The Albums I Listened To Most This Year.

I don't use Last.fm or anything, so this won't be based on anything other than my selective memory, but never mind. In no particular order, I give to you...

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Mostly for Ampling Alp and O.N.E I'll admit, but this album lived in my kitchen and pretty much sound-tracked all my cooking for a good few months.

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

I found this slightly underwhelming at first. The first 2 songs are great but the rest of it didn't really do anything, but for some reason I kept going back to it and now I'm completely in love with the whole album. Especially the track 'Anchorage', which starts quite slowly and then explodes into life as it progresses. Deceptively simple.

The National - High Violet

Pretty much a victory lap after Alligator and Boxer. Utterly brilliant nonetheless. Probably the best band in the world.

The Walkmen - Lisbon

Unfortunately they'll probably always be "that band who did The Rat" (I think when they last played Cardiff that was even on the poster), but away from that undoubted 'indie disco' classic they've, in their own way, slowly started to equal The National for that whole 'bruised masculinity / triumph in the face of adversity' thing.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Not quite as good as Funeral (obviously) but a slight refocusing and a move away from the bombast that made Neon Bible a bit overbearing at times. I really like this album.

ATP NBC MBV

Last weekend was the All Tomorrow’s Parties Nightmare Before Christmas event, curated by My Bloody Valentine. I had a fun weekend. The bands I saw were…

Josh T. Person (later dubbed “King of Butlins” by Warren Ellis)
De La Soul (fun party band to start the weekend off proper)
Witch (J Mascis on drums but they all looked a bit like J Mascis)
Yo La Tengo (some people didn’t seem to like this but I did, not as good as they were last time I saw them)
The Tyde (so-so west coast jingle jangles with a Dylan sneer. They got the guy from The Thrills out to do some backing vocals at one point)
The Membranes (John Rob’s punk band. Hilarious)
Sun Ra Arkestra (good but I wasn’t quite in the mood for it, so I went and pumped loads of 2p coins into the penny arcade thing)
The Pastels (this washed over me a bit, don’t really remember it)
J Mascis & The Fog (good stuff, J had a mini colloseum of amps around him)
Sonic Youth (good, but I was a: stood behind a massive pillar, b: drinking the worst ale ever, and c: it was Saturday night and I wanted HITS but they played a fair bit of stuff from the Eternal instead)
My Bloody Valentine (not life changing)
No Age (brilliant, the best I’ve seen them, and they got Bob Mould out at the end)
Chuffed Up (double brilliant)
A Place To Bury Strangers (I’ve seen them 3 times before and it’s getting a bit samey but it’s good enough)
Th’ Faith Healers (this was ok)
Swervedriver (good but not great)
Mum (didn’t stay long, don’t like ‘em)
EPMD (amazing stage banter: “any Puerto Ricans in the house?” and “this for the ladies – all 6 of y’all!” and then a 10 minute obituaries section)
Bob Mould (played a mainly acoustic set, he seemed like a genuinely great guy)
Dirty Three (stage banter > the music)
Lightning Bolt (incredible, was umming and ah-ing about seeing them but so glad I did. Really glad they play on a stage now)

As you might be able to guess from my brief summaries, I’m a bit indifferent to a lot of shoegazey stuff so I got a bit over-egged with that side of things – but that just made me enjoy the other bits more. Had loads of fun with my friends, and that’s always the best bit of ATP – dancing, pile-on, playing the arcade games, talking nonsense in the sports bar, drinking mulled cider in the chalet.

2 negative points – one was the staff not really having a clue what was going on with the wristband exchange thing on Friday, and the second being that Watership Down is the worst film ever to watch if you’re even slightly hungover. But other than that, no real complaints. Yay!

PIZZA SLICE BONUS MATERIAL – had 9 slices of Pizza Hut buffet. Not a bad effort.

M-00s-ICS

Obligatory decade in review thingy. It’s not really in any order from #4 onwards. And I’ve not really given it much thought to be fair.

1. At The Drive-in – Relationship of Command (first MP3 I downloaded as well, from Napster. One song took about 30 minutes)
2. Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary (would be pretty much perfect if they dropped ‘The Same Ghost Every Night’)
3. Arcade Fire – Funeral (I sort of associate them more as a live band in my mind now, but I listened to this on a daily basis for ages)
4. Animal Collective – Feels (see! I don’t just like ‘guitar’ music)
5. The Thermals – The Body The Blood The Machine (please play ‘Returning To The Fold’ at my funeral)
6. The Strokes – Is This It (snapped me out of NuMetal, and I’m still wearing Converse)
7. Bright Eyes – Lifted, Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground (great soundtrack to failing at things – mope!)
8. Deerhunter – Microcastle (makes me want to take up long-distance running)
9. The National – Boxer (sometimes, when I’m hungover, I put it on loud-ish and just lie down on the living room floor listening to this)
10. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone (this is quite a weird record isn’t it?)
11. Joanna Newsome – The Milk Eyed Mender (reminds me of staying up too late in a non-party way)
12. Mclusky – Do Dallas (angry, funny, from Cardiff)

Side notes and disclaimers: I’m currently listening to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms and thinking I may prefer it to Microcastle, and The National’s Aligator deserves some form of mention. I loved White Blood Cells by The White Stripes for ages, but I’ve not listened to it in years now. Love all The Shins’ albums as well. Looking back at the list and the ones I still listen to the most are The Thermals and The National albums, so maybe they should win? I don’t know.

Stay tuned for Top 10 Pizzas of the 00s! (Only joking)

EDIT: I keep remembering other brilliant albums that I've forgotten all about:

1. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
2. Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
3. Oxford Collapse - Bits and/or A Good Ground
4. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
5. Britsh Sea Power - The Decline Of

I'll probably keep topping this up as I think about it.

Musics: Japandroinds/A Place To Bury Strangers

Good gig last night. It was Japandroids and A Place To Bury Strangers at the Barfly. My first visit to Barfly since the refurb. The stage is better now, but the floor is still sticky and there was a whiff of vomit about the place. More things change the more they stay the same. Japandroids were the most Canadian band I’ve ever seen. They looked polite and well-fed on nutritious food, and just seemed like nice friendly guys. At one point I caught myself thinking “I’d bet they’d help you move house and you wouldn’t even need to ask”. Musically ace as well, the guitarist was a bit ROCK but his Canadian-ness made it alright. He had a fan to keep him cool, and it blew his hair around in an 80s power-ballad style. He kept saying how excited he was to be in Cardiff because his favourite band were from Cardiff, and they closed on a cover of Mclusky’s To Hell With Good Intentions. He was wearing a Future Of The Left Tshirt as well. A Place To Bury Strangers also have a Cardiff/S.Wales connections as their drummer is from Barry. I find that quite amusing. How does someone from Barry end up in a doomy cool Brooklyn band? They did their whole 80s/shoegaze/Factory records thing, machine gun drumming and sonic Ouija board assault. It killed my hearing. Forgot my earplugs. Good though. Beforehand I’d overheard some guy describing them as ‘ambient’ to one of his friends. I’d love to know what they thought after.

Swn 2009

My Swn from fuzzy memories:

Thursday - Shape night at Dempseys was mostly great. Thought the stripped down Freddie Stars were a bit boring alas, twas a shame. The rest was great but I was well tired by the end so I was itching for Zun Zun Egui to finish. Was relieved when they said "we're going to play one more song!" and then the relief soured when that one song turned into a 20 minute jam. They were pretty good though. Islet and Them Squirells were both great, and Evils as a full band was cool.

Friday – Was excited about seeing Exit International again, but now they're a bit too FOTLy/Mclusky-ish. When I first saw them the long hair man had crazy distortion over his vocals and the whole thing was a lot more sludgey and messed up sounding (for the better). PIZZA SLICE BONUS: Then I had a nice pizza at Pizza Express, the Sloppy Guissepie (or however you spell it). I’ve tried ordering it the last few times we’ve been, but it’s always been unavailable. It was nice, but I thought it would be sloppier... Then I saw a bit of Jonny Foreigner and I still don't like them, so I saw a bit of the Longcut who were also not great, and the Fuwch Goch doesn't really work as a venue that well, so I went back to Clwb. Pulled Apart By Horses were amazing. Attempted to head back to Fuwch Goch for Girls but obvs it never happened with the queue, so decided to catch people up in Dempseys but it was 1-in-1-out for Silver Gospel Runners (WTF?) and so we ended up in City Arms (first time I've been there since Twatty Bouncer-gate) for a drink because I didn't want to see Rogues, though this then meant we couldn't get in for Strange News (which was a shame as everyone who made it in said it was great) and then we just ended up dancing to the ridiculous DJing downstairs at Clwb till stupid o'clock.

Saturday - caught a bit of Allo Darlin but they weren't for me, bought some CDs in the record fair. I think new Chapter is good, nicer than old Chapter. The Gate stuff was great, though I don't know why it took them quite so long to serve people at the bar. I'm looking forward to seeing Internet Forever again at some point, and I think it was the best I've seen Los Camp ever. Mark Attack's Record Breaking Crowd-surf was amazing. Got into Slow Club no problems really (having power-walked over from the Gate), but they started about 15 minutes early which is a bit naughty, and it was full of people chatterboxing away which annoyed me no end. They were good though despite not playing their best song (All Our Most Brilliant Friends). Took one look at the queue for Right Hand Left Hand and realised there was no chance of getting in so had a quieter sit down drink whilst Adam Walton DJd in City Arms (didn't actually realise it was Adam Walton DJing untill the next day though, woops) then back to Dempseys for Moshi Moshi DJs - who were fun. So yes, all in all I had a fun weekend.

It's quite easy to find small niggly faults with Swn but equally easy to overlook them and have a great time (which I did), so hope they keep going strong. Just maybe try and not have the most hyped bands of the weekend in tiny venues with no other alternatives on next year please? It’s a shame they didn’t use Buffalos and Tommy’s Bar as they’re both semi-established venues despite their faults, so I hope they’re involved next year. Curious to see how the festival evolves from this point in, but best o' luck to 'em.

What I Did On My Holidays

Had a little mini-break over the weekend. Went up to Cirencester to visit friends of the ladyfriend. We went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, it was rather ace. For some reason I was thinking it’d be a bit small-scale, but it’s actually huge. Good ‘spread’ of animals. I saw monkeys and penguins and meercats and wolves and bats and those giant guinea pigs and zebras and rhinos and the worst display of falconry ever. No bears, but you can’t win ‘em all. Actually I did see a sign for Red Pandas somewhere, but they’re not proper bears anyway so I’m not fussed about missing them.

In the evening we had food in a nice bistro place attached to a butchers. I had rabbit for starts and steaks for mains and sticky toffee pud for afters.

On the Sunday I went on to that London to stay with various friends. BONUS PIZZA SLICE ACTION: We had pizza for tea on Sunday. Can’t remember the name of the place, just a small pizza place in Crouch End. Reasonably priced. I had a spicy italian sausage with tomatoes and extra mushrooms. Thought it was very enjoyable. After that we had a pint in a nice pub. Their menu said that they had beer-battered cod, and the named the beer as Bombardier. Which is weird, because what with Bombardier being an ale, you don’t really get many bubbles. The whole point of beer-battering is that you get lots of bubbles so that the batter is crispier. You need a lager or something.

Anyway, after that we went home and watched a DVD of Gone Baby Gone – the Ben Affleck directed picture that had its release pushed back because of the ‘similar’ real-life vanishing of Madeline McCann. The film was okay, 6ish/10. It started well enough but descended into a fairly standard thriller. Ending was nice and ambiguous mind; it left you to decide on some moral issues.

On Monday I sat around in my friend’s flat for a bit, reading The Escapist comics that spun off from the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay novel. Personally I thought they should have been drawn in a more ‘traditional’ 1930s style as opposed to the more modern look they had. After that I used public transport to go over to the Roundhouse to see David Byrne’s Playing The Building. Essentially a piano wired up to various devices around the Roundhouse which created various noises. I liked that you couldn’t really tell at any point if the room was being played by a bunch of toddlers or a concert pianist. I had a little tinkle of the ivories myself, but felt a bit self-conscious. There’s a real glee to the whole thing though. Worth seeing.

Spent the afternoon wondering around, lunch in Wagamamas, met friends for teas and coffees, visited the gift shop of the Transport Museum (didn’t have the £9 to actually visit properly), and then went to a nice pub called The Harp to meet another friend. The pubs are the best thing about London really. Cardiff centre lost a lot of its old proper pubs back in the 60s – all in the name of developments which have now been knocked down to make way for new developments…

Then it was the main reason of my visit. The National were playing the Royal Festival Hall. Our seats weren’t great, right near the back in row U, but it was still a brilliant concert. They played an amazing set and it wasn’t until the following day that I realised they’d missed out some of my favourite songs of theirs. I really want to see them again and again and again. Easily one of my favourite bands.

The next day I caught a slow commuter bus to Victoria, saw a man get told off for being too loud on his phone, and took a megabus back home.

Music 2009

Hello my poor neglected blog. How are you? I am bored at work and thinking about cats. Here is a list of every piece of music I can remember buying so far in 2009. I have forgotten some probably. And there’s a couple I might have picked up at the tail-end of 2008 but ne’ermind. Brief thoughts on each are bracketed.

Animal Collective – Meriweather Post Pavillion (Technicolor wonder-land)
Dan Deacon – Bromst (return to the Technicolor wonder-land)
Future Of The Left – Travels With Myself and Another (i like the harder shoutier ones more than the not so hard/shouty ones – though they are growing on me)
Dinosaur Jr – Farm (not really sunk in yet, sounds like Dinosaur Jr though)
Abe Vigoda EP (not as good as the album)
Oxford Collapse EP (not as good as the albums)
Hot Panda – Volcano Bloody Volcano (the original EP/MySpace tracks with a couple of not-so-good extras)
Abe Vigoda – Skeleton (sounds like steel drums and church-bells)
Pissed Jeans – Hope For Men (uncomfortable in a good way)
Dinosaur Jr – Beyond (better than any post-reunion album has any right to be)
Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone (fun, and shows that they’ve got more tunes than gimmicks)
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (great for hangovers)
Crystal Stilts – Alight Of Night (think I’ve only listed to this once. Woops!)
Atlas Sound – Let The Blind Lead…. (don’t like this anywhere near as much as I like Deerhunter)
Pony Tail – Ice Cream Spiritual (not as good as the live show)
Handsome Furs – Face Controll (sort of the complete opposite of the first album)

I’m not sure which is my overall favourite. Possibly the Dan Deacon album. I don’t listen to it much but when I do it frazzles my brain a little. He’s deffo on the top of my list of Bands I Want To See Playing Live.

Things I want to buy that have recently come out are the new Sweet Baboo and Sunset Rubdown albums. Had a quick listen to the latter on Spotify and it sounded good.

Stolen Blog Concept

I really like THIS feature that Pitchfork are doing at the moment. Basically picking what your favourite music was at 5 year intervals of your life. So I thought I’d nick it.

5 years old – honestly have no idea what I liked at this age. Probably the Postman Pat theme. I loved Postman Pat when I was little. I had matching curtains and duvet-covers. I apparently used to cry when an episode finished.

10 years old – I do remember hearing Nevermind being played in my brother’s room and thinking ‘this sounds amazing’ but what I really liked at this age was Meat Loaf. I think I enjoyed the theatrical over-the-top element. I got loads of his stuff on casette: Bat Out Of Hell, Bat Out Of Hell 2 – Back Into Hell, Hits Out Of Hell. All the Hell ones basically.

15 years old – Deftones! I saw Deftones on my 15th birthday when they were touring Around The Fur. I used to do a paper-round at this time and I’d listen to Around The Fur on my walkman a lot.

20 years old – ‘Funeral’ by Arcade Fire came out around this time I think. It was around this time that I was doing a lot of file-sharing and that so I was hearing lots of good new/old stuff for the first time. Funeral was my favourite. Can’t believe it’s been 5 years since Funeral came out!

25 years old – No Age pretty much summed up everything I wanted music to do last year.

Cats in Paris // Mae Shi // Abe Vigoda

Caught the second half of Cats in Paris having rushed over from the pictures, via a ‘gourmet’ burger - bought with a voucher from Martin The Money Saving Expert (love that man). It was pretty good. The burger and the band. Band was better than the burger.

4th time I’d seen Mae Shi now. How did that happen? Band on form as always. Wasn’t as much energy to the show as the other times. That’s a Cardiff indie-ish crowd though I suppose (me included). One of the geo-quirks of this city is that crowds can often be a bit static at gigs. I’m still a bit shattered post-ATP, and haven’t really slept well due to varying factors. So that’s my excuse. It was cool seeing the parachute in such a tiny room. And I liked the sit down bit as well. People got livelier after the crowd-participation. Guess we just like to be led? There’s probably a sheep joke in there somewhere.

Been looking forward to seeing Abe Vigoda for ages now. Got a little obsessed with their Skeleton album when I first heard it. They didn’t disappoint. They really are one of those bands that tick all the boxes of what I like music to do. Though I guess you could narrow that down to a MySpace tag of indie/alternative/punk. They were also very loud, and I was stupidly standing directly in front of the bass amp. Newer songs sounded cool, look forward to listening to the EP I bought now.

ATP: The Fans Strike Back

I’ve almost been back from ATP long enough to start forming coherent thoughts now. Here’s some things on bands I saw in a rough order of when I saw them.

Friday

Jeffrey Lewis – only caught a bit of this so no real opinion. He was wearing a Spillers tshirt.
HEALTH – good stuff. Some man complained that they’d been “too structured”. Pardon? 3 members of HEALTH were in the swimming pool the next day. They went “Whoa!” when they saw the slides.
Andrew WK – my lip spontaneously started bleeding. Motivational talks mixed with rock actions, and surreal moments including a man with a balloon on his head.
M83 – caught a bit of this and it was sounding really good but there were some clashes so I couldn’t watch the whole thing.
Devo – set of the weekend? Probably.
Antipop Consortium – I don’t listen to much hip-hop so I’ve not got much frame of reference for this. It was okay I suppose.
Jesu – This wasn’t really my kind of thing from what I remember.
Fuck Buttons – new stuff sounded good. I don’t think I watched the whole set.
Edan (DJ set) – I didn’t even notice this was happening at the time and I barely remembered even being there the next day.

Saturday

Retribution Gospel Choir – I’ve not really heard much Low but this was good. Best heckle of the weekend was “throw a guitar at someone”. Luckily, he didn’t.
The Cave Singers – someone I was with said “this is good music to sit down to” and that was true.
The Acorn – had their moments. Worst stage banter of the weekend; “This place reminds me of Jaws … I guess it’s an average city in England huh?” - Silence
Harvey Milk – they were very loud. I liked it, but can’t ever imagine myself thinking “ooh I’d love to crack on that Harvey Milk album right now”
Beirut – Front loaded his set with all the hits which was annoying because I was getting a beer in a stupid place full of people taking up all the bar-time buying coffees.
Marnie Stern – I liked the fret-tappy songs more than the other ones. Bass Lady had inappropriate stage banter. What would her mother say if she knew?

Sunday

Shearwater – Another good band for sitting down. I do mean that in a good way. Sometimes it’s nice to sit down.
Future Of The Left – weird seeing them on a massive stage during daylight hours. Felt like half of Cardiff was there watching them. Some man in a ludicrous hoodie got berated and Kelson threw sweets at people in a slightly menacing way. I bought a tshirt.
!!! – didn’t watch much of this. If it had been on a bit later I might have been into it more.
Parts And Labor – not quite as good as I remember them being on record (have only heard them a couple times) but I enjoyed it more as the set progressed.
Spiritualized – I sent my friend a text going “I’m watching that drugs band you like” and he replied going “which one? They’re all drugs bands”
The Mae Shi – The perfect band for that precise moment in my life. They Do This All The Time.
The Jesus Lizard – One of them classic bands that I’ve never really ‘got round to’ investigating. This will be remedied.

Dananananayrkoyd - 29/3/2009 @ Clwb

Saw Danan at Clwb and enjoyed every second. I love the way they strip hardcore of all its meat-headedness and just keep the "we're all in this together" communal stuff. Breaking down the invisible barrier between band and audience. Their new 'thing' is to play some repetative programmed beats and have a breakdancing party in the middle of the crowd. Crowd was really into the whole show, especially for Cardiff (on a Sunday!). Impromptu Wall of Cuddles and everything. Nice seeing a band trying their best to entertain and the people reacting to it positively.

Decided earlier today (when walking up the stairs to the canteen in work) that the ultimate gig ever for fun would be Danan, The Mae Shi, and Les Savy Fav. Imagine it!

Animal Collective and Japanese Food (Bristol)

Last night I went to see Animal Collective in Bristol. Amazingly, we only got lost once on the way. What was really amazing was that the 'wrong turn' I took actually got us to exactly where we wanted to be but we didn't realise this until we looped back around to get 'back on course'.

Found a nice Japanese restaurant and I had an increasingly firey beef ramen* which I really enjoyed.

First time I'd ever seen Animal Collective despite enjoying their music for a good few years so I was looking forward to it. Bits of it were great. They did 'Chores' really slowly and then at normal speed, which was brilliant, and they ended the main set on a killer double-punch of 'Fireworks' and 'Brothersport', but other than that I found the whole thing a little flat. I just didn't connect with it in anyway, and by the end of the encore I was a little bored and itching to get home. Maybe it was just a Sunday thing? I'd still go and see them again I suppose.

* - Here's a vid of someone eating ramen (side note: quite difficult to YouTube search for 'Ramen' without finding loads of emo music vids) :

ATP: The Fans Strike Back - Voting Round 2

I can't really remember who I voted for in the first round, but here are my votes for round 2.

1. Deerhunter
2. Mudhoney
3. The National
4. Dinosaur Jr
5. Liars

I had hoped to vote for the Thermals but they're busy touring in the 'States'.

Here's a live video of Deerhunter I found on YouTube