Well, I’ve finally got around to posting something! I’ve been in Glasgow now for nearly 2 months, moved in with my girlfriend and got a new job, so life has been pretty hectic. Nice and settled now though, so hoping to get around to writing more often.
As a result of being very busy, I’ve not had a great deal of time to listen to new music and expand my horizons. I’ve also been extremely tired of late and this song has been listened to often at work to wake me up in the morning. It’s heavy, but that’s what is needed!
Now, before I say anything else, I know many people have their own preconception of what all Slipknot songs sound like, but please for the sake of not missing out on a good song, push them to one side. This is more akin to that of Corey Taylor’s other band, Stone Sour, which obviously won’t please the more hardcore of Slipknot fans I imagine, but it does add something else to Slipknot’s sound.
Slipknot - Snuff
Apologies for yet another short post, but I’m in the process of a lot of change, namely jobs and cities!
Another busy week for me, so just a quick post. I didn’t actually get around to watching much of the V Festival highlights, but I was made aware of an awesome showing by Muse. I saw them live once before and they were fantastic. I would love to do so again, even more so after watching the following:
Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Live at V Festival 2008)
I’ve been a fan of The Distillers for a while. Good, well thought out, catchy punk tunes, with a hot lead singer in Brody Dalle. Can’t say fairer than that now, can I! I’d highly recommend them if you’re even remotely interested in Punk, or just fast paced guitar music. Unfortunately they are no longer together, however Brody has been working on her next project, entitled Spinnerette. I’ve been patiently waiting for some material to be released by them. They initially released a mashup of various songs they’d been working on and some vague introduction called Case of the Swirls. Now though, there is a full length track available for a free download if you sign up to the newsletter on http://www.spinnerettemusic.com (the email signup doesn’t show in Firefox, at least not for me).
Of course, someone has already uploaded it to YouTube, so here’s the obligatory embeded video for ease of use:
Spinnerette - Valium Knights
Finally, just in case you are not familiar with Brody, here she is:
Again time has been very scarce of late, a lot going in life just now, hopefully normality will resume some time this year!
Without further ado here is this week’s tune:
Dropkick Murphys - (F)lannigan’s Ball
Dropkick Murphys are one of my favourite bands and I’ve not actually had a huge amount of listens to their latest album, but I’ve recently started listening to it a lot more and this is the stand out track for me. It’s got everything, catchy, punky, bagpipes, Ronny Drew from The Dubliners and Spider Stacy from The Pogues!
This is my 3rd Song of the Week, or 4th if you include the initial Song of the Day idea. I think for arguments sake it should just be 4!
Anyway, without further ado, here is this week’s Song of the Week:
The Wildhearts - I Wanna Go Where The People Go
Now, I realise this song is nothing new, clever or otherwise, but I’ve had it in my head all week, so it’s staying! It’s just so catchy, I can’t help but love it. If you’re a fan of short, sharp punky tunes, you could do a lot worse than checking out some more of their stuff, fantastic band!
Apologies for the lack of supporting text this week, I’m quite short of time. I will however leave you with this post that I found amusing!
It’s that time of the week again, it’s song of the week! This week the song is a song that echoes my sentiments on modern hip-hop:
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Fixed
Now I’m not the biggest fan of hip hop by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate it for what it is and do like a lot of classic, old school hip hop. These days however, there is so little imagination in any of the lyrics. Seriously, how many hip hop songs these days are about anything else other than the artists themselves, how much money they have and/or how many girls they’ve had? Personally, I couldn’t care less about either, particularly not in every single song, it’s all incredibly tedious and I wish someone would teach the hip hop artists of today’s world how to write real, meaningful lyrics.
As for Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, I think they’re a great combination. Clearly all the backing beats and pieces are straight off a laptop but they work incredibly well with Scroobius Pip’s unique style and poetry. The lyrics are always well thought out and meaningful, which more than makes up for the catchy, but simple beats. I would recommend their album if you like what you hear on this song or have enjoyed any of their previous releases.
Friday 27th June 2008 – Radiohead and Bat For Lashes at Glasgow Green
Well, this is a rare occurrence, I’m writing a review of a gig well within a week of it actually happening!
I had been looking forward to this one for a long time, having bought my tickets on the day of release. I saw Radiohead previously, 2 years ago at Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh and it was absolutely amazing. Friday’s gig, was just as awesome, though overall, I must say I preferred the Meadowbank gig, for reasons out with the band’s control, though the setlist balanced it out.
Support for the gig came from Bat For Lashes, whom I was aware of beforehand, though hadn’t spent a great deal of time listening to, with the exception of the fantastic Horse and I which was played on the night. Sadly, I didn’t really appreciate much of the rest of her set.
I’m sure she’s probably sick of the comparison to Björk, but she does have a very similar style and sound. Clearly she’s a very talented artist, but the music was lost a bit on me in a live setting, though I will definitely be listening to more of her work in the comfort of my own home, out of the rain.
Speaking of the rain, it pretty much bucketed it down the whole evening, but I wasn’t going to let it ruin my enjoyment, however it soon became clear that indirectly it would due to the numbers of totally inconsiderate people with umbrellas obstructing the view of the stage.
One further annoyance came from the vast number of drunk neds (chavs to some of you). I know the gig took place in Glasgow and there’s always one or two, but my word, they were out in force on Friday. Fortunately I was stood slightly to the side, on the pavement and weren’t bothered too much by them, or the mud.
Despite the above, this was still an absolutely fantastic gig. Radiohead as always, did not disappoint.
It would be very difficult to say if I enjoyed this gig as much as the Foo Fighters at Wembley, they both offer a totally different experience. The Foo Fighters are just born entertainers in a good old rock ‘n’ roll way, whereas Radiohead are just musical geniuses. There just isn’t a band today that can compare to what they have achieved, their creativity and musical flair. 7 studio albums, all of which perfect in their own way. Furthermore, how many people do you know that can pull of wearing red jeans?
I’m struggling to think of superlatives for how the setlist panned out, it was everything I could have hoped for and more! All the way through I was smiling, happy and singing my heart out. As always I got goosebumps on Fake Plastic Trees and Karma Police, but the highlight had to be singing rain down on me, in the pouring rain, through Paranoid Android. The rain even decided to rain extra heavy throughout that track and I didn’t care one bit, it was sheer perfection.
The (stolen) setlist for the gig was as follows:
1. 15 Step
2. Airbag
3. There There
4. All I Need
5. Nude
6. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
7. The Gloaming
8. National Anthem
9. Hunting Bears
10. Faust Arp
11. No Surprises
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. Reckoner
14. Just
15. Bangers and Mash
16. Everything In Its Right Place
17. Fake Plastic Trees
18. Bodysnatchers
OK, so the song of the day idea probably won’t work either, for 2 reasons. Firstly, getting time to update this with something meaningful other than just a YouTube link is unlikely and secondly, I would probably end up struggling to come up with a song for each day that warrants its own post. So, I’ve decided that I’ll save it for when I have a song worthy of talking about.
This week’s song comes from a new Glasgow band, who have been touted by NME. Unlike the usual rubbish that NME seem to like, this band are actually quite good and different to the masses of generic indie band clones out there at the moment. Their sound is probably best compared to New York band, Interpol, though their style is more Joe Strummer.
Anyway, here it is, unfortunately the single version has embedding disabled, so here’s a live TV performance version for embedding purposes:
Glasvegas - Geraldine
The accent comes across quite strongly, which adds to the appeal for me. I had a think about how many other singers keep their accent while singing and couldn’t think of too many. Excluding bog standard English and American accents the bands that immediately came to mind were:
The Cranberries
Arctic Monkeys
The View
Can you think of any others? I’m sure there are lots more, but my brain is not allowing me to think of them at this time!
This is a new feature of my blog that I intend to update as much as I can, so that I’m updating more frequently, rather than just reviewing any gigs and albums I go to / get hold of.
The idea started at work, where a few of us send round a song for the day, each day, that we really enjoy, have stuck in our head or usually on a Friday, make us laugh or smile. My work colleague Jono already does this on his own blog, so apologies for copying the idea Jono!
My first song of the day is:
Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows (UNKLE Remix):
If you’ve ever spent any length of time watching television recently, you may have heard this remix as it’s used in the advert for a new racing game, GRID (which is very good by the way). I’ve always been a fan of QOTSA and UNKLE and the two together work very well and I’ve been listening to this song non-stop this week. Enjoy!
