I've been your fan since yesterday

Picture: Vickeh

People, like us, who are really into music all have a favourite band. Not The Beatles or U2. An indie band. A band known only by about 2% of the population but means the world to us. It's the band that we cherish more than any other one. Whenever we go to a record shop, we go to the letter of this band first, even though we already have all their recordings (including that obscure remix on a Japanese 7'', yes, you've got it too and also paid ridiculous shipping costs for it). I know quite a few people who go for the W of Ween, or the B for Kate Bush (at this point I will not reveal which letter Ben goes for as it's too embarrassing). Our favourite band has to be a bit obscure and known only by a few people who instantly become our friends when they name it, or our enemies for life if they dare to say something bad about our band (even ‘I don't really like the artwork but the album is great' → the 'but' came too late love + the artwork is amazing, you just don't get it).

Why does an indie band become our favourite band? Because of the music of course but not only. A band becomes our favourite band because it came into our life at a special time, maybe when we were thinking 'what the hell am I doing with my life?', or at a vulnerable time, basically often before our 20s, and suddenly that band and its music brought the answers to so many questions, the comfort to so many feelings and emotions that we thought we were the only ones to have. This band arrived and told us ‘it's fine, you're not alone', and that's probably why we can become obsessed and listen about a million times to the same songs and albums. Our favourite indie band is about the music, the artwork, the people in the bands but also so much more and a lot of that 'so much more' can hardly be described. And that's why, even in 20 years, we'll still be listening to them.

Personally, I always go for the letter 'E' in record shops. E for Electrelane. I first saw Electrelane when I was 18 (8 years ago ha!), it was at the Spitz in London and I was immediately blown away (even-though I spent a good part of the gig wondering if Verity, the singer, was going to kill someone in the audience → I can make jokes about my favourite band. You can't. = basic rule). The epic songs, the energy, the atmosphere of the show, everything was amazing. I went back to France, bought the album and listened to it for about a billion times and started going to a LOT of their shows. I have so many great memories of driving for hours to go to a show, taking friends to see them for the first time, quite a few very drunken nights too... Like any favourite band, I think Electrelane, as the best band in the world, deserved to be bigger. However, exhausted by the touring and the hard life of many indie artists, they decided to go on a hiatus 4 years ago. Any basic fan would have then thought 'fucking hell, if I had been their manager/label manager, things would have been different' but we all would have probably been rubbish.

No shows during 4 years meant not having that little exciting feeling when new dates are announced, not seeing regular faces at gigs etc, but maybe we also needed that time to grow up.
When I first heard of the summer tour, I didn't want to get too excited in case something went wrong but last night at the Komedia in Brighton, nothing went wrong, the band was there, stronger than ever. This reunion tour has been approached by the band as a celebration of their work and their fans: they only played the hits, had a funny (but fantastic) cover and don't have the pressure to sell a new album: they're doing the tour for fun and you can definitely see it on stage. The 1h10 set went very quickly, and was just great song after great song. It was so exciting to rediscover all the personalities and habits of each of them on stage: the impeccable drumming of Emma Gaze, the chilled bassist Ros Murray, the possessed guitarist Mia Clarke and the epic singer Verity Susman. What I've always loved about Electrelane's shows is how they build up and become more and more intense, and there is always these few seconds when you ‘lose yourself in the songs': that feeling that I get with no other band, when the music takes up your entire body and nothing else matters. It's a very rare feeling and only your favourite band can give it to you (or drugs probably).

Electrelane have always wanted to have minimum lights on stage because they've always put the music first and again last night, it was all about the music. The instrumental tracks from Rock it to the Moon and Axes are complete killers but with songs from the Power Out and a few covers, Electrelane reminded everybody last night that they can also write fucking great pop songs and make you dance like not many bands can.

The band is doing only a few shows over the summer, don't miss them, you'll be my enemy for life if you do.

16th July, ISTANBUL, Rock'n'Coke festival
22nd July, PARIS, La Plage
24th July, Oporto Milhoes de Festa
30th July, STOCKHOLM, Strand
2nd August, BERLIN, Festsaal
5th August: Big Chill Festival
6th August: LONDON, Field Day Festival
12th August, ST MALO, Route du Rock Festival
14th August, VEXEY, Nox Orae
16th August: LONDON, XOYO (with support from Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains - be there early!)

Also, check out the Electrelane week on Drowned in Sound.

Fox of the week.

01 - Electrelane, 'Gone Under Sea' by ThreeThousand

Guide to (not) Running

Photo (c) Matthew Wilson

If, like me, you see yourself as a 4-5 times a year kind of runner, then use this handy guide to help make sure you stick to these low numbers, and avoid tiring yourself out unnecessarily. This guide should make sure you don't do any more exercise than you really need. If the merest hint of the idea of going running should pass through your mind, then check that you've done the 10 following essentials - you'll never forgive yourself if you don't:

1) Get going on a really long, complicated recipe that takes many hours and involves many ingredients - it will be tasty!
2) Have a look online for a new flat in various parts of a massive city you don't know too well
3) Plan something that will take forever to organise, like a wedding
4) Why not write post an update on your blog?
5) Catch up with your family on the phone - it's been way too long since you called them and you should see how they are!
6) Have a look online for a new pet - what do you fancy? A dog? A cat? BOTH?
7) Get back up to speed on that book you were reading on Postwar Europe. Hmm.
8) Do some washing - your clothes are stinky!
9) Unwrap and get going on that Roseanne boxset, try and sit through all 211 episodes before running

Finally, and when you really can't thing of anything else to do...

10) Make a running playlist - you can use it when you go, er, running. Try this one

Once you've done all of these, and really you have to have done all of these, only then can you contemplate putting on your running shoes.

Chad VanGaalen - Peace on the Rise by subpop


The History Of Apple Pie - You're So Cool by Roundtable Records

Kate Beaton - 'LOIS ARE YOU IN TROUBLE'

(c)Kate Beaton
I'll be brief - Kate Beaton is a Canadian comic artist who has done some rad stuff on her blog - she has had some bits published by a really great little Canadian publishing house that focuses on a rich seam of comic artists called Drawn and Quarterly - you should definitely have a look.

I like the way Kate takes established characters, be they real or ficititious, and she skews them in a way that renders them more fun than the original most of the time. And the fact she digs the 90s Lois / Superman show makes her an outright winner in my book.

In other news I went to multilayerladen last night for an evening of folky stuff put on by the marvelous Four Track. I missed the headliner, but caught Donna Stolz. She had a nifty banjo player and melodica / glock player who were just right to accompany. She also had a brand new guitar and was pretty excited about this fact. Stand out songs were You Go and Laura Ingalls which was about the lady who wrote the Little House on the Prarie series.

Go Kate, go Donna, and go Laura!

Find more artists like Donna Stolz at Myspace Music

Review: Liverpool Sound City

Let’s get it straight : Liverpool Sound City has the reputation to be shit. It’s my first time in Liverpool : the city and the festival.

It seems to run okay at first, I grab my pass and go to Zeligs for the first bands of the night, Anoraak and Team Ghost. They’re playing in a restaurant and the festival organisers haven’t even bothered to get rid of the tables, which makes the setting slightly weird. But the two French bands don’t seem to mind and play two great sets. Anoraak’s disco-pop tunes are super catchy and hours after the gig, I still have all the little keyboard melodies in my mind = good stuff. Team Ghost like to play loud, VERY LOUD. My ears suffered from that at Offset last year, so I’ve come prepared with ear plugs. The band have more members now and the sound is heavy but they’re absolutely brilliant. They were my favourite band at The Great Escape last year and tonight I remember why. Of course, you think of M83 a few times but Nicolas Fromageau’s charisma is fascinating and you can easily lose yourself (in a good way) in the sonic cold-wave songs. Best band of the day.

After that, I wander around the streets where most of the venues are located. Narrow dark streets with brick buildings, a big fat cliché but hey, that’s what it looks like! The thing that really strikes me there is that you can hear all the bands playing in the venues from outside. That’s very unusual. With all the noise restrictions now, you only hear the gig when you are actually in the basement. But in Liverpool, you walk in the street and it’s very easy to find the venue as you can hear the music hundreds of yards away. It creates an unusual feeling of excitement, like something really punk and interesting is happening in this city. If it’s like this the rest of the year, you can see why so many bands have been formed in Liverpool. Wandering in these streets as a teenagers hearing all this music must be so exciting. And I do feel like a teenager going from one venue to another hoping to find the next big thing.

I catch the end of Veronica Falls’ set. I had never seen them before (and yet I pretend to write on an indie blog) and I’m happily surprised. I’ve listened to their stuff and liked it but was always annoyed by all this reverb on the songs, you can barely hear the voice on them. But live, none of that crap is there, the voices are clear and sexy and you realise what great pop songs these guys have hidden behind all the reverb. They make me think a bit of the early days of Sons and Daughters but with less drama. This is the great surprise of the festival.

Then off to the famous Shipping Forecast, a very nice little venue for the Canadian Blast Party. I see the end of Said The Whale but the singer is wearing an Olly Murs hat = very bad and they flirt a bit too much with the emo border for me. Ben would probably have loved them. Winter Gloves take the stage with all their keyboards and skinny jeans. They sound alright but I’m a bit disappointed, I was looking forward to see them as their tracks on myspace are pretty nice but it doesn’t work for me tonight.

Last stop at the Screnadelica Gallery to check out some really amazing gig posters, check out these illustrators : Luke Drozd, Adam Pobiak and Stephen Chan.

So, Liverpool Sound City is trying hard to make this festival nice but it’s too early after Great Escape, we’ve seen the bands we really wanted to see there in packed venues. Here you get around 50-70 people per show, so even if the venues are great and the city pretty cool, there isn’t the excitement you find in Brighton. Maybe the organisers should think about doing this event at another time of the year rather than between the Great Escape and Primavera which are both so much more attractive.

Beachy Head by Veronica Falls

Climbing the Walls

Well I really like this track wot I heard on the radio today called Climbing the Walls by a band called Strange Talk. It has big nods to Phoenix and Passion Pit but it’s really nice and summery and sunny which is the sort of music I really want to be listening to at the moment as I emerge like a beautiful bluebell to greet the spring and summer.

Those opening guitar ch-chang-chang-changs are enough to get you springing off the sofa, scooping the tortoise out of its hibernation box and dashing outside to prance topless in a field.

Climbing Walls by Strange Talk

Thai? Dai!

Crate-digging. It's brought us the twitchy, unnerving, unreal creations of the likes of DJ Shadow in his seminal Entroducing (15 years old this year), as well as Johnny Greenwood finding Paul Lansky's 40-minute Mild und Liese and subsequently locating the four chord progession that became Idiotheque...

Some of the finest compilations of recent years have come from enthusiasts going the extra mile to get into the nitty gritty of a genre or region of the world during a certain period. One of my favourites was the 2005 Soul Jazz release, Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound, that covers the, er, Tropicalia period from around the late 60s: a mashup of rock, bossa nova, soul, and underground rhythms including the likes of Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze and Gal Costa. It's all joyful stuff to the ear that gets repeat listenings throughout any year. This badboy comes with a well researched insert book as well that helps you bluff your way through the period. Essential.

Tom Ze - Jimmy, Renda-se by CulturalCannibals

Soundway Records have led the way in recent years with their exceptionally researched (founder Miles Cleret likes nothing more than flying several times to Ghana for example to rummage through radio shacks old 12"s to find what he likes, then hunt down the owners of the masters by word of mouth...) compilations covering various countries and time frames, favourites being Tumbélé: Biguine, Afro and Latin Sounds from the French Caribbean, 1963-1974, Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Ghanaian Blue 1968-1981 and Palenque Palenque: Champeta Criolla & Afro

Abelardo Carbono - Palenque by Soundway

Note also the berrrilliant artwork afforded to this series by the rather wonderful Lewis Heriz.

This, in a typically long-winded way, leads me to how FLIPPING MUCH I'm enjoying the latest Finders Keepers record - Thai? Dai! - a selection of Thai psyche and punk funk outings that have pretty much never been released in Thailand let alone in da West. I was playing this in the office the other day, and my colleague (who speaks Thai despite ressembling Wayne Rooney a little - no offence Wayne), got all excited yelping 'but this is sung in Thai, and it's good!'. Yes. Thai music can be really shit. Thai pop for example is pretty bad. My uncle lives in Bangkok and he lets me choose between Thai pop or Engelbert Humperdink (I kid you not) in the car. I choose Engelbert every time because he is actually a proper badman.

Anyway. These awesome Thai tracks have something of the modal about them, which means you end up getting washed over in the oriental melodic lines despite their inherent punk-funkiness. There are also some entertaining spoken word parts midway through. All in all it's a delight of a record. Looking back, the Tropicalia record did seem to influence a good bunch of musicians over the following years. How will Thai? Dai! fare in comparison?

Soreng Santi - Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng by The Drift Record Shop

Ps - I'm looking for a kitten like this. Please get in touch if you have one.

Swap you one Monster Munch for eight Skips...

Well you would, wouldn't you? Skips are the most ephemeral, nonsense crisp of all time. If you really need the prawn cocktail hit, go and buy some Walkers Prawn Cocktail crisps right?

I was having a delicious packet of Hula Hoops with my flatmate last night, and we agreed, in between munching on mouthfuls of those cylindrical beauties, that they are the best alternative crisp around (i.e. not a traditional crisp shape). The crisps that stood the test of time.

I like to think of the Hula Hoop as a benchmark. So if you are planning on swapping a Hula Hoop for a Monster Munch, which is also a fine alternative crips, you may want to exchange it on a 1:1 basis. Fair deal.

If however you were accosted by someone bearing a bag of Skips, which just melt away in the mouth (and are therefore pointless), it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask for at least eight of their stash. So that should be 1:8.

Here I am going to show some more examples, using some crisps I have long been fond of.

1) Hedgehog Crisps


Hedgehog Crisps aren't flavoured with hedgehogs. They're flavoured with pork fat. Or at least they were, as I haven't seen them around for years. No word of a lie - the company that made them were taken to court by the Office of Fair Trading on a charge of false advertising. Don't worry, they won in the end. I could only find these at my sister's school for some reason, and they were delish.

Swap rating: 1:1.5

2) Football Crazy Crisps


These football-shaped badboys brought two of my great loves together - football and bacon. The gourmet's choice. Roy Keane wouldn't have minded you scoffing these in the terraces. If you saved up a morbidly obese / bank-breaking amount of packets, you could send them off and get your team's shirt in return.

Swap rating: 1:1

3) Burton's Fish and Chip Crisps

These came, shock of shocks, shaped as fish and chips. They didn't taste of much. But the brown dust that was liberally sprinkled over them did. Think I liked the idea more than the reality. I don't remind them being easy to find, but that was probably for the best.

Swap rating: 1:4

4) Monster Munch


A true classic. There's only one flavour for the true connoiseur - pickled onion. These gurn-tastic monster paws of joy are a beautiful thing to behold. I would love to see how these are made. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe it would be gross.

Swap rating: 1:1