Blog: Too Much Apple Pie

"I'm going to stay at home and write my autobiography"

Aug 21, 2007, 1:23pm Too Much Apple Pie
Pocketbooks - Cross the line
There's something about indiepop with male/female vocals. I can't quite say why it hits the spot so delightfully but Pocketbooks are a great example of gender-blender tweeness. They are currently Andy, Dan, Emma, Mark and Jonny, having recently undergone a small line-up change (losing early guitarist Ben and gaining drummer Jonny). Pocketbooks' lyrics are eloquent and generally about the everyday rather than the extraordinary, but each song is something special. Having just talked about the joy of male and female vocals together, the track below is just Emma [...]
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Artist:Pete Green
Title:I haven't got a Myspace because Myspace fucking sucks
Link Text:Pete Green - I Haven't Got A Myspace Because Myspace Fucking Sucks
File Name:myspace.mp3
Bitrate:256 kbps
Year:2007
Artist:pocketbooks
Title:I'm not going out
Link Text:Pocketbooks - I'm Not Going Out
File Name:notgoingout.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps

"I don't like it out there the people are hurtful"

Aug 17, 2007, 2:34pm Too Much Apple Pie
"I don't like it out there the people are hurtful" Merseyside has given us the Beatles, Echo and the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Half Man Half Biscuit, Kathryn Williams, Ladytron, Ooberman, Zombina and the Skeletones, The Boo Radleys, Cast..okay, we'll gloss over that last one, but what I'm saying is the city has given us a lot of quality music over the years. I have another name to add to that illustrious (veering towards cult) list. A little name. Well, in fact, it is Little Name . Little Name at one point was a band but on the current record (How To Swim And Live) is just Lee [...]
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"Lost your love of life..."

Aug 16, 2007, 6:21pm Too Much Apple Pie
"Lost your love of life..." Come on, you know it had to happen sooner or later! The Wedding Present - Kennedy mp3 (available for seven days) Buy Wedding Present stuff from their official website
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Have Faith Brothers

Aug 14, 2007, 7:17pm Too Much Apple Pie
Have Faith Brothers The Faith Brothers were a mid-80s outfit from Fulham in west London who managed to pull off the rare trick of combining heartfelt socialist sentiments in their lyrics with yer actual, rousing indiepop melodies. Now, I'd like to say I first stumbled across the Faith Brothers at some intimate fund-raising gig for the striking miners or something, but alas the truth is far more prosaic: I first heard them on a lazy weekday morning during my school holidays! In the summer of 1985, to be precise, when they were featured on the now long-since defunct breakfast television franchise [...]
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"Have you got room for me?"

Aug 12, 2007, 3:00pm Too Much Apple Pie
Ida Maria Pleasure
Sometimes you come across a band or artist and you wonder why the hell they aren't signed to a label. At this point it's easy to become depressed at the lack of music taste in the world, but if you are me, you blog about it and hope that more people will take an interest and like them too. This brings me to Ida Maria . She's a 23 year old Norwegian (from a tiny place called Nesna) who is now living in Sweden - ah, those Scandinavians again! Ida Maria [...]
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This charmless man

Aug 10, 2007, 3:26pm Too Much Apple Pie
Richard Keys Swears!
Today's You Tube clip features Sky Sports' football (w)anchor Richard Keys being caught off-camera making disparaging remarks about a recent Euro 2008 qualifier between the Faroe Islands and Scotland. ("Daft little ground, silly game, fuck off.") Richard Keys, there - Daft little man, freakishly hairy hands, fuck off. In other footballing news, the English season starts tomorrow. Not before time, either. This summer feels like it's been going on forever. Here's to a (hopefully) stonking nine months' worth of football, anyway - culminating, I sincerely hope, [...]
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Artist:Woog Riots
Title:Football Round The Clock
Link Text:Woog Riots - Football Round The Clock mp3
File Name:Football Round The Clock.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps

Three of a kind #4

Aug 8, 2007, 5:28pm Too Much Apple Pie
Three of a kind #4 A pretty momentous day for me, today, music technology-wise. Thanks to a practical demonstration from my co-blogger, followed by her sending me home with an easy-to-follow, step-by-step, idiot-proof written guide (which came in very handy also; ta, Spikey!), I'm now able to convert my old vinyl records to MP3. Hooray. Who knew it was such a straightforward procedure?! So, with this in mind, today's Three of a kind features three songs plucked from the one box of vinyl I currently have at my disposal (I have tons of records, but most of them are currently languishing in storage [...]
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"We go hang out in the park, sleep in late on Sundays"

Aug 6, 2007, 2:38pm Too Much Apple Pie
"We go hang out in the park, sleep in late on Sundays" I have to confess that there are times when I don't listen all that carefully to the lyrics of songs because the tune grabs me straight away and I'm a bit too lazy to pay proper attention after I know I like how it sounds. Then there are times when I have an excuse for not having a clue what the song is about. Like when it's in Icelandic. Dýrðin (pronounced 'deer-thin') are an Icelandic five-piece comprising Hafdis Hreiðarsdóttir, Einar Hreiðarsson, Magnús Hákon Axelsson, Þórarinn Kristjánsson and new keyboardist Kolbrún Karlsdóttir. The band began in 1994 and gradually [...]
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Link Text:Dýrðin - 17 Júní
File Name:17juni.mp3
Bitrate:192 kbps
Link Text:Dýrðin - Popp og Co
File Name:poppogco.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps
Artist:Dýrdin
Title:Bubble Girl
Link Text:Dýrðin - Bubble Girl
File Name:bubblegirl.mp3
Bitrate:256 kbps
Year:2006

Biker groove

Aug 3, 2007, 7:32pm Too Much Apple Pie
action biker - eating noddemix & french grammatics
Thanks to You Tube coming up trumps once again, today we're able to bring you a five-minute clip of the rather wonderful Sarah Nyberg Pergament AKA Action Biker performing two songs at last month's Rip It Up festival in Sweden: Eating Noddemix and La Conjugaison Pour Tous. Now, it's devilishly hard to get hold of any Action Biker records - they seem to be about as rare as hen's teeth [...]
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"When the lights were out I broke into your home"

Aug 2, 2007, 6:10am Too Much Apple Pie
"When the lights were out I broke into your home" The band I'll be talking about today come from Sweden (surely that country has given us more than its fair share of fantastic music already?). Stockholm, to be precise. That's about all I know about them, to be honest! Well, that and the fact there are five members of the band - Andrea Dahlkild, Gunnar Jacobsson, Kristoffer Rengfors, Pontus Leander and Robert Klaesson. Hari and Aino have recently released a single containing three tracks on the excellent Cloudberry Records label. You can download the tracks from the Hari and Aino myspace page but CDs with artwork [...]
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Artist:Hari and Aino
Title:Second Song
Link Text:Hari and Aino - Second Song
File Name:hariandaino_secondsong.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps
Artist:Hari And Aino
Title:Your heartache and mine
Link Text:Hari and Aino - Your Heartache And Mine
File Name:Your+heartache+and+mine.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps

Sheffield United's Downfall

Jul 31, 2007, 7:13am Too Much Apple Pie
Sheffield United's Downfall Fans of English football and/or the movie Downfall should enjoy the following - genuinely funny - clip, currently doing the rounds on eBay. (for some reason I can't get the "embed" thing to work today, so if you want to watch it I'm afraid you're going to have to go to the trouble of clicking on the link below. I know, I know, your life's so hard!) Watch the clip here Anyway, from the ridiculous to the sublime; from delusional "Übermensch" types to - extremely tenuous link ahoy! - Ooberman, [...]
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Three of a kind #3

Jul 28, 2007, 9:55am Too Much Apple Pie
Three of a kind #3 Today's Three of a kind features, rather spoddily, a trio of songs that all peaked at number 18 in the UK singles chart in 1984. Now, bear with me on this one because the other thing these songs have in common is that they're all dead good - honest! First up is the pick of the bunch, for me, Tossing & Turning by Windjammer, which remains one of the great lost (or at least largely forgotten) soul tracks of the decade. Having done much of my growing up in the eighties I'm still a sucker for [...]
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Carlberg: probably the longest song title in the world

Jul 26, 2007, 9:17am Too Much Apple Pie
Carlberg: probably the longest song title in the world Good news for fans of ex-Edson lead singers everywhere comes today with Labrador's announcement that Pelle Carlberg's new single, the (ahem) pithily-titled Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls has been made available as a free download on the Swedish label's website. Woo and indeed hoo. Clever Girls is the second single from Pelle's In A Nutshell album, following on from the even-more-catchy, and sublimely-titled, duet (with Ida Maria) I Love You, You Imbecile. Now, much as I like both these songs, [...]
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Artist:Edson
Title:Sunday, Lovely Sunday
Link Text:Edson - Sunday, Lovely Sunday mp3
File Name:edson-sunday_lovely_sunday.mp3
Bitrate:256 kbps
Year:2001
Artist:Pelle Carlberg
Title:Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls
Link Text:Pelle Carlberg -Clever Girls... mp3
File Name:pelle_carlberg-clever_girls.mp 3
Bitrate:256 kbps

"Who took the fun and left a mental?"

Jul 23, 2007, 7:19am Too Much Apple Pie
"Who took the fun and left a mental?" Roadside Poppies started as a one man project (that man being Matloob Qureshi) and expanded into a whole band from Cambridge. A gentle, humourous, lovesong-writing tweepop band. They have recently released the Cycling and Crying EP on WeePOP! Records and, very generously, they allow you to download 'Just Another Lovesong' from it for free. But you know you want to buy the EP as well, don't you? Roadside Poppies - Just Another Lovesong mp3 (right click and save as) On the Roadside Poppies website there is a whole album's-worth of (sing-a-long-able) [...]
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Artist:Roadside Poppies
Title:A Gentleman Alone
Link Text:Roadside Poppies - a Gentleman Alone mp3
File Name:gentleman.mp3
Bitrate:256 kbps
Year:2007
Artist:Roadside Poppies
Title:Just Another Love Song
Link Text:Roadside Poppies - Just Another Lovesong mp3
File Name:roadsidepoppies_justanotherlov esong.mp3
Bitrate:160 kbps
Year:2007

I'm always on the lookout for a rerun on TV

Jul 19, 2007, 2:08pm Too Much Apple Pie
Despite making some of the jauntiest pop music you're ever likely to hear, Arne Hansen & the Guitarspellers have somehow only gained 927 plays in the history of Last FM (approximately a hundred of which have come from yours truly). To filch a bit of Private Eye vernacular - shome mishtake shorely? But no, it seems the band really are that obscure, even at home in Norway, where they formed back in 1986. During the subsequent two decades they've released six albums full of songs which bridge the gap between Jilted John and the multi-talented and versatile Sheffield [...]
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Artist:Arne Hansen & the Guitarspellers
Title:(Iris is) drop dead gorgeous
Link Text:Arne Hansen & The Guitarspellers - (Iris Is) Drop Dead Gorgeous mp3
File Name:Iris.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps
Artist:Arne Hansen & the Guitarspellers
Title:Barbara Eden
Link Text:Arne Hansen & The Guitarspellers - Barbara Eden mp3
File Name:Barbara Eden.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps

Three of a kind #2

Jul 18, 2007, 11:04am Too Much Apple Pie
Maia Hirasawa - And I found this boy
The second 'Three of a kind' entry and the second one to feature Swedes. Female singer-songwriters who can put a bit of welly into it, this time. Sofia Talvik has just released her second album 'Street Of Dreams' (you can download a free remixed version of it from her website) and recorded a fantastic duet - 'It's Just Love' - with Bernard Butler. The song below, Blåa linjen hem, is freely available for download and is [...]
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Link Text:Sofia Talvik - Blåa linjen hem
File Name:Bl%C3%A5a+linjen+Hem.mp3

Three of a kind #1

Jul 14, 2007, 6:03pm Too Much Apple Pie
Three of a kind #1 Three-pack of early-to-mid-nineties Swedish guitar pop anthems, anyone? Popsicle - Hey Princess mp3 The Wannadies - Lucky You mp3 Brainpool - Bandstarter mp3 (above tracks all available for seven days) Buy Swedish music here
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Spot the difference

Jul 13, 2007, 5:39pm Too Much Apple Pie
Madness - Night Boat To Cairo
I always loved watching Madness videos when I was growing up, not just because of the invariably brilliant songs (did any other band produce such a consistently excellent sequence of Top 10 hits in the 80s? I think Madness had 15 in all, every one a gem), but also because they always looked like they were having so much fun. The reason I mention this here is because I've recently been watching a 1960s comedy series called Do Not Adjust Your set on dvd. DNAYS (as I think we'll call it from now on) [...]
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"Who cares about the weather when you know it's going to change tomorrow?"

Jul 12, 2007, 6:42am Too Much Apple Pie
"Who cares about the weather when you know it's going to change tomorrow?" I'm not normally prone to recommending songs which begin, "OMG! He broke up with me!" (especially those which also mention the dreaded Myspace) but this is a notable exception. 'Emo Phillips' is not about the strange-voiced American comedian of that name, but about those over-emotional, hysterical, depressed, floppy-haired types prone to writing terrible songs about bleeding and how much the world is against them - ie. me at the age of 15. This would normally be a disappointment but this Arrah and the Ferns song is utterly fantastic. Arrah and [...]
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Artist:Arrah & The Ferns
Title:Emo Phillips (unmastered)
Link Text:Arrah and the Ferns - Emo Phillips
File Name:emo phillips.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps
Year:2006
Artist:Arrah & The Ferns
Title:Science Books
Link Text:Arrah and the Ferns - Science Books
File Name:science books.mp3
Bitrate:128 kbps
Year:2006

Aye, ludicrous

Jul 11, 2007, 6:32pm Too Much Apple Pie
Aye, ludicrous Overheard on BBC One's National Lottery Jet Set quiz this evening: Eamonn Holmes: Who wrote The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll & Mr Hyde? Middle-aged contestant bloke: Sherlock Holmes? Give me strength! (In the circumstances, I should probably include a track by Simple Minds here, but I've had Preposterous Tales by I, Ludicrous swishing around in my head all day so you're going to have to settle for that [...]
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