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Infatuated – Part 3

Take a look at this dirty gurner...

It’s been ages since my last post on here and for that I apologise. I’m sure you have been waiting on tender hooks for something to go up (yeah right).

So what have I latched on to now I hear you say… another band wagon perhaps? Correctomondo.

I’ve been listening to some pure filth in the form of Dubstep. Great, I can hear you groaning from here: “Fucking band wagon jumper onner”.

I invite you to shut the fuck up, cocktail some drugs, get your gurn on, sweat like a Jew in a German shower and listen to these gems (they’re filthier than poo girl after her swim in the chocolate pit at Leeds Fest):

Bar 9 – Rapture

N-Type – Dark Matter

Cookie Monster – Bliss

Emalkay – When I Look At You

Anyone else feel the need to burn their skin off with acid ‘cos they feel so filthy after listening to those?

D

Adam D

Just gone up on the new Red Room over at Virgin.com

Thought you’d all like to see me lookin like an ass.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and all that bollocks. I’m getting wasted. Right. This. Second.

Infatuated – Part 2

My love for Bon Iver still stands but the infatuation/stalker side is dying out. The slag who’s replacing it is Post-Rock.

I’ve listened to Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai and 65Daysofstatic for years but I’m finding at the moment that everytime I make a playlist or want some background noise that I’m turning to la Post-Rock.

For all of you who aren’t au fait with Post-Rock then I shall enlighten you with some of my current favourites (including the more prominent bands and the lesser known):

Explosions In The Sky – Remember Me As A Time Of Day

Mogwai – Ithica 27/9

God Is An Astronaut – New Years End

Do Make Say Think – A Tender History In Rust

65Daysofstatic – Radio Protector

The American Dollar – Anything You Synthesise

This Will Destroy You – Threads

Jakob – Nice Day For An Earthquake

Hammock – Blankets Of Night

Mono – Follow The Map

Russian Circles – Death Rides A Horse

If my life were a movie these songs would feature in the soundtrack.

These are just a few of the reasons why I really want to start a Post-Rock band. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And I’m gonna post-rock out with my cock out. And I’m going to sample some wicked ass shit from movies and it’s going to be tittylicious.

Random Find

David Karsten Daniels – That Knot Unties?

Infatuated – Part 1

WTF IS THIS?

After very nearly letting this blog slip into  a void of nothingness through not updating it for a couple of weeks I’ve decided to pull my finger out and get back on it. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself dragging inspiration from sweet f.a. to try and muster up any creative flare for my recent uni projects and other reviews I’ve been doing.

I’m feeling a bout of inspiration teetering at this very moment – like when you need a poo and it’s nearly touching cloth – well, there’s an inspirational turtle head poking out. So I’m gonna take a dump on this blog.

Basically this isn’t an original idea in the slightest, in fact if you look to your right at the link to Jake’s Blog you’ll realise that he’s been wacking out ‘mp3 of the day’ pieces for a while now – and I know a band wagon when I see one. Instead of an mp3 of the day I’m going to post on here things which I’ve literally been infatuated with; whether it be a song I’m listening to till my ears bleed or a video I watch until puss begins dribbling out my eyes… your now gonna know about it.

So here goes nothing:

INFATUATED – PART 1

You may think I’m a bit late on this one and I’m jumping onto another bandwagon a bit late… Bandwagon jumping I am not (well perhaps a little) but the whole point of this is to tell you stuff which has fast become an integral part of my day to day life – as important as that first cup of joe in the morning and the cigarette before bed (and the whole lot of being a bum inbetween) – it’s Justin Vernon’s brainchild.

Yeah, Bon Iver, with your high pitched, creamingly intense vocal harmonies and simplistic instrumental melodies your making sweet sweet love to my eardrums over and over again. Using the lubrication of your finely constructed, heartfelt lyrics your fucking me backwards everytime I listen to you day in day out.

I’m left wondering if there is a way that surgeons could perform a voice box transplant? Otherwise nothing a bit of rohypnol and a stanley knife couldn’t conquer…

I must have seen this particular video a thousand times already, but the song  in it’s a capella naked form strips it down to the bare essentials – three amazing voices. I jizzed in my pants.

La Blogotheque never fails in creating videos with such a natural insight into the music – click here to see the other videos they have of Bon Iver from the same session.

D Says… Fuck Britpop. It’s all about Post-Britpop…

Pulled Apart By Horses

Oasis recently split up… again. Britain’s eyelids remained un-battered. Probably due to nearly two decades of bands remaining radio-friendly and boringly reserved, inspiring avid music fans with little more than yawns and groans (and also because everyone knows Liam Gallagher is a prick anyway). Coldplay have been flying the flag for ‘shitpop’ in recent times, spreading more of this infectious drivel to the mainstream market. It’s time for the flag to be burnt and melted to Chris Martin’s stupid face.

Enter Post-Britpop. Glaswegian six-piece Dananananaykroyd are one of few pioneers grabbing the accessibility of Britpop, putting it in a bag, taking a shit in the bag, and throwing it straight in your face. Two drummers, two screaming vocalists and a shite load of distortion power drill the catchy hooks home, before suddenly dropping into the quiet and melodic – verging on parental friendly – sections.

Dananananaykroyd have aptly coined their sound as ‘Fight Pop’ which, other than making me envisage a savage circle mosh pit at a Take That concert, seems to gel well with their sound but isn’t necessarily a blanket term for the bigger picture of what’s actually occurring. You see, whilst their music contains characteristics of the happy-go-lucky buoyancy of mainstream pop music, other bands like Leeds’ Pulled Apart By Horses and Birmingham’s Blakfish bring a more brutally fierce approach to Post-Britpop. These groups rely more heavily on ballsy underpinning riffs and raucous angst screaming and their subtle moments, whilst still present, are less frequent in and amongst the hectic compositions.

Pulled Apart By Horses, like Dananananaykroyd, have been busy loitering in the shadows down the back alleys in toilet tours, recently popping up into the side stages at Festivals like Download and Reading & Leeds. They’re beginning to rally up enough middle fingers to give a collective “fuck you” to the suit and tie clad, Blackberry Bluetooth talking, laptop sporting, venti mocha latté sipping wankers who dictate what music will bring in the cash. Post-Britpop has a menacing grin on its face with one hand held behind its back concealing the sawn-off shotgun which is to pop a cap in the ass of those who are content with coasting along with the same-old-same-old.

Punk, to draw on an overly drawn on cliché, was a backlash to the growing boredom with psychedelic music and hippies who dominated the 60s and much of the 70s. Post-Britpop is a backlash to the mundane indie music and the flock of topshop/topman fashion sheep over the past decade or so. Don’t be mistaken, Post-Britpop entrepreneurs aren’t doing anything radical with their fashion style like wearing latex onesies or bringing back the mullet, they’re what skater dudes would call hesh – unkempt, tight jeans, mesh camps, facial hair and a general “who gives a toss?” chic (if you can indeed call it chic).

Post-Britpop isn’t a pedigree breed. When we were lumped with the likes of Suede and Blur, the kids in the US of A were getting high to Sunny Day Real Estate (aka the forefathers of emo) and Glassjaw (aka the forefathers of post-hardcore). Whereas it’s true that the limeys enjoy jumping on band wagons (ahem both world wars anyone?) it’s safe to say that the influence of these bands instilled jealousy from us Brits and carved the path for our thriving post-hardcore/emo scene which ultimately lead to this infusion with the Post-Britpop bands.

It’s these bands who aren’t afraid to flaunt the inflections of their regional accents that prove British music is far from a stale loaf. And the loaf, freshly baked, is ready to jump out of the breadbin and fuck up those across the pond, demonstrating that we’re not all a bunch of Bono-boning pussies.

D

UK Festival Awards ’09 – True Review

UK Shamble Awards 2009

Brace yourselves, this review comes from the heart…

So me and Jake popped along to the Awards ceremony to cover it for an online publication we both write for. It’s safe to say both of us were utterly psyched about a lot of the aspects that we believed lay in wait for us – the free drinks, the bands that were going to be there, wondering who was going to perform, which people from the industry were going to be present and what an awards ceremony runs like! We were both quite excitable.

When we turned up it didn’t look good from the outset. We went to the place where our passes were supposed to be collected, not a soul in sight. Got told to go somewhere else. No use. Got a phone call from my editor who gave me a number for the PR for the event, only thing was it was a fucking office number and just rang through to voicemail (which annoyingly just hung up before chance of actually recording a message).

We sat in S&M restaurant, which was delicious for the record, with me frantically looking through my emails on my piece of shit phone, trying to track down a mobile number for this useless prick of a PR (not the first time a PR has been an absolute pain the fucking arse either, some advice – “It’s your fucking job so do it properly you useless bunch of lick-arse wankers”.) After getting the number, and a phonecall later we were press passed up and ready to go.

Shunted to the upstairs area of the Inigo2 we didn’t see this as a particularly thrilling vantage point for taking photos or videos. Well we were stuck there now. Oh yeah, two free drinks. TWO. Absolutely bollocks. We left and came back just so we got an extra couple of tokens.

The singer from Starsailor “sang” on stage, more like a moaning annoyingly grating rendition of already crap-ass songs which we’d all rather forget were written. He was shit. The other noteable act were the singer and drummer of Supergrass who, suprisingly, played an awesome like 3 song set which I have to hand to them was actually pretty fucking beefy and pretty awesome too.

I’m just pissed at the fact that there was hardly anybody there and that no one actually gave a shit about the awards themselves. They played cheering and applause when people went up for their awards, just to mask the mostly silent audience who simply didn’t care.

Overall, poor effort. Last year Biffy Clyro and Michael Eavis were there – this year Michael didn’t even turn up. Just goes to show that the whole awards is a fucking shambles. I lost count of how many people weren’t there to pick up their awards…

I shall not be attending this again, it was pure crap. Me and Jake managed to have a good night regardless, we got a bit pissed and had a laugh taking the piss out of everything to do with the meidiocrity of the evening.

UK Festival Awards – SORT IT THE FUCK OUT.

D Says… Being seen isn’t scene anymore.

For something which started as a flamboyant, effervescent deviation from metal music’s norm has now become discordant with its primary appeal and purpose. Scene kids, ironically, have inflicted self-harm on the scene they hold most dear and face the ultimate price.

Rock ‘n’ Roll, Punk and Hip Hop are just some of the genres spawned out of youth’s boredom with tedious musical times.  To that degree the metal and post-hardcore scene was similar with its ideals. It was a way of distancing the new generation of metal music fans from the stereotypes and stigmatisms of the old black-clad, overweight, grease-haired, deodorant avoiding type which gave metal music a wholly distasteful image.

Bringing to the table outrageous, ostentatious hair styles and clothing mixed with 80s power metal style skinny jeans with the occasional leopard print thrown in for extra (comedic?) value. Marry that with the ethos of straight edge from hardcore punk and an asexual approach to style from the lads and there you have it. Not to mention the sudden flurry of the suffix ‘core’ flagrantly affixed to a whole host of words (Emo-core, Nintendo-core, crunk-core etc). Bands like ‘Bring Me The Horizon’ and ‘Architects’ have flourished from the scene, even winning over some of the old-school metal aficionados.

However, it’s come to the stage where the whole ‘scene’ has become a grating fad for teenagers seemingly lost within themselves about who they are as people. The focus has shifted from the music to a fad about which new Atticus or Famous Stars and Straps piece of clothing is ‘heavy’ (not forgetting the terrible lingo attached to the scene) and which bands, regardless of actual talent and ability is the next ‘cool’ band to follow. Which screaming vocalist can sound less like an actual human and more like someone trying to dislodge a sharp instrument wrapped in barbed wire from their arsehole?

It’s now about meeting the same people week in week out, with the same god-awful bands on the bill screaming about rape and ‘fucking people up’ and nobody really giving a toss but simply standing idly by, gormlessly watching from the sidelines fiddling and remoulding their hair every few seconds.

Alas, it seems that the ‘scene’ is dying. People are becoming disenchanted listening to terrible bands that require the use of triggers on their drum kits and over-distortion on their guitars to mask their terrible musicianship. The ‘scene’ is also beginning to become intertwined with a more mainstream appeal and this is a telltale sign that the gig is up. It’s time to get a marker pen and scribe a large X over the overblown fad that is the ‘scene’.

D

Alexisonfire @ Eastpak Antidote Tour + Interview

The ethos of punk dictates that small, sweatbox venues, with no room to swing a strat, deliver the best brutal intimacy. It would be all too easy for that sense of band-fan cohesion to be lost in the deep, dingy corners and towering, upper-seated deck of the formidably sized Forum.

After eight years working under a band name coined after the worlds only lactating contortionist porn star, Alexisonfire’s English fan base is lapping it up more than ever. “England is our home away from home” professes lead vocalist George Pettit, before dropping into Waterwings, a song from their distant self-titled debut released in 2001.

Touring earlier this year on the release of their fourth studio album – Old Crows/Young Cardinals – means the filtration of the newer material into the set is taking pride of place. Pettit has taken a new direction with his vocals, leaning more towards a Henry Rollins’esque, hardcore aggressive shouting style. Despite the frosty reception from fans upon its release, tonight there isn’t much on the set which isn’t vociferously received.

Alexisonfire display their persistent drive of the new record tonight by opening with newbie Heading For The Sun. Most of the crowd remain tight-lipped and static at first, not entirely sure of the lyrics, awaiting the arrival of some older material for sing-along value. However there’s a palpable sense of pride the band holds with their new album, filling nearly half the set with newer songs, trying to force feed fans with their new found maturity.

Young Cardinals, the first release from their latest record, is played with tenacity and seething passion. The crowd pounces on the song, snatching the opportunity to sing along to guitarist/vocalist Dallas Green’s harmonious chorus.

Tonight the Canadian five-piece seize the stage, utilising it as a platform to torrent their relentless energy and passion to the sold-out venue – the lingering cloud of B-O vapour above the fans serving a true testament to this.

Three songs stand from their first two records. Accidents is homage to their more post-hardcore orientated sound and they couldn’t afford not to play this song. But the pizzazz and zeal that is enthusiastically portrayed with new songs like Old Crows, is weak and feeble when playing older songs, love undoubtedly lost into the ether after innumerable plays.

Also here’s my interview I had with them on that night, thrown in for good measure.