Released on the super-duper Team Love Records , who are down with all the Web 2.0 kids (ie. they give some stuff away for free and are quite friendly - watch this space for a full label profile in the coming week), and licensed here in the UK to Moshi Moshi (who positively ooze cool), and the follow-up to 2006's stupendous Bottom of Barrels , " O " should have been a dead cert. for everyone's best-of-'08 lists. Sadly, having now heard the thing, I'm not so sure; though it could grow on me. [...]
What do you get when you squeeze thousands of people into a tiny village, then run madly at them whilst carrying a burning barrel of tar? I guess you'd have to ask the residents of Otter St. Mary, in Devon, as that's what they do on November the fifth every year. Allegedly the origins of this surreal ritual are lost in the depths of antiquity, but the rules are quite simple: You can only carry a barrel if you were born in the village, and wim'n and chil'n get to carry small barrels in the early evening. A [...]
My, oh my; good ol' Barack did it! Who'd've thought there'd be that many right-thinking voters across the pond. Not I, for sure... for the second time this week I'm glad to have been proven wrong. And now it's Bonfire Night; hurrah! And thus, this week's Top Five is in honour of Obama's 2008 victory and Guido Fawkes' 1605 defeat. Feast your eyes on the official* Top Five Songs About Revolution, Dissent, and the Dawning of a New World Order. It's kinda predictable that most of the songs on this list'll be punk tunes, [...]
I was going to write a post about some great live sessions I've come across lately, but realised that there were far too many good ones to write about retrospectively, and that a great many of those came from the archives of one particular site. So, to save time and to give a little gift to you, my dear readers, I present a profile of the Daytrotter project in its entirety. The gist of the site is thus: bands touring the states take a couple of hours to record four tracks at the site's studio ( [...]
It seems that lately there's an awful lot of singer/songwriter/producers who're finally getting out of their bedrooms and into the real world. By this I mean that they've actually recruited other musicians and started gigging as a band. But is this a good thing? Back-in-the-day, They Might Be Giants lost a great many of their most devoted fans when they changed from being an arty two-piece that used tape loops and quirky gimmicks to being a five-piece band. The music itself didn't suffer (it arguably became better), but they certainly lost some of their cool. But what about [...]
![Way to Normal [fake]: Ben Folds](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1332974_lg.jpg)
Just a quick update, owing to the fact that I've finally got round to "absorbing" the fake version of the latest Ben Folds album. I posted about the "official" release last week , and included a link to a torrent for the "fake" version of the album that Folds "leaked" on to the 'net to fool his fans. I also predicted that the joke cut would be much better than the official version; and I was right! Obviously it doesn't stand up as an album in it's own right (it's the cheesiest thing I've heard in ages), [...]
Okay, I know this came out a while ago, but being as I'm kinda new to this whole blogging business I've a backlog of things to talk about. This album, Amateur Dramatics by Minotaur Shock, links in nicely to the Glasses post from yesterday. That is, many people have accused Minotaur Shock of having "done a Radiohead", but whereas The Glasses did pretty much the same things as the Oxford proggers, the sale of Amateur Dramatics is almost exactly the opposite: he's put an exact price on each song. Assessing each track by criteria such as [...]
You may have read my post/rant earlier in the week about the coming war betwixt the major labels and the blogosphere, but now it seems that things are coming to a head. The Daily Growl (an exceedingly excellent music blog, and a source of discovery for many of my favourite bands; from Esser to Rob St.John) has reported similar post-deleting atrocities occurring on his site . But all is not lost: Ed, from the 17 Seconds blog, (and who's Glasvegas post's deletion caused such an uproar at Song, by Toad) seems to be rallying his supporters and [...]
I stumbled upon this album whilst perusing the " elbo.ws " blog aggregator. It's kind of like the Hype Machine , but not a huge, and a little bit more friendly. As a result, I know next to nothing about The Glasses , other than what I read about him on his site (he's a solo project, it would appear...) The music's nice, in a Ben Kweller kinda way, but sounds just a little to unsure of itself for my tastes. I'm sure his next album [...]
Uh-oh, I guess it's time to keep a bucket of cold water by the front door (how come no one really goes in for the whole "trick" side of trick-or-treating any more? Tis a darn shame...). So, while all the yuppies are boogying down to the strains of The Monster Mash and making out like they're yanks, and gangs of marauding hoodies go from door to door menacing old ladies for sweets, what is there for a discerning music fan to do? Well, fear not kids, the answer is here. Gaze on my works, [...]
Curses! I've been trying for hours now to post links to some mp3s I've uploaded to Xdrive (recommended to me by the Hype Machine) but so far I'm not having much success. However, once I manage to do it I'll be a fully fledged music blogger. And, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility... Obviously, posting songs for free download when an artist wants people to pay for them isn't really doing anybody any favours. But yet there seems to be quite a community of music bloggers who do just that, and are often encouraged [...]
Everyone seems to be compiling lists lately, from the Guardian to Song, by Toad , so I figured I'd have a go at it. Being as its now Wednesday (only just...) I guess we'll make this a regular feature: a Top Five once a week. This might even convince some of you lurkers out there to get stuck in and leave a comment, as I'm sure everyone will have their own views on what should/shouldn't make the lists... So, this week its gonna be songs about hate! [...]
"So, you're a creationist, huh? And you've got kids, eh? Well... THEY CAN'T PLAY WITH TOY DINOSAURS!!!" "No, son, put it down. It's not for the likes of you. You see, your favouritest toy in the world is all a LIE!!! Hey, come on; don't cry.... hey, quit with the screaming already!..." and so on and so forth...
Heavens, Ben's gotten a little sweary with this one! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for expletives, but I can't help but feel Folds' getting a bit old for this s**t. Anyway, in short, this album's all substance and no style. A lot of people bemoaned the lack of the trade mark Folds humour in his previous album Songs for Silverman , and they'll all be pretty pleased with Way to Normal ; there's chuckles aplenty. Sadly the humour comes at a cost: the jokes and ideas come at the expense of scansion and melody. This [...]
Well, being as I've repeatedly claimed that this is primarily a music blog I'd better talk about some music... Choosing what record to post about first was a tough decision (should it be something I think's awesome? or terrible?) and I've finally decided to just write a post about the last CD I bought; Before the Ruin by Kris Drever, John McCusker and Roddy Woomble. Now those astute music fans amongst you will probably recognize those names, and this certainly appears to be a folk-super-group. Woomble's probably the most [...]
Reports emerged the other day that Milan Kundera , author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being , has been accused of shopping a "western" Czech spy to the commies... The allegations come after the release of a police report from Prague, 1950, stating that a student called Milan Kundera had come forward to the police with details of a clandestine meeting between two "dissidents", and also detailing the whereabouts of one of them; leading directly to his arrest and subsequent 14 years hard labor in a gulag. I've been following [...]
Welcome, my friends, welcome to the inaugural post for the Eaten by Monsters blog. I guess I should start with a bit of background info. to set the scene regarding the birth of this exciting venture. Basically, I'm a sometime musician/student/ fainéant who feels he has the right to hoist his opinions on the rest of the world, regardless of whether or not anybody'll actually listen... My band is called Eaten by Monsters (hence the blog's title) and you can find everything you'd ever want to know about us (and just a little bit [...]
the Eaten by Monsters blog
Album Review: alt-J – An Awesome Wave
Azealia Banks – ’1991′ & ‘Van Vouge’
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
