Last weekends August bank holiday is the first I havn't been at a festival of sorts since I was 15; having done London's Notting Hill Carnival and Liverpool's Matthew Street Festival the last 2 years and 9 consecutive Reading festivals previously. Thus, understandably, the Carling weekend festival at Reading/ Leeds will always hold a special place in my heart and, for me signals the end of the major festival season (yes I am aware its Bestival in a fortnight!). In previous years I have seen some of my all time heroes play there including the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Incubus, Blur, Smashing Pumpkins and the Pixies so I dedicate this weeks blog to that very festival and its infamous yellow poster...
Something Old...
NYC three piece Interpol are one of the few bands on my list of 'yet to see live before I die' alongside Radiohead and Kasabian and if the majority of these years lineup wasn't so gash I may well have ticked them off the list. Taking to main the main stage on Sunday night at Reading before Elbow and Muse. To choose a stand out track is a pretty tough decision. It could’ve been almost anything from 2002’s awesome debut ‘Turn on the Bright Lights’ such as the classics ‘Obstacle 1’, ‘PDA’ or ‘Roland’ to the 2nd to last, but means least 07’s ‘Our love to admire’. This album includes the brilliant ‘Pioneer to the falls’, ‘Mammoth’, ‘No I in threesome’ and the anthem, ‘The Heinrich Maneuver’.
The last, self titled album released late last year really disappointed me and was very samey, truth be told with the exception of a few tracks including the single ‘Barricade’ - so I am going to choose a track from my favourite album, the stunning 2004’s ‘Antics’ featuring the anthemic ‘Slow Hands’, C’mere’ and the epic ‘Evil’, turn it up loud and unwind....
Something New...
Reading and Leeds' festival for me is always leaps and bounds ahead of most other festivals with top quality new bands on their bill (glasto aside), this year being no exception with Naked and Famous, Pulled apart by horses, the Joy Formidable, Dizraeli, Everything Everything and the brilliant Warpaint all with top slots and didn't disappoint with great live performances. Ever since my mate Dave told me about them a few years ago, I have been in love with the LA art rock 4 piece girl band Warpaint consisting of front lady Emily, Theresa on lead, Jenny Lee on bass and Stella on drums. They released there debut album ‘The Fool’ in 2010, described by the RHCP’s Flea as a “sublime and beautiful record” and Anthony Keidis who described the band as most promising on the LA scene. The album is a joy to the earbuds and features the brilliant singles ‘Shadows’ and the awesome ‘Undertow’, enjoy...
Something Borrowed...
With both the Strokes (click to see my Strokes blog)and Pulp headlining Saturday at this years Reading, both of which who I have been lucky enough to see headline that very same stage in previous years it had to be this track that I choose as this weeks 'borrowed'. The main stage audience of around 60,000 strong were treated as Pulp's legendary front man Jarvis Cocker joined the Strokes' Julian Casablancas on stage during their set for a rare performance to cover the Cars 1978's anthem 'Just What I needed', turn it up loud....
Something Blue...
Unfortunately the sad news that what of my favorite bands Jane's Addiction were forced to cancel there Reading show at the last minute as Perry lost his voice. The band have two rock legends front man Perry Farrell and one of the worlds greatest guitarist's Dave Navarro who are always put on a awesome live show. The band thats line-up at one time included RHCP’s Flea and GnR’s Duff McKagab, their 1st tour saw them open for Iggy Pop and the Ramones, host their own US festival Lollapalooza that has including bands such as incubus and NiN.
Its another tough one to choose a track with such a quality back catalogue dating back over 20 years including so much from the controversial ‘Mountain Song’ to the epic smash hits ‘Been Caught Stealing’, ‘Superhero’ and ‘Stop!’.
For me, though it was around the time Strays was released in 2002 when I fell in love with the band, all the sexuality/ nudity still present but without the violent side. With there live show being somewhat of a “Sexual Psycho Circus”, it only seems right to choose the bands biggest single to date ‘Just because’, for that very reason...
It only occurred to me tonight that I had never blogged one of my favorite bands of all time Wakefield's finest, the awesome three piece, twins Gary, Ryan and their younger brother Ross Jarmin, better known as...the Cribs It's a really tough decision choosing a track by them and it could have been - 'Another Number' from the 2004's debut, 'Hey Scenesters' from the 2005 follow up 'the New Fellas' or the non album track 'You're gonna loose us'. To the hard hitting 'We were aborted' or the beautiful 'We share the same skies' from their last album 2009's 'Ignore the Ignorant' that features my hero, the Smiths and Modest Mouse's legendary guitarist Johhny Marr. For me personally, the song I am going to choose is taken from my favorite album of there's, 2007's 'Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever' and it could of been anything from 'Men's needs' itself, or 'Our Bovine Republic' but it has to be the track that pretty much sums me up as a person and has been my ringtone for about 4 years 'I'm a realist', "I'm a romantic, I'm an indecisive, piece of sh*t"... Something New...
The Jiggerman maybe the most financially successfully hip hop and highest selling solo artist in history, having not only mastered the genre with his style of cool and laid back vocals on albums such as ‘the Blueprint‘ and ‘the Black album’ including tracks such ‘Izzo’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ ‘Big Pimpin’, ‘Encoure’ and the classic ’99 Problems’. Not content with just this, he is also Beyonce’s husband, owns his own clothing label, Rocawear, co-owns NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the former CEO of Def Jam Records but now he is out of retirement once more and he’s got his swagger back!
My other half Kate and one of her best mates Claire have been acting like regular wiggers since they first heard the album ‘Watch the Throne’ using terms like swagger, vibing and H.A.M which co-insidently is the first single from the new Jay Z and Kanye West's album. The album is very much lyrically themed around opulence, power, fame and materialization and my personal favorite track is the genius ‘Otis’ with shades of the Kanye and Jamie Foxx's hugely successful ‘Gold Digger’ collaborative. The track heavily samples from, as its title suggests, one of the godfathers of soul, Otis Redding and ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ which balances out perfectly alongside the over aggression of ‘H.A.M’...
Something Borrowed...
I almost weeped with joy from my third eye when I first saw the bands chosen for the Muppets inspired ‘Green Album’, which lands on Wednesday (August 23rd) and will provide the soundtrack to the Muppets movie released on my birthday November 23rd (starring my hero Animal!). Alongside the likes of the genius Ok Go and Weezer (dueting with Paramore’s Hayley Williams) are the likes of My Morning Jacket, Alkaline trio and my favourite track on the album the brilliant, Airbourne Toxic Event and their version of ‘the Wishing Song’ peppered with their genius and unique twist of LA indie, enjoy...
Something Blue....
Its’ been one of those weeks for me, a shit week in work with the end of holiday blues topped of by my beloved Everton losing their opening game of the season against newly promoted QPR...Queens of the Stone Age (QOSTA) are a band that always cheer me up when I'm feeling blue! Hailing from Palm Dessert, California, they formed in 97 from the ashes of Josh Homme’s previous band, the epic Kyuss, they developed their riff orientated style of grunge/ metal/ blues fusion.
After Homme briefly joined the Screaming Trees as their touring guitarist QOSTA were formed and released the debut EP ‘Gamma Ray’ alongside Pearl Jam/ Soundgarden legend Matt Cameron and Van Conner of the Screaming Trees. QOSTA released their self titled debut album in 98 with Homme recording the vocals, guitar and bass and Alfredo Hernadez on the drums, before former Kyuss bassist Nick Oliveri joined. It wasn’t until 2000 that they released Rated R, that includes the genius 'Feel good hit of the summer', 'Monsters in the parasol' and 'The lost art of keeping a secret'. This album was the bands real breakthrough album and at the height ofthe hype Mark Lanegan joined as a full time member and Oliveri was arrested in Brazil for one of his infamous naked stage appearance. The bands rep grew to enormous levels through relentless touring and the band were joined by Nirvana / Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl as the drummer and A Perfect Circle’s Troy Van Leeuwan on the 3rd album, 2002’s ‘Song for the Deaf’. The album was both critical and commercially successfully with the huge singles ‘No One Knows’, 'First it Giveth' and ‘Go with the Flow’ amongst brilliant tracks such as 'Hangin' Tree', 'Gonna Leave you' and my all time favorite 'You think I ain't worth a dollar, but I feel like a millionaire'... I chose this track for 'Something Blue' as Oliveri provides lead vocal on as it seemed most fitting considering he faces 15 years in jail following a four charges of gun and drug possession. Following the bands success of SFTD Oliveri and Lanegan were fired in 2004 before they released there 4th album and the band essentially became Homme and friends. 2005’s ‘Lullabies to Paralyze’ features members of ZZ Top and Blue Oyster Cult among some brilliant tracks such as ‘Little Sister’ and 'In my head'.
The band last album ‘Era Vulgaris’ was completed in 2007 and the tracks ‘Sick, Sick, Sick’ and ‘3+7s’ were released as singles. Since the last album Homme has mentioned a new album is in progress and due for release late this year, Homme has since formed supergroup Them Crooked Vultures with Grohl and Led Zepplin’s genius bassit John Paul Jones.
As the riots and looting grip the nation I will answer the loud mouthed idiot Mayor of London, Boris Johnson's twitter "does anyone have batman's number?" with the words of the Stranglers' frontman Baz Warne, "No more heroes anymore".
It's times like these the country needs a real hero, someone who will really command respect and speak to the kids, with no one stepping forward other than the organizers and participants of the clean-up teams we must look further back in time for him.
Rioting:
Please step forward the Smiths and the ultimate anti-hero, Steven Patrick Morrisey with the ugly scenes of violence and rioting spreading across the length and breadth of the capital since erupting three days ago. The trouble initially flared on Saturday night following a peaceful protest in Tottenham over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police. But by the early hours of this morning a large number of London boroughs had been left devastated by the trouble from Hackney to Peckham and Ealing to Croydon were huge groups between 250-500 people gathered, torching buildings, cars and hurling petrol bombs at riot police. The most apt Smiths track containing the lyrics “oh, the devil makes work for idle hands to do, I stole and I lied because you asked me too", taken from there self titled, debut album the brilliant ‘What Difference does it make?’...
Looting:
Scores of local businesses around London have been broken into and looted by troublemakers - many of whom were wearing hoods and masks. 500 youths gathered in Peckham High Street, vandalising shops, lighting fires and targeting officers with missiles whilst Clapham also witnessed violence with looters preying on shops and causing widespread disruption. Targetting everywere from fancy dress stores near Clapham stealing masks to conceal their identities before going onto raid Debenhams, Tesco, Curries, Footlocker and in Enfield 40 fire fighters tackled a blaze at the Sony Warehouse. The Smiths track ‘Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover’, which doesn't appear on an original album but can be found on 'The World won't listen' compilation and contains the lyric which pretty much sums up the root cause of all the troubles “I was bored before I even began”... Violence:
With violence also erupting in other cities, copycat riots taking place in Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol. From Liverpool were "a number of isolated outbreaks of disorder", including burning cars and criminal damage to West Midlands Police making 100 arrests after rioters rampaged across Birmingham city centre and surrounding areas, were hundreds of youths gathered close to the Bullring, which closed its doors early in anticipation of violence before they went on to set a police station on fire. As Morrisey predicted almost 30 years earlier“Panic on the streets of London, Panic on the street of Birmingham, I wonder to myself, would life ever be sane again?”, taken from the Smiths brilliant 3rd album 'The Queen is Dead', combining with Johnny Marr's floating riffs, the classic 'Panic'...
After spending the last week on holiday in Corfu, were they seem to think that musically all tourists love Lady Gaga and Rihanna *kill....me...now*. So, understandably, in the time I wasn't eating kebabs, smoking, drinking Mythos or cutting through the water like a buttered dolphin I was mostly chilling in the sun with my iPod on shuffle. This was a great opportunity to rediscover forgotten gems, with so many to chose from it made this weeks 'Something Old' tough, but, this song used to be a mild obsession of mine.... Jack Allsopp better known as Just Jack is thought of by many as a bit of chavvy dance/pop artist after his massively overplayed single 'Starz in their Eyes' made him a household name in 2007. There is however, a lot more to him than this, from his first album 2002's 'The Outer Marker' which features his debut single 'Snowflakes' through to his last album 2009's 'All Night Cinema' that features the brilliant 'Embers', 'The Day I Died' and 'Doctor Doctor'. However, for me track I have chosen is take from his breakthru album 'Overtones' that contains the fantastic 'Glory Days', 'Talk too much' and the awesome bassline and lyrically genius 'Writer's Block'...
Something New...
The 1st play of Kasabian's brilliant new track 'Days are Forgotten' lost its public virginity following a delivery by Serge and Tom on Zane's Radio1 show last night and its been worth the wait, the band just consistently seem to knock out great tunes. The track is the 2nd single taken from the Leicester lads 4th studio album 'Velociraptor' that lands on September 16th; following 'Switchblade Smiles' which was made available for free download on the official website back in June... Something Borrowed...
As made aware to me by my mate and serial bear music contributor, @N_C_R; this month marks the 10 year anniversary of the release of the Strokes debut album 'Is This It'. In homage to probably the greatest garage rock album in history, that reinvented and spread the genre to the masses a tribute album, 'stroked' has been spawned. You can download all the tracks for free by clicking on the above link. To be honest with you most of the album isn't that great but in fairness all the tracks are remakes of the originals and not just covers, with my highlights being New Jersey Psychedelic surf pop Real Estate's version of 'Barely Legal' and Swedish Indie outfit Peter, Bjorn and John's (of 'Young Folks' fame) cover of 'Is this It', enjoy...
Something Blue...
In tribute to my good mate Sadie, who embarks on her life changing trip tomorrow cycling across Canada in aid of Help for Heroes in memory of her brother Paul (click to sponsor Sade). Also my mate Gaz from work who is currently well under way on the Mongol rally in aid of a local hospice (click to sponsor Gaz); I dedicate this weeks 'Something Blue' to both of these epic adventurers. Taken from the soundtrack of the greatest adventure movie ever made "Into the Wild"; Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedor's epic 'Rise', you can do it guys!!! On a related note to read my Pearl jam special click here: a pearl (jam) of wisdom. Anyways, I'm off to embark on my own marathon, all 3 Lord of Rings movies sitting, alas no sponsorship will be available...
