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December 29 Albums I'm excited about coming out in 2009*Deftones. I like EVERYTHING they've done and even thought 2006's 'Saturday Night Wrist' was great, so a bit psyched. Dananananaykroyd. I'm most intrigued as to how things evolve post-'Sissy Hits' and Kaiser Chiefs tour. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 'Show Your Bones' never ranked that highly for me so I want this one to be PROPER GOOD. The Shins. Noticing they're supposed to have an album out, I realised I haven't listened to any of their stuff in ABSOLUTELY AGES. I wonder if the same will happen with this new release? Holy State. The new Holy Roar band are so up my street with their Hot Snakes/Fugazi punk rock they might as well be living in my flat. My Bloody Valentine. But I really doubt this will happen. Mastodon. Post-hug with Troy Sanders my love for this band has been re-ignited. Built to Spill. If it's anywhere close to 'You in Reverse' or 'Keep it like a Secret' I will be happy. Grammatics. I don't think Cursive are up to much so Grammatics take their place for me. Sonic Youth. And by mentioning them I'm sending my prayers to the Primavera gods to get them added to the line-up.
*I'm not sure if any of these are guaranteed to be coming out so don't shout at me if they don't. Playlist: The Country Teasers
If it ain't broke.. the subject of covers, and specifically, 2 Rolo Tomassi coversApologies for the recent drought in updates but I tend to actively avoid the internet during the holidays. And TV. And most forms of communication. I'm back on it now, and slightly shocked at the amount of people online blogging on Christmas day. I don't hold it as sacrilege or anything, but really, shouldn't you be watching Wallace and Gromit or something? Anyhow, one of the best things to emerge from the festive season was Rolo Tomassi covering East 17's 'Stay Another Day' on the Huw Stephens Radio 1 show. Sorry for another mention of RT but out of any recent covers which bands have taken a stab at, this was pretty brave, albeit not as 'zany' as it could've been. However, covering At The Drive-In's 'Arcasenal' was definitely something which could've gone horribly wrong. But it was great, and having witnessed it at RoTa aaaages ago, they're probably one of the few bands who could get away with covering them. But who else has covered anything good recently? WHO? I'm really struggling to think. Playlist: A Silver Mt Zion, Flying Lotus
December 22 Primavera Sound '08 lineup starts to take shapeWell this news is exciting isn't it. So far on the lineup is My Bloody Valentine, Spritiualized, Gang Gang Dance, The Vaselines, Throwing Muses, Damien Jurado and more. However, with the whole €1 = £1 thing, tickets are going to be more expensive than normal. I'm getting mine in January. Major yay. Playlist: Godpseed, Fuc*ing Am, Eluvium
December 19 2008 end of year lists overloadIf, like me, you're getting a bit fatigued by end of year lists (if you're not, here's my fave albums and fave gigs) then don't worry, How many times can you read the same album titles over and over again? It's like we're not even paying attention any more. Anyway, one way to navigate the excessive number of lists is use Large Hearted Boy's constantly growing list of lists, although be warned, it's ruddy long. Another list of lists worth checking out is from Deathwish Inc, who have got some of their favourite people to submit top tens. I particularly enjoyed Geoff Rickley's cute animals and Damien From Fuc*ed Up's top ten shocking moments of 2008 including "2) Moby claiming he saw us with Youth Of Today six years ago (never happened)".
Playlist: The Pine, Flying Lotus
December 17 Five of my favourite unsigned bands around right now...So when I was looking for unsigned UK bands for the MSN Unsigned Podcast I came across a few which I didn't end up playing but still think are pretty cool, so I will share them with you here so my 2 hour search doesn't go completely to waste. Hair Traffic Control are a three-piece who make some pretty pop-sounding indie-rock. It's quite happy, upbeat stuff with lots of intricate mathy parts and adequate jangliness. Arch M make lush, textured noise rock with layers of dreamy, distorted guitars as well as anything from Brooklyn or Baltimore. Chaps are a noise punk band who I'm pretty sure I'd heard of before but I probably just forgot. It's got scratchy guitars and fast drumming and a girl yelping over the top, good stuff! Colour are from South London and possibly even the Surrey/Croydon area from what my internet stalking can tell me. This immediately made me interested, but luckily for me, their pop, maybe slightly twee, indie rock managed to live up to my South London expectations. Captions complete the trilogy of one word band names beginning with 'c', thank god. I can't wait for this trend for plural word band names to be over. Anyhow, they do a more emo kind of indie rock, very very reminiscent of Louisville favourites, the sadly departed Elliott.
Playlist: The above five bands
December 15 2008 - the Holy Roar reviewSitting and thinking how the year had been for us, as a label, I was struck by the depressing fact that I wasn't sure if I could call it a momentous one, not because it was crap, I just hadn't really considered it. How awful is that? I guess part of the 'Pretty good' for lots of reasons, but also because we didn't implode/cause any major dramas/give up. Always an achievement! Any independent label which has survived another 12 months of losing money, feeling like no-one's listening and generally plodding on towards the inevitable realisation that it won't get much better should give themselves a pat on the back. Anyway, my highlights, with Holy Roar:
So yeah, not all bad I guess. But it's so boring going 'yeah we did this, then we did this' so here's a brief summary of our plans we've already got for 2009: Youves EP (new name for Mirror! Mirror!), Holy State EP, experimenting with formats with Brontide, re-releasing the Rolo Tomassi EP, new stuff from Maths, new Holy Roar merch, loads of gigs/DJing appearances and A HELL OF A LOT MORE FUN STUFF.
Playlist: Cat Power, the entire Holy Roar back catalogue
December 14 My five favourite live performances of 2008In no order: My Bloody Valentine - Roundhouse, June Yeah yeah, obvious choice and all, but this really did well on living up to the hype. A slight grievance could be the lowness of Kevin Shields' vocals, to the point they were inaudible. This was mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; their legendary loudness and 20 minute noise fest freak-out a the end resulted in the first time I've ever worn earplugs at gigs. Low - Koko, November Aahhh, a Christmas gig, in November. If there's one thing that might've made this slightly more magical, it would be having it a lot nearer to Christmas. Actually, another thing would have been telling the miserable po-faced heckler to get lost. Nevertheless, 'Just Like Christmas', and the rest of the set in fact, was just perfect. Torche - ATP Nightmare Before Christmas, December To be honest, Monotonix could be up there too, but Torche for me slayed so hard simply because they just rocked out and partied, full stop. It was the simplest (purest?) form of rock euphoria, and they demonstrated just why they're one of the best bands on the planet RIGHT NOW. Blonde Redhead - Shepherd's Bush Empire, March Wow trying to relive a concert that was over 9 months ago isn't easy, but I do remember how shockingly appalling Devastations were. This was the gig which catapulted Blonde Redhead from being a band I quite enjoyed, to one I truly loved. Throats - Beyond Retro, Jan & Nov Kind of cheating but looking at this list, MBV, BR & Low all seem a bit 'safe', so I need some more heaviness to hold it up with Torche. The Throats live experience is still one of my absolute favourite right now, as it's one I can't see myself getting bored of anytime soon. On both occasions they completely rocked the Brick Lane clothes shop, and I think that in itself is a pretty amazing achievement. Massive, massive disappointment award goes to: Cat Power - Shepherd's Bush Empire & Primavera Sound Festival Both performances were infuriatingly disappointing. As enjoyable as watching Ms Marshall sashay and strut around the stage is, there was a lot of gloss and not enough of the grit. Don't even get me started on the excessive number of covers... Playlist: iTAL tEK, Elliott
December 12 Free bands, great DJ, good times!Tomorrow I'm dj-ing at the Clash Social Saturday at Notting Hill Art's Club. I'm a big fan of these kinda things as: a) It's free b) The booze is pretty cheap c) It's on a Saturday afternoon - what else you going to do, the cleaning? d) Good music! Tomorrow, Johnny Foreigner, Good Books, Cats In Paris and Sunset Cinema Club are playing. Fun starts at 4pm, COME ON DOWN. I am accepting requests and I have party tunes ready. Johnny Foreigner - Salt, Peppa and Spinderella video Playlist: Tim Hecker
December 10 ATP Nightmare Before Christmas 2008 - Melvins vs Mike PattonThere'd been rumours and murmurs of a Patton-curated Anyway, my anticipation of this (my fifth) ATP was pretty MASSIVE. The line-up is one of the strongest I've seen in ages and despite the fact it was at Minehead, rather than everyone's favourite Camber, it still managed to have an atmosphere of all round GOOD TIMES which seems more difficult there. Anyhow, here are my top ten moments from the festival, in no order: 1. Monotonix. For all the hype and live tomfoolery, their show is difficult not to enjoy, and their set in Reds blew a lot of the other bands playing out the water. While it's primarily a lot of fun, with the singer snatching drinks from people's hands before spitting it back in their faces, to me their music is great as well, and stands up as good, maybe not amazing, on its own. 2. Hugging Troy Sanders. I wish I had photographic evidence of this, but alas, it was Friday night and I was drunk buying snacks in the shop, so was he. It was fate, he asked me for a hug, I gladly obliged. OH MY GOD. 3. The final Torche show with guitarist Montoya . Despite this melancholy tinge they still completely rocked Reds and were more uplifting and euphoric than ever. 4. Melvins, both times. Due to ticket woes and queues I missed the 1983 incarnation on Friday but caught both their 'usual' line-ups. Their sound on Centre Stage was the best I heard in that venue all weekend, and their set, mostly stuff off 'Nude With Boots' was utterly rocking. 5. The Dance Machines. I managed to slip in some dance action on two occasions. After the second I finished to notice Justin Pearson of Locust fame standing quite nearby and possibly watching. 6. Kool Keith dance-offs. Sunday night is a good time for maximum dance activity, although the late running of the Centre Stage meant by doing silly gangsta dancing to KK I missed Double Negative. 7. Big Business on arrival. OK, they were actually pretty disappointing due to the fact their sound wasn't loud enough and the big stage set-up isn't the most favourable for them. Still, a great way to start the weekend. 8. Isis being not boring. They played a great set of 'hits' including 'The beginning and the end' which got all the dreads headbanging. 9. The 2 songs I heard by Black Heart Procession. It was Sunday night, and as predicted I wasn't in the mood for them at all. But from what I heard, they seemed like they were gonna be great. Please feel free to confirm if you saw their whole set. 10. Junior Brown. Of all the things I stumbled upon unexpectedly, Junior Brown was the most enjoyable, with his old school country stylings. The worst? Os Mutantes and their overblown latino cabaret karaoke. And one thing I wasn't digging so much: The DREADLOCKS! Where did they all come from? Are they contagious? Never seen so much mangy hair in all my life. Playlist: Jesu, Shellac
December 09 Blur announce reunion gig(When I typed this in Google I accidentally typed 'Blue reunion'. I can't decide which is more exciting.) Anyway, in case you missed it, from NME/MSN Music: "It just felt it was right again," declared Albarn of Blur's return. "It somehow feels like there's something for us to do again, we're not completely useless or pointless, we've got a reason to exist." Soz guys, I care all about your reasons to exist, but I saw you when I was 13. I can stick with those memories for now. Blur - The Universal (live)
Playlist: Parklife
'In' bands I should really listen to, yet haven'tHere are some facts about bands which seem pretty hip and are doing quite well right now. Only problem is, I haven't checked them out yet. Please tell me if I should take the time to listen to them or not.
Chairlift - from Brooklyn, that's all I know. Santogold - She's appearing on a lot of 'albums of the year' lists. Wikipedia tells me she's 32. From Brooklyn. High Places - Myspace page says 'Surf/Hardcore/Trance'. Seems pretentious. From Brooklyn. Is this where all bands come from now? These Are Powers - Also from Brooklyn. Jeez. If there were more ~cool~ bands from West Norwood I would've blatantly heard them by now. Anyway, keep getting these guys confused with High Places. Women - From Canada. Thank god. I like their album cover.
Playlist: Torche, Monotonix & Melvins @ ATP, Thurston Moore
December 02 First Torche, now Mastodon are 1 guitarist down at ATPFrom TheQuietus: Brent Hinds of heavy rock titans Mastodon was forced to pull out of playing this weekend’s Nightmare Before Christmas because of health problems relating to a brain haemorrhage suffered last year....“The band are going to play ATP as a three-piece.” Sad news, get well soon vibes are being sent to Hinds. At least Troy will still be there, sigh.
Playlist: Arab on Radar, iTAL tEK
December 01 Gone but not forgotten #5 - thisGIRL#1 - Seven Feet Four, #2 - Pinebender, #3 - The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg, #4 - Versoma I'm not able to comment on any of thisGIRL's output post the 'Has Fangs Too' EP, but wow, 2002 as a fresher in Birmingham, 'Short strut to the brassy front' was my sountrack and the 'Photographer's club' T-shirt my uniform. I'm not sure whether I'd classify the music they produced as anything other than 'pretty great'; it was never, and isn't now, the most amazing life-shattering music I've ever heard. They were an anomaly that didn't really fit in with the rest of the FFAF/Lostprophets crowd and yet were part of that whole scene. They were influenced by swing and jazz yet I never really knew what that meant, I just liked the quirky lyrics and unpredictable songwriting. They did a few more releases including an album on Drowned In Sound, but they mostly faded into oblivion, and survive from that era with only a handful of bands I can still bear to listen to. thisGIRL - 'Sahara' live
Playlist: Weezer, Melvins
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