SINGLES!
March/April/May ’09, Part # 1:

Look at all the little things I've found to fill my shoeboxes with! In alphabetical order from A to E, part #2 coming soon-ish...


The Bats / Songs split EP
(The Spring Press)

Well, what a coincidence – there I was eulogising The Bats but a couple of posts back, and here’s a brand new 7” from them, split with Australian (I think?) band Songs.

True to their status as a working definition of consistency in pop music, The Bats side is sublime. “Castle Lights” is the slower of the two songs, with violin and an honest-to-god harp helping to intensify the stately ‘great plains’ ambience the band has grown into over the years.“Under The Branches” is a tad jauntier; yet another text-book jangle-pop killer that they could have recorded any time in the past twenty five years really – all constituent parts are present and correct, and a fine time is had by every instrument in this band’s steady hands. Now that they are out and about again, touring and such, I would commend anyone playing in one of the many bands who seem to be going for a ‘classic indie-pop’ kinda sound to listen, listen, listen to The Bats, and hopefully learn something.

Songs stab at the big-time meanwhile begins with a largely instrumental number showcasing a mixture of instinctive, motorik drumming, surfy, post-punk derived guitar & bass and spacey organ-drone that puts me strongly in mind of early Electrelane. Really nice actually, especially when the chanted, phone-number-as-mantra vocal comes in and the music builds up around it – good stuff. Their other song by contrast is a slightly drippy male-voiced reverby acoustic thing. It’s ok, but a tad forgettable. Overall, sounds like a band worth keeping an ear on.

http://www.myspace.com/thebatsnz
http://www.myspace.com/ssongsssongs
http://www.myspace.com/thespringpress

Betty & The Werewolves – David Cassidy
(Damaged Goods)

Ok, so clearly regular readers will already know that I love this single dearly. My main purpose in writing this is to remind you that it exists. Boy, is it ever a good one though! A sweet story of old fashioned pop star obsession, international plane flight, dreams fulfilled etc., staring an archetypal British girl and everybody’s mum’s favourite 70s crooner, all set to gleeful, breakneck-speed girly singalong punk rock. Great to hear a good bit of storytelling creeping into such fast and furious music too; “Los Angeles is a long way from Ryslip, they told me so!” Brilliant!

My friend told me that this song has a line about masturbation, but honest to god, I’ve listened to the lyrics very closely, and I still can’t hear it. It all sounds quite wonderfully innocent to me. Please tell me there’s not some sleazy sub-text running through the whole thing that I’m missing.

But, uh, anyway, I got a special Betty & The Werewolves pencil when I bought my copy of this single off them. Maybe you will too! It’s on sparkly pink vinyl as well. Great! I hope I’m selling it to you here. Something still has to be number # 1 in this era when nobody buys records anymore, so let’s make it Betty & The Werewolves!

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

The Bombettes – What’s Cooking Good Looking? EP
(Ny Vag / Wasted Sounds)

Look out guys, here come The Bombettes! Five more tough gurls straight outta Sweden, a land where I can well imagine school careers advisors counsel kids from a young age on the right choice of tight jeans and Fenders, gently pushing each teenager towards the one precisely designated aspect of Anglo-American rock n’ roll culture that suits him/her best, all in order that they might eventually make a one-off 7” which will inevitably find it’s way into the singles racks at All Ages Records in Camden where, about two years after the recording date, I will glance at the cover for a couple of seconds, think “wow, this looks great”, and proceed to swell the coffers of the Swedish recording industry to the tune of a five pounds, before taking it home and being slightly underwhelmed. At least, I think that’s how it works. I’m not so hot on the finer points of international commerce.

Anyway, true to form, the first time I played the Bombettes record, I was pretty underwhelmed. Unerwhelmed by its ruthless efficiency and it’s manifest lack of charm or ideas. Underwhelmed by its strict adherence to a sound akin to early Blondie after a spell at The Hives’ high-energy garage-pop bootcamp. Underwhelmed by its hectoring, over-enunciated faux-punk vocals and dumb-ass lyrics, and underwhelmed by the extent to which it’s very existence is so evidently surplus to the requirements of anyone who once heard a Sahara Hotnights record.

BUT, then I played it a second time, this time in company after a couple of beers, and things changed. It’s true genius became evident to all. This instant change of heart was clear right from the outset, as opening track ‘The Thief’ kicked in with The Bombettes singing “I stole a look from you / while dancing to The Who! / Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” about twenty times in a row. Wow, what a great song! You can probably guess what the accompanying music sounds like without any help from me, but by this stage I was actually starting to enjoy the way it bludgeons one into submission, a theme which is more overtly discussed on the curiously bracketed ‘I Wanna (Kick your Ass)’. Herein The Bombettes sing “I wanna kick your ass, because you’ve got a nice ass!” about twenty times in a row. “You came along / I wrote this song / now I sing it / all night long!” they add by way of clarification. There aren’t many other words. You’ll be singing it all night long too if you’re not careful.

After that, they turn their attention to the ‘Dating Scene’, observing: “I’m bored /
You’re not good enough / I’m bored / And your record collection is too small / I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored / I’m so fucking bored”.

See what I mean? Genius!

http://www.myspace.com/thebombettes
http://www.myspace.com/nyvagrecords

Cheeky Cheeky & The Nosebleeds – You Let Me Go(Twenty Years of Boredom)

Hmm, what have we here? A silly band name and a cover like a Hefner record that’s gone psychotic…. looks like it’s signed by some people too; the band, presumably. Any bets on what might be found within? Let’s have a listen, shall we!

The answer is: two two minute slabs of perfectly decent, trebley indie-punk; nervous verses and pounding, singalong choruses as the martial rhythm section pound on ahead of the choppy, Strokes-y downstroke guitar licks and groovy, surfy lead riffs; the singer howls distraught in high register with a slight cockney twang. Unhappy lyrics about girls. I quite like it!

Basically these guys sound like the winners in a secondary schools Pete & The Pirates impersonation contest, but c’mon, that’s nothing to be ashamed of! Either side of this could prove a right belter in thirty years time, when ‘00s indie becomes a long lost collector’s cult, and people start compiling it on teenage wasteland-focused ‘Back From The Grave’ type albums, revelling in the sound of these mad kids of yesteryear working out their girl troubles on guitars in a way that all this wimpy, smartarse 2030s music just can’t compete with, goddamnit.

Looks like they’ve renamed themselves “The Cheeks” since this single. I’m not sure if that’s an improvement name-wise, or even worse.

http://www.myspace.com/cheekynosebleeds

Comet Gain – Herbert Hunke / No Spotlite on Sometime
(Germs of Youth)

“Coming in, tuning in on Comet Gain as they sing their favourite song, Herbert Hunke” says a guy who I think must be world’s angriest millionaire Christopher Appelgren, last heard signing off CG’s immortal ‘Ballad of a Mixtape’, “..they ask him for bread, and he doesn’t know what bread is, but you do, you understand..”. Don’t we just. Thus begins a definitively shambolic live-in-studio wouldbe-Velvets jam of a rendition of David Feck’s tribute to beat poet/associate Hunke, the ‘real life criminal’ said to have inspired much of Kerouac and Ginsberg’s drug/outlaw shtick. The song lopes along pretty painfully, lacking the declamatory energy it’s had at recent gigs, but hey, fans of this band have long learned to accept that perfection is scarcely the point. ‘Hunke’ catches Feck at his most audacious/arrogant/vital/obsolescent/sloppy/boorish/ wonderful (delete as applicable), and your enjoyment will largely hinge on whether or not you’re able to stomach a good dose of ‘Sister Ray’ street jive play-acting, as an old-enough-to-know-better British bloke proudly declaims lines like “motherfucker, where is my bread / you’ll get it off my eyes when I’m dead”, and “my name is Herbert Hunke / poet bum, majestic junkie”. As you could probably have guessed, I can stomach it just fine.

Diehard indie-poppers wondering why they’re being subjected to this rubbish though need only flip the disc to be soothed by “No Spotlite on Sometimes”, latest in a long and beautiful line of defiant/despairing Gain-ballads, guitar jangle glowing & fizzing out like cigarettes thrown into the 3AM ocean in slo-mo; sobering sea breeze on your face. Another lament for chances blown, dying romance, fading stars, rendered with a force that can claw these things back from cliché, from fiction back into reality, the way that only this band can (even if that’s the opposite of what they managed to achieve on the A-side). “Some whisky, some old friends, some rock n’ roll disease”; “I loved you, I existed, underneath these eyes”. Heartbreaking. A welcome reminder of why we all need this band in our lives still, and why I’ll fight anyone who suggests otherwise.

This one's limited to about 300 or something I think, and seems to be available solely via Pure Groove. Beautiful sleeve, and insert full of reprocessed photographic pathos, random poetical scrawl and warped declarations etc, as per usual. An artefact worthy of anyone’s time/money.

http://www.myspace.com/thecometgain
http://www.myspace.com/germsofyouth

Cyanide Pills – Break It Up
(Damaged Goods)

A debut single’s worth of red leather & skinny jean clad punky power-pop direct from Leeds Rock City, courtesy of Damaged Goods.

I don’t have much to say about this one, except that it’s totally great!

If you like The Undertones, The Rezillos and The Adverts, you know what you’ll be getting here, and it feels good, like suddenly finding yourself pogoing in comfy slippers in some stale lager-stinking basement.

And if you don’t like The Undertones, the Rezillos and The Adverts, well… clearly I do not care to listen to your dumb-ass opinions! Scram fool, I’ve got jumpin’ and “whoa-oh-oh!”ing to do! TWO THUMBS UP for Cyanide Pills. Going to see these guys play would be a fun evening for sure – I hope I get a chance to do so at some point.

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

Electrocute – On The Beat
(Germs Of Youth)

On the same label as the Comet Gain single, with artwork by David Feck, so I thought I might as well pick it up at the same time. And so, well, uh, bloody hell! It seems this is some kind of superslick, sugar rush electroclash/big beat party song with saucy lyrics about hotpants that sounds like Bis being remixed via Beck’s Midnight Vultures! Not what I was expecting at all! Funnily enough, it features a special appearance by one Jerry Waronker, who I seem to recall was a sideman on the Beck albums…? What the hell is up with this thing? Away with you, Electrocute! Go dance into the record collection of somebody who likes The Go Team! Stop trying to make me be happy and exercise, it’s Sunday night and it’s not fucking going to work!

Against all the odds, b-side “Bad Legs” actually goes down a lot better. It’s, I dunno…. it’s shorter for one thing, and it’s punkier, with gutsier vocals and a better tune – not too bad at all really. Sounds a bit like Brassy, if you remember them. Ho hum.

http://www.myspace.com/electrocute
http://www.myspace.com/germsofyouth

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, Cheeky Cheeky and the Nosebleeds, Comet Gain, Cyanide Pills, Electrocute, singles reviews, Songs, The Bats, The Bombettes