Video Of The Week 15/12/07

Yaargh I almost did this yesterday but events took hold (they have a funny way of doing that) and so it has ended up being today. Doesn't really matter - I don't think for one moment anyone really cares.

Anyway, in recognition of the fact that the album was Uncut's album of the year, and is sure to feature of my end of year round-up today's video is the magnificent "Someone Great" by LCD Soundystem off their second album "Sound of Silver".



Enjoy!

Under The Covers Part Five: I've Forgotten More Stuff

Christ! If I were to contiue the prog-rock metaphor I started earlier this particular point about covers, which I never intended to be this long, is becoming something of a concept album. I'm perilously close to Operation Mindcrime or Tales From Topographic Oceans territory here.

Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me the other day that I completely forgot to mention Hands of Cuba's biggest cover-related failure, although a lot of good did come out of it too.

Just after Hands of Cuba started practising properly - yknow, playing through songs and trying to write stuff just like a proper band - we learnt of a competition, probably through the NME, I don't recall exactly, to cover "Skip To The End" by The Futureheads. The winning cover, as selected by the band, would appear as a B-Side to a future single.

Ever the eager beavers that we were at that stage in our careers we plunged headfirst into the challenge, recorded our composition and sent it off. We were excited. The thing was, though, that our version really wasn't very good. There was simply too much going on. It was a horrible mess of a sound-mulch. Double-tracked vocals courtesy of myself and Pat, our guitarist, were perhaps not a great idea, especially as they were slightly out of tune and completely out of sync.

We never heard back from The Futureheads or indeed anyone else. Mind you I don't recall hearing anything else at all about the competition at all and wikipedia reveals nothing about it appearing on the one and only other single taken from the second album. Maybe with them being dropped from their label and all the whole competition fell through. Who knows.

Anyway we did learn a lot from that recording session, which is handy as it would have been a massive waste of time otherwise. It took ages (quite a few days of solid work) but we learnt a lot about recording, which set us in good stead for when we recorded our own songs. Also by deconstructing the song to the extent we did we realised how little the band had done with the tune and structure and thus realised it wasn't terribly good. We also got some good drum patterns which were to come in lots of use later (especially in "Ted Heath", Cuba fans).

Also we never even attempted to play it live, which shows that lessons had been learnt. I really hope this is the last post about this topic for a while, lest I suddenly get an overwhelming urge to make that album about the Peloponnesian War.

A Wimba-way A Wimba-way

So, Atlas. Good isn't it? You possibly need to hear the album version to appreciate it or at least hear, as I keep pointing out, that it sounds somewhat like Can covering "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (though I can't take all the credit for that witticism, I'm afraid). There's also a wicked version on "Later With Jools Holland" that must have led to some serious some heads scratching, especially as they were apparently on directly after Crowded House.

I chose Atlas as Video Of The Week (all that time ago, I've been a bit slack with the write-up) because it was a sort of anthem of last term, being played almost constantly at clubs and house parties, much to the chagrin of a friend who doesn't really like the song. A similar, but less strong role, was played by the stuff off the latest Of Montreal album, especially "Heimdelsgate Like A Promethean Curse".

It's quite interesting how these things happen, and a social group can develop it's own sort of personal soundtrack, which is usually specific to a certain time as well. Last term was most definitely the term of Roxy Music, especially "In Every Dream Home A Heartache". Man, if there's a better song about having sex with an inflatable doll I don't wanna know about it.

I could write more about this, as its pretty interesting from a sociological perspective, but I've got enough of a headache as it is.

Christmas Is Awesome

Surprise video fun for you all today. Take a look at this. In case you can't be bothered to read the blurb English metallers Reuben have released a Christmas song in the hope of there being a decent Christmas number one this year. They probably won't succeed but I would dearly love it to so please download it. It's available on iTunes from 17th of December.

It would be churlish if I didn't, at some point, talk about Christmas songs. I've been thinking and I can only think of three good Christmas songs so far. They are "Fairytale of New York" (no surprises there) "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses and Mike Oldfield's "In Dulci Jubilo" (this is maybe my guilty Christmas pleasure, although it does have an awesome guitar solo). As far as I'm concerned, though I suspect you don't need me to tell you this, all other Christmas songs are mawkish, tatty, or just generally bad for one reason or another. There are less well known bands who have made good ones, such as Xfm's Christmas compilation or Low's Christmas album, but you're unlikely to hear those blasting out in Debenhams.

Incidentally I was quite glad when Gary Jules' version of "Mad World" got to number one. I prefer the original but it really pissed off Justin Hawkins from The Darkness, and meant his band's dismally depressing effort didn't win.

I also need to shit off the part of my brain that makes stupid suggestions. Today I came up with the idea of doing an album called "A Very Doomy Christmas" and, amazingly, the more I think about it the more I like it. Any ideas how this could be done?

To Advertise Here

I was flicking through TV Channels last night when I came across (no, not literally) a somewhat Celtic arrangement of Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Music For A Found Harmonium" used in an MFI ad. Lovely song, rubbish at selling pretty tacky-looking furniture.

The Orchestra seem to be pretty prone to use in adverts - most of you, like me, will recognise "Telephone and Rubber Band" from its use by some phone company (I can't actually remember which one - take that "The Man"!)

It got me thinking about songs in adverts. It really quite annoys me when good songs are forever slightly tainted due to their association with any kind of tat and the usually crappy ad that tries to shove it in your face. Then whenever you play the song to people and they say "Oh yeah, the song from that advert". IT DID EXIST IN ITS OWN RIGHT BEFORE THEN. Ahem. Examples of this that immediately spring to mind are War's "Low Rider" (Marmite) and Pigbag's "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag" (Tango, I think). Having said that the first time I heard "A Glass Of Champagne" by Sailor was in a relatively tasteful M & S advert from last year and I still like that, so it's not always a bad thing.

Having said that there was that Volvo advert that featured Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields playing a really bizarre version of "The Wheels On The Bus". What the fuck was that about?

In Which I've Clearly Run Out Of Ideas...

Stupid wastes of time #1 - Playing ridiculous jazz on the Ocarina in "Ocarina of Time". My other half just discovered that you can even bend the notes wildly whilst using the control stick. Hours of fun!

Sorry, can't be bothered to actually write about anything I was intending to. Hopefully the disaffectedness will pass.

Video Of The Week 08/12/07

Oh hell, I missed another one. Perhaps I'll just move Video Of The Week to Saturdays. We'll see.

Anyway this week I have chosen yet another live performance (mainly because the video is of the radio edit, which is frankly rubbish). It's Atlas by Battles:



A post about why I chose it and some general thoughts will follow soon.

Suffer For Fashion

I went and saw Of Montreal at ULU last night and they were fabulous.

It was especially good given that I've not been to a gig for ages, and hardly any this year at all. I don't know why, I've just kind of not been bothered with live music, which is especially odd given that I've been unusually good at listening to new music this year. The best gig I went to was probably The Earlies, back in May, which was excellent because there were only about 20 fans there and the band clearly felt a bit more relaxed and thus arsed around a fair amount.

Anyway, last night. Despite almost being ruined by twattish fans (and I don't have time to go into all the different types of idiots you encounter at gigs but it should suffice to say that these were the sort who forcibly push their way past you and then jump around in a very aggravating manner) it was an excellent night. The band were all very pretty, and it was pointed out that the keyboardist/bassist/drummer looked an awful lot like me (hooray!). They also too the extremely brave move of opening with a 12 minute dark, throbbing electro song basically detailing the singer's mental breakdown. Best of all at one point said singer disappeared off stage for a costume change and reappeared in the most absurdly gay (yet sexy) outfit I've ever seen. *Sigh*

Actually best of all was that it reignited my passion for creating music, which all good gigs should do. Campy electro indie-pop ahoy!

Whine, whine, whine

I'm not in the best of moods today. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a different coloured scratchplate to snazz up my new bass. I realise that won't mean much to some of you so this is a very similar product. I was very happy - the product I ordered was much cheaper than the one I linked to, I could make my bass look al sexxxy, everything was good.

Except that it arrived today and it doesn't actually fit on my bass. Seriously some of the holes don't even line up at all (matron) and in one place there's a great bloody gap.

This bass has been trouble from the start. My mum noticed slight bumpy bits on the paintwork shortly after it arrived, which I dismissed as nothing to worry about. Then the bottom string went all muted and weird sounding. Then somebody spilt Coke on it at my birthday party. Admittedly that wasn't the bass manufacturer's but it was the penultimate straw and this camel's back is broken. Still, at least I could clean off the dried Coke when I was fruitlessly trying to change the scratchplates.

It's enough to make me never touch a musical instrument again. I've always fancied being in a barbershop group, as it happens.

Under The Covers Part Four: The Reckoning

Oh! I've just realised that a chapter of this particular history has, thus far, been left unwritten (I didn't just realise this, of course, I was just trying to make it look like I didn't plan my blog meticulously like some kind of obsessive weirdo). That's right, the story of the covers performed by Hands of Cuba has yet to be told. Were mistakes learnt from The Quatermass Experiment? Did we manage to actually not butcher a song? Could I get any more sexy? Well the answers to these questions will be revealed... right now.

In general the answer to all three questions is yes (especially the last one). In general Hands of Cuba relied less on covers than Quatermass, which was a wise decision in my opinion. There was also less of the "let's suggest a slighty stupid cover and then learn it but never actually play it", which was somewhat annoying and wasted an awful lot of time. In fact we only covered 8 songs during the course of our, admittedly short, career and I know this because I'm written them all down in a typical fit of list making nerdiness.

Some naturally didn't work as well as others. A synthed-up "This Charming Man", as well as getting the fanboys huffing and puffing over their NHS glasses, was perhaps an idea that worked best in its original conception, recorded alone in a bedroom on an old 4 track by my beautiful and monstrously talented other half (hi!). Similarly an electro version of Ash's "Burn Baby Burn" never really worked as well as it should have done. Still, I got to play keyboard on that one and I even got to do the guitar solo, so I'm not complaining.

Even better a few covers I think we did really, really well and not only did we stamp our own mark on them but they even became live favourites, of a sort. "No More Heroes" was pretty damn good and had the advantage of being known by everyone but not too obvious but the real success story was our version of Liliput's "Die Matrosen". Quite how we managed to make a pretty obscure song written by four Swiss women in very bad English, which prominently features whistling and an out-of-tune saxophone into such a hit is a mystery to me even now but we did it. In fact, download it now if you can. It's really ace.

So where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure except to give some friendly advice to new bands. Covers are good to start off with but it's really much more satisfying to write and play your own stuff. Also don't pick any of the old "standards" to cover as you'll inevitably sound boring at best. That is unless you follow my third piece of advice: don't continue to play anything unless you can pffer a fresh twist on it (and no, playing it in a punk style doesn't count as a fresh twist; bands have been churning out that shit for years). Bands with record deals and everything don't follow that last piece of advice, naturally, but the ones who do are the ones who make memorable covers.

Oh and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to all Smiths fanboys out there. I am one of you really.

Waxing Lyrical

I was cleaning out my room on Saturday so I could fit all my uni stuff into it when I stumbled across some old notebooks that I'd hoarded. Back in my teenage years I had used said notebooks to write down lyrical inspiration if and when it occurred (the emphasis being very much on the "if"). Anyway I naturally decided to look through them, before I mercifully condemned them to the recycling where they belonged and whilst doing this I was struck by one overriding thought:

I was a pretty odd and awkward teenager.

This I suspect many of you knew or suspected already. It certainly holds true for my lyric writing. If I were to disappear and the police were to go through my stuff or if Time Team ran out of old things to dig up and decided to come sniffing round West London that is definitely the conclusion they would come to. As well as just plain odd my lyrics were often derivative or just plain bad. Any occasional needles of inspirational were completely lost in a vast haystack of angsty, cliched rubbish.

Not that anything's really got better since. I *think* I'm alright at writing lyrics when I have a song and a vague theme to work with, as was the case with Hands of Cuba, but I find it very difficult to do unless I have some music already and most of the time I can't be arsed and have no inspiration. Perhaps I need someone to be a Morrisey to my Marr. And also for me to be as good as Marr. It's a shame because I'd quite like to do more lyric writing and I think I'm fundamentally deficient as a "songwriter" in some way if I can't do any.

If any lyricists could shed any light on how they do what I do it would be much appreciated. Meanwhile I've got a killer first line to develop:

"I really love you
Cos you're lovely
and that"

Bob Dylan's got nothing on me.

Video Of The Week 01/12/07

Hello, sorry it's late all, I was very busy yesterday. Plus I'm prone to periods of intense laziness.

Anyway, on with the video. These past few days I've been loving Animal Collective's "Strawberry Jam" with a vengeance. I've been having real trouble deciding between the album's two best tracks (in my opinion); "Peacebone" and "For Reverend Green".

So you know what? Since I'm home and in a very good, if very tired, mood you can have them both.

First up, the fantastically nonsensical "Peacebone", live at some festival in Malta.



Incidentally do check out the proper video to this song, it's one of the most disturbing things I've seen in a long time.

Nest up: the swirly, magnificent "For Reverend Green", again live at some festival or other.



Have a good week, y'all. I might just finally make good my promise of more regular posting. We'll see.

Are You Experienced?

Christ, I've just remembered yet another reason why being called The Quatermass Experiment wasn't a great idea. No-one could remember our fucking name. The Quartermass Experiment? The Quatermass Experience? Jesus, is it that difficult?

Bizarrely, our singer's grandmother knew Nigel Kneale, the creater of The Quatermass Experiment TV series, which led to the somewhat odd situation of him writing us a letter that went along the lines of:

"Dear The Quatermass Experience,

Good luck for the future

Yours,

Nigel Kneale (author of the Quatermass Experiment)"

And now he's dead, so there's no chance of us rectifying this misunderstanding. Unless I get hold of a medium and have the world's most confusing, pointless seance.

Actually if medium did guess why I was trying to contact Nigel Kneale I'd throw my hat in and become a certified spiritualist.

The Name Of This Band Is...

I was talking to someone at a party on Saturday night. She was telling me about her new band and at one point she remarked that choosing a name was "the most difficult part" of the whole process of starting a band.

To be honest, she's probably right. My current band hasn't got a name yet (indeed the subject hasn't even been broached yet), which is somewhat annoying as it tends to be the first question people ask you.

There are a huge number of difficulties inherent in choosing a band name (the rise of myspace making thinking up an original one being one of them, but I won't discuss that at great length here). For me, I have to try and repress the part of my brain that thinks it hilarious to make obviously stupid suggestions, as it's not terribly helpful to volunteer names such as "Honksack" or "Dr. Fudgington's Frabtabulous, Funkatonius Band-o-rama" (both true, I'm deeply ashamed to say).

The other major worry I have is that I'll suggest something flippantly and it'll be adopted as a temporary name but will end up sticking due to familiarity or an inability to come up with something better, despite the fact that everyone hates it. Case in point: The Quatermass Experiment. Yes, dear reader(s) it was I who came up with the idea of naming ourselves after the cult 1955 film (I know there was an earlier TV series, but I wasn't aware of it at the time). The name was adopted grudgingly and we so carried on under that moniker, even though our guitarist in particular wasn't very keen on it.

Not that we didn't try to find a better name, oh my no. The closest we got to something viable and not shit was "Operation Ernst", which I think was never adopted because we were too used to Quatermass. And we broke up. In our early days we briefly tried out "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Nerd Scorned" and "Real Melvin" before reverting back to The Quatermass Experiment. Just so you know, it physically hurt me to type that. It also really annoyed the guy who was running our website at the time. The Quatermass story, as far we're concerned here, ends with our very last gig when we played, one member down, under the name "Handsome Hobo And The Pits". Which is ok, as a name for a joke band, which we had effectively become by then.

The naming of my second, hitherto unmentioned, band was a much simpler affair. I was in my other half's room and noticed a Cuba Solidarity Campaign postcard on the wall. I misread it's slogan as "Hands of Cuba" rather than "Hands Off Cuba" and so we were christened. Seriously, there was a priest and a font and everything. Incidentally there is a band called "Hands Off Cuba", who played on a Lambchop record or something but I figure if you can have Battle and Battles then it should be ok.

Thus ends my slightly dull band-name stories for now. Who thinks I should pitch "Honksack" at the practice on Friday?

Politics Rocks!

No, I'm not going to go on a polemic. But those of you inside Oxford, and a good deal of you outside it I should imanige, will be aware that the Oxford Union (basically a private members' debating club) recently invited BNP leader Nich Griffin and holocaust-denying historian David Irving to speak, to huge amounts of protest.

Instead of adding to the debate on the topic, which has been more than plentiful, I have decided to compile a playlist to commeorate the occasion. Because I'm like that. So far I have:

Sonic Youth - Youth Against Fascism
Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off!
Heaven 17 - (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing
Devo - Freedom of Choice
The Fall - Who Makes The Nazis?
DAF - Der Mussolini
The Clash - White Riot

I was going to include "Fairies Wear Boots" by Black Sabbath, but apparently it's not about Geezer Butler having a run-in with skinheads after all. Shame.

All the other ideas I have are pretty tenuous. Anyone got any other suggestions?

Old Slut on Junk

Yep, same work situation as last week, hence the lack of activity recently. But I'm for Christmas now so expect more regular updates! (I anticipate collapsing under the weight of apathy that last sentence will cause.)

Anyway something bizarre has started happening to me recently. The Pogues "Fairytale of New York" has started making me go all gooey and emotional whenever I hear it. I should point out I've only heard it because the guy next door has been playing the best of The Pogues pretty loudly, not because I've started the Christmas merriment absurdly early.

Now is far too early to discuss Christmas songs (also it's quite a dull topic) but it's an interesting development nonetheless. It almost certainly marks my gradual transformation to a complete wuss. However the Baroness (psychedelic prog metal) CD arrived yesterday so that should toughen me up a bit.

Also, with my listening to "Ask" by The Smiths and "(Nothing But) Flowers" by Talking Heads a lot this week I seem to have caught the "feat. Kirsty MacColl" fever.*

Anyway, sorry for the slightly rambling post. I'll try and thing of something more focused and interesting, like my Covers special last week, to post about.


*fever not recognised by World Health Organisation.

Video Of The Week 23/11/07

Another week gone and the astute of you will know that that means time for another video. Huzzah!

This week, more at less at whim, I have chosen "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)" by Of Montreal from the album "The Sunlandic Twins". I chose it, whilst in the Radcliffe Camera I might add, because it's all nice and has a lovely, psychedelic video. Hey it's Friday, and life is good so it seemed a good enough choice.



The song was also hilariously used in an advert for "Outback Steakhouse", albeit with slightly altered lyrics.



Here's to a happy, and capitalist, weekend.

Stats Time!

I did an interesting thing. I went through my iTunes and worked out my "top ten" artists, based on how many songs of theirs I have (clearly when I said "interesting" I meant "incredibly nerdy and of no interest to anyone but me.)

Here is the list. Afterwards there will be comment (suspense!).

1. Sonic Youth - 91 songs
2. Talking Heads - 88 songs
3. The Magnetic Fields - 81 songs
4. The Fall - 48 songs
5. The Cure - 45 songs
6. The Smiths - 44 songs
7= ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - 41 songs
7= Broken Social Scene - 41 songs
9. Pixies - 39 songs
10. Joy Division - 36 songs

And now for some observations.

I should point out that I only got my laptop recently (ie. late September) and, for various reasons, have not been able to copy all of my music collection onto it. This, I think, makes the list even more (or at all) interesting, as it shows where my priorities have lain. Obviously the list is pretty flawed for a number of reasons (total amount of material produced etc.) but it tends to iron out but it may well be as good an, albeit flawed and very simplified, indication of my music taste as anything else.

The only artist who is much higher up than they should be is The Magnetic Fields, who sneak up there by virtue of having recorded an album that has 69 songs on it (the appropriately named "69 Love Songs"). I like them, but not that much.

All of the bands except 3 were active in the 1980s (though Joy Division were only active for 5 months of it, still they made "Closer" in that time). I think that's a pretty good rebuttal for anyone who thinks the 80s was a void of good music.

These 10 artists make up 16.5% of all the music on my computer at present. (I did a shuffle of 50 songs, because I'm just that nerdy, and 6 from these came up, which seems about right. Interestingly At The Drive-In, who were number 12, came up three times. Is it a sign? Perhaps!)

I am a big Smiths fanboy and the sooner I accept it the better.

I might well do this again in an appropriately long amount of time and see what's changed. I doubt anyone will challenge the top three (especially as there's a new Magnetic Fields album due out next year) but who knows.

Hangover Music

Urrrgh... I'm surprisingly hungover today. I'm not exactly sure why. I didn't drink that much. Perhaps the wines were too various, or something.

Anyway when I'm visiting Hangover Land (and its sub-districts Headache City and Nausea Town) I usually find the soothing lilt of Radio 4 (the radio station, not the band) to be most helpful. Unless there's a programme on about Tibetan throat-singing. That was anot a good day.

This got me thinking about what would make good hangover music. Nothing too loud and abrasive anyway, which rules out most of my collection. The only thing I've found so far is Air's "Moon Safari" (especially the sublime "La Femme D'Argent"), but any more suggestions would be welcome.

So much for going to the History Faculty. Urrgggghhhhhhhhh...

December Me

Ahhh, I *heart* The Decemberists.

Yesterday my long-awaited copy of "Her Majesty the Decemberists" arrived, although the case was pretty badly cracked which, in an odd way, almost seemed more fitting.

Anyway I've given it a couple of listens and so far it seems to fall somewhere between the relatively straightforward folk-rock of "Castaways and Cutouts" and the bizarre theatre of "Picaresque". Which is no bad thing.

It's also not massively gripped me as yet but I'm not worried. "Castaways and Cutouts" took a few listens for me to get really into it (and I really love it now) and I get the impression "Her Majesty..." is a bit of a grower.

To listen to after that: Sunset Rubdown and the new Broken Social Scene. Yuss. This week will be a good week.

Under The Covers Part 3: The Catalogue of Fail

Are you ready? Cos once we go in, there's no coming back.

The Catalogue of Fail:

• The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop

Possibly violates my "nothing too obvious" rule. We played this ok mostly but one time played it at about triple speed, which was a bit slapdash. We also played this as part of our audition for the school band night, and completely fucked it up. Mainly because the structure wasn't generally known. Always dangerous.

• At The Drive-In - One Armed Scissor

I still don't know what the fuck we were thinking of. There's no way we were good enough musicians to pull this off. The song demands a certain level of tightness, at least in the rhythm section, that we were entirely lacking.

• Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Seriously, this is a pretty simple song. Yet nobody seemed to know the structure and as a result it just lacked soul.

• Pixies - Debaser

Played once, and only once. I can't even go into how bad it was.

• The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Again only played once. Worst start to a gig ever. Was played in a sort of slower "dub" fashion, due to drummer not actually knowing how the song went. I am really, really sorry for this one.

• Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
  

Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? Pulled that one right out of my cockney sleeve, didn't I? Another song played at our infamous "audition". The guy doing the audition claimed we had "murderd one of the best songs of all time". He was right. He also claimed the drummer was playing in "four and a half-four time". He was right. Never played live.

• At The Drive-In - Arcarsenal

Good god, had we learnt nothing? Never actually played live, or indeed as a full band. Mainly because the singer thought it was too shouty (a fair point). This, however, makes the fact that he suggested...

• Refused - The New Noise

...even more baffling. Again, didn't even approach a live performance..

God that was surprisingly tiring. And those were just the most notable ones. I've just counted ten (ten!) further songs that were played live, or practised, or merely suggested that we play,and even then I'm not sure I've remembered them all. And yes, I will list them all if you really, really want.

Quite frankly, I think that says rather a lot about us as a band. Anyway I promise the next few blogs will be a little less wordy, and list-y. See you soon.

Under The Covers Part. 2.

Yes, that's right it's my first multi-part blog. My blog is the blog equivalent becoming a prog-rock album. You just wait till my "blog suite"; an extra-long post comprised of multiple interlocking sections.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I promised you hot, sexxxy covers-o-chat and I'm not going to go back on my promise.

My first band went by the name of The Quatermass Experiment (I'm doing that thing where I talk about my personal experiences now - do you remember me mentioning that some posts earlier? If so, thanks for paying attention). Because we were, shall we say, not excellent at writing our own material covers seemed the obvious way to go. Some of them worked pretty well - Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach For my Revolver" became a live staple and I think we rocked British Sea Power's "Remember Me" pretty well. We did Darts of Pleasure (Franz Ferdinand), Where Is My Mind? (Pixies, like you needed me to tell you) and Sweater Song (Weezer) pretty competently on a number of occasions, mainly because they were so easy.

However the list of the covers we screwed up, or the ones we practised or mooted playing but never performed reads like a depressing catalogue and failure and inteptitude. So many and so various were they that I'm left with no option but to list them, arranged from roughly the most played to the least. Since this post is already pretty wordy I may continue this onto a third part. For this I am truly sorry. I guess I just got a lot to say.

Don't go anywhere, now! You wouldn't want to miss the exciting finale!

Under The Covers Part 1.

Right, weekend and essay-crisis are over so now I get back to the blogging (if anybody is reading it, that is). I may even do two today to make up for the lack of posts recently. Imagine that!

So the first band practice went pretty well, I reckon. Was a little awkward at first but I was really getting into it by the end and was pretty excited about making music again afterwards. And none of my stupid fears came true, believe it or not.

An interesting thing that happened is that we spent around 15-20 minutes at the end discussing what song we should cover.* We have our (I say "our", I didn't write any of it) own stuff to work but I always think covers are good things to do for a band starting out. You can play complete songs relatively quickly, and get used to playing together as a band.

But it can be a tricky business choosing what to cover. Ideally you want nothing too obvious and something you can stamp your own identity on. "Love Will Tear Us Apart", for example, is a song which fails on both counts: as well as being done to death already none of the myriad cover versions seem to have done anything interesting to it, though I think that's somewhat down to the nature of the song.

Also, for god's sake stay clear of "ironic" covers. They're never funny and always make you look like a twat. Certainly when the above discussionm was going on the temptation to suggest something really stupid, especially when real ideas were thin on the ground, was great. But you must relent! I once saw a guy covering "I Believe I Can Fly" at an open mic night and it was excruciating. Similarly the Ghostbusters theme or anything of that ilk is also forbidden (in my big book o' rules) because it makes you look like a nostalgia-hungry moron.

I'm going to post some real-life stories about songs that bands I've been in have covered later, because I have to dash off and see a friend's band play at the Oxford Indie Music Sosciety clubnight. Toodles!

*for the record, we chose "Sugar" by Ladytron.

Video Of The Week 16/11/07

Since it's Friday and I'm seemingly unable to do any work whatsoever I thought I'd start this new feature, the nature of which you can probably guess from this entry's title.

I've thought long and hard about what the first Video Of The Week should be, and after much deliberation I settled on this:



It's the shamefully unknown band The Monks, live on German TV in 1966. The songs are "Monk Chant" and "Oh How To Do Now" respectively.

The Monks were a group of American GIs stationed in Germany in the 60s. Like The Velvet Underground, who were also active in the 60s, they were miles ahead of their time and have been cited as an influence by an influence by The Fall, among others.

Thanks to Derry Tomlinson, whom I have never met and possibly never will, for introducing me to them, although he probably doesn't know it.

Sounds like...

On a lighter, less self indulgent, note the new LCD Soundystem arrived in my pigeonhole today (because I ordered it, not because a mysterious dance-punk benefactor put it there) and it's really, really good. So good, in fact, that I've listened to the whole thing 3 times since about half past four. I love it when that happens.

In other news I've listened to the tracks we're supposed to be working on tomorrow and I reckon I can easily come up with something. I'll just have to fight the urge to add gratuitous slapping and popping. It's not a funk band, so such things will almost certainly be frowned upon.

Fear!

Oh man... I've got the New Band Fear (tm).

Before I get round to explaining just what the hell that is, I thought I'd just say a few words about what I'm trying to do here. Meta-blogging I suppose you could call it. Bascially I thought this blog would be a tad dull if it was just me talking about my favourite music for days on end (though I could do that very easily). So I decided to add in some of my personal experiences of playing music. Y'know - to add a human aspect, and shit like that. Keep this in the back of your mind, for I shall return to it later, in sexy and exciting ways. Or let it be a complete surprise next time. Whichever.

Anyway, back to the New Band Fear (tm). After all my wittering about wanting to be in a band at Oxford, a friend has got a band together to play her songs and has asked me to play bass. Our first practice is tomorrow. And I've got the fear.

It's always slightly intimidating playing music with new people (and I am a pretty massive wuss at times), because you haven't got used to how they work and you don't know if you'll click. I worry that everyone will sit around, not knowing what to do and just noodling around on their instruments aimlessly for hours. I've seen it happen, which might be why I'm so worried about it.

Even worse I worry that everyone else will be happily working on stuff while I sit in the corner, unable to follow what's going on. In my worst nightmares (figuratively speaking) a guitarist who completely puts me to shame will announce "It's perfectly simple, it's a simple 12 bar Aeolian progression, with a flattened sixth and an inversion on the relative minor" and I'll look nervous, fumble with my bass and be relegated to making the tea and playing root notes. That's the New Band Fear (tm).

I guess I'm just unduly nervous that my lack of real musical talent will become apparent at some point and all my dreams will shatter. It doesn't help that this new musical project has arrived slap bang in the middle of one of the worst creative droughts I've suffered in recent memory.

Christ, I'm being awfully dramatic. It's not like I'm jamming with Steve Vai or anything. I think I'll just take lots of drugs to relax me. There's no way that could be a bad idea.

What costume shall the poor girl wear?

I really, really want to go to All Tomorrow's Parties next year.

At the moment I'm having real trouble deciding between the Pitchfork-curated weekend one (Of Montreal, Les Savy Fav, Hot Chip, Caribou etc.) and the Explosions In The Sky-curated weekend two (Broken Social Scene, Trail of Dead, Dinosaur Jr, Animal Collective, Four Tet etc.) Besides the music I also want to go because next year will be my last chance to go for a few years, with finals at that, and I was readjusting to life at work last time and didn't want to fuck things up.

I went in 2006 (as you've probably guessed) and it was honestly the best festival I've ever been to (not that I've been to very many) and a fun packed few days to boot. I shan't relate the stories because they'll inevitably sound boring and 3 of my 4 travelling companions might conceivably be reading this, but I shall tell you about the bands. Broken Social Scene put on what is probably still the best live show I've ever seen and The Decemberists, Fiery Furnaces and Dinosaur Jr were amazing also. We got to see a Joanna Newsom set in a very hot room, where she previewed all of Ys, purposefully avoided The Gossip, virtually unknown at the time, because their blurb was too wanky and saw Lightning Bolt, which was just immense.

Hilariously pretty much the first band we saw were the batshit-crazy experimental noisemakers Magik Markers, who divided opinion in our group pretty much half an hour. Thirty minutes into their hour set they briefly stopped the noise and announced "This is our last song", which prompted a guffaw from me that I suspect they weren't quite anticipating.

The festival itself is an interesting one. For those who don't know it's held in holiday camps; a real plus as you get a chalet complete with bed, shower and kitchen, and the headling bands choose the rest of the bill. All in all it's like going on holiday in your childhood only to find lots of amazing bands playing in the Bingo Hall, and it's fucking excellent. I can't recommend it highly enough.

So, yes I really want to go. Somebody stump up £140 so I can or at least advise me which weekend to go on.

Addendum

Following on from my pointless iTunes-o-post (see below) I've just remembered the best/worst example of ironic shuffling I've ever come across.

A few weeks ago I'd done my back in due to a decidedly shoddy chair. I started up iTunes for some much-needed musical cheering and, on hitting play, the first song shuffle picked was "Breaking The Back" by Million Dead.

"The breaking of the back was the making of the man..."

If only it was. Thanks a lot, iTunes.

Living For The Future

There's a new Futureheads song available for download and it's actually pretty good; it's more in the vein of stand alone single "Area", and it is available on their website (www.thefutureheads.co.uk). And yes, it does sound rather a lot like the "Have I Got News For You" theme tune.

Personally I was very disappointed by "News and Tributes". I was a massive, massive fan of the first album, and it was basically all I listened to over Summer 2004. However the follow up jusr seemed to lack any of what made their debut so unique and brilliant (quirky and interesting song structures, 4-part vocal harmonies, tremendous energy etc.) and seemed to be aimed at "Futureheads-lite" fans who only liked "Hounds of Love". I kept trying to defend it, not wanting to believe that one of my favourite new bands had made such a bland, uninteresting follow up.

However two things convinced me it was really a wash-out. Firstly my old band covered "Skip To The End" (though the less said about that, the better) for a competition and we realised how little the band had done with the basic song structure. Secondly it occurred to me that if another band had realised the album, say as their debut, I wouldn't have given it nearly as much attention and would just have dismissed it as boring NME-fodder.

But if "Broke Up The Time" is anything to go by, being dropped by the label has given them the kick up the arse they need, and they can resume doing what they do best. But we shall only see when the third album comes out.

I really do hope it's good.

Pointless Filler no. 1

It's just occurred to me that since I now have a) a blog b) a laptop and c) a party going on next door that'll keep me up for a while yet I can now do all those music-related quizzes that were going round facebook a while ago which I couldn't do at the time. And they'll add some content to this blog pretty quickly. Fancy that! It might also give you a vague impression of my general music taste. That's how I'm justifying it, anyway.

Anyway:

If your life was film what would the soundtrack be?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

(There are 2 more instructions but they're frankly stupid, so I'll skip past them).

Opening Credits:
Metallica - Orion

That's just fucking great. The first fucking song and already I look stupid. Still it's pretty epic and has a great bass solo so I guess it sums me up. Except for the epic bit.

Waking Up:
Radiohead - Treefingers

That'll do.

First Day At School:
Million Dead - The Kids Are Going To Love It

If only the kids did indeed love "it". Perhaps school should have been more like this.

Falling In Love:
Mastodon - Naked Burn

Jesus Christ. Internet quiz, you have failed me.

Fight Song:
Les Savy Fav - Scotchguard The Credit Card

I'm going to start ignoring these in the hope that, like horoscopes, I start only focusing on the stuff that actually applies.

Breaking Up:
Elliott Smith - In The Lost and Found (Honky Bach)/The Roost

I declare my plan to have worked.

Prom:
Nick Cave - Nobody's Baby Now

Bizarrely, this was actually played at my prom. I lie, of course, I'm just trying to make this exercise seem less hopelessly pointless.

Life:
Roxy Music - Do The Strand

What am I to infer from this? That I am a fashionable dance craze? This is almost becoming worthwhile, in a twisted way.

Making babies:
Four Tet - And They All Look Broken Hearted

This song is not terribly sexy.

Mental Breakdown:
They Might Be Giants - Miniumum Wage

Seriously, listen to this. This could feasibly be what the inside of your head sounds like during a mental breakdown. If it was, maybe mental breakdowns wouldn't be so bad.

Driving:
Jesus and Mary Chain - Cut Dead

I'd have to be driving something very slow. Like a proto-shoegaze milkcart. That would be excellent.

Flashback:
The Velvet Underground - Sister Ray

Man, this would work almost anywhere. It completely reminds me of the time me and a group of transvestite drug addicts in New York killed a stripper.

Getting back together:
The Earlies - One Of Us Is Dead

That's just become my favourite answer, by far.

Wedding:
Slint - Breadcrumb Trail

All my family love Slint, and would definitely insist this be played at my wedding.

Birth of Child:
The Nice - America/Second Amendment

No child of mine will enter this world to a 70s prog-rock instrumental protest song. What am I saying? All of my (theoretical) children will enter the world that way.

Final Battle:
Kevin Blechdom - The Porcupine And The Jellyfish

Excellent.

Death Scene:
Sonic Youth - The Sprawl

Dunno. The end might work. Otherwise I'm chalking this up on the "board of fail".

Funeral Song:
Animal Collective - Derek

Now I'm getting ideas.

End Credits:
Throbbing Gristle - Hot On The Heels Of Love

YESS!!!

So what did that achieve? Hardly any of my favourite bands came up and it took far longer than I expected. Note to self: be less lazy in future.

Bass! How low can you go?

Very low indeed, it would appear.

In order for there to be some actual content on here, as opposed to the self-conscious rambling of the first post, here is an article I wrote about bassists for the Oxford University Indie Music Society. Will it ever get published? Who knows!

Bass Pleasures

"It’s not easy being a bassist. Constantly relegated to the background, having to fight for space between narcissistic guitarist, singers and drummers alike, with no-one really seeming to know what your exact role in the band is. Yeah it’s a tough life. You’ll often be relegated to filling in the root notes* while everyone else vies for their time in the spotlight. But it needn’t, indeed shouldn’t, be this way. Whilst the likes of Flea and Les Claypool have brought us levels of the tiresome wankery we usually associate with six-stringed guitars (yeah, thanks a lot guys) most bassists seem happy enough to plod along in the background, glad to be a band because they “weren’t good enough at guitar”. Sigh. A good bassist should ideally do neither of these things - mindless slapping and tedious chord-mimicry being largely as bad as each other.

Ideally a good bassist should serve as a link between the rhythm and the melody sections of a band, without straying too far either way. Because of this a good bassist can really hold a band together, as well as providing some excellent, and much needed, low-end tone. Also as a bassist you’re second only to drummers in terms of demand, mainly because nobody wants to play bass due to the misconceptions listed above. Similarly the bassist is probably the last person in the band who’ll demand a 10 minute solo in the middle of a song, or insist that everyone play the song cycle they wrote about the Peloponnesian War. Plus we’re all really sexy.

But this isn’t Joe’s chip-on-shoulder hour. Look behind most great bands and you’ll find a great bassist. Talking Heads, Joy Division, The Smiths, Gang of Four, The Jam, hell even The Beatles all had a very able (and often criminally ignored) four-stringer holding the songs together. Sceptical? Well great basslines, as well as great bassists have driven many excellent songs, of the recent and distant past alike. Think “Peaches”, think “Psycho Killer”, think “Debaser”, think “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”, “Evil”, “Rebellions (Lies)” or “Youth Against Fascism”. You can probably think of plenty of your own examples, but I hope I’ve proved my point that a great bassline can really make a song.

In fact, in a somewhat roundabout way, we have a great bassline (played by one of the finest bassists ever) to thank for the birth of hip-hop. Don’t believe me? Well, ever heard of a song called “Rapper’s Delight”? Yep, the track that basically gave birth to hip-hop is built around the backing track to Chic’s “Good Times”, and particularly Bernard Edwards’ masterful bass work. Go on, try to imagine the song without that bassline. I dare you. For that matter try and imagine Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)” without the propulsive bassline, shamelessly pilfered from Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern” (if you haven’t heard of Liquid Liquid before, don’t worry. Nobody else has either).

But it’s not just rock and hip-hop fans who are lucky enough to enjoy the contributions of great bass players. Where would the world of heavy metal be without Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Cliff Burton (Metallica) or Steve Harris (Iron Maiden)? For that matter where would electronic music be without Squarepusher, quite possibly the best bassist alive? I don’t know but it’s certainly not a world I’d like to live in.

Curiously, even bands consisting of just a bassist and a drummer are often excellent, and far better than their guitar-only counterpoints, proving that we work well even when brought to the forefront. Personally I’d take Death From Above 1979, Lightning Bolt and Big Business over The White Stripes any day.

I could bang on about this for hours, as you‘ve probably worked out already. But I hope I’ve at least conveyed to some of you the important work we bassists can do, and how often it is ignored or trivialised. And maybe next time you’re listening to one of your favourite songs you could perhaps look past the singer and the guitarist and appreciate that sometimes you need to go a little deeper."

*The lowest note of a chord, after which the chord is named.

I Started Something (I can hopefully finish)

Hello!

So after much um-ing and ah-ing, and several near-crippling moments of self doubt I have decided to start a blog. I will mostly be writing about music and music related things (hence the title, I've not just been attempting sex with my CD collection) but I may write about other things. Y'know - if I feel like it.

I suppose I'm doing this because I've enjoyed the little music writing I've done whilst at Oxford and would like to write to my own brief, without any deadlines.

So there you have it, the first, terribly awkward post out of the way. Phew. Things can only get easier from here. Can't they?