On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be invited to a BAFTA screening of Ron Howard’s new film, Frost/Nixon in BAFTA’s private Piccadilly cinema. Due to be released in January, the film is an adaptation of the critically-well-received play by Peter Morgan (who wrote 2006’s The Queen), and stars Michael Sheen and Frank Langella (who stared in the original West End and Broadway productions).
A dramatisation of David Frost’s interview with Richard Nixon following the US president’s resignation (after a gap of three years, during which Nixon was officially pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, and many Americans called for a confession and apology from him), the film is similar in tone to last years Bobby, but differs in that it’s actually good (rather than a couple of hours of rambling hero worship…).
Sheen’s portrayal of David Frost proves that his skills of mimicry extend further than just impersonating Tony Blair (a role he’s played twice now), and the film is actually quite sympathetic in its depiction of Nixon – whom I’d guess is an easy target for vilification. There were, however, several moments of intentional comedy based around Nixon’s greed for money, and sadly these felt like cheap shots at the expense of the film’s integrity.
It was interesting to be part of a BAFTA audience; they quietly read all the credits at the end and then applaud. As a result I now know there were three stuntmen used in the film, but quite where the stunts were was a mystery to me…
Yet another bl**dy scotch indie/folk/whatever band! There must be something in the water up there, as this is the latest in what’s becoming a long list of great albums to emerge from that neck o’ the woods…
Nightjar set themselves apart from the rest of the pack by presenting a much more stripped-back, rootsy sound. You could almost be forgiven for thinking it’s of Appalachian origin, such is the strong bluegrass flavour that tints most of the songs.
The Moth Trap has apparently been kicking around for quite a while, but has just recieved an offical release on Song, by Toad Records (you can get your mits on your own copy here). As an interesting aside; it features some guest guitar playing from Kris Drever, who’s current band was the subject of my very first CD review for these hallowed pages…
If you’ve had even a passing interest in current affairs over the last few months you’ll have noticed that the nation’s in the grip of a “recession” (that’s merely official parlance for “two quarters of economic slowdown” and doesn’t mean that the sky is falling in, lest I be guilty of the kind of scaremongering that got us all here in the first place…) and thanks to our oh-so-clever friends across the pond in yankville we’ve all got a little less money to spend.
So what does that mean for us self-styled music obsessives? Those of us who have to buy at least two CDs a week or we’d explode from a lack of new music… Well fear not, for here’s the cavalry with the Top Five Ways to Get a Cheap Music Fix:
1. Don’t panic. You don’t necessarily have to spend £10 for an album; as long as you keep your mind open and your computer on then you can amass a respectable music library for free. And what’s more, you won’t have to break the law (well, there’re a few gray areas, but we’ll come to those later…) or resort to the bane of industry-types everywhere: the dreaded torrent!
2. Visit this site (and others like it). Any regular readers of this blog will know I’m fond of ranting about mp3 blogs, and their legitimacy, or lack of, as a route for discovering new music. The way things stand at the moment, there are plenty of new and independent acts out there who’re desperate for promotion and press. The current trend is for those acts to “give away” sample mp3s for bloggers to link to. Meaning, that there’s loads of new music being given away for free: all you have to do is find it.
By far the easiest way to do this is to peruse a “mp3 blog aggregator” (a site that searches a selection of blogs for links ending with .mp3 and offers them up to you via a standard search page) such as Elbows or Hype Machine.
The other way is find a blog you like and then explore that blog’s “blogroll”. This way you’re using the bloggers own taste to filter your results, meaning that what you find tends to be a bit more “focused”.
It should be mentioned, however, that there are a lot of unscrupulous bloggers out there who post mp3s without any permission at all. It’s safe to assume that any song from a major label that appears in a blog had been illegally half-inched, so watch your step…
3. Be a fan. Committed fans have been getting free sh*t from bands since the days of fan-clubs and Xeroxed fanzines… If you sign up to a band’s mailing list you’ll be inundated with band-spam, but amongst all the “please come to our gigs” emails you’ll often find the odd link to exclusive downloads, fan-only website areas, etc. If you go one step further and join a band or labels “street team” you’ll get even more stuff – full CDs and T-shirts – in exchange for nothing more arduous than an afternoon of handing out flyers.
4. Review stuff. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, as it eats into my margins, but bands and labels will always hand out previews of albums in exchange for press. If you’re a student (and therefore always poor, recession or not), get in touch with your university paper and offer to write stuff for them. That way you’ll get free CDs and gig tickets in exchange for a (generally quite short) review.
5. Sleep with the band. Surely the most sure-fire way of getting free stuff, and pretty self-explanatory…
Anyone for some Alternative Rock? A genre many thought had died out at the end of the ’90s seems to be going through a bit of a resurgence lately. The (really, really, really awfully named) Royworld seem to be doing alright for themselves, and now Tom Stephens and the Retreat have stepped manfully into the arena. They’d probably be appalled at this pigeonholing, but I honestly can’t think of a better “label” for the thoughtful, gutsy rock that these guys are peddling.
Having only recently acquired a copy of their current EP, I have to say they’re much better when seen live and, more importantly, loud. In the flesh, they sound much bigger and fuller than a four-piece has any right to. With so many bands at the moment wearing their indie/nu-rave/whatever credentials on their sleeves, I must say it’s refreshing to see some clean-cut, straight-down-the-middle rock music.
This is yet another one from north of the border, which seems to be the theme for this week’s posts. Eagleowl specialise in that kind of esoteric folkish music that seems to be occupying so much of my time lately, and is yet hard to find a name for. Eagleowl themselves call it “lo-fi post folk”, which works about as well as any other term I’ve heard.
For the Thoughts You Never Had is another record that’s all about space and ambiance – the texture of their electric guitar and arco double bass is used particularly effectively. Perhaps more time could have been spent on the violin arrangement and recording: the parts were a little by-the-numbers, and sounded somewhat tinny and scratchy to these ears – but let me stress that that’s a minor quibble with what is an otherwise excellent EP.
In keeping with other Fife Kills releases, this is one for absorbing during a quiet night by the fire. Most of the songs are slow burners and they aren’t afraid to make the listener work; It’s a thinking man’s record, if you will (I certainly can’t imagine anyone dancing to it. At least not successfully…). This is all thrown delightfully out the window, however, when one reaches the fifth and final track. The superbly/terribly (depending on your mood) titled M*the*rf*ck*r could almost be seen as a pop song, in traditional sense of the word. There’s hooks and everything! On the whole I prefer them sans drum-machine, but I’ve always been one to appreciate a musical sting in the tail…
It could be argued that it’s nobody’s fault but but own – being as I chose the name for this blog – but it according to my WordPress “stats” page it appears that there’s a slow but steady stream of people (and I’m using the term loosely here…) who’ve been directed here after searching for “girls eaten by monsters”.
Sorry to disapoint, but you’ll find no “vore” or “BDSM” (ask your mother) here.
I don’t know if anyone else feels this, but it seems to me that really good records are few and far between. I don’t even mean great records; just good ones. By good, in this context, I mean a record that can stand up to repeat listening and that delivers on all fronts – technical ability of the players, the quality of the songs, the production values, everything. Sure, a new album can impress on first listening, but does it still sound as engaging ten or twenty listens down the line? Sadly, the answer is often no.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however, as 2008 (in my “humble” opinion) has had more than its fair share of genuinely good records. I was going to list a few examples of good ’08 albums here, but there are actually too many to list. I’m going to have real trouble come the new year when I attempt to compile my “Top Ten Albums of 2008″…
As a result of this lengthy preamble I can safely assume that many of you will have already guessed where this review is heading. But it’s not as clear cut as all that: on my first few listens I was pretty close to dismissing Meursault‘s new album, Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues, as merely “okay”. Sure, it’s got a great title, but it certainly didn’t grab me on my first listen. Thankfully, for some unknown reason I kept playing the record, and now a few days later I can say that (barring a whole slew of awesome albums coming out in the next month and a bit) this album will definitely be on my end of year Top 10.
Above all else, PoB/KWT “works” as an album. The songs all fit together beautifully and create a superb soundtrack to an evening in with subdued lighting, a good drink and a rubbish book. I’m going to tread carefully here, as I’m in danger of sounding like a real music journalist and using words such as “sublime”, “hypnotic” and maybe even “transcendental”… Long story short: this is a wicked album.
It’s being officially released on Dec. 15th on Song, by Toad Records, but it appears you can already buy a copy from the SbT site and from the band’s myspace (from an older pressing by Bear Scotland Presents, I’m guessing Song, by Toad has claimed a re-release…). I’m also told that there’s a 7″ of The Furnace coming soon.
Okay, so I’m blowing my own trumpet. But who cares?! My friends and I have been sporadically putting out podcasts from our Bearfaced Records platform since the early summer, but it now seems that we’ve evolved into a genuine journalistic concern. It’s been quite a while since the last ‘cast (stemming from two parts busyness to one part laziness) but now we’re back in the ring in earnest.
Bearfaced Podcast 05 is laid over solely to the music of the wonderful and accommodating Gitta, who’s been causing quite a stir in the London circuit over the last few months. She braved terrible tiredness, inclement weather and a blabbering, stuttering, ill-prepared interviewer (yours truly) to deliver some smashing performances of three songs from her current set as well as some interesting tales from her native Holland…
You can find the ‘cast in all good directories (iTunes, et al) or get it straight-from-the-source at the Bearfaced Podcast site, and I’ve attached a couple of the mp3s below to piqué your interest.
Goodness, it’s that time of the week again already. This week’s top five was suggested by Andy (the drummer in my band) on account of the current rodent-like structure that has somehow attached itself to the lower part of my face. So without further ado, I proudly present the Top Five Beards in Indie Rock*.
I’ve been quite strict with my judging, so in the interests of parity, here’s the criteria I was assessing:
First and foremost:THICKNESS. Any scrappy, bum-fluff attempts at facial furniture (Brandon Flowers, Chris Martin, et al) need not apply…
Next on the list was COVERAGE. Obviously ‘staches and goatees were instantly eliminated (maybe there’ll be a Top 5 ‘Staches in the coming weeks…), but to make the final five I was looking for a full, even cover of most of the lower face. This sadly knocked Dave Grohl out of the running as, despite his long term love of facial hair, he has far too much cheek on display.
GROOMING was also a crucial factor, and possibly a contentious one at that. A neat neck-line was a plus, but over-egging the pudding (a la Prince) was a negative.
FAME. In the event of two beards being of equal might and worthiness, the deciding factor was merely one of in-band rank: front-men out rank bassists, guitarists outrank drummers, etc.
Last but not least, COMMITMENT was arguably the most important of the judging criteria. Any rockstar can grow a beard for a couple of months or so, but what we were looking for here was a long-term beard strategy; i.e. noone actually knows what their face looks like…
5. Kenny Anderson from King Creosote. Number five of our list of hirsute rock demi-gods is the quiet, unassuming frontman/songwriter from Scotish darlings Kind Creosote, and co-founder of Shcotish uber-indie label Fence Records, Kenny Anderson. Well trimmed, and possibly patchy on the upper lip, but a marvelous effort nonetheless.
4. Devendra Banhart. Straggly and monstrous, and that’s just his music. Devendra, of American-Venezuelan upbringing, is the leading light in the Weird Folk movement, but as far as I’m concerned his most significant achievement to-date was showing the world that (his ex. squeeze) Natalie Portman has a thing for beards…
3. Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. Sometimes unkempt and huge, sometimes neat and trimmed, yet always so, so dense. Beam’s brush is a lesson to us all.
2. Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses. All hail the almighty neck-beard. Clearly a discerning man of taste and style.
1. E from Eels. The king of all indie rock beards by some distance, and as far as I can tell it’s the only one on this list to be worn “ironically”. Bask in the glory of its thickness and coverage.
Writing a post specifically about another music blog’s a bit weird, isn’t it? But what the heck; there’s good, free music to be had and surely nobody’ll complain about me spreading the word.
The Toad Sessions have been a bizarre bunch, so far. The very first one all the way back in March (with the justifiably hyped Broken Records) yielded what has since proved to be my favourite music of 2008 (so far…). I actually prefer the session tracks to the genuine full-band Broken Records recordings; they really let the strings shine, and have a lovely roughly-but-well-mixed vibe.
I get the impression that the idea was that Matthew (a.k.a. Toad) would record all the sessions at his house, but for some reason the first one ended up being done in a real studio, and thus sounded really swish and nice. Those of you who like to read between the lines will already be thinking “so all the others sound rubbish, then?”, and in a way it’s kind of the truth. The later sessions are obviously more DIY, but then that’s half the point: they’re informal and personal, which is super. And the music still sounds great, which is really all that matters.
So, Toad Session 4 features Sparrow & the Workshop. I’m not at all familiar with the band, and being as all I know about them I learned from the session itself I shan’t even attempt to sound knowledgeable or informed. Needless to say, if you’re a fan of the husky indie folk that seems to be de rigueur at the moment then you’re sure to find something of interest in the interview/session. S&tW add slightly yank lilt to the current Scottish trend, but then their lead singer/songwriter is a yank, which would seem to explain that. The music is remarkably rounded for a three-piece (vox/guitar, bass, drums) and the songs are remarkably mature for someone who’s only been writing music for a (comparatively) short while.
In short, get yourselves over to the Song, by Toad site and listen to the session podcast, watch a couple of videos and download all the session tracks. You’ll not be disappointed.
On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be invited to a BAFTA screening of Ron Howard’s new film, Frost/Nixon in BAFTA’s private Piccadilly cinema. Due to be released in January, the film is an adaptation of the critically-well-received play by Peter Morgan (who wrote 2006’s The Queen), and stars Michael Sheen and Frank Langella (who stared in the original West End and Broadway productions).
Eaten by Monsters 