Month: August 2009

New This Week

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Looks like I was wise to keep most of this month’s eMusic credits held back till this week, as there’s a ton of new stuff out to use them on.

Here’s what I’m picking up, reviews might follow later in the week.

The Whisky Works EP Deficit Attention Program
Strike The Colours Single Breathing Exercise
Cuddly Shark Single The Sheriff of Aspen Bay
Randan Discotheque single Daily Record May 18th 1993 see the review for details on where to get this.
God Help The Girl EP Stills
Cybraphon EP Automaton Number One available here.

The Wildhearts aren’t Scottish at all, but no have a new album Chutzpah! out today. Ginger is one of my favourite songwriters in the World, so they get love from me despite the lack of country based qualifications.

Bronto Skylift don’t technically release their new EP until next Monday, but you can order it online here now. Get yourself along to Avalance in Glasgow on Friday afternoon for an instore performance and buy the EP there too.

Did I miss anything good, or your band? Tell me!

Single Review: Randan Discotheque - Daily Record May 18th 1993

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Time for a random single review! A Randan single review at that. See what I did there? This is an unusual one for me, as I’m actually reviewing something from listening to it on MySpace, rather than having a copy of my own. You don’t care, I know, but it seemed worth pointing out.

Yet another song that came to my attention through Glasgow Podcart, part of their plan to use all my eMusic credits and make me spend all my money on music I think. That’s alright though, I’m always happy to buy stuff that’s good.

Daily Record May 18th 1993 is the new single from Randan Discotheque, and it’s a fun little thing. Probably the easiest thing I’ve ever had to describe too, as it essentially headlines and mentions of stuff that appeared in - you guessed it - the May 18th 1993 Daily Record newspaper, half spoken, half sung over a drum machine, keyboard and guitar backdrop.
There’s nothing really complicated going on here and I dare say it’ll fall into a love it/hate it category, but me, I love it. As further encouragement I’ll put forward the tale of my friend. he doesn’t know much about music, anything beyond The Doors and The Kinks and he’s a bit lost, but he suffers through me playing new stuff at him when we are round his house for beers - I enjoy good music, he drinks himself silly, it’s a plan that keeps us both happy. On Saturday I put on the Randan track and for the first time in ages he paid attention, enquired what it was and declared, slightly drunk, “I love this!”. Maybe saying that my pal who doesn’t like music likes this song isn’t really such a good recommendation, but in my head it is a good thing. By the way, on May 18th 1993 I was closing in on the end of my second year at secondary school. I feel old again now.

B-side Time To Waste sounds entirely different, kicking off with an alarm clock, pounding bass then jagged guitars. It’s a completely different beast to the A-Side, Magazine to Daily Record’s Black Grape, but every bit as good. It also shows that dismissing Randan Discotheque as a novelty act on the basis of the A-Side would be a silly move indeed, they’ve got range.

Random fairly meaningless star system score - it’s a full five out of five!

The single is out on Monday, August 31. You should be able to find it in Avalance and Mono, and buy it online too. (Update, you can get your hands on a copy of the 7″ here.)

There’s also a launch gig for the single tomorrow night (August 28th) in the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh. Get yourself along to that if you are over that side of the country.

Not posting the song, for obvious reasons. You can head over to MySpace and listen to it there.
Here’s a wee video of the song played live though. Warning: shirtless man.

Randan Discotheque MySpace - Facebook - Twitter
Also, if you skip over to Last.fm they’ve got two albums you can download for the bargain price of free.

The Cinematics Return

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Sometimes I complain that no one ever sends me stuff, other times people do send me stuff and it lurks in my inbox for a week before I get round to doing anything with it. This one falls into the latter category, so time to get to it now.

The Cinematics, a Glasgow based, Dingwall spawned four piece, put out their debut album A Strange Education a couple of years ago before heading off on a stream of tours as support acts. Now they are getting set to release their second album Love and Terror at the end of September.

The new album is preceeded by a single, available now through the usual download sites, the title track Love and Terror, which I’ve been asked to share with you.

It’s a pretty decent song.

If you want to read the whole PR blurb you can do so here.

Download Love and Terror

The Cinematics Myspace

The SPL but with bands

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So, the new season of the Scottish Premier League kicks off tomorrow. That seems like something I can make into a post.

Plan A was to find a band that supported each team. That plan went right out the window as soon as I realised that I have no idea what bands support anyone but three or four clubs, so instead you are getting a band from the relevant town or city, or as close as I can get at least.

I still ended up struggling a bit, if you support any of the teams in the SPL and have a better suggestion let me know.

Aberdeen: Sorry Dons, right now the best I can offer you is Lily Allen, and I doubt her credentials.

Celtic: Loads to choose from for this one and one of the few Scottish clubs that seem to have musicians happy to admit to supporting. I won’t risk pissing off a chunk of my visitors by suggesting that this is because Celtic are brilliant. Oops…
Anyway, our band of choice for Celtic are Mogwai, since they seem to especially enjoy annoying Rangers supporters on their website. In the interest of fairness - see the Rangers entry - we’ve got some rubbish fans too, Martine McCutcheon for example.

Dundee United: About half of Deacon Blue are Dundee United fans, so that’s who you are stuck with.

Falkirk: You’ve got Arab Strap in the “I don’t know who supports you, here’s a band from the town” draw.

Hamilton Academical: Right about now I’m thinking this was a terrible idea. You have been randomly selected Teenage Fanclub since Bellshill is near Hamilton, even though at least some of them are Celts.

Hearts: You’ve got Cicero, you lucky people.

Hibernian: Easy, The Proclaimers.

Kilmarnock: Oooh not a clue. The closest I can get you is Biffy Clyro, since they are Ayrshire

Motherwell: The Delgados. Yay, an easy one. The Delgados even had Dougie Arnott on the cover of their The Weaker Argument Defeats The Stronger single.

Rangers: Sorry Rangers supporters, most of the folk I can think of that support the Gers are rubbish. Wet Wet Wet, Leon Jackson, some of Travis, David Sneddon, Lulu, Amy McDonald… You can have AC/DC.

St. Johnstone: Stuart Cosgrove used to write for the NME, that’s as good as I can think of, sorry!

St. Mirren: Struggling again. Well, there’s Paulo Nutini, who supports Celtic. Dougie Vipond? I’ll just put a band from Paisley for this one I reckon, so St Mirren fans, you get Marvel Heights.

Well, that was a lot less successful than I’d hoped, yet I’m still posting it. Now lets see how many people yell at me (I suspect none, since that would involve people reading me…)

Yet ANOTHER Free Song

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I’ll stop just posting stuff people have stuck on the internet for free and get back to something more intresting at some point I’m sure, but in the meantime if people keeping letting me know about free downloads, I’ll keep spreading the word.

This time round it’s Aidan Moffat & the Best-Ofs who treat us to a freebie. This is a live version of Lover’s Song from the How To Get To Heaven From Scotland album, recorded earlier this year at Stereo in Glasgow. You can download it here.

In other Aidan news Lullaby For Unborn Child from the album has been overhauled and renamed Knock On The Wall Of Your Womb for an upcoming single release, the B-side of which will feature The Lavender Blue Dress, a children’s story written by and narrated by Aidan.

Here’s the video:

The Gothenburg Address update

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If you are planning on going to see The Gothenburg Address, Airship and I See Shapes at the Twisted Wheel in Glasgow on Friday then update your plans a wee bit. The show has been moved to Capitol, as the Twisted Wheel has seemingly closed down.

There’s a few other Twisted Wheel gigs coming up that need to find a new home, I’ll try and keep you posted on those.

More Second Hand Songs

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The Second Hand Marching Band are spoiling us these days. After putting their debut EP up on their website for free download last week, today they’ve put up the BBC session they did for Vic Galloway. You can grab it at their website over here. They covered One Armed Scissor by At The Drive-In, go get it!

Saturday marked my first time seeing the band incidentally. They were very good. Berrjacket was brilliant. That’s as close as you’ll get to a live review from me though, I’m even worse at reviewing gigs than I am at records.

The Second Hand Marching Band play the 13th Note in Glasgow on Saturday.

Saturday Newsround

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Beerjacket plays King Tut’s tonight, with support from The Second Hand Marching Band and The Seventeenth Century. Due to a fecking useless friend I’ve got some spare tickets, holler if you need one, otherwise say hello if you go to the gig.

The new Glasgow PodcART podcast is available, this week entitled “Pumped In Venice”. Stream it here, get it through iTunes or Right Click & Save As.

Kochka have had to cancel their single launch at the Classic Grand tonight due to ill health. Get well soon!

Speaking of King Tut’s, There Will Be Fireworks are playing there on the 20th of August. That reminds me, I never did finish that album review.

More Free Music - The Second Hand Marching Band

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The Second Hand Marching Band are a band from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Ayr, Kincardine, Cumbernauld, Neilston, Canada, Airdrie and elsewhere. They have about a million members.

Their first EP - A Dance To Half Death - was released as a limited edition of 150. It has now sold out, so they’ve made it available through their website, the terribly kind people.

Go here to download the EP and visit them at MySpace for more information.

The Second Hand Marching Band are one of the support acts for the Aye Tunes attending Berrjacket gig on Saturday at King Tut’s. As usual if you are going along you’ll win the cheapest beverage of your choice if you can find me and say hello. Or in other words, say hi and I’ll buy you a pint.