Kid Canaveral

Herein lies a tale…

“You said she’s fit, but her music taste’s shite,
And when I tell you it doesn’t matter
You tell me she likes The McFly
And you like Erase Errata
…
When I tell you it didn’t matter
You remind me you like John Martyn
And she likes Neil Sedaka”
(“Smash Hits” Kid Canaveral)

We have all, I am sure, been there before. If not in real life, then you will perhaps recognise the situation of different music tastes getting in the way of a good relationship:
“You're in love, and it feels like shame
Because she's gone and made a fool of you in public again…
She's made you some kind of laughing stock
Because you dance to disco, and you don't like rock.”
(“Can You Forgive Her?” Pet Shop Boys)

Kid Canaveral’s debut single, Smash Hits, is the kind of joyous buzzsaw racket that’s so simple and so very effective you wonder why people don’t make it more often (clue: doing the simple pop thing right is one of the hardest tricks to pull off).

They sound like they’re armed with the knowledge that music peaked in 1976 with the first Ramones album (although the Shop Assistants were pretty good) and consequently Smash Hits is the kind of dumb punk pop that so very few get right. Fewer still get it as right as this. Go and listen to them here.

Sparring partners

There have in recent weeks been moments – but only moments – when my breast has swelled with such love for my fellow bloggers that I have pledged at various times to upload sundry pop songs of yore for their listening pleasure.

Nancy has stood up to be counted as a Korova Milk Bar fan; in the spirit of comradeship and support-group help, I promised to post their debut ep. I am a man of my word.
Ridiculous
Calling Me Again/Desire

For reasons that I forget now (but it had something to do with summer songs) both Ally and myself agreed that it would be a very good idea to post some Grab Grab The Haddock. Ally has, apparently, the decorators in (shut up, the joke’s already been made); seeing as there are no obstacles to accessing my records, it has fallen to me to post them.
I’m Used Now

Last Fond Goodbye

It is worth, I think, sharing the line-up and duties listed on the back of their debut ep:
Alice Fox – vociferation and percussion
Steve Galloway – geetar, melodic guitar and piano
Lester Noel – guitar, piano, congas and bassdrum
Jane Fox – bass, bowed bits, celeste and minstrelsy

There isn’t, I sometimes (I wouldn’t want you to think I fret continuously over this) think, enough of the celeste in popular music.

Lastly, Chris has expressed an interest in The Caretaker Race’s Somewhere On Sea. This was, I think, their best moment. You will notice the Spanish-y guitar break which ties this song to 1987 (see also: Forever Steven by The Corn Dollies and La Isla Bonita by Madonna).

The Lodger

I’m grateful to a mate for tipping me off about this band a year ago. Let Her Go was exactly that astonishing thing he claimed – a collision of The Wolfhounds’ fury and The June Brides’ horn-driven melodic power in a sleeve similar to Cattle and Cane.










The Lodger’s debut album, Grown-Ups, has just come out. Its references are more of the above with a certain nostalgia for simpler, less sullied times that was a trademark of The Smiths or The Housemartins; and most recently was heard to infectious effect on Spearmint’s mighty A Week Away album.

Perhaps at fourteen tracks Grown-Ups overstretches itself a little, but when it does work it really is very strong indeed. The album’s not a classic, but there’s all the evidence here that they will write one at some stage. For proof, listen to Let Her Go over at the Slumberland site.

Edwyn Collins (slight return)

I know everyone's heartened by the return of St Edwyn. Here's a recent photo of him with Bob from Shrag (it was good to see them reviewed in the Guardian last week, was it not?).


If you're interested in more pictures of Shrag and their associates in varying states of liquid refreshment, you should head here.

Edwyn Collins

Edwyn Collins
Announces the release of new album.
*press release*

Edwyn Collins releases a new album, Home Again, through Heavenly Recordings on September 17th 2007. A single, You’ll Never Know, will precede the 12 track self-produced album on September 10th.

The full track listing for the album is as follows:

1. One Is A Lonely Number
2. Home Again
3. You’ll Never Know
4. 7th Son
5. Leviathan
6. In Your Heart
7. Superstar Talking Blues
8. Liberteenage Rag
9. A Heavy Sigh
10. Written In Stone
11. One Track Mind
12. Then I Cried

Home Again, Edwyn’s 6th solo long player, was recorded at West Heath, his own North West London studio in late 2004 / early 2005 before he suffered a serious illness. Work to complete the album was resumed earlier this year following a long period of rehabilitation.

Edwyn formed his first band, The Nu-Sonics in Glasgow in 1976 and was later to form Orange Juice and the hugely influential Postcard Records on which they released a string of acclaimed singles including Falling And Laughing & Simply Thrilled Honey in the late 1970s. They went on to record 4 ambitious albums which fused the rhythm and drive of Chic & Stax with an edge and attitude born out of their post-punk roots; such a sound was, at the time, completely unique and their influence on
subsequent waves of British guitar bands cannot be underestimated.

Orange Juice disbanded in 1985 and Edwyn has subsequently enjoyed a successful solo career (his 1994 single A Girl Like You was a worldwide hit) and has produced a number of albums, including The Cribs 2004 long player The New Fellas. He has released 5 solo albums since his debut, Hope And Despair in 1989.



www.edwyncollins.com
www.myspace.com/edwyncollins
www.heavenly100.com

The Young Republic

There’s been plenty of speculation and conjecture over the years about who might be the new Belle and Sebastian. It’s been a matter of some interest to me for two particular reasons:
1/ Nobody – not even Stuart Murdoch himself – writes them like they used to. Belle and Sebastian have not seemed important – and never as vital – since This Is Just A Modern Rock Song stuck a knife in Britpop’s inflated back nine (NINE!) years ago.
2/ Indiepop/twee/C86/gurlie dickweed indie/call it what you will has never been so popular. This is largely because of Belle and Sebastian. The movement has, I think, achieved critical mass, thus is in a state of self-perpetuation, but it still needs a figurehead. And, no, The Pastels or the Television Personalities do not count. Nor do The Shins or The Magnetic Fields, thanks for asking.

For fairly obvious reasons, Camera Obscura took the early votes in the New B+S Campaign. They were the band for people who thought B+S weren’t indie enough after they’d committed the crime of selling plenty of records; or – fair enough – the much bigger crime of releasing The Boy With The Arab Strap.

The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir – crazy name, crazy guys – are neither a Police tribute band nor a church-based combo. They claim to be a “a chambery folky punky band” but their 2003 debut I Bet You Say That to All The Boys reveals a batch of songs heavily in debt to Tigermilk. No bad place to be, but I’m hoping for something a little more original when they get round to releasing new material (probably this year).

The Hidden Cameras, if the world was to be believed, were a “gay Canadian Belle and Sebastian”. It’s an angle, I suppose, and played up to indiepop’s detractors who thought Belle and Sebastian were “a gay Scottish indie band”, but the main problem was that the Hidden Cameras forgot to make any great records after Smell Of Our Own four years ago.

Butcher Boy have been much lauded in the indiepop world, but I can’t see it myself. On the basis of them live recently, two songs were both, um, “overly influenced” by A House Is Not A Motel; less acceptably, and very odd indeed, a whole two other songs sounded like tributes to Sultans Of Swing.

Of the other current contenders, Antarctica Takes It sound like they’re doing the business. I emailed them a few weeks ago and they said they had an album coming out on How Does It Feel in “a couple of weeks”, but there’s no mention of it on the HDIF site…still, keep your eyes on ‘em.

Better than them, though, and better than just about every band of any stripe at the moment, is The Young Republic. Their second UK single, Girl From The Northern States, outstrips the competition with crisp, jangling guitars and a rolling, soulful piano that announces quite clearly that – at last! – someone really is writing them like they used to.

Classic songs, all three of them on the ep, that like much of the very best music – and this is the very best music – has one eye on the past while moving forward. They play tonight at the Social, then
26 Jun 2007 20:00
Red Roaster, Brighton w/Thirty Pounds of Bone, Birdengine Brighton

27 Jun 2007 17:30
Resident Records Instore, Brighton

27 Jun 2007 22:00
JOHN KENNEDY XFM ACOUSTIC SESSION

28 Jun 2007 17:00
ROUGH TRADE INSTORE, NEALS YARD London

28 Jun 2007 20:00
The Enterprise, Camden w/AHAB London

30 Jun 2007 20:00
The Spitz London

Youtube festival

Stockholm Monsters - Party Line
Played live, this – and I don’t use the word lightly – classic loses something of its statuesque, anthemic quality, but gains more in added spectrality. New Order would have loved to have written this song. Not saying they could have mind, but any NO album – most albums by anyone, in fact - would sound better with Party Line (Peter Hook produced nearly all SM records, by the way, under the name ‘Be Music’). There’s something in the Stockholm Monsters’ sound that prefigures Pulp as well.

Television -- Tom Verlaine teaching Richard Hell "Venus"

Tom Verlaine teaching Richard Hell "Venus" Part 2
Civilisation has probably advanced to a point where we are all wise enough, sophisticated enough and cultural enough to be in accord that Marquee Moon is one of the towering giants of human artistic endeavour.

Here we have truculence, frayed tempers, frustration and lassitude to the fore in this snapshot of master and apprentice. A bit like Michaelangelo having Tracey Emin in his studio.

You Made Me Realise - My Bloody Valentine
It still sounds monumental and intense. Nobody else has ever written them quite like this, before or since. Probably not enough footage of drummer Colm O’Ciosoig for my liking, but we all have our crosses to bear.

Harvey Williams – You Should All Be Murdered
In anticipation of Harvey taking to the London stage on August 10 ably supporting Rose Melberg, here’s the fellow at April’s popfest in NYC. Buy tickets for the gig here.

I Started A Joke – The Bee Gees
Robin at his most trembling, vulnerable, lovesick and remorseful, this surely stands as testament to the Gibbs’ songwriting magic and an example of why Idea is one of the greatest albums of the 1960s.

For those of you based in London, JBs in Hanway St have the Bee Gees Rhino box set for £25, at least £20 cheaper than anywhere else. It makes sense, it really does.