Box Elders singles

The new Box Elders single on Hozac, Tiny Sioux b/w Plenty Of Room At The Bottom, confirms them as the world’s premier exponents of maddeningly catchy and grin-inducing (new genre alert!) bubblegum garage psych.




Yesterday, a mate told me that Box Elders’ debut single isn’t available to download anywhere. Talking to drummer/keyboardist Dave Goldberg (yes, I have many showbiz pals) at their Ryan’s Bar gig in London last year, he said that even he didn’t have a copy. And these four songs were recorded in a cave under his house in 2007.
Hole In My Head

One Foot In Front Of The Other

2012

S+ M Party

And if you want to sing along, here's the lyric insert:

Last Train To Eastleigh!

An old fashioned fazine dropped into my letter box at the weekend. Last Train To Eastleigh! corners, as is the way of fanzines, a niche market, covering Southampton's indiepop history, as well as reviews of recent releases and gigs.

I enjoyed reading it; if you want to get your hands on the physical object, drop the editor Rich an email and he'll tell you how to get a copy.

The contents will be uploaded eventually, but romantics will surely want the physical format.

First Base

Reasons to love First Base:
1. The titles on their new ep: She’s Boy Crazy, I’ll Be Your Hangover, You’re A Waste Of My Time, Back To Japan
2. Using two chords forever and ever
3. Cheap Trick bubblegum rock, Stooges monochrome riffs, Ramones dumb lyrics
4. They’re just goofing off and having fun; these pop songs are a happy accident
5. They make it sound so easy (but if it were that easy, then Los Campesinos! would’ve found a way to sound this good).

Reason to hurry: the purple vinyl is all sold out and there’s only 20 left of the black vinyl.

Dolly Mixture re-issues announced

The Dolly Mixture website went live yesterday. The most important information is:

We will be re-releasing the Demonstration Tapes LP this spring as part of a 3 CD Box set. Also included will be all of the singles, a and b sides, a disc of previously unreleased material, including extra demos and live recordings plus a 32 page booklet.

A double vinyl album re-issue of Demonstration Tapes will also be available at the same time. Both items will be limited edition and available only via this website and a few selected stores.

So go and join the mailing list to keep updated.

World Atlas

World Atlas have taken Stuart Murdoch’s lament “no one writes them like they used to, so it may as well be me” and decided that seeing as Belle and Sebastian don’t write them like they used to, they’re going to.

They nail it spot on with the swirling strings and floorshaking soul beat of The Winter Stories, but there’s a more than a whiff elsewhere that they’ve simply borrowed Belle and Sebastian’s watch and told them the time.

The title alone of Girl On A Boy’s Bike sounds like it came from a B+S song title generator and despite their myspace claim that they like ye-ye, the only tangible French influence to XOXO is that, like Legal Man, it sounds like the theme tune to Eurotrash.

There’s evidence aplenty on this ep that World Atlas have the talent to give up the pastiche and make their own mark. I desperately hope they do because nearly every band who try to sound like B+S are terrible; this lot, with a little more confidence and a little less deference, could be something special.

Knight School - Revenger

No expense was spent on the recording of Knight School's second album, Revenger, which is scratchy, fuzzy, lo-fi fun packed full of tunes. Pretty much like last year’s The Poor and Needy Need To Party, only better.


They haven’t travelled far from their core influence of the TVPs' And Don’t The Kids Just Love It – the occasional touch of kindergarten psychedelia hints they may have expanded their listening to include the TVPs' Mummy Your Not Watching Me – but they play with such heart, pizzazz and infectious charm that you can’t help but be swept up in their melodic maelstrom.

Subject matter includes wizards, restraining orders and pizza, one song's called Meathead Hurricane, and lyrics like “Life’s been so hard since I’ve been in limbo/Life’s been so hard since mom was a bimbo” put Knight School right at the forefront of gleeful punk pop with Let’s Wrestle. Or as they quite rightly sing on Hope Everything Falls Into Place Before I Fall Into A Grave: “I say fuck off to those who want me to grow up”.

Smoothie Pie

G.E.D. Soul Records, the home of super heavy raw southern soul (or Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as it’s also known) say: “You like smooth? You like pie? Then you will love Smoothie Pie". Damn straight. They could equally have said: ‘You like Archie Bell and the Drells? Stevie Wonder? Al Green? Then you’ll love Sky Hi's debut single, Smoothie Pie.’

Turn it over and you’ve got Get Yourself Together, which sees Sky Hi turn up the funk and shows they’re no strangers to the early 70s vintage of Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone and Marvin Gaye.