Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Elastic Sleep

Elastic Sleep are an Irish dream pop/shoegaze band currently earning all the attention thanks to a series of brilliant live performances supporting bands like The Chameleons and Fight Like Apes. In 2013 they released the debut single 'Anywhere', a breezy dream pop delight....quickly followed by a swirling cover of Nancy Sinatra's 'You Only Live Twice. Their brand new EP 'Leave You' has just been released on Big Tea Records and shall propel them to the greatness so beautifully earned.






Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Courtney Love UK Tour 2014

No words are required. No words, just joy and the most amazing butterflies of anticipation! Love always. Always love!

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Sloop John B: The Beach Boys



The harmonies, the melodies, the inventiveness, the academic nous. This band created the greatest summertime soundtracks in the history of summer itself. The exuberance of surf rock resonating along Californian shorelines are, in every single way, the sole property of this band. And let’s not even begin the deserved sycophancy which Pet Sounds so glaringly earned itself. It's a struggle to say anything about the Beach Boys without stumbling off into the precious stones of their majestic masterpiece- it would just seem terribly uneducated not to give it a nod on the way through. Best song on the album (in my opinion) is seventh track Sloop John B. Smooth guitar chomping with a full band arrangement and the shared vocal duties of Brian Wilson and Mike Love.

They are legends though, aint they? (starting a new paragraph with an observation built on something from a previous paragraph is incorrect grammatical structuring by the way) Traditionally a West Indies folk song the Beach Boys version is musically different from the original and employs tambourine, electric bass, clarinet, organ, glockenspiel, flute and saxophone throughout the transformation. Brian sang the first and third verses while Mike took charge of the second verse. Released as a single in March 1966 it charted highly throughout the world and remains their most popular hits...and the only track on Pet Sounds that isn't a Brian Wilson original.

SLOOP JOHN B
We come on the sloop John B
My grandfather and me
Around Nassau town we did roam
Drinkin' all night, got into a fight
Well, I feel so broke up, I want to go home

So hoist up the John B's sail

See how the mainsail sets
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, yeah yeah
Well, I feel so broke up, I wanna go home

The first mate, he got drunk

And broke in the captain's trunk
The constable had to come and take him away
Sheriff John Stone
Why don't you leave me alone? Yeah yeah
Well, I feel so broke up, I wanna go home

So hoist up the John B's sail

See how the mainsail sets
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, let me go home
Why don't you let me go home?
Hoist up the John B's sail
Hoist up the John B
I feel so broke up, I wanna go home
Let me go home

The poor cook he caught the fits

And threw away all my grits
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn
Let me go home
Why don't they let me go home?
This is the worst trip I've ever been on

So hoist up the John B's sail

See how the mainsail sets
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home, let me go home
I wanna go home, let me go home
Why don't you let me go?

The Beach Boys Official Site

Saturday, April 19, 2014

A Playlist Compiled For Subba Cultcha

A selection of tracks from bands  featured at Subba Cultcha this week including Kirsty MaColl, Wilko Johnson, Dexters, The Whereabouts, Chuck Ragan and more…

Red Fang: Voices Of The Dead
 (from the album Whales And Leeches)

Dexters: They’re Blind
 (from the album Shimmer Gold)

Chuck Ragan: Wake With You 
(from the album Till Midnight)

Saintseneca: Bloodbath 
(from the album Dark Arc)

The Whereabouts: Emmalene
 (recent single)

Kirsty MaColl: They Don’t Know 
(from the album All I Ever Wanted-The Anthology)

Wilko Johnson & Roger Datrey: Ice On The Motorway 
(from the album Going Back Home)

The Chap: What Did We Do
 (from the album We Are Nobody)

Ema: Dead Celebrity
 ( from the album The Future’s Void)

Ginger Wildheart: Body Parts 
( from the album Albion)

Lykke Li: No Rest For The Wicked
 ( from forthcoming album I Never Learn)

The Melodic: Come Outside
 ( from the album Effra Parade)

Eno.Hyde: Daddy’s Car
 ( from the forthcoming album Someday World)

We Were Evergreen: False Start
( from the forthcoming album Towards)

Ratking: Canal
( from the album So It Goes)




Saturday, April 12, 2014

Louise Distras: Love Me The Way I Am.


Homophobia isn't as courageous, unconstrained or point-blank as most of us assume it to be. It doesn't shout loud but insinuates quietly. It rarely has the guts to stand up tall and verbalise so permeates with negative suggestion, it's poisoned malignance and bitter resent too unsophisticated to advocate with anything of any pertinence. It worms and it tunnels and it burrows with whispered prejudice until it becomes internalised in it's victims through their own perception of how they see themselves. That is the very worst of prejudices, the least visible but the most damaging. Thankfully it doesn't always win...but when it does. I am neither homosexual, bi-sexual or homophobic. I don't know how it must feel but, through the words of those I know who do, I can appreciate how it feels. The new single by Louise Distras 'Love Me The Way I Am' is her very personal and very tasteful interpretation of that very subject, based on and written about the experiences of a close friend and, regardless the narratives or the musics genre or even the 'protest singer' tag she has inherited....love IS love no matter what. I don't have the intellect or proper understanding to furnish it with anything other than the worthless opinionated conjecture, lousy with cliches, that seem to dress the bones of a review - and which are rarely about the context and all about the music anyway...so I wont even bother.


http://www.louisedistras.co.uk/

New Artist Of The Day: The Whereabouts



The effortless personification of retro cool…

The Whereabouts are teenagers, the mod youth, defined in the narrow cut of their tailored suits they are the poster boys for the approaching generation. They play outstanding R&B influenced catchy rock/pop that is confident enough to emulate the era it traditionally belongs to yet sharp enough to cast a modernity of it’s own competence should there ever be some doubt that it may not. Their youthful energy conjures a bombastic 60’s pop sound consistent with British Invasion bands like The Merseybeats while their deeper edged bluesy guitar work is an endearing nod to their Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry influences. They resonate with a definite profoundness and are remarkably perceptive to the aesthetics of the genre they operate in. They’ve already attracted the attention of the industry with last years rollicking ‘TwentyThirtyThree’ EP and the hook laden single ‘Emmalene’. An extensive gig schedule including a support slot with American band Daughtry earned them play-listing on America’s leading radio station KROQ…. A hugely significant indication of their merit surely. Further grooviness continues with tremendous follow up single ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’. The world, it would seem, might one day be theirs!”