Song, by Toad

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I confidently sat down to write my Friday Fives this week and to introduce the Candy Claws‘ virtual tour video only to realise that I have managed to fuck things up.  I am a week late.  For some reason I had it absolutely fixed in my head that it was supposed to be this Friday, so all I can do is apologise profusely to the band and to Kev from Indiecater Records and hope that playing it this week will serve the purpose at least reasonably well.  Honestly lads, for some reason I was convinced it was supposed to be this week, I’m really sorry.

Your job, as readers, is to may up for my idiocy by taking extra time out of your day to listen to Candy Claws’ music and hence try and make my apologies for me.  And buy the album too, while you’re at it – the whole thing can be previewed here and it really is very good.

In other news did anyone see pictures of the Queen getting on a train this morning?  Christ she looks like a fucking bag lady.  I alternate between tolerance of and annoyance with the royal family.  They can be hugely entertaining, and of course they bring money into the country, but we pay for the cunts and frankly I think it’s time we started demanding a little more for our money.

Shortage of teachers or nurses?  Send in a minor royal for a few months to cover.  Traffic lights out in London town, get Phil the Greek to pop round and do the hand signals thing for a while.  Let’s face it, apart from buggering the servant and beating up foreigners he’s not going to be doing anything else with his time.

We could even save the NHS money by insisting that Charles follow his own guidance on alternative medicine.  Deny the stupid old fucker actual medical care and see if his sugar pills and anticlockwise kidney massages cure him of fucking cancer.  No? Good, now we can stop wasting money on them and he’ll be dead so we won’t have to keep repairing him in his dotage like we did the Queen Mum.  Actually, with her belligerence and monumental gin habit, she and Phil the Insulter are the only two I have any real affection for.

So, this is the last Friday Five before Christmas.  I promise to put one up on Boxing Day too, just for those of us who will need the internet to escape the gluttony.  Honestly, how many sherries with boring Uncle Brian can you really handle anyway – you know you’ll need your Five Fix!

1. What use could the Royals be best put to?
2. Favourite Royal (from any nation, past or present).
3. How much of your Christmas shopping remains to be done.
4. At what point does the self-loathing of gluttony kick in for you around Christmas time.
5. Fuck it, link to a silly picture on the internet just for shits and giggles (just paste the URL into your comment – Wordpress will do the rest).

Here is my one and only concession to the world of Christmas.  I tend to avoid Christmas songs, except for Phil Ochs (miserable) and Tom Lehrer (caustic) but for the last Friday Five before the day itself I thought fuck it, why not.  So happy fucking Christmas you fuckers, that’s all you’re getting.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Traveling Salesman’s Young Wife Home Alone on Christmas in Montpelier, VT

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The Felice Brothers – Christmas Song

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Saint Etienne – I Was Born on Christmas Day

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Tom Lehrer – A Christmas Carol

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Phil Ochs – No Christmas in Kentucky

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There are times when this album sounds like a deranged operetta.  There are times when it sounds like experimental lounge pop.  There are times when it sounds like a straightforward twisted indie.  It crashes about all over the place, is riddled with imperfections when the melody doesn’t quite catch, when a couple of songs get lost in one another and so forth, but in general this is pure mental brilliance.

It does feel incredibly familiar – it’s reminiscent of a great many recent bands, but rarely of the exact same ones for all that long.  The Revolution Will be Merchandised is an example of a pure pop song: Broadway choruses, sharp lyrics and jaunty brass.  There are plenty of these moments in this album, which is a very good thing, because this kind of easy enjoyment anchors the more bizarre moments – it just keeps the record from becoming disorientating, which would certainly be possible.

It’s a fucking smart album as well.  Songs called Baby Boomer Backstroke will tell you about the sense of humour of this band, although the wit of the lyrics can be somewhat obscured by their obliqueness and the swirl of the music around them.  I agree with Kevin, head* of their excellent label Indiecater, that this really is a album for multiple listens.  Great stuff.

The Van Allen Belt – Dr. Layman’s Terms/The Hills Are Alive

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The Van Allen Belt – Way Up

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MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Indiecater Records

* By head, I mean CEO, head of A&R, cleaning lady, canteen staff and work experience teenager.  Bascially, there’s just him, as far as I’m aware, so whilst he is the head of the label, strictly speaking…  well, you know what I mean.

There’s a lot of Christmassy stuff happening in the blogosphere at the moment. Basically, given that the music industry tends to grind to a halt over this period, I guess that there isn’t that much for people to write about, particularly those of us who are primarily driven by new music.

To fill this gap a lot of musicians, particularly Americans – who seem to take Christmas music a little more seriously than we do here in the UK, where it is regarded with a sort of awestruck horror most of the time – seem to record one-off Christmas songs. Nevertheless, it is to an Irish label that I point you, and none other than Indiecater Records, set up by fellow blogger Kevin from mp3 Hugger. Indiecater tend to release one of two kinds of album: either long lost albums which Kevin feels do not deserve to be lost to the mists of time; or Indiecater compilations, which are paid assemblies of songs by independent bands, which Kevin sells in order to both spread the word and bring a little revenue to the artists whilst doing so.

Given this general approach, it hardly came as a surprise when it turned out that he was releasing and Indiecater Christmas Compilation. As per usual, I hardly know any of the bands, but then that is part of the point of things like this. It’s a very small amount of money – six and a half Euros – and that money goes to help support independent music by directly putting money into the pockets of the bands who are the bread and butter of websites like mine, and like Kevin’s.

Two bands on there who I do know are My Teenage Stride and The Winks, both of whom are superb. So here’s an incentive to shell out your hard-earned.

My Teenage Stride – Ears Like Golden Bats

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The Winks – Slumber Party Let’s Go

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