Weepop! Records

Since I was a young lad stuck in my room listening to Lamacq whilst studying for my exams, I have had a favourite record label. This is unashamedly the mark of an indie geek/snob. Over the years, Fantastic Plastic, Jeepster, Fence and Matador have all found themselves in my good books. Now a new label has come and dethroned them all. That label is the magical, WeePop! Records.

It seems like a long long time since I’ve seen a more committed little label run with the sole intention of adding a little sunshine in our otherwise weary world but WeePop! do it was a grace and charm only seen in small DIY labels. Since their first release in June, the team has amassed a fine group of bands and artists. Most excitingly are Scottish popsters The Just Joans, Pocketbooks side project, Sunny Intervals and Desmond Reed, a young and overtly talented troubadour from Massachusetts. His Guinea Pigs EP is released via WeePop! and like all of their releases is strictly limited and produced on a micro 3” CD. I advise you to grab hold of it ASAP. It’s a charming collection of laid-back pop songs, which sounds like a down-tempo Apples in Stereo crossed with a less jangly Teenage Fanclub all performed by a prozac happy Ryan Adams. It’s a musically and lyrically accomplished body of work from a guy who is clearly intent on making very classy tunes. A full album release is hopefully not too far away and if this is anything to go by, it should be an absolute beast!

Desmond Reed - Neat

I Love Erlend Oye

This is no lie. I LOVE Erlend Oye.

Here's a man who has made nothing but world class music since as long as I can remember. The Kings of Convenience records are some of the finest tentative Nordic folk ever committed to record, "Versus" is some of the most proficient remixes made (granted, Erlend can little less credit for this) but it's still worth gushing over. Then we come to the poorly handled DJ-Kicks release which slipped out a few years back. I must admit to only picking this up in a Virgin (now Zavvi?!?!) sale for £3, well after listening to it I felt like I should have gone back and given them an extra £20. It's that ruddy good!

So it was with child-like eagerness that I listened to the Whitest Boy Alive record. Did it disappoint? Did it chuff! What a fabulous collection of tunes. From a multi-national outfit originally founded to make dirty industrial dance music. They did a crap job because the spawn is a heavenly slice of chart friendly indie-pop and is void of anything slightly programmed or dance-like. It's so damn good that it starts putting Peter John and Bjorn to shame "impossible" you cry? Well dear Blogger, hear for yourself:

Whitest Boy Alive - Burning

Holy Hell!

Radiohead have made a decent record!

Like many others, I sat in a virtual queue awaiting the arrival of "In Rainbows". Unlike most, I failed, gave up and waited a few days and got it off a friend of mine (don't worry, I've got the disc box on order as well).

Well to my amazed dazzlement, it's a ruddy good record. Properly defined tracks, an acoustic guitar, it's almost as good as "the Bends", well, not quite. However, it's certainly the most accomplished album since Kid A, frankly, as a massive Radiohead fan, Amnesiac and Hail to the Theif bored me to tears. God knows, what the "I like that one about Karma and the police and that one about the surprises" crowd, although I suspect that deep down, that was the plan.

"In Rainbows" has restored all but the tiniest fragment of my belief that right now, Radiohead are the most important band still recording on the planet. One has to question who else could covertly record/release an album in that manner and create the levels of fan hysteria or media interest and for the end product to be a refined and credible fills me with a warmness much as apple pie and custard on a rainy Saturday teatime does. "Today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen" croons Yorke at the end of "Videotape" which acts as a perfect epilogue to the album. Sentiments shared by many fans upon 1st listening of this.

Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Sex Pistols, who cares?

Rant time, my blogging chums.

Who the hell cares about the "Get the Sex Pistols to Number 1" campaign??

OK, so it seems odd that only 30 years ago the British crown was so weary about a band upsetting the Queen's Silver Jubilee, but it's hardly worth all the fuss. If you visit this blog there's a pretty high chance you also get your kicks from NME.com, in which case you'll be aware of their non-stop stories about so-and-so loving the hell out of Rotten, Vicious and co. Yup, pretty much anyone with anything to promote has jumped on the bandwagon; The Cribs, Kate Nash, Dave Grohl, Ian Brown, Razorlight and even good old Slash has rattled on about how amazing this would be. Really? A bunch of denial-ridden heroin addicts who can't play their instruments, can't sing and can't write a half-decent lyric and now can't afford to pay the bills are actually being encouraged to come out of the wilderness (or Reality T.V.)? Talk about looking backwards for no reason. OK, the Pistols had their time and begrudgingly, I'll admit they may have influenced the way this country has developed musically, after all we'd have no Babyshambles without them (OH NO!), but enough is enough. Plus, the self-congratulatory shite we'll have to put up with from the New Musical Express will be worse than if England win the Rugby next weekend.

I'm so against this campaign that as a mark of sheer fuckofficity, I'm providing a non official, 100% illegal download for you all. Enjoy, or preferably, dont.

Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen

Joanna Newsom at the Royal Albert Hall

Words cannot describe how it must feel for a musician to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. It is surely the pinnacle of any artist’s career however, of the lucky handful contemporary artists that do get to enjoy the grand old hall’s buzz, few show the overwhelmed gratitude and gratefulness that California ’s anti-folk heroine, Joanna Newsom exuded on Friday.

A special night was afoot and despite the best efforts of irrelevant 60s crusty folker Roy Harper to dampen proceedings by running through his self-indulgent, mind-numbing 1969 album “Stormcock” (which was closer to “Cock Storm” if truth be told).

Newsom herself seems to have chosen Harper specifically and refers to seeing him live ad-nauseum as being on e of the greatest moments of her life. Little does she know that a crowd of nearly 8000 people are thinking the same thing about seeing her.

On this night, Joanna Newsom is transcendent, her elfin figure perched daintily behind her harp as she regales us with allegorical tales riddled with simple lyricism and timely grace. In an industry so dominated by perfection, it is the little (and they are little) imperfections in Newsom’s show which makes her so endearing.

The performance tonight was spell-binding: Following the exemplary “Ys”, any live performance is going to be difficult and although her full orchestra shows earlier in the year were celebrated, it is the low-key (re)arrangement of this evening’s show which I find so delicate. Turning a Van Dyke Parks opus into a stripped down composition is near impossible, but Joanna and band do extremely well. Yet it is “Inflammatory Writ” from excellent debut “The Milk Eyed Mender” which strays furthest from the beaten path of the original converting a piano driven ditty into a harp and banjo propelled folk classic.

The populists in the audience will have left the show slightly irked by the lack of “Sadie” and that one from the advert “This Side of The Blue”. However, the rest of us go home thinking we’ve seen something truly special. Words cannot fairly put justice to this show. So in my best efforts, let me just comment that following this, all other music seems somewhat futile. On 28th September 2007, live music achieved perfection.

In case your appetite needs further whetting:

Joanna Newsom - Inflammatory Writ

This Town Need Guns

Don't worry reader, I'm not suddenly taking a Charlton Heston role. To be honest, South London has enough ruddy weapons as it is.

No, instead I talk of Oxford based post-rock merchants. This Town Needs Guns are a fine little outfit who are pushing forward with vocal laden post-rock to aplomb. Off the back of support slots with Cats and Cats and Cats (who, despite hype are really pretty average) and more impressively, The Young Knives, whom they supported on Saturday and whom EGNTS missed at the Drowned in Sound free gig early that afternoon due mostly to Soccer Saturday and laziness.

The band, who find salvation with Meet Me In St Louis and others on Big Scary Monsters (1st home of Get Cape Wear Cape Fly) have just released a split EP/album with Cats x3 are on top of the world, shaming the Cats x3 effort with punchy instrumentation and cleverly engineered vocals. It's somewhere between Wheat, Aereogramme and something I can't quite put my finger on, maybe it's a touch punky?? Dunno. It's certainly some of the best recorded DIY stuff I've heard for a while. Well done lads!

Enjoy.

This Town Needs Guns - "26 Is Dancier Than 4"

Beats Francais

God! It is SOOO nice to have France alt-beats smashing out of the radio. I doubt we'll ever get the days when Daft Punk, Cassius, Air, Tahiti 80 et al were all we heard at the indie disco but it's certainly welcome relief to shake my ample ass to something that isn't fucking new rave.

Surely this isn't some sort of French reactionary antithesis to Klaxons and the gang over on this side of the Channel??

It appears to be a revolution lead (albeit from the sidelines) by Daft Punk who have ensured than everyone is pulling their socks up, and with socks pulled up almost to their armpits are Justice. OK, they've been about for a bit but debut LP "Cross" beats the living daylights out of any of the New Rave efforts...yes, even the Klaxons!

EGNTS caught them live at Field Day back in august and despite some shit hot mixing they failed to get the crowd going, primarily this wasn't their fault as due to strict curfew rules in Hackney, the pa got quieter and quieter and quieter.

But don't let this put you off, this is club-tastic tuneage and works a thousand times better on record, especially when considered that like so much good euro-pop, they are so delightfully easy to remix with everyone from the majestic MSTRKRFT to (friend of Norway) Alan Braxe to SMD. It is the former which I have chosen to enrich your lives.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E (MSTRKRF remix)