It goes without saying that It's Grim Up North this time of year. In fact, it's been grim up here for pretty much the whole of this year, but let's not dwell on that now, in case the uncontrollable weeping starts again. When this particularly northern grimness overwhelms one's soul, there are only two viable musical courses of action.

Firstly, the default option of Just Cheer The Hell Up, Saddo, which is initiated by the liberal application of Gabber (thanks, Holland), or spinning a couple of BONKERS! Happy Hardcore CDs (preferably in a souped-up Vauxhall Nova), or maybe just the sensible option of listening to Happy by the Stones.

That option is diversion therapy of sorts, and an entirely normal approach to life. Well, except maybe listening to Gabber, which I believe is usually seen these days by doctors as a diagnosis of mental illness. The second option is just to wallow in that miserablism and just luxuriate in that gloominess. Don't knock it - Morrissey got two whole careers out of doing just that.

Inevitably, this brings us to Today's New Band. I'm sure that Rob St. John are actually an entirely upbeat bunch, and their hobbies may well include gaily skipping through fields, making daisy chains and excitedly squealing whilst feeding baby animals, but their music is glummer than listening to Leonard Cohen reading Kurt Cobain's diaries out loud. (Note to self - patent that idea double-quick, there's big money to be made there)

Kurt said there was a "comfort in being sad", and that lovely, skewed approach permeates Rob St' John's songs. Paper Ships is six-minutes of desolate sadness which also manages to be warm, gentle and uplifting despite the seemingly end-of-world feeling. A Red Heron is as close to upbeat as the band gets - tinkling sweetly like a music box, and slowly growing into a big, black, campfire song.

Rob St. John might just cheer you up, if you need it, or they might make you feel more gloomy than before. Whichever outcome, your soul'll be stirred, and that is a rare thing indeed. Listen here, and then come back tomorrow, when everything will be much less miserable, I promise.

Labels: slightly mournful, tinkling, wistful

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

If you live in the UK, you'll have heard all about Blur re-uniting for a few huge gigs next summer. This was a bit of a surprise to everyone, seeing as Blur's main protagonists, Damon and Graham, apparently hate each other; that the drummer now seems to be getting on with a career of repeatedly failing to become a Labour MP; and Alex the insufferable bassist is now an insufferable cheese-maker.

All those enlivening inter-band foibles aren't my gripe with this reunion, and neither is the awful, recession-mocking £45 ticket price. It's the fact that, now they're back together and might even make a new album, they are putting themselves in direct contravention of one of the main Laws Of Rock: Stop making music when you hit 40.

This isn't an ageist rant - just look at the facts: would you really be any poorer if the combined discographies of Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Oasis or the Rolling Stones suddenly ended at the point where the songwriters hit 40? Nope, not really. Even - whisper it - David Bowie - hasn't done anything really good since his mid 30s. If Blur do record a new album, I hope it disproves this rule. But I hope even more that they don't go near a studio at all.

A band that deserve to be spending more time in the studio are Today's New Band, Photons. They're from San Fransisco and, having spent too long now looking out of a window into the Manchester rain, this fact alone is enough to make me mad with jealous rage.

The problem is that Photons are far too lovable to ever focus any mindless hatred at. Their songs are dreamy, happy and sweet; the sound of the eight band members shunning worry, despair and all the other frivolous anxiety that is associated with modern life, and choosing glee instead.

Goodbye For Now is a festive Indie sea-shanty, inventively and rousingly clomping into a big, happy chorus. Cease and Desist is a rollocking clatter, both wild and focused together, and finding time to pop in another big chanty chorus. It's imbued, possibly unknowingly, with more human feeling than most songs ever manage. Something Left To Live For is much more upbeat than the title suggests a plink-plonking melody gleefully dripping through the whole song.

The Photons are rousing, positive and inventive. Are these youthful traits, put into song by people too young to be corrupted by cynicism to think of money-spinning reunions? Who knows, but try to figure it out for yourself by listening to their ace songs here!

PS - The ANBAD eBook is being downloaded like hot cakes. Mix your metaphors too, and get yours here! FREE!

Labels: happy happy joy joy, slightly mournful, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

Two heart-warming stories in the news today. Firstly, the final solution, as it were, to the question that has kept all of us awake for the last 50 years - did Adolf Hitler have one or two testicles? The answer, according to UK rag The Sun, is - brace yourselves - only one. So now you know. The second story concerns the leak of those right-wing funsters The BNP's secret membership list.

The list has made all of the BNP's middle-aged xenophobes a bit hot under the collar. Far-Right political parties like the BNP go out of their way to portray themselves as serious concerns. This list has nicely knocked all that into a cocked hat, owing to the revealing notes next to each member's details - my favourite of which stated that one member wouldn't be renewing his membership because he objected to being told off for wearing a bomber jacket.

So now we have learned our second lesson of the day: ultra-right-wingers don't like to be told not to dress like nightclub bouncers. Poor things. A New Band A Day generally steers clear of politics, so you may be asking - what this has to do with rock 'n' roll? Well, not a huge amount, frankly. But after doing a quick search of the database, and finding a truly depressing number of members in my hometown, I needed cheering up. Enter Today's New Band, Oh!

Oh! are from Guadalajara, which is a whole lot of fun to say out loud, and their songs are short, ethereal bursts of creativity. Listening to them sucks you instantly out of your day-to-day routine, to a happy place that feels a bit like a warm, comfortable bed.

Once Upon A Time is minimalist to the point of almost non-existance, a slow repetetive drone that's somewhere between a distant pealing of a bell and a slowed-down recording of a heartbeat. Little Jerbil Life Form ping-pongs in the unusual way you'd expect of a song with a name like that.

In some ways Oh!'s songs are half-formed, in the nicest way. Songs like Happy Noaniversary pop in from a starting point you don't hear, and unravelling before an ending they'll never get to. Their songs are self-contained and you, the suddenly docile listener, bob along with Oh! on their short, light, peaceful journeys. Hold hands with them here, and forget all about everything, softly and gently.

Labels: drifting, satisfyingly short, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

I'm jealous of Today's New Band. They're from San Francisco. I spent a month in San Francisco a couple of years ago and I'd happily give my eye teeth to go back to there RIGHT NOW. San Francisco is one of those cities where all of the things you've heard, and all of the things you haven't heard about it are true, and very visible. I was repeatedly told that it was 'very European', but it wasn't in the slightest.

It wasn't even American. It was its own, eye-rattlingly strange, determinedly varied world, packed full of crazies, stoners and professional 'characters'. I loved it, and walked around, mouth open at the shining brilliance of EVERYTHING I gawped at. It was all I could do from chaining myself to something very large so that I couldn't be deported when my visa expired.

Tartufi are Today's New Band. They were the band whose songs were playing in my addled mind while I was stumbling through Haight, Chinatown or the Mission, except I didn't know it yet. Much like you'd hope from a San Franciscan band, their music is a strange mix of prog sensibilities and indie lo-fi practice. I'm aware that that sounds like a match-up specifically invented by someone who is out to spoil your fun, but it fits nicely, and Tartufi sound ace.

Mourning's Wake, the title of which fulfils A New Band A Day's Weekly Pun Quotient in one fell swoop, clinks and clanks like the sound of a miniature xylophone falling down the stairs of a doll's house. It has that welcome Blue Monday-esque trick of not introducing vocals until at least halfway through the song, then dashes here and there like an (admittedly oxymoronic) well-rehearsed jam. Ebeneezer You Are Rotten further demonstrates their impatience, flipping from noise-rock to tinkling nursery rhyme and back again without care for your nervous fragility, before soaring stratospherically, all echoey guitars squeals and mad cymbal splashes.

Tartufi sound like they'd be a great band to see play live - and if you live in the US, you might be able to find out, as they're touring RIGHT NOW! Everyone else should visit their Myspace page and experience the audio equivalent of jumping in seven directions at once.

Labels: all over the shop, creative overload, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

Jazz, as we all know, and have touched upon before on A New Band A Day, is the last refuge of the untalented. Maybe it's a bit like golf and opera, in that the thought of partaking in it becomes more tempting as you get older. The element of Jazz which is enticing, I suppose, is the free-form, deliberate, structurally-deformed part. This idea has been applied to rock by a whole load of bands, who, for their efforts, were then horribly lumbered with the tag of 'Post-Rock'.

Today's New Band, Chrik, aren't post-rock, but do share an ethos with Mogwai et al. Their music though, is less wide-open and grand, and more youthful, energetic and sprightly; just like in their song Ben Nevis - an enjoyable zoom through changing landscapes, never becoming truly wearisome - much like a stroll around the mountain* itself.

Their songs wander without meandering aimlessly - some feat considering the sheer volume of tedious crud of the same ilk out there. Clicksticks or Stickclicks is a genuinely lovely, slow-burning, tinkling song that loops around itself like a happy Boa Constrictor.

Jazz for The Youth Of Today? Maybe, but then Chrik are entirely enjoyable, which is an immediate improvement. Listen to them here!

And incidentally, yes, the name 'Chrik' is a portmanteau of the two names of band members, Chris and Rik. POP FACT.

*it's just a big hill, let's face it

COMING NEXT WEEK: A New Band A Day's 100th band! Stay tuned for Centenary Celebrations!

Labels: instruMENTAL, loopy, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

When I was a young 'un, before I bought a guitar and sat in my bedroom mangling Smiths songs and wondering if I could convince my parents to let me paint my bedroom walls black, i used to while hours away playing on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It had sticky rubber keys, 48k of memory and the games took five minutes to load off a C90 tape. It was my nerd-baby though, and I'm still proud that I completed Magicland Dizzy without losing a life. These halcyon days were tarnished a bit though, when my friend Dan got a Commodore Amiga for Christmas - a computer which made the Spectrum appear weak and feeble in comparison (which, of course, it was).

The Amiga was ace. I presume Today's New Band, My Amiga, harbour similarly nostalgic feelings about unwieldy, grey early-90's computers. They're from Liverpool and have that seemingly genetic Liverpudlian way with treble-tastic rock melodies. My Amiga are what the Famous Five would sound like if they formed a band on their days off from drinking lashings of Ginger Beer and solving suspiciously family-friendly crimes.

That is to say, My Amiga sound young and sprightly enough to make the inevitable A&R men at their gigs feel like fuddy-duddies with try-hard haircuts. Though to be fair, they're like that anyway. Thank Heavens for Little Victories is a surprisingly deft and floaty throwaway pop tinkle, with a shouty bit to prove that they're actually of drinking age. Untitled is a brisk and jangly pop fizz which explodes frenetically with youth, the sonic equivalent of a child trying to build the tallest lower of Lego possible, and then laughing manically when it falls over.

My Amiga are as fun as drawing the curtains on a sunny day and playing Sensible Soccer until teatime. Though you probably won't get wrist ache from the joystick. Unless you really like them. If you known what I mean. Listen to their songs here!

Labels: jangle, tinkling, yelping

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

I sometimes feel sorry for bands. Not that sorry, what with all the booze, girls and urinating up against the Alamo that they manage to find time to do, but a bit sorry all the same. It must be tough to keep touring material that you love, only to find that either a) it doesn't fit in with the majority's taste; or b) they come under pressure to make it more in fitting with the mainstream. Some bands then choose the "We-do-what-we-do-and-if-anyone-else-likes-it-that's-a-bonus" route and plough on regardless, whilst others let their record company lead them around like little piggies.

Other bands find themselves in that happy spot which pleases both camps. I think today's new band, Stars And Sons, might have accidentally achieved that difficult blend of individuality and appealability, and their songs bristle with excitement as a result.

Fights Already Fought is a strangely subdued song that also manages to be uptempo at the same time. It rattles and shakes softly, as if waiting to be released for a big reprise that never arrives. It's lovely, and dissolves into a quick, quasi-Spiritualized fuzz at the end. In The Ocean is almost its exact opposite, a fun romp that bounds forwards with all the enthusiasm and wonder of a new puppy. A pop-rock puppy that plays the piano, but a puppy nonetheless.

The feeling is with Stars and Sons is one of trying to break away from the norm, whilst still holding with one hand onto their base sound. Calling it 'quirky power pop' is just too obvious, but songs like Out of View could be made to sound incredibly mundane very easily by other bands, and yet Stars and Sons keep yanking it over into the leftfield a little bit, keeping everyone on their toes and happy. Good work, Stars and Sons. Listen to them here!

Labels: chiming, jangle, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

There's something to be said for shy and fey voices in pop. Whilst Axl Rose et al growl, howl and grunt into the microphone, spraying the front row with saliva that is composed of 40% ALL MAN, 40% TESTOSTERONE and 20% COME BACKSTAGE AND BLOW ME, BABY, not everybody's songs benefit from such overt, Jack-Daniels-and-cigarettes, oversize-codpieced masculinity. Anything that goes some way to redressing the balance is welcome.

So, yup, Today's New Band, the lovely Bumblebees, are about as thrusting and masculine as Brian Sewell nibbling on cucumber sandwiches. This is A Very Good Thing, as evidenced by their Über-cute and happy songs that litter their Myspace page.

My Kaleidoscope starts and ends with the sugariest, yummiest, bloopy organ-line for, like, ages. This is the song that you'll play in your head this autumn when you look back fondly to summer and whizz through the memories of playing in the sea on holiday.

Fluffy Clouds Of Joy is a jerky, gentle and twee treat which metamorphoses into a children's TV show theme tune. It's also possibly begging for a post-post-post-ironic 'mash-up' with the Orb's Fluffy Little Clouds, which might cause the twin internet moron tribes of the Tweecore-ers and the Ironic Haircut-ers to either implode with rage (bad) or become best friends, ever (worse).

The Bumblebees are tons of fun in the same way that making your own Lemonade is, and with the similar qualities of sweetness masking sharpness. Great! Listen here, now, youngster!

Labels: jangle, lo-fi, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!

We fool ourselves into thinking that weekends are there for relaxation, but like most people, I just end up trying to fit way too much in two days. And so here we are again, straight back into another week, here at A New Band A Day. Mondays are usually characterised by that awful turbulence of re-entry back into reality, and this week, as always, is no different. Something soothing and trouble-free would sit quite nicely on top of my frame of mind right now, squashing down those troubling "Why aren't weekends five days long and a working week two?" thoughts.

So it was with minor joy when I played Today's New Band, Haruki's, music as I sat at my computer today. Haruki are Belgian, but don't fall into the trap of holding that against them - remember that, for all its dull-as-ditchwater stereotyping, Belgium is the home of the mighty Deus, Soulwax and 2ManyDJ's. Haruki sound like, well, Zen, maaaaan. Imagine if wind chimes were a pleasant wash of orchestrated noise, and not the sound of randomised hippy awfulness, and you'll have a rough idea of what to expect.

It's not all tinkly twee-ness though. Tiny Movements is just that - a series of lovely, minimal bleeps, as if water drops were falling onto a very tiny piano. And whilst In the Garden is the yummy, plucked, acoustic instrumental that you could happily snooze to, I Had it All Planned Out is almost Godspeed! You Black Emperor-like in its grumpy menace.

Haruki, then are most like the sound a lovely summery meadow would make if it learnt how to play happy instruments. Calmness will descend as soon as you listen. And if that isn't a good deal, I don't know what is. It's Monday, and you owe it to yourself to listen here, and adopt the lotus position, quick-quick.

Labels: Belgian, I am calm, tinkling

BOOKMARK: Digg // StumbleUpon // Reddit // Delicious // Twitter // iGoogle // Google Gadget
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!