Ooh. A big sale at Do the Dog Music.
Posted by jamie on May 31, 2009
The very excellent Do the Dog Music are having a ginormous sale of pretty much all of their records. There’s a big list of them all on their myspace blog, and you can get 4 for £10 or 10 for £20. I’ve gor most of these records and they are genuinely great, so have a look and see if you’re missing any.
New song: Big D
Posted by jamie on May 25, 2009
Big D and the Kids Table have put the second track off Fluent In Stroll on their music player. It’s called ”Describing the Sky”.
Advantage: new song
Posted by jamie on May 25, 2009
Advantage have put a sneaky preview of a new track up for listening.
New Riot: one week..
Posted by jamie on May 23, 2009
New Riot will have their myspace design *including songs* up in about one week. It’s here.
If you didn’t know, New Riot are the new band made from former members of Fandangle.
Sax Lessons
Posted by jamie on May 22, 2009
Ryan from Big D is going to give sax lessons in Boston and while they’re on tour. Email him at steadyryan@gmail.com .
White Clouds & Gunfire
Posted by jamie on May 20, 2009
White Clouds & Gunfire
If you’re not up to speed, and that includes me - so don’t panic, I’ve only watched White Clouds and Gunfire once – then the first thing you’ll need to learn, if it doesn’t bite your head off with its obviousness as soon as you’ve stumbled on to WCAG, is that you need to be surprised.
Ever intrepid, and gutted to have missed the previous night’s Sonic Boom Six show in London thanks to a minging flu I’d got from a dirty mate and a few too many late-night walks home in only a t-shirt, I ended up in Peterborough one night, shivering on a shelf and watching a white guy with an afro do the “Fresh Prince” theme-tune. Performing their first live show last night were White Clouds and Gunfire, a local four-piece whose short set washed over us like a wave of warm, synth-driven energy (a great cure for a shiverer) and peppered the already-packed-and-sweaty little room with the crunchy riffs, soaring melodies and perfect harmonies that can lift a dizzy boy into another world inside his head, almost trancelike, and, were it not for the pain and the throat-yuk, have had me throwing my body across the floor and up, spinning, into the air in search of those top notes.
A show this intense, this moving, is a rare experience at any time, but to achieve that in your first ever live set is nothing short of incredible.
Almost two years later, and with Evey, originally the synth player, having taken on singing duties from AJ, who left the band not long after, WCAG continue to defy the boundaries of probability and possibility. Calling themselves “pocket rocket pop-punk” is endearing, but should be interpreted in the broadest sense rather than the “four chords and punk by numbers” insult that rap-metallers would chuck at the Fenix*TX/Blink 182 scene in 2000. WCAG’s music is embellished by Evey’s voice, impossibly powerful given her petite stature, and the band are impressively tight as a four-piece, guitars effortlessly moving from chimy, catchy, charming little hooks to big, powerful riffs and back. Add sweet, soulful and pitch-perfect harmonies and you’ve got a refreshingly clear and incredibly broad sound that defies the pigeon-holing that unfortunately gets dumped on so many “pop-punk” bands.
Bananatown’s been addicted to WCAG for too long now, so we grabbed Evey to ask her exactly what makes it all happen.
How’s it going? What’s going on with the band?
Yeah things are all good – we’re currently gigging and booking new shows around the UK, constantly writing new material and we’re designing our new merch at the moment. There’s no set plan of action [for 2009] exactly, but I guess just to improve as much as we can and get bigger and better! We’re really trying to book as many gigs as we can to build up a fan base. There are so many young, talented bands and artists out there that it’s hard to get yourself heard for the first time.
Looking after that, is there a long-term goal? Ultimately I guess the guys and me are looking to go on tour and start booking the bigger shows and festivals. Then maybe a recording contract..
How did you feel about taking on vocals? Was it your idea? Was it daunting, or did it feel like a challenge? Had you been waiting for it all the time?
I’ve been singing and playing musical instruments for as long as I can remember so when the boys first asked me to come along to a few practices I was just excited about playing in a band for the first time. As the months went on, I got the chance to do my own song in our set. Luckily it went down really well with people and so when AJ decided to leave, it just seemed like the natural progression for us.
Our first gig was the scariest thing ever! I was most worried about letting the boys down or if, the crowd wouldn’t like the “re-vamped” White Clouds and Gunfire. But, the set went really well and the crowd really liked us.
I think because AJ was such a big part of the band, people are mostly interested to see what we could achieve without him. Fortunately, when Ben joined the band (lead guitar) everything just seemed to “click” together, not just musically but personality wise as well. It really is like we’ve found a new passion for being in a band again and we’re all so much more focussed now. Not just with song writing but from a promotional side as well. Only people who have been on stage will understand the buzz you get from performing. Not only do I get to do what I love, but I get to share it with 3 of my closest friends. It’s something anyone would want to experience again and again. Our focus is to write music that we love playing but mainly just have fun.. My favourite “band time” is when we’re in the studio or gigging. It means that we’re all together, having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other and it just brings us all that little bit closer together.
I’m a pain at the moment, I’ve started bring the video camera everywhere we go and start randomly filming. I figured it would be good to look back on and remember when we started out.
You seem to love being in a band. How do you guys all get along together? What’s it like when there’s just four of you rehearsing/recording?
I’m so lucky that the boys and I get on really well. And no I’m not just saying that. I don’t think we’d work so hard at being in a band if we didn’t. We’ve all got different personalities but ultimately we’re just as weird as each other. We’ll usually be in the practice room and either Woodsy or Ben will show us a riff or an idea they’ve been working on and then it just seems to grow from there. I find our better songs tend to come much more organically. For example, Satellite just seemed to come from nowhere, it was finished in just a few practices. So when I get stuck on a melody line or need something less “cheesy” to sing about it really frustrates me.
The guys and I are really influenced by the bands we’re currently listening to. Luckily we all like a really wide range of music so we can each bring something different to the table.
Go on, then. Evey, I hate the “influences” question because it’s so often used badly and ends up pigeon-holing bands or ignoring whole sides of what they are and do. But we don’t do that here. Promise. Seeing as we’re on the subject, though, who has influenced your music? Who would you want to be like, if anyone, or what traits or abilities from anyone else would you most like to emulate? I don’t really have one person who I musically aspire to. However I’m a huge fan of Debbie Harry and Grace Jones. They’re front women who are have a strong, infectious presence about them and don’t give a shit what other people think. If I can somehow emulate a fraction of that into my performance then I’d be happy.. I just want people to listen to us and like what they hear or at the least think that we’re good at what we do. So far we have had really good feedback, not only from people who are already into their pop-punk but from more alternative metal bands as well. I’m so glad you’ve said that. I’ve just written an full intro about how broad and refreshingly different the WCAG sound is. We can definitely use it now. I can totally see metallers being in to you, too.
Art and Soul have also been drooling over White Clouds.. “catchy, melodic choruses and well composed bridges..the ability and enjoyment is abundant. Unsurprisingly, the audience love them. They have loads of local gigs coming up. Be sure to be at at least one of them.”
See www.myspace.com/whitecloudsandgunfire for those dates - and all the guys’ personal twitter accounts.
Mike TV need a new drummer
Posted by jamie on May 14, 2009
Mike TV (formerly Pickeld Dick) need a new drummer, because Nick is off to cook sausage rolls for a job instead. If you are very good at drums, please contact them (linked).
Sonic Boom Six, Cambridge
Posted by jamie on May 13, 2009
12th May 2009
Man on the Moon – Cambridge
Sonic Boom Six
Supports: Random Hand, Beverley Kills, Sam Russo
Midway through a bombastic main support slot, Robin from Random Hand stopped to clarify something: “not shoving people, ‘I’ve got big bollocks’ dancing, I mean a traditional foot-shuffling dance”, and in doing so gave the less hard among us, including little me, a quick breather. The instant Random Hand stepped on, the Man on the Moon’s diddy little dancefloor became a sweaty ball of hair and fists. Those of us not six feet tall, caked in muscle and wearing vests were safe, if just for a few minutes. That said, if you’ve ever seen Random Hand you’ll probably already know that their set was a brutal assault in itself: all dirty mash of sassy trombone, snarled vocal and pumping, angry riffs. There’s a bit of banter with Sam Russo about blowjobs in bus stops and later everybody sings “happy birthday” to Laila K from SB6, because, it’s her birthday (obviously), but tonight the Man on the Moon had been hankering for a pit since doors, and Random Hand are pretty much straight down to business: getting the party started. A tranquil evening in a picture-postcard, cricket on the green part of Cambridge morphs instantly in to a giddy blur of bodies, all jumping, skanking feet and flying arms and hair. This is the best I’ve ever seen Random Hand play, and the night I’ll remember as the first time I realised that I actually really, really enjoy watching them live and like all of their songs. I, Human, Milk and Play Some Ska and Mil are all genuine highpoints of a short but powerful set that’s delivered in typically aggressive fashion, quickly turning a good gig in to a great one and a laid back summer’s evening in to an all out ska/metal assault. The Beverley Kills were good and Sam Russo was great as an opening act – breezy, feel-good acoustic soul that’s a bit like Chris Murray on a Hawaiian holiday. But it’s Random Hand who turn this in to a party. They were simply superb.
The Sonic Boom Six arrive on stage to a packed and eager little room: it’s dark outside now and impressively party-hungry for a Tuesday night. The City of Thieves tour is really impressive as a spectacle: the whole album is played through in order with all of its samples and viral videos projected on to the back wall behind Sexy Neil “Neil” McMinn on drums. It’s an ambitious idea but it goes down a storm tonight.
If you haven’t been lucky enough to hear the record yet it’s yet another case of Manchester’s finest raising the bar that, after every record, we think they’ve set too high. They bring out an album that we think they can’t possibly beat, they beat it, then beat it again. You know the drill.
City of Thieves is dark, too, with just a couple of ska tunes, Rum Little Skallywag and the splendid Through the Eyes of a Child and the frankly bonkers effort Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!, danceable nonetheless, as respite from a full-on punk rock record. City of Thieves is the first record written and recorded with Nick Horne in the band and their sound is bigger and fuller than before, especially when he joins forces with Ben C on guitars. Tonight the SB6 are properly on form, and, with the blue-touch paper well and truly lit by Random Hand and more bodies than ever packed in to a tiny little back room at the end of a hot day, Tuesday night in Cambridge absolutely explodes. There’s scarcely time to draw breath before Strange Transformations, well in to the set (it’s track 7, played in order). It’s a bit Halloween-y and werewolf-y, and Laila has us all doing a Jacko-stylee zombie routine. She also stops to thank “Asher and his crew” for bringing birthday presents and promises everyone a bit of his *lovely* strawberry cheesecake after the set. And then back to it – pockets of space open up from nowhere for a joyous stompy skank through Through the Eyes of a Child before Jericho and the anthemic Floating Away, hilarious for one second because there actually is a “spaceman over my shoulder” – it’s “The Man on the Moon”, remember - wrap up a frantic set. The Boom for an encore that includes Sound of a Revolution, Meanwhile Back in the Real World and People Ack Like They Don’t Know, and, as a testament to the strength of their growing back-catalogue of awesome live songs, wraps up with Piggy in the Middle and Bigger than Punk Rock. It’s been breathless, sweaty and absolutely fantastic.
‘The Last Supper’
Posted by jamie on May 10, 2009
Advantage feature in a new artwork by Gavin Rolph called “The Last Supper” - a modern, urban interpretation of the biblical scene of the same name.
Second Chance - Southampton CANCELLED
Posted by jamie on May 10, 2009
Second Chance have had to cancel tonight’s show in Southampton. Rats. Blame the problems the lovely lads have had with their equipment, and curse those problems. Bah.
