It’s been a strange few days over here at DCHQ.  On Monday a certain NY radio station sent what can only be described as a compliment-strewn e-beg asking us to join their airwaves, affording us carte blanche on show content & tomfoolery. Yesterday we received word that this month our TWR podcasts are #1 on the Podbean site for the Radio category (with almost 14,000 listeners tuning in since New Year’s day). Then we discover we have the 4th most listened to Radio podcast on the entire Podbean site, ever.

This morning I received an email from a promoter asking me to assist in finding some information on the Butthole Surfers‘ first ever overseas gig back in the 1980s.  Seems he discovered a comment I left on S,bT a while back mentioning said gig, which had been held in Newport Leisure Centre in Gwent.  He’s hoping I can provide details for a book that’s being written about the band.

This afternoon I received an email from a Swedish band, who we’ve featured a handful of times on the show, telling us they’ve name-checked us in their latest song.  Minutes later we get an email from a Cardiff film crew asking us to take part in a documentary they’re planning on UK anti-folk, asking to interview me + film an episode of TWR being made.  Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t worry, I’m not going to be tackling anything quite so ambitious in the space of a mere handful of paragraphs, so don’t worry. You can read on without fear of impending pomposity.

Basically, I was reading this little piece in the Guardian about the future of digital media, and it got me to thinking about music on television and stuff like that. Basically, there isn’t any decent music on television, is there? Jools is okay, I guess, although I find him personally annoying and don’t like many of the bands he features. There’s the kiddie ones on weekend mornings too, I think – T4 or something like that must have one. There’s also some Jo Whiley thing or other, but I can never sit through more than a few minutes of that without feeling compelled to swear at the screen and throw crisps around the place. MTV and VH1 are music-based, but don’t seem to be actually about music, so to speak, as far as I am aware.

So there are things out there, but I find myself thinking about something genuinely ‘about’ music. Something with a bit of actual content beyond music videos and trying to reflect the whims of Teh Kidz(TM). Something, I suppose, like a blog – a vlog, I think they’re rather clumsily called. Something with some chatter, some new stuff, some old stuff, a bit of news, some thinking – stuff like that. Something, I suppose I am rather self-indulgently saying, that I would want to watch. Something for actual music fans, which is where a lot of the current stuff seems to be missing the mark just slightly. Read the rest of this entry »

In amongst all the hoo-ha over Christmas about that karaoke bimbo’s brutal bum-rape of Leonard Cohen’s wonderful Hallelujah, and the brewing legal nightmare caused by indiscriminate wielding of DMCA legislation, I started to wonder a little about the music industry, who is fighting who and why, and so on.

Of course I entirely accept the music industry’s position that evil free music is killing babies and committing acts of terrorism and so on, and that it is largely people like you and I who are to blame for Britney Spears and Robbie Williams having to lead the deprived lives of poverty and servitude into which they have so cruelly been forced in the last few years by the unlimited evils of ‘right-click, save as’. I mean, it’s just obvious, really.

One thing I don’t quite get, though, is why it is only filesharing that they hate. Apart from the impact of the music-as-data model replacing the music-as-product model, which has clearly confused and annoyed the shit out of everyone with any sort of vested interest in the latter, there has been another pretty seismic shift in the music industry in the last few years: karaoke pop shows. Read the rest of this entry »

At what point does homage become pastiche, I have been asking myself recently.  I was thinking of bands like Samamidon, Langhorne Slim and the Felice Brothers rather than this, but it still sort of applies, I think.  Basically this is a series of old covers, performed with affection and just enough interpretation to make them interesting.  Look at the other bands and although they perform orginal material they are so buried in recognisable old styles that I find myself wondering at what point you really can call something ‘re’interpretation.  Just an idle speculation, of course.  I don’t care what you call it, as long as you’re writing songs as wonderful as those three bands consistently manage.

This is more of a precursor to a new Vetiver album proper, which is due out in the middle of February, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless.  I know there’s an accompanying full album of this stuff which might be too much of a good thing, but I haven’t heard that so I can simply enjoy and gentle, banjo-strewn stroll through this material.  It’s old-fashioned, pleasant and highly enjoyable.  And, whilst it may not be earth-shattering, it means I will pay an awful lot more attention to their new record when it arrives.

Vetiver – Just to Have You

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Website | More mp3s | Buy the EP from eMusic

Greetings everyone – I trust we’ve all obediently clambered back onto the tediously repetetive hamster wheel we laughably call Proper Job. Here I sit at my desk, surrounded by people actually taking things seriously, vainly hoping that they can’t really tell that I really don’t give a shit and hoping they’ll kindly let me get on with my life as unencumbered by actual, meaningful tasks as possible.

There’s no need to recover from Christmas in our house. Mrs. Toad and I only really drank a lot about three or four times over the holidays, and even then we didn’t get all that juiced. Frankly I rather lost the taste for it for some reason – maybe sheer exhaustion. Still, I successfully managed about ten hours sleep a night, often more, for the entire two weeks, so I am back and feeling refreshed and ready to take on 2009 with renewed vigour.

Which is more than anyone can say for the Edinburgh gig scene, with the exception of the lovely Ruth and Jane at the Bowery. Apart from their sterling efforts no-one else seems to be up to much this week, but not to worry, for they have out-done themselves.

Thursday 8th January 2008: Laptop Lounge at the Voodoo Rooms.

I don’t know much about this, but the description seems kind of intriguing: a get-together for the city’s laptop artists. Could be awful, but I bet there are some absolute gems to be found in there.

Sunday 11th January 2008: Samamidon & The Go-Away Birds at the Bowery.

Sam was bloody amazing when he played the Bowery last November, with his occasionally bizarre on-stage antics and tortured violin-bothering proving a somewhat weird counterpoint to the reverential quiet with which he plucked his way through the beautiful folk music for which he is known. The Go-Away birds sound rather interesting too, from their MySpace page, so I think this promises to be a really good day all round.
The Go-Away Birds – Green Jackets

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And, just because I might be late with next week’s post depending on how busy I am here at Proper Job, I just thought I’d mention this show, which is on next Monday:

Monday 12th January 2008: The World is Not Flat, The Occasional Flickers & Aurora Stands in Snow at the Bowery.

I don’t know much more about this than you can glean from the various MySpace pages, but it would appear that The Occasional Flickers’ winsome folk-pop will be bookended by two acts of twee, guitar-plucking loveliness. I’ve yet to see the Flickers, so it’s about time I put that right.
The World is Not Flat – Earl Grey Lavender

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1. Meursault – Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues

I know I can’t be objective with regards to this album, but believe me I am being honest when I tell you that it is the best thing I’ve heard all year.  Whether it’s the obvious hits, the peculiar interludes, the perfect blend of pop songs and experimental electronica, or the trajectory and integrity of the album as a whole, I don’t think I’ve heard better than this for years.
Meursault – Salt Pt.1

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2. The Felice Brothers – The Felice Brothers

A warmer, more immediately emotional album I couldn’t really imagine.  The voice and the slow pace are so rich and arresting that you find yourself overcome by sadness almost immediately, and that hold on your emotions is never once loosed for forty minutes.
Felice Brothers – Greatest Show on Earth

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3. Langhorne Slim – Langhorne Slim

Of this top five, all but the Felice Brothers have firmly enhanced their reputations with me with superb live performances.  With Langhorne Slim it wasn’t the emotive power of bands like Meursault, Shearwater or the Low Lows, it was sheer charm.  Sean Scolnick delivered his songs with such easy charisma that you just couldn’t help but warm to him.  Like Barton Carroll, this is an album whose style is far from revolutionary – more a familiar mish-mash of  what I would vaguely describe as Americana.  That familiarity is something which turns out to be a bonus in the end though, as the album worms its way under your skin like few others.
Langhorne Slim – Diamonds & Gold

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4. Shearwater – Rook

Occasionally beautiful, but often thunderous, this album was an immediate success with me, building up to all sorts of crescendos oozing a ferocity you rarely expect.  I still don’t know if it’s the loveliest or the angriest album of the year.
Shearwater – Leviathan, Bound

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5. The Low Lows – Shining Violence

This is another album I didn’t necessarily expect to find this high on the list when I first heard it, but for some reason it’s just grown and grown on me this year, while more highly anticipated records have kind of dropped away.  It broods and snarls, growling it’s tunes at you from behind a wall of reverb.
The Low Lows – This Modern Romance

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6. Barton Carroll – The Lost One

I know nothing about Barton Carroll, I wasn’t looking forward to this album at all, and then when it landed in my lap I still refused to quite get it for ages; maybe it’s because it’s stylistically quite unadventurous. The big difference, though, is that absolutely every single song on this album, despite flirting with cliche rather frequently, is compelling. They all have you perking up when they come on in their turn, thinking ‘oh good, this song’.
Barton Carroll – Those Days are Gone, and My Heart is Breaking

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7. Donny Hue & the Colors – Tell Tall Tales

This is another album which rather arrived out of nowhere. I wasn’t even aware it was in the pipeline when the promo copy was emailed through in November or so, when the album turned out to be quite so brilliant it was like an early Christmas present. It’s wry and witty, sad and playful and a simple pleasure from start to finish.
Donny Hue & the Colors – Good Time Happening

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8. Bombadil – A Buzz, A Buzz

I liked this album enough all on its own, but when I saw these guys play live at Pickathon in August I was just floored. I haven’t enjoyed a live performance so much in years – it was just overflowing with fun and zest and exuberance, and only the clinically dead could have failed to be swept away.
Bombadil – Cavaliers’ Har Hum

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9. Pale Young Gentlemen – Black Forest (Tra La La)

This is just a fantastically rewarding album to listen to. It’s delicate at times, wistful at others, and thumping at others. It’s also more instrumentally accomplished than pretty much anything else you’ll listen to for a long time.
Pale Young Gentlemen – Coal/Ivory

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10. The Pictish Trail – Secret Soundz Vol. 1

For someone who I’ve seen on stage so many times, and seen play for other people’s bands so many times, this record still still wasn’t anything like what I expected. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this ever-surprising dance from sad to playful to downright bizarre wasn’t it. It’s a cracking record though, almost because it seems so surprising.
The Pictish Trail – Winter Home Disco

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11. The Cave Singers – Invitation Songs

Screeched vocals, and stomping, percussive guitar playing give this a kind of noirish, raucously foreboding atmosphere.  It’s simultaneously raging and simmering, with an old-fashioned murder balled style, and absolutely brilliant.
The Cave Singers – New Monuments

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12. Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – The Ragged Garden

Sounding a lot like the Dirty Three, Little Sparta give a tortured backdrop to the spoken word ramblings of Gerry Mitchell.  It’s part poetry, part interior monologue, dark and obsessively introspective, almost exactly what you might expect at 5am from a drunken Glaswegian who was most of the way through a bottle of whisky and somewhat given to self-pity.  It is a spectacularly good album, but not for those prone to complaining about music that is slightly morose.
Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta – Widow Dressing

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13. Micah P. Hinson – Micah P. Hinson & the Red Empire Orchestra

It doesn’t have the same feral howl of rage that much of Hinson’s earlier work has spilling from it, but the beauty and intimacy are still there.  If he keeps this up, Micah Paul Hinson will become one of the greats.
Micah P. Hinson – Tell Me it Ain’t So

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14. The Dodos – Visiter

Having talked about the percussive guitar on The Cave Singers’ album, I find myself scrabbling around for something else to describe this record.  It’s not Gothic folky Americana, but the guitar is used like a drum kit, and the constant use of the drumsticks on one another gives this record an irresistible pace.
The Dodos – Ashley

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15. Aidan John Moffat – I Can Hear Your Heart

I’ve swung back and forth on this one a little.  After my initial review Beth pointed out in the comments that it is actually an extremely self-indulgent record.  She’s right, but the emotional impact of half of the songs on this record is so far ahead of pretty much anything else you’ll hear that you just can’t tear yourself away from it.
Aidan John Moffat – Good Morning

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16. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

This is far from Elbow’s best album, in my opinion, but it’s bloody good nevertheless.  There’s a definite confidence about Elbow these days – a swagger almost – that is pretty much the defining characteristic of this record.
Elbow – Starlings

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17. Devotchka – A Mad & Faithful Telling

It’s slightly amazing to think that these guys started off as a novelty cabaret band, considering that they’ve now released two bloody great albums of their own.  It’s more indie rock and a bit less world music, and I think I’d say it was the better for it actually.
Devotchka – Transliterator

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18. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – A Larum

I am not sure why this album finds itself so far down my list.  Maybe by the time it was released I was already so familiar with most of the songs that it failed to register quite the impact it might have made had I been hearing it all for the first time.
Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Brown Trout Blues

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19. Honeytrap – Follies in Great Cities

I’ve been waiting some time for this, and it didn’t disappoint.  I don’t know if it’s the tortured wail of the vocals or the demented screech of the fiddle that does it for me, but they’re both amazing.  It’s got a sightly old-fashioned sound about it as well – something of the early nineties that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Honeytrap – Eleven

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20. Ghostkeeper – Ghostkeeper and the Keepers of the Great Northern Muskeg

It’s plain-jane indie rock, this stuff, but for some reason this album really grabbed me.  It’s not earth-shattering, just really really enjoyable from beginning to end.
Ghostkeeper – Cruisin’ the Chev

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