"Never Heard Of Them!!!!"
I don’t know about you but I love telling people about new music, especially when people have never heard of them…but then go on to like them…makes me all warm inside…a bit like a good spiced rum. Here are a few bands…some new…some that have been around for a bit but have never crossed your path…and some that might just hit you like a bolt from the blue. You might not like any of them, you might like a tune or two…you may end up buying everything they have ever released..I don’t care…just as long as you give them a try.
Hooton Tennis Club
Credit for getting me into this band has to go to Jamie Morgan (indie music blogger/reviewer who appears on Rick Witter’s Disco Down radio show once a month) who played them as part of his monthly review of up and coming bands and albums. Luckily for me, soon after hearing the band’s single P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L.P.I.E.R.R.E. (quite a few people say that this sounds like Blur’s Charmless man which I don’t get at all) I didn’t have long to wait to hear more from them as they released their debut album Highest Point In Cliff Town.
This album has had mainly decent reviews from popular mags like NME and Drowned in Sound to reviews in papers such as The Guardian and Telegraph. Without even reading the reviews the first thing that jumped out at me about this band were who they sounded like. To me, they sound like a mixture of a slowed down Parquet Courts, Pavement and The Dandy Warhols…with maybe a bit of Teenage Fanclub thrown in. Practising and recording in their bedrooms has produced a hazy indie ramshackle garage sound that I find really refreshing these days. Guitar solos are left unfinished, mistakes are not corrected and the odd bum note is adored simply as a continuing sign that they’re able to do things their own way. Having spent most of the early 90s listening to baggy indie bands they sound so instantly familiar with the added freshness of having a sound of their own…does that make sense? Although they have a brief scent of other bands they don’t sound like anyone else that is about at the moment. They are a four-piece from around the Wirral area that have been mates from the age of 15 and I get the feeling from listening to them that they really enjoyed making the album…and that is somewhat infectious…it’s certainly drawn me into liking them and loving their debut album…ta once again Jamie! And yes, Jasper has to be the standout song on the album with P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L.P.I.E.R.R.E. hot on Its heels …definitely one of my favourite this year!
3 Songs to look listen to :
Jasper P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L.P.I.E.R.R.E. I’m Not Going Roses Again
Django Django
This band nearly took over my life! A mate of mine who lives in Edinburgh had been to see them a couple of times before telling me to check out their single Default…which I did and instantly fell in love with. If you ever listen to sports radio then you will have heard of them…even if you play FIFA or Grand Theft Auto (GTA) then you’ll have heard of them as they have had Wor as BT Sports theme in 2013, Hail Bop on FIFA and Waveforms on GTA. There is nothing that I can find that I dislike about this band…I literally like everything that they have released. One thing that made me look at them with more interest was the fact that their drummer Dave Maclean was the brother of John Maclean (ex member of The Beta Band..and now movie director) even though they don’t sound especially like the Beta Band…if they do the Django’s are more of a poppier dancey cousin.
I first heard their self-titled debut album when I saw them on BBC playing at Glastonbury in 2013…I enjoyed it that much I bought it the very next day and didn’t stop playing it for a good 6 months. I finally managed to see them live for the first time in February this year up in Edinburgh as a pre-album launch…where they played the entire debut album with a few new ones thrown in…seeing them live demonstrated to me how much energy they encompass from the crowd then fire back out in songs like Waveforms, Default and Silver Rays…I was emotionally drained at the end of the gig…I have not been like that since I last saw The Charlatans at the old NYNEX in Manchester many moons ago.
Their new album Born Under Saturn moved away slightly from the debut that was created in Dave’s bedroom…sometimes using cardboard boxes for distorted drum sounds to being able to mess around using new samplers and expensive production equipment. This shift has created a less raw sound than the first album but it has…for me anyway…focused more on the harmonies between Vinny and Jim, the dreamy synth and piano melodies by Tommy and not to forget Dave’s excellent drum beats and percussion. There is the Beach boys-esque floaty single First Light, summer anthem Pause Repeat with its shuffling beat and repetitive piano melody that is quickly followed by the equally addictive single Reflections, where a thumping synth beat makes way for a grooving hook and arguably the most danceable song on the album. This band never fails to put a smile on my face and their debut album must be easily the most played album for the last 3 years.
3 Songs to listen to:
Default Waveforms Shake and Tremble
The Beta Band
If I was left stranded on a desert island with sony walkman and one tape then I hope to god that it’s The Three EPs album by The Beta Band!!! This is the band that I can’t believe most people have never heard of. If i’m ever asked “What bands do you like?” then I will always mention The Beta Band, but the response is very much always the same “never heard of them”. There are certain bands that I like…there are bands I love…The Beta Band though are different…I feel The Beta Band…they are in my blood!! The vocals…the percussion…guitar riffs…ship fog horns…whistles…computer bleeps…echoes…rocks tapped together…everything.
Although their first album was more of a compilation of their first 3 singles…the aptly named Three EPs went on to be for me their finest album..compilation or not. From start to finish it sucked me in on their psychedelic journey into the unknown…from their folk/indie rock beginnings with Dry The Rain to their sat by the fire on a cold night sing-a-long Dogs Got A Bone to the full-on psychedelic pop ending with Needles in My Eyes. Throughout The Three EPs, rather than employing the typical verse-chorus-verse song structure exhausted by 90s indie britpop the band successfully used hip-hop drum loops, and even 70s funk and soul to build their songs around infectious beats, grooves, and melodies. And while many of the songs cause instant head-bobbing, they are also helped along by Steve Mason’s alternately mantra-like vocal lines, which also manage to display a trace of sadness and introspection amid hippie-ish come-together sentiment. The Beta Band have gone on to produce 3 studio albums: The Beta Band (self-titled), Hot Shots II and Heroes to Zeroes. All decent albums in their own right but never really came close to the same feeling as their first Three EPs. Songs like Broke, Human Being and Assessment are standout songs off their albums.
3 Songs to listen to:
Dry The Rain Inner Meet Me Human Being
Parquet Courts
New York indie garage rock four-piece Parquet Courts are a band that only have post-punk ideals of playing venues and putting out records. They owe an undeniable debt to the likes of Pavement and to a certain degree The Velvet Underground but pigeonholing them as mere copycats would be to ignore the subtle evolutionary tweaks they’ve made. The first song I heard by them was Stoned and Starving from their Light Up Gold album which I stumbled upon when watching some live gigs on YouTube. I like raw sounding bands and this band took that sound to a new level with their wailing guitars full of reverb and distortion with the lead singers ranting gravelly vocals and catchy bass-lines…I was instantly hooked.
Their album Sunbathing Animal is my favourite album of theirs and out of all of the bands I have mentioned in this blog it’s like the band have made it a challenge to like them. They are not a band that you can just simply throw on when sat at a dinner party…although I did once and it didn’t go down well…probably another reason why I’m divorced. You will either like them or take a massive distaste to them immediately. I’d love to see them live…although at the age of 40 now I reckon I’ll be stood near the back nodding my head and smiling while the youth of today mosh about like I used to in the 90s…where your favourite sparkling trainers would be ruined in the space of one song!
3 Songs to listen to:
Instant Disassembly Black and White What Color Is Blood
