33.28 - Going Solo

Near the start of this self indulgent ramblefest that has been 33 I wrote about the Aye Tunes Vs Pennko gigs. Returning to that self indulgent theme, today I'm going to write a wee bit about the gigs I've put on by myself, which have imaginatively been titled Aye Tunes Presents. I'd have shortened that to ATP, but I'm pretty sure there'd be objections to that.

#1 - 21st January 2011, Stereo
Goodness, that feels so long again. I suppose it is quite a while ago, nearly a year and a half in fact. I'm good at sums, me. For my first solo attempt I decided to pick some of my favourite animal named bands to play. Packets of Animal biscuits were given away on the door to anyone who wanted them, along with some home made compilation CDs I put together. Take up on the biscuits was surprisingly low, and I ended up eating many bags of them over the following weeks. We even raised a few quid for charity with an impromptu door collection.
Boygirlanimalcolour - Batman Forever
Trapped Mice - Waving and Pointing
Kochka - Boooones
Trapped Mice have some gigs coming up, and a really good debut album in the can, awaiting release. Kochka made one of my favourite albums of last year, and continue to scare me a bit with their new video.

#2 - The Aye Tunes Birthday Bash, 17th June 2011, The Flying Duck
A great idea in my head, a terrible idea in practice, particularly as the gig ended up being put together at quite short notice. Don't put on a gig for your birthday kids, it's stressful and expensive, at least it is if you are me. The bands were loads of fun though, and some people bought me beer, so it wasn't all bad.
The Big Nowhere - I'm In Love With a Girl
Verse Metrics - Modern Sleep
Black International - Destruct_o_
The hangover I had from this was hilarious, but I learned not to do any more birthday gigs. I didn't learn not to do short notice gigs though, as we'll see soon.

#3 - The Springwell EP Launch, 1st July 2011, Stereo
I'd sounded out The Last Battle a bit before this about doing a gig, but couldn't quite get anything worked out. When it came time to launch their latest EP I jumped at the chance to have them on, and managed to lure Loch Awe with them, giving them their first gig in Glasgow and me my first chance to see them. The always entertaining Second Hand Marching Band rounded out the line up, making sure that at least there were plenty of people there by virtue of their vast number of band members alone.
Loch Awe - I Will Drift Into 10,000 Streams (Demo)
Second Hand Marching Band - Love Is a Fragile Thing (Sleazy Version)
The Last Battle - Viv Nicholson (Acoustic)
Loch Awe have a few gigs coming up. They play Stereo in Glasgow this Saturday as part of the Chem19 showcase night, then next Saturday they play with The Bad Books, The Spook School and The New Fabian Society at Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar for some blogger's gig. Can't recall who, I'm a bit Indifferent.
The Second Hand Marching Band claim they'll be releasing three new albums towards the end of the year, a sad one, a pop one, and an Icelandic one.
The Last Battle released a new single just this week. Hope Is Gold is available from Bandcamp, and there's a launch gig on June 22nd at Pilrig St Pauls Church in Leith.

#4 - 28th September 2011, The Captains Rest
Arrange and promote a gig in roughly two weeks? Only a fool would agree to such a thing. This fool. So it was that the following line-up was rather hastily assembled, with no real concession for genre and styles. Given how quickly I put it together and with the bare minimum of promotion I was able to give it in that time, I'm happier with the way this turned out now than I was when I looked in my wallet at the end of the night. First Glasgow gig for The Spook School too. I've got a habit of putting on Edinburgh bands I want to see in Glasgow rather than, probably more sensibly, just going to Edinburgh to see them.
Kevin P. Gilday - Dear Green Place
Shambles Miller - Rapture
The Spook School - History
The Sea Kings - The Nitrate In My Blood
Shambles Miller has a new single, Confessions, out soon. I'll try and get back to that in time, but in case I forget to mention it later, there's a launch gig for the single at Vespbar in Glasgow on July 6th.
The Spook School play this Sunday at The Captains as part of the first Scottish Fiction gig, and in Edinburgh next at the Tidal Wave of Indifference gig mentioned above.
The Sea Kings play King Tuts in July as part of Summer Nights.

#5 - 3rd May 2011, Stairway
I had no real intention of putting on another gig any time soon until Exit_International got in touch with me. The chance to put on a band I really like, and to do something a bit different by putting on a band from outside the central Scotland bubble was too tempting to resist. What followed were many headaches, a catalogue of errors, from venue problems to a collosal screw up with posters, which all added up to making this a bit of a stressful affair, and the end product wasn't as good as it should have been. I'm still a bit disappointed about the way this one came out and wish it could have been better, but it's a bit late to dwell on that now. The bands were ace though.
Supermarionation - Choosing My Religion
Wrongnote - Heart of a Rat
Exit_International - Glory Horn
The Supermarionation song above is hot off the press, having just been released for free download at lunchtime today. Refreshingly Supermarionation released it without seven announcements of announcements of announcements in the run up, just slapped it on Bandcamp and told us it was there. Download the single & b-side for free here.
Exit_International will be spending my birthday in Japan, on a mini tour with Ginger Wildheart. No, no, of course I'm not jealous.

I had rather hoped to close this post with details of the next Aye Tunes gig, because I never learn my lesson and manage to stop putting them on, but the details aren't quite sorted yet, so I'll need to tell you later. It's a wee bit of a fight getting it organised at the moment, but it's a fight I'll win soon.

Best Albums of 2011: 10 - 1

IT'S THE FIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAL COUNTDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN!
Top ten Aye Tunes albums of the year time. I can stop listing things and try to reintroduce myself to society after this.
Same disclaimers as yesterday:

1. best just means my favourite, you are allowed to disagree without either of us being wrong.
2. I've not heard every blooming album released this year.

You can find a bunch of other albums I liked that didn't quite make the top twenty here, and numbers twenty to eleven here.

10. United Fruit - Fault Lines

Noisy? Check. Frantic? Check. Awesome? Double check. Fault Lines is an adrenaline rush in music form. Full review from earlier in the year here.
Buy: Bandcamp - Bigcartel

9. FOUND - Factorycraft

One of the year's more fun albums, Factorycraft saw a slimmed down FOUND take a less experimental approach to their music, thought there was that edible 7", and deliver a pile of cracking pop songs in the process. Jam packed with hooks and sing along lyrics, Factorycraft does the simple things very well, and makes the difficult things seem easy.  It still goes a bit wonky and off kilter at points, and never gets dull. The end result is about as addictive as whatever drug is particularly addictive these days, but much better for you.
Buy: Chemikal - Amazon - iTunes

8. John Knox Sex Club - Raise Ravens

I can't tell you if I agree or not with the regular description of the John Knox Sex Club as "the best live band in Scotland" since I haven't seen them since some time last year - I know, poor show Jim - but I can tell you their second album, Raise Ravens, was one of the best released this year. Although folk is the simplest tag to apply, the music is regularly much more muscular and powerful than the folk label usually implies. Gentle laments trade places with growled vocals and distorted guitars, before the growls turn melodic, all with a sinister, menacing undercurrent. This is an intense and at times downright creepy album, blending the tradition with the modern, steeped in atmosphere. It is almost impossible not to get lost in, absorbed by Raise Ravens.
Buy: Bandcamp

7. You Already Know - Petrol Money

The first You Already Know album made my Best of 2009 list, and anyone that has been unfortunate enough to have put up with me talking about the band any time since won't be all that surprised that second album Stop Whispering is one of my favourites this year. More glorious noise. Also in The Gush/Meatshield.Into And Over You/It Comes In Waves this is the album with the filthiest sounding track progression of the year. Full review here. You Already Know have split now, but Petrol Money was a fine parting gift.
Buy: Bandcamp

6. Nicola Roberts - Cindarella's Eyes

Come ahead, I'm ready for you. A damn fine leftfield pop album, good lyrics, more effing, blinding and anger than you'd expect and much more interesting musically than some weedy indie nonsense. A regular listen, and a thoroughly enjoyable one too.
Buy: Amazon - iTunes

5. Monoganon - Songs To Swim To

My, that's a handsome cock. I've been a fan of John B. McKenna for a while, admittedly in part because he used to sell me beer while working in the pubs of Glasgow, but also for his music. Songs To Swim To is, by a distance, the best thing John and his band have released I think. Also, despite all my protests, proof that I've not entirely shunned folky poppy stuff this year.
Buy Vinyl/Free Download: Winning Sperm Party

4. Kochka - The Entropic Biopic of a Quixotic Psychotic

Still not sure about the title, but everything else about this album I love. Coming on like a demented funfair, complete with Markk Donnelly's attempt - a worrying successful attempt at that - at channeling a mad carnival barker, this is pretty much unlike anything else I've heard coming from Scotland this year. Addictive, fun, and nigh on impossible not to dance to, it took ages to get a debut album from Kochka but the result made the wait instantly forgivable.
Buy: Bandcamp

3. Conquering Animal Sound - Kammerspiel

When Kammerspiel was released at the start of the year I'd been looking forward to it a lot on the basis of what I'd heard from Conquering Animal Sound on record and on stage before, and the album didn't disappoint. Roughly a full year on from my first listen to the album I'm nowhere near tired of it yet. More blethering in the form of a review here.
Buy: Gizeh -  iTunes

2. Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's Getting Older

I wasn't overwhelmed when Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat collaborated at Chemikal Underground's 15th anniversary gig back at the start of 2010, things verging a little too close to The Fast Show's jazz club at times for me, so I wasn't too sure what I'd think of the album that eventually followed. Teaser tracks A Short Song To The Moon and The Copper Top immediately dismissed any fears I had, and made me wonder if my ears had been working properly that night at the ABC.
The collaboration seemed to bring out the best in each other. Arguably Aidan's best work as a lyricist, finding new ways to break your heart and make you laugh, allied with Wells's subtle, measured compositions add up to something a wee bit special. Although as filthy as you'd expect from Moffat in parts, a lot of the album provokes genuine emotion and is mature and measured, the end result is pretty damn great.
Buy: Chemikal - Amazon - iTunes

1. Adam Stafford - Build a Harbour Immediately

I got a copy of Build A Harbour Immediately quite early last year from Adam Stafford, after I'd half joking complained to him that Lloyd from Peenko wouldn't shut up about how good it was having received a copy before me. I then spent several months trying not to annoy everyone I know by telling them how brilliant this album was, but no they couldn't buy it yet and no they can't have a copy off me. I think eventually Matthew Healy from Loch Awe was about ready to kill me.
Having alienated all of our friends that just left Peenko and myself repeating to each other how bloody marvelous an album this was. Then, one night in April, we were drunk together, and hatched a plan. One more Aye Tunes Vs Peenko gig, and we'd beg Adam to make it his album launch. He agreed, and then we had the fun of having to not annoy people by telling everyone about the launch gig for this amazing album that was still two-three months away. Anyway, the gig came round eventually, we spent a night with massive smiles on our faces, and we finally had people to agree with us that yes, Build A Harbour Immediately is indeed a pretty ace album, and we smiled some more.
It was at the album launch that I heard a description of the album far better than any I could come up with when Julian Corrie - Miaoux Miaoux - described it as "starts off fairly normal, then it just melts". Can't put it any better than that really.
At the halfway point of the album with Shot Down You Summer Wannabes - which was one of my favourite songs of 2010, and sold me on Adam solo in the first place - things take a turn for the unconventional. The guitars drop out, replaced with vocal loops, layers of noise, beatboxing, and all manner of lunacy. And it's brilliant.
That was all a terribly long way of saying "best album of the year" but yes, Build a Harbour Immediately is the best album of the year.
Buy: Bandcamp

That concludes our best albums of 2011, you may now begin pointing, laughing, disagreeing, or swearing never to return.

You can buy some, if not all, of these records from Monorail and Love Music in Glasgow too. Shops are nice, you get to talk to people in them. Some shops and some people are rubbish though, so you can also buy a lot of these from Insularis Records from the comfort of your own home, without even putting on clean clothes.