Over the past couple of days, ANBAD has thrown all its possessions, including the incredibly weighty and seemingly less-important-with-each-passi ng-day CD collection, into a garage and headed over to New York for a few months. This in itself is exciting for all sorts of reasons; but will chiefly allow plenty of opportunities to fully take advantage of NYC's thriving, bustling new band scene and showcase plenty of New Yorkian talent. (We could call it A New (York) Band A Day , or something. I'll get back to you on that one.) Anyway, [...]
Oh Alex James from Blur. Alex, Alex James. From Blur. You once blew a million pounds on Champagne . You were once the bassist in the brightest, breeziest Britpop band of all. Then you made cheese. This is fine. I like cheese. My sister met you, and said you "smelt of cheese from three feet away," which just enamoured you to her even more. Now you hang with right-wing dolts at dull music festivals , make processed cheese for a KMART-owned company and write articles praising McDonalds for a [...]
Once again, a mere band name influences ANBAD's choice of featured artist. And once again, this ludicrous intuition serves ANBAD well: welcome Wet Nuns , a band whose very nature makes the niggling question, " I wonder if I've featured these guys before?" entirely superfluous - as if a name like that would be quickly forgotten. The one element of Wet Nun 's persona I couldn't grasp from their name alone was the type of music they made. And then I listened, and slapped my forehead: of course [...]
Sometimes people ask me "where music is going next." These are people labouring under the misapprehension that I, as a music blogger, have my "finger" on the "pulse", when actually, nothing could be much further from the truth. Regular readers know that ANBAD is not good at predicting and riding new waves of genrefied interest. Today's new band, The Drum , are probably hoisted high on a wave of their own creation however, and so for once maybe ANBAD is near the front of the curve. Or not. You choose. [...]
***This is a Sponsored Post *** Remember last time I asked you to check your pop calendar? It was just before Christmas , and you'll fondly remember how we all marvelled at the fact that not only was 2012 close, but how the BRIT Awards 2012 were also agonisingly within our collective grasp. Well guess what? The UK's annual musical blowout is now within spitting distance, arriving on February 21st. Not that you'd want to expectorate anywhere near it of course; what [...]
There's a certain theatricality subliminally associated with rock 'n' roll. We all want the garish outfits, the ludicrous behaviour, the out-there posturing: witness The Darkness ' unexpected - but entirely understandable -rise to fame a few years ago. It's just that most of us now hide that desire under the guise of being "cool'. Cool doesn't want silly hats, or outlandishness, or fun: it wants a bunch of weedy music snobs in leather jackets glaring at us from under their ruffled hair. Felix Hagan understands [...]
Now that the ANBAD Midweek Mixtape is merely a conduit for another picture of Alex James pouring molten cheese onto something, the pressure is well and truly on. Sometimes it's a struggle to find a suitable, current, timely cheese victim. And sometimes, Justin Bieber dresses up like Gary Glitter , and it all seems just a bit too easy. Thanks Justin. And so, on with the first Mixtape of 2012. FIRST ! Since being named Britain's Best New Band by, er, ANBAD this time two years ago , Egyptian [...]
For the last few days, ANBAD's internet connection has been madly spluttering like a Daily Mail reader at a Gay Pride parade. Thus this post nearly didn't get online at all, even in this wildly curtailed form. This is fortunate, because Sick Friend are the kind of band you want to discover sooner rather than later. There haven't been many Canadian bands on ANBAD of late - not because Canada is lacking in good new bands (it's positively teeming with them) - but because, well, them's the breaks sometimes. [...]
Yesterday I visited BBC Radio Manchester, at the impressively futuristic Media City UK in Salford (which, when lit up at night looks just like a spaceport), to tip some bands for the coming year. The show goes out on Sunday night, so I can't tell you which bands I staked my flimsy reputation on yet, but needless to say it was a uniquely stressful half-hour - not only because I was suggesting who might 'make it', but also because I was asked to comment on the state of the modern music scene, and where it was [...]
Yesterday brought us a crash course in new-band marketing ; today presents simplicity: a band with songs online to play to you. Wait, here's the first problem: Burning Building 's songs aren't simple at all. They're complex, leaping from one idea to another, styles and genres akimbo. And yet, they're easily accessible to even the most unadventurous of ears. This, of course, is the band's chief achievement. Is Knowing/Not Knowing a heavy rock chug, a clattering post-rock cacophony, a math-rock pitter-patter, or all of the above? Should we even care? [...]
Chris Devotion and The Expectations are lucky. They're lucky in more than one sense, which must make them extra lucky . Lucky is what bands need to be. Their most important slice of luck materialises in their ability to write tasty, up-and-at-'em rock songs like A Modest Refusal - the type of song that doesn't get written often enough, with a howl-along chorus, a genuinely anthemic feel, and the kind of gosh-darn perfect chord changes that make grown men leap about with joy. The song below is not A Modest Refusal. [...]
As dictated by The Music Blogger's Handbook (we're all issued with one when we sign up to inflict our views on an indifferent world), there are three things that ANBAD must be doing right now . Firstly, this post needs to be appearing after the mandatory Two Week Christmas Recovery Period, where all email is automatically deleted, and any mentions of a trudge through Soundcloud or Bandcamp is deflected with a nervous laugh and the tinkle of another gin and tonic being poured. Secondly, the 'site' ( no-one has a blog any more) [...]
Well. This is awkward. Didn't Lissi Dancefloor Disaster feature on ANBAD last year? What are they doing astride the top of the Best Of 2011 List ? Have I lost my mind? Well, in answer to the first question: yes, they were on ANBAD in 2010 - I saw them play a short, brilliant gig to an empty room underneath Oldham Street in Manchester and simply had to tell someone about it . In answer to he second and most important question: they are #1 because, simply, LDD' [...]
Nearly there now... don't forget to check out the runners up ( Parts One and Two ), as well as the bands who are ranked from 10 to 6 , and 5 to 3 . How did Trwbador sneak into the number two slot? They're just so unassuming. Look at them. They wouldn't even bruise a fly, let alone hurt one. Well, bluntly, it's because [...]
As we trundle imperceptibly closer to the frothing climax of ANBAD's 2011 Top Ten, the bands are getting weirder, more coiling, and more devious in nature. Just like capitalism, the closer you get to that top 5%, the more sly and crafty it's inhibitors are. ANBAD: you'll come for the bands, but stay for the politics. Don't forget to check out the runners up ( Parts One and, indeed, Two ), as well as the bands who are ranked from 10-6 . #5 - [...]
If you missed them, here's Part 1 and Part 2 of the list of bands who didn't quite make the Top Ten... Sifting through the hundreds of bands who were splurged all over ANBAD is a task which is part edifying pleasure and part brutal exposure of this writer's foibles at any one period throughout the year. Not many bands have 'aged' badly in the months since they were first exposed in breathless terms (though some are there, if you're inclined to find them). If anything, revisiting them has been affirmative: [...]
Here's Part Two of ANBAD's Best Bands of 2011 Runner's-Up List. Cast a beady eye over Part One here . Next week, a rarity: decisiveness in action, and I'll be picking the Top Ten new bands featured on ANBAD this year. All the bands that will be featured over the next week or so have quite definitely not been carefully judged, weighed and balanced against one another: you'll find no pretence here that this will be anything other than the mysterious blue fluff nestling in the belly [...]
So. Why pick the ANBAD End O' Year List, which starts in earnest next week, over any other music blogs'? Well, there is no real reason, though if you've had the determination to read past the first paragraph, maybe you have a modicum of interest in slip-sliding into the grubby, ragged, and frequently ludicrous world of new bands from a slightly different, dubious angle. Still, while you're deciding whether it's worth the plunge or not (HINT: it actually is - there were some genuinely terrific bands on ANBAD this year), here's [...]
And so, whilst End-Of-Year lists scatter all around us, ANBAD introduces the final Midweek Mixtape of the year. And, as always, putting it together each week has been a guilty shove-'em-in-and-see-what-happ ens pleasure. Star of this year's Mixtape show has been Britpop's King Of Cheese. No, not, Liam Gallagher - although his Beady Eye gigs have had a distinct whiff of Stilton about them - but Alex James, a man who spent a million pounds on Champagne whilst being the Handsome One Out Of Blur. He's been pouring his own-brand molten cheese over a relevant person [...]
I've long postulated that songs will become shorter, and more spazmodic as time increases. The rush and buzz of modern technology practically demands it: we all multi-task to the tune dictated by our smartphones and browsers - I imagine you have half a dozen tabs open right now and are only lingering on this one until another takes your fancy. This behaviour is probably ruinous for our collective sanity. Such is life. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), Left Channel supplies the time-bereft with schizophrenic musical niblets to match the behaviour of scattergun [...]
A New Band A Day!
Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
Prince – Controversy (Mighty Mouse Re-Edit)
Beck - 'I Just Started Hating Some People Today' [Listen]
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Azealia Banks – ’1991′ & ‘Van Vouge’
