The Ghosts Of Ballet Dancers

How many  have fallen 

from the edge of Swan lake,

to find themselves here

in a water filled grave.

Achingly anonymous

No voice, no face.

Achingly delicate,

Poise, grace.

No choreography needed

for the unwitting dance.

Propulsion by plié,

destination by chance.

Dear Mr. Cameron

This morning I received in the post a letter from yourself. More of a pamphlet. no envelope. And I assume it was from yourself, as it had your face on the front of it. It was labelled "ELECTION COMMUNICATION YORKSHIRE". In it, you discuss how you and your party have made such fantastic changes to Britain since 2010. You also discuss how "we have lost control of our own affairs" thanks to being a part of the EU. Sounds like a contradiction to me, but that's beside the point. There's something else about this letter I wanted to ask you. Here is a picture of what I received.

My partner and I are currently sharing a home with her parents, and my father-in-law received the exact same letter. I thought that my partner and her mum  received nothing. I thought that was quite bad, but the truth is actually even worse than that. My partner did receive communication from yourself Dave. A communication containing the exact same information as mine did. She didn't see it because it was tucked away inside my letter.  Here it is.

Now, you may notice that this is exactly the same info on the front. "Securing Britain's Future" plastered on the front. Tick. Same smug photo. Tick. Same three bragging statements with big ticks? Tick. Inside it's mostly the same info too. Same contradictions and self promotion. However, here it is to scale with mine.

Dave, Old Sport, that to me suggests my partner's vote might be worth that little bit less than mine doesn't it. We mustn't worry about spending to much on the women, must we, because us good old men folk with our fully functioning brains will put them to rights and tell them how to vote, won't we. But hang on, because unbelievably, this gets worse.

Look again at that second picture. There's two names on there. That's both my partners name, and her mums. The letter was addressed to them both. So not only did my father-in-law and I get larger letters but we got one each. My mother-in-law and my partner get to share. I suppose it makes sense Dave. Whilst us men folk are off shooting grouse and singing drinking songs over a flagon of ale, they'll be at home together making our tea and needing something to fill their thoughts with other than knitting and kittens won't they? I can't help but think of that old Harry Enfield sketch. "Women! Know your limits!"

Women have had the right to vote in this country since 1928 Dave. Here's a little quote about it from the official website of your own parliament-

"1928 The Equal Franchise Act is passed giving women equal voting rights with men. All women aged over 21 can now vote in elections. Fifteen million women are eligible."

That's equal, not a vote worth half that of a man's. So why are your election communications focused so at me and my gender, with a cursory glance given to my partner and her mother, an afterthought and an 'if we must'. You're an embarrassment to our gender Dave. Tax cuts mean nothing, defecit cuts means even less, if we don't have equality for all. How can I expect you to do the right thing for the country in the EU when you can't even do the right thing by half of your own population when it comes to sending them a letter?

I look forward to your response. 

Dave.

Venting.

Uneven keel is progressing,
Unite knights in protest!
Unless kinship is persevered,
United Kingdom in pieces!
Useless "knowledge" in policies,
Unfair ku-klux in propaganda,
Urging knee-jerk indecent proposal,
Unfortunate Kaiser installed? Possibly.
Underclass kids into poverty,
Unleash Kafkaesque island perception.

We're All Guilty.

HEY GUYS! LET'S TALK BREASTS!
Seen any good ones,
As you walk the streets?
Pert, juicy jubblies,
Massive, heaving tits.
Wrapped tight in Lycra,
Or under thin silk,
With nipples showing,
The areola
Visible to all.

She's done it for you,
Worn that shirt to work.
Had it on all day
So for five seconds
As she passes you
You get a nice view
To ease the boredom.
The number sixteen,
Now four minutes late.
Isn't she so kind?

And so so lucky.
To have you looking
As she eases past,
Aware of the gaze
That doesn't see her.
Krypton factor time!
What colour's her hair?
Was she in a skirt?
Or classic denim?
What does it matter?

You've got your vision
Of what god gave her
Stuck deep in your mind
To use when alone,
But not thinking about
The first pair you sucked
All those years ago,
When again you gazed
But didn't take in
Anything you saw.

The Same Mixtapes

Big Cat Diary is no more, but the blog lives. It's had a rebrand, and you can now find it at thesamemixtapes.blogspot.com! Hope to see you there soon!

Sunday Classic Cover- Vic Chesnutt

Arming oneself with an acoustic guitar and a pop song then dutifully playing its chords and singing its lyrics is one of the most overused methods of cover version creations there is. For every Elbow appearing on the Live Lounge, there's 25 of these. But every now and then, this method creates something beyond beautiful. I had intended to write about Vic Chesnutt's oddball cover of R.E.M.'s It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), but for the first time, I'm instead writing about another of his covers which I only discovered tonight during my research. To be honest, it's knocked me sideways.

Vic Chesnutt was a long term fixture on the same vibrant Athens, Georgia scene which spawned R.E.M. Whether working on his succession of solo albums, or with his band Brute, everything he put his name to was tinged with fragility, his vocal bleak, distant, and captivating. Yet nothing was ever quite as fragile as this, a cover of Kylie Minogue's Come Into My World from the soundtrack to the movie Mitte Ende August.

On Christmas Day 2009, just months after its release, Vic Chesnutt was dead, taking his own life, an overdose of muscle relaxants successful. He had suffered years of being refused cover for medical insurance, $50,000 dollars in debt for treatment needed after a car accident at age 18 left him confined to a wheelchair and with limited use of his hands. Thanks to an American healthcare system which is thankfully finally under scrutiny, Vic Chesnutt simply could not afford to live, so he took the decision to die. It's difficult not to hear this cover as a cry for someone to look at how this system worked, how a man who worked hard, released sixteen albums in nineteen years could be treated this way.

He was always upfront and honest in his own lyric writing about his battles, but after his death, said to be his fourth suicide attempt, this song's "I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming, now I'm home" takes on a much darker subtext than anything songwriter Cathy Dennis could have imagined from the song.

Here's Vic's R.E.M. cover too. Don't expect the scattergun pop of the original. I like to think of it as a jigsaw puzzle of Michael Stipe's dream led lyrical vision.

Wednesday (Thursday) Classic Track- Girls Aloud

After the first few weeks of the Wednesday classic track showcasing a fair bit of rock, this week it's a complete change of tack. Pure POP. Girls Aloud have always been pop in every sense of the word. Accessible, chorus' dripping from the walls, and popular beyond belief, but they've always been a little underrated for the risks they took musically.

Biology, from 2005 album 'Chemistry', is on first listen just another three and a minute chart botherer  by well known songwriting team Xenomania. It's when you notice the chorus doesn't hit until two minutes into the track it's actually a little different. The song is broken down into very different, seperate sections of between thirty seconds and a minute, rather than relying on the same regular hook. There's not just one change in tempo but three, between the opening section; a stomping show tune, based on an Animals riff and the songs main bulk, then back again. The only reason what I call the chorus the chorus because it comes back at the end. Every section here could've been individually spun out into a full excellent pop tune. It slow burns, it rewards the listener, and it's the closest pop will ever get to prog.

Post-split, some members of the band have gone on to release highly underrated solo work. Everyone may be raving about the live comeback of Kate Bush right now, but they've ignored the unlikely natural successor sat under their noses. Nicola Robert's 'Cinderella's Eyes' released in 2011 shouldn't just end this decade remembered as one of the best pop albums of the teens, but the best albums period. With plenty of time now passed from Girls Aloud's commercial peak, it's time they had a good critical reappraisal.

Whatever Happened To The Mini-Album?

Any fan of British rock and indie music of a certain age will look back on the mini-album with a certain fondness. We were spoilt with a lot of classics. And I mean, a lot. Feeder's 'Swim', Idlewild's 'Captain' and Symposium's 'One Day At A Time' were probably the three biggest examples, in terms of commercial popularity, but they represent just the tip of an iceberg of what was out there in terms of musical achievement. Cecil, Seafood, The Junket and many more released classic mini albums of between 6 and 8 tracks.

Released after a couple of singles, but before the first album proper, they served as the introduction to these bands for the majority of fans. I remember getting hold of a copy of 'Swim', and being absolutely flabbergasted that a band from Wales made that. A few years later, when I got hold of 'Captain', I was in love. It was, and remains to this day, one of my favourite recordings. The reason, for me, that the mini-album worked was that there was enough there to get me hooked, without giving away too much too soon, losing the mystery of what was coming next.

But what happened to the mini-album? None of the British rock bands with any level of mainstream popularity today have them in their back catalogue. From those at the heavier end of the spectrum, your Enter Shikari's or your Biffy Clyro's to the bands at the other end, The Vaccines or Los Campesinos, nor anywhere in between. Of those four bands, the closest we get is Los Campesinos' 'Sticking Fingers Into Sockets'. It was 6 tracks, but 4 of the six tracks on it had previously been released on their two early 7" singles. The remainder were a cover, and a 35 second long track. It's referred to by the band as an EP.

So could it be that the mini-album still exists, but it's all a matter of whats in the name? 'One Day At A Time' was an 8 track record, but four of the tracks were available elsewhere. It would have been five if there hadn't been a disagreement over the rights for the track "The Girl With The Brains In Her Feet", meaning its pulling from the record at the last minute. Like the Los Campesinos record, a lot of the material on it wasn't new, and it was a mixture of A and B-sides that made up the existing stuff. The difference lies in the fact material was missed off. Like a debut album proper, the singles were there, but B-sides were missing. That, to me, means the record was sequenced like an album, tracks that fitted the running order carefully chosen, and that's what made it a mini-album. The Los Campesinos release was more of a mini greatest hits so far- everything was there, on CD for the first time, with a couple of sweeteners for those that already had the 7" records.

Then there's the number of tracks. Where do we draw a line. Downwards seems fairly easy. Three or four tracks is a single?  Six is where we stray into mini-album territory. Where does that leave 5 tracks? Five alone can't be the famous EP. As much as we deride Wikipedia, there is a very interesting point on the article about the Extended Play. It says the EP is composed of tracks of equal importance, whereas a single has a lead track and B-sides. That's why Oasis' seminal series of singles released around the time of Definitely Maybe weren't EPs. There were clearly defined A-Sides and B-Sides, as much as those B's were often easily the equals of the more famed tracks. The same argument can't be made when the number of tracks creeps upwards though.

There's two records released around a decade ago that really bring into question the number of tracks on a mini-album. In 2005, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly released his self titled debut EP. No lead track, but five tracks of sheer quality. A year before, My Awesome Compilation released 'The View Is Amazing'. Similarly wonderful, again no lead number, but six tracks. Both releases have always been referred to as EP's. The first I think, 'what a great EP', the second I wonder why it isn't called a mini-album. There really is that much of a psychological divide based on the number of tracks, having several years earlier been treated to the amazing mini-albums of the late 90's.

When it comes down to it, it all comes down to how a release is marketed. Sam Isaac's 'Sticker, Star and Tape'  is a nine track record, marketed by Alcopop! Records as a mini-album. Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip's 2014 album 'Repent, Replenish, Repeat' is also nine tracks, but undoubtedly their latest full length album, not a mini-album. But because Alcopop! called it a mini-album on his Bandcamp page, it's a mini-album. Because 'Repent, Replenish, Repeat' is not called that, it is not. Simple. Everywhere we turn today we are subject to advertising, and the record industry is obviously no exception even when it what we refer to a record as even after we've made the decision to buy it.

Tim Dellow of Transgressive Records is of the opinion that "in a media industry now entirely focused on results both critically and commercially of your debut album, (the EP or mini-album is) a chance to explore an artists sound and develop in public with an audience." But is that necessarily a good thing?  Of the six bands mentioned at the beginning of this article, only three went on to release more than one album. Sam Isaac retired from music entirely after his first album proper (save for an all-too-brief comeback last summer). Contemporaries of those bands such as 'A' and Hundred Reasons never released mini-albums and went on to release four full lengths each. Perhaps the classic mini-albums we were treated to forced those bands into the 'difficult' second album too quickly. All their best early work was pushed into that smaller release, leaving the debut album proper lacking. Feeder combated that by taking two tracks from Swim, placing them on 'Polythene' as well. Idlewild, by the time of their biggest commercial successes were nothing like the band who released 'Captain', an every evolutionary band. Seafood, the third of the trio who went on to release several records after 'Messenger In The Camp' never had chart success, seemingly content with their reputation as a solid, hard-working touring band, always respected never commercially massive.

But Symposium released the 'On The Outside' record, then imploded. Cecil released the sub-par 'Subtitles', not a patch on the outstanding 'Bombar Diddlah', briefly reimagined themselves as Voy, then were never heard of again. Transgressive has tried a slightly different tactic. Both Foals and Pulled Apart By Horses released live mini-albums before the debut proper. In my opinion, a great compromise. Fans get access to tracks they've heard before, and new tracks, in an album setting, but the band does not have the pressure of deciding whether to then include those tracks elsewhere. Foals are going from strength to strength, headlining Latitude 2013, and recently headlining the Royal Albert Hall, Pulled Apart By Horses are one of the most consistent and exciting rock bands to come out of Britain in the last decade. It's worked for them.

When I started contemplating writing this, I desperately wanted the mini-album to come back. It held everything I loved in music within it's 6-8 perfect tracks. I wish more records were mini-albums. I played a game with myself, and edited some records I like but not love down to 6-8 tracks. They needed some re-sequencing, but the quality of the record was massively increased. Anyway mini-albums still do exist, just to a much smaller degree. Labels like Alcopop! put them out all the time, LightGuides' Samba Samba Samba from a couple of years ago a particularly fine example, but Jack who runs the label is very much a child of the same time as me. It's obvious he holds the same romance for the format as I do.

If they ever did make a comback on a wider scale, I'm sad to say that the romance would be gone. I don't listen to music in the same way that I did. I rarely get the chance to sit down and actually listen to a record, and take it in start to finish these days unless I'm reviewing it, regardless of format. Coupled with the onset of downloads and fact that an album is often nothing more than a collection of ten or twelves singles which, if I really wanted I could pick or choose my own favourite 6 or 8 from anyway, I think 2014 is the year I finally give up on them and stop hoping for a mass return to the format.

 
It's time to say farewell the mini-album. I'll always remember the little sticker on your sleeve proclaiming what you were. I don't blame you for making the first album difficult for some of my favourite bands. You'd have still been there anyway, amongst that full debut, but you'd have been bloated, filled out and ruined. You were perfect as you were, and I loved you for it, so I'm letting you go. Swim away little buddy, Swim away.

Sunday Classic Cover- Elbow, Independent Women

When Destiny's Child and their entourage first created Independent Women (Part 1, to give it it's full title), it's doubtful flat cap wearing kittens playing xylophones were high in their thoughts. The original track is a celebration of third-wave feminism, sex positivity and financial independence in abundance. The track says as much in 3 and a half minutes as Carrie Bradshaw does in 6 seasons and two movies. It was therefore a very brave choice of track for a group of men approaching thirty from a working class town in Lancashire to attempt.

Elbow, upon entering the Radio 1 Live Lounge to cover the track in 2002, probably weren't thinking of kittens in flat caps either, but that's what their cover is now best known for, thanks to Joel Veitch of Rathergood.com. What they did create in the studio that day is, like Destiny's Child, a celebration of who they are, where they are from, and what they've achieved. The skiffle beat, the overly pronounced northern accent, the accordion. This is a group of guys in a Bury pub, not a track from a Hollywood movie. It's truncated lyrics overtly remove the message of the original but having slogged away for several years, an album laying unreleased due to being dropped by Island records, there must have been a sense of achievement from the band. They'd finally seen debut Asleep At The Back released, Mercury nominated and critically acclaimed, and they were performing live on one of Britain's biggest radio stations.

This shouldn't be taken as an attempt to compare the need for equality to one bands hard work in reaching the status they deserve. But as the Sunday Classic Cover is all about, Elbows' re imagining captures the obvious craft at the core of the songwriting of the original track, remoulding it to show the core of the band performing. And kittens.

Album Review- Speedy, News From Nowhere

Seventeen years ago, during the year 1997, you would imagine many bands imploded, never to record together again. However, very few of them would have released a succession of successful singles, recorded a debut album, and then been dropped, leaving said album sat unheard by the then Britpop loving hoards. As unlikely as it sounds, that is exactly what happened to Speedy.

Fast forward to 2014, and the people behind the 1p Album Club, a blog dedicated to the albums you can buy on Amazon for just 1 penny, and Alcopop Records, the label responsible for putting out some of the best records in the last seventeen years have decided they need a new club,  The Lost Music Club. This new label will be unearthing those albums and recordings that time forgot, and presenting them, all shiny and new to the public for the first time. As unlikely as it sounds, this is exactly what is happening to Speedy.

At the album's start the 'lost' nature of the record itself manages to get a little lost. The first two tracks proper, Anytime Anyplace Anywhere, and Heard Seen Done Been  were released as a double A-side single, so hearing them again one after the other, feels a little like having dug that single out of the attic. Truth be told it's a little anti-climatic after waiting this long for the record, but that doesn't take away from the strength of the songs. They're two belters, which nicely set the scene for the album to come, and it's the next, middle section of the record which mainly houses the majority of the unfamiliar material. The lyrical themes introduced with the singles remain right through. Images of grim Northern council estates never far from the surface, female characters being held down by society, or their boyfriends, or both. Lads on the lash. The musical themes are similarly constant too.

Speedy are a band with their own sound. It's one that's been influenced by their peers and their city, Sheffield, but it's their own. They don't have a sound akin to any particular one of the Britpop bands, big or small with whom they shared Shine Complilations. A Day In The Life Of Riley is an insanely catchy tune easily the equal of The Lightning Seeds near-named Match Of The Day botherer, and the bands use of brass sounds so much more natural than it did in most of Britpop, particularly on Time For You and their biggest hit hit Boy Wonder. This is a band who've used it in their songwriting process, it hasn't been placed there by a producer looking to spice up the sound. Yet it's singer Philip Watson's voice that resonates most. His semi-croon is at odds with the subject matter, adding a suave, debonair edge to images of single mothers abusing the benefits system. These aren't love songs in any traditional sense, but he sings them like they're full of the most tender, loving sentiments in the world.

Sadly, not everything hits the spot. Time For You, whenever the epic brass is absent just fails to get going. The Sporting Life could have been missed off the album without anything being missed,  nothing from it's near-grim up north cliche title, to it's plodding sound hitting the mark. That track was always going to have a hard time of it on the running order though, following Boy Wonder, which sounds as fun and as invigorating as it did back then. If this album had never seen the light of day and Boy Wonder would have been the thing for which Speedy would have been ever remembered, they still could have been a rightly proud fivesome.

Things do pick up again after The Sporting Life, through Karaoke King and Going Home, and into the absolutely outstanding title track. A mid tempo number, it showcases Philip's voice better than anything else here, and the hammond organ riffs and fills present throughout add a rich dense layer to the track, marking it out as a little different from anything else here.

The album, quite simply, sounds better for having been put on the back burner all this time. In 1997, News From Nowhere would have been a little lost in the britpop mix, as the band themselves were, and undeservedly so. It's a fantastic record. It well deserves to see the light of day after all this time, and hats off to Lost Music Club for unearthing it. With it being released now, it sounds fresh, and different to what classes as mainstream indie music today, and will serve as a reminder to younger music fans that Blur, Oasis and Pulp were not the only bands that represented the Britpop sound. There was a lot more depth to it than the big three, and this, the best Britpop record in seventeen years, showcases it better than a lot of records that sold millions back in the day.



News From Nowhere is available to preorder now from the Lost Music Club Shop

Wednesday Classic Track- Raging Speedhorn, The Hate Song

In tribute to the fact I've just discovered that Speedhorn are back, and playing live shows again later this year, here is my favourite Raging Speedhorn track, The Hate Song. Continuing the theme from last week of UpCDownC being Britain's most underrated post-rock band, for me Speedhorn are the British metal band that never got the attention they deserved.

Live Review- Tragedy, Hull Fruit

A man called Lance is standing on a stage. He's wearing a white jumpsuit. He has a red flashing light strapped to his head, and is waving around, although not using, a megaphone. A near naked man has followed him onto the stage. He's got a dirty face, and is carrying a flute. This is the drummer, a man named The Lord Gibbeth. Not a note has been played yet. It's time to accept that this isn't going to be one of those shows where its all about the music. There may also be an element of theatre. Confirmation of that is when Andy, Mo'Royce, Barry, and their 'adopted brother' Disco Mountain Man, all dressed in spandex and sequins, join their nearly naked drumming 'father' a few moments later and launch into a version of Night Fever the likes of which you've never heard.

New York's Tragedy, you see, are the world's foremost all metal tribute to the Bee Gees. The glam rock look they bring to the show, the glam rock sound they bring to the tunes may sound at odds with the disco source material, but pretty early on, it looks like it might just work. As Night Fever ends, some technical difficulties cause a brief interlude, and the eerie quiet in the hall suggests Hull wasn't turned on by the idea of it though, especially on a Monday night. Fruit has seen busier days. Jive Talkin' gets the party going once more, and to Tragedy's credit, it's easy to forget they're playing to 40 people. They are rocking like this is Donington 1980, Rainbow couldn't make it and they've been drafted in to headline . Lance, a sort of silent hype man, is running around on stage, dousing the front rows with glitter and mopping the brows of the already sweat laden band with his ever present red towel.

The show is bookended by Bee Gees classics, yet the middle section sees the band leave their pure Gibb-inspired template. Their most recent albums, including 2013's Death To False Disco-Metal expand their repertoire into other wedding disco fodder. The Grease soundtrack, Disco Inferno, and Islands in the Stream are all visited tonight. Here and there amongst the tunes, you catch little bits of famous metal riffs you might recognise too. Ooh, was that Sabbath? That was DEFINITELY Raining Blood at the beginning of It's Raining Men. It's the most surreal game of guess the intro you've ever played.

As for the theatrics, they're ever present, yet the joy of them is in their subtlety. Yes, there are some large set pieces, Lance playing his Flying V Ukelele being a particular highlight. It's keeping an eye on what's happening elsewhere that the real belly laughs occur and these little things always involve Lance. He headbangs his way through Disco Inferno, then has to stop and give himself a little neck rub. Mo'Royce and Andy are trying to make their guitars make sweet love, and it all gets a little too much for Disco Mountain Man's little eyes, so Lance kindly shelters his eyes with his trusty towel. Disco Mountain Man himself, a glam rock hermit, is a vocal revelation. He takes a more low key role during the Bee Gees tracks; keyboards and cowbells his limit, yet he takes lead vocals on a fair chunk of the wider set list. He is one hell of a frontman. The wild man character suits the show perfectly. He's here, he's there, he's in the crowd, he's not missed a note doing it.

As the show nears it's conclusion, after an hour of classic hit after classic hit, Barry promises a lesser known Bee Gees number, before launching into Staying Alive, and then the evening's very entertaining entertainment is rounded off by one last little medley of disco hits (including the wittily done We Are Tragedy). The crowd have, for the most part, lapped it up. As they leave Fruit, one man is heard saying 'I've seen all three of the best covers bands on the planet now' but it would be difficult to imagine two more as good as Tragedy. Going right back to the days of the Greeks, tragedy and comedy have gone hand in hand. Tonight, the Comedy was in Tragedy, and the tragedy was that there weren't more people there to share in it.

Sunday Classic Cover- Biffy do Buddy.

The first time I saw Biffy Clyro, opening Reading's second stage in 2001, I never pegged them as headliners 12 years down the line. After another live experience in 2003 seeing them support Limp Bizkit, and not really rating debut record Blackened Sky, I didn't return to the band again for some time.

And it was a cover version that got me back on the bus.

In 2006, Kerrang! Magazine included the High Voltage! A Brief History of Rock CD as a freebie. Although long out of my regular K! buying days, I remain a sucker for a free CD, especially one that offered much promise, current rock and metal bands covering the tracks that influenced them. Some of them are the most unadventurous covers you have ever heard. Fightstar's attempt at The Deftones' My Own Summer a particularly limp example. But come track 5, I took a step back and realised what I'd missed by ignoring Biffy in the previous three years. They they were absolutely slaying Weezer's Buddy Holly. In The Smiths special last week I said that I believe a cover should Capture the spirit of the original, in the style of the band making the cover, and I'm including this today to show that being achieved pretty much perfectly.

The cover showed me that Biffy had honed their own sound. Looking back now the progression over the second and third albums was out of this world. Infinity Land in particular is an album that delights in showcasing contradiction in music, at once pop and prog, heavy and heartfelt, beauty and beast. This cover retains those contradictions. What we hear is Weezer's heart, Biffy's soul.

Random Bands Who've Started Following Me On Twitter No.1: The North

Ok, so you get two blog posts one after the other today, as I've just brainstormed a new feature I want to start straight away. This one is "Random Bands Who've Started Following Me On Twitter". It's a promotional tactic that has never really resonated with me, bands just following me on Twitter because I'm a fan of music. I've listened to a couple, but on the whole I just ignore them, don't follow back, and don't really listen. I could've missed a gem, who knows.

But I've just this afternoon started being followed by a band called The North, from Sheffield. A name so mind-numbingly all-encompassing, it tells you everything and yet nothing about the band at once. Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, The Beatles, The Stone Roses, they're all from The North, so they must sound like them, right? There was already a band called Northern Uproar (responsible for this gem of a website, thankfully still there.), so are they like them, but with less Uproar. A Northern Calm, if you will. I decided I'd explore them a little, and write about it. A quick open letter to The North follows....

Dear The North,

Thank you for being my guinea pigs. I appreciate it, even if you don't know about it. I am going to write about you with no further internet searching other than what I can find on your Twitter.

Yours,

Dave.

In The North's Twitter bio, I followed a link to their Reverb Nation page. I hadn't come across Reverb Nation before, but on first glance it appears to want to be all things to all men, a section to hear and buy the band's tracks, a section a bit like Twitter for comments,  a section like ask.fm, and of course a bio, amongst other bits. It all ends up a bit of a mess. Two things stood out. Firstly, I was right about that name. The five "Sounds Likes" listed on the bio are Kasabian, Miles Kane, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Paul Weller. Secondly, all the options to purchase are in dollars. Are odd choice for such a seemingly downright English band. I'm going to be honest here. I like a lot of the music the bands on that soundlike make, but I have a downright hatred of bands who try to sound like them. With trepidation, I hit play on the first track available for streaming, No Man's Land.

I was pleasantly surprised. This sounded nothing like those bands. Nothing at all. This was an urgent, fast paced pop-rock tune that owed as much to Feeder as it did to Kasabian or Oasis. And, I can't believe I'm about to say this, the way the vocalist carried himself made me think more of Steven Wilson in Porcupine Tree's more straight ahead moments more than Liam Gallagher or Paul Weller. It was good. It was really good.

Shame about the next two tracks. E.V.A.N. was slow to start, and then never really got going. The vocal I admired on the first track was completely missing. The singer (who I'd love to namecheck, but I couldn't find his name on Reverb Nation) sounds like he's just not only failed to pull on a night out at the Leadmill, but his Kebab was really poor quality too. Yes, his night out was THAT bad, and then he had to sing straight after. The third track, Spiders, quite simply is an Arctic Monkeys circa Humbug rip off.

However, things picked up again. Shotgun Lover sounded more like No Man's Land, another punchy pop-rock track. It was ambitious, and really dragged me in, the bass sounding like Document-era R.E.M, and that Steven Wilson-alike vocal returning, before giving way in the last minute to a layered and dense guitar solo. Sadly, the last track on the home page Into The Fire went back to that Arctic Monkeys impression we heard on Spiders.

Basically, The North, like their website of choice, fall down by trying to be all things to all men, and end up a bit of a mess. If they tried to make their own direction instead of trying to ape their heroes, they would be in a lot better place musically. I get the feeling that the influences on Shotgun Lover and No Man's Land aren't exactly where the band inspire to be, and even though that may be where their songwriting takes them, they pull themselves away back towards those that do inspire them. They say you should never meet your heroes, you'll only be disappointed. If The North are anything to go by, you shouldn't try to be them either. You'll only be disappointing.

Wednesday (Thursday) Classic Track- UpCDownCLeftCRightCABC+Start

This week's Wednesday (Thursday) Classic Track is UpCDownCLeftCRightCABC+Start's Stand Shadowless Like Silence, the opening track from the debut album of the world's most underrated post-rockers. And The Battle Is Won is just shy of an hour's worth of instrumental perfection so picking the track to run with here once I'd decided to feature them was tough. I decided to go with the opener in the hope of drawing a wider audience to the work as a whole. Now just going by the monkier UpCDownC, and having lost the second drummer who gave them their early signature sound, their later releases never quite lived up to this, but still put 99% of the Mogwai aping post-rock scene to shame.

And The Battle Is Won is available for the bargain price of a fiver at the band's Bandcamp page here.

Also, I'm not being biased towards the band here because they're from my home area of Medway, believe me, I've seen members of this band play in other projects I'd be happy to forget ever existed.

Sunday Classic Cover- The five best How Soon Is Now? covers.

Ever since Christmas, I've been trying to read Morrissey's Autobiography. The fact it's not really an autobiography, more a list of things he likes occasionally punctuated with, like, just how much he totally hated school and it was so bad there means I've still only made it to page 63. Asking for it so much I ended up with two copies is a bigger regret than my first marriage. But something dawned on me during the half an hour I was reading page 59 this evening.

Whenever someone says, "I don't like The Smiths" it is invariably followed up by some sort of musing on the man himself. "I just can't stand his voice" or "he's so depressing" are two that you hear quite regularly. No one ever says "Urgh, I hate The Smiths. It's Andy Rourke's bass playing that bugs me" or "I just can't get past how much I hate Mike Joyce." I'd even venture as far as saying that Johnny Marr would be a national treasure on a level with Brian May or a Suggs, if it wasn't for his association with the world's most famous morose vegetarian.

That got me thinking about How Soon Is Now?, and how many cover versions there are out there, and how a lot of them are incredibly incredibly faithful, but with one major difference. The Voice. Every single one of the five versions of the song in this countdown, a kickstart for the regular Sunday Classic Cover feature, start with that familiar chiming guitar sound. None of them try and mess with the rhythmic structure of the song. Yet all are different vocally. Even if you're not a Morrissey fan (which is a high possibility, let's face it) you may find one you enjoy.

 5. Paradise Lost

Released as a B-side to the single which spearheaded their polarizing change of direction, Say Just Words, Paradise Lost's How Soon Is Now? is the closest in tone on the list to the original probably due to frontman Nick Holmes never being the most cheerful. I have very distinct memories of him calling the audience at Donington '96 'Motherfuckers' because they weren't really getting into his band, but they were never going to really work in blazing sunshine at 1pm on a summer Saturday.

4. t.A.T.u

 
From the closest in tone, to the farthest away. How Soon Is Now? was always going to be an odd choice of song for inclusion on the Russian 'lesbians' debut English language album 200km/h In The Wrong Lane. Yet, somehow, it works. Although the pretense that the two girls were lovers has been long since dropped, the lyrics seemed somehow apt at the time. "I am human and I need to be loved" is about as radical a call for equality that could ever be allowed in the Russian media.

3. Hundred Reasons 

Taken from the outstanding How Soon Is Now?: The Songs Of The Smiths tribute album, which also featured Million Dead's Girlfriend In A Coma, ThisGIRL's Shoplifters Of The World Unite, and many more. This, musically, could be The Smiths, there's that little in it. It sounds like a remaster more than a cover. Colin Doran sounds a bit bored, like he's trying to do a Morrissey impression, but just can't quite bring himself to do it, and he wants to be himself. It's a super cover, but you do wish Colin had let himself go a bit more.

2. Snake River Conspiracy

Jason Slater and Tobey Torres' criminally underrated early 2000's industrial metal band not only included their cover on the Sonic Jihad LP, but also released it as a single (which contained as a B-side the outstanding track Coke and Vaseline, and is well worth picking up if you ever see a copy). Torres' breathy menace brings an edge to the track none of the other versions do. Plus, you have to love those, dare I say it, uplifting electronics added to the chorus. 

1. Quicksand

Although, again, musically, nothing much has changed, the vocal melody here is completely different. It says a lot about the enduring popularity of this that it's the one thing from Quicksand's arsenal that is still played live on occasion by Walter Schreifels' Rival Schools. Schreifels is massively influenced by the Smiths, and one of his other projects, Walking Concert, appears on the tribute album mentioned previously under the name Walter Walter. Both the version of Ask that appears there, and this do exactly what a cover should, to my mind, do. Capture the spirit of the original, in the style of the band making the cover. Over the coming weeks, that is what I hope to showcase with the Sunday Classic Cover. 

Johnny Foreigner- You Can Do Better

Muppet Babies, as I'm sure you recall, was a cartoon which reimagined Kermit, Gonzo and friends in their infancy. Not a far stretch for the imagination, and that was why the show worked. Equally, it's not a far stretch to imagine Johnny Foreigner as children. Aged five, they'd have been the kids at the party who were gleefully commandeering the boxes that the birthday boy's gifts came in, carefully laying it out on the stairs, and throwing themselves down headfirst.

The largest part of the band's output so far has lived by the same ethos. Fast, fun and with a small risk of broken bones. You Could Do Better is no exception. Lets get this straight now, there's nothing new to the Johnny Formula that's going to convert those who aren't fans, and there's nothing to alienate those already in the gang. The catchy guitar riff which gives way to frontman Alexei Berrow's slightly fragile Stephen Fry does Stephen Malkmus followed up by the shouting duel with bassist Kelly Southern are all present within the first sixty seconds of opener Shipping. The similarities to their past work do stretch a little far sometimes. There's parts of recent single Stop Talking About Ghosts that I thought actually were 2008 single Eyes Wide Terrified.

However, there's something here I've never spotted in a Johnny Foreigner record before, perhaps a little cynicysm sneaking in? Is big city life and the grind of the independent music industry starting to wear on the band? In Capitals seems to suggest so. "Everyone's hiding something" and "Back in the real world" muses Alexei, before warning us "there is no hidden door at Leinster Gardens, there is no London below." It's a stark warning that despite the rumours of streets paved with gold and dreams being made in the city, that really there's nowhere to hide.

In Capitals is quickly followed by the records stand out track. Actually, scratch that, Johnny Foreigner's stand out track. Riff Glitchard, a title which perhaps gives a nod to Biffy Clyro, goes beyond anything that band have produced in the way of subtleties. The track builds and builds around a Kelly vocal, with a rhythmic pattern akin to something from American Football's classic self titled record. The last thirty seconds of the track move back into the standard style, and it is slightly dissapointing. However, the tracks slow crescendo shows that there is more to the band than 2 minutes and thirty seconds of pop-punk.

You Can Do Better is the best Johnny Foreigner record since 2008 debut Waited Up 'til It Was Light. That record introduced the formula, this one perfects it. If you like the band there's nothing to dissapoint over the records ten tracks. That number in itself shows for the first time there's been some much needed self editing in place; the second and third records slightly overstayed their welcome at 15 and 17 tracks long. There may be hints of a different, darker, more thoughtful future, both lyrically and musically , but the thing that drew so many to the band in the first place, the risk of the broken bones, is still there in abundance. What's the point of growing up when you're having so much fun throwing yourselves down the stairs?

Help Needed- Mini Albums and more...

In the next week or two I'm looking at writing a post about the rise and decline of the mini album in British rock music, things like Symposium's One Day At A Time, Idlewild's Captain, Cecil's Bombar Diddlah. That sort of thing.

Please can any music fans out there send me their thoughts, memories, on their favourite Mini Albums. Why do you think they aren't around as much anymore? Are there any classics out there I may forget? 

Please DM me on Twitter, or mail me, bigcatmerv@googlemail.com.

Also, I hope to start a regular feature on bands back catalogues. Their best work, their worst work, their hidden gems. Who would you like to see featured? I want this to be a challenge, digging into bands I don't normally listen to, otherwise it will just be R.E.M. every single week! 

Wednesday Classic Track

It's been nearly three years since my last post, but here to give things a gentle push back into action, is a Wednesday Classic Track. Unbelievably, Gorilla Biscuits' Start Today album is 25 years old this year, but the title track still sounds as fresh as any punk track released since. Half the stuff on Kerrang TV or Scuzz wouldn't exist today without it, and whether you think that's a good thing or not, there's no denying the influence of CIV, Walter Schreifels and co.

I'm still on Twitter, @bigcatmerv, or email me at bigcatmerv@googlemail.com if you have any other suggestions for Wednesday classic tracks. Full blog post coming soon!