Set Your Faces To Amused

The marvellous, splendiferous, hilarious (and any other word ending "...ous") Peep Show returns to the screen of Channel 4 TOMORROW! Yup, the return of Jezz and Mark is REALLY welcome and what the HECK is going to happen?? Will Mark get married out of Embarrassment? Will Jezz get his second shot with Big Suze and Will Super Hans beat the crack? It is, as he has reminded us "rather moreish"!

Now this is a music blog so out of respect and excitement for Peep Show, I've stuck on a little bit of Harvey Danger to get you in the mood. EVERYBODY: "Paranoia! Paranoia! Everybody's coming to get me..."

Easter's Almost Here

39 days of struggling my way through Lent has been tough; giving up The Simpsons, chocolate AND Football Manager 2007 has been chuffing hard I can tell you.

So in celebration of the stuffing/watching/playing that awaits me in less than a day, I thought I'd chuck up a choon! OK, I could have gone for "I am the Resurrection", I guess that'd be the obvious choice but way outta left-field.....

Quasi - The Golden Egg

Didn't see that coming did ya??

Happy Holidays, whatever you're up to!

Esiotrot

Esiotrot are awesome.

GAME OVER

There must be close to 1000 reasons as to why the rock ass. Firstly, they're named after one of my favourite childhood books which is worth a purchase on its own, but to top that off with a lofi genius and nods towards three of my most favourite bands: Pavement, Hefner and Belle & Sebastian and I personally have hit the jackpot.

The Brighton collective on the excellent Kentish label The Mentalist Association have tuned into something very uncool hence the lack of media-inklings floating around, in fact only DrownedinSound scalped a review of the newly released album "Schmesiotrot", yet for all this retro-alternativeness, it is both relevant and contemporary, pulling away from the 3 bands listed above and adding to their mix with aplomb. Tracks cover themes as wide ranging as over-reliance on technology, to indie girls dating pretty-boys, to punching William G. Stewart on 15-to-1, ther's literally something there for everyone. Listen for yourselves and then buy the record (just £5 from here).

Esiotrot - There'll be a Time for Nice Guys

Remember when....

Emo meant something TOTALLY different?

Emo: Geeky, all guy bands like The Get Up Kids and The Ataris working off the dumb (I mean it in the most musical non-offensive way) predecessors like Weezer and Fountains of Wayne, using simple infectious cords and endearing lyrical statements.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Emo is now this dark master driving forward Panic! at the Disco Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. Now, people think I'm being Indier than thou, but I can't tell the difference between P!ATD and FOB, I JUST CAN'T! What makes it so much more confusing is that The Ataris have gone all serious, Weezer are on hiatus and the Get up Kids seemingly vanished after producing one of the great records of the late 90s in "Something to Write Home About" (which actually WAS something to indeed, write home about).

Luckily The Hold Steady have turned up and thrust themselves towards the eager record-buying public. OK, it's a bit nu-skool Emo, but it rings of classic classic emo charm and I for one welcome them.

The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy
and just because I can...The Ataris - San Dimas High School Football Rules

Los Campesinos!

Ever since Panic! At The Disco exploded like puss-filled boil all over the charts/popular culture, I've been suspicious of bands with an exclamation mark in their name. Luckily the wonderful wonderful wonderful Los Campesinos! restored my faith in punctuation.

The tunes show marks of adolescent fun in a Go!-Team-minus-samples style mixed with the deadly cool lyrical wit of early Belle & Sebastian help propell the songs in the most charming way possible couple this with lofi riffs straight out of the Yo La Tengo School of Tuneful Noise and LC! elevate themselves effortlessly above the clutter of heartless noise-pop outfits being groomed in the wings. Wichita are rarely wrong with their signings and I'm pretty sure Los Campesinos will do them proud.

The new single is free to download from their funtastic website here and further couple of tracks can also be found below:

Los Campesinos! - Don't Tell me to do the Math(s)
Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!

A New National Anthem

Twelve of them to be precise. Of course, I speak not of good ole "God Save the Queen" but of top New York outfit The National. The hotly tipped 3rd full record "Boxer" is released on May 22nd 2007 worldwide on Beggars. I for one am VERY excited. If you get the chance to see them live I recommend you do so. They're in town (well, my town) on 22nd May at the Astoria and if you can't make that, they'll be at the Mean Fiddler promoted (read: boutique cash cow) Latitude Festival in Suffolk over the weekend of the 13-15 July.

The tracklisting for "Boxer" is as stated below:

01 Fake Empire
02 Mistaken for Strangers
03 Brainy
04 Squalor Victoria
05 Green Gloves
06 Slow Show
07 Apartment Story
08 Start a War
09 Guest Room
10 Racing Like a Pro
11 Ada
12 Gospel

A further treat can also be found here.

Don't say I'm not good to you!

My First Post

OK, Go me!

I'm blogged up and ready to go. I've been busy looking at music blogs for a few months now and have FINALLY decided to join the not-so-huddled masses.

Updates - I imagine - will be sporadic but when they arrive hopefully they'll inform and intrigue.