Ni'night

So I'm tired. And have work in the morning. But this song is great. Enjoy it:

Aberdeen City - God is going to get sick of me

Sleep tight.

a list of bands

Below is a list of bands I approve of after hearing at least two tracks of... it will be updated soon, and links will be added for each and every band. Bear in mind it was done a few months back, and features mostly bands on my laptop, not my CD collection. All this shall be fixed, and therefore: this may take a while...

Approved

Aberdeen City
Amandine
..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Antje Duvakot
Arab Strap
Arcade Fire
Arco
Arctic Monkeys
The Arrogants
Beat Radio
Bell Orchestre
Bell X1
Ben Gibbard
Biffy Clyro
Bloc Party
Brand New
Bright Eyes
British Sea Power
Broken Social Scene
Jeff Buckley
Built To Spill
Canasta
Captain of Industry
Pelle Carlberg
The Changes
Mic Christopher
Clogs
Diane Cluck
Coldplay [ Parachutes, mainly ]
The Cold War Kids
Cordero
The Cranberries
Crowded House
The Cure
Kelly Dalton
The Decemberists
Department of Eagles
Lavender Diamond
The Diggs
The Dismemberment Plan
Dispatch
Dogs Die In Hot Cars
Dog Traders
Dolour
Paul Duncan
The Editors
Elbow
Eux Autres
The Fast Computers
Leslie Feist
Final Fantasy
The Frames
Funeral For a Friend
The Futureheads
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Jose Gonzalez
David Gray [ old stuff.. ie White Ladder, Lost Song ]
Great Lake Swimmers
The Greek Embassy
Grizzly Bear
Ed Harcourt
Harlem Shakes
Imogen Heap
Hope Of The States
Travis Hopper
Hot Hot Heat [mainly old stuff]
Hundred Reasons
Idlewild
I'm From Barcelona
Incubus
Interpol
JetPlane Landing
Jimmy Eat World
Joy Division
Junip
Kano
Kings of Convenience
Kite Operations
Last Days of April
Jens Lekman
Ted Leo
Le Sport
Jenny Lewis
Listing Ship
Little Hooks
Lost Patrol
The Lovekevins
The Lovemakers
M83
Juan Maclean
The Manic Street Preachers
Marbles
Maritime
The Mars Volta
Massive Attack
Maximo Park
Tom McRae
Mellowdrone
Malcolm Middleton
Moby [ old stuff ]
Mogwai
Morning Spy
Morning Theft
Morrissey
The Motion Sick
The Mountain Goats
Mum
Mundy
New Order
Nirvana
The Notes and Stratches
Octopus Project
Pants Yell!
Pavement
Pedro the Lion
The Pixies
Point Juncture, WA
The Postal Service
Cat Power
The Promise Ring
Radiohead
Reindeer Section
REM
Reverie Sound Revue
Damien Rice
Johnathan Rice
Rilo Kiley
Josh Ritter
Rogue Wave
The Rosebuds
Josh Rouse
The Rumble Strips
Say Anything
Say Hi To Your Mom
Scissors for Lefty
Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
Sigur Rós
The Smashing Pumpkins
Elliot Smith
The Smiths
The Snow Machines
Snow Patrol
Songs: Ohia
The Southland
Space Mtn.
Sparta
The Spill Canvas
The Spinto Band
Stars
Stereophonics [ first two albums only ]
Straylight Run
The Strokes
Sufjan Stevens
Sunny Day Real Estate
Sybris
Taking Back Sunday
Tapes and Tapes
Test-Icicles
The Unicorns
John Vanderslice
The Voom Blooms
Voxtrot
We Are Scientists
The Weather Machines
Denison Witmer
Wolf Parade

Sometimes you just have to go elsewhere

So, this is the regular feature [well, it will be made regular, soon] - the round-up of the blogs. It won't be monthly, weekly, or daily, [i.e. it's not stringent time-settings]... it will just be whenever enough good stuff comes up. And enough has come up. So here you have it:



Go here [and quickly] to download Mogwai (live) on OneMusic. Very good quality, and since everyone's getting into Mogwai these days you might as well go see for yourself what the fuss is all about. Why should you go quickly? Because it's a large file and Matt [Skatterbrain] seems to have a habit of taking down large files rather soon after posting them. Example: I couldn't get the Sufjan video I wanted to get, just there now. And it's still on the front page. But then, he hosts music [and I don't], so he wins.

Similarly go here to download Two Gallants on Lamacq Live. Well worth downloading, just to hear the band be... let's say difficult by basically making Steve Lamacq sound... let's say silly.

Also, go here and here for Matt's [YANP] brilliant Valentine's day mixtapes [anti-love and pro-love, respectively]. Also go quickly for those since they'll be down soon.

Go here for an excellent post on Jonah Matranga, former singer of Far [a brilliant band I was introduced to a few years ago by a friend on the internet]...

Go here to get the new track from The Streets.

Featured blogs are:

S k a t t e r b r a i n
You Ain't No Picasso
So Much Silence
Fluxblog

...oh! I almost forgot!

That's what Chris Martin [singer of Coldplay] looks like. Now, the thing I forgot to add to my last post was: you should go download some Coldplay songs sung by Benjamin Costello.

Pointless fact: Benjamin Costello doesn't look like Chris Martin.
Obvious Fact: Benjamin Costello covers songs that Chris Martin has sang.
Well-Known Facts: Chris Martin has a child. Chris Martin's wife is Gwyneth Paltrow. She looks like this:




Benjamin Costello Covers Coldplay

The Scientist
We Never Change


*Note: click on picture to go to the Make Trade Fair website.
*Extra Note: I apologise for these posts today seeming like tyrades. I'm not being scene. I just think Chris Martin's Brit Award speech was stupid. Very, very stupid. Like the Brits. Although I felt an obligation to cover the Brits, so I did.

Important Note: I used to like Coldplay, mainly the 1st album - Parachutes, but I also appreciated the 2nd album - A Rush of Blood to The Head. However, their 3rd album - X & Y - reflects their discovery that it is indeed possible to over-produce already formulaic music and still get awards/lots of money for the effort [or lack there-of]. Pity.

The Brit Awards

*Note: Imagine that says 2006.

I realise that this post is a tad late, but frankly I don't care enough about the Brits to post on time... truthfully? I'm currently watching the highlights on TV. Basically, because there's nothing else on, so I thought I'd make a short post on what has come to be one of the most pointless awards in the history of pointless awards. Winners that I care about follow:

Ok, so they were going to follow... but hang on a second!!! Coldplay have now gone down in history as the only band to win Best Album 3 times? Sorry, but, what the bloody hell?!

And, Madonna is not "the superbabe of all superbabes" [quote unquote Chris Martin]... but right, I'm stopping now before I rant.

The Winners:

Jack Johnson - International Breakthrough Act
Kanye West - International Male Solo Artist
Kaiser Chiefs - British Rock Act, British Live Act, British Group
Arctic Monkeys - British Breakthrough Artist
Paul Weller - Outstanding Contribution

Reasons that the Brits are a joke:

a) The Kaiser Chiefs won 3 awards. The band are good-ish, and make catchy-ish tunes, but they don't deserved 3 awards, even if they did start-off on Drowned in Sound Recordings.
b) The award winners I listed make it seem ok. If you look at the full list, you'll see it's not.
c) James Blunt won an award. For the record, I used to like him, until I heard his voice so much that it started to drill holes in my skull. If you listen long and hard you'll realise that he sings in a really really really stupid [read: emotional (read: sarcasm)] voice.

Brit Award Related - Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down (video)
*Note: Linked from Domino so click on links.

In other Brit themed news, [The Gorillaz performed lived] Damon Albarn is currently writing a screenplay about the cultural diversity of Notting Hill - quite exciting news; so full story here.
Personal comment: I love Notting Hill [the film]... 'tis a brilliant romantic comedy. And by Richard Curtis [see also: Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral . I recently read "Date Expectations" which "reads like a Richard Curtis" movie. It was also a very good book, check it out, it's by Paul Reizin.



You know it. Go buy it.

*Note: Not artist's websites are linked to in this post: just because.
*Extra Note: I tried to host some good mp3's on Omoola. once again I was unsuccesful. Brilliant.

Intriguing acoustic covers

As promised, here's a post on Benjamin Costello. I was going to do it eventually - the reason I'm doing it now is that I - just this moment - heard his cover of Radiohead's brilliant Wolf at the Door. It's intriguing... like really. It removes the freaky elements of the original, and instead turns them into sadness. Ok, so I'm just looking at his site now, [just this bit, right here] and I actually didn't realise how much bloody music is on it. Jeez. I went to the news page and downloaded everything from there - but I didn't realise [ok, I'm an idiot] that there was alot more on his actual media page. So, am I annoying you with italics yet? Also of interest is his cover of Damien Rice's Older Chests, you'll see why [I was going to explain, but then realised: I already have I'm just going to link you to my favourite MP3's by him, since I actually don't know anything about him. Maybe I'll drop him a line and get an interview?

Everything I know/Reasons to like him:

a) He likes Radiohead [my favourite band - ever], Death Cab For Cutie, Damien Rice, and others.
b) He shares the same namesake as myself, and Benjamin Gibbard.
c) He does a lot of interesting covers, and some of his own stuff.
d) He promotes the sharing of music, and practises what he preaches.
e) He's damn good.



Benjamin Costello

Just For Now - original
Wolf at the Door - Radiohead Cover
Let Down - Radiohead Cover
Older Chests/Redemption Songs - Damien Rice/Bob Marley Cover
Cannonball - Damien Rice Cover
Lack of Color - Death Cab For Cutie Cover

*Note: I meant to pick the absolute best original [or two] and link to them, but I slept alot last night and didn't get a chance. The original I did link to is very good though from what I remember. Next post will be on like, Bright Eyes, or something like that. Dunno yea.

Drowned in Sound Radio

Here's the bulletin from Drowned in Sound:

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: DrownedinSound.com
Date: Feb 15, 2006 10:25 AM

Hello Dissers,
As you may be aware over the past few weeks we've launched DrownedinSound Radio, as a weekly podcast, available for free with an hour of new and interesting music. We're still struggling to get it 'officially' submitted to iTunes, so if you've heard it and support what we do, we'd love it if you could mention it in your blog or repost this bulletin. All you need to do is give people a link to http://www.drownedinsound.com/radio

Thank you,
Sean, Colin, Mike and all at Drownedinsound.com
-----------------------------------------------------

I think you should support them, since their podcasts always feature brilliant music, and I've written about them before. I would say more, but seriously, my eyes are closing, so just go, and listen, and I'll go sleep, and leave you with some links.

Obviously they have a MySpace.
Here is a link to the MySpace for Drowned in Sound Recordings.
Here is a link to the MySpace for Drowned in Sound.

Find me on MySpace at this link, right here.

Free acoustic sessions

Barsuk Records have made available their showcase of artists [playing just acoustic guitar, and using their vocal chords] here, in order to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. These artists include:

Matthew Caws
Ben Gibbard
John Vanderslice
Jesse Sykes
John Roderick

Go here for further information on the songs. I'm enjoying it, hope you do too.

Mogwai give birth to a beast...

As it stands, I only have two albums by Scottish prog-rockers Mogwai. Those two albums being, Happy Songs for Happy People [I believe it's meant to be ironic - how post-modern] and Government Commissions [another clever title for their BBC session tracks]. Both albums are very good - fairly chilled out with nice emotion; sometimes some raging guitar squall, sometimes just meandering vocals loosely hung around a melody in a beautiful way. The thing is, I've never been able to enjoy Mogwai as much as I enjoy other bands in the same niche, like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós, etc etc. But still, many people love Mogwai and I definitely have no reason for you not to love them. Well, this post continues the post-rock theme and is also appropriate, since they have a new album coming out, called Mr. Beast, which will be in stores March 7th.


*Note: Artwork for Mr. Beast. Click for full-size picture.

Additional info:

a) The band run their own record label, Rock Action Records, which puts out records for bands that sound nothing like them.
b) Apparently they wear trendy t-shirts, like an ancient of theirs, featuring the slogan, "Blur are shite". Interesting.
c) The name Mogwai comes from the film, Gremlins, and means ghost in Chinese. Below is a picture of a Gremlin.


*Note: Scary, huh?

Mogwai

Folk Death 65 - Mr. Beast
Hunted By A Freak
Two Rights Make One Wrong
Superheroes of the BMX - live
Helicon Two - live

Like them thus far? Buy Mogwai CD's, T-Shirts, etc, here. Download more audio here.

No Lies, Just Love

Today was Valentine's day... and I didn't even make a post full of lovely little songs! Might I take this opportunity to once again blame the fact that I haven't got somewhere to store MP3's? As soon as I do have somewhere though [maybe 0moola; if it works], I reckon I might make a belated post on the matter. Not an extensive post, for sure, since Valentine's day doesn't mean that much to me, but I guess love is important, and hope is important, so maybe expect some Idlewild? Haha, definitely some Oh No! Oh My! Definitely... [actually, they'll probably be in the next post, since I just discovered their website and it has lots of free MP3's on it, which is a good thing!] And more than likely I'll post on Beat Radio soon, since I like them rather a lot. Anyways, I reckon that future post should be a nice one - today you've probably already got enough nice songs off all the other blogs out there.

Right now I'm listening to Taking Back Sunday - I recently found a CD I made ages ago [Stray Darts & Shattered Hearts], when I really liked my pop-punk - it also featured My Chemical Romance, the band of now [well, if now was like 3 months ago] which is impressive going since this CD was made about a year and a half ago. More over, it had Existentialism for Prom Night [by Straylight Run] on it, and everyone seems to love that song now. I'm so hip. Only joking, yea, I'm kinda embarassed by half the stuff on this CD since it's not "cool" and "trendy" and "inventive". Ah well. Still music at the end of the day, and we all have our phases, and the songs still hold up, so there.

I got a lovely jumper yesterday from my girlfriend. In return I gave her two CD's I made. It's 'cause I'm awfully poor y'see, and I love music, so it made sense. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "thou must bleed for me", in one of his essay on the subject of gifts. Basically, he was talking about "the only true gift is a portion of thyself", and I agree, alot... so making a CD, or writing a poem, and writing a little piece of anything makes alot of sense for me as far as presents go. I'm very much a writer, a musician; these aspects of my life are extremely important. But anyway, enough rambling. Basically, right, I'm going to start posting the playlists to these CD's I make for people, and hopefully the MP3's... they'll go to a special part of the site so that you can always get to them handy. Much in the same way interviews will [if I ever get any]. And the other thing that will go to the "special part of the site" as it shall now be known [until I get bored with that name for it] is band profiles. Band profiles are cool in my opinion. Very cool. And another thing - I just decided what tomorrow's post will be on. The mixtape I made [oh how very High Fidelity] featured an interesting cover of Damien Rice's "Older Chests". Why was it interesting? Because it was made into a melody which segued into Bob Marley's "Redemption Songs". So, the cover was done by Benjamin Costello. He shares the same first name as me - pure sweet - so definitely going to do a post on him. Hope you enjoy it...

Closing Note: Check out Nick Hornby. He's an amazing author. And novel's are cool. His last one, A Long Way Down, was fantastic and well-worth a read. About 4 [at least I think it was 4] people who are going to commit suicide, and the reasons they don't. Brilliant stuff, which was described by Tom Perotta as "brave and absorbing", "funny and surprising". Ye-es!

Final closing note: I entered a competition on Drowned in Sound today. It involved using Wikipedia - first time I ever used it - and it seems like a very useful resource; a bit nerdy, but still handy. Well, I hope I win. It's pure late. Night. I'm off to sleep.

Drowned in Sound have a new Podcast up: download it here. It's ok/average/good/fantastic/amazing... You decide. One thing it is however: better than radio. [See the tracklisting for it here..]



Strays Darts & Shattered Hearts

Straylight Run -Existentialism on Prom Night
Underoath - When The Sun Sleeps
Senses Fail - Buried A Lie

Maybe love will find us again, there's always tomorrow...

*Note: Underoath lyrics, which are quite fitting for me saying I'll post on love sometime soon, but not today - not Valentine's day.

is this an alright start?

So I hope you like the blog, if you do, comment or email or something... today's post will be about Sigur Rós, the first amazing band that I saw live, and also a brilliant post-rock band - by my definition. The band consists of all its founding members, minus the original drummer who left the band to pursue a career in graphic design, after recording the band's masterpiece Agætis Byrjun ("an alright start"). He was subsequently replaced by orri.


*Note: Click for full-sized picture.

To date the band have released 4 albums, plus a remix album (Von Brigði), a soundtrack (Hlemmur) and an experimental EP (Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do). Of their albums proper, my two favourites are Agætis Byrjun and Takk.. ("thanks"), as they capture the glacial landscape as well as the beauty of life, aurally (which is something they strive to do). In a world of madness and mania, Sigur Rós offer an escape in the form of their music. You know the way people say of people: "she's my little ray of sunshine" or whatever? Well that's what Sigur Rós are... a glimmer of hope, and an escape. Their video's reflect this fact, with many of them featuring kids and old people acting like kids, wandering about and loving life foolishly. The Brackets album as it became known, ( ), was quite dark in comparison to these two albums and therefore less accessible. I like it, but could never fully appreciate the way I do their other albums. However there are many notable songs off it as well, like Vaka, and since I won the album in a competition, and Sigur Rós are one of my favourite bands anyway, I'm definitely not going to complain.



Reasons to love Sigur Rós:

a) I saw them live after only listening to them for about 3 hours that day - I came away from it mesmerised and couldn't sleep for ages.
b) They offer hope.
c) They seem like really cool down-to-earth guys.
d) Their music is extremely accessible, yet still inventive.
e) They make nice videos.
f) Their recording studio is a converted swimming pool.



Sigur Rós

Staralfur
Vaka(live)
Njósnavélin
Viðrar vel til loftárása

Enjoy. Ok, only joking, not finished yet. Since the videos are actually lovely:

...More Sigur Rós

Hoppípolla - Official Video
Glósóli - Official Video

...and for the curious, I can link you to more information on the band, if you want?

...Even More Sigur Rós

A full band biography (official) is available here.
More MP3's and videos are available here.
Here is the website of their recording studio.
Go here for English translations of their lyrics - they're a bit twisted, really.

Buy Sigur Rós from their online shop.

Still post-rock?

So, since I've decided to have so many themes - just wait 'til y'hear:

Post-Rock [already started]
Gigs I've been to [posts on all the bands of all the gigs I've been to - not that many]
Broken Social Scene and Intrinsic Bands [self-explanatory: Broken Social Scene and the bands that make up the numbers]
Favourite Artists [self-explanatory]
Drowned in Sound Recordings [posts on current and previous bands on the label]

...well, because of this, I've decided that I'll just post inter-mittently on these themes, whenever I feel fit. And in order to make them themes proper, once they're over I'll make a short post linking to all the posts on the theme. Sounds sweet, eh? But since this is still post-rock...



Jeniferever

Let's all go here to listen to Gideon Coe's BBC 6 Music show, in order to listen to Jeniferever - live in session - in order to celebrate their new single, 'From Across the Sea' - formerly linked on this site - released today. Their album will be released a month from today. So, enjoy...

Anthems for the heart...

Seeing Broken Social Scene: was absolutely amazing. Definitely one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Perhaps better than Sigur Ros in Dublin. Better than Radiohead in Dublin? Better than Idlewild in Dublin? Better than Biffy Clyro in Derry. This was Broken Social Scene in Belfast, and I fell in love with the singer, Lisa Lobsinger. Is it hard to see why?



The newest edition to the band, she is the former vocalist of Reverie Sound Revue, who made nice, pretty electro-pop. That band split up in 2004 however and her considerable vocal talents are now given a better opportunity in the Canadian collective. At the gig she was very quiet; standing still, patting her thigh in time to the beat, mesmerising the audience with her beautiful vocals... especially over "Anthems for a seventeen year old girl", probably the best song they performed all night - the most tense? Maybe. Ok, among the best songs performed all night. The finale though, of "It's all gonna break", was absolutely astounding... here's my closest - far off but you get the gist of it - estimation of Kevin Drew's little speech before hand...

"This song we're going to play now is for you. It's no longer for us. This one's for the lovers, for her and for him, for every person who has ever lived and every single person who has ever died. This is how it goes... we're gonna sing,

it's all...

And you're gonna scream. As loud as you can. Come on. For yourselves. Don't do this for us. Scream for yourselves

*screaming*

...gonna breaaak"

You had to be there. Honest. Best gig.



*Note: click for full-sized picture. It's massive. And it's now my desktop background. Sweet!

Oh, and I forgot to add. I got a hug off Kevin Drew.. as did everyone in the crowd who was near the front. Quote: "I'm comin' in to hug you. Don't punch me." He's adorable.

*Note: these pictures aren't from the Belfast gig.. And why? Well, I guess it's because I didn't take a camera. 'Cause i'm stupid.

Broken Social Scene

Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
KC Accidental
Pacific Theme
Looks Just Like The Sun
Almost Crimes

All MP3's direct-linked from this site. I think you should be nice, and visit it. Especially since, if you spend, say, 30 seconds on it, you'll find alot more Broken Social Scene MP3's. I just didn't want to usurp all their bandwidth, 'cause that's not nice... at all. Nor is direct linking from other blogs, but I'm currently trying to get hosting sorted, and also begin to understand it! Essential... but not happening anytime this century. Free hosting that's good is hard to come by for idiots, it seems.

Buy Broken Social Scene:

Beehives
Feel Good Lost
You Forgot It In People
Self-Titled

*Note: Order= B-Sides, then 1st (instrumental, and stylistically very different from other albums), 2nd (critically acclaimed... even by Pitchfork, and 3rd (just recently released in the UK, and probably my favourite by them) album by the fantastic collective.