As announcements go this is pretty minor, I suppose. Still, it made me happy and gives me the chance to post a couple of tracks by a band I discovered towards the end of last year: Howlies. They are a superb group, combining surf pop and and 50s rock ‘n’ roll with a little bit of indie snarl, and Matt had this little bit of rather excellent news:
We are getting ready to go out to L.A. at the end of this month and record an album with legendary producer/mad-genius Kim Fowley. If we survive, we’ll make sure to get a copy of our first full length to you. It will be out in late summer-early fall.
So, potentially a bit of album excitement, then. I loved their EP last year which I got from, er, someone. I don’t really remember who or how, but I got anyway and it was brilliant, so I’m really looking forward to this album.
It’s amazing how popular old time rock ‘n’ roll seems to be in indie music these days actually. Glasvegas are one of the most obvious ones, and then that unmitigated shower of shit The Pipettes. Richard Hawley is at it as well as, at times, are the Artic Monkeys. There are plenty of people reworking a kind of classic 50s/early 60s sound at the moment, so perhaps a podcast in that area might be called for in future. Suggestions welcome, and in the meantime, get stuck into this couple of songs from Howlies. Bloody marvellous!
Howlies – Angeline
Howlies – Smoke
Well you know how I said I wasn’t so convinced by Toadcast #17? Well it proved somewhat prophetic, although that prophesy may have been somewhat self-fulfilling of course. It’s one of my least downloaded podcasts for ages, but this one should sort that out. There’s some genuinely excellent music on here, although most of it is pretty obscure. There’s no Arcade Fire or anything to pull in the punters, bar a bit of The Magnetic Fields, but a really good selection of new and emerging music nevertheless.
And why the Homecast? Well that’s obvious of course: we’re back in our house at long last and I recorded this from my massive old lab bench that doubles as a desk and music centre all at once. It’s fucking brilliant – I really should take a picture and post it for you so you can see. The bench is 2.75m long, so I have computer and stuff at one end, stereo equipment at the other and a couple of good sized speakers either side. A music anorak’s paradise!
Toadcast #18 – The Homecast
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01. Aidan John Moffat – Eureka Springs (Edit) (00.00)
02. 4 or 5 Magicians – Forever on the Edge (02.30)
03. Flashguns – St. George (07.53)
04. George Pringle – Carte Postale (13.52)
05. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (16.59)
06. Destroyer – Foam Hands (21.55)
07. Howlies – Aluminum Baseball Bat (28.44)
08. The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir – Aspidestra (38.36)
09. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers (40.48)
10. Ruth Theodore – Overexpanding (49.22)
11. Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal (55.28)
12. Victor Borge – Phonetic Puncutation (63.22)
13. Josiah Wordsworth – Drive-by Media (70.23)
14. King of Prussia – Spain in the Summertime (74.44)
15. The Magnetic Fields – Threeway (83.07)
16. The Forms – Knowledge in Hand (87.44)
17. Howlies – Smoke (90.14)
18. The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom (95.38)
19. Found – When You Fall (102.09)
It’s free, but honestly, it would be worth paying for. Howlies have made their EP Trippin’ With Howlies available for free download from their website, here. I’d highly recommend it, as it’s a superb wee record. Part surf-pop, part old time rock ‘n’ roll and part scratchy, gravelly indie-pop, quite how we’ve ended up in a world where this sort of thing is being handed out for nothing is beyond me. If I were in a position to pay to see these lads live, then I’d feel less guilty, but enjoying something and not being able to acknowledge the work that went into it with a fiver still seems wrong to me. I know the world is changing and there are a million reasons it makes sense to do this, but I still feel wrong just helping myself.
It has cracking pace, and snarls with plenty of indie guitar balls, but underpinning all this is a melodic structure from old fashioned times which reminds me slightly of the Raveonettes’ approach. The approach may be similar, but the two groups don’t sound much like each other. Their list of influences might well point you to what to expect. In terms of how they build their songs, Bo Diddley, James Brown, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry are all evident, but in terms of how they play them you see names like the Ramones and the Velvet Underground in there.
It sounds like a bit of amish-mash, but the fact that the writing comes from one side and the playing from the other means you have an easily graspable sound right from the off, and with songs of this quality you’re always going to be onto a winner.
Howlies – Angeline
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