Actual Music-Centred Post
Dec. 6th, 2006 01:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaI used to mostly listen to Radio 4 in the kitchen, to find out what's going on in the world and stuff, especially late at night when it's the World Service. But in this kitchen, you can only get decent Radio 4 reception with the aerial sticking out at a funny angle and when stood right in front of the radio. And this radio is manual tuning rather than a bunch of presets so all in all it's mostly easier to abandon Radio 4 and listen to whatever station it was tuned to. This way I do get round to listening to more random music, at least.
Recently this has been mainly making me think, this is all a bit lame, where's the interesting stuff? Yes I know, radio, but there's normally *something* interesting going on, even if it's something I don't particularly like but have to respect. But what was going on with that Muse single, eh, they've caught the we've-done-everything-we-dreamt-of-as-kids-so-let's-try-prog-rock bug pretty hard, and then there's the new Bloc Party stuff - a band who freely admit they couldn't get anywhere til they found the right drummer, who don't seem to have noticed that their drummer has now completely lost it - and don't get me started on everything sounding like bad cover versions. I was cursing My Chemical Romance for this song that was on the perma-playlists and kept getting stuck in my head only it turned out to be by Panic At The Disco; I was cursing a track for sounding like a limp Morrisey rip-off only it turned out to be by the man himself, and a bunch of twats called Boy Kill Boy being talked up by XFM may as well have been called "Which One Do You Prefer Out Of Maximo Park, The Futureheads And The Bloody Kaiser Chiefs? Because Whichever It Is, That's Definitely The One We Sound More Like, And That's Why You'll Like Us, Right?" Congratulations on being about a year behind there, lads.
Meanwhile, while Toupe certainly weren't bad, the gig made it clear that the new stuff is a bit short on ideas. Yes, very good Grant, yet another song where you complain that you can't pull and vaguely conceal it under a cheeky main theme about ladies' bits. Can we have the stuff about the giant defecation gun or the musical log back, please? I realise the one I went away singing was the one about having a giant penis but, see, that one was back when you did catchy things. The main band that night, The Goose, were excellent in most of the ways you could ask for, actually, but are always going to suffer from the comedy band thing. So much better to have a sense of humour, certainly, but at the same time the indie kids are never going to let themselves be seen having non-ironic fun, and the audience you do get tend to be those slightly disturbing types who follow you to every gig and hog the front row with their own synchronised hilarious dances they've worked out. Hmm. I suspect the band with the most future promise from that gig is Sketchbeat (look 'em up on myspace; I'd give you the URL but I can't check it from here as this computer gets shirty when you point it at Shockwave-laden myspace pages, and tends to kick Firefox over by way of showing it) who were an odd bunch all round but clearly with musical talent to spare. Keyboards, piano, trumpet, various guitars, harmonica, instrument swapping, lots of vocal harmonies, a singing drummer and a bouncing bassist; all chucked in together just because they can but managing to serve the song, rather than pointlessly showing off, for a surprising proportion of the time. They still need to sort out staying the right side of some fine lines, viz, i) being exuberant and cheerful versus trying to be comic, ii) dressing in vaguely themed or matching red and black and white pinstripe-related outfits versus dressing like clowns who have day jobs in kitchens, and in the case of the frontman, iii) being a lanky charismatic blond-mopped strong guitarist and vocalist capable of deploying perfectly respectable bursts of falsetto versus trying to make actual referential nods to Justin Hawkins. Lose the tiger-stripe vest, lad, really. But I hope they can steer the right course because they were fun, and full of promise it'd be a shame to see go to waste. I hope they can manage to become themselves, in other words.
Not quite all musical doom and gloom, then. Although on that subject, naff it, I'm definitely going to Roadburn next April. Just about every band in the stoner/doom spectrum that I'd actually pay to see is going to be there, plus, fun in a field in Holland. What's not to like?
Recently this has been mainly making me think, this is all a bit lame, where's the interesting stuff? Yes I know, radio, but there's normally *something* interesting going on, even if it's something I don't particularly like but have to respect. But what was going on with that Muse single, eh, they've caught the we've-done-everything-we-dreamt-of-as-kids-so-let's-try-prog-rock bug pretty hard, and then there's the new Bloc Party stuff - a band who freely admit they couldn't get anywhere til they found the right drummer, who don't seem to have noticed that their drummer has now completely lost it - and don't get me started on everything sounding like bad cover versions. I was cursing My Chemical Romance for this song that was on the perma-playlists and kept getting stuck in my head only it turned out to be by Panic At The Disco; I was cursing a track for sounding like a limp Morrisey rip-off only it turned out to be by the man himself, and a bunch of twats called Boy Kill Boy being talked up by XFM may as well have been called "Which One Do You Prefer Out Of Maximo Park, The Futureheads And The Bloody Kaiser Chiefs? Because Whichever It Is, That's Definitely The One We Sound More Like, And That's Why You'll Like Us, Right?" Congratulations on being about a year behind there, lads.
Meanwhile, while Toupe certainly weren't bad, the gig made it clear that the new stuff is a bit short on ideas. Yes, very good Grant, yet another song where you complain that you can't pull and vaguely conceal it under a cheeky main theme about ladies' bits. Can we have the stuff about the giant defecation gun or the musical log back, please? I realise the one I went away singing was the one about having a giant penis but, see, that one was back when you did catchy things. The main band that night, The Goose, were excellent in most of the ways you could ask for, actually, but are always going to suffer from the comedy band thing. So much better to have a sense of humour, certainly, but at the same time the indie kids are never going to let themselves be seen having non-ironic fun, and the audience you do get tend to be those slightly disturbing types who follow you to every gig and hog the front row with their own synchronised hilarious dances they've worked out. Hmm. I suspect the band with the most future promise from that gig is Sketchbeat (look 'em up on myspace; I'd give you the URL but I can't check it from here as this computer gets shirty when you point it at Shockwave-laden myspace pages, and tends to kick Firefox over by way of showing it) who were an odd bunch all round but clearly with musical talent to spare. Keyboards, piano, trumpet, various guitars, harmonica, instrument swapping, lots of vocal harmonies, a singing drummer and a bouncing bassist; all chucked in together just because they can but managing to serve the song, rather than pointlessly showing off, for a surprising proportion of the time. They still need to sort out staying the right side of some fine lines, viz, i) being exuberant and cheerful versus trying to be comic, ii) dressing in vaguely themed or matching red and black and white pinstripe-related outfits versus dressing like clowns who have day jobs in kitchens, and in the case of the frontman, iii) being a lanky charismatic blond-mopped strong guitarist and vocalist capable of deploying perfectly respectable bursts of falsetto versus trying to make actual referential nods to Justin Hawkins. Lose the tiger-stripe vest, lad, really. But I hope they can steer the right course because they were fun, and full of promise it'd be a shame to see go to waste. I hope they can manage to become themselves, in other words.
Not quite all musical doom and gloom, then. Although on that subject, naff it, I'm definitely going to Roadburn next April. Just about every band in the stoner/doom spectrum that I'd actually pay to see is going to be there, plus, fun in a field in Holland. What's not to like?
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-06 10:17 am (UTC)[bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA]
It's New Year's Eve and you know where to go!
Drum-n-bass rave crew at Club Koko!
Camden High Street, Number 1a
Party All Night into New Year's Day!
[bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA bkkda-CHA]
etc
no subject
Date: 2006-12-07 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-08 05:04 pm (UTC)I do expect a lot of music, I suppose, it's like.. The last Iain M. Banks book I read was his newest, The Alchemist, and if it had been by anyone I hadn't heard of before I would have thought it was ace and looked for other things they'd written. But because I really love most Iain Banks books, I thought that one was pretty good, but overlong and little rambly; it could really have done with some hard editing of the sort no-one is probably confident enough to do any more for the Big Name. It's only because I expect so much of him. And I know music can do really amazing things, so it's a bit disappointing when what it does is try and sound like everyone else, or lose touch with what it's for. This is me being grumpy because nothing's currently knocking me off my feet, making me attempt to take it to musical bits, learn all the lyrics, learn to play it, and make *everyone* sick of me wandering round singing it.
I can be pleased by even very tiny amounts of musical spark, at times; hells, I'm going to B-Movie tonight which is a sort of potted history of dodgy goth-pop-rock and stuff you can get drunk people to dance to, and I expect I will dance too because I've got some post-cold convalescent energy building up; this post is me being pissed off at being unable to find any spark right then.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 09:21 pm (UTC)my comment just meant that i am fairly easily pleased by music (among other things). i sometimes gripe about the radio, but then, i don't really listen to it much. i guess there aren't that many times when i feel like nothing much is exciting me musically because even if there isn't anything new and wow there's just so much Out There that i can wander off discovering something new to me. at the mo i feel like there's something missing whereby there are a few people i am really keen on, individually, and there's a few pop/electro bands i'm quite keen on, there's like a little manchester-electro scene and that, but after a while, several months, of listening to pop/electro i need something else. a different sound. i heard And You Will Know Us... in a shop yesterday and it was good. i think i need to get it. don't know which it was (i've only heard Source Tags and Codes) i'm guessing So Divided. is there a PJHarvey-a-like on there somewhere? also, i haven't properly listened to about half the CDs i bought this year, so i've restricted new purchases for a while to sort that out. anyway, rambling now.
hope you did dance. i was surprised to hear "Grace Kelly" (Mika) as Radio2 Record of the Week this morning, though i didn't actually stick around to hear it. didn't know it was out yet/soon. any tunes in your head today?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 02:17 am (UTC)This is it, nine days out of ten I'm happy to go looking for new, old, any sort of music I haven't heard before; I've been having a bit of an experiment with http://www.pandora.com recently which comes up with interesting stuff. But this post was the tenth day.
I've only heard odd bits of And You Will Know Us... and not investigated further, meself, can't say much there. I dunno, what bands count as electro, anyway? I'm kind of bad with genres.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 12:50 pm (UTC)as far as genres go, i'm pretty bad myself. it's the reason i don't shop in Rough Trade - i'd like to, but all the organising by genres really frustrates me. just stick it _all_ in rock&pop i say. but then the dance label thing would get in the way i guess. i would class pretty much everything i listen to as pop, since i only really like, er, poppy stuff... electro (in my head) is stuff with electronic beeps, usually dancey and/or drum machine. so, like the Performance (http://www.myspace.com/thisisperformace) and Modernaire (http://www.myspace.com/modernairetheband). but even i (with my love of Erasure) am missing something heavier, weightier, i guess more rock. i hear it's been a good year for heavy rock, but i'm not really into the growly barky end of things. my rock stuff too is pretty pop...
one more try on this AMG thing (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=61::6<HP) - it's their list of bright new things.
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Date: 2006-12-11 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-12 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-09 08:02 pm (UTC)Ellie
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Date: 2006-12-10 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-13 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 03:10 am (UTC)