I'd like to share with you a band I discovered many years ago but they often slip my mind. The Amazing Few are not your average band. It's psychobilly mixed with punk mixed with country mixed with whatever else they had lying around, and boy is it crazy.
All the songs come straight from the mind of Kieron Black not so much the band's singer, so much as their narrator. The songs take you through his many life experiences and a few of the crazier thoughts he's had, all accompanied by upbeat happy music. If you actually delve into the lyrics and analyse them, you might very surprised.
These guys are a true indie band. Not doing it for money, fame or anything other than the love of playing music. They've been doing the rounds around Ireland for years now, and have moved up in the world playing cool festivals around Europe. If they're ever playing near you, go see them. It's a real specticle to see live.
You've probably never heard of Condo Fucks, but you will... They're the latest incarnation of Yo La Tengo, a band that will try anything once. Fuckbook is a big collection of old style rock n' roll songs with a sound straight from the 1960's and 70's... Ah, the 60's, such a simpler time or so I've been told. The songs have that sound of classic bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, anyone really who made music around that time.
Unfortunately the internet hasn't quite discovered this gem of an album yet, but give it time. Not even their myspace page makes reference to this, nor does it to any other of their "side projects". However, the monopolistic yet useful Amazon has some album previews up, though the clips don't do the album justice really. Though they do have used copies of the CD for $4 which you can't shake a stick at.
Go out, get the album, and I can promise you you'll enjoy it. It's (not) Yo La Tengo after all!
During the Week there was the 11th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF). This is a whole side to indie that most people completely forget. This is where the battle between the bank-rolled games from the likes of EA and Activision come up against a small group who have "a great idea for a game". Lately the main games companies have fallen into the same trap as main stream films. Just rehashing the the old ideas and using newer technology. While sometimes that does produce results the games (and films) are often watered down in order to appeal to all pallets.
There are a load of indie games represented and here are a few of the nomenees:
Cletus Clay
This game reminds of the time in my youth when if asked what i was doing on the computer i would answer "Using time travelling toilets (ChronoJohns) to help stop an evil tentacle from taking over the world". Something the main stream industry does very well is take itself WAY to seriously. If i had to kill a horde of virtual aliens I'd rather have Cletus on my Side than Master Chief. This game was nominated for Excellence in Visual Art with it's combinations of stop-motion characters and computer graphics.
This game by a Swedish developer by the name of Erick Svedang looks great and seems to give the player a immersion into the world that EA's big release Spore never did. It came away with the Grand Price, the Seumas McNally award as well as Excellence in Audio.
This looks brilliant. If games are divided into casual or formal this appears to be some kind of hybrid. while it was nominated for Technical Excellence any game is also visually impressive for a side scroller. Also I've liked every game in which the player in a brain in a bunker controlling cyborgs. here's more info on the game.
the rest of the games can be found here. support indie games take a look at what some guy decided where the best ones around.
I've been getting lazy when it comes to finding new bands these days. Letting last.fm recommend me bands, although it's mostly correct in knowing what I like, and what bands are like other bands, it's still the lazy option.
First I discovered Passion Pit when I saw the CD in work, then I discovered Hockey when they were playing with Passion Pit, and now at the end of the line is Little Comets, who last.fm says are similar to Hockey. I don't quite share last.fm's opinion on the matter. Hocket are a little more origional than these guys are, who are more like that kind of indie pop that England seems to be making a lot of these days. Still I prefer American indieness, but that's just me.
Well, I've neglected my duties to indie lately. I've been to very few gigs, haven't listened to much in the way of new interesting music and not to mention the lack of blogging. But it's sunny out, and I'm feeling in the mood for some music.
Blind Pilot. I came across these guys today and was quite impressed. It's a very relaxed acoustic indie folk. Just drums and a guitar for the most part, with a few other random instruments, like banjos or violins or double basses thrown in occasionally. The music is really well composed and the lyrics and his voice remind me of Duke Special.
On a side note, I seem to be finding a lot of bands with "pilot" in their name (Pilotlight, Agitated Radio Pilot). I wonder if they're all somehow connected... And Blind Pilot are also yet another great band from Portland, Oregon. I guess I'll have to visit there sometime soon. Today's lovely photo is from Jonathan Maus, photographer and writer for BikePortland.org
Hockey - These guys co-headlined with Passion Pit on their most recent tour, and they really caught my attention. They're yet another band from Portland, Oregon (there's something about that place that seems to making good music easy apparently). They've got that catchy indie pop sound that's hard not to like, but it's mixed with a bit of funk, soul and anything else they had lying around the ol' garage.
Check out their stuff on MySpace and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Rap and indie don't often go together very often and despite the "indie rap" tag being surprisingly well populated, any puritan of either genre would have problems excepting those bands as accurate representations of the music they love. I've decided that I'm going to attempt to explain the story behind a popular rap song.
At the moment the top spot on the rap/hip-hop billboard charts is Jamie Foxx a man who once claimed that Fox is a four letter word and subsequently made appropriate changes to ensure he was correct. It does appear adding an extra 'x' to you name works miracles!
The words to his song Blame It can be found here, and after a quick read the writer appears to have some serious problems concerning very basic elements in a story.
So, the song is called Blame It, this raises 2 early questions, 1) who to blame 2) what they are to be blamed on Despite rap having a reputation for nonsensical ramblings this is very clear from the start. 80's movies are being blamed on someone's pants falling down. the main offenders pictured below are Goose from Top Gun and the sci-fi classic Tron.
That of course isn't the end of the story, they've had a co-conspiritor which sounds to me like a particularly painful beverage, namely "ah-ah ah-Al-Co-Hol".
The story then takes a twist. By that i mean it reads like it was written by a drunk 4 year old, who had recently suffered a stoke. I worked through the kind of sentence structure that could only be demonstrated by somebody who is completely new to the idea of language, that a the story continues like this:
1) The guy is showing interest to a girl 2) The girl does not reciprocate. 3) like any red blooded rapper he takes the rejection well, assuming that she's easy and a lier. 4) Disturbingly he then concludes that no matter what she thinks, she will in fact end up doing what ever it is he wants to do.
Can we stop imagine for a second the kind of guy you would expect to follow these same steps.. here's a clue:
So what does our hero have in-store for us next? well he's not going to just jump the poor girl (probably because that wouldn't play to well in court). Instead the 3rd verse details how he's going to ensure that both of them are so drunk that in court he can probably plead diminished responsibility. suddenly the true meaning of the song comes true, it's essentially documenting the defence for his inevitable prosecution, even going as far as to refer to witnesses by name. that is assuming T. Pain is a name and not simply the description of being scolded by a hot beverage.
I think i'll stick to indie myself. (unless someone presses charges)
