Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Here's a horrible truth: the rock 'n' roll world is overwhelmingly unfair. Unfairer even than real life, where bad stuff happens randomly to whoever, whenever. In Rock 'n' Roll World, the odds are actually stacked against you if your band is one or any of the following:
This is a bit of a problem. Surely all of those things are what everyone actually wants to hear? And weren't bands like, duh, The Beatles all of those things and a bit of a success? Well, yes and yes. BUT - here's the trump card: Scouting For Girls. Not only are they a band utterly devoid of imagination, talent or likability, but they are also hugely successful.
They have sold over half a million copies of their execrable debut album. I have been clinging onto a vain hope that this figure is so inflated because an eccentric millionaire, driven crazy by the gut-wrenching inanity of the omnipresent She's So Lovely, has been buying every copy available to prevent the general public from ever having to listen to it. But I think this might not be the case.
What is so galling about Scouting For Girls' success is that, at heart, they are a simple Indie band that plays simple Indie tunes - much like the wonderful Popguns did in the late 80's. But guess which band sold a bazillion copies of their album, and which one sold half a dozen?
Celebrate the good bands, while you can, is the moral of this story. One of these good bands is Today's New Band. Weird Gear have taken the soundtrack from a low budget early-80's sci-fi TV show and made it into music that is both enjoyable and danceable. This alone is some achievement, especially if you've ever sat through an early-80's BBC sci-fi show.
While the title of Hamm Ond Cheese is almost too pun-tastic for words, it bubbles enthusiastically along, pulsing forwards with all the electro lo-fi nerdishness you'd expect of a band that have excitedly drawn up, in mind-boggling detail, a list of every single piece of electronic gubbins they used to create the sounds.
This is all part of Weird Gear's charm - electro-instrumental nerds are still outsiders in the four-square guitar-drums-bass-singer world of Rock 'n' Indie. Songs like Moulange, synth-o-tronic and sweeping, are so out of place with music today that they travel full circle and become vital in their opposition to the norm. Cobble together a Dalek out of toilet rolls and papier maché and travel back in time with Weird Gear here!
Too busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
- New
- Inventive
- Good
This is a bit of a problem. Surely all of those things are what everyone actually wants to hear? And weren't bands like, duh, The Beatles all of those things and a bit of a success? Well, yes and yes. BUT - here's the trump card: Scouting For Girls. Not only are they a band utterly devoid of imagination, talent or likability, but they are also hugely successful.They have sold over half a million copies of their execrable debut album. I have been clinging onto a vain hope that this figure is so inflated because an eccentric millionaire, driven crazy by the gut-wrenching inanity of the omnipresent She's So Lovely, has been buying every copy available to prevent the general public from ever having to listen to it. But I think this might not be the case.
What is so galling about Scouting For Girls' success is that, at heart, they are a simple Indie band that plays simple Indie tunes - much like the wonderful Popguns did in the late 80's. But guess which band sold a bazillion copies of their album, and which one sold half a dozen?
Celebrate the good bands, while you can, is the moral of this story. One of these good bands is Today's New Band. Weird Gear have taken the soundtrack from a low budget early-80's sci-fi TV show and made it into music that is both enjoyable and danceable. This alone is some achievement, especially if you've ever sat through an early-80's BBC sci-fi show.
While the title of Hamm Ond Cheese is almost too pun-tastic for words, it bubbles enthusiastically along, pulsing forwards with all the electro lo-fi nerdishness you'd expect of a band that have excitedly drawn up, in mind-boggling detail, a list of every single piece of electronic gubbins they used to create the sounds.
This is all part of Weird Gear's charm - electro-instrumental nerds are still outsiders in the four-square guitar-drums-bass-singer world of Rock 'n' Indie. Songs like Moulange, synth-o-tronic and sweeping, are so out of place with music today that they travel full circle and become vital in their opposition to the norm. Cobble together a Dalek out of toilet rolls and papier maché and travel back in time with Weird Gear here!
Labels: human-computer hybrid, PUNS, synth-o-tronic
BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google GadgetToo busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Having returned from Bestival yesterday, the most surprising aspect in retrospect was that the weekend of mud, more mud and a dislikeable mixture of mud and (hopefully cattle) faeces, did not actually dampen (GEDDIT? LOLZ!1!11!!) the intrepid A.N.B.A.D team/posse/masochists one bit. In fact, it was almost a triumph, and the Saturday night, after the powers that be had finally decided that we were requisitely muddy, was one of the best ever experienced at a festival.
So here's the very briefest list of Bestival high points:
Obviously, being A New Band A Day, we weren't only there to see these established bands, but to also check out some of the new 'uns. So for the rest of the week, we're keeping on our inevitable 3-am purchases of Peruvian pixie hats, glo-sticks and day-glo face paints and we'll be showcasing bands from Bestival. A Themed Week! Hooray!
Today's New Band managed to brave the Introducing stage, shortly before it finally plunged head first, Titanic-style, into the mud. They are Zombie Zombie, and, like their name, are delightfully confusing and confusingly delighting in equal measure.
Live, their swirling, wilfully bizarre sound fills the air with the same all-consuming unease in the same way a crowd of the undead pressing their faces against a window might. On record, they sound less ear-worrying, but grind out great tunes - Walk of the Dead is a the bleepy, creepy, sound-of-adrenaline music that would be played in a futuro-dystopian zombie movie during the bit where the hero steels themselves to face the flesh-hungry hoards.
With that in mind, Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free soundtracks the scene where the same, now-bloodied, hero only just manages to flee, terrified and weeping. It's pin-sharp, taut and would give you the creeps if you listened to it in a dark room. Yummy. Sometimes a good scare is what you need.
Listen to Zombie Zombie's great tunes here! (But arm yourself with an improvised weapon first - fire extinguishers are useful for bewildering and clunking)
Too busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
So here's the very briefest list of Bestival high points:
- My Bloody Valentine - still mind-warpingly loud, even when outside
- Hot Chip - defying all rock 'n' roll logic by continuing to get better, bolder and more bangin'
- Lethal Bizzle - couldn't have got the crowd more excitable or more kinetic unless they'd lobbed AIDS-riddled rats with live hand grenades strapped to their backs into the audience. Brilliant.
- Wandering backstage by mistake and finding a row of pristine, spotless (i.e. poo-less) toilets - pure pleasure.
Obviously, being A New Band A Day, we weren't only there to see these established bands, but to also check out some of the new 'uns. So for the rest of the week, we're keeping on our inevitable 3-am purchases of Peruvian pixie hats, glo-sticks and day-glo face paints and we'll be showcasing bands from Bestival. A Themed Week! Hooray!Today's New Band managed to brave the Introducing stage, shortly before it finally plunged head first, Titanic-style, into the mud. They are Zombie Zombie, and, like their name, are delightfully confusing and confusingly delighting in equal measure.
Live, their swirling, wilfully bizarre sound fills the air with the same all-consuming unease in the same way a crowd of the undead pressing their faces against a window might. On record, they sound less ear-worrying, but grind out great tunes - Walk of the Dead is a the bleepy, creepy, sound-of-adrenaline music that would be played in a futuro-dystopian zombie movie during the bit where the hero steels themselves to face the flesh-hungry hoards.
With that in mind, Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free soundtracks the scene where the same, now-bloodied, hero only just manages to flee, terrified and weeping. It's pin-sharp, taut and would give you the creeps if you listened to it in a dark room. Yummy. Sometimes a good scare is what you need.
Listen to Zombie Zombie's great tunes here! (But arm yourself with an improvised weapon first - fire extinguishers are useful for bewildering and clunking)
Labels: Bestival Theme Week, French, synth-o-tronic
BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google GadgetToo busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Firstly, please accept A.N.B.A.D.'s huge, sloppy kisses, wilted flowers and drunken apologies for their being no Band of the Day yesterday. It's never happened before, and it won't happen again, I promise. In fact, the litany of problems and unforeseen issues that stopped anything being posted was so ridiculously unlikely, It can't happen again.
As way of further apology, we've managed to rustle up a Band Of The Day that is worth the wait. One part electronic mayhem, one part crazy yelping and a billion parts awesomeness, Soft Toy Emergency are the band to reach up your trouser leg, grab you by the balls and then drag you to the dancefloor - and you'd thank them for it.
Colourful, buzzing and twitching, MIX ME is driven by the squelchiest riff you've ever heard, and jerks itself around like a hyperactive kid at the school disco.
On I KNO U WANT IT, they channel the bizarro-spirit of the B-52's and squish it into the shape of an electro-pop HIT. Managing to pull off the tricky challenge of producing a sound that is now and stylish but without any of the awful too-cool-for-school posturing that usually drowns the sound in idiocy.
Soft Toy Emergency sound like they are having the most loosely controlled fun of all time and it sounds a like a blast of monster proportions. You'll want to put on technicolour spandex and frug yourself stupid, and then post a video of yourself doing it on Youtube - because you just WON'T CARE. Listen to their acey-tunes here!
Too busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
As way of further apology, we've managed to rustle up a Band Of The Day that is worth the wait. One part electronic mayhem, one part crazy yelping and a billion parts awesomeness, Soft Toy Emergency are the band to reach up your trouser leg, grab you by the balls and then drag you to the dancefloor - and you'd thank them for it.Colourful, buzzing and twitching, MIX ME is driven by the squelchiest riff you've ever heard, and jerks itself around like a hyperactive kid at the school disco.
On I KNO U WANT IT, they channel the bizarro-spirit of the B-52's and squish it into the shape of an electro-pop HIT. Managing to pull off the tricky challenge of producing a sound that is now and stylish but without any of the awful too-cool-for-school posturing that usually drowns the sound in idiocy.
Soft Toy Emergency sound like they are having the most loosely controlled fun of all time and it sounds a like a blast of monster proportions. You'll want to put on technicolour spandex and frug yourself stupid, and then post a video of yourself doing it on Youtube - because you just WON'T CARE. Listen to their acey-tunes here!
Labels: happy happy joy joy, synth-o-tronic, yelping
BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google GadgetToo busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
Friday, 25 July 2008
Bands have perceived connections with the past whether you, or they, want them or not. If yesterday's new band, Saboteur, reminded us of the 90's - if not in sound, at least in spirit - then Today's New Band, Padre Pio, simply reek of the 70's and 80's, sonically and, quite possibly, intellectually.
And if that has conjured up images of 70's wank-rock or 80's poodle-hair-rock, then a) wash your mind with bleach; no-one deserves to inflict that kind of mental torture to themselves, and b) instead think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn't scruffy, but glistening with confidence.
Padre Pio's songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70's New York song you've never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock's most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.
Surely Padre Pio aren't going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill. Listen to them here!
P.S. As a side note, Padre Pio are, apparently, from Bushwick, in Brooklyn. This has no connection at all with rapper Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys, but it's still an excuse to show the cover of their album We Can't Be Stopped, which features Bushwick Bill being rolled into hospital AFTER HE SHOT HIMSELF IN THE EYE. Now that's hardcore.
Too busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
And if that has conjured up images of 70's wank-rock or 80's poodle-hair-rock, then a) wash your mind with bleach; no-one deserves to inflict that kind of mental torture to themselves, and b) instead think of when rock was a bit luxuriant, asexual and gleaming. Think Bowie and Lou Reed. Think of druggy, sharp-suited excess and eyeshadow on men. Think of a time when rock wasn't scruffy, but glistening with confidence.Padre Pio's songs caress your eardrums with all of those things. Colour is a synthy glammy pop breeze, and Common Day is the great late 70's New York song you've never heard. It also, against all odds, achieves rock's most risky, difficult feat: a great Sax solo. Their songs are slightly pompous, eccentric and lithely predatory - all missing in most music now, and extremely welcome.
Surely Padre Pio aren't going to be gazing at the stars forever, wondering when they can strut their stuff in, I like to imagine, delightfully-cut suits. A band this swooning and sexy has to, and deserves to, end up foppishly jostling with the big boys. Brill. Listen to them here!
P.S. As a side note, Padre Pio are, apparently, from Bushwick, in Brooklyn. This has no connection at all with rapper Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys, but it's still an excuse to show the cover of their album We Can't Be Stopped, which features Bushwick Bill being rolled into hospital AFTER HE SHOT HIMSELF IN THE EYE. Now that's hardcore.
Labels: asexual, lithe, synth-o-tronic
BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google GadgetToo busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
As anyone who has spent time stuck in a caravan on a rainy week in Wales will know, Scrabble is the kind of game that only people with giant intellects can really play. All the rest of us just take part, and grind our teeth with frustration as our opponent beats your last move of "dog" with "onomatopoeic", or similar.
That said, these insufferable people are directly responsible for the invention of the video game, allowing us mouth-breathers to be victorious at something, so perhaps they can be spared from utter hatred. Either way, Scrabble champs would take a situation where they were faced with the dreaded "Q" tile in their stride. They've memorised the list of all words spelt using Q without U, you see. Yes, there are 24 of them. No, you won't know what they mean, or ever need to use them. Or know how to.
For those of us with social lives, the only instance of Q without U that will be of any importance is Today's New Band. From Glasgow, like just about every other band of any interest, Q Without U meld super-tuneful guitar rock with whizzy synths into punchy pop songs that, like in ace tune The Deficit Model, tread on the right side of traditional rock without descending into Runrig hell. So, melodic, but not drab, and not taking the easy route. Songs like Our Luck Is A Prostitute are quirky enough, with its soaring chorus, to soar a bit before floating gently back to earth.
Oh, and they say that they're "Like the shit bits of your favourite band", which is a good enough starting point for me.
Listen to their songs on their Myspace page here!
That said, these insufferable people are directly responsible for the invention of the video game, allowing us mouth-breathers to be victorious at something, so perhaps they can be spared from utter hatred. Either way, Scrabble champs would take a situation where they were faced with the dreaded "Q" tile in their stride. They've memorised the list of all words spelt using Q without U, you see. Yes, there are 24 of them. No, you won't know what they mean, or ever need to use them. Or know how to.For those of us with social lives, the only instance of Q without U that will be of any importance is Today's New Band. From Glasgow, like just about every other band of any interest, Q Without U meld super-tuneful guitar rock with whizzy synths into punchy pop songs that, like in ace tune The Deficit Model, tread on the right side of traditional rock without descending into Runrig hell. So, melodic, but not drab, and not taking the easy route. Songs like Our Luck Is A Prostitute are quirky enough, with its soaring chorus, to soar a bit before floating gently back to earth.
Oh, and they say that they're "Like the shit bits of your favourite band", which is a good enough starting point for me.
Listen to their songs on their Myspace page here!
Labels: glasgow, scrabble, synth-o-tronic
BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google GadgetToo busy/lazy/forgetful to visit A.N.B.A.D.? Subscribe to A.N.B.A.D. by Email and receive it in your inbox every day!
A New Band A Day!
ANBAD Twitter Feed!A.N.B.A.D. Archive
April 2008May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
Other Great Music Sites 'n' Blogs
Fuzzy Blog ListIndie MP3
My Chemical Toilet
Von Pip Musical Express
Chrome Waves
24 Hour Party Pooper
Keep Hope Inside
To Die By Your Side
Because Midway Still Aren't...
Box Set Go
Sweeping The Nation
Said The Gramophone
New Ears
I (Heart) Music
75 or Less Found Music
Steve Lamacq
More Cowbell
Line Of Best Fit
Pitchfork
Music for ANTS!
Eardrums Music
The Sonic Minefield
Panic Manual
Nothing But Green Lights
Fluxblog
British Rock Is Always Top!
Links to sites much more informative, funny and wise than this
UK ResistanceIdiot Toys
Cracked
The Onion
Hot Chicks With Douchebags
Etc...
Some rights of this page's text are reserved for the author.
The Template is generated via PsycHo and is Licensed.
A New Band A Day Happily Uses Poll 'N' Ping!
The Template is generated via PsycHo and is Licensed.
A New Band A Day Happily Uses Poll 'N' Ping!