PLAYLIST: Hearts In Space - Shores Of Time Cameras - I Know Midnight Movies - Love Or A Lesson The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Borderline The Horrors - Suffragette City Little Barrie - Surf Hell The Greenhornes - It Returns Dum Dum Girls - Just a Creep Reigning Sound - Shaw The Deadbeats - Loafin' The Soundcarriers - Time Will Come Lilys - Touch the Water Pulp - My Legendary Girlfriend Grooms - Skating with Girl The Beta Band - To You [...]
Better late than never eh! If you don't follow me on Twitter you might have wondered why there was no Friday Freebies yesterday. or perhaps you didn't notice. On Thursday there the blog celebrated it's third birthday, which might not mean much to you, but it meant something to me. To celebrate this 'momentous' occasion, I have recorded my first ever podcast which I will be posting up at some point tomorrow - you have been warned! The reason that there wasn't much happening on the blog over the past few days was because I took a couple of days [...]
Hello readers, it is 10 years to the day since I met Sarah, and 9 years to the day since I married her. So while you're all great and everything, please fuck off. This one's just for her. Love you, babes. Let's grow old together. The Beta Band - She's The One (alternate download)
Here's a band capable of brilliance, but also of frustration. They seem to have been in a battle with themselves ever since they first burst onto the scene last year. Coolrunnings are a quartet from Knoxville, Tennessee, who have been known to expand to a 7-piece on occasion, showing off yet another example of a band that isn't sure what it wants to be. And herein lies their story, because on occasion they're utterly fantastic, delivering music to your ears like a masterful butler, but other times they seem to bash their songs around your head until you [...]
Brooklyn's Steel Phantoms make smart, confident indie rock with a masterful mix of guitar, keys, bass, and drums. The songs on their latest EP, Forer , include tasteful dashes of organ, moog , and heaps of tom-tom. Guitarist Jesse Newkirk IV shines, whether spouting simple, echoing melodies (as on 'Floodlight' and 'Danger Wave') or screeching chorus surf (as on 'Short Stuff'). Those lamenting the demise of Beta Band will find respite in the song 'Slow Loris'. The Forer EP can be streamed on bandcamp or downloaded for free at [...]
Brooklyn's Steel Phantoms make smart, confident indie rock with a masterful mix of guitar, keys, bass, and drums. The songs on their latest EP, Forer , include tasteful dashes of organ, moog , and heaps of tom-tom. Guitarist Jesse Newkirk IV shines, whether spouting simple, echoing melodies (as on 'Floodlight' and 'Danger Wave') or screeching chorus surf (as on 'Short Stuff'). Those lamenting the demise of Beta Band will find respite in the song 'Slow Loris'. The Forer EP can be streamed on bandcamp or downloaded for free at [...]
Django Django have been smouldering away in their own little corner making their electronic-tribal sounds for a good couple of years now, with me first being able to catch them live at Stag & Dagger back them for one of the best live performances of that East London festival. I even made them one of the Blue Walrus "bands to watch" last March . But they have finally resurfaced with new material - with Waveforms dropping in October on Because Music (Ed Banger's distributor) - and it's pretty special. They've kept that tribal electro-groove [...]
Ghost Outside is the new album/collaboration between Steve Mason (ex-Beta Band, King Biscuit Time) and reggae producer/musician Dennis Bovell. Bovell is best known for his work with the reggae group Matumbi and for his long term work with Linton Kwesi Johnson. He is also known for producing records by The Pop Group, Bananarama, Orange Juice and Fela. It's a reggae/dub version of Mason's excellent 2010 release Boys Outside . The grooves are wide and thick and sticky. Legalize it.
No, not really. My standard excuse for not doing drugs, and I think it's a good one, is that I struggle enough to contain the one in which I do partake, which is alcohol. Adding another self-destructive pharmaceutical to the list would just be plain fucking silly. And so, contrary to Mrs. Toad (who did, in fairness, pull the plug a long fucking time ago), I have never partaken of anything more horrifying than marijuana. I think this would make me a shit parent. "Don't do drugs" "Why, Dad?" "Umm, I dunno, but mostly because they're [...]
It is almost a year since Steve Mason released the wonderful Boys Outside album and it remains one of the most frequently played albums in my collection. For those of you who haven't heard it yet, it comes highly recommended. The former Beta Band man is to release another single taken from the record, called 'All [...]
From one of the funniest scenes in the film High Fidelity:- The really frightening thing....and no-one ever believes me when I tell them this, but that's exactly what happened a few years in a small record store in Glasgow the day I bought The Three EPs by The Beta Band . Granted the store wasn't as busy as 'Championship Vinyl' nor were any skateboarding kids trying to shop-lift. But as the sounds of [...]
'To The Victor - The Spoils!', the first release of Flashman aka Fred Deakin of Lemon Jelly and Robin Jones of the Beta Band, came out a couple of weeks ago. I was a huge fan of Lemon Jelly's inspired sampling and the all-round joie de vivre of their albums; and some of The Beta Band's early folky sounds have a gentle loveliness, so was really interested in this. But also concerned that it would be less than the sum of its parts. They call it " an improvised jazz-folk odyssey " which is pretty worrying, since the words 'jazz' [...]
Ex-Beta Band member Steve Mason will play a Button Factory show on April 17th. Mason was last in Ireland to play at Other Voices . His performance will be broadcast in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Tickets are €17 (plus fees) for this from usual outlets.
Fred Deakin, de ene helft van Lemon Jelly , heeft samen met Robin Jones (van het mij onbekende Beta Band) een nieuw album afgeleverd. Het heet To The Victor - The Spoils, wat me natuurlijk erg aanspreekt, alleen al omdat mijn naam erin genoemd wordt. Het eerste nummer wat van deze groep Flashman komt, is The Proposition. Een interessant opbouwend geheel van piano en lichte bliepjes op de achtergrond. Na enige tijd komt er meer actie in het nummer. Fijne werkmuziek, zoals we dat al van Lemon Jelly kenden, maar nu neigt het meer naar klassieker werk [...]
"¿Qué diablos tiene que ver este soundtrack con la película?" me he preguntado muchas veces, pero es lo de menos, la verdad soy fan de muchos discos buenísimos que son el O.S.T de algunas cintas que ni siquiera he visto. A continuación mi muy particular lista la cual aclaro, no lleva una jerarquía ni tiene que ver con bandas sonoras incidentales. Hagan click a todo lo que puedan y verán algunas escenas de las películas y sus respectivas canciones. 10. Times Square (1980) Tuve este disco en la secundaria, lo perdí [...]
There are only a few shows left in 2010, but fans of Scottish music on the East Coast of the US are in for a treat this week with Fran Healy in New York and ex Beta Band genius Steve Mason playing some rare acoustic shows in DC, Philly, NYC, and Boston. Vic has more: [...]
The One AM Radio From: Los Angeles, California, United States The One AM Radio is the musical project of Hrishikesh Hirway, a composer and songwriter from Los Angeles. If there is a more perfectly named band on the planet today then I've yet to find them. If you turned on your radio at one am [...]
christine hale The Fling "Wanderingfoot" (From When Madhouses Appear out now on Lady Monk) Beta Band and Big Pink meet Black Mountain. "Dry the Rain" is not a cover but a sophisticated late Beatles-esque 12/8 ballad layering harmonies over piano, shaker and an acoustic guitar; "Wandering Foot" shows off drummer Justin Ivey on a deceptively simple beat laced with unexpected syncopation and precise fills. The album achieves that difficult balance between cohesion and contour: that is, each song has its [...]
Yesterday was St Andrews Day. Yesterday i was too busy getting drunk to do this post. Today i'm too hungover to make a serious attempt at one and do it justice so instead i'll just post some random stuff. Some really good Scottish music of all varieties and sounds will do for a start. Some famous ones, some semi famous ones, some lesser known ones..... MP3: Frightened Rabbit - The Loneliness MP3: The Beta [...]
Greece's Keep Shelly in Athens work their magic on this official remix of downcast ballad/title track " Boys Outside " from the Beta Band 's Steve Mason , transforming the original into one of their signature haunting and steamy Balearic-house smooth jams: mp3: Steve Mason :: Boys Outside (Keep Shelly in Athens remix) Steve Mason's Boys Outside LP is out now on Domino . Keep Shelly in Athens' In Love With Dusk [...]
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