Mogwai, radio, and guitar moves!

So now we know that Gary loves the Spanish, but did you know that Mogwai love the French? They once created a soundtrack for Zidane to play football to and now they’ve returned with ‘Les Revenants’ soundtrack to the French TV series.

The whole album is worth a listen, I think my favourite songs from it are ‘Hungry Face’ and “The Huts,’ but they weren’t on sound cloud 😦

If you sometimes kind of like listening to the radio but hate that it plays the same shit songs over and over every day then try listening to http://kexp.org radio. You can just listen to live radio through itunes or play some previous live recordings. You can also watch live perofmances on the youtube channel, Laura Marling has a recent one up which y’all prob’ a’ready s’n. I quite like this one from ‘Daughter’:

Noisey is another good youtube channel, specifically for the fantastic ‘Guitar Moves’ series in which Matt Sweeney’s interviews include demonstrations from musicians on their guitar styles and tricks. There’s 11 episodes so far including Albert Hammond Jr., (is that allowed) Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Jake Bugg, Leroy Troy with a really cool banjo trick, and many more…I’ll leave you with the wonderful St. Vincent.

edit: I’ll bet if Neil sees this his first comment will be, “That old guy in the first picture is so lucky getting to bang that young ginger chica” but they’re not shagging Neil cause he plays her father you sick fuck!

Xmas, Radiohead, Frightened Rabbit, Meursault, New Year

There has been a severe lack of blogging recently thanks to work and illness but a Christmas dinner last night got some musical discussions and debate on the go which I’ll come back to.

Firstly, since I was ill I haven’t been listening to too much music other than the weekend that I had a huge Radiohead binge and watched at least ten hours of live videos on YouTube, which is easier than it sounds because there’s a lot of hour long live videos of Radiohead kicking about the net. One of the best is ‘Scotch Mist’ which was made for New Year’s Eve 2007 – It’s around 52 minutes long and contains ‘In Rainbows’ being played in  what looks like a wee house in the middle of nowhere. It’s well worth watching the full thing, but, probably not a good idea to post it here so to give you an idea of what it’s like why not have a view of ‘15 step’.

Back to the discussion/debate:

So, during the xmas festivities we were discussing the recent video posted where ‘Meursault’ and FR cover ‘Withered Hand’s’ ‘Red Candle Bulb’ and I asked if anyone had seen them cover another song by Withered Hand from the album ‘Good News’ which is also a cover, but, unfortunately I couldn’t remember its name. Nobody had seen it and it isn’t very well known that there is a cover on ‘Good News’ so understandably people thought I was losing it. The video doesn’t seem to be on YouTube either, which didn’t help matters, but, I found it on a free podcast – it’s from offthebeatentracks.tv. The vocal arrangements are pretty amazing and I’m sure this is similar to how it’s sung when Meursault play with Withered Hand. Oh the song is called ‘Joy’ and it’s originally by ‘Desc’ apparently. Here:

Aye, so there’s a kind of Christmassy blog, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Barclays Mercury Music Prize 2011 – King Creosote and Jon Hopkins ‘Diamond Mine’

So the Mercury Music Awards 2011 are approaching us and sorry to spoil the ending for you but Adele wins. We all knew that though, right? I was planning on listening to all the albums that were nominated and writing a bit about each of them but I decided against it because it would take up a lot of time, cost a lot of money/downloading points and would involve me listening to the whole of Metronomy’s album (don’t know what it’s called; probably Jejune); I couldn’t put myself through all that. Instead I listened to only two of the nominated albums; James Blake’s ‘James Blake’ and King Creosote & Jon Hopkins’ ‘Diamond Mine,’ the latter of which I will now blog about.

It seems that ‘Diamond Mine’ contains mainly old, unreleased King Creosote songs that have been re-recorded by Jon Hopkins who has also added his own piano and percussive sounds where he deemed necessary. There is a theme of growing old throughout the album (not growing old like becoming an adult but growing old like becoming bald and forgetful) and the feelings that surround that. Listen with no background noise whatsoever and prepare to be taken hand in hand with Creosote and Hopkins into their own wee world.

This may seem off topic but hopefully it has a point – I was leaving my granny’s nursing home the other day and a wonderful thing happened – I put ‘Diamond Mine’ on in the car and while the opening song ‘First Watch’ was playing, an old couple walked past. I had bumped into them sitting on a bench earlier but this time the lady was helping her husband across the path and back to the nursing home entrance while each note from ‘First Watch’s’ piano hauntingly echoed over every step the pair took like a real life music video. It was a beautiful moment.

I really wanted King Creosote and Jon Hopkins’ ‘Diamond Mine’ to win the Mercury Music Prize but I don’t begrudge Adele her victory; her vocals are  outstanding and she seemed really nice on that new Jonathon Ross show. Don’t know why she didn’t get more talking time; must have been because Sarah Jessica Parker and Lewis Hamilton are so interesting.

Anyway, why not buy ‘Diamond Mine’ here.

Or if you haven’t heard it yet here’s a video of the pair playing a couple of songs from the album and a couple that aren’t, live in some store. I thieved it from another blog that is probably much more interesting and better written than this one. Actually why not read it here?

Noooo I cannot work with embed codes for much longer; they are driving me crazy. Just follow the link above if you want to see that video, here’s a different video for their single ‘Bubble’:

I’ll leave you with a list of the nominated artists and albums. Good luck to you all, especially King Creosote & Jon Hopkins and congratulations to Adele.

Adele – 21

Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi

Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!

Everything Everything – Man Alive

Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam

Gwilym Simcock – Good Days At Schloss Elmau

James Blake – James Blake

Katy B – On A Mission

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine

Metronomy – The English Riviera

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy

‘The English Riviera’ – that’s it.

Rachel Sermanni – The Bothy Sessions E.P.

Guest blog and explanation for guest blog by Drew McCluskey:

This is the second time that a post has been written about Rachel Sermanni on this particular blog and the first time I’ve written for this blog, and there is a very good reason for that.  Gary is on holiday so I’m helping Stuart out plus I’m bored on the phones in work.  After getting paid last week I decided to indulge myself and buy a copy of Rachel’s ep ‘The Bothy Sessions’, you can get one for yourself here, it’s a limited release of 750 and every one has been signed by Rachel Sermanni herself.

The ep was recorded in a bothy (hence the name) somewhere in the Scottish highlands. It started with Rachel sending out an open invitation to all the musicians she knew to come and join her in recording an ep, expecting no one to come she was pleasantly surprised by the turn out. I read somewhere that most of the other instruments were improvised at the time of the recording, I take that with a pinch of salt as recording is usually done with a series of takes so I imagine by the time the final cut was being put down everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be playing. The inside cover of the ep is covered in photos taken during the recording, which is pretty cool.

When it arrived on Wednesday I carefully tore it open to have a look and a listen. I found myself wondering about how painful Rachel’s hand/wrist must have got, and how tedious it must have been, signing her name 750 times, I reckon her name will have seemed unusual to write by the end of it. The first time I listened to the ep was in my living room while my flatmates noisily played FIFA and made dinner, I decided quickly that this was not the right atmosphere for listening to such delicate sounds.

My second listen was much more enjoyable, I went on a shopping run and decided that the 20 minute walk to and from the supermarket would be a good
atmosphere for Rachel Sermanni’s voice intertwined with the big band sounds of brass, drums and woodwind. This took me by surprise because having listened to the few songs on her Myspace pseudo-religiously for the last two weeks and seeing her live at avalanche records, I was under the false impression that this ep would be the same, namely just Rachel and a guitar. At first I was worried that the use of woodwind, piano, horns and drums would ruin the lovely-ness that is Rachel’s voice. Thankfully I was wrong, the voice is the same but with less pressure on it to hold the song on it’s own. The song can go out with an extended outro of clashes and humms and plinks. This is particularly noticeable when you compare the ep’s version of Waltz to that found on her Myspace, on the ep the song is almost a minute and a half longer, no new lyrics just a minute long instrumental outro.

It seems that the way I’m going is to run through the ep in order of the songs so I’ll continue that way. The second song Pablo’s City starts along a similar vein as Waltz with the gentle humm of Rachel’s voice but builds up to finale of horns and piano, which gives the song a very upbeat end. I’ll admit this is my least favourite song on the ep, I’m still not sure if that is because of the heavy use of big band sounds or if it’s because I’m fussy and don’t like the title of the song, I guess we’ll never know.

The third song is a short one that I heard once before at the avalanche records in-store, called Little Prayer, this song is much more like the older stuff found on her Myspace and very much to my taste, just Rachel’s voice and her guitar. Short and sweet and beautifully chilled out, I listened to this song last night before going to sleep and safe to say it worked a treat. There isn’t really a huge more I can say about this song. It’s lovely.

As for the last song In The Hollow, it’s a good midpoint between the big band sounds of Pablo’s City and sweet solo sounds of Little Prayer. It is gentle without being weak and dense without being overpowering. I think this song will grow to be my favourite song on the album in the next few days, overtaking Waltz which is currently my favourite as it is the one which I have heard the most and am the most familiar with.

Overall you should all go and buy Rachel’s ep just now; not just because I’ve told you to but because she is an immensely talented singer-songwriter and in the future when (god-willing) she is super famous you’ll have a signed copy of her first ever ep, which will be super-fucking-cool.

‘Paws’ and ‘Lady North’ Split Launch at Captain’s Rest Gig Review 3/8/11

I feel it’s very safe to say that Glasgow is one of the best cities in the world when it comes to music.  It really has been gigs galore for
a while now which is particularly useful for up and coming bands and your hard working music fan; both of which we have in abundance.

I have noticed though, that unless the musical act playing is incredibly well known, the audience are pretty stagnant (an exception to
this would be Frightened Rabbit’s on stage crowd barrage at the Arches when they released their xmas single two or three years back), which I think is to
be expected because if it’s not a well known artist then understandably the music will be new to a lot of the crowd.  And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at
all; the audience has made an effort and spent a small amount of their hard earned cash in going to the gig and in the majority that I’ve been to they
listen contently and occasionally engage in some mid-song banter with the act – good times.  So when PAWS front man, requested a human pyramid from the crowd, as  they had apparently had one from their Aberdeen audience, I assumed it was a joke, laughed accordingly, and then forgot about it.  To my surprise a few songs later he exclaimed that there’s only two songs left and still no human pyramid to which a few fans got down on all fours side by side, then a couple more leapt on top of them and hey presto – the best human pyramid you’ll ever see in Captain’s Rest.  This was followed by a couple of mosh pits and about ten crowd surfers fighting to avoid being crushed by the air con unit hanging from the ceiling.  This type of reaction is no easy feat in Glasgow, I don’t think, so I would recommend getting out to see PAWS live.

The mayhem was fitting though as PAWS set the standard with their members often coming offstage and joining the crowd to play their punk rock with a tinge of pop songs that involved some toneful (think I made that word up) screaming and guitar swinging.  The audience responded to this energetic and telepathic substitution by launching crowd surfers onto the stage.  It seems this review has been as much about the crowd as it has been about PAWS and rightly so since they both make each other.

I think I’ve blethered on quite a lot, especially considering there was two other wonderful performances from Lady North and Hairy Area prior to Paws so I’m sure Gary will oblige me in writing a review of them…

Indeed I will, the whole reason for this gig was that PAWS and Lady North were releasing a split single on Gerry Loves Records, one which I was sorely tempted to buy, but through having to borrow money off Stu for chips and not actually having my own record player it wasn’t the best idea.  Regardless, Lady North put on a performance which lived up to their ever increasing hype.  Now, coming from me this is a statement indeed, because I really don’t like instrumentals, which I realise sounds ridiculous.  How can I dislike instrumentals and be writing a blog about music?  It’s a paradox, but there you go.

This, however, was different, the sheer energy and skill which Lady North played their ‘math rock’ with was outstanding, and the complexity of the looped guitar riffs was at times jaw-dropping.  Frontman Scott Bullen even taking his trousers off mid-way through the gig in what he says is becoming kind of his ‘thing’. The drums were also excellent, with my friend commenting that it sounded like there was a group of drummers onstage rather than just the one.  All in all, Lady North were fantastic, a lot better than I was expecting as I knew beforehand they were instrumental but had never heard them before.

Lady North are supporting Brontide, who I confess I’ve never even heard of, on the 17th at Sneaky’s, get yourself tickets here.

Which brings me to openers, Hairy Area, who are, from –

We Were Promised Jetpacks – Adam Thompson (vocals, guitar), Sean Smith (bass), Darren Lackie (drums)

Endor – David McGinty (keyboard, guitar, vocals,)

Sebastian Dangerfield – Stuart McGachan (guitar, vocals), Jason Irvine (drums)

Lady North – Scott Bullen (guitar)

A veritable Scottish music super-group, or as my friend rather succinctly put it, ‘a bunch of guys from bands that I’ve never heard of.’  Harsh, but in a sense true, however, it doesn’t stop them from being very impressive as a group.  Their songs were surprisingly tight, suggesting all seven (although I only counted six at this gig) of them had somehow managed to find time to get away from their own bands and practice together.  There was also a real sense of fun about their performance, as Adam Thompson announced to the crowd before the first song, ‘Hi, we are the greatest band in Scotland’.  And, again before their second song, ‘This is our ballad, it’s like a Scottish version of Bohemian Rhapsody.’  A bold and frankly absurd statement, but one which, like everything from Hairy Area, has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Hairy Area, really surprised me, and I think for me it was between them and Lady North for the best performance of the night, somewhat stealing the spotlight away from PAWS part in releasing the single.  Having said that, however, PAWS energetic performance certainly left an impression, and it was ultimately perhaps the most memorable part of the evening.

Hairy Area are going to be playing as part of the Edge Festival at Sneaky Pete’s on the 21st of August, it’s only a fiver so get yourself down.  Tickets here.