You’ve possibly noticed that there is no longer A New Band Every Day on A New Band A Day. Why? The real world, maaaan. Hey, I did it every day for five years solid and then sporadically for another three, so I had to stop for the sake of everyone’s sanity. However I did manage to prove that quantity IS better than quality, so there’s that.
Joe Sparrow was once a boy who listened to John Peel under the covers*, marvelling at the mix of obscure Bolivian thrash punk, Taiwanese deep psy-house, et al.
The mere existence of such a wild churn of odd music contrasted sharply with life in Stoke-On-Trent, where mallet-headed youths would shout “you fucking poof!” at you in the street for tucking your shirt into your trousers – and so these bands and songs became buzzy musical escapism.
He later became a reluctant adult, and started to find these odd bands for himself – which was made easier because men no longer shouted “you fucking poof!” at him in the street.
So, on A New Band A Day you’ll find a new band a day posted for you to investigate and see if you like. That’s how he came up with the title of the blog. He’s not a rocket scientist, you know.
Joe and ANBAD have since been featured in all sorts of national newspapers – including, oddly, The Guardian, which has a very similar page that – ahem – pre-dates ANBAD; an unexpected half-hour takeover or two of BBC 6 Music, and miscellaneous loose-lipped appearances on Hype Machine Radio, Tom Robinson’s 6 Music show, Amazing Radio, and others.
But here’s the important bit that defines ANBAD, which is probably nicked from John Peel too: a core belief thatthere’s no merit in consistency. Joe hopes that you don’t find the same bunch of bands here that you’ll find on a lot of other new music websites.
Some bands on ANBAD will be great. Others might not be. He tries to mostly find the former. He sometimes fails at this. But that’s kind of the point.
The buzz bands do pop up on here sometimes, but on ANBAD you’re more likely to find some brilliant, genuinely new, bedroom-recorded pop from Norway. The bands here might never show up on the front of the NME, but they do make music you won’t want to miss, possibly for the same reason.
Joe has no idea why he has written this blurb in the third person. You can ask him why via joe [at] anewbandaday.com.
Joe Sparrow | Jan 2014 | Joe on: Twitter | Hype Machine
*it’s probably worth noting that it was Joe who was under the covers, not John Peel.
Welcome To The All-New* ANBAD! | A New Band A Day!
SEWARD – Live at Momo’s Kemia Bar (London) | Enchanted Tunes