The State Broadcasters

Lets Make T-Shirts – The State Broadcasters

Which state is that then? Glasgow, the state capital of indie.
What flavour of indie? Not a million miles from their label mates Wake The President, or even Electric Honey alumni Belle and Sebastian, only with orchestral augmentation that includes cello, glockenspiel, trombone and clarsach.
Clarsach? Nope, me neither.
Sounds a bit Fence collective: You could happily file this next to your Alasdair Roberts albums, although it would fit perfectly between Lambchop’s Nixon and Eels’ Daisies of the Galaxy.
Is it depressing? Not at all. This a sweetly drowsy song about first love, remembered with a lugubrious humour:

Let’s make sweet love
We are both 16 and it will be good
Let’s do it to Hatful of Hollow
A pregnancy scare will surely follow

Saucy! Try this for size, then:

You showed me your appendix scar
I could show you nothing
Except my red, red, red…face

Excellent! Electric Honey’s the best, isn’t it: Luckily, you have forgotten about Biffy Clyro. But we cannot forgive them.
Shouldn’t it be “let’s” not “lets”? Blame punk rock or falling educational standards, but for a song this good I think we can overlook their ignorance of the imperative mood.

Lost Soul: Lonette McKee

The sixth in a series of soul classics that have fallen through the floorboards




It’s 1974 and the sound of soul music is SEX. Anyone who thinks the distaff reaction to Marvin’s 1973 call to bed, Let’s Get It On, or Barry "The Mountain Of Mounting" White’s I've Got So Much Love To Give was to divest themselves of their cumbersome clothes and recline legs akimbo on a water bed, can't have heard Lonette McKee’s Do To Me.

A hymn to concupiscence and gratification, Do To Me sees Lonette McKee cajoling her man to forget his hang-ups and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.

I don’t see what the hang up would be
I dig you and I think you dig me
Come on and give it a try
I like the things you
Do to me in the morning time
Do to me in the evening time
Do to me when the sun don’t shine
Do to me when I’m feeling fine

Yes, this feminist anthem of free love suggests that Lonette McKee would have burnt her bra if she'd ever worn one.

Do To Me's mid-tempo crossover soul would fit right in after the necktie-loosening floorfillers have got everybody’s blood pressure pumping and just before the slow-paced erection section at the end of the DJ’s set.

Oh, if the song –particularly the keyboard - sounds slightly slow, all copies of this record I’ve heard play like this.

Dead Dog

for your listening enjoyment: muffled singing! loud guitars! and 30%more feedbacK than the leading brand!

For anyone missing The Bridge Gang’s sonic chaos or the fury and, uh, dischord of 80s American hardcore, then Dead Dog's fiercely dissonant chiming - the product of punk rock played fast on Rickenbacker guitars - will press all the right buttons.

Their eponymous debut album is eight songs long, plays at 45rpm and is over in a quarter of an hour. Not a second is wasted in this rabid, vehement maelstrom.

A cover of Daniel Johnston’s Hate Song points to a deeper anguish underlying this maniacal riot, but songs like Dead Dogs Don’t Mind and Return Of The Living Dead show this trio are having a blast and their infectious brio is enchantingly – perversely – infectious.

Lost Soul: Detroit Soul

The fifth in a series of soul classics that have fallen through the floorboards









All Of My Life mixes the swing of club soul and the pounding rhythm of Northern soul with teenage romantic despair and longing for one almightily essential track. It’s been issued on a few compilations, so for those of you who already have it, here’s the b-side, Mister Hip, as well, which has never been given the reissue treatment.

An inventive instrumental with – naturally – much applause, I wonder if this song got the acid jazz or rare groove crowds excited twenty years ago. It should’ve done. My five pounds says that Ally turned a shoe to this in Soho back in the day and that the walls of Landcroft House will be throbbing to the sound of Mister Hip this weekend (goatees optional).

Detroit Soul’s bassist, Bart Mazzarella, said elsewhere on the internet:

We had a regional hit record, produced by Ken Griffin on Music Town records, called "All Of My Life" in the summer of 1967. We recorded it at Wallingford's Syncron (sp) Studio. The "Detroit Soul" was a staple at the Good Guys All Family Outings at Riverside Park and won all the Battle Of The Bands, including one over Al Anderson's Wild Weeds (No Good To Cry). By the way, I also played in a band that appeared "Live" at one of Ron Landry's record hop gigs. We were called "The High Tones" and I was a guitar player in junior high school.

Harvey Williams spectacular

Edwyn played an acoustic gig, assisted by Roddy Frame, last night at the Social. Harvey Williams, who took the photo, said it was “a real honour to be there. Edwyn is looking & sounding better every time I see him. Also: it's strange how indie pop is probably the least cool musical genre ever, yet there I was in a room full of meedja types punching the air & whooping it up to Falling & Laughing. A faith restorer, really; even more so than a traditional Edwyn show.”

Harvey, along with The Lodger, Strange Idols, Pocketbooks and many more, will be playing at an Edwyn Collins tribute night at the Social next Monday, 16 June, each covering an Edwyn or Orange Juice song.


If that’s not enough Harvey action for you – and why should it be? – Harvey will be DJing at the Hangover Lounge this Sunday afternoon, 15 June, at the Salmon + Compass in Angel.

Radio 2 Goes Twee

Tonight on Radio 2

Paul Morley is both fascinated and confused by the number of different musical genres that exist today.

In this four-part series, he sets off to find out where all of these new genres have come from and what, if anything, do they mean to music fans today.

Each programme finds Paul talking to current champions of a new music style and the artists that have influenced them.

Tune in to find out everything you ever wanted to know about psych-folk, glitch, twee, post-rock, emo and perfect pop in the company of Lou Reed, Billy Bragg and Bernard Butler amongst others.

I'd probably have greater enthusiasm for this programme if the presenter weren't "confused" by the subject. The clever money's on a descent into cliches and misreadings, but I hope indiepop's political fire is examined and clueless, bandwagon-jumping neophytes are bitchslapped. I won't find out. I'll be at the Absentee gig.

Downdime

In the three years since their intriguing, promising debut ep, Seeds of Hopelessness, Leeds’s Downdime have tightened up their act.





New single, Hate The Morning, sees Downdime swap Super Furries’ wayward keyboard whimsy for Rocketship’s frantic pop and marshal their psychedelic tendencies with some of that deliciously direct and brutal guitar strumming that the Wedding Present did so well 20 or more years ago.

Their excitably rampant turmoil suggests they might have listened to the odd Flaming Lips record in the past three years. On the strength of this second single, which you could file quite happily next to your Pains Of Being Pure At Heart ep, their third release had better come quickly.

On myspace they say, accurately enough, that they play “frantic, loud, reckless, shambolic, catchy, fast, chaotic, moody indie pop”.