SOME OF THE BANDS PT1....

Current mood: RE RE-WIND...
Category: RE RE-WIND... Music

I've been in the music writing game long enough to have watched the progress of a few acts from the bottom on up.

So here we go with an overview of some of them and their progress to date....


The first 2 new bands I picked up on were Tall Pony & Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. I found them both via Huw Stephens Radio 1 show...

I completed interviews with both and saw Dan Vs Pip play a good few times in the space of a month.

The Dan Vs Pip interview was the first full interview they and I ever did. It took place at The Spitz in Spitalfields somewhen aroundabout February 2007..

This interview is yet to be published anywhere. I had a spell of trying to hawk it around various magazines, but at the time no-one was interested and I was tired of writing my guts up for the pieces only to stay in the sock drawer.

Since then, the act have gone on to reasonable success. They've toured all over, supported the ubiquitous Mark Ronson and are right in with.the Jack Penate, Adele, Kate Nash crowd..

I found my own interest in them to be pretty temporary. I liked the humour of Thou Shalt Always Kill but after listening to a copy of the CDs they gave me, found the music to be lacking in flair and too talky preachey.

I also can't get interested with any of that crowd they sit with - as a bunch they lack anykind of proper deep soul. They're a bit like an end of year school concert: Good hardworking play by the rules types, doing their turn to stilted applause and soon to be obscurity...

AKA

As boring as wallpaper..


Tall Pony appeared to suffer a big break up shortly after I email interviewed them. As with Le Sac & Pip, their track 'I'm Your Boyfirned Now' appealed on a humour level - I feel it's lasted better and I put it in epsiode 5 of Casa Hasa Giovanna...

Again, I couldn't find a paying market for that piece, but I wrote it up anyway..


Another act to blow my trumpet early doors was a band called Blah Blah Blah. I saw them play as support act to The Wombats in Islington (I was there to see the another support act called Black Cherry)

The Wombats were completely fucking awful.

The formular was obvious:

Take an offbeat creature as your identity?!? Come from Liverpool. Play cheeky boyish pop rock, and away you go..

AND AWAY THEY'VE FUCKING GONE!!!!

Nowadays they're selling out huge fucking venues and Paul McCartney has said he wants to produce them. If he does it'll be the kiss of death and I'd imagine that's why he wants to get involved..

I have the distinct impression Sir Paul doesn't like to see Liverpool acts do too well...


Anyway, Blah Blah Blah struck me as being somekind of a modern day version of Chas N Dave. They were excpetionally polished LIVE and I loved their song about staying alone in a caravan over christmas.

I mostly loved this song, because I did exactly that one yuletide:

24 hours in the van, no food, no presents or any of that la la - it was interestingly dull..

I informed the band of this fact at the end of that gig, they gave me a CD and I liked it a lot to start with, but again found it didn't have much in the way of longevity.

I'm not sure where I stand with that band these days.

As with Le Sac & Pip they seem to keep some pretty horrendous musical company, but I figure Blah Blah Blah are gonna have a hit at some point. They work their bollox off gigging all over and I reckon they'll keep that up until they get their deserts.

Indeed, last Saturday when I arrived in the tiny town of Fort William from that heavenly peninsular in Scotland, I found a free gig in the park and who were there headlining???