Girl Aloud: MSN Music Blog

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

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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

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While discovering new bands is all well and good (today I've been listening to Suffocate For Fuck Sake, who are surprisingly not a joke death metal band), going back and discovering old bands you'd never heard of is perhaps even more amazing. And yep, it's true, sadly I didn't always have this impeccable taste in music so I'm constantly half-filling the gaps with stuff I simply should be liking already.

Blogs, Last.fm, mixtapes and friends' record collections are currently how I discover new old bands, but there's one blog in particular, sadly currently out of action, which is simply unmatchable when it comes to discovering old stuff which was way before my time: Something I Learned Today.

It seems it has been on hiatus since August last year, and despite occasionally glancing at it to see if it had any MP3s I wanted before, I've only really begun trawling through it recently for some of the gems it still has in its goldmine for old punk rock, hardcore, post-punk and more; it covers a lot of genres, spans a few decades worth of music, and still has A LOT of MP3s on it. This week it's given me a couple of old Drive Like Jehu tracks off their first 7", as well as introducing me properly to noise-rockers Cows and 70's post-punk group Pere Ubu (pictured above).

I'm no doubt going to spend too much time reading it and downloading stuff, but I really really hope it's not on a Fugazi-esque 'permanent hiatus'. The writer has another day-to-day blog, but without the Karp MP3s and overload of bands I've never heard of, it's just not the same...

Playlist: Converge

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Ten bands I'm looking forward to:

1. Les Savy Fav

2. No Age

3. Girls Against Boys

4. Shit and Shine

5. Los Campesinos!

6. Meat Puppets

7. Sebadoh

8. Fuck Buttons

9. Hot Chip

10. Pissed Jeans

Nine things I'm sure I will consume at the festival:

1. Gin and tonics

2. Tea

3. Pasta and pesto

4. Too many cigarettes (this will be my 2nd ATP with the smoking ban)

5. Toast

6. Crap instant coffee

7. Water

8. Bananas

9. Sea air

Eight things likely to be heard during Fuck Buttons' set:

1. 'I can't believe they're playing ATP now, I remember seeing them play to 2 people a year ago'

2. 'I love the twinkly twinkly bit at the beginning of this song'

3. 'ANDY HUNNNNNNG'

4. 'Wait, they don't sound anything like Holy Fuck'

5. 'It's just a noise'

6. 'Black Dice who?'

7. 'They totally sold out maaan'

8. 'They are both totally sexy'

Seven suitcase essentials:

1. FOOD - the places to eat at Camber are so-so.

2. Mini speakers for iPod/MP3 player/walkman

3. Camera

4. Swimmers

5. Shorts

6. Heavy-metal t-shirts with cut-off sleeves

7. Sunglasses

Six bands I should really check out but will no doubt be overcome with the ATP apathy and won't bother:

1. Times New Viking

2. Jay Reatard

3. Man Man

4. Black Mountain

5. Wooden Shjips

6. Harmonia

Five things to do on the train ride down:

1. Go through suitcase trying to figure out what you've forgotten

2. Sing Shellac songs

3. Drink cheap wine

4. Fall asleep

5. Reminisce about previous ATPs

Four reasons the Pitchfork ATP is better than the Explosions one:

1. Les Savy Fav

2. More party bands

3. It's at Camber

4. Les Savy Fav

Three favourite previous ATPs:

1. Vs the fans

2. Mars Volta

3. Portishead

Two bands I will be avoiding:

1. Of Montreal

2. Deerhunter

One person who will be spending the weekend being lairy and over-excitable:

1. Ummmm.....

Playlist: The Postal Service, Off Minor, Cat Power

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