General New Music Scottish Bands: arcade fire grinderman kings of leon parts and labour strokes twilight sad von bondies wedding present
by Matthew
10 comments
Toad 2.0
O Music Scene, Wherefore Art Thy Balls?
It’s been an utterly dismal year for highly anticipated records by the big groups in 2007, but fortunately the slack has been taken up by loads of smaller acts bringing new things to the table. Except for one thing.
A really big, angry pair of rock ‘n’ roll bollocks.
I got accused, when talking about gratingly affected furry-minged feminist hippy intellectuals as part of my St. Vincent review, of being part of the ‘testosterone-fuelled indie rock blogosphere’. The cheek! But Wendy was right – I have been reviewing sensitive, introspective, subtle and slightly eccentric albums for a depressingly long time now. Not that I don’t like the music, but what my inner Neanderthal is crying out for at the moment is some raging, furious, guitar-battering indie howl. Take the shackles off lads, get your balls out and beat the shit out of your guitars. I mean, seriously, what the fuck am I supposed to listen to when I’m three-quarters of the way through a bottle of gin, it’s three in the morning and I want to play something fucking loud?
So far this year, although there has been the odd really good ‘turn it up fucking loud’ song, it’s always in total isolation, and very few and far between to begin with. Nothing with the snarl of the Von Bondies’ first album, for example. Or the Libs’ first. Or half of The Wedding Present’s early material. Or Yo La Tengo at their most incoherent. Or early Nick Cave when he went all apocalyptic on us. Even Grandaddy have a couple. Grandaddy!
It doesn’t have to be completely mental and just making a lot of noise isn’t enough. ‘Rawk’ is dreadful and need not apply. It has to have an insistent beat, be drenched in pain, and have some real fucking menace to it. Then, at some point it has to get properly fucking loud, with guitars that drive you into spasms of lurching, drunken air guitar, face clenched like a Baptist’s buttocks at Pet Shop Boys concert.
This year’s best examples:
Parts & Labour – Fractured Skies That frenetic beat, when it gets going, is enough by itself, but when the guitar kicks in..
The Twilight Sad – And She Would Darken the Memory It may take its time to get going, but it’s well worth the fucking wait.
Kings of Leon – Charmer Not especially loud, this one, but that insistent beat and the pained screech still do it for me.
The Arcade Fire – Intervention This is a big, angry song – brilliant!
Grinderman – No Pussy Blues If you nee d this exp laining to you, then you will never understand anyway.
Some classics from yesteryear:
The Von Bondies – No Regrets
The Strokes – Juicebox Just listen to that beat – fucking marvellous – and there’s a distinctly prog-tastic guitar solo in the middle as well. Fucking great
The Wedding Present – Blonde The definitive song of wounded indie rage?
Actually, it’s because I wanted it to be recognisably gin, and I didn’t trust myself to draw an obvious bottle of Tanqueray, which I actually prefer. Bombay a very close second though, and Blackwood’s is nice.
i like the old tanqueray, toad old chum, but my default is always the BS.. have you ever had a plymouth gin? i think it’s made in something like a 150 year still.. oi oi oi.. hurrah for gin! and hurrah for great music! nice one..
I do like Plymouth an awful lot actually.
And I think few would argue that my default tends to be to ‘the BS’ as well, most of the time!
What you want to try are the live recordings of Oasis’ Familiar to Millions (F2M) tour. Fucking fantastic. The studio stuff is mostly good too.
Ballsy post Matthew!
Did you notice the balls, Wendy? I thought there were plenty of balls in this one 
You need Marnie Stern, boy. She’s a girl too….
[...] O Music Scene, Wherefore Art Thy Balls? [image] It’s been an utterly dismal year for highly anticipated records by the big groups in 2007, but […] [...]
“Then, at some point it has to get properly fucking loud, with guitars that drive you into spasms of lurching, drunken air guitar, face clenched like a Baptist’s buttocks at Pet Shop Boys concert.”
It’s a perverse analogy but I like it. Given that half the comments are about sipping gin however something tells me we should go on a night out soon, cover ourselves in chicken’s blood, drink lighter fuel and properly search for the beast !!! 666 … call me.
morg.
i love how in your banner pic, toad has a bottle of bombay saphire! genius! he know’s his stuff, clearly..