May 28, 2006
Sandi Thom has joined the ever-increasing ranks of musical artists using the Internet to further their career. Quotes of “unsigned act reaches x-hundred thousand fans online” are a weekly occurance these days but how much is hype and how much is deserved recognition?
This story starts with two (or was it three?) weeks’ worth of webcast performances from a basement flat in London. The first show attracted 20 (or was it 70?) listeners, by the end of the run over 160,000 were tuning in. Or was it “almost 200,000”? That’s the thing with Internet stories, facts are very flexible depending on where you read them. What is certain is that any performer claiming that bandwidth for 100,000+ streamed webcasts is cheaper than touring the country in a beat up old van has already started the PR spin machine. What else is certain is that when they come out of it all with the desired recording contract to a major label and debut single reaching for number two in the mid-week charts they’re probably worth at least a wee listen.
Lead track I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker is a great showcase song for any female vocalist, it’s nicely written and the well produced minimal instrumentation is all that is needed to hook you straight in to the “I love Sandi Thom” brigade. It’s romanticising things that never existed though—70s punk was nothing like this Top Shop Ramones t-shirt version, but nevermind that, it’s a nice fairytale and sits well with the “this isn’t quite the exact truth” PR hype surrounding its release. The important thing is it’s a good song and sung well, the cringeworthy artistic license can be forgiven just this once.
But enough of this is already known by everyone this week, what about the rest of the album? Well, it’s good. Opener Horsepower is in the same simple melody vein as Punk Rocker but with less emphasis on the vocals—do some of those high notes seem a stretch to reach though? Lonely Girl and Little Remedy shall sit happily next to anybody’s favourite female vocalist tracks and Time is perfect as the bittersweet rainy day song to finish on. The rest are growing on me more and more with each listen and I guess they’ll stick around my playlist long after the catchy hook of Punk Rocker has lost me.
Many Internet success stories we’re told about have no real substance to them past the hype and PR spin. Some transfer incredibly badly to other media—the world just does not need another Crazy Frog album, seriously. Sandi Thom offers up a good album package here, there are no life-changing genius moments but my cynicism has been beaten and I’m a definite fan.
I wish I’d had the chance to see just her and a guitar play to three friends and maybe two OAP drunks in some smoke-stained pub with horrible PA. It would have most likely sucked but rose-tinted retrospection is the theme of the day. Maybe it was better in the olden days of my childhood?
May 24, 2006
“So your job is to go to gigs and watch bands for free? That must be great!”
Well yes, mostly it can be fun. But not tonight.
Having to run through a list of possible names that PR bods may have stuck you under at the door is never fun, and finding that we aren’t actually listed as promised is downright insulting. But I’m not beaten so easily and I pay myself in. I kinda grudge paying twice as much as is reasonable for tonight’s lineup but I blame the Kerrang sponsors for that. However, insult is added to injury when I’m asked “Where’d your friend go?”, and spot the implication was that after not being guest-listed Mr. Potatojunkie had snuck in for free …
First band on tonight are Disco Ensemble, and I’ve said it before but boy are they emo. It’s outright by-the-numbers emo, and it really does pain me to admit that they are fucking good at it. The sound let them down a bit though and took just enough edge off the performance for some of the songs to be disappointingly lacklustre.
The Morning After Girls follow on stage and will have to be really impressive to overcome the bad impression made by inept PR at the door. They resoundingly fail to do so. The Beatles when they first started taking too much acid is not the best thing to try and update into modern emo-times; it can work if done in a kitsch-pop way, but I’m not certain at all where this band were meant to be going or where they were coming from. The polka-dot-dressed tambourine percussion keyboardist lass was kinda hot though, but I’m really not certain if that should be the highlight of any live gig.
65daysofstatic. Ahhh, now these guys have to overcome the bad feeling left by their management not returning my calls after offering an interview. I think I missed the start of their set due to not noticing when the intro tape stopped and they started playing stuff themselves. Oh, three minute pop-punk songs, where were you tonight? Interminably drawn-out instrumentals bore me to tears but the Barfly crowd are loving it. I reckon the Barfly crowd maybe need to get out to go see some good bands play gigs a bit more often rather than simply cheer for the folks Kerrang & the NME tell them to.
Overall this gig was scene bands playing to an overly scene crowd—I expect every emo ’zine in the country will be running a piece on the gig judging by the number of pseudo-professional cameras and notebooks I saw flashed around the place. Oh Kerrang, when did it all go wrong? When did you forget about rock and start sponsoring NME band tours?
Oh, and the beer tasted just like piss. Can I get my money back please … ?
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Reviews — admin @ 5:24 pm
May 19, 2006
This starts well, opener Reclaim has a pleasant piano intro, following through as a rather pleasing riff under the sudden thunder of drums & monster-truck-sized rhythm guitars. But, halfway through the second track, I’m searching Cathouse & Garage Attic playlists for their songs. Hailing from Leicester, they seem to be as yet unknown around my regular haunts, they just sound so damn familiar I was sure I’d heard them before. They’re very now and very familiar, some may say a more aggresive version of Taking Back Sunday, me I’d say filler tracks on an underground “punk” compilation album, all technically fine and well but struggling to hold my attention and all forgotten as soon as finished.
The very familiar sound will of course work in their favour to an extent and I have no doubt the music-mag kids will love TSB if someone cool says it’s scene to do so. That same familiarity plays against them though and I’m just simply not impressed at all; adding extra noise & shouty vocals with heavier guitars, no matter how fast you can do so, won’t win me over.
Two Shot Blast have nothing new to add with this album in an already over-populated genre.
