud: MSN Music Blog

Keeping the mental in experimental, Xiu Xiu are the pained experimentalists soundtracking a thousand broken indie kids' traumas. While I quite like them, I won't be seeing them when they play in London next week.

Instead I've re-stumbled upon Ten in the Swear Jar for the first time in a while, which is Jamie Stewart's band prior to Xiu Xiu. The old version of 'I Love the Valley' isn't very good at all, but other songs are a softer, and more gentle version of Xiu Xiu, and almost mesmerising.

The drugs come into all of this when I  found a video on Youtube of Ten in the Swear Jar's track 'Sita Deth'  used in over-hyped Teen nonsense Skins when one of them takes a pill. Someone should tell Stewart that at the gig next week.

Playlist: Mission of Burma, Iron & Wine with Calexico

I got back from ATP vs Pitchfork on Monday at about half one in the afternoon and felt like I was extremely jet-lagged. I'm not quite back to normal yet, hence the delay in writing this. Here's what I got up to over the weekend:

Friday:

The weather in London was kinda miserable so my excitement was a bit subdued on the train from London Bridge. The weather in Hastings, where we had to change to reach Rye, was actually GLORIOUS.  After arriving at Pontin's, we have some time to kill before getting tickets and meeting our chalet crew so we all get a bit sunburned sitting on the grass. After settling in and having more beer we go to watch some BANDS.

I consider watching Jay Reatard as I like their name and they're a bit hyped but the Queen Vic is far too tempting. I catch ten minutes of Man Man and while their flamboyance and theatrics are sweet, the experimentalism isn't making me want to watch more. Wandering upstairs for Vampire Weekend, I'm poised to be hateful and full of bile but their Paul Simon dancealongs are sweet enough and are perfect for the sweaty afternoon. After a quick, and final, drink in the sun, I enjoy about 20 minutes of Sebadoh before getting quite bored. Lou Barlow, what a legend, and there are quite a few Sebadoh songs I really like quite a lot. But reeling out the hits for 30-somethings to dance about to as if they're 17 again, while taking about 10 minutes between songs, isn't always that much fun. Five minutes of Shit and Shine tell me I should watch some more, but having seen them quite a few times, the painful heat in the venue is pushing me outside to the pub. Drinking outside is something I can do anywhere, though, so I decide to go and watch Fuck Buttons. I tell my story about how I was going to put their album out on my label before ATP Records pinched them quite loudly so I think I've impressed people standing near me. They then play (at least the beginnings of) a set I've seen them play at least 7 times before. While it's completely spot on, the sweat box that is downstairs puts me off seeing them in their entirety for an eighth time, so it's back outside to play in the park and on the swings until the early hours.

 Saturday:

It's even hotter than yesterday so obviously every goes to the beach which is now half locals, half pale indie kids. I'm not sure which is worse. After a few hours of getting very pink we head back in time to catch a glimpse of Howlin Rain, who are no Comets on Fire, it has to be said, but Ethan Miller is pretty enchanting frontman and I like the cheesiness as much as the next person. I always think I should be a bit embarrassed by my fondness for Los Campesinos! as their OTT tweeness often distracts from the fact they're a talented bunch and write lovely songs. Despite taking a while to get their twee on, when LC! find their stride, and stop being quite so gushing, they do actually simultaneously warm my heart and make me dance a little bit. I leave the stages area for fear of catching any of Deerhunter and enjoy a healthy dinner of pasta and pesto washed down with three pints of gin and tonic. I return suitably enlivened for the perfect pairing of Les Savy Fav then Hot Chip; two of the bands I'm most excited about seeing this weekend. Sadly, for me, it's at this point my memory stops working. I remember the following: dancing to 'Patty Lee' by LSF, Tim Harrington walking around banging a drum, a dance circle for Hot Chip's 'Over and Over', meeting the man in the pink panther costume (it was his stag weekend), and that's about it. The rest of the evening will remain forever with Camber....

Sunday:

There are no words for the pain, but the beach is calling again and I'm sure Pissed Jeans aren't going to wait around for me, so somehow I get back to normal before 5pm. Their set isn't entirely taken from 'Hope for men', as much as I would've liked it to be, and while an obnoxious and slightly unnerving frontman is fun (he's actually great), they're not as relentless as I want them to be, and end up a bit mid-paced noise rock. Which isn't a bad thing to be at all. After a bit of wandering about and getting annoyed at all the band's I'm missing, I'm back inside the downstairs venue.The general consensus for No Age's performance seems to be 'disappointing'; flat, dodgy sound, and not really that into it, there's also talk of the pair being so ill they nearly didn't play. Still, a sad disappointment. At this point I realise I haven't seen that many bands today but the prospect of Of Montreal isn't that tempting so I only return for Girls Against Boys. Like Sebadoh before them, GVsB bring out all the people who saw them ten years ago and pump their fists to the hits. The thing is GVsB only really have one sound, and while this a great and perfected sound, an hour of it over and over gets uninspiring, especially with some of their dodgy lyrics. Yesterday's carnage is completely wiped from my memory as I return to the gin and settle down to watch Krautrock Allstars (or Harmonia, whatever) who fail to win me over. I can enjoy a bit of Can if, y'know, someone plays it at a party or it comes on the radio, but the Harmonia trio stand behind their equipment playing kraut/ambient electronica/whatevs and aren't the exploding end to ATP they ruddy should be. A disappointing conclusion to some incredible bands. While the live music is finished, my ATP weekend is far from over. Back to the Queen Vic then?

Roll on Primavera and the Nightmare Before Christmas, whoever is curating.

Playlist: Russian Circles, Menomena, Clikitat Ikatowi

After inventing stainless steel and “Ass Kicking Rock and Roll”®, here they go again reinventing the MP3! It’s a new year and another handful of mind-blowing rat turds are flung at the “scene.” Your iPod never sounded as crispy. Ladies and Gentleman…. I present to you the next SoCal, mall punk, stupor group; THE NIGHT MARCHERS!… apparitions of modern day street warriors that manifest in the neglected corners of subterranean, Rock ‘n Roll lore.

Way back when I was done with Friendster, and a good few years before Facebook was about, I signed up for Myspace and filled out the 'Heroes' section.

I can't remember who else exactly was in there, but John Reis definitely was. I kinda fancy Reis (/Speedo) and have for a while but he's getting on a bit now and sweats a lot. Reis is responsible for some of my favourite music ever created, most notably Drive Like Jehu, Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes. Now he's back doing vocals in The Night Marchers.

I hadn't anticipated an album as much as this one for a while and it hasn't disappointed at all. They're playing a few dates in London and across the UK next month. I will be dancing at the Boston Arms on Friday 6th June.

And maybe Reis is kinda in shape now?

Playlist: The Night Marchers, Torche, Breach

Bookmark with:
Digg	del.icio.us	Reddit
Facebook	Newsvine	StumbleUpon

Tonight I'm going to see Cursed and I'm quite looking forward to it as I've never seen them before. Plus it's Punk Rock Book Club beforehand and also May Day so I'll be in the mood for a riot, albeit a well-read one.

Cursed are a gnarly, pissed-off and especially crusty/sludgy hardcore band, but they've always struck me as one of the few 'thinking-men's hardcore bands'. They come from credible previous bands, have a blog which makes an enjoyable read and have some great dark imagery/aesthetic which has always been associated with them. Yeah, since when has hardcore been about the aesthetic? Their music is pretty crushing as well.

On the flipside are the International Superheroes of Hardcore, who have been climbing the Last.fm hype charts and are now in second position. All it is is pop-punkers New Found Glory poking fun at the po-faced hardcore kids, with song titles like 'Madball's got our back', 'Ebay revenge' and 'Superhero sellouts'. As a NFG fan, it's kinda fun, but really, over-zealous and precious hardcore is NO JOKE KIDS, especially in the UK right now it seems. Who split up and left Your Demise in charge anyway? With lyrics which involve rhyming 'duck' with 'fuck', it's easy to get disenchanted with hardcore. Thank god for book club. And Cursed.

Playlist: Boards of Canada, Rocket From The Crypt

Bookmark with:
Digg	del.icio.us	Reddit
Facebook	Newsvine	StumbleUpon