Influence-->Sleeve Interface

Influences and idols are tricky things, aren't they? Whether you're Ryan Adams and his thankfully-as-yet-to-be-realised threat to re-record The Strokes' “This Is It” note for note, or someone less heard of like The Miracle Fortress, channelling the Beach Boys in an interesting, tangential way, they tend to act like a millstone round the neck more often than not. Jaded critics can appropriate their 'it's not like the old days' oeuvre on you, morose bedroom commentators can post dismissive one-liners about you on the Internet, all the while you're forever put in a certain box, be it consciously or otherwise, by music fans. Yet at the same time, all musicians are a slave to the music they've loved. How do you get it right?

What's sparked this is the new album by Fionn Regan. For those not in the know, Fionn Regan's an Irish singer-songwriter who came to prominence when his debut album, “The End of History” got Mercury-nominated in 2006. Personally, I thought it was a fantastic album, it had the intricate acoustic guitarplay of a Nick Drake, but without the whimsy. It was personal and touching at times, but it also had a bite, and Regan plucked the guitar like he had a grudge against it, producing marvellous, percussive, almost a vicious feel to some tracks. I highly recommend it and please don't let anything I'm about to say prejudice you against it.

Fionn Regan has a new album, “The Shadow of an Empire”, just out earlier this month. And...well, it sounds like a Bob Dylan tribute album. There wasn't really any traces of Dylan on his first, unless you took the “he's young, male and headstrong” view. But all the lyrical tics, the tempos, the instrumentation, the subject matter...it's all there. Listen to first track 'Protection Racket' and you'd think you were listening to a Dylan song. In fact, it might be one! Hold on a second, I just need to check this...

...you can tell I've done my research. It's not. But you can infer from that I'm not a fan of Dylan.

Anyhow, what I wanted to get at is, it's really awkward when musicians seem to become slaves to their influences. Hell, I know it's hard enough to avoid. In my day I've played in shit university bands and written more songs, and though I've not much discernable talent, I know how hard it is to not start writing a song from an idea in your head which is actually, um, the main hook of another song you like that's stuck in your head. But hey, there's only a limited number of melodies in the world, isn't there? Similarities are to be expected.

And sure, there's only a limited number of styles. Well, that's not strictly true, but it takes one innovator – or rather, one breakthrough innovator (which is why Burial's more likely to be cited as an influence I guess than, say, well, any other dubstep artist really?) to expand the range of styles new bands will tap in on. Unless they're an innovator. And they're probably not.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I'm not even railing against something. Reviewers comparing artists to other artists acts as a good reference point for people like me. It'd be a nose/face biting incident for me to damn those. And wearing your influences on your sleeve isn't necessarily that much of a millstone. For example, the Horrors' style on “Primary Colours” had about as much originality as that fried chicken shop round the corner from you. But they had pretty damn good songs to back it up. In my book – you know, the book that values the actual music rather than intellectual posturing – that's perfectly fine. It's just...write memorable songs, do SOMETHING to make yourselves stand out, artists. Have influences, but don't show a desire to be them. We cool? Cool.

The Man Who Doesn't Listen To Big Bands For A Different Reason

“I was talking to a mate, right...” is an ugly way to start any post, but I've never been ashamed of my ugly face, so I'm not going to start being ashamed of my ugly prose now. Because what I'm about to write about would genuinely never have popped into my mind had it not been for a post-Sunday league match chat with a friend about future gigs we had lined up.

What did said mate say that stuck in my mind? “Yeah, I don't really listen to the big bands any more because it's impossible to get tickets for their gigs”.

I went through a momentary patch of ambivalence about this. First it was “yeah”, then “no”, finally “wait, what?” Bit of background. I, like my mate, live in London. That's right, London capital of dreams, where the streets are paved with gold. I like it. And what you also find with London is the frequency of bands playing only one, two or three dates in the UK playing one of those in London. The example that sparked this was The National, and more specifically their gig at the Royal Albert Hall in May. Tickets for the RAH gig sold out in less than an hour, one Friday morning, and while some of those may be explained away by the tickets appearing on popular Internet auction sites, but the vast majority would have been snapped up by real fans.

To put this in context, as far as I'm aware The National are yet to have a top 75 charting single or album. I realise that's not a be all and end all of popularity indication but it still means something, right. A band who are completely off the radar of commercial radio and vast appeal should not sell out a 4,000 capacity venue in about 25 minutes. I'm not really sure why, but somehow it doesn't seem right. Maybe because I'm jealous I didn't get a ticket (although I did manage to get one for the Electric Ballroom gig, announced to the fanclub only at first, which I'm frankly psyched about).

And I can see the appeal of not getting attached to bands with big fanbases on those grounds, but it's a bit like...well, it's a bit like insulating yourself against disappointment. It's a bit of a cowardly approach to life. Granted, in music you can get away with the aforementioned nose-biting/face-spiting because there's that many bands, that much music, that you can pretty much guarantee if you try hard enough, you'll find something you can really engage with, fall in love with. And yes, at the same time the atmosphere of intimate gigs is one of the highlights of modern music, and of living somewhere with as many gigs and venues as London...although it is worth pointing out the different between a buzzing, intimate gig, and a shambolic show in the half-empty back room of a pub.

But...you're ruling bands out because you'll never get chance to see them live? The more I turn this over in my head, the more I'm starting to think I misheard the comment, because the person who made it is a pretty level-headed guy, and he's a big fan of music. Maybe he meant he doesn't try to get tickets for big bands' gigs? I'm not so sure, though.

There's a wider issue here, one perhaps relating to over-hyping bands, and allied to that the fact that some bands become trendy and attract a certain type of special (needs) individual to whom being seen at – or moreso merely having been there at – a certain gig. You can generally tell who these people are, they're a) on cocaine, b) talking all through the gig, and c) utterly dead inside with an unfaithful partner that is if they've got one. It also raises a point that my friend is a pillock, albeit one that's only sabotaging himself. It also raises a point about London, the fact that there's maybe too many gigs – or not enough? Don't forget, there's 7 million people in London, and many more in the immediate surroundings, but I doubt we get, say, 12 times as many touring band gigs as Sheffield, which has a population of 534,000ish. That said, I don't expect much sympathy if I'm playing the “London needs more music scene focus” card. I think people will laugh at me. And throw eggs. Anyway, talk amongst yourselves.

Collection-Ogling and Bus Journeys: The Sociological Aspects of Physical Music Formats

As some of you may have picked up in my previous posts, I have reservations about downloading as a format (both legal and illegal varieties). Not from a musical/artistic point of view especially – any outlet that allows an artist to get their music ‘out there’ can only be a good thing – but rather the sociological aspects. I truly, truly dread the day where I walk into someone’s house and can no longer browse their music collection, be it vinyl or CD. It remains a great ice breaker whenever you were round someone’s house you don’t know that well, and can send conversations off on all sorts of tangents even when you’re with your closest friends. In fact, not that long ago one of my best friends came round, and going through my CDs sparked off so many conversational topics concerning genres, band comparisons, sharing of our opinions on artists’ ‘best album’ etc that before we knew it we had sat up, completely sober, until 3am. Granted, the fact I had to be at work at 8am took the shine off it a bit, but that’s beside the point. Ultimately I can’t see how this little surreptitious joy that owning tangible music can ever translate into this new so-called ‘digital age’. Staring at a computer screen at someone’s 12gb of downloads just doesn’t resonate as much or as well. You can’t imagine Marr having a meeting of minds with Morrissey when instead of being asked to pick a 45rpm single from Morrissey’s collection he scoured his iTunes to pick a track from there……..

Of course, I’m willing to be as gracious as to admit that digital formats do have their advantages in certain situations. A recent pre-club-night gathering/drinking session saw everyone clamouring round a laptop to play being DJ via the wonders of the Spotify streaming service, and that worked brilliantly. Much, much better than the faff and fuss of either making mix CDs or having to keep swapping albums. It truly is, to use an oft-quoted platitude, horses for courses, and in this instance perhaps I’m just being some knee-jerk reactionary, or trying to live in a fog of utopian romanticism, but it’s certainly one of the quaint little asides of owning tangible music formats that I’m keen to hang onto, and would be very sad if it were to disappear in the near future.

The digital format has also removed the ‘excitement factor’ from buying music. I’m sure you’ve all been there. The bus ride (or car journey) into town to the record shop, browsing the musty racks of the independents (fighting between the dodgy stock and high prices to find the gems….or at least how it was in our local one), and the moment of triumph when you find something, be it something you’ve either been searching for for a while, or a new release. Then the agonising wait to get home to give it a first play (made slightly easier if you owned a car), seemingly only heightened the excitement. It isn’t very often I get to experience such a ritual these days, owing to the fact I order a lot of my purchases via the internet (albeit still in tangible formats), though the excitement is still there owing to the wait for purchases to arrive, and the great ceremonial tearing off of the cellophane wrapping .

Again, watching a progress bar slowly filling across a screen somehow doesn’t quite have the same mystique about the whole experience. Streaming services like Spotify can also take the mystique of the great first play. Having burst open the packaging hearing an album for the first time can also be a proper ‘event’. Using Spotify as a try-before-you-buy service as I have done countless times, while meaning you don’t buy a dud (in itself a good thing, don’t get me wrong), also – in my experience – tends to mean the eventual arrival of the release in question is met with a somewhat blasé response. I’ve also had it where I’ve played an album to death on Spotify to the extent that I’m sick of it by the time the actual release hits the doormat. Perhaps this is just me misusing the new technologies available, or not exercising sufficient self-restraint, but it’s still quite disheartening when you’ve waited ages to hear an album, to put it on and think ‘actually, I’ve heard this too many times already’, and have it put back on the shelf.

As mentioned in my other bit of writing concerning the digital/physical debate, I’m in no way preaching about how you should all down tools and go back to physical formats. The digital formats are great for mix CDs, playlists, playing Spotify DJ at parties, or a more convenient club-night DJ’ing tool (miles eaiser than carrying a ton of CDs around, I’m sure you’ll agree) etc (as well as being the only affordable outlet to buy certain Sarah Records releases such as The Hit Parade), and I wholly endorse them in an artistic sense. All I’m doing is thinking aloud on some little asides/quaint novelties that the tangible formats have, over time, brought us and perhaps have been taken for granted recently. I’d be sad to see these go, wouldn’t you?

Tones of Town TV

Here are some "music videos" of recent songs I like. I have never watched them before, not having any music channels, and also not really caring about them in the first place any more. I say anymore because back when I was 17-20 it was my first port of call to find new bands - ashamedly, I didn't stick to the eclectic diet of the 120 Minutes shows, but watched the Gonzo show, and various top tens. In fairness, they gave my favourite bands of the time - Incubus, Mars Volta, Weezer etc... but I still look at the treasure trove of minimal techno and alternative rock that I now devour daily, and maybe I'd have enjoyed them back then more. Who knows.

The Boxer Rebellion

The Answering Machine

The Unwinding Hours

Bear in Heaven

Soap&Skin

TDON CD Sampler Breakdown

I received this free promo CD from the record label Thirty Days Of Night through Rock Sound and HMV and was impressed by the failure of both my computer and the Internet to locate the track and artist names – good work on the watermarking/encoding there. Suffice to say, none of these tracks have titles and there’s no way in hell I’m trawling last.fm to look for tracks that are of similar length and guessing because that would indicate I actually give a toss. Here are my results:

TRC

One positive thing to say about this is at least TRC’s ‘vocalists’ (that word used in the loosest possible terms) aren’t trying to emulate some nasally American with copycat try-hard accents. In fact, both seem to shun the notion of singing even in tune, let alone with any prefix to their style. The gruffer sounding meathead makes up for this by doing some feeble impression of the ginger bloke from Gallows, whilst the other guy settles on an embarrassing “nnaaa, safe bruv, innit, yeah?” Mike Skinner-meets-Skinhead Rob style hardcore rap over some elaborate, yet tinny nu-metalcore riffs. I thought this shit had been phased out years ago. (They actually made a video for it as well).

EastStrikeWest

I don’t want to say post rock, because this isn’t really. It’s more SLOW rock, choosing to go down the route of sluggish drum rolls, that guitar sound that’s all “woweeeowwweeeooowwww” (you know, the one that sounds like a Scalextric being stamped on.) It’s actually quite spacey, all washing synths, under a deep, rumbling rhythm and the vocalist has a surprisingly decent voice and range, which can be quite easily heard over the heavy haze of sound and glitching noises.

Sioux

Despite the feminine name, this is anything but graceful and elegant. Like continuously punching the floor, until your knuckles crack, broken bone poking through the fleshy rips; Sioux are a bloody mess of hoarse vocal shreds, down-tuned, guttural riffs that aren’t a million miles away from Black Sheep Wall.

Confession

Possibly ripped off Sioux or at least share several members, as the vocals are almost identical. There’s more of a Botch element to Confession, with their odd squealing flourishes; but the clean chorus vocals sound as if they’ve been recorded in a cupboard – muffled and unimpressive. I’m guessing they’re supposed to counter balance against the relentless screams of the lead vocalist who is content to bury the notion of anyone out-singing him, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering his voice box must look like a slaughter house.

Santa Karla

Santa Karla work best when they’re racing through this song like a runaway train. A no-frills, twisted, hardcore-metal onslaught, that gives nods towards ‘Opposite Of December’-era Poison The Well and the barbaric viciousness of Converge.

This Is Colour

Apart from the double-bass pedal drumming and “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be playing?” guitar riff at the beginning this is mostly a load of old pig cock and 5 minutes too fucking long.

Gold Kids

When this eventually gets going, after about two false starts of ‘supposed build up’ Gold Kids (sounds like some rap group) are actually competent hardcore. Can’t understand a word of what’s being said, most of the vocals are akin to someone spitting over a microphone. Has that harsh, scrappy gasp of disgust and contempt.

Dead Swans

Wow, probably the best thing on this compilation so far. Channelling the rage of Give Up The Ghost, with the vocal-lead of Kevin Baker from The Hope Conspiracy into some of the most pissed off and determined hardcore I’ve ever heard. Chugs a fair bit, but the wonderful backing vocal roars makes this sound very awesome to these ears.

Lonewolves

Lonewolves must be on a tight budget. This bare-bones racket of rumbling drums, that threaten to drown everything else out and “I’ve been eating broken glass” vocals thud along with very little compassion and a mean-spirited, lip-curl of sneering hate. Brilliant work by trying to sound like something that was recorded about 20 years ago – gritty, dogged hardcore done right.

Breaking Point

“WITNESS! THE RISE! OF THE SUN!” Stop shouting you muppet. Bridge 9-sounding mongcore fodder, avoid like the plague.

Closure

Basically a hardcore punk version of Insect Warfare. 64 seconds of stop-start noise that was once possibly a song, but seems to steer towards someone shouting as they fall into a room full of saucepans.

Headcase

I nearly skipped this because a) it was over three minutes and b) what’s the fucking point really? CHUNGA, CHUNGA, CHUNGA, CHUNGA, GGGGUURRRRRRNNKKKK GUURRRNKKKK – yeah, good one. Just about redeems itself from shitsville with the hilarious rapid-fire Circle Jerks-style vocals that were possibly recorded by a man who stands outside bottle banks swigging medicine and likes to shout at dogs.

Thirty Seconds Until Armageddon

Awful bass on this – why did they bother? You'd be better off watching the film 'Armageddon' than listening to this toilet.

Verdict?

Lonewolves, Dead Swans, Sioux, Gold Kids, EastStrikeWest and Santa Karla = all great sounding bands and well worth investigating if you're a fan of screaming and killer riffs.

A Poorly Constructed, Impulsively Written Eulogy on Sarah Records.

Despite owning a lot of music, I can’t really say I’ve ever felt any great affinity for any one particular label. I doubt the majority of people can, truth be told. It’s becoming especially difficult in these times of mergers, takeovers, subsidiaries and imprints and all. One can imagine fewer more horrifying (or, depending on your viewpoint and/or level of imagination, amusing) situations than some holier-than-thou scenester discovering his beloved, aesthetically perfect independent label is in fact owned by Universal or somesuch.

However, every rule has its exception, and my exception to my ‘not having a favourite record label’ rule is Sarah Records. I fully appreciate the irony in me taking the piss out of holier-than-thou scenesters in the above paragraph when 1) I am admitting to having a favourite record label and 2) that label happens to be one of the twee-est, most scene labels ever. Thing is though, I tried and tried to come up with another equivalent, and the closest thing I could come up with was Factory – yes I love a large number of their releases, and yes I love the anarchic, haphazard way in which it was run, but I still only admire it, and don’t look upon it with any great deal of affection (or as much affection as you can ever festoon upon such a strange entity as a record label).

I think part of it is due to the timing of me ‘discovering’ Sarah Records. I suppose in 6th form I would’ve been classed as someone who never really fitted into what was expected of someone that age. Instead of being a borderline sex-pest intent on either getting an other half or a quick shag (either in or out of school) while hammered on WKD (outside of school), I fell in with the people who also never fitted in anywhere else – you know the social sets; the posh kids, the jocks (and in our case the uber-Welsh kids). Let me say here and now we had one fuck of a laugh. While everyone else was being relatively civilised we were the ones blaring out music throughout the lunch hour, having food fights, considering a can of strawberry squirty cream to be an acceptable lunch (that was mainly me, to be fair) and having near weekly bouts of boxing matches and our lounge-famous ‘bloodsport Fridays’ (sample activity: sticking drawing pins through a trip of masking tape, sticking that onto the toecaps of our shoes, and kicking each other in the shins….oh, happy days!). Naturally in amongst all this anarchy girls featured pretty infrequently, at least in the romantic sense. That’s not to say crushes never existed (or indeed weren’t ridiculed by the others) amongst our number, and it was during all this mayhem and sometimes frankly awful music (anime soundtracks, anyone?) that a friend first introduced me to the Field mice.

For those not familiar with The Field Mice (or indeed most of Sarah Records’ output), then the music has a theme of unrequited love, crushed feelings and the like, all dished up with enticing melodies. At a time where every other artist was either writing songs about how great it was to be in love, or how shit it all was when they go their heartbroken at the end of it all, this was a breath of fresh air. Naturally it’s hard to identify with a song that couldn’t be any cornier if the singer was playing an acoustic version of ‘Your Body Is A Temple’ starkers in a 4-poster bed when you haven’t even got to, never mind past, first base.

Over time I’ve since discovered The Orchids, Blueboy, Another Sunny Day, and The Sea Urchins to supplement my Field Mice listening. All the bands are characterised by light, airy production, breathy vocals, and heartfelt lyrics, and all are a joy to listen to. I randomly decided to write this article, and halfway through discovered that it coincided with a large amount of the Sarah back-catalogue being re-released – 14 Iced Bears had 2 re-issues done in 2001, The Field Mice albums were done in 2005, and Another Sunny Day and The Orchids came out last year. Blueboy are the next ones on the list, with their first album released last week and their second being re-released next month. Here’s to hoping The Sea Urchins are next. But be warned, get them while you can. The cult adoration of the label means that there is a high demand for CDs and the like - £15 for a used copy of a 14 Iced Bears album has proved in my experience to be a bargain if you didn’t catch it the first time round, and The Field Mice’s ‘For Keeps’ goes in and out of stock like the wind (I was fortunate to pick up a copy in Fopp for £13 new, but on Amazon it was going for £30+).

So then, in summary, why Sarah Records? I think I’m just a sucker for bloody good fey, intelligent indie-pop, truth be told. The fact I discovered great music for lovelorn 6th formers at the time of being a lovelorn 6th former probably helped, as does all the nostalgic aspects that come with it, but that wouldn’t be reason enough to continue liking their releases 5 years on (especially given the degree to which my musical taste has shifted over the last 5 years).

Sarah records closed in 1995 not through financial hardship, but because the owners wanted to guarantee an exemplary back-catalogue. With me being the contrary sod that I am, I probably love Sarah Records as much for this as I do for their music.

The Disposability Of Music & How I Learned To Love The Album Again

The music industry’s never-ending quest to provide more convenient media has, it can be argued, made music more disposable, more forgettable. Think about it. In the days of vinyl, you sat through a record all the way through. Partly, it must be said, due to the fact that changing the track (with all the faff of lifting the needle and putting it back down in the wrong place without scratching the surface of the LP) was such effort. It almost meant you had to buy the singles when they came out, and pray that your favourite songs off an album got released as a single.

The cassette tape, in commercial pre-recorded guise at least, as bad if not worse. How many of you wrecked your tapes by spending afternoons furiously fast-forwarding and rewinding them to hear favourite songs? I did, countless times. However, the advent of blank cassettes meant people could suddenly make mixtapes off their vinyl collections. Don’t want to sit through records to hear your favourite tracks? Easy! Make a personal greatest hits collection instead. When twin deck tape players and recorders came along you could even do it off your cassette collections. Winner. If you were really cheap (as I was at the turn of the millennium), you could spend Sunday afternoons listening to the top 40 and recording your favourite songs off that. Getting it just right so you didn’t get any talking at the start or end of the song, while not missing a note either, was an art form. I failed dismally. I ended up with as much of Marc Goodier’s voice on mine as I did the music. It could be argued that cassettes were really the start of the whole piracy issue that’s dogged the industry ever since, but that’s not an issue for here and now. Back to the history.

The CD was a godsend for the impatient music buyer and listener. You could skip tracks with the push of a button, and when CD burners came down in price you could make digital equivalents of mixtapes, or merely even burn the tracks you wanted onto your computer. It was the precursor to the current ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ culture that seems to be prevalent amongst the download only brigade.

The danger in all of this is between that and scan listening on streaming services such as Spotify is that it’s all to easy to live your life in shuffle mode. I know, I’ve been there. Now, I’m no downloader, so you might be wondering how this is so. Well, when my old CD player broke, I didn’t replace it because, as I reasoned, all I ever did was put it on the MP3 player and put the CD on the shelf and that was that. So I relied on Spotify, Windows Media Player (which I always cherry picked tracks on, never listening to full albums), and my MP3 player (which for reasons I don’t really understand, ALWAYS gets left on shuffle, unless I’m on a train). The concept of an album, therefore, appeared to be dead to me. Given my propensity for buying CD albums, this seemed a ridiculous situation. So, I finally got round to buying a new player. I then set aside 2 days to re-discover my love for the album, and got down to celebrating being able to listen to physical formats again.

I accept that maybe 18 albums was probably a bit much in such a short space of time. Cambridge University did research suggesting that the brain can only compute and engage fully in any one activity for an hour before it needs to be stimulated via other methods. This probably applied here too – towards the end of my ‘experiment’ I was pretty much waiting for albums to finish. However, it did open my eyes to the joys of listening to an album again. The way it lets you see the ideas and thoughts of an artist in that one period of time. The way that some albums are autobiographical, and let you see the artists’ mindset or experiences. Plus, with a physical format you can kick back and read the sleeve-notes and ogle the artwork while the album is playing. Sometimes this can be just as exciting as the record itself (see The Ramones’ Sire re-issues, or the Undertones or Echo & the Bunnymen equivalents for great examples of absorbing, enlightening sleevenotes). I also found that listening to full albums meant I could catch up with other things (mainly reading), which the constant stop/start of living on shuffle, and the constant track changing, rendered all but impossible in the past. I’ve also enjoyed the level of thought involved in deciding on an album to fit a particular mood or activity, rather than choosing a song or two to fit the moment and (metaphorically) sticking them on repeat.

Don’t get me wrong, though. This isn’t me preaching from some gargantuan ivory tower about the perils of listening to individual tracks or downloading or whatever else you could misjudge this piece to be about. Differences are to be celebrated, and if you prefer to listen to individual tracks over albums, then who am I to judge. This is really nothing more than a document of one man and his rediscovery of the concept of the album (and a rather verbose and highly edited history of how music has in my opinion become so disposable). Though I will say this: in the day where the album is increasingly being seen as an obsolete format, perhaps it’s time to give it a re-appraisal. Give it a whirl, you might enjoy the journey. I know I have.


During my ‘experiment’ I listened to:

Jamie T: Kings & Queens
The Clash: Give Them Enough Rope
Television Personalities: Don’t The Kids Just Love It
Camera Obscura: Let’s Get Out of This Country
Noah & The Whale: The First Days Of Spring
Billy Bragg: Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy and Slow Club: Christmas Thanks For Nothing EP (As these were both mini albums each totalling under 15mins I classed them as one entry)
The Pains of Being Pure Of Heart: S/T
The Manhattan Love Suicides: S/T
The Undertones: S/T
The Jesus And Mary Chain: Darklands
Richard Hawley: Lady’s Bridge
REM: Reckoning
The Pogues: If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Beach House: Devotion
The Field Mice: Snowball
Eels: Hombre Lobo
The Vapors: New Clear Days
Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska