De Rosa are no more

Here's yet more sad news from the world of music, though I suppose that a sense of perspective dictates that it's not the saddest news of the week. Still, fresh off the release of their ace second album 'Prevention', Scotland's De Rosa have split up.

This is what Chemikal had to say about it.

It's always hard to break the news of a band calling it a day and in De Rosa's case it's particularly galling because they were so fucking good. Having announced it on their Twitter account it's now our turn to mourn the end of a band who were at the very top of their game.

De Rosa's music was as complex as it was melodic - it exercised the head as well as the heart and their live performances could be as thrilling as any we've ever seen. Great bands are hard to come by - especially ones as literate and engaging as De Rosa - so they will be sadly missed and we can only hope that they go on to release music in some other guise in the near future, they know where we are if they do. A great, great band.

It's a pity.

Here's two delgados talking about it on the new podsketch, and download the highlight from their new album below.

[download De Rosa - Flight Recorder]

Make it for yourself

I'm by no means the first person to write about this new single from the San Francisco band Girls, but I'd wager that I am the swarthiest. 'Hellhole Ratrace' is ostensibly about the high speed of modern living, but it's told really calmly, with uplifting lyrics, a gentle melody, a vocal that sounds like Elvis Costello, and some nice harmonies in the background. The tune stays in one gear throughout, though the feedback builds and builds, and that suits it just fine. Snag the single, watch the video, and hear a couple more tunes at their myspage. Just don't try Googling them, the results may not be work-appropriate.

[download Girls - Hellhole Ratrace]

Give it to me, Andrew Ridgeley

Since I don't listen to the radio much anymore, it's very infrequent that I hear a song without immediately knowing what it is. The magic of hearing something in passing and then trying to hunt it down is mostly lost now. Last summer, I always heard the same catchy-as-hell tune every morning when my clock radio went off, and it took me ages to figure out that it was 'Hot N Cold'. Man, I spent ages trying to figure out what it was.

Similarly, last night while listening to the Comedy Death Ray radio show, I heard a song that was pretty silly but actually quite funny, and worth looking into. It took some work, but it was a song by R.O. Manse, who's got an album out on AST Records. Comedy music is really hit or miss, but this song - a moderate hit in Denmark - definitely made me chuckle. The project is the brainchild of Chip Pope, and features a little help from various L.A. comedy types, including Natasha Leggero and her incredible English accent. Don't know about the rest of the album, but in the meantime, check out Ladyboy. And try not to think of Alan.

[download R.O. Manse - Ladyboy]



[R.O. Manse facebook / myspace]
[Buy 'R. O. Magic: The Best of R.O. Manse']

She used up all her lives

People that are better informed than I am assure me that summer is almost here. I wouldn’t know, since I’ll be studying for the Bar Exam without relent from May to July, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. And since the summer is – allegedly – imminent, it’s time for songs that are seasonally appropriate. I don’t know why summer jams always bring to mind cars without tops, but for some reason they do. Also, Los Angeles has always seemed a very fitting place for this kind of hot weather tune, that’s probably just because Entourage is set there. Sure enough, today’s video is from Army Navy, an L.A. band. I didn’t know of them before, but apparently they had a couple of songs on the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack. Was that movie any good? The tune is fun, light, bubbly, and has bits where it gets quiet, so the fast bits seem faster. I’m great at description. Here’s the video, featuring Paul Scheer from the Human Giant and Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story, the world’s greatest paintball movie. Put on your suntan lotion and enjoy.

[download Army Navy - My Thin Sides] from insound.com



[Army Navy myspace / buy their s/t album]

How to get to heaven from Scotland

From bad things come good things. Arab Strap called it a day, it was sad. Malcolm put out an album that was very good, it was happy. Now, Aidan Moffat and the Best-Ofs have an album too! It's called 'How to Get to Heaven from Scotland' and is due soon. All manner of activity at Aidan's web HQ, too - go to his Gifts page for a live version of album track 'Living With You Now', and a Katie Melua cover (?) with Alun Woodward (!) and some other goodies.

Keep an eye on the site, there's going to be a game on there before the end of the month. Here's a stripped-down live version of first single 'Big Blonde', and then its rather charming video. Aidan rocks the facial expressions.

[download Aidan Moffat and the Best-Ofs - Big Blonde (live)]

Put a you-shaped hole in me

As promised, I can write about music again! Rejoice, Rejoice, Ring the Bells!

First up are How To Swim, a band who get an instant look-see because they're from Glasgow, there are a hundred of them (well, ten), they wrote a song about body-changing, and look incredibly young. This song is warm with brass, singalong refrains, some pretty kickin' guitars and noises that are a bit like lasers. Also: rickety piano! And a nice, My Latest Novel style finale. There's a lot going on in this here song so you'll probably have to hear it about three times before you come to love it. Did I mention that it's about surgery?

More on their myspace. Recommended.

[download How To Swim - Genesis P and Me]

Video of the Day (Follow Up?)

I'm amazed that my post from Friday about B4-4 generated as much interest as it did. Far more than most of my posts do. So, of course, I had to investigate the band a little more. Here are some nuggets.

- The band were around in the 90s, and are (were?) from Toronto.
- There were three of them in the group, and since three comes before four, the name was B4-4
- They really appreciated their fans.
- The little kid from the video is now in a fraternity with my friend Tom's friend Logan. So I'm three degrees from him, and therefore four degrees from B4-4.
- Since the group broke up, one guy is now a model.
- The other two, the twins, now record together as RyanDan.
- Their album (RyanDan) went top ten in the U.K.
- RyanDan's new sound is far from the "LFO-from-Canada" vibe of B4.

Like fish and human beings

If like me, you're concerned about your dietary habits, here's an old chestnut to help you remember what not to eat. It's presented by Marilyn Manson, the popular entertainer, and is from Clone High, a long-deceased television program that if you've never seen, you really ought to seek out. It's on the Youtubes, so go there now and watch it.

And, uh, maybe there'll be a real update on here sometime soon?

[download Marilyn Manson - The Food Pyramid Song]

Too many numbers, numbers, numbers

Last week, Manic Street Preachers performed a six-song-set at the Festival Hall in London, supporting Doves, to celebrate the birthday of their first record label, Heavenly Records. The band put out two singles on that label in 1990 and 91 before moving on to bigger and (eventually) better things. Listening to the bootleg of the show, it's fun to hear the older, wiser band tearing through songs written when they were so much younger and angrier. Hard to imagine the Brit award winning, happily married Manics of 2008 writing a song called 'Ceremonial Rape Machine', isn't it? And it was a jolt to hear 'Starlover' played live. My favourite song from the set, though, is one of my all-time faves by the band, 'Sorrow 16'. Rarely played live, it sounded mature and polished at the Festival Hall. In other words, it wasn't interesting at all. So here's the original version. Again, it's ok for a young band to sing about class struggle and "paint your ego in blood", but it'd be ridiculous if they did it now. Seventeen or so years ago, though, it was pretty cool, and the song remains a whole lot of fun, particularly Nicky Wire's gleeful shout of "...in HATE".

[download Manic Street Preachers - Sorrow 16]

I am shipwrecked on the rocks

It's kind of mindblowing that a band as young as The Coral have a best-of collection out today. They're as old as I am! It really puts things into perspective. What have I achieved? Certainly not, like, four albums, many tours, and an endorsement from Noel Gallagher. I remember when (eh, Coral fans?) they first came out, sounding and looking like a weird bunch of scruffy kids from Liverpool writing sea shanties and covering Bob Marley. Then I heard 'Skeleton Key', a single which, inexplicably, is not included on the new Singles compilation. It's a song so strange that it's hard not to pay attention. It's the sound of getting beaten up by Turkish pirates. The word "intricate" is terribly underused in pop music word, but they fit it in. There's breakdown and then it all comes back in. And even a bizarre jazz-influenced outro. Their second album 'Magic and Medicine' was far more conventional, but had a few very pretty songs, and I must confess I haven't really listened to anything they've done since that. But today, enjoy 'Skeleton Key' and try not thinking of mutiny upon yonder high seas.

[download The Coral - Skeleton Key]



[The Coral myspace / youtube / official]

Let the journey begin

Despite being excited before its release, I noticed that I never really gave the latest Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly record much of a listen. Maybe I'll address that at some point. In the meantime, here's today's Song of the Day, from an XFM session earlier this summer. Sam weaves in a few recent indie-dance smash hits into one song. It sounds cool and all, but I couldn't help but think that the selection was self-consciously cool - Hot Chip, Justice, Klaxons (and Michael Jackson, but that doesn't really help my argument). It's still fun to hear these dancefloor slayers done by a wimpy guy with a battered acoustic. Enjoy!

[download Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - MegaMix (live on XFM)]

Back in the days before 'The Witches of Eastwick'

Every year, Yo La Tengo play a huge set of covers during the WFMU Marathon fortnight, and here's a song from this year's shindig. Everyone knows Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger' but do you know the second verse? Me neither. Ira's knowledge of the words fails him halfway through, so it turns into a profound meditation on the career highs and lows of one Jack Nicholson. It's pretty great.

[download Yo La Tengo - The Passenger (Live on WFMU)] [alt link]



[Yo La Tengo myspace / official]

Let's rewrite our last chance

In the summer of 2001, I was travelling around the U.S. with my parents. The music site I edited at that time had just started to take off, and I was getting CDs in the post every day to write about, which was terribly nice. For the trip, I brought two albums with me, to listen to on my temperamental Discman and subsequently write about. One was 'The Cold Vein' by Cannibal Ox - thoughts in a nutshell: amazing first song, forgettable rest of album - and the other was 'Vague Us' by Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi.

If you haven't heard of them, there's probably a good reason. The band were one of those ultra-indie types that existed around London quite a lot in the early years of this decade. Heavily influenced by Sonic Youth and Pavement, they wore visors onstage, put out singles on indie labels, played gigs in the capital all the time, and were generally unremarkable. Amazingly, though, they got picked up by V2 records, who put out 'Vague Us', the CD in question. Wacky guys, wacky album title. I actually got to interview the guys once, and I remember the sentence "Graham's just another word for wanker" coming up.

I played the album a few times on car rides around New Jersey, Pennsylvania and some other states in that area. And coming back to it after seven years, I'm pretty glad to say that my opinion hasn't changed too much. Maybe three great songs, and a lot of throwaway rubbish. But let's talk about the great songs - 'Hear the Air', particularly, is fantastic. It's fast, furious, doesn't really have a chorus, stops and then starts again and features the phrase "gallons of semen". All within the space of like two minutes. Enjoy!



[download Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi - Maverick]
[download Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi - Hear the Air]

Double whiskey, coke, no ice

So there's a new record from the Hold Steady that you don't have to be particularly web-savant to find on ye olde internet. I'm not a particularly big fan of theirs, though this is changing with just about every song I hear, but I was keen to listen to 'Constructive Summer', if only for Stereogum calling it "the opening and arguably best track on Stay Positive". Gotta say - the song is really resonant with me, with its celebration of drinking, friends, and more than anything else, the long hot days of summer.

As it happens, I'm having one of the dreariest summers of my life. Taking classes, napping all the time, spending almost entire days at home alone, 96% of my friends are out of town... I don't mean to come off as a sad-sack, though... After all, the solitude just led me to watching the entire first series of 'The Wire' over three days. That show is fantastic! Turns out, everyone was right when they said "Best show on television".

I don't really need any excuse to get all wistful and nostalgic, but this song, 'Constructive Summer', really makes me think of the summer of 2005 - the last truly great summer I had. There's one line in the first verse - "Our songs are singalong songs" - and that recalls the song we wrote in 05, 'That Guy', which became an anthem among my group of compadres, a singalong at just about every party for three months. There was even a doo-wop remix! There's a line in 'Constructive Summer' about "Drinking on top of water towers, with love and trust that shows all summer" which pretty much encapsulates that summer of 2005. There's even a shout out to St. Joe Strummer.

Craig Finn's lyric "Let this be my annual reminder that we could all be something bigger" is particularly powerful - the summer being the lowest ebb of my year, when most people I care about have gone their own way for a few months and there's precious little to do anywhere.

For now, though, I'm loving this song, and thinking of that time we walked around the Tuscany apartment complex in Tallahassee, Florida, trying to get back Matt's santa hat, which was stolen from off his head by some drunk girl in the world's most terrible party.

Stay Positive is out in mid-July. NPR.org should have a new live show from the band posted next week.


[The Hold Steady official site / myspace]

The pain of someone you love

Today's winner of the "Fantastic Music Videos that Samir arbitrarily remembered while walking to the bank this morning" is... 'Stop Your Crying' by Spiritualized (2001).

In context... It was the first new material they'd put out after 'Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space' was named NME's album of the year, and so there was more attention on the band than ever before. I remember hearing the song on XFM for the first time and shrugging a little. It's okay, but the lyrics never really struck me. Nice use of an orchestra and a gospel choir, though... And the cover art was pretty ghoulish. Luckily for me, the album 'Let It Come Down' is astonishing and has far better songs.

But then I saw the video.

Wow. It's one of those moments when cinematography and lighting, which really aren't considerations for music videos, play a huge part. Beginning with just a spotlight on Jason, to opening up and showing the whole orchestra and London Community Gospel Choir, through some gorgeous deep red lights casting huge shadows across the floor, to the huge floodlights... all the thought that went into this piece is majestic. Performance videos are usually the most boring, but this one gives me goosebumps every single time. The still images thrown in really capture moods perfectly - there's one of a beer bottle and a pair of shoes, one of a musician sitting down exhausted and slumped over his cello, one of the choir raising their fists in triumph... I'll leave it for you to watch the video without me saying anymore, but this: if you don't get goosebumps at the 2:54 mark in the video, then you, sir, are probably already dead.



[If the embedded video doesn't show up, click here]

The quality of light around this time of year

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the layer of smoke that’s covering Florida at the moment. There have been wildfires and no rain, so the sky has been varying shades of black and white for a while. It’s left me with a really dry, sore throat, and no intention to leave the house.

Also, it made me think of this song from Brighton’s Clearlake. Not really sure why, it’s not winter, nor is it especially light these days. But still, it’s a terrific song. I caught the band at the Monarch in London once as part of Camden Crawl (2000, maybe?), where they played after where-are-they-now? Northern rockers The Action Spectacular. Clearlake clearly came across as divs – posh lads from the coast who said things like “What day is it? Is it Sunday?” and “Is anyone else as drunk as we are?” which grated, but all was forgiven once they started playing songs from their then-unreleased debut album.

I don’t get to use this word often enough, so: MAELSTROM. They make a relentless spiral of noise, melody, sadness and good drumming. I haven’t really fallen for their subsequent two albums as much as ‘Lido’, which brings chiming guitars, BBC TV’s ‘Songs of Praise’ and Jason Pegg’s curiously not-annoying nasal voice to joyous heights.

‘Winterlight’ is the last song on the album, and a veritable monster.

[download Clearlake - Winterlight]

[buy 'Lido']

Too hot to Trotsky!

Alright, so after I do five/six hours' worth of outlining a night, I put up a song in here. That's how it's going down. Tonight, I got through 'Levez Vos Skinny Fists...' twice. It's so great.

So earlier today I had a very random flashback to when I was taking my A-levels. That'll be about 2000/2001. It was towards the end of term, and our Maths teacher decided that, instead of teaching, he'd play us one of his favourite films - Leningrad Cowboys Go America. No, none of us had ever heard of it either.

It was fantastic! A comedy about a rock band (from Finland, fairly obviously), who go to America and hijinks ensue. It's not available in the U.S. at all, and even in Britain, it seems to be deleted. This is bad news. You'll just have to trust me, that the movie is ace.

The film's great legacy is that the band continue to make records and tour. And they're bloody great. Covering everything from 'My Sharona' to 'Stairway' to 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' and 'These Boots Were Made For Walking'. They often tour with the Red Army Choir (yes, it is what you think) - and you need need NEED to watch this video of their 'Happy Together' right now.

Like I said, they're brilliant. Here's their cover of everyone's favourite dance-pop 90s classic by Haddaway. Sing it loud.

[download Leningrad Cowboys - What Is Love]

I'm yer dad, so get to bed, you bastard

Listening to that LDN Is A Victim song yesterday reminded me of the great MC Pitman. Why? I don't really know. Maybe because he has the same level of detached distaste for everything that's trendy. Read an interview with him here.

Not a lot is known about the Pitman. He's from the north, possibly from the mines. He loves tea and biscuits - play the "Find the Tea" game at his site - his rhymes, over better known beats, are solid and usually very funny. At his myspace, check out 'Witness The Pitness', a story about going for a Sunday at his mum's, set to the Roots Manuva track, and there are a few Mike Skinner disses in there.

This song is from his first record, 'It Takes A Nation of Tossers' and though you'll enjoy it more if you're British, it's not without value to people from other countries who have ears. There's a shout out to Robbie Coltrane, plus 50 Cent ("Get back to your club, mate, and fuckin' stay"). You'll recognise the riff from 'Simon Says' by Pharoahe Monch, and perhaps the hook from a song by one of the Spice Girls.

[download MC Pitman - What I Am]

But are apologies really accepted?

I seem to be in a nostalgic mood at the moment, posting songs based on their 10th or 30th anniversaries. There will probably be more such posts in the future, so look out for those. Tonight, for instance.

Ten years ago this week, Idlewild released their debut single, 'Queen of the Troubled Teens'. In 1997, the band were likened to 'a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs' and made a lot of noise. If you're only familiar with their recent output, this song may be a surprise. It's not adult friendly, the lyrics are pretty throwaway and there's about as much of an REM influence as there is a Sly and the Family Stone influence. But it still rocks like a fucking truck.

[download Idlewild - Queen of the Troubled Teens]

And we will rise again

Sorry, it's been a while since I last wrote in here. But, you know, it's Spring Break! I'm home at my folks' place for a couple of days before going off to Chicago. What should I see when I'm there? Leave recommendations if you have 'em.

Anyway, being back at home means I get to look at the stack of CDs in my room, almost entirely from the years 2000 - 2002, when I got them for free thanks to writing The Brain Farm. A lot of the stuff is insignificant - an album from Gerling that doesn't have 'Death to the Apple Gerls' for instance - but there are some gems in there. Maybe I'll post something from The Regular Fries later (they have zero web presence, which is sad).

But yes, I found a couple of CD singles (a distant memory, those) from Asian Dub Foundation. Listen to a couple of stormin' live tracks from their album 'Rafi's Revenge', which wasn't as amazing as its follow up 'Community Music' (which earned a rare 10/10 review from the NME) but still is well worth a listen. The songs are both about struggle, a consistent theme with ADF. 'Naxalite' is about Bengali peasant uprising, and 'Free Satpal Ram', their signature song, is a long and powerful story, read about it here. Most importantly, though, both songs rock really hard.

Deeder, the rapper on these two albums, left the band in 2000, and for me they've been a less interesting band since then, but they've been playing to big crowds and getting plenty of acclaim, so good luck to 'em. There's a Greatest Hits due this summer which sees a mew track with Deeder, which should be ace. And there's a track with Chuck D! Look out for that.

[download Asian Dub Foundation - Free Satpal Ram (live)]
[download Asian Dub Foundation - Naxalite (live)]