Tuesday Already?

Weeks are going far far far too fast at the moment, not a clue where they are going but it seems to be a week between posts here and I'm never sure why. The last week has seen a little less gigging from me although I did get a nice free ticket to the Magic Numbers, who were very good and were supported by the sadly very average Concretes. But I have been checking out some of the bands appearing on the South By South West page and this is some of the highlights.

If you get a moment, fire down a comment about whether you like them or not and any others you might have found.

Kissing Tigers were my favourite I think. I've been really into guitar bands that I can dance to recently, (maybe why I find myself uncontrollably liking Panic! At the Disco). This band definitly tick the danceable box and I think this is a really strong track, sounds like someone else but not sure who.

Kissing Tigers - Stay in Love

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Gingerbread Patriots drew my attention for that name and I'm glad they did because this is a band I really like the sound of. They have a little Pavement in them but I'm really hearing contemporary influences like the Postal Service and Architecture in Helsinki going on here. From New Mexico and making an appearance at SXSW I'd really like to hear more of this band. If you like this track I really suggest you have a listen to an unsigned London band called My Sad Captains who I posted on previously and who have made one of my favourite tracks of the year.

Gingerbread Patriots - Wax Lips and Hummingbirds

My Sad Captains - All Hat and No Plans

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The Velvet Teen have toured with the likes of Death Cab for Cutie and you can definitly hear the similarity on some of their tracks. Having said that, the track I'm linking to is quite different and even reminds me of Antony and the Johnsons a little. Maybe just me. Really good band though and have liked the other stuff on their myspace. Go have a look, you may well like!

The Velvet Teen - A Captive Audience

Later...

I'm BACK!!!

I'm back, dissertation in and ready to post again, I'm away to put together some top notch posts (I hope) but first I'm putting up a track as a favour for someone and also because its a pretty damn great track. Anyone who downloaded the Coldplay remix the other week will want to get involved with this. Its a little less dancy and a little more chilled but is another excellent job from a great remixer.


The Killers- Mr Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)

Later...

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of posts at the moment, it is due to work at university and I would rather wait and put up good posts rather than little bits here and there that I don't really care about.

Any comments or suggestions for bands to put up in the mean time are always welcome. I will be putting up some treats this weekend so be sure to check back.

Later...

The Rakes

Wednesday day night brought another gig, this time the ever fabulous Rakes at the QMU in Glasgow. The band didn't come alone though, this time they came with 3 support bands; White Rose Movement, Duels and Switches.

Taking each band as they came we started with Switches. Personally I thought they were really poor, nothing original at all and even worse than that they reminded me of Hard-fi; a band I will never understand the popularity of save for the irritatingly good Hard to Beat. I don't see them becoming much mostly because of some terrible lyrics. But if my opinion means very little to you click the link and see their myspace where you can have a listen.

Next up were Duels. Posted on this lot before. They have some good tunes in that set of theirs just a shame some don't come across as well as they do on record. They ended on the excellent Potential Futures which I've posted before but as I think its so damn excellent and I can't think of any track to make you like the band more than it, I'll post it again. Sorry for the laziness but if you didn't get it last time then I really suggest you give it a try.

Duels - Potential Futures

Duels were followed by the band I had not seen before and was perhaps most excited about seeing before hand, the excellent, White Rose Movement. The band came on looking as painfully fashionable and London-esque as you can imagine. they kicked off in fine style with a vigour and style that could have easily fooled you they were the headliners. They played all the singles I've come to love so far including Love is a Number which would be outstanding in anyones setlist. They somehow didn't get the reaction from the crowd I had expected but they did a fine job and finished on their heaviest, but still danceable, Alsation. Definitly a band to keep an eye on, you can find the album on all the networks at the moment and its really worth a listen.

White Rose Movement - Alsation

But the night was in the end all about one band. Before the gig I was lucky enough to sit next to the Rakes new keyboard player, Ethan, in the bar and had a word with him. He said the band felt like they needed something to make the sound on stage complete and so this was the first tour that they had employed a keyboard player. I hadn't expected it to make such a difference. The band came on to, if memory serves me right, Terror!, which went down excellently. Singer Alan Donghue pogo'd about all night with his ever unique moves and really got the crowd alight. Every song was a treat and even the new tracks that they mocked wouldn't go down so well, went down a treat( see last week for a link to new single All to Human). This was the fourth time I've seen the band but by far the best. Any other band would look like they were going through the motions having toured for the last year pretty much non-stop but not the Rakes, far from it. Simply brilliant throughout, although slightly hampered by sound at the QMU the Rakes seem to be looking fresher than ever. What struck myself and a friend who had been at the Arctic Monkeys last week, was simply that this band have better tunes, better attitude and simply better onstage. I have no idea why this band haven't made all the headlines yet but on the basis of the new material I don't think it will be long. Still, I've got a soft spot for the old ones so in a Tommy Shots first, and to celebrate a band really at the top of their game, here's two tracks from the boys. Enjoy.

The Rakes - Terror! (Extended Mix)

The Rakes - Work Work Work (Pub Club Sleep)

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In a totally unrelated post and really just to celebrate the return of one of my favourite bands, here is another Yeah Yeah Yeahs track. This was a track that I got into when the first album came out by getting this mp3 of the band. It was about the time I was getting some of their Unitard tracks, acoustic versions of their main stuff, such as the amazing version of Our Time. This track is apparently going to feature on the new album in some form and I am very exicted by that, it was simply too good to go unreleased although it is strange for such a good track to be unused for the first album. The track certainly makes a lot more sense when you have heard the style of the new track Gold Lion and the overall idea they are going with. As you may realise when you play the track has been ripped by someone other than myself but after that annoying intro, its all good.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts (Live Acoustic)

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs!!!

I know I'll be the 100th blog you see hosting this today but just in case I'm the first that you see, here's the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs track. Pretty different, leave comments as to what you think or anything else you have heard lately you would like me to post.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion (not that remix or any radio rip - proper full length edit)

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What a weekend!

What a great weekend. Two amazing gigs, Scotland beat France at the rugby and my dissertation is finally beginning to take shape, all in all pretty good.

But its the gigs that we will of course concentrate on.

But first...

Roland Shanks have been a bit of an obsession of mine the last few days ever since I heard Steve Lamacq play their new single Cutting Teeth last week. It took me by surprise as I hadn't even read the name before let alone heard them before. Then I downloaded some of their stuff and everything I have so far is brilliant. Joy Division base, new wave vocals and some Bloc Party-esque drumming; simply brilliant. If you like Bloc Party, White Rose Movement or the Rakes then I definitly recommend this one, you will not be disappointed! This may very well be everyone's new favourite band.

Roland Shanks - August

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My first gig was Jose Gonzalez at the liquid rooms on Saturday night. First was a support band who I cannot remember the name of but thats mostly because they were like a poor Mazzy Star and didn't really do much for me. Jose has been on my stereo ever since I heard Heartbeats at the beginning of last year; nobody could have guessed the success he would go on to have with that track. Its also funny that nobody on the radio or in the press here is mentioning that the song is a cover of The Knife. If you haven't heard the original I would recommend hearing it if only for the huge difference between the two, I would recommmend even more that you go to Said the Gramophone and download the version that they put up last week. Jose was as expected not absolutely breathtaking but he was consistently excellent throughout, a highlight being when someone thew some bouncy balls on stage during Heartbeats, very funny and he took in his stride and continued. All the album favourites were on there and he did his now famous covers of Massive Attack's Teardrop and the track I'm going to post, Kylie's Hand on Your Heart, which I'm sure you'll all have but is superb and certainly worth getting if you currently don't.

Jose Gonzalez - Hand on Your Heart

Then Sunday night was a real treat all round. Back again to the Liquid Rooms, same venue as the night before, but this time for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. This gig was being put on in association with BBC 6 Music which is the excellent on line radio station from the BBC which plays excellent new and old music all day, its a real shame its not broadcast on proper radio or I would have it on all the time. As a result of this we had Steve Lamacq compering which was a nice surprise. i must say that whilst Clap Your Hands were excellent, as expected, as were support band Two Gallants, the biggest shock of the night came from The Very, an Edinburgh band who I somehow had never seen before but were absolutely incredible. I don't remember the last time I was that blown away by a band I had never heard before. There are only two of them, a guitarist who looks like your usual indie art-rocker boy and a drummer who was not your usual indie art-rocker guy but a stocky long haired ginger bloke who drummed mind-blowingly throughout. If I was to compare to any bands it would be somewhere inbetween The Futureheads and the White Stripes. They have a few tracks up on their website but to be honest the recordings don't do their live ability credit.

Please go to their website http://www.thevery.com and have a listen to their stuff and show some love, Save Me from the City is particularly great and was even better live. So great live it was amazing.

Next up were Two Gallants. I have been listening to the few tracks of theirs I had for a while without feeling the need to investigate too much further. Shame though as everything was really good. All rocking country music, sometimes with an Irish folk vocal thing going on which wa cool. The drummer is absolutely mental though and looks like he's going to knock the whole kit over all the time, he looked a lot like Animal from the Muppets really, but didn't and played a solid set. Think I'll have a listen to the album soon as everything was really strong; strange lyrics at times which are worth checking out if you have a moment.

Two Gallants - Las Cruces Jail

And as for Clap Your Hands, well they were of course excellent. The chat was, as last time, kept to a minimum but it didn't really matter, the stage presence was aweseome. They did all the best from the album and my two favourite new ones, Satan Said Dance (see previous CYHSY post) and Cigarettes. Both excellent. The crowd really got into them and although some of the band were maybe going through the motions, frontman Alec Ounsworth was still doing his thing, sending vocals every which way and strutting round the stage rather chicken like. I still love them and still think are deserving of all the blog hype they got, just wish Wolf Parade would start getting the respect over here they deserve.

If you are burning through your CYHSY album, why not check out Alec's solo site where there are a handful of free mp3s.

Great couple of gigs though, sorry to leave the post so late

Later...

Some treats

The Sunshine Underground are a band I have posted on before but after seeing their incredible latest single appallingly miss out on the top 40 on Sunday I feel I must do something to help bring them to people's attention. The band have relocated themselves to Leeds and are easily one of the best out of an incredible bunch of bands in the city.
This track and other remind me of the Killers with the beats of the Secret Machines and the swagger of Kasabian. I love this track and if you head to their myspace you'l get more of the same. There is absolutely no way that this is the last we will hear of this band and if you want to be able to say you were listening to this months before the inevitable re-release, I veru much recommend a download of this track.

The Sunshine Underground - Commercial Breakdown

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The Harrisons are a band that have been kicking about doing very little for a while. I saw a hugely uninspiring set from them early last year in a small venue in Edinburgh and even though I could tell they had the tracks, they just weren't doing it live. I've been listening to Out Tonight for sometime but when I heard Steve Lemaq play this track the other day I remembered what it was i liked about them. This song is a really good track, very simple but very effective and I'm glad I came back to listening to this band. Apparently they filled in as support on some of Be Your Own Pets latest UK tour so if they are good enough for that then I think they must have improved somewhat since I last saw them.

The Harrisons - Blue Note

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Now, a strange final post but one with good reason. I am posting this Ryan Adams track for a numerous reasons. One is that he is my favourite solo artist and ranks near my favourite artist/band whatever of all time. His volume of output puts all other bands to shame with the consistency and quality. He has done nearly 9 albums, depending on what you count, of solo material in about 6 years and that isn't including any of the live tracks of which anyone could make easily another 20 excellent albums. My other reason for posting is that I am going to see him next week in Glasgow and am very excited. My final reason for posting is that Liz over at
Come Pick Me Up blog has been showing good love for this blog and her Ryan obsession seems to equal mine so this post is mostly a thank you to her, but also for you guys who may not delve into his stuff too often, to hear how amazing he is live. I can't recommend anything by him enough but if it has to be one album then its the one that this song originally comes from; Heartbreaker, a near perfect album.

Ryan Adams - Oh My Sweet Carolina (Live)

Later...