YOU Try Googling a Band Called Sexy Kids
Fortunately the results weren’t quite as Special Branch-alerting as they might well have been. I heard about this band both from Ed over at 17 Seconds, and from Colin who writes And Before the First Kiss, and put them on his 2008 Mixtape which he gave me at Christmas.
Oddly, this is a band which has been blogged to death by everyone from here to fucking Timbuktu, but all they really seem to have is a couple of tracks, a seven inch single and a clearly pretty fearsome black belt online marketing strategy. This may be related to the fact that, despite being a Glasgow band almost entirely unheard of in this part of the world (correct me if I’m wrong on this, please), the single itself has been released on the really excellent Slumberland Records.
This expertise has resulted in the record being enthusiastically fellated by Pitchfork and many of the more influential US blogs, before the band seem to have built up that much of a reputation over here. Certainly they have no live dates posted, and people I know who have tried to book them have found the band to be elusive, to say the least.
Still, the facts are fairly independent of all this nonsense. Sisters Are Forever is a superb pop song, infectiously enjoyable, plundered right from the twee end of the eighties indie revolution and plopped happily into our laps here in 2009. It’s not musically all that inventive, but it’s incurably catchy and bags of fun, and if this is the kind of trick these guys can pull off then fair play to them – they deserve the success.
Their other songs appear to be a little less overtly poppy, however, and I would actually say that this is a good thing. There’s a bit more blank, flat tweeness, and a bit less bouncy, grinny poppiness which makes them seem a little more moody. I’d say that this is actually suggests that there might be more to this band than just an irrepressible tune or two, and I hope this turns out to be the case.
Sexy Kids – Sisters Are Forever
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Sisters Are Forever has a very notalgic feel about it, you can imagine getting that same happy warm feeling a few years down the line as when you hear Echo Beach or Walk Like An Egyptian nowadays; but by the same token it’s probably one you wouldn’t want to be overplayed.
Nice little pop song though.
The second one’s interesting too. Good fun – but imaginative enough. The two vocals go together nicely, and the band seem to know something about the dynamics of a song – even if does have that childishly simple sound (Which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s childishly simple to do!)
I was worried you were never going to post anything I liked again!
Oh God – sorry – was that out loud?!
Although that second one does threaten to turn into Happy Birthday by Altered Images more than once during the song.
Yeah, I have my doubts at moments, but there’s lots of promising stuff in the music they’ve put out there so far.
Re: songs being picked up (I think the term “fellated” is appropriate) outside local areas in advance of building local reputations:
This, to me, is one of the most exciting and, simultaneously, odd things about the blogging/digital music world. Bands with good promotional mojo need only reach one of “us” to start spreading the word. Which means, as long as we trust each other as tastemasters, and we give ourselves time to sample most of what comes into our inboxes at least for a moment, we can assume that, for once, good music (at least coupled with good savvy from the musicians) can out, instead of riding underground for decades while the artists slowly starve and lose their will to produce music.
THIS is the best of what “indie” culture can mean. It’s very “folk”. And I’ll stop using the fecking pseudo-intellectual “quotes” when I’m damn well ready to, I swear.
The best example: Sam Amidon, who I knew for years as a local teenage player in the local contra dance scene, just one of so many, a progeny of a long-standing local music family (his parents were my wife’s music teachers in middle school). All it took was an odd turn on his first real solo disk “And This Chicken…” , and an early tendency towards self-depreciating but freely self-promotional web use, to get picked up by the European community. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yeah, but knowing how those little fires start is the black art in all of this isn’t it. It’s like when PR people label something ‘viral’ in the desperate hope that calling it viral will make it spread in a viral manner.
i believe sexy kids arose from the ashes of the royal we, and also feature graeme from rememberremember / multiplies / mogwai…. so in that sense not quite green shoots… but fun stuff for sure.
I knew the Royal We bit, but not the other stuff. So yes, hardly novices, but the Royal We weren’t exactly a massive band. But I guess if you have access to Mogwai’s contact list then you have a massive reach for a new project.
Glad you like it, remember watching the royal wee with you that night the pastels played in edinburgh eighteen months ago. the mrs (mine, not yours) said they sounded like a sixth form band!
Fuck, that was them? They weren’t terribly impressive back then that’s for sure. A few years and a reshuffle has clearly done them good.
It was indeed, I seem to remember we were all more impressed by Electrelane that night…
They, it has to be said, fucking rocked!
I really really like jangly pop music, hell I even like Helen Love. and I hate the put people down culture which is rife but …does the world really need another Tullycraft?, I quite like the first one.
anyway Matthew more jangly stuff is always a good thing at least you’ll get happy criticism.
Electrelane rocked like bastards…and the guitarist girly was very cute : )
while these songs are good, not great, these guys used to be a band called the royal we and their self titled album was one of the best i heard in 2007/8 (i’m not sure really). check it out. it’ll rock your socks.
Yes, I think the Royal We lineage is the reason people are excited, that and that “Sisters Are Forever” is awesome. And the person who compared them to Altered Images is spot on, though specifically it’s like the Wedding Present’s cover of “Think That it Might” more than anything else. Can’t wait to hear Single Number Two.