Blog: Another Form of Relief

So today I found out about a music festival called All Tomorrow's Parties . I've heard of it before, but today I found out a little more about it. Only to discover that the damn thing has been taking place right under my nose for the past six years. Anyone who knows me will have heard my rants about how where I live is a cultural wasteland, devoid of anything remotely interesting without a trip to London. Yet since 2000, there has been a musical festival occuring a mere 90 minutes away that I was [...]

I had a feeling it was kind of dodgy, but then again it just as easily could've been some nautical term-like in a decemberists' song. ha! do let us know when you change addresses. thanks.

It doesn't really mean anything I'm afraid. The term comes from my friend Dan*. Always a good source for random names, he came up with it when I was looking for domain names for my blog. That was the best part of three years ago now. It's served it's purpose but AFoR won't be remaining at this address. Seeing as I've just got myself a shiny new host and domain, I'll be moving the whole thing over there once I get a spare few days. Eventually I'll actually have a domain for this [...]

thanks so much for these. i pointed people your way yesterday. and, totally unrelated, what does scrunty bastard mean?

I'm incredibly tired and ill and thus have a strong desire to lay down, so I'm afraid it'll have to be a brief one this evening. It's also probably something all of you cool people already know about, but it was new to me so I thought I'd share it. While idly browsing through the Mountain Goats' website , trying to find out more about a band I criminally don't know anywhere near enough about, I stumbled details of an unreleased 73 called 'Jack and Faye'. Best of all, as it was never released, it's [...]

Ah Cokemachineglow . Always the first place I visit to find out about great new music. Well, right after Pitchfork . And Drowned in Sound . And PopMatters (and Another Form of Relief, of course). Well, I think its a cool site anyway. I was going to write an obituary for it today, after a (rather hilarious) goodbye note on the front page detailed its demise.. but upon revisiting, the site has returned - with new adverts and the pithy but relevant slogan "indestructable." Which means I'm [...]

Where did the links go?

Art Brut are one of those rare bands where I'll actually go out of my way to pick up every single that they put out. There's a reason for that: their b-sides are so good that it makes the process worthwhile. While inevitably the best material ended up on the album, there's a little treasure chest of more obscure Art Brut songs that are also worthy of your time. Seeing as I'm all about spreading the joy, I now present to you a complete set of Art Brut b-sides, taken from their single releases for the [...]

Thanks to a bout of heavy partying (translation: playing some video games, ordering pizza and playing Monopoly) over the weekend, I've been remiss in my updating, which means I now have some catching up to do. I also had a recent realisation that I hardly ever write about British bands on here. This isn't a particularly conscious decision on my part, I just happen to listen to American ones a lot more, and that's what tends to get reflected here. Still, in the spirit of going some way to rectify this inbalance, I'd like to share with [...]

A few years ago I wouldn't have gone close to anything that would be deemed "electronica", or anything that involved much work that was electronic at all. Thanks to the proliferation of shitty dance music that dominated much of the UK music scene through the late 90s, I wrote off pretty much anything electronic as being a complete waste of time. Then Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello came along and destroyed that perception for me. Even that wasn't a quick process though. While everywhere was raving about the greatness of The Postal Service, I still didn't [...]

I've been planning to write about William Shatner for a little while now, but was finally spurred into action by Tim's post at the excellent People of Paper . He put up a little Ben Folds Five material, and also included Shatner's cover of Pulp's 'Common People', which was produced by Folds. If you haven't heard this little masterpiece, head on over there and get it. You won't be disappointed. The Shatner/Folds story goes back a lot further though, starting with a collaboration all the way back in 1998, for Folds' side-project, [...]

I'd like to preface this post by saying that I really wish I had a better picture to offer, but there seems to be hardly anything in the way of Trip Shakespeare pictures, or indeed any kind of references, anywhere on the net. There does seem to be a few fan sites put together years ago, but hardly anything, which is shame. Spurred on by this, and the encouragement I got from one of the comments left on yesterday's post, I'm going to try something a little different here. This is going to be a complete retrospective [...]

It's one of my days where I'm feeling incredibly lazy so you know what that means: a post loaded with cover versions! MP3 Belle & Sebastian - Whiskey In The Jar (Thin Lizzy) Some may consider this to be close to blasphemy. Others will think that it's awesome. I'm in the latter camp, largely because I love what Belle & Sebastian can do with just about anything, and also because I don't really like the older versions of this song all that much. I can appreciate it, but [...]

Brakes are a "supergroup" in that they are made up of members from British Sea Power, Tenderfoot and the Electric Soft Parade. The project begun as something of a side project for those involved but has taken off in a big way, largely because the material that Brakes are putting out is far superior to anything those bands have to offer. They bring a sound that falls somewhere in between country and punk, a combination that I didn't think was possible, but is somehow achieved here. The album is a shambolic mess (16 songs in [...]

New Sense (I love saying that out loud) are a dance-pop band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Song wise they seem to come in as a slightly more electronic Voxtrot (who they are actually playing with soon), which can only be a good thing in my book. The electronica they do throw into their songs has a certain 80s feel to it, which gives them something of a unique hook. Lyrically the words wouldn't sound that out of place coming from a Gibbard, and all of it adds up into a great combination. They are playing [...]

And so our little week of days of the week theme posts comes to an end. Sunday isn't the strongest day it seems, but there's still a nice enough selection to work with. I think that monday was my favourite one of these for the nice variety that it had, but most of them have turned out pretty well. What has everyone else liked? MP3 The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning (from The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967) Excellent dreamy pop that captures the whole "I'm [...]

We finally make it to the weekend, with quite a large bunch of songs for what is apparently the cool day to write about. I'm not a massive saturday fan myself, too many people about who should be locked in schools or workplaces all seven days of the week. But rather than just turn this into a rant about people, I'll get straight to the music. Let's be honest, no one comes here for anything but the music. MP3 Built To Spill - Saturday (from You In Reverse, 2006) [...]

I'm just going to come straight out and say it. I've joined the corporate whoring machine that is Myspace. I don't particularly care for the place, although it's growing on me a little. Mostly I'm just interested in using it to find some good new music, and there does seem to be plenty of it on there. That said, other cool stuff seems to happen, like Cult Of Sue Todd asking to be my friend! Not the other way around, they asked me! Which is pretty damn awesome. Oh god I'm so easily [...]

Following the disaster that was the middle of the week, our little themed posts get right back on track with a, if I may say so myself, rather good selection for friday. It seems the weekend is the time of the week that really brings out the more interesting material from the songwriter, as will be proved by the awesomeness to follow on saturday and sunday. MP3 Morrissey - Friday Mourning (from Let Me Kiss You single, 2005) It's Morrissey. He's not very happy so he's leaving. And [...]

This post actually begun life as a conversation in the pub last saturday. And by a conversation, I mean something that lasted all of two lines. Here's a recreation of that action packed drama: Simon: I'd like to hear that Ben Folds tribute song to Elliott Smith. Eddie: I have that. I'll throw it up on the blog at some point. Now this was said in something of a jokey way. Surely putting up songs for friends from conversations in a pub is hardly the most professional way to go about [...]