Here’s some music stuff I’ve come across in the last week or so that I think deserve a bit of attention, and rather than expecting people to keep up with my posts on Facebook, Twitter and the like, I thought I’d try and pull them together here. It’s also an opportunity to give a shout-out to some people who are doing great stuff for the local and wider music community.
Whether this will actually be the first of regular weekly round-up post is really dependent on any feedback I get – let me know in the comments if you think it’s going to be useful or if you think I should stick to sporadically posting about the usual “random bollocks” as Matthew Toad would (accurately) have it. Future ones probably won’t be nearly as long as this but having been out of the loop for a while what with being away I’m playing catch up.
You’re Not Alone
Withered Hand’s new King Creosote produced EP is out this month and predictably, it’s FANTASTIC. I’ve written a wee review for next month’s Skinny which will be up here in a week or two, but in the meantime you can stream it in full over at the SL Records website which also has details about about the official launch on 9th June which has a very fine line-up indeed.
Kudos also to my good pal Sean Michaels at Said The Gramophone who thankfully hasn’t given up on Scottish music since moving back to Montreal (though these days he is mostly found travelling off to some other part of the world, the jammy git) and managed to get hold of a copy of the EP before me – like I said before, what a jammy git.
Time for Plan C?
Sean used to write for Plan B which is how I discovered it, and when he moved he gave away his entire collection of back issues, so I picked up quite a few. It took me a while to get into the writing style, but once I did I found it the best music magazine out there and I’ve subscribed ever since, so am very sad to see that the magazine has folded, which I discovered from heartfelt posts by contributor Stewart over at Beard and Lis/[last year's girl]. Co-founder of the mag and self-promoter extraordinaire Everett True is rarely short of words and he shares his thoughts over at his own blog.
Tart’s Tunes
Tart, who gave me an extraordinary amount of good advice about my trip to New York (don’t worry I’ll tell you about how it went soon) has a great post about how her music taste has changed over the years, inspired by a discussion over at Song By Toad. I have already scribbled something akin to this about my own developing tastes on several scraps of paper a while back so I will work on moulding it into something readable and share it with you soon.
(Join the) Slow Club
This is a wonderful video from Off The Beaten Tracks of the wonderful Slow Club. I agree with everything Matthew says about their Homegame gig, they were great, and have very endearing personalities as well as being rather attractive to look at in the case of drummer/vocalist/guitarist Rebecca (which is why I’m letting them away with playing a Christmas song in the middle of May).
OTBT even have another new session up already by Frightened Rabbit, making for a very impressive choice of bands for their first five sessions – and I really like the format of the site, with their ‘Off The Beaten Facts’ about each band – very nicely done.
Speaking of slow, I am ridiculously slow on the uptake sometimes, and hadn’t been aware of Euan’s club Trampoline or his band The Kays Lavelle until very recently, but it has slowly dawned on me after subscribing to his very readable blog. Anyway, there’s a great interview with him over on the Scotsman’s Under The Radar blog – and it’s clear from this and his line-ups the man has good taste (ok, quite similar to mine) - he likes the Japanese War Effort for a start…
..and Jamie from JWE plays with his latest project Conquering Animal Sound this Saturday at an all-too-rare Gentle Invasion night also featuring the brilliantly named ‘Moustache of Insanity’. To whet your appetite you can download a rather splendid mixtape by CAS free over at Last.fm.
Phew! That took quite a while didn’t it..
7 Comments
martin_moog on 27/05/2009 at 6:17 pm.
thanks for the wee mention milo
but you bear me bad news on the plan b front – am absolutely gutted. they can keep the rest of my subscription money as far as am concerned, the coverage and quality has been great for ages.
what am i supposed to read now… the wire?
Milo on 27/05/2009 at 7:12 pm.
Tell me about it, I tried reading The Wire once, it was like trying to decipher binary code.
last year's girl on 28/05/2009 at 10:23 am.
Cheers for the menshy! I definitely think you should make this a regular feature – not least because we have a good bit of taste overlap so I always pay attention to your recommendations. I’ve been hearing about Withered Hand everywhere of late, will definitely be picking that EP up. Will have to miss the launch though due to inconvenient birthday
Milo on 28/05/2009 at 11:23 am.
Thanks Lis, good to hear your thoughts as I love the ‘Never Seen Star Wars’ posts you’ve been doing, speaking of your birthday! Withered Hand’s first ep is well worth a shot also.
A.R.H. on 30/05/2009 at 7:04 pm.
Heard about Plan B a few days ago… I am completely and utterly gutted. *sob*
A.R.H. on 30/05/2009 at 7:09 pm.
… yeah, and The Wire is definitely not going to be a replacement (like anything could be). I do read it every now and then, but it’s very much only when there’s an article I want to read… Binary code is a fairly apt comparison.
Tell you what though, I wish Steve Gullick would do a follow up to Loose Lips Sink Ships.
Milo on 31/05/2009 at 12:07 am.
Andy, I never knew about LLSS at the time but from what I’ve heard it was fantastic. I’m sure there’ll be something else come along to fill the gap, but can’t help but feel that print media is somewhat doomed. Obviously the Skinny is doing well here in Scotland, but unfortunately the freesheet model also means the writers don’t get paid