SINGLES ROUND-UP 2008:
PART ONE

A whole lot of 45s have come into my possession since I did my last singles round-up. Which is great news. Keep ‘em coming, world!

Not all of these were released in 2008, or even 2007, but all of them were puchased from shops or merch tables, or in some cases were even sent to me for review (for which thanks), during 2008, so they make the cut.

Let’s fire-up the turntable and get cracking!

Bad Reaction – Plastic World EP (Flat Black)

Yeah, I'll admit it, I mainly bought this one for the cover art. As it turns out though, it’s a cracking good bit of good-time hardcore (as opposed to the more prevalent strain of misery-guts hardcore), rather reminiscent of the Ramones circa ‘Too Tough To Die’ in it’s slower moments, moving toward generic drill sergeant style ‘core when it picks up speed. So: YEAH! ‘Hate My Job’ wins instant credit by starting with a lengthy sample from Repo Man (the scene where Otto gets sacked from the supermarket), and is almost my favourite tune here, beaten into second place by heartfelt relationship rant ‘The Truth’, which is startlingly good. I was pretty alarmed though to hear them launching into a chant of “Studying God’s words / fills me with the feeling / drink beers, stomp queers / dance with the heathens” on the song ‘Keep Your God Out Of My Peanut Butter’. Consulting the lyrics sheet, I learn the song is a Jello-esque sarcastic tirade against some breed of homophobic, Xtian mosh-pit invaders who have clearly been getting Bad Reaction’s goat, or something. So fair enough, but guys, if you’re gonna tour the world’s stages busting out stuff like that, you might want to make your intentions a little clearer lest people get the wrong end of the stick.

http://www.myspace.com/badreaction
http://www.myspace.com/flatblackrecords

Betty & The Werewolves – Euston Station (Damaged Goods)

The debut single from one of my favouritest new London bands, and it is a certified WINNER. A flat-out, romantic and furious punk-pop ode to tender moments and frustrating hold-ups in one of the capital’s less appealing transport hubs, perfectly executed with frantic racing-the-last-bus energy, a killer lead guitar hook and the kind of beautifully catchy harmony vocals that most bands these days just can’t be bothered to get right. Instant classic, and it’s great to finally have it pressed on a record so I don’t have to find their myspace again whenever I want to hear it. “I don’t want dinner and a movie / I just want something that’ll move me!” Too fucking right. B-side ‘Wind-Up’ is great too, taking a slightly choppier Elastica-y approach. SINGLE OF THE YEAR, no jive.

http://www.myspace.com/bettyandthewerewolves
http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/

The Budget Girls – Get In Your Ear EP (Damaged Goods)

An unintentional glimpse at another side of the Damaged Goods catalogue of recorded hits, this one actually dates from 1996(!) according to the label on the disc, although I picked it up from All Ages Records in Camden just this weekend, so who knows/cares. Featuring two wanton women shrieking over competent backing from some garage rock boys, it’s a fair bet that Billy Childish knocked this one out when he had a spare weekend and couldn’t round up Thee Headcoatees. The a-capella ‘Go Away Geek’, on which they yell incoherent insults at some boy who wants them to play D&D and surf the net is an obvious highlight, as are the funny liner notes.

The Cat Burglars – Holy Shit EP (Tooth Decay)

Seven whole slabs of beer-fuelled punk rock mayhem of the best possible kind is what’s on the menu here, flipping the bird at any lamo scene designations and just kicking some ass: sloppy, loud, unpretentious and totally obnoxious, with real-time banter between songs suggesting they booked 30 minutes studio time and just laid it down in one go. Cuts like ‘I Hate My Job’ and ‘Your Girlfriend’s A Dumbass’ are pretty self-explanatory (wouldn’t it be great to find some punk band sang about enjoying their jobs for once?), but ‘S.P.’ is a little more unexpected; “Baby baby, you’re my kinda girl / you can really help me hate the world / even though we never met / I’m in love with you, Sylvia Plath!” Ha! You know what, I think I really dig these guys.

http://www.myspace.com/catburglars
http://www.myspace.com/toothdecayrecords

Congregation – Don’t Pay No Mind (Velo)

I won’t say too much about this one now, because I’m planning a review of Congregation’s album and don’t want to repeat myself, but needless to say, this is some vitally genuine, minimal electric blues right here – not ‘genuine’ in the sense of paying cack-handed homage to some never-existed traffic jam of blues cliché, but genuine in the sense that it’s music with guts and heart, wrought from exactly the elements it needs to hit your own personal spot, wherever you are in time & space, and not or note nor beat more. ‘Pay No Mind’ is a heavily rhythmic affair, foot-stomping rather than just tapping, with some slapback echo for a bit of a brooding rockabilly feeling, whilst Victoria Yeullet explains sagely that she and her fella had better learn to tolerate each other’s runnin’ around. The b-side, a cover of an r’n’b tune called ‘Building A Wall Around My Heart’, takes the fast guitar beat / sloooow vocal thing even further, to smouldering effect. Sounds just lovely and fuzzy and perfect spinning around on heavyweight vinyl too. Mmm.

http://www.myspace.com/congregationband
http://www.myspace.com/velovelovelo

Dead! Dead! Dead! – George Lassoes The Moon (Tough Love)

This optimistically named combo may tempt more jaded hacks to hurl ‘em into the recycling bin marked ‘angular’ with the opening riff on the a-side here, but for those with more than a ten second attention span, they proceed with enough vim and imagination to keep your ears thoroughly stimulated, though whether for good or ill is debatable. The vocalist’s theatrical delivery is plain ridiculous, splitting the difference between a Morrissey croon and an early Nick Cave bellow, and ending up somewhere not a million miles away from the guy from the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. And that’s perhaps quite a pertinent comparison for what’s going on here musically as well actually, if you were to turn down that band’s chaotic punk aspect and imagine them getting a bit more shiny, proggy and deliberate about things. Maybe I’ve just been listening to too much pop-punk recently, but the a-side here seems to go on for AGES, and has LOADS of different parts, each seemingly better than the last – first a “yeah, we can fucking PLAY” maths-rock breakdown, now a wistful goth-rock chorus/coda thing, some dramatic twin guitar rock-out…. If I say these guys sound like precocious a-level students trying to do first album era King Crimson, I hope they understand I mean that as a compliment.

http://www.toughloverecords.com/main.htm

Foxboro Hottubs – Mother Mary b/w She’s a Saint Not a Celebrity (Jingle Town)

So I picked this up at random cos it looks like a groovy garage-pop 7”, and heaven knows there’s always room for a few more of those in my life. And, praise be, it IS a groovy garage-pop 7”! The a-side has a preppy ‘Can’t Hurry Love’ backbeat, chiming guitars and tube-amp fizz, moody power-pop verses and pure bubblegum melodies, hand-claps, lalalas, oh-oh-ohs, the whole deal, whilst the b is a bit more punky with a Ramones steal, a rad solo and some ‘woo!’s. Two great songs, a swinging band and a great sounding recording – nothing new, but fuck ‘new’, this is a ton o’ fun.

Turns out though, I was the only person in the world unaware that Foxboro Hottubs are actually Green Day in disguise. Well, they sure played me for a sucker. I’ll stick to my guns though, and declare this the best thing they’ve done since their Lookout Records glory days. I guess it stands to reason that as these guys edge toward the far end of their 30s they might feel the need to escape their dayjob as clod-hopping stadium-fillers and regroup as a tight, retro-styled powerpop combo, but it speaks poorly of the world they exist within, not to mention the music industry’s general contempt for it’s audience, that as soon as they come up with some music that’s actually, like, GOOD, they’re forced to go incognito with it. Would it REALLY be that much of a stretch for the wallet-chained masses to accept some cool, three chord guitar-pop songs? Isn’t this basically what Green Day have always done best, only with a more pleasant guitar tone, less embarrassing lyrics and minus the rock star pomp? *sigh* Well, as they so frequently reminded me back when I was 15 and blasting ‘Dookie’, the world sucks.

http://www.myspace.com/foxboromusic
http://www.foxborohottubsdownload.com/

Liz Green – Bad Medicine (Humble Soul)

Trying to find something to write about Liz Green’s music seems almost surplus to requirements. I could tell you that I think she’s from Manchester, and I think this is her first record, and that she’s subsequently done another one, which I haven’t got yet. I suppose I should remind everybody that she plays original folk/blues in a gutsy, British style that bears distant comparison to Holly Golightly or Billy Childish, and that she sings in a gentle, forlorn style that can’t help but bring Karen Dalton to mind, even though she sounds entirely different.

Forget that though, all that matters here is the reality of two really good songs, played softly but surely with a rare strength of character that make wit, charm, humility, sadness, resilience, serenity all seem like bright, new, shining concepts, rather than tired hack words.

Basically, the name of Liz Green’s record label defines the essence of her work far more succinctly than any of my rambling ever could. So buy this from them, in its nice rough recycled cardboard sleeve, and, whilst you’re waiting for it to arrive, think upon those two words, and the implications of the perfect review they make.

http://www.myspace.com/lizgreenmusic
http://www.humblesoul.net/

Part Two to follow imminently!

Labels: Bad Reaction, Betty And The Werewolves, Congregation, Dead Dead Dead, Foxboro Hottubs, Liz Green, singles reviews, The Budget Girls, The Catburglars

BIRTHDAY.

I'm a few weeks late with this post, but here's a card my friend Pete made for my birthday this year, a follow up to last year's installment, no less.

Heh - thanks dude.

Silver Jews - Party Barge

Labels: birthday, Silver Jews, the donnas

Throw Me The Statue – Moonbeams
(Secretly Canadian)

The cover of this album is slightly unnerving, consisting as it does of no identifying text and a hyper-real photograph of a woman in her pants striking an exaggerated theatrical pose whilst being pushed off a jetty by another woman with a towel over her head. The sort of choice for a debut album cover where, one suspects, if you start asking “why?”, you’ll soon find yourself trapped in a psychological/aesthetic hall of mirrors, never to return.

Once you’ve got that out of the way, the music within is more easily navigable, but, for me at least, equally off-putting in part, featuring as it does many of the symptoms currently afflicting the very lamest of indie non-rock: cheap drum machines, ukuleles, occasional wacky video game noises and even, once or twice, a really weedy sounding horn section. Many of the songs have that kinda superficially jaunty lilt to them that you’ll recognise from much lesser post-B&S indie-pop fare. Y’know, where it sounds like they’re having a BIT of fun, but not too much, as if they’re worried a stern teacher might be looking over their shoulder, tut tutting them for subjecting their essentially modest, introspective tunes to such impolite hints at abandon.

I say ‘they’, but the album has the definite feel of having started life as a one-man bedroom project with little live band playing involved, but also with a suspiciously hi-fi sheen, like a (relatively) big budget studio attempt to recreate the vibe of somebody’s homemade lo-fi masterwork. Things are bright and loud and clear, but there are still lengthy, baffling keyboard outros, percussion tracks built out of cowbell and tambourine, meandering, quadruple-tracked chorus repeats and other such things that speak of a love of tinkering and a cheery lack of concern for presenting the results to a potential audience.

So, with all that down in black & white, let it be said that I’ve been listening to ‘Moonbeams’ again and again, and enjoying it immensely. Why? Well, what can I tell you; I guess it’s just plain GOOD. The songs are great and catchy and nervy and fun, and all the oft rubbish sounds listed above are employed in an interesting and often unexpected manner and, well, y’know, as I’ve already said – it’s good! Fuck it, perhaps it’s even great! And that’s that – I’ll hand in my ‘music writer’ badge at the door.

Obviously there are lots of instruments and sounds on here that I really like too, but I didn’t mention them above cos I was trying to make a point; the fuzzy, clipped weezer-y electric guitars, some really on-point live drumming and wonky, overdriven casios. And in fact, all this stuff, good and bad, is mixed up in a really cool way throughout these songs, jammed as they are with rad riffs, ingenious melodic bits and pieces, inventive rhythms, singalong choruses with pleasantly unlikely chord progressions - a veritable smorgasbord of multitracked musical fun, if you will.

Furthermore, Throw Me The Statue’s myspace reveals that they are indeed a functioning live band, and I think it would be a BLAST – a moderate blast at least – to see them do their thing on stage. Actually, as a natural born rock n’ roller, it’s positively unnerving, the burning desire I have to see these scruffy men goofily dancing around their keyboards and glockenspiels as I listen to them moderately rocking out on 'About To Walk' and 'Yucatan Gold' of an afternoon.

(If anyone from the band happens to google this up and isn’t offended by my wrongheaded slant on their work, and if you’re planning any shows in the UK, I’m sure my band would love to be considered for a support slot (see above link) – I think we’d be perfect for it and it would be a cool & beautiful thing… actually though, I see you’re playing at the Luminaire on October 30th, so you’ve probably got that all booked already – oh well, thanks, sorry, bye. I’ll be there anyway.)

I’m not going to win my writer-badge back by stating that the shorter, punchier tracks with the loud guitars are clearly the best ones here, but it’s true, so I’ll say it anyway. 'This Is How We Kiss' is the Obvious Hit Single, should such a thing have any meaning in 2008. iTunes says I’ve played it 36 times, not including mp3 player listens. It’s fucking perfect! Two minutes and eight seconds of the kind of geek-pop gold that wearers of black-framed glasses and owners of Macbooks the world over secretly dream of whilst dutifully listening to their dreary Finnish folktronica records or whatever.

But, the fun doesn’t stop there, oh no - many of Throw Me The Statue’s other songs are almost as good. Not every single one - a few of the slower, sadder songs get a bit dreary and march on longer than they need to, in a way that’s easy to succumb to when you’re recording to a woozy looped beat with dark things on your mind – see most album tracks by the intermittently excellent Wisdom of Harry (a good reference point for Throw Me The Statue’s way of working I feel) for a pertinent comparison. But a good 75% of the album is, like I keep saying, REALLY GOOD, and that’s a fine ratio for such a peculiarly off-kilter debut outing.

And the key is, of course, the songs. Throw Me The Statue’s main guy sounds like he has something he desperately wants to convey, probably re: failed relationships, or never-happened ones, or imagined ones, only he can’t really blurt it all out in a straight-up fashion for fear of maybe upsetting the people concerned, or making himself look like a jerk, or perhaps just cos that would make for boring songs (all perfectly valid reasons of course). So instead he scrambles his muse up into awkward mouthfuls of veiled meaning and book smarts absurdity that make Stephen Malkmus look like an open-hearted balladeer by comparison, at least until he decides to step out and throw in few lines of plain, descriptive fact before triumphantly scampering back again, as if to say “HA! GOT YOU!”.

I guess this has been a popular lyrical tactic ever since shy kids started banging out pop songs, and, more so than usual, it works out brilliantly for Throw Me The Statue, with the dude’s faintly desperate delivery and ability to pull a truly killer tune out of the unlikeliest ingredients coming up weird, neurotic roses every time. I mean, I’m sure he’d be the first to acknowledge that folks like Jonathan Richman and Otis Redding are working far, far closer to the perfect, universal expression of thee feeling within, which is after all The Point, but it’s also worth recognising that we educated white kids can be pretty odd, fucked up so-and-sos on occasion, and sometimes, instead of ‘These Arms of Mine’, we want for nothing more than to take it easy to the accompaniment of some mild-mannered guy drawling out stuff like “we could legalise our heads, darling / we could advertise the piecemeal of our chests” or “favourite space is a palindrome* / where talk is a cannonball / and I never have to share”. Is that so wrong? Yeah, I know, it’s weird. Maybe we should just blame society or something and move on.

But to all my compatriots out there who’ve ever clutched a Guided By Voices song to their heart as if Bob Pollard’s cut & paste musings were the very sum of cosmic truth strapped to a second-hand Who riff (which they are)… you’d better believe Throw Me The Statue are on to a rare winner.

God, what a ludicrous review.

Here are some Mp3s:

A Mutinous Dream

This Is How We Kiss

And here are some movies of Throw Me The Statue playing their song ‘Lolita’, and – BINGO! – a cover of GBV’s ‘My Valuable Hunting Knife’, on a boat. It looks cold.






*it totally isn’t, I feel the need to point out

Labels: album reviews, Throw Me The Statue, videos

HECK.

So, no updates for a month, not even any apologies for not posting. That’s terrible, isn’t it? And I haven’t even been that busy… just moderately busy. Nothing all that dramatic or interesting has happened to stop me rattling on about rock bands anyway.

I recall that back when I started this weblog – best part of five years ago, wow – I was penniless, and living in a remote locale, with no social life, and not receiving a great deal of cultural stimulus – so the idea was that rather than being a hype-chasing New Stuff blog, I’d just post free-form, text only observations on whichever scratched CDs I’d got out of the library that week, or whatever rightfully forgotten bit of weirdness I dug up from the depths of More Music for 99p to try to keep me entertained in between going for long walks and pretending to look for a job. Ah, good times.

Nowadays though of course, I’ve got cultural stimulus coming outta my fucking ears – brilliant albums old and new piling up, waiting to be appreciated (this week the number of albums on my iTunes caught up with the year of my birth - I can’t help it officer, they just download themselves), an endless backlog of Great Books (with capital letters), the qualities of which help enhance my experience of life no end, and I’d love to tell you all about it too, but I mean, what are the chances of the likes of me ever finding the time and inspiration to compose any original thoughts on the work of Joseph Conrad or James Baldwin or whoever? Then I’ve got my own music-making and social type duties - some at least, as opposed to the more conventional none - and, being in London, it’s only exhaustion and grumpiness that stops me from stepping out to go and watch bands three, four, six nights a week. And then there’s the internet. I don’t even seem to find time to watch movies or read comic books these days, let alone write about them.

And that’s good – I’m certainly not complaining – but it can be tough on my work rate for this weblog, especially since I want to make sure every post represents a worthwhile, nay coherent, piece of writing of some kind, rather than lapsing into more functional one paragraph “hey I saw this band last night, they were great, check em out”, “hey I heard this great song – it’s soo good – check it out” type posts, of which I could probably do one a day.

So:

We ain’t dead. For the time being, this is never going to be a regular posting-every-day weblog, and I’ll refrain from trying to outlay grand schemes and trail forthcoming atrtractions, but everything half-decent I find myself writing will be up here straightaway.

2008 has thus far been a record-breaking year for great records that have found their way into my orbit, and I’m damned if I’m not going to get around to telling you about some of them. In fact I’ve got some stuff written and various other posts ready to go over the next few weeks, but don’t sweat it if there’s an occasional gap in posting is all I’m saying, I guess – thanks for making the effort to stick around.

Labels: announcements