"Drinking in the Fear & the Fluoride!"

TALLY HO!

I’m now writing out my blogs from my University room in the student village, at UCCA Farnham, so now I’m out of the workplace, these blogs should start becoming more regular. From now on I’ll have a midweek blog based on just general songs that I’ve been listening to and an older track that’s touched me over the years that I think needs a special mention. It’s sort of going to be like Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show; where you get some new music, a ‘Hottest Track in the World Today’ section and some recommended oldies by a band (but in this instance the band will just be lil’ old me). Then something which should be coming on either Thursday 31st or Friday 1st, I haven’t decided yet; but it will be about my top ten tracks of the last month, these will generally be songs that have received a lot of radio play or songs that have been released in that month.

Moving onwards and upwards, I’ve added my blog to Topbloglist.com, so if you fancy giving me a vote and think I deserve a bit more exposure in the world, then above there’s a link and then follow the little instruction when you’ve clicked the link, Ich danke Ihnen vielmals. Random, but oh well, if you don’t know what that means, then it’s usually followed by someone saying ‘you’re welcome!’

Crikey! There’s not been much humour in this blog so far, it’s been more like some sort of lecture about health and safety! Oh and another thing, when I got back to my university flat room, I found a nice welcoming letter from the TV Licensing people saying that I haven’t declared whether or not I have a TV in my room. I think it’s amazing! We are given flats by the Student Accommodation Office with phones that aren’t allowed outgoing calls except for the Emergency Services. Then we’re expected to ring the TV Licensing people from our mobiles and spend 2 hours on the phone to a ‘0800’ number! Sod off! Apparently I’ve been given an official warning and that inspecting officers are coming round to inspect my premises. They can search all you bloody well want; they won’t be finding a bloody TV. What a waste of tax payers money and Government time, inspecting Student Residencies, how about the hundreds of thousands of people who commit fraud in this country that don’t pay TV Licensing.

Dead Kids – ‘Modern Day Bums’

Dead Kids are a four piece band from London, who rose from the ashes of Sona Fariq back in 2004. They mix solid lyrics about everyday life, the things everyone knows about, but rarely talks about. Then they add some spicy keyboarding and blast it apart with a beautifully choreographed guitarist and tornado drums. I’ve found a really pointless way of describing their tracks in a single moment of a person’s life, I don’t care if it sounds stupid, but anyone who has experienced it will know exactly what I mean. You know when you’re on the train home from a hard days’ work, or a long day out up town maybe, your very tired and your eyelids keep opening and closing like the ticking of a clock; suddenly as you open your eyes as you gaze through the window, a train hurtles past the window at the speed of light on the opposite rail.
It’s a moment that: a) wakes you up and makes you pay immediate attention, b) rocks the train to the sound of thunder, and c) scares the living daylights out of you. They released ‘Fear & Fluoride’ on 26th Nov last year on limited 7”; it’s a song about the government poisoning the River Thames with Fluoride and everyone becoming zombies. It is supposed to be a joke, but it’s also about questioning everything about everything in daily life; not to get up tight about it, make a protest and sign an internet petition about it, but just to question things every now and again.
Lead singer Mike, was interviewed by contactmusic.com back in the summer last year about the bands upcoming tour and the release of Fear of Fluoride, it was a very typical interview that wouldn’t really be noticed, but still I stuck with it at the end and found the best summary of the current UK scene. He was asked how his band was received in Europe and he said “well”, but it was his comment about the differences between how music is received over here to in mainland Europe that struck me most. “The thing is in Europe people just embrace everything, whereas here people are a bit more like fold your arms and they wanna be told that it's good”.
It amazes me how we go along with what the record labels want us to go along it, but it’s the bands themselves who can see that it’s all about what the industry wants, and not what the punters want.
I first discovered them at a gig back in August last year, they supported Hadouken! at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London.

I was in a room full of no more than 200 people, and a stage without barriers, already highly influenced by 5 bottles of Tesco’s cheap French beer, and 2 pints of Carling, so you could say I was pretty darn merry. They strolled on stage, full of confidence and got straight into their songs, I obviously can’t remember the order they were played in, or after the night remember any of the words, but I do remember the complete onslaught of a Stage Invasion where around 20-30 people massed the stage (including myself, I’m the one with my hands in the air in the picture below) to join the frenzy. Only once since, have I enjoyed the low key support as much as the headlining act. At first I thought it was, because maybe I was pretty pissed, but after giving their tracks a decent listen the week after the gig, and I shall be seeing them live this Friday along with next weeks’ band that I’ll be talking about; so I shall hopefully have some decent pictures’ and be able to add them next week.

If you’ve stuck with me on this blog and are still reading intensively as if you were Kerry Katona on an Iceland ad, then I seriously recommend ‘Dead Kids’, go and see them, buy their music, download it illegally and put it on your iPod, whatever, just listen you fools.

http://www.myspace.com/wearedeadkids

Track of the Week

This week I’ve gone for the upcoming surprise act of 2008 so far, ‘Lightspeed Champion’, is a UK Indie Folk artist named ‘Devonte Hynes’. He gained popularity over MySpace and his blog site, where he recorded an entire Killers cover album. So far he hasn’t been very commercially successful, with his first single ‘Galaxy from the Lost from his debut album ‘Falling off the Lavender Bridge’ never gained a top 100 UK chart position. A even with his recent exposure in NME this week, where they have cited his album “the best album they’ve heard all year”, it has still not managed to break into the top 40 from its release on 21st January last week. Despite this I feel since discovering Lightspeed Champion, I have found his poetical lyrical talents fused with his unique acoustic guitar rhythm really make him stand out in the crowd amongst some of the best new Indie Folk bands and artists like Noah & The Whale. His most recent single ‘Tell Me What It’s Worth’ is a story about everyday abuse people get whether it is racial, sexual or for their personalities or appearance. The lyrics are powerful and you get the impression he wants to cement them into your soul as he bellows into the chorus; along with the unique sound of Hynes plucking the strings, makes the track all the more poetic. It’s definitely one of the best songs that I’ve heard so far this year, I seriously recommend a listen; it could brighten up anyone’s bad day!

Video of the Week

My video of the week this time around just has to be ‘Diamond Hoo Ha Man’ by Supergrass, the first single from their upcoming album ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ that was released on 14th January 2008 as a 7” only limited to 1,500 copies. The video is just quality, it has a variety of shots of the band playing live as they attempt to play the role of imaginary band Diamond Hoo Ha Men. The other shots of the video are just so pointless they eclipse to the point of genius, as the band arse about in different locations, and playing up to the warped rounded camera lens, you know, when a camera lens is rounded and it makes your head look 4x bigger than it really is. I think it’s just brilliant.



Anyway I shall speak to you in the week with this whole new bloggish format that I’ll be doing.
Oh and I’ve been lucky enough to get tickets to the new series of The Album Chart Show tonight (28th Jan) at the Koko, which should be aired on Friday and Saturday night this week on Channel 4, so I’m hoping to get on TV for the first time in my life :D. I shall post a link to my Flickr account for you to look at the gig pictures. So far there are still two unconfirmed acts playing, but confirmed are ‘The Feeling’, ‘Scouting for Girls’, and ‘Envy and Other Sins’, they were the band that won the Mobile Unsigned Acts show on T4. Should be a good laugh, speak to you soon!