I must admit I don’t know a lot about Our Burgundy but what I do know is that they rock! They’re two kids from Pomfret, Conneticut, Seth David Christian (guitar/vocals) and Alex Herr (drums), who have created a sort of Bush meets White Stripes sound. Don’t take my word for it, have a watch of their ‘Bad Things’ video below:
Also head to the Our Burgundy bandcamp page for free downloads of their Through The Grapevine 1 and Through The Grapevine 2 EP’s
External Links:
Let’s clear one thing up – The Great Park is a man not a band. He’s called Stephen Burch and he’s an Englishman living in the musical hotbed of Berlin, the place where David Bowie and Iggy Pop once shared a flat. There’s some great folk music coming out of Berlin right now courtesy of Woodland Recordings but none great than The Great Park.
Despite being British he doesn’t really play a huge amount in The UK. His 150-ish concerts in the last few years have mostly been in Continental Europe although he has been involved with the excellent Brighton-based label Bleeding heart recordings.
‘Stitch’ is a beast of a record at 31 songs long, spanning two discs. The 1st disc is of songs from his last few records and the 2nd is of live recordings from his various journeys. It’s good of Burch to take us on a physical journey through the live record as he takes us on an emotional one with him in his music. It’s an emotional journey that paints a vivid picture of a man with exposed, open wounds. Burch is clearly a man with the lyrically-introspective nature of Tom Williams. Perhaps also cut from the same anti-folk cloth too, although I’d imagine he’d want less of the anti.
The songs on the record are intimate, they’re at times melancholic and difficult to listen to but something about it draws you in so Burch can paint his bleak picture and on repeated listening he reveals new lyrical nuances, a bit like Forrest Gump does. Whoever coined the term “Problem Folk” for him deserves a medal – I can do no better myself. It’s not without hope though. My only hope is he continues to make records for a long time to come. Buy. This. Record. NOW!
‘Stitch’ is out now via Bandcamp
Links:
http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/
http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/thegreatpark.htm
www.bleedingheartrecordings.com
http://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/stitch
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