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Hatcham Social – About Girls | Music Review

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I like About Girls. It’s a record that reminds me of the time when I first got into music, in the late 1990’s, and went to shows. It was a time when Britpop was dying and the last of the scene was coming through. The likes of the Warm Jets and Gay Dad. It’s a time that most people look back on with regret and perhaps a little bit of a snigger. Nobody’s going to describe being there in the same way they do as San Francisco in the 60’s or New York in 1977 but, d’you know what – it’s my Hacienda and I rather like it.

About Girls captures the post-Britpop sound brilliantly. It’s a better effort than their debut,You Dig The Tunnel, I’ll Hide The Soil, released in 2009 which tried to hard and had too much going on. About Girls is a less complicated and straightforward album. Less try-hard. Nobody likes a try-hard. The album works best when played as a complete album in the order it was intended. I’ve listened to this album a dozen or so times and it sounds best when you turn shuffle off on your mp3 player and play it from 1-13 with each song telling the next chapter of the story.

It begins with NY Girl, the archetypal tale of lost love, which could be Olympian-era Gene and with its driving bassline it begins with a confidence and swagger, which dissipates as the song goes on and it becomes clear this won’t end well. Nicola Tells Me is a slice of Shed Seven-esque jangly pop, Lois Lane is built entirely around a beautiful swooning bass. Little Savage appears to have borrowed heavily from the Johnny Borrell songbook but setting that aside is two and a half minutes of nice catchy hooky pop. Escape From London is that moment, committed to tape, where once in a while you need to escape the business of living in the big city and run to the hills.

About Girls isn’t just a record that’s borrowed heavily from the dying days of Britpop, it’s a record that’s the soundtrack to your emotions. Every emotion. It’s about growing up, something the band have clearly done on this record. It’s about life. It’s about love. It’s about loss. It’s about whatever emotion you want it to be, it’s got everything on here. Buy it and enjoy it and whatever you do don’t put it on shuffle!

 

About Girls is released on 2nd April 2012 by Fierce Panda Records

 

 

 

 

 

King of Cats – America | Music Review

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King of Cats is a boy called Max from Oxford but I’m afraid I don’t know about the name. I don’t like to ask. He sends me nice emails and is very polite but I do need to get one thing off my chest: I don’t much like cats. My sister has one that looks like it is going to defecate when you look at it. My parents have one called Pumpkin who drew blood from me the first day we met, and 19 years later she’s nothing if not Machiavellian. What I do like, though, is the King of Cats.

This album is what happens when a singer-songwriter from Oxford takes himself off to America to travel around on greyhound buses armed with only an acoustic guitar and a four track. I say only but I hoped he’d taken some clean pants and a toothbrush but Max hasn’t let on to me about that so we’ll have to assume.

America, the debut record by KoC, was committed to tape in some odd places whilst on his travels in the USA. Max recorded on a cherry picker in Seattle, in the mountains of Oregon and at a hardcore show in San Fransisco. Having sat in on more recording sessions than is enjoyable I wish more were conducted in such delightful surroundings. The results are really rather good.

Each song on the album is named after where it was recorded. My personal favourite is “Hooters Casino, Las Vegas, whilst Mike was showering” but other stand out titles include “Next to the train-tracks in Flagstaff, Arizona” and “on a plane, in the high desert and Seattle”. It’s a nice record.

The album begins with the aforementioned “One a plane . . . “which builds with each of the many plucking of guitar strings. It sounds like Super XX Man were they to have been from Middle England.

Each song captures not only the sound of Max’s guitars and vocals but also incidental sounds such as dogs barking and the sounds of people clapping and talking. At the end of “Golden Gate Park . . .” a couple can be heard arguing between themselves including the female, Suzie, uttering the cutting line of “I’m not trying to be mean but I just don’t give a shit.” She’s set her stall out clearly there and so I will do the same for you: this is a good record. If you like the idea of the folky acoustic sound of the Mouldy Peaches with the vocals of Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel then this is a record for you. Otherwise move along, because, like Suzie, you just won’t give a shit.

America is released on 19th May 2012 via http://kingofcats.bandcamp.com/album/america

 

Swearing at Motorists – Burn Down the Wire EP | Music Review

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Swearing at Motorists – Burn Down the Wire EP

Dave Doughman is a tough man to please if Wikipedia is to be believed. According to the website, always an infallible source of information, the Swearing at Motorists singer has seen 16 changes of drummers during the band’s 17 year existence.

S@M were originally formed in Dayton, Ohio in 1995 when Doughman teamed up with Don Thrasher, formerly of lo-fi kings Guided by Voices and since then he’s averaged one new drummer per year. Impressive too considering that “Burn Down the Wire” is the band’s work since 2006.

This four-song EP begins with the lovely Stop, Drop & Roll, which is typical S@M, built around Doughman’s scraggly voice with him strumming away with a beautiful melodic guitar sound. This is trademark ‘motorists. A cover of The Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” gets put through the mincer and comes out rather nicely with the trademark S@M sound – often described as “the two-man Who”. I know I’m supposed to but I couldn’t have put it better myself.

It’s a lovely offering and one that you hope will be followed by more. And more. What the band do best is good songwriting, vocals that are at times angry and at others fragile and a mix of melodic guitar and skuzzy garage rock riffs. Imagine Thin Lizzy mixed with Queens of the Stone Age and you’re close.

Has it been worth the 6 year wait? Burn Down the Wire’s splendid but a mere morsel at four songs short and so hard to judge on that basis. A bit like when you’re thirsty – the quality of the water’s hard to tell with any clarity, you just need to ingest it quickly. Anyway, I’m still thirsty – more please Dave!

Burn Down the Wire is out now via http://swearingatmotorists.bandcamp.com/album/burn-down-the-wire

Game Over for Game – But why?

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Right now if you visit GAME’s official website  you’ll find it “down for maintenance” with a message explaining the company’s gone into administration, who’s been appointed to handle the process and a disclaimer that the company is “currently reviewing and processing orders placed on this website.”

Why is a huge question – right now many of the company’s employees are asking the very same question and with good reason – Game is a games retail giant – or at least it was. Their failure is probably the biggest British retail collapse since Woolworths when its 815 stores went under at the end of 2008.

So what went wrong for Game? Well, depending on what sources you read you get different viewpoints. Here is my take on reasons why they could have gone under.

Sky High Prices

Ask any gamer why Game has struggled and they’ll point to one fact: high prices. Game products always had a higher price tag to their competitors. If you think about Amazon and Play.com, they regularly shave a good £10 off of launch day prices. One could argue that with Game you are guaranteed the game before its release date but really who cares when you could be paying as much as £50 a pop.

Shoddy service

I remember the days when I would order from Game and get the game about two days before the release however, when they changed the website the service changed too. It was clunky and difficult to navigate, games would take an age to arrive, orders might go missing etc. Try and complain and you would be told to wait at least 20 days to see if the game would turn up. It’s enough to make you want to hurl your controller.

Better alternatives

Game made the majority of their profit from those looking to trade in their old titles. This was a fine move; some would even say inspired. However they made enemies out of the software giants who wanted more of a cut. Ever wondered why nearly all games require you to purchase an online pass in order to play your pre-owned game online? That is the games company trying to reap more cash from the pre-owned market which arguably Game helped to build. However it was these same enemies who promptly decided to turn their backs when Game was calling out for help like a little baby. Have these enemies pull out the big titles from Games shelves, Fling in a couple of rivals like CEX, and Game was on a slippery path.

Non PC Support

Head into a GAME store and you will see the scarcity of space dedicated to PC gaming. They simply just don’t really cater for PC owners – it’s ridiculous considering that they’re the single dedicated high-street gaming retailer and should be the first physical port of call for all gamers regardless of platform. What’s more nearly all of the titles released that have had a huge impact such as Minecraft and Skyrim, were PC based first and all but the exclusive console games such as Uncharted reach the PC platform eventually.

New Digital Distribution Methods

As fast broadband connectivity continues to spread across the nation, so too does the prevalence of digital download platforms for all sorts of media. Gaming is no different. The Xbox 360 has the Xbox Live Arcade; the PlayStation 3 has the Sony Entertainment Network; the Nintendo Wii has the Wii Shop Channel; PC gamers look to Steam and Gamefly. Some sources have said that the next generation of consoles will not be disc based but Sony have spoken out directly in contradiction to this because of inconsistencies in Broadband quality which means that to take this leap could cut many consumers out of the loop which in turn would effect sales.

Mobile Gaming Is On The Rise

One of the reasons Game could have fallen so badly is the rise of mobile gaming. Whether you have an Android, Windows Phone 7 iPad or iPod touch owner, chances are you’ve got access to more than a few games at your disposal.  As the quality of mobile technology gets greater so does the graphics and so does the gameplay. Right now some people are so addicted to Angry birds that they are writing songs about it – and…erm less interested in Sonic or pesky plumbers and whats more these titles are just a download away – meaning Game cannot make any profit from these sales.

Lack of Passion

In the words of my manager – when the passion is gone, it is time to move on. I have spoken to many gamers since I heard the news about Game – and guess what? Many of them weren’t at all surprised. One lad told me ‘If you go into HMV, there is theatre, excitement, things are fxxxing happening- you go into Game, and sure you can talk to them about games, but the shops are cramped, you cant really play the games and they are not really into it!’ Well, I cant really say any more than that.

We’re All In This Together

Yes – we have heard those words before haven’t we? This may seem like an obvious point but it is a true one. We’re in the middle of a recession, and everyone has less cash to spend on luxuries, which videogames ultimately are. If it’s a choice between a meal and rent payments or a PS3, it’s pretty obvious which choice people are going to make.

Scout Niblett – The Calcination of Scout Niblett | Music Review

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Born in Nottingham and now residing in Portland, Emma Niblett adopted the moniker Scout after Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the protagonist from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Releasing under Scout Niblett, The Calcination of Scout Niblett is her 5th studio album. One thing that’s evident, having listened to her previous efforts, is that she doesn’t hold with musical evolution; not one to push the envelope with new layers and sounds, textures and structures of musical brilliance. Not Scouty, no. Everybody loves a big new idea but you know what, sometimes it’s just nice to have something brilliant, regardless. Tried and tested? So what. Brilliant’s brilliant, no?

The Scout Niblett trademark sound is a variation of quiet/loud guitar and drums, not necessarily concerned with hitting the right notes every time – a bit scratchy, if you will. Very much verse/chorus/verse and very openly Kurt Cobain-esque. Over the top she layers her PJ Harvey-esque vocals. It’s a tempting sound. I’ve covered the fact that “The Calcination of Scout Niblett” is more of the same formula. The fact is, it’s better. I imagine she looks at people expecting her to push the envelope in the same way that Toyota would look at somebody who expected them to make a toasted cheese sandwich maker; with one eyebrow raised and a big dollop of suspicion.

Sticking to the one sound has allowed Niblett, over the course of the last decade and with the help of producer Steve Albini, to hone and fine-tune her sound to the absolute basics and absolute best. A decade of playing incredible live shows but not ever quite capturing the live sound well on record, “The Calcination . . .” is Niblett at her most driven and intense and the sound comes over like In Utero-era Nirvana with the lyrical drive of Catpower’s Moonpix.

The record begins with”Just Do It!” a song with cuts from moments of buzzing feedback before cutting back to the sparsity of just a single string. The girl deals in beautiful contrasts and wants you to know it early on. “Cheeky Cherry Bomb” spends 3 minutes building between quiet/loud before launching into a menacing crunching, powerful doom-rock sound.

Ultimately nothing new. Just better at it. More honed and refined. Better guitars, better drums, better vocals than previous records. The album ends on the 9 minute wonder that is “Meet and Greet” – a song which uses every shade on the palette to sketch out the sound, just to remind us all what she’s capable of. Blood and guts, heart and soul come in spades though. Basically, it’s all you need.

 

Game – The High Street Games Retailer Goes into Administration

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The high street games retailer Game fell headlong into administration today leaving thousands of high street workers faced with losing their jobs and millions of pounds still outstanding to its debtors.

The group, which has 609 stores and 6,000 staff in the UK, has effectively run out of cash and rumour has it that it was unable to meet even its basic rent and wage payments which were due this week.

Staff took to technology websites and forums to express their anger and disappointment at what one called a ’horrible situation’.

The difficulties experienced by Game are testament to the current ‘age of austerity’ marking a squeeze on living costs and a change in shopping habits and games technology. Additionally no further consoles have been released of late so some pundits have pointed at the lack any new technology to get games players excited and into shops.

The retailer had a £21m rent bill due last Sunday and faces an eye watering £12m wage bill this weekend. It is estimated that another £40million owed to suppliers and £10m in VAT seems unlikely be paid.

Administrators said the stores would remain open as it attempts to find a buyer for the business as a growing concern. It seems certain that hundreds of stores will go and thousands of employees will be out of work within weeks.

While the bulk of the Game business is in the UK, with 609 stores and 6,000 staff, there are around 700 other outlets and 7,000 staff in sister chains overseas.

The fate of the company is now in the hands of administrators at PwC. Speaking to the press today – Mike Jervis, joint administrator and partner at PwC, suggested the firm had ‘simply run out of cash’.

Mr Jervis said: ‘The group has faced serious cash-flow and profit issues over the recent past. It also has suffered from high fixed costs, an ambitious international roll-out and fluctuating working capital requirements.’

Poor sales at Christmas led the games giant to signal that losses for the year to the end of January were likely to be around £18million.

However, Mr Jervis insisted there is still demand for a mainstream high street computer games retailer.

‘We believe that there is room for a specialist game retailer in the territories in which it operates, including its biggest one, the UK,’ he said.

‘As a result we are hopeful that a going concern sale of the business is achievable.’

It is understood that the latest financial crisis was triggered when one of Game’s main lenders, the taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland, objected to the terms of a rescue deal with private equity firm OpCapita, which recently bought electrical goods retailer Comet.

Game has suffered dire trading in recent months, which forced it to ask suppliers for more generous trading terms. However, several responded by deciding to protect themselves by refusing to supply the retailer with any new releases, such as Mass Effect 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken.

The group has also been battered by competition from cheaper rivals on the internet, such as Amazon and Play.com, and the major supermarkets.

Separately, many people now download game Apps direct to tablets or smart phones, rather than buying software to be loaded in to consoles like the PlayStation, xBox on Nintendo Wii.

If you visit Games’s official website  you’ll find it “down for maintenance” with a message explaining the company’s gone into administration, who’s been appointed to handle the process and a disclaimer that the company is “currently reviewing and processing orders placed on this website.”

The failure represents the biggest British retail collapse since Woolworths and its 815 stores went under at the end of 2008.

Thomas White – Yalla! | Music Review

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In August 2010 Thomas White, after a decade on the road with The Electric Soft Parade, The Brakes and British Sea Power and following the death of his mother, took himself off on holiday. Firstly to Dubai, then onto Egypt. On arrival in Egypt, White realised he didn’t much like it and wasn’t having the time of his life. Fortunately the troubador was armed with an acoustic guitar and a laptop and so spent his days in his documenting backwards a story that has often been; the story of a man somewhere quite drab dreaming of glorious sunshine. White was somewhere beautiful in the sun but was dreaming of home; specifically Brighton in the drabness of autumn. Whatever the circumstances, though, a delicious record came of it.

White’s previous record, The Maximist, was his David Bowie moment, a bombastic stop of glam-punk. Yalla! is White’s Beatles moment. The spirit of Lennon and McCartney run down the spine of this record, as if they were sat in that hotel room in Dahab.  Opening track ‘All The Fallen Leaves’ oozes regret; ‘I’ll See Her Again’ is a tale of lost love that appears to have picked up the baton from Elliott Smith, the same one that was mistakenly picked up by Graham Coxon. ‘The Heavy Sunshine Sound’ is his finest Lennon/McCartney impression with the moods and shades turning from dark to light and back again as quick as his voice moves.

At times White sounds like he’s about to enjoy himself with a big soaring chorus but then he pulls it all back to the bleak; that post-tragedy feeling where life should never be enjoyed again and that any feelings to the contrary are self-indulgent. ‘I’ve Seen the Sunrise’ documents lost love and loneliness but muddles it with the highs and the feeling that all is not lost.

The one criticism of this record is that the pill tastes a little bit dull after 7-8 songs of the same shade. A stunning record but one to be eaten in reasonable sized chunks but if you’re feeling melancholic then pop it on repeat and it’ll soothe your soul.

Throughout Yalla! White seems as homesick-for and rooted in Brighton and his favourite landmarks that he lists, as it is possible to be. He’s a veteran of the music scene there having burst onto the scene aged 17 with the much-hyped Electric Soft Parade and having been around for over a decade and been in more bands than Mike Patton (possible exaggeration), it is easy to think of White as a veteran but at 27 you hope he’s just getting started and has enough melancholy to make a record like Yalla! at least once more.

Londoner's Life – By Phil Ryan

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Londoner’s Life 26 – By Phil Ryan
Yes Spring is here and so are another two hundred Sushi restaurants BUT the bigger London trend is the ballooning amount of Shisha Restaurants/Cafes. It’s slightly strange now seeing people sitting puffing away like goldfish on acid as they stare silently like cattle at their colleagues. The interesting twist to this is the latest news on how harmful it actually is. Many people are unaware of the health risks from smoking the flavoured tobacco, which can be as damaging as cigarettes if not more so, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have now said. The number of cafes offering “shisha” tobacco pipes has risen 210% since the smoking ban came into force, a leading cancer charity has warned. Weird huh. It smells so nice and seems so exotic but although it looks harmless enough it actually kills you. Quicker than cigarettes. So next time you feel the urge to look up to the minute and multi international give the shisha a miss and opt for the baklava. The Arab spring here clearly dominated by people coughing their lungs up! On a completely unrelated but still medical note how about the news that some London markets have been selling a funky looking new bracelet made of Jequirity Beans which are a kind or red and black pattern looking beads on a string bracelet. The trouble is they poison you. Yup I’m not kidding it turns out they contain a deadly toxin that is absorbed into the skin. Apparently it doesn’t take much of the toxin either. You couldn’t make it up could you? The London Ambulance service have sent out warnings to trading and standards offices across the capital. I suppose it’s one way of keeping the tourist numbers down.
Meanwhile us Londoners have been bracing ourselves for more Olympic nonsense with the news that some London boroughs are doubling or even quadrupling parking fines in quote ‘sensitive areas’. After Westminster Council’s parking fiasco and collapse but final strike at locals by painting miles of double yellow lines everywhere (despite promising they wouldn’t limit parking) it seems that Councils are really determined to destroy as many London small shops and restaurants as they can. Here in my own area the local Council have ignored the dying traders calls for assistance by effectively tightening the noose of over- zealous parking controls ie free money for them based on flogging us our own road space back. Sneakily they’ve put the prices up without mentioning it and they’ve extended the restricted hours near shops. Plus we don’t have the occasional traffic warden (sorry Parking control assistant sheesh!) No we have hordes of ten or more in gangs. I think the collective noun is a misery of traffic wardens. And of course with the so called Zil Lanes jamming up London during the Olympics we can look forward to the worst traffic issues in living memory. I’m off out of it. Really I have my flights booked. And on my last Olympic point the debacle about Legacy rumbles on. What will the Olympics leave Londoners? Well I can tell you. More super rich property developers. A giant shopping Centre. Er that’s it. Oh yes of course I was forgetting all of this funded by London tax payers for the past years. But at least Lord Coe and the cronies will all do well.
My favourite new topic is the price in London of theatre tickets. I love the theatre but it ain’t cheap. The average West End ticket is now above fifty quid it seems. And here’s a quick example of that. I wanted to see a show at a well known theatre and happily I found a coupon in the Metro newspaper – a two for one offer. So I called them up and found that it came with various restrictions one being that on weekend performances (when I wanted to go – the two for one offer applied only to the £69 seats – yes think about that THE £69 seats) Still I did get a good deal I guess but what? I still paid over £35 plus for a ticket. And don’t get me started on the old comedians well-worn routine about the price of food and drink in theatres. Now whenever I go I see it’s like a well dressed picnic. With savvy Londoners having bulging pockets where they sneak stuff in. Sadly it spoils the cut of a suit or a dress (if you like to dress up a bit) but it makes economic sense if not fashion sense.
Finally I leave you with the opening news of London’s newest Airport. London Southend. Yes you heard me. Southend that place about an hour and a half outside of London or two hours by car. It seems we’re now calling any new airport London. Just like London (Cambridge) Stansted or London (Brighton) Gatwick. The train ticket to get to these London airports are now often higher than the actual plane ticket I kid you not. The London Heathrow Express stands out as the biggest rip off at £19.00 for a 15 minute journey. And my favourite bit. They have a First Class section! Really. 15 minutes of First Class travel how pathetic do you have to be to take that option. I mean just how good can that experience actually be. (I recently went to Dundee First Class – that was 6 hours going at no miles an hour – then you see the difference plus you get free stuff – Although as you pay a lot more it’s not technically free really) Still I guess at least you get there eventually. So now Londoners can whiz up to Southend and fly away from these polluted London streets. If they fancy the trek. But do Londoners worry about this sort of thing. No. Do they care that our airports aren’t in London. No not really. It’s a London thing.