Lets see if we can get this out the way before January finishes, eh?
To be honest it's taken me so long to shift my arse and actually finish these off that I've ended up dumping half the stuff I'd planned on mentioning, since I'll be here all year getting round to doing it all.
Remember that shouting at me in the comments or in email to get my lazy arse in gear and do something should shame me into posting more.
Also, it seems I'm an idiot and saved this post instead of publishing it. Oh well, it's here now.
"Where'd My Indie Cred Go?" Album of the Year:
Metallica - Death Magnetic. Point and laugh at me all you want, but as far as balls out, OTT riffing, headbanging, posturing thrash goes, this is the best aexample since, well, Ride The lightning or ...And Justice For All. I could live without The Unforgiven III, but hey, I can't have everything. Where would I put it? Also, severeal great Three! Word! Phrases! that just beg to be yelled along with. Also, the demo versions are great fun, with their nonsensical, unfinished lyrics. When I eventually get this for Guitar Hero I may have to give up blogging, as my hand might become crippled. Does everything you want from a Metallica album, and I make not the slightest apology for loving every bit of it.
Best Cover Version:
I briefly touched on covers when I was talking about debut albums, particulary the few lovely ones that Mark Morriss did last year, so here's a whole category of them. Althought Frightened Rabbit made a valiant attempt at nicking this award by doing N-Trance's Set You Free on the b-side of Heads Roll Off and The Saw Doctors took on The Sugababes About You Now to fine effect, the winner is The Wildhearts.
Their Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before cover version album was quite the treat, the only downside being that it was occasionally just too faithful to the original songs. There's a cover of the largely forgotten Glasgow/Ayrshire band Baby Chaos on there and everything, which means I get to talk about it here without wandering too far off the Scottish Topic. The best of the songs and winner of this award is their take on Warren Zevon's Carmelita, if for no other reason than every time I hear it, it puts a massive grin on my face - no easy task for a song about a heroin addicted writer it must be said. Sung by bassist Scott Sorry, it's a rip-roaring version of Zevon's already brilliant original.
The Wildhearts - Carmelita
Best Album - Scottish
Again Frightened Rabbit were the main rivals to our eventual winner, The Midnight Organ Fight is a really, really good album. Chances are were they not up against one of my personal favourite bands they'd have nicked top spot, but they'll just have to settle for second.
For our winner we are going way back to the start of 2008 for Sons & Daughters - This Gift.
It had been a long wait between This Gift and previous album The Repulsion Box, but thanks to regular gigs in between Sons & Daughters managed to firmly nail themselves into my brain as a great band, particularly in that live setting. This Gift is a slightly more polished album than what came before, no doubt due to producer Bernard Butler. Don't worry, he didn't turn Adele into, well ADELE or anything, just maybe sandpapered down some of those rougher edges, leaving a fine slice of pop-rock-country-blues-country-folk fabulousness. My only complaint about the album at time of release was that Scott Paterson's vocals seemed to be a bit downplayed, losing a bit of the boy/girl dynamic of previous songs, but that's not a huge problem, and one much less apparent live too. If you can, try and get hold of the intitial CD release, which came with a bonus CD of half a dozen songs - five from This Gift and the cracking Iggy Pop version of Johnny Cash that the band had been playing live - recorded in Chemikal Underground's CHEM13 studios.
Sons & Daughters Website
Best thing I Bought But Can't Listen To:
If you don't have a turntable, like me, buying vinyl is really rather pointless, so I'm usually sensible enough to not do it. I did have to make one exception though for Aloha Hawaii's Towns On The Moon EP. Aidan Moffat, Stuart Braithwaite, 10" vinyl, no CD or digital release. One day I'll own a turntable and actually be able to tell you what it sounds like. Until then, I have a rather nice T-shirt to wear, since I bought the bundle pack.
Chemikal Underground Shop
Best Album - Other:
I won't run through the list of contenders, there were lots.
Half Man Half Biscuit - CSI: Ambleside takes the prize. Some people will tell you that HMHB aren't as good as they used to be, these people are wrong and aren't to be trusted. CSI is as good as an album as any of their others, packed as usual with tunes, wit and more refrences than an episode of Spaced and thus fantastic.
HMHB - Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show
"Ah, There's My Indie Cred!" Special Award:
Zoey Van Goey haven't done much so far. Loads of gigs, but just the two singles to date. Those two singles though? Lovely indie-folky pop. Hope to hear much more from them this year.
Zoey Van Goey - Sweethearts In Disguise
MySpace
Eh, I reckon that'll do us then.
Comments, emails, abuse about not posting etc to the usual places please, cheers.
Written by a human, for humans. Scottish (sometimes) music news, reviews and features.
Friday, 23 January 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
The Aye Tunes Awards - Debuts (Updated)
Or a load of random mutterings, prompted by guilt at having almost nothing here in the six months we've been up and running. It wasn't the original intention, but I'll be breaking this down into parts, since it's already way overdue and I'd quite like to get something posted before the end of 2009... Over the next few weeks I'll either give up or post more, one of the two.
For the curious, here's a list of stuff I liked in 2007. Apparently I couldn't spell when I wrote that, and I can't be bothered fixing it now. You are too late to mock me for it now too.
I'll note right now that when I say "best" in the categories, I by no means mean best, but favourite just doesn't sound as good. It's my list, so I make the rules, which are vague, unspecified and subject to change at any point. In some, if not all, categories I'll be splitting them up into Scottish (since that's ostensibly the focus of Aye Tunes) and otherwise. Told you my rules were vague.
Without further stalling for time:
Best Debut Album - Scottish
Quite a few contendors for this one actually. Aidan Moffat put out his first solo album, in a way. While there's a bunch of L. Pierre albums "I Can Hear Your Heart" is the first album Aidan has put out under his own name. It's an odd duck, part spoken word, part music, with a short story in the packaging too. Great piece of work and gorgeously packaged, but not the best thing this year. Mr Moffat has a new album out on Valentines Day by the way, called How To Get To Heaven From Scotland. A preview copy found it's way to me just today, so hopefully I'll give that a listen soon.
Another debut that isn't would be Colin MacIntyre's "The Water". It would be stretching things a bit to call this Colin's debut album, since other than ditching the Mull Historical Society name there's no difference from his previous work, so we'll disqualify it on those grounds. Still had to give it a mention though, since Colin is as good - if not better - a songwriter as ever.
Errors finally stuck out an album - It's Not Something, But It Is Like Whatever - after a few singles and EPs over the last few years, and it was also really very good.
Glasvegas of course showed up to release their album and torment blog owners by pulling anything with an MP3 attached too. They didn't lose this category because of that whole thing, the album did that for them, but it certainly didn't help their cause any.
Laki Mera didn't just release a great little album (which if you want to get technical snuck out at the end of 2007, but wasn't available to buy in shops till 2008) but followed it up with a nifty EP later in the year too, both of which are well worth your time if ambient electronica stuff is your bag.
Make Model recorded an album, then misplaced their singer/guitarist and then pretty much vanished. Seems unlikely that the album will ever see the light of day, which is a wee bit of a shame since it wasn't bad, if a bit like bis but less shouty.
Speaking of bis, Manda Rin put out her first album too. I always roundly mocked bis at any opportunity, only to find a few years later that if I bothered to listen to them a bit more I actually quite liked them... Manda's album isn't far off what bis were doing in their later years (which is miles away from Kandy Pop, which I still can't tolerate) and so also pretty good.
Coming it at a close second for the best Scottish debut album award is Correcto. Their self titled album seems to have been missing from pretty much end of year list I've seen, which has taken me by surprise a bit. Easy to dismiss as a side project, given that the band features one of Franz Ferdinand (another band with a new album imminent) and Richard Wright of the now-defunct The Royal We (who have spat out a few other bands now, like Remember Remember and Sexy Kids) but the album is a whole lot better than something knocked out on days off from the "real job". Especially worth a listen if you like Josef K and the like.
Drumroll please for our winner then....
Popup's "A Time And A Place" has been quite a while coming - over two years since I picked up their first couple of singles by my count - but just goes to show that taking your time can be worthwhile.
Packed full of killer melodies, smart and witty lyrics, lovely boy/girl harmonies and just all round great tunes it's a perfectly formed beauty of a debut. My only quibble with it is that of the 13 tracks on it I had six of them from singles already, but that's only a quibble because I was greedy for more songs.
Not only a fab band but really nice guys too as I found out when having a chatter with them after a challenging gig in Paisley a few months back, where not only did miserable weather mean that the crowd was pretty small, but the band were plagued by technical difficulties throughout, but still managed to send me off home happy.
PopUp - Love Triangle
Outwith the Scottish contenders there were quite a bit fewer stunning debuts in 2008, so it's a good bit easier to pick my favourite, but I'll do a quick rundown of stuff I liked anyway.
In no particular order there was good stuff from The Beep Seals (whose album was produced by Norman Blake, which almost qualifies them for the Scottish part of the award, but not quite, and who were also the first band in ages to send me a promo, which I promptly forgot to review. Err, sorry...), Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip showed that there's life in UK hip-hop yet, and that you can still make intelligent hip-hop too - Thou Shall Always Kill is getting a re release soon and is well worth your time. Saturnalia by The Gutter Twins nicked a Wedding Present album title and was excellent, though not exactly happy easy listening stuff. Not that you'd expect that from Greg Dulli, right enough. Ida Maria, Beth Rowley, Lykke Li, Jenny Lewis and Laura Marling all did decent work, to differing levels of quality, for the girls, while Katy Perry made me want to punch people when I was forced to rely on Radio Clyde for music at work for a while and managed to almost single handedly wipe out any goodwill I had towards anyone at all, but luckily I'm too nice for that. Former Bluetones front man Mark Morriss covered Alcoholiday on his debut album which is splendid, then he put Girls Aloud & Pixies covers on the B-side of his "I'm Sick" single, which put my faith back in humanity nicely. Go grab the single from eMusic, his version of Call The Shots is great. MGMT, Bon Iver, Santogold, She & Him and the like have all had plentiful coverage, so you don't need me to tell you any more about them, so I'll skip on ahead and name my winner.
Best Debut Album That Isn't Scottish
Eureka Machines - Do Or Die
An album that I'm going to guess almost none of you have heard, sadly. If I hadn't gone to see Ginger earlier in the year I probably wouldn't have either, but I did. Eureka Machines were the support that night - or more accurately one of them, front man Chris Catalyst, was. Chris did a solo set made up of a bunch of cover versions and his own songs and blew my little tipsy head off with a fantastic performance, which ensured that I'd keep an eye on the band for the rest of the year. I had some demos & acoustic stuff to tide me over till the album came out, which I hammered enough that there was a risk that by the time I got the album I'd be overly familiar with it, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Like PopUp it's packed with killer melodies and smart as a whip lyrics, but it's an entirely different beast to A Time And A Place, and it's certainly the best power-pop/rock album I've heard in, well, ages. Another thing the bands have in common is that they've pretty much stuck the albums out on their own, so if you want to hear either of them please do spend money on them rather than nicking them off the internet. Both are available on eMusic, so even if you just get a trial to that for them that would be better than using more illicit means (and yes, given my blogging history I know I'm the last person that should really be talking about paying for what you like, but indulge me...)
Eureka Machines - Scream Eureka (Demo)
That's the debuts taken care of then. I'll get on to the best albuums as soon as I can bother myself, then we'll see about getting some new stuff written about, shall we?
PopUp Myspace
Eureka Machines MySpace
Note: if either PopUp or Eureka Machines want those songs removed, just give me a shout.
For the curious, here's a list of stuff I liked in 2007. Apparently I couldn't spell when I wrote that, and I can't be bothered fixing it now. You are too late to mock me for it now too.
I'll note right now that when I say "best" in the categories, I by no means mean best, but favourite just doesn't sound as good. It's my list, so I make the rules, which are vague, unspecified and subject to change at any point. In some, if not all, categories I'll be splitting them up into Scottish (since that's ostensibly the focus of Aye Tunes) and otherwise. Told you my rules were vague.
Without further stalling for time:
Best Debut Album - Scottish
Quite a few contendors for this one actually. Aidan Moffat put out his first solo album, in a way. While there's a bunch of L. Pierre albums "I Can Hear Your Heart" is the first album Aidan has put out under his own name. It's an odd duck, part spoken word, part music, with a short story in the packaging too. Great piece of work and gorgeously packaged, but not the best thing this year. Mr Moffat has a new album out on Valentines Day by the way, called How To Get To Heaven From Scotland. A preview copy found it's way to me just today, so hopefully I'll give that a listen soon.
Another debut that isn't would be Colin MacIntyre's "The Water". It would be stretching things a bit to call this Colin's debut album, since other than ditching the Mull Historical Society name there's no difference from his previous work, so we'll disqualify it on those grounds. Still had to give it a mention though, since Colin is as good - if not better - a songwriter as ever.
Errors finally stuck out an album - It's Not Something, But It Is Like Whatever - after a few singles and EPs over the last few years, and it was also really very good.
Glasvegas of course showed up to release their album and torment blog owners by pulling anything with an MP3 attached too. They didn't lose this category because of that whole thing, the album did that for them, but it certainly didn't help their cause any.
Laki Mera didn't just release a great little album (which if you want to get technical snuck out at the end of 2007, but wasn't available to buy in shops till 2008) but followed it up with a nifty EP later in the year too, both of which are well worth your time if ambient electronica stuff is your bag.
Make Model recorded an album, then misplaced their singer/guitarist and then pretty much vanished. Seems unlikely that the album will ever see the light of day, which is a wee bit of a shame since it wasn't bad, if a bit like bis but less shouty.
Speaking of bis, Manda Rin put out her first album too. I always roundly mocked bis at any opportunity, only to find a few years later that if I bothered to listen to them a bit more I actually quite liked them... Manda's album isn't far off what bis were doing in their later years (which is miles away from Kandy Pop, which I still can't tolerate) and so also pretty good.
Coming it at a close second for the best Scottish debut album award is Correcto. Their self titled album seems to have been missing from pretty much end of year list I've seen, which has taken me by surprise a bit. Easy to dismiss as a side project, given that the band features one of Franz Ferdinand (another band with a new album imminent) and Richard Wright of the now-defunct The Royal We (who have spat out a few other bands now, like Remember Remember and Sexy Kids) but the album is a whole lot better than something knocked out on days off from the "real job". Especially worth a listen if you like Josef K and the like.
Drumroll please for our winner then....
Popup's "A Time And A Place" has been quite a while coming - over two years since I picked up their first couple of singles by my count - but just goes to show that taking your time can be worthwhile.
Packed full of killer melodies, smart and witty lyrics, lovely boy/girl harmonies and just all round great tunes it's a perfectly formed beauty of a debut. My only quibble with it is that of the 13 tracks on it I had six of them from singles already, but that's only a quibble because I was greedy for more songs.
Not only a fab band but really nice guys too as I found out when having a chatter with them after a challenging gig in Paisley a few months back, where not only did miserable weather mean that the crowd was pretty small, but the band were plagued by technical difficulties throughout, but still managed to send me off home happy.
PopUp - Love Triangle
Outwith the Scottish contenders there were quite a bit fewer stunning debuts in 2008, so it's a good bit easier to pick my favourite, but I'll do a quick rundown of stuff I liked anyway.
In no particular order there was good stuff from The Beep Seals (whose album was produced by Norman Blake, which almost qualifies them for the Scottish part of the award, but not quite, and who were also the first band in ages to send me a promo, which I promptly forgot to review. Err, sorry...), Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip showed that there's life in UK hip-hop yet, and that you can still make intelligent hip-hop too - Thou Shall Always Kill is getting a re release soon and is well worth your time. Saturnalia by The Gutter Twins nicked a Wedding Present album title and was excellent, though not exactly happy easy listening stuff. Not that you'd expect that from Greg Dulli, right enough. Ida Maria, Beth Rowley, Lykke Li, Jenny Lewis and Laura Marling all did decent work, to differing levels of quality, for the girls, while Katy Perry made me want to punch people when I was forced to rely on Radio Clyde for music at work for a while and managed to almost single handedly wipe out any goodwill I had towards anyone at all, but luckily I'm too nice for that. Former Bluetones front man Mark Morriss covered Alcoholiday on his debut album which is splendid, then he put Girls Aloud & Pixies covers on the B-side of his "I'm Sick" single, which put my faith back in humanity nicely. Go grab the single from eMusic, his version of Call The Shots is great. MGMT, Bon Iver, Santogold, She & Him and the like have all had plentiful coverage, so you don't need me to tell you any more about them, so I'll skip on ahead and name my winner.
Best Debut Album That Isn't Scottish
Eureka Machines - Do Or Die
An album that I'm going to guess almost none of you have heard, sadly. If I hadn't gone to see Ginger earlier in the year I probably wouldn't have either, but I did. Eureka Machines were the support that night - or more accurately one of them, front man Chris Catalyst, was. Chris did a solo set made up of a bunch of cover versions and his own songs and blew my little tipsy head off with a fantastic performance, which ensured that I'd keep an eye on the band for the rest of the year. I had some demos & acoustic stuff to tide me over till the album came out, which I hammered enough that there was a risk that by the time I got the album I'd be overly familiar with it, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Like PopUp it's packed with killer melodies and smart as a whip lyrics, but it's an entirely different beast to A Time And A Place, and it's certainly the best power-pop/rock album I've heard in, well, ages. Another thing the bands have in common is that they've pretty much stuck the albums out on their own, so if you want to hear either of them please do spend money on them rather than nicking them off the internet. Both are available on eMusic, so even if you just get a trial to that for them that would be better than using more illicit means (and yes, given my blogging history I know I'm the last person that should really be talking about paying for what you like, but indulge me...)
Eureka Machines - Scream Eureka (Demo)
That's the debuts taken care of then. I'll get on to the best albuums as soon as I can bother myself, then we'll see about getting some new stuff written about, shall we?
PopUp Myspace
Eureka Machines MySpace
Note: if either PopUp or Eureka Machines want those songs removed, just give me a shout.
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
The Aye Tunes Awards 2008...
...have been in the process of being written for the best part of a week and still aren't finished.
Most likely - barring Christmas miracles - they won't be done before Thursday, but they will be done before the year finishes.
Don't get all worked up though, they aren't really all that worth looking forward to, and are completely arbitrary.
Anyway, all the best to the lot of yeh!
Most likely - barring Christmas miracles - they won't be done before Thursday, but they will be done before the year finishes.
Don't get all worked up though, they aren't really all that worth looking forward to, and are completely arbitrary.
Anyway, all the best to the lot of yeh!
Thursday, 13 November 2008
My Latest Novel - Errors - Sons & Daughters: Paisley Town Hall 12.11.2008
VERY quick review of the gig I'm just home from then, for the simple reason that I'm fairly lucid due to Tennent's being both horrible and £3 a pop, reason enough to stay sober at a gig. Somewhat ruined by going to another pub after the gig and drinking real beer though, so it may verge into incoherence.
My Latest Novel: opened the show. It's been a few years since I saw them, last time was at the launch party for their debut album. Oh holy Fuck, this band is brilliant. That was my first impression of My Latest Novel and to be honest tonight just reminded me that. Splitting the set half and half between the debut album and songs from the new forthcoming (I want it NOW dammit) album was possibly a brave move, especially when you are a band from Greenock playing in Paisley (football wise there's no love lost. Me personally? I don't give a toss. Greenock isn't the nicest place on Earth but hey, Paisley is a Hellhole). Disappointing for me was the lack of some songs from the first album, but in a half hour set there's only so many things that can be crammed in.
The Reputation of Ross Francis, The Job Mr. Kurtz Done and Sister Sneaker, Sister Soul are still good enough songs to send tingles up my spine and make me wonder why this band aren't already huge. Scottish Arcade Fire? Fuck off, hasn't that lazy description been passed on to Broken Records now (who it doesn't fit either, but that's a whole other post) Seriously, if the new album is anywhere near as good as the live stuff, it'll be brilliant.
Special mention goes to the first pretty girl of the evening (I know, this is stunningly misogynistic, but still...) Laura you can be entirely forgiven for the over the knee socks and snug backless dress look for the simple reason that your violin skills are undoubted and you are not a bad singer either.
So, yeah. My Latest Novel were very, very good. The only disappointments for me were the lack of a few personal favourites from the debut album, but that is hardly their fault given the time allowed for their set.
Errors Honestly I can't say much about their set. It was good, don't get me wrong, but at the same time it was just kind of there.
Again, there was nothing at all wrong with the band, or their set, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't move me like My Latest Novel did.
Sons & Daughters were great, as always. Pleasant surprise of the evening was Ailidh (please tell me I'm spelling that right) being present on bass. Alaidh recently gave birth to a son who's name I do not know, so I didn't expect her to be back at work quite so soon. I'm never going to get through a Sons & Daughters writ-up without mentioning how gorgeous Adele and Ailidh looked, so I'll go ahead and get that out of the way now. Don't worry, Scott was also as handsome as always too.
On to their set, it wasn't massively different from the last time I saw them in the ABC at the start of the year (Hell, I'm fairly sure Adele had the same dress on, and thank God she wears shorts under it, since Paisley Town Hall has quite a high stage and if she didn't, well, this review might get filthy) Throwing away Johnny Cash as your second song is a ballsy move, but one that couldn't be faulted as the band laid on a cracking set, mostly drawn from the most recent album This Gift. Early on Adele apologised for never having been to Paisley before. On behalf on Paisley I'd like to assure her that's a wise move, but to please come back sometime anyway. Adele & Scott dealt well with a few over eager audience members (although to be fair, I struggled to avoid joining in the requests for Killer at time) and the entire band as always put on a cracking show. My one problem with This Gift is always addressed live, Scott sings more. I miss him on the album, the melodies live make the songs much better.
All in all then, was it worth my £12? Fuck yes. I'd pay that to see My Latest Novel or Sons & Daughters headlining a show of their own, having Errors tosses into the mix late sweetens the deal on my end even more.
Nitpicks? Well, I'd have liked to see My Latest Novel play longer, I'd have liked the beer not to have been so expensive (and horrible, but I just don't like Tennent's) and finally, I'd have LOVED the guy and girl who were in front of me for the first hour to have shown some fucking decency and not (a) chattered through the band and (b) stopped chattering long enough to snog the faces off each other. I dearly hope someone stabs both of you in the eye with a fork.
Finally, a big "Well, I didn't expect that" to the sound tonight. I've been to a ton of gigs in my life and way over half of them have had awful sound, but tonight - even though I was concered by the venue's huge hugh celing - someone out there played a bloody blinder. Sound was perfect throughout, for all three bands. Cheers Soundmen!
My Latest Novel: opened the show. It's been a few years since I saw them, last time was at the launch party for their debut album. Oh holy Fuck, this band is brilliant. That was my first impression of My Latest Novel and to be honest tonight just reminded me that. Splitting the set half and half between the debut album and songs from the new forthcoming (I want it NOW dammit) album was possibly a brave move, especially when you are a band from Greenock playing in Paisley (football wise there's no love lost. Me personally? I don't give a toss. Greenock isn't the nicest place on Earth but hey, Paisley is a Hellhole). Disappointing for me was the lack of some songs from the first album, but in a half hour set there's only so many things that can be crammed in.
The Reputation of Ross Francis, The Job Mr. Kurtz Done and Sister Sneaker, Sister Soul are still good enough songs to send tingles up my spine and make me wonder why this band aren't already huge. Scottish Arcade Fire? Fuck off, hasn't that lazy description been passed on to Broken Records now (who it doesn't fit either, but that's a whole other post) Seriously, if the new album is anywhere near as good as the live stuff, it'll be brilliant.
Special mention goes to the first pretty girl of the evening (I know, this is stunningly misogynistic, but still...) Laura you can be entirely forgiven for the over the knee socks and snug backless dress look for the simple reason that your violin skills are undoubted and you are not a bad singer either.
So, yeah. My Latest Novel were very, very good. The only disappointments for me were the lack of a few personal favourites from the debut album, but that is hardly their fault given the time allowed for their set.
Errors Honestly I can't say much about their set. It was good, don't get me wrong, but at the same time it was just kind of there.
Again, there was nothing at all wrong with the band, or their set, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't move me like My Latest Novel did.
Sons & Daughters were great, as always. Pleasant surprise of the evening was Ailidh (please tell me I'm spelling that right) being present on bass. Alaidh recently gave birth to a son who's name I do not know, so I didn't expect her to be back at work quite so soon. I'm never going to get through a Sons & Daughters writ-up without mentioning how gorgeous Adele and Ailidh looked, so I'll go ahead and get that out of the way now. Don't worry, Scott was also as handsome as always too.
On to their set, it wasn't massively different from the last time I saw them in the ABC at the start of the year (Hell, I'm fairly sure Adele had the same dress on, and thank God she wears shorts under it, since Paisley Town Hall has quite a high stage and if she didn't, well, this review might get filthy) Throwing away Johnny Cash as your second song is a ballsy move, but one that couldn't be faulted as the band laid on a cracking set, mostly drawn from the most recent album This Gift. Early on Adele apologised for never having been to Paisley before. On behalf on Paisley I'd like to assure her that's a wise move, but to please come back sometime anyway. Adele & Scott dealt well with a few over eager audience members (although to be fair, I struggled to avoid joining in the requests for Killer at time) and the entire band as always put on a cracking show. My one problem with This Gift is always addressed live, Scott sings more. I miss him on the album, the melodies live make the songs much better.
All in all then, was it worth my £12? Fuck yes. I'd pay that to see My Latest Novel or Sons & Daughters headlining a show of their own, having Errors tosses into the mix late sweetens the deal on my end even more.
Nitpicks? Well, I'd have liked to see My Latest Novel play longer, I'd have liked the beer not to have been so expensive (and horrible, but I just don't like Tennent's) and finally, I'd have LOVED the guy and girl who were in front of me for the first hour to have shown some fucking decency and not (a) chattered through the band and (b) stopped chattering long enough to snog the faces off each other. I dearly hope someone stabs both of you in the eye with a fork.
Finally, a big "Well, I didn't expect that" to the sound tonight. I've been to a ton of gigs in my life and way over half of them have had awful sound, but tonight - even though I was concered by the venue's huge hugh celing - someone out there played a bloody blinder. Sound was perfect throughout, for all three bands. Cheers Soundmen!
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Fancy A Pint?
Yep, once again I'm offering my readership of no one a drink.
As i mentioned a wee while ago, Sons & Daughters, My Latest Novel and Errors are playing in Paisley tomorrow at the Town Hall as part of the Tennents Mutual round of gigs. Getting one good band in Paisley is rare enough, three in one show is downright unmissable, so of course I'll be going along.
If anyone else is and fancies some form of beverage, give me a shout.
Sons And Daughters MySpace
My Latest Novel MySpace
Errors MySpace
As i mentioned a wee while ago, Sons & Daughters, My Latest Novel and Errors are playing in Paisley tomorrow at the Town Hall as part of the Tennents Mutual round of gigs. Getting one good band in Paisley is rare enough, three in one show is downright unmissable, so of course I'll be going along.
If anyone else is and fancies some form of beverage, give me a shout.
Sons And Daughters MySpace
My Latest Novel MySpace
Errors MySpace
My Turn
Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.
I'm fairly sure that anyone who reads this blog will be familiar by now with the woes that 17 Seconds has recently undergone, as well as a whole host of other blogs, including most recently The Pop Cop. If you haven't, pop along there and have a read, I'll still be here when you get back.
Unlike 17 Seconds and The Pop Cop my crime wasn't posting Glasvegas, rather I got hammered for a positive review of The Fratellis with an MP3 tagged on at the end.
There's barely any posts on Aye Tunes as it is without old ones getting deleted!
Saturday, 25 October 2008
PopUp
Should really have done this earlier, but laziness has clearly set in again.
PopUp are playing in the Crow Bar in Paisley tonight. Since we almost never get good bands in Paisley, I'll be braving the wind and rain to get myself along.
If anyone else is in town and fancies going to see them it'll cost you a fiver to get in - unless you turn up early enough that they haven't started charging yet - and there's some other bands on to.
Going? Give me a shout, I'll get a round in.
PopUp - Love Triangle
PopUp are playing in the Crow Bar in Paisley tonight. Since we almost never get good bands in Paisley, I'll be braving the wind and rain to get myself along.
If anyone else is in town and fancies going to see them it'll cost you a fiver to get in - unless you turn up early enough that they haven't started charging yet - and there's some other bands on to.
Going? Give me a shout, I'll get a round in.
PopUp - Love Triangle
Monday, 22 September 2008
While I've Been Gone...
(Image nicked from The Vinyl Villain a while back, I knew I'd need it eventually)
Ok then, let's recap. Recently we've discovered that
- I'm lazy
- I don't know what "soon" means
- I just all round suck.
Other than that, there's been a ton of releases, some good, some not so much so since I last wrote anything. Attempting to cover them all would be madness, so I'll go for a random selection.
There's was the much written about debut album by Glasvegas, of course, about which I have nothing more to add to what's been said elsewhere umpteen times, other than I'm bummed that Go Square Go reverted back to being more like the demo version than the single version, cause I really liked the intro on the single.
Mogwai today released their new album, The Hawk Is Howling, which is playing in the background as I write this and is really very good, as I'd expected. Also nice (from my point of view, probably not from about half of my readers') to see more quality Rangers baiting from Barry Burns on the Mogwai website.
Manda Rin, former girl from bis, put out her debut solo album My DNA a couple of weeks ago too. I never much cared for bis when they were around at first, but they ended up growning on me in later years. Manda's album is pretty good, I'll try to get back to it later.
PopUp put out an album too, though whether or not you can actually buy it in shops I'm not sure of. It's available on eMusic though and is well worth a listen. If you've not been a member of eMusic before there's usually an offer on to get a bunch of free downloads before you need to pay anything, there's a link over on the right hand side somewhere.
Colin MacIntyre has a new single out today too, Famous For Being Famous, one of the highlights from The Water. There's 2 new b-sides and it's available from eMusic too. I missed his gig in Glasgow at the weekend sadly. I've missed a LOT of gigs over the past few months. In fact, just tonight I missed Broken Records, again.
Speaking of gigs, The Tennents Mutual have announced the first lot of gigs to take place under that banner. I'll be going to Sons & Daughters and My Latest Novel at Paisley Town Hall, so if you are too say hello. If you can make me feel guilty about being a shite blogger, I might even buy you a pint or something.
More catching up later (whenever later may be)
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Back Soon!
I'm very aware that the blog has undergone a lengthy spell of inactivity, for which I've got no excuse.
Rest assured I'm still alive and there will be new posts soon.
Cheers!
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Hey You Get Off My Pavement!
This Sunday (june 29th) sees Mono in Glasgow put on their third annual Hey You Get Off My Pavement! mini-festival, and for the third year running, I can't go.
I'm fairly sure I'm currently fated not to make it to any of the gigs I want to get to, since they always seem to clash with me being busy elsewhere, or by the time I find out about them, the tickets have gone. That's no reason for you not to go, have a great time and make me feel thouroghly jealous afterwards though.
On the line up this year are Camera Obscura, the quite wonderful Foxface, Stevie Jackson from Belle & Sebastian, some Fence Collective types and more.
Tickets will set you back £18.50, which for a full days entertainment - and a barbeque! - isn't half bad. Festivities kick off at 12pm and we'll hope it stays dry.
More info here.
Camera Obscura - Super Trooper
Foxface - Winners/Losers
I'm fairly sure I'm currently fated not to make it to any of the gigs I want to get to, since they always seem to clash with me being busy elsewhere, or by the time I find out about them, the tickets have gone. That's no reason for you not to go, have a great time and make me feel thouroghly jealous afterwards though.
On the line up this year are Camera Obscura, the quite wonderful Foxface, Stevie Jackson from Belle & Sebastian, some Fence Collective types and more.
Tickets will set you back £18.50, which for a full days entertainment - and a barbeque! - isn't half bad. Festivities kick off at 12pm and we'll hope it stays dry.
More info here.
Camera Obscura - Super Trooper
Foxface - Winners/Losers
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Happy Birthday To Me
(There's more proper posts coming, I swear)
I know you don't care, buuuut, it's my blog, so there :P
Anyway, it's my birthday today, pushing me one step closer to being middle aged.
Anything around that I should buy? Recommendations welcome.
I know you don't care, buuuut, it's my blog, so there :P
Anyway, it's my birthday today, pushing me one step closer to being middle aged.
Anything around that I should buy? Recommendations welcome.
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Frightened Rabbit
Frightened Rabbit are four blokes from Selkirk, brothers Scott and Grant Hutchison, Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan.
Tons of things have been written about them, both in Scotland and beyond, since the release of their debut album Sing The Greys in 2006.
Rather than cover old ground, I'll just add my tuppence worth by saying that they are really, really good. I'm ashamed to add that they'd slipped under my radar until I saw them supporting Sons and Daughters a wee while ago, shortly before the release of second album The Midnight Organ Fight, where they opened the show and were miles better than the second support act Black Kids.
The Pop Cop has a great interview with singer Scott Hutchison here, while JC from The Vinyl Villan has a live review here.
Frightened Rabbit Website - Myspace
Sample Songs:
The Greys - From Sing The Greysg(280345)a(1519779))
The Modern Leper - From The Midnight Organ Fight
Behave! - Live version, available on eMusic. Original version on Sing The Greys
Tons of things have been written about them, both in Scotland and beyond, since the release of their debut album Sing The Greys in 2006.
Rather than cover old ground, I'll just add my tuppence worth by saying that they are really, really good. I'm ashamed to add that they'd slipped under my radar until I saw them supporting Sons and Daughters a wee while ago, shortly before the release of second album The Midnight Organ Fight, where they opened the show and were miles better than the second support act Black Kids.
The Pop Cop has a great interview with singer Scott Hutchison here, while JC from The Vinyl Villan has a live review here.
Frightened Rabbit Website - Myspace
Sample Songs:
The Greys - From Sing The Greys
The Modern Leper - From The Midnight Organ Fight
Behave! - Live version, available on eMusic. Original version on Sing The Greys
New(ish) Arab Strap!
The first of two promised download only releases from one of my most favourite bands ever, Arab Strap, is now available from the Chemikal Underground Records online shop.
Titled Music From Rogue Farm, it's a short wee thing, 11 tracks totalling 17 minutes, consisting of instrumental pieces put together for the short animated film Rogue Farm (which you can find out more about here)
It isn't essential stuff, but for a fiver it's a nice little rarity from a fantastic band.
You can buy it here and listen to samples too.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
A Brief Diversion...
As you will no doubt know by now Bo Diddley died on Monday. There's a ton of information and obituaries out there should you want to know more.
Bo Diddley is obviously not Scottish and so is somewhat out of the remit of this blog, but his passing does give an oportunity to post the following:
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Bo Diddley Is Jesus
Available on Barbed Wire Kisses
Monday, 2 June 2008
Errors
Right then, time to get started here I think. For the next week or so I might be messing around with the format a bit, but bear with me and we'll settle into something resembling normality soon enough.
Today Glasgow's Errors finally released their debut album It's Not Something But It Is Like Whatever on Rock Action Records. It's been a while since we got a release from them, not counting the single Toes a few weeks ago, so it is fair to say that this album is pretty highly anticipated round Aye Tunes Towers, especially since 2006's How Clean Is Your Acid House? EP still gets played to death.
Unfortunatly for me HMV haven't sent me my copy yet, so I can't tell you if it is good or bad. My money, based on previous releases, is on good.
If you are in Glasgow you might like to note that on the 13th of June there's a launch night for the album in Stereo. I'm planning on being there, so if you are heading along, say hi. Details and tickets can be found here.
Errors Myspace
If You Buy One Record:
At this point I'm planning on reccommending an album that you should buy, but since there's only one out, by default I'm going to be saying It's Not Something But It Is Like Whatever. This bit will make more sense when I post about a band with more than one album out, I swear. In the meantime, It's Not Something... is available from some of the shops listed in the right hand sidebar and the usual download type places.
Sample Tracks:
Mr. Milk (from How Clean Is Your Acid House?)
Maeve Binchy (from the Salut! France single)
Thursday, 22 May 2008
What Is Aye Tunes?
"Where am I and what do you do here?" I hear you ask.
Well, the simple answer is that Aye Tunes is yet another music blog, storming into the already bloated blogosphere. Unlike some other blogs you won't find and hot new pre-release albums here though. In fact, you won't find any albums at all, unless it is something I've been given permission to post. Instead I'll pick a track or two from each spotlighted artist.
Aye Tunes aims to focus on the best of Scottish music, new and old. "The best" is, of course, a very subjective term, so we won't always agree on the contents. Dissenting viewpoints are always welcome, either in a comment or an email. Also, for a small country, Scotland has a rich tapestry to draw upon musically, so don't expect all your favourites to appear here right away, it'll take me a while to cover all the bases, if I ever can.
As well as established artits, I'd love to put a bit of focus on new, up and coming bands. To do that I'll need your help. If you are in a band, or know of a great one that you'd like to see covered here, do please let me know!
If you represent one of the artists involved and would like me to remove a posted track, that's fine, just drop me a line and I'll pull it as quickly as I can.
The mp3s posted here are for a short time only and are intended for people to evaluate the music, and not as a replacement for buying music. If you like what you hear, support the artists involved by buying the music, going to shows, buying T-shirts etc.
There are some links to buy music in the right hand side sidebar, as well as contained within some of the posts. In the interests of full disclosure I'll confirm that some of these are affiliate links, used to not only promote the artists, albums and websites, but also to help fund this site. The money earned by myself from these is minimal, I won't be giving up the day job any time soon!
If you have any questions, or there is anything else I can help you with, please do email me, I'll be delighted to hear from you.
Well, the simple answer is that Aye Tunes is yet another music blog, storming into the already bloated blogosphere. Unlike some other blogs you won't find and hot new pre-release albums here though. In fact, you won't find any albums at all, unless it is something I've been given permission to post. Instead I'll pick a track or two from each spotlighted artist.
Aye Tunes aims to focus on the best of Scottish music, new and old. "The best" is, of course, a very subjective term, so we won't always agree on the contents. Dissenting viewpoints are always welcome, either in a comment or an email. Also, for a small country, Scotland has a rich tapestry to draw upon musically, so don't expect all your favourites to appear here right away, it'll take me a while to cover all the bases, if I ever can.
As well as established artits, I'd love to put a bit of focus on new, up and coming bands. To do that I'll need your help. If you are in a band, or know of a great one that you'd like to see covered here, do please let me know!
If you represent one of the artists involved and would like me to remove a posted track, that's fine, just drop me a line and I'll pull it as quickly as I can.
The mp3s posted here are for a short time only and are intended for people to evaluate the music, and not as a replacement for buying music. If you like what you hear, support the artists involved by buying the music, going to shows, buying T-shirts etc.
There are some links to buy music in the right hand side sidebar, as well as contained within some of the posts. In the interests of full disclosure I'll confirm that some of these are affiliate links, used to not only promote the artists, albums and websites, but also to help fund this site. The money earned by myself from these is minimal, I won't be giving up the day job any time soon!
If you have any questions, or there is anything else I can help you with, please do email me, I'll be delighted to hear from you.
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)