It’s that time of year again, the time when William Bottin comes out from behind the curtain to hide razorblades in your kids’ apples and flood the street with Horror Disco. He’s playing a couple of Halloween-y UK dates this week. If you don’t know why you should go along, then click through to hear “Disco for the Devil”. Read more »
Spray yourself with the Aerosols
I’m pretty obsessed with San Fransisco at the moment. It’s all the hills and the gays and The Rock starring Sean Connery and the indie bands. There are lots of wonky indie bands out there now – something you’ll know if you’ve been paying any attention to this blog (or have I just been pissing my words into a big digital black hole?). Read more »
BLONDES JUST WANT TO HAVE ETC
Maybe Blondes haven’t ever heard of Van Morrison, because for me the word “Moondance” conjures images of fat Tex-Mexicans expressing their Irish roots on St. Patrick’s day and Irish governments selling their cultural identity to Disney, one Leprechaun keyring at a time. Read more »
Alba Lua are so dreamy they forgot to record any drum parts
I was in Bordeaux recently, staying in a temporarily vacant flat owned by a drummer who had a great record collection and a weird bathroom-and-bedroom-in-the-same-room scenario (is that a French thing?). Anyway, when I awoke to the smell of coffee and croissants (it was a pretty idyllic morning), the drummer plus band had returned and were waiting to practice upstairs. Despite the record collection and good taste in furniture, my expectation was that, like 95 per cent of the music out there, it would be a bit shit. It wasn’t. Read more »
Give Cave a wave
I’ve been driving Times New Viking around Europe for a few weeks and had my (admittedly shitty) but still pretty useful laptop stolen in Manchester. So I’ve been pretty much unable to write any posts here. What’s happened in the world of Pitchfork-friendly bands in my absence? Well, nothing too surprising, actually. The long-rumoured Pavement reunion was confirmed, Jay Reatard’s band quit, oh and (as everyone in the world will know) the lil’ guy from Wavves beat up Jared Black Lips (apparently with a lot of help from his manager and a bottle). Read more »
Make those grey locks gleam
Sorry to dwell on a band’s name again, but Silver Shampoo? I didn’t really get it, so I googled it and it turns out it’s the name for a shampoo for people with grey hair. I guess it turns you into a silver fox, like Clooney or Gere. It’s the opposite of those evil ads where the precocious, disrespectful children convince the greying widower to clasp life to his chest once more, dye his hair and go on a date with that hot widow who teaches at their school. Silver Shampoo encourages people to embrace their silvery locks and the beauty of age. Read more »
A Thank you to Thank You
I know a little about Baltimore: it’s the setting for The Wire, which is, y’know, the best thing since Shakespeare, Eminem, TV on the Radio, and whatever else the middle brow loves. It’s where the much-hyped Dan Deacon got together his faux-psychedelic Wham City collective and it’s where B-more, the chopped-up hip-hop/house hybrid, originated. In this country (well, Nottingham at least), B-more seems to be mainly popular with slightly posh students at hideous bars with horrendously cheap drinks offers, but I’m willing to believe it has a different audience over there. Read more »
These drunken Sheikhs
Teen Sheikhs are the raddest bunch of dudes out there right now, they’re even cooler than your brother’s friends. They get drunk before, during and after your show, and then in the morning have a celebratory Guinness. And they probably hook up with all the super gnarly chicks in the neighbourhood and have all the original Star Wars figures. Plus they have a bassist called Will Young, and their drummer makes insanely good art stuff. Read more »
See and hear the Strange Boys
The Strange Boys are a dusty Austin garage rock band and in the last seven days everyone has been getting unprecedentedly excited about them. It’s not that they’re anything other than totally scuzzy and brilliant, it’s just that a band exists happily sitting on their local cloud before one day the rest of the world starts screaming about them. I guess the art is to keep everyone shouting. Anyway, it’s late but they’re playing tonight in Brixton, and I was supposed to go but I can’t because my flatmate’s being a little bitch, so there’s a free space on the guest list. I’ll send the name on the list to the first person to comment beneath and leave their email. Oh, and here’s a song.
The Strange Boys, “Heard You Want To Beat Me Up”
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The Bronx are coming to town
You should have heard by now, but the Bronx and their mariachi side project are headlining our party on the 22 August. Supporting are tribal electro theatricals Crystal Fighters and Leeds art-punk kids Pulled Apart by Horses.Pretty sweet, we think you will agree. You can click here for tickets. As a treat, we’ve got an exclusive MP3 from Mariachi El Bronx, the debut mariachi album from the band, which isn’t out till next Monday. Click through to hear it. Read more »
