Blog: Tracks from the stack

I'd like to go back in time, to the 18th of February 2007. The Hold Steady have just played one of the best shows I've ever seen at The Borderline. I'm awestruck, and have sung along the whole show. My clothes are damp with sweat, and my throat is raw, but I wait around to get some record sleeves signed. I brought them with me, with a very nice marker pen. Yes, I'm that kind of person, and I'm mildly drunk. It was a Hold Steady show. It seemed appropriate. A couple of band members are moving around [...]

I thought about Suede a few weeks ago, and remembered that they'd left many tracks off Sci-fi lullabies, their B-Side collection. I thought, "I've got all of those tracks". I was wrong. I'm missing nine tracks from their early years. Hardly salty tears before bedtime, but still... Nevermind. Below are eleven non album tracks from the prime period of their first three albums. Painted People (on the Animal Nitrate single) and Dolly (on the flipside of So Young) really should have been on Sci fi Lullabies. they're good nu-glam stompers that got played quite a bit [...]

I've been to more gigs than I can actually count. I've seen a few hundred bands now, and lost the actual number some time in the late Nineties. Some were good, some were bad, some so good that they made an imaginary top twenty in my head, some so bad that I ditched their records afterwards. But many were somewhere in the middle in an almighty scrum of grey, so-so time changes, predictable choruses, middleweight softcore euphoria. Perhaps My Bloody Valentine were never going to fall into the middle category, but in my head, I wasn't sure [...]

I wasn't blown away by the new material when I saw them last, and the singles have left me a little cold (although I'm warming to The Only One), but the ones broadcast on FUSE from Madison Square garden are aces and spades. I'm glad they've upped their game! Baby Rag Dog Book Underneath the stars

http://thebeathappening.wordpr ess.com/ My reviews are in the PDF for issue two. Go team me. ------------ Have been sent a few emails over the last week or so that had links to a couple of interesting tracks enclosed. One of the better ones was from Secondsmile , a band on the very respectable Big Scary Monsters label. Their forthcoming album Years is on the way, and the title track is pleasingly epic guitar led indie rock from the old school. [...]

• Secondsmile - Years
• Unknown - Track 4

Back in the Nineties, there was a indie rock band called Sonic Youth. Because they had a stack of great old albums from the 80's (Evol, Sister, Daydream Nation), everyone loved them. And rightfully so, because they were awesome. They released a shitload of great albums in the 90's. Goo. Dirty. The very under-rated Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star. Washing Machine. Their name is legion, etc. Right at the end of the Nineties they went off the boil, and lost it for a few years. They got it back eventually. It's a happy story. And what [...]

Looked over the hard drive this morning, and thought I'd make a muxtape. Enjoy the near randomness !

It's been a long wait for this show. The last time Rival Schools hit the UK was six years ago. Murmurs about it began on Ian Love's site, when he suggested reformation was in the offing last year, and it was going to start at the end of March. Well, he was a few months late, but after 72 of them, what's a few more between friends? I've noticed the emo crowd building up all day long while I've been out and about, but it crystallizes at one point. For a brief moment as I walk out of [...]

Rival Schools live review pending, Suede b-side collection compiling. It's an exciting time. Watch this space.

I've always enjoyed videogame music, but I suppose I really got into it when I had my SNES collection going. Nintendo had the edge over Sega in the sound department in the early Nineties console war between the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Megadrive. The SNES had 16bit digital stereo sound, whereas the Megadrive operated with only 8 bit synthesized stereo. The SNES had 8 times the amount of dedicated memory for sound the Megadrive had. Also the signal to noise ratio was better for the SNES, allowing even clearer separation of the channels, and [...]

My head falls back And the walls crash down And the sky And the impossible Explode Held for one moment I remember a song An impression of sound Then everything is gone Forever ------------------ Sorry. It's been stuck in my head since I got up. ------------------ Pictures from last night. Top two are Port O'Brien, last one is they guy from the Dodos. Cracking show last night, with both bands on top form. Port O' Brien were the better of the two for me, songs and perfromance wise. Reminded me of The Meat Puppets [...]

While I'm not a huge fan of prank calls (apart from the Egyptian Magician: "I fill balloons up with deadly poison gas and then float them out over the audience."), or generic dancefloor tat, over the last few days I've become enamoured by Bleachy, a character from Earles and Jensen's Just for Laughs series. He's four foot eleven, and he's just come back from being stationed in Germany... Bleachy is Back in Town - Earles and Jensen and the magisterial club remix Bleachy [...]

Did an audience with Neil Diamond on ITV tonight. And all the way through, all I could think of was this old SNL sketch.

A video here A weblog there An even older weblog there . So Crystal Castles have been copping 8-bit songs wholesale, not crediting samples, and one of their t-shirt/album cover designs hasn't been paid for after they discovered who the artist was. Even on of their early logos (Chanel) and their name (an excellent old computer game) are taken from other sources. It begs the question 'Has anything Crystal Castles created been their own work? ' And yet no questions have been answered by the band. They've made statements [...]

Shearwater were considered sort of an Okkervil River side project, as the band contained both Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff. I say were, as although the two bands still have much in common, Meiburg has pulled out from Okkervils' touring commitments to work on Shearwater full time. And their sounds are very different. Okkervil, while having the odd sad moment, rock much harder. Shearwater, while occasionally rocking hard (with massive open chords annihilating all that stand in their way), are quieter, heartbreaking pastoral sadcore. This separation is already to the benefit both bands. Okkervil have amped up their [...]

I saw Okkervil River this week at the Borderline. They damn near put my face in my lap. Got introduced to this band by a girl I swapped (actual real, physical) mixtapes with, and for her I have nothing but praise. Easily the best band I've seen in the last year, and that's a decent amount of bands that they've clawed their way over to get on top. Here's a Youtube video taken from the table nearest the stage (the best spot for watching a gig, ever. You just have to get there early). I don't endorse Youtube live vids [...]

A place to bury strangers were shit. Their whole 'we're the loudest Jesus and Mary Chain covers band' shtick didn't wash. Me and Davo ditched three songs in, got expensive snacks upstairs. Weak gig. But that isn't the reason I'm writing. Last tube creaked into Waterloo for 12.30. Train to Lewisham came in at one. Get into Lewisham at twenty past one. Waiting for the N136, I see a man, a little black guy, five foot seven, skinny, doing high kicks towards the bus stop. About thirty yards away. He's wearing an olive army jacket, blue trousers, some [...]

I've changed my mind on re-issuing the stuff of old. It's all new from here. As many music obsessives know, the highlight of going round to someone else's gaff is pillaging their hard drive for Mp3s. Being a lover of hoarding shiny objects, I was a bit slow on the mp3 uptake (I was under a 1000 until last month), it's great to find a few gems from the collections of others nestling in your folders after a few months. Here are a few I've found kicking about, and a Ben Harper CD single from the [...]

Welcome to my new blog. Those are five terrifying words for any prospective reader. But don't be worrying too hard. I've got form from writing on here (before Google ate Blogspot) and from the Myspace, which I used to write on a lot, but hardly touch these days. Before that, I was a student journalist. Before that, I was a writer anyway. And I read a lot of books. Some of the good stuff might have rubbed off. I live in hope. My first few posts will be a 'greatest hits package' from the last few years of [...]