Prattle

Prattle-free Podcast 260 comments
m posted in General moans, Podcasts on June 17th, 2008

Plus-Tech Squeezebox, Dan Deacon, Oppenheimer, The Whip, Frank Turner, Lightspeed Champion, The Little Ones, Ida Maria, Nada Surf, Death Cab for Cutie, Pendulum, Miles Kurosky.

Words. Not many of them;

Went to Japan; enjoyed. Went to Dot to Dot festival; enjoyed. Various other things; haven’t enjoyed. Still, some good music.

Download/subscribe to number 26 from here. Let the sun shine in;

Plus-Tech Squeezebox - Fiddle-dee-dee Didn’t manage to see them in Japan, but listened to them a lot. This is a particularly manic track from their preposterous second album. Dan Deacon - Okie Dokie This album was in my chart of 2007, but it only really made sense once I saw him in the flesh. One of the great live experiences, perhaps, as Deacon took an admittedly willing crowd through a serious of singalongs, dance-offs and party games. All to the sound of a demented Nintendo Gameboy. Oppenheimer - Look Up Saw these two on the same day as Dan Deacon, and found that they made a lovely and full sound, while filling our ears with pop tunes. This one’s the finest, I think. The Whip - Dubsex Not sure why I’ve included this one. Nearly ditched it in favour of an Envelopes song, but it seemed to fit this list of songs. It’s good, even if it’s got a very crap name. Frank Turner - Reasons not to be an idiot Hadn’t heard of this bloke ’til we saw him at Dot to Dot. Very good, though very conventional. Wouldn’t be surprised if this was recorded “as live”, with minimal overdubs. Lightspeed Champion - The Flesh Failures I didn’t want to like Lightspeed Champion, but his live show is impressive and enjoyable. He’s tremendously talented, and brighter than both the name and music of his former band (Test Icicles) would suggest. This is an acoustic b-side, particularly enjoyable when sitting under a clear blue sky. The Little Ones - Morning Tide Oh look, it’s them again. This is from the album which refuses to come out. Like the band, who refused to turn up to Dot to Dot, for some reason. I was very disappointed by that, and was initially disappointed by the album. But it’s grown somewhat, and this single is particularly and characteristically jolly. Ida Maria - I like you so much better when you’re naked Brilliant. Saw her playing at Dot to Dot, and was utterly captivated for the half-hour set. The album has a couple of flat spots, but this is bloody marvellous. Nada Surf - Whose Authority The album came out ages ago, and I was a bit underwhelmed by it. But a few more listens, and the many understatements and whispers eventually tapped their way through. This is one of the most instantly appealing tracks, though I’m still not sure about the lyrics. It’s a glorious noise, anyway. Death Cab for Cutie - Long Division The new album didn’t impress, sadly. I liked the last one, and I still love the Postal Service album. He appears on the Nada Surf album, and perhaps he should’ve got them involved in his album. Perhaps he did. Doesn’t sound like it, apart from on this track. It’s in no way representative of the album, but certainly doesn’t suffer because of that. Pendulum - Granite Dancepopmetalrockno. They’re everywhere, of course. They weren’t when I first put this track into my podcast folder, but that’s inertia for you. Miles Kurosky - An apple for an apple Now, I’ll have no criticism of this. Miles Kurosky is something of a superhero, in my eyes. Responsible for some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard, he’s also had seven shades kicked out of him by the music industry and ill-health. Yet here he is, with this masterpiece (ripped from MySpace, hence the crappy sound quality). I may book a day off work to devote the appropriate attention to his solo album, when it’s released. He’s a king, and this song gets better and better with every listen, until it gets dangerously close to usurping some of his finest songs with Beulah. Click here to download the file directly. I’d rather you subscribed, though, so I can see what platforms people are using, etc. Feedburner seem to have changed their service, so you might just have to copy the URL (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Prattle) into your chosen RSS reader or Podcast software e.g. iTunes. There. Now can everyone stop getting cancer, please.

Dot to Dot0 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on May 27th, 2008

So, finally we made it to the Dot to Dot festival, this year. This is a festival that’s been going on in Nottingham and Bristol for years, and involves bands playing at local gig venues over two days. Generally, they’re not very big bands, meaning the price of the tickets can be kept extremely reasonable (£30 for two days). The problem is, the low budget seems to result in low commitment from some of the people involved. On the Sunday, two schedule changes during the day were posted up at some of the venues. The first change saw two of the three bands I really wanted to see being cancelled all together. Little Ones and Team Waterpolo both failed to turn up, with no explanation to the increasingly annoyed punters.

Still, we used the amusingly empty inter-venue bus service to get round town, and managed to see some excellent gigs. Here’s who we saw, in chronological order;

Saturday

Ida Maria at the Trinity - I’d been listening to some of Ida Maria’s album in the days leading up to the festival, and was quite excited about seeing her play. Despite the ridiculously early hour (awful scheduling, putting them at 4:45), the band went down well and played all of the best tracks on the album. By the end, they seemed to have won some new fans, as well as impressing some existing ones. The band were a bit thrown by playing at such an early hour, but they got into it eventually. Ida Maria herself is charismatic and rather attractive, with the occasional hint of Brody Dalle’s snarl. Worth checking out next time they come around.

Frank Turner at the Academy - I’d never heard of him, but he was extremely good. The songs are a bit bland, but he had a remarkable and elastic vocal range, and considerable energy. Despite the Academy clearly not giving him use of the full P.A. his frequently intelligent and interesting lyrics cut through the echoes and crowd-chatter. Plenty of people seemed to know exactly who he was, and were singing along to his songs. Presumably they were Million Dead (his former band) fans. Made me feel a bit weird, seeing as most bands/artists at least appear on my radar at some point. Still, now I know.

Oppenheimer at the Fleece - Just made it in time for the start of their set, having stayed a little too long for frank Turner. Having been greatly impressed with one of their songs, I’d been a little underwhelmed by the rest of their forthcoming album. But seeing this Ulster duo in front of me, those previously middling album tracks came to life. With the help of loads of sequencing/backing tracks, a vocoder and their handful of live instruments, they made a luscious, full sound. The singer/drummer looked a bit like Moby, hidden behind a microphone and a drum kit, but he sounded more like Ben Gibbard in Postal Service mode. Really enjoyed their poppy, electronicky set, and would like to see them again, if they play somewhere with a P.A. as good as the Fleece’s. Possibly my favourite show of the weekend. At least until the early hours of Monday…

Two Gallants at Trinity - Hmm. They played their best song first. After that, they played two crap ones, and their lack of soundcheck showed up in the dirgey, unbalanced racket that they continued to make. We couldn’t take any more, so buggered off.

Nick Harrison at the Fleece - With some time to kill due to the Two Gallants disappointment, we thought we’d stop off and catch this bloke. Turned out that he and his band were extremely proficient musicians, but had quite patchy material. It tended to lean a bit too heavily towards the Police and, even more worryingly, Sting’s solo material. Still, I won £68 on the fruit machine, so I marked this as a good gig.

It was at this point that the first hiccups really set in. We decided to forgo Spiritualized, as their set was due to be 90 minutes, and we wanted to be somewhere else after an hour. Three of us had seen them before, and we all agreed that we’d rather see a whole set than a half. So we decided to go over to the Louisiana to see Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit. Except, when we got to the Louie, it was absolutely rammed. We were refused entry, so had to find something to do while waiting for Santogold. Decided to call it quits and head for the Thekla, where Santogold was due on in an hour, to make sure we could get in. Just as well, as later reports suggested that people were queuing for ages outside, and many people missed Santogold entirely. While we waited, we heard Burkaka Som Sistema, who were bloody awful.

Santogold at Thekla - We were there for the single, really. That and her supporting dancers, who looked amusing. As expected, it was a karaoke set, featuring a backing tape, whateverhernameisbecauseiassumeit’snotsantogold, and her two supporting dance drones. Thing is, their statuesque stillness and very occasional movements weren’t sufficiently synchronised to be fully effective. They were a bit of a mess. Anyway, she was pretty good, and I suppose I didn’t not enjoy the other songs we stayed for. The single was done pretty well, and we decided to clear off shortly after. Passed massive queues on our way out, so were glad we managed to get there early, even if we missed Johnny Flynn and his folky acousticness.

Glasvegas at Fiddlers - After Santogold, we had to walk a reasonable distance to Fiddlers, to see everyone’s current favourite merchants of doom and Jesus & Mary Chain gloom, Glasvegas. They were pretty good, but really sounded extreeeeeeeemely like Jesus & Mary Chain. Oh, maybe they’re sounding a bit like My Bloody Valentine now…no, it’s the bits of J&MC that sound like MBV. And the singer looked like Billy Jo Armstrong from a distance, which is very off-putting when they’re trying to be so earnest. Also, we were fairly drunk at this point, so found it funnier than necessary. While we were in there, two blokes were stabbed outside a nearby pub, leaving one of them dead and the other hospitalised.

Sunday

This is where it really went wrong. We were planning on starting with the very promising Team Waterpolo. But when we got to the venue, they’d been removed from the schedule. Also removed were the Little Ones, who were the main reason we’d bought the tickets. Very very annoyed, at this point. We stayed for a bit of Light of Words but they were pretty drab, and we were too annoyed to give them a chance. Off we went, deciding to ignore everyone else who was playing, and get some food instead. Fittingly, the food was crap too. After the food, we headed off to Bedminster, to see…

Ruby Suns at Fiddlers - This was odd. They took an age to set up their assortment of instruments, and quite slowly got going. It was still light, and the crowd didn’t know what to make of them. The fact is, they weren’t very good. I wanted them to be good, but they weren’t. Lots of manic drumming, but barely distinguishable tunes and not enough consistency to allow you to get into it. They took it all pretty seriously, but didn’t like the crowd’s indifference. Eventually, they brought it to a close a song early, and cleared off. When they announced this, there was a very loud and sarcastic shout of Aaaaawwwwww… from the blokes in front of us. I thought they were rude at the time but, in retrospect, it was justified.

Time for something else to go wrong. Sort of. Two of us went to the Academy to wait for Dirty Pretty Things, and two went to the Fleece to see Dan Deacon. But when we got to the Fleece, they’d changed the schedule again. Dan Deacon moved from 8:30 at the fleece to 00:30 at Thekla. Great. Now we might not be able to get in to see Dirty Pretty Things (wouldn’t have been bothered, if we could’ve seen Deacon, who I would rather see). So we hot-footed it across town, heading for the academy. Got there in plenty of time, and managed to capture a good spot in Bristol’s worst venue.

Dirty Pretty Things at the Academy - Deeply unmoved by their album, I was still reasonably curious to see what they were like. The Academy P.A. was fully turned on, and they’d clearly got extra dry ice machines in. Eventually, DPT came on stage to great applause, and manfully trudged through their mediocre set of songs. A couple of good ones in there, but nothing special. They made a nice sound, and they’re good musicians, but too many forgettable tunes meant for a fairly unsatisfying hour. The bloke next to me drunkenly barked “Now THAT’s what I call a GREAT band”. I had to ask him to repeat himself, and responded with something like “Well, they’re alright, I suppose”. And that’s an accurate review, I think.

Due to further “rescheduling”, the next two bands we considered seeing (Alphabeat and Infadels) were cancelled. So, in anticipation of Dan Deacon, we headed over to Thekla early. After quite a wait, we went through to the balcony to see…

Heartbreak at Thekla - Billed as “Rimini Disco revival”, two very unlikely blokes came out on stage. One looked like Robert Webb, and worked the keyboards. The other looked like…well, I don’t know. What was he trying to achieve? Anyway, their music was 80s Europop, and rather entertaining. What lifted it further was the singer’s dancing. It’s captured in the video below, at about 1m30s. Do watch. The camera may jump around occasionally, as I was shaking with laughter. I binned a couple of other clips, because they were all over the place, and you could hear me crying. I almost had to be held up when he was singing “You won’t see me sitting down” over and over, while doing his dance. Brilliant.

Dan Deacon at Thekla - This was a bit of a punt, I think. 00:30 on Monday morning, and we were a bit tired. The others weren’t overly keen to see him, but I’d really enjoyed Deacon’s album and thought he might be worth seeing. The album is difficult to pigeon-hole, but it’s got a sort of groove to it, and a lot of humour. It turned out that this was the performance of the weekend, even though very little of it was played live. Instead of setting up on stage, Deacon stuck his little table of gadgets onto the dancefloor, surrounding himself with a drunk and enthusiastic crowd. This became a problem at one point, but he took it in good humour.

As well as playing his tunes, he got the crowd to go over to one side of the boat (listing it quite dramatically) and then come back to the other side through human archways. He got everyone crouching down and waving their arms around, got us singing along to barely intelligible lyrics. And most entertainingly, he attempted to instigate a dance-off. This inevitably involved local gig celebrity Jeff “Big Jeff” Johns, who didn’t fully grasp the idea of the dance-off. He didn’t want to leave the limelight, so it eventually descended into chaos. But watching it from the balcony above, it was very entertaining. Deacon’s banter with troublesome crowd members, and his various games were very funny indeed, and hugely enjoyable. Fantastic gig. Even if it brings to mind kids’ discos and Black Lace records.

And then home. They were still queuing outside Thekla when we left. Apparently someone fell in the water, and was fortunate to be rescued by gig-goers, after the bouncers ignored them. I took photos of every band, which I’ll stick on flickr eventually. Also, some fairly dodgy video footage from my compact camera, which I’ve stuck together and uploaded to Youtube. So, please witness Ida Maria, Oppenheimer, Heartbreak and Dan Deacon;

Click to link or watch below;

Prattle-free Podcast of 20071 comment
m posted in General moans, Podcasts on January 10th, 2008

Best of 2007 - Apples in Stereo, Black Francis, Polyphonic Spree, The Aliens, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, The Crimea, The Shins, Jason Falkner, Manic Street Preachers, Polytechnic, The Rakes, Serj Tankian, fortune drive, Switches, Future of the Left, Maximo Park, Hot Hot Heat, Arcade Fire, Voxtrot.

Tracks from my favourite albums of the year, not in order of preference. Click here for the 2007 chart Podcast, and all the previous ones. This is what’s in it;

Apples in Stereo - Skyway Black Francis - You can’t break a heart and have it Polyphonic Spree - Running away The Aliens - Only Waiting LCD Soundsystem - Us v Them Spoon - Don’t make me a target The Crimea - Light brigade The Shins - Australia Jason Falkner - Contact Manic Street Preachers - Rendition Polytechnic - Cold-hearted business The Rakes - Little superstitions Serj Tankian - Lie lie lie fortune drive - Vimto vignette Switches - Drama queen Future of the Left - Small bones small bodies Maximo Park - Our velocity Hot Hot Heat - So so cold Arcade Fire - No cars go Voxtrot - Blood red blood

They’re not in order of preference, and they’re not necessarily my favourite tracks from the albums. I’d already put some of my favourites on previous Podcasts, so I chose some different ones. However, I love every track in this podcast, and enthusiastically recommend each album from which they were harvested.

You can download the file directly by clicking here, but I’d still rather you subscribed through iTunes, or whatever.

Albums of 20070 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on January 10th, 2008

Right. I’ve been putting this off, because there’s lots to say about lots of albums, and I never get round to it. So, with almost no nonsense, here’s my list of favourite albums from 2007. Why so many? Well, this year I thought I’d rate every track in iTunes, then work out averages for albums, and use that as the basis of a chart. Then, I shunted things around a bit, because some albums hang together really nicely, but might not have as many big-hitting tracks on them. So this, more-or-less, is the result. Most really bad things, or things that annoyed me a little too much, were deleted and therefore not included in the rankings. Other things missed out because I cocked up the years e.g. Sondre Lerche, though I wasn’t overly keen on that album anyway.

Anyway, stop faffing. Here’s my album chart of 2007. Podcast to follow shortly.
The top 25;

1 Voxtrot - Voxtrot	Simply wonderful. At first, Voxtrot struck me as a bunch of fairly dull indie weaklings. It seems that most people still agree with that initial appraisal, but I don’t. Many reviews have said that the album didn’t live up to the promise of their earlier EPs, but I prefer to think they’ve gone in a slightly different direction. Given the added resources (in terms of time, money and an experienced producer) the album contains more layers than the EPs. Some of the songs are packed with strings, woodwind and layers of guitars, giving the music the kind of gravitas that the lyrics often demand. In other places, they strip it back, and leave Ramesh Srivastava’s fragile vocal stranded, drawing attention to the words and the melody. It’s a beautifully crafted album, with a number of immensely powerful songs, which reward repeated listens. There’s something quite charming about an album whose climactic finale revolves around the line, “I’m just trying to do my best; I’m not afraid of life, I’m afraid of death.” It’s an admirable motto for life, I think. You may prefer to think that it’s nonsense or trite, but I’d have to disagree. It very nearly sends shivers down my spine.
2 Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder	3 Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
4 Polytechnic - Down til dawn	5 Fortune Drive - A modern question
6 Shins, The - Wincing the night away	7 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of silver
8 Rakes, The - Ten new messages	9 Manic Street Preachers - Send away the tigers
10 Aliens - Astronomy for dogs	11 Switches - Heart tuned to D.E.A.D.
12 Serj Tankian - Elect the dead	13 Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd.
14 Jason Falkner - I’m OK…you’re OK	15 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
16 Arcade Fire - Neon bible	17 Black Francis - Bluefinger
18 Future of the Left - Curses	19 Crimea, The - Secrets of the witching hour
20 Maximo Park - Our earthly pleasures	21 Biffy Clyro - Puzzle
22 Electrelane - No shouts, no calls	23 Of Montreal - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
24 Bloc Party - A weekend in the city	25 Wildhearts, The - The Wildhearts

Here are the rest;

26 Mark Ronson - Version 27 Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus 28 Art Brut - It’s a bit complicated 29 Radiohead - In Rainbows 30 Mando Diao - Never seen the light of day 31 New Pornographers - Challengers 32 Malcolm Middleton - A brighter beat 33 Patrick Wolf - The magic position 34 Air Traffic - Fractured life 35 Stars - In our bedroom after the war 36 Fields - Everything last winter 37 Nine Black Alps - Love/Hate 38 National, The - Boxer 39 Gruff Rhys - Candylion 40 The good, the bad and the queen 41 Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the rings 42 Wombats, The - Proudly Present A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation 43 Modest Mouse - We were dead before the ship even sank 44 Hives, The - The black and white album 45 Silversun Pickups - Carnavas 46 Interpol - Our love to admire 47 Foo Fighters - Echoes, silence, patience and grace 48 Jackdaw4 - Bipolar Diversions 49 Architecture in Helsinki - Places like this 50 Hoosiers, The - The trick to life 51 Pigeon Detectives, The - Wait for me 52 Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble - Plastic bag in the tree 53 Tim Armstrong - A poet’s life 54 Pepe Deluxe - Spare time machine 55 Bravery, The - The sun and the moon 56 Beirut - The flying club cup 57 Buffalo Tom - Three easy pieces 58 Euros Childs - Bore Da

59 Cribs, The - Men’s needs, women’s needs, whatever 60 Reverend and the makers - The state of things 61 Jakobinarina - The first crusade 62 Shout Out Louds - Our ill wills 63 Rooney - Calling the world 64 Mumm-Ra - These things move in threes 65 Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero 66 Calvin Harris - I created disco 67 Ash - Twilight of the innocents 68 Rilo Kiley - Under the blacklight 69 Hours, The - Narcissus Road 70 Bjork - Volta 71 Zita Swoon - Big City 72 Robocop Kraus, The - Blunders and mistakes 73 Mystery Jets - Zootime 74 Ginger - Yoni 75 Hoover’s Ooover - Futoshiki to Sono Kai 76 Concretes, The - Hey Trouble 77 Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and weather 78 Unkle - War stories 79 Charlotte Hatherley - The deep blue 80 1990s - Cookies 81 Ghosts - The world is outside 82 Warlocks, The - Heavy deavy skull lover 83 Kaiser Chiefs - Yours truly, angry mob 84 Cult, The - Born into this 85 Panda Bear - Person pitch 86 Battles - Mirrored 87 St. Vincent - Marry Me 88 Port o’Brien - The wind and the swell 89 Dykeenies, The - Nothing means everything 90 Lethal Bizzle - Back to Bizznizz 91 Air - Pocket Symphony

ShanghaiComments Off
m posted in General moans, Holiday on August 21st, 2007

Basically, it’s like being in space. Or rather, it’s like being in the idea that the 1950s had of space. I mean, look at it.

HuntComments Off
m posted in General moans on July 4th, 2007

This is getting a bit silly, now. They’re treating the garden like a solarium.

When the mother noticed me, she leapt into a bush, leaving a confused youngster stood on the lawn, trying to figure out what it’s meant to be scared of.

Moles, hedgehogs, squirrels, frogs, foxes… We just need some badgers to complete the set. hurhur… “set”. Like a badger set. Do you see?

BereftComments Off
m posted in General moans on June 27th, 2007

TV’s gone for repair. Now what?