I don’t like Will Smith, but boy was this funny

Feeling Gloomy in JuniorDr

We heart Feeling Gloomy. So an indie press staffer, who’s also associate editor of Junior Dr magazine, spoke to the lovely Carl about his miserable club. The magazine is here and the article’s on page 13.

Join us in celebrating Feeling Gloomy’s 2nd birthday on September 15th.

How I Became the Bomb – ‘Let’s Go!’

HOW I BECAME THE BOMB

Let’s Go!

(Goldrush) 

Bubbly comes from Champagne; luscious indie-pop from Murfreesboro. Shouldn’t that read Montreal? True, but this band, which takes its lyrical inspiration from cable news channels and tech RSS feeds, is causing a stirr in Tennessee. And I’ll resign my Canine Defence League membership if they haven’t gleaned a thing or two from underrated Scottish indie janglers Dogs Die In Hot Cars.In not such a smart move however, these guys let a friend in a local fourpiece christen them seconds before their maiden gig. But when you’ve got hip-smacking rhythms, mordant wit and vocals that straddle octaves in a testes betwixt vice manner, they could be called Dad Rock and perform in Y-fronts for all you’d care. Falsetto meets Nobuo Uematsu (video games music composer)–influenced bleeps on ‘Fat Girls Talkin’ ‘Bout Cardio’, a track that best displays How I Became the Bomb’s facetious lyrical bent: “She’s talking ‘bout a new relation / She’s sick of all the self-stimulation.” Oh boys! Then begins bitchin’ ‘bout calorie chariots:  “She’s gotta lot of insulation / ‘Bout the size of a third world nation.”1980s influences abound: ‘Robo’ waltzes on fluid ABBA keys before colliding with shards of Talking Heads guitars. (Looky here, Erol used to spin ‘Dancing Queen’ at Trash, y’dig?) Let’s Go! is an impressive ensemble of quirky tracks, with ‘Minute Romance’ returning to more familar prose, unless your other half models themself on the protagonist from an Anthony Burgess novel.

Robots in Disguise – ‘The Sex Has Made Me Stupid’

ROBOTS IN DISGUISE

The Sex Has Made Me Stupid

(President Records) 

When deciding upon pseudonyms, these Berlin-based punkettes spurned haute nomenclature, instead settling on Dee Plume and Sue Denim. Minimal expenditure of intellect yields such witticisms. Sigh. Wind that formula around Gang of Four guitars, alluring wails and Chris Corner (he of Sneaker Pimps) programmed beats and the agents provocateurs of electropunk construct the brilliant ‘The Sex Has Made Me Stupid’. Although in post-coital decompression they’re still compos mentis enough to reflect upon other intellect-reducing agents: “The tequila’s made me stupid / The grass has made me stupid.” But admit it, a dissection of lyrics is as futile as resisting this when slicing your head off to let your hangover escape.

iLiKETRAiNS – ‘Progress Reform’

Funereal post-rockers with a penchant for pretentious typography finally release their debut LP Elegies to Lessons Learnt on 1st October on Beggars. In the meantime, we take a look back at their EP Progress Reform.

The incredible thing is that while their contemporaries are slurring about dumped girlfriends and pints of Stella, iLiKETRAiNS’ songs are frickin’ history lessons. What balls to tackle that in this “I’m Jade Goody and I’m worth 8.2 million pounds” era. For instance ’A Rook House For Bobby’, which contains the sweeping lyric “All I ever wanted to do, was play chess with you” refers to the controversial  Robert James “Bobby” Fischer. Fischer, the former Grandmaster and candidate for greatest ever chess player, resigned the world title in 1974 when the chess equivalent of FIFA would not accept his conditions for a title defence. Despite his Jewish parentage, he became notorious for his highly anti-Semitic and anti-Americanist remarks and sought asylum abroad.

‘Terra Nova’ is the story of Captain Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. No wonder The Times in its rave review is mooting iLT as “Something you’d like to visit in a museum.” And that something is certainly a rarity: the quirky lyrical juxtaposition of historical and cultural figures against the glacial soundscape. Duly apt since Fischer now resides in Iceland.

‘The Beeching Report’ sees ¡Forward Russia!, Napoleon III and This Et Al join on backing vocals, creating something that sounds like a male Welsh choir, complete with ethereal echo. Highlight of the seven track EP is ‘Stainless Steel’. The eight minute epic is astonishingly beautiful, culminating with the haunting “Don’t go into the kitchen/that’s where the knives are.”

iLiKETRAiNS’ career is going to mirror that of Interpol’s – whose sound they’re not too dissimilar to, but there’s going to be no indie to major leap. Soundwise they owe much more to Sigur Ros. And so, in iLiKETRAiNS we have a band that is going to achieve massive cult but never mainstream success.

The tracklisting to the debut is:

1. We All Fall Down
2. Twenty Five Sins
3. The Deception
4. Voice of Reason
5. Death of an Idealist
6. Remnants of an Army
7. We Go Hunting
8. Come Over
9. Spencer Perceval
10. Epiphany
11. Death is the End

The Carling Weekend: Reading

James Russell, photographer for gigwise.com, Disorder, and the indie review shot The Carling Weekend: Reading, which took place 24th – 26th August.

Kele Okereke’s Bloc Party played the Main Stage on the Saturday

The complete set is here

CBGB & OMFUG

CBGB’s only had one rule: artists who wanted to take to its stage had to produce their own original music. What was supposed to be a bluegrass and country club turned into the world’s most celebrated indie rock club three years after it opened its doors in December 1973. Bands which played the small, dank venue included The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, and The Stilletoes (whose singer Deborah Harry went on to achieve greater fame with Blondie, with whom she later played the club).

Exorbitant rents in the Bowery district of New York meant that CB’s was forced to shut its doors in October 2006; Patti Smith, whom CB’s founder Hilly Kristal proudly proclaimed had “kicked in the door for women in rock” played the club’s last gig. CBGB’s & OMFUG – the full name is ‘country bluegrass and blues & other music for uplifting gourmandizers’ swiftly became central to New York’s alternative appeal. Kristal opened a store to sell branded merchandise and the Ts became de rigeur purchases of the Greenwich Villagers.

Hilly (Hillel) Kristal, died 28^th August 2007.

Morrissey quashes Smiths reunion – again

AUG 23. As if the music industry hasn’t got the message, no amount of money, not even the $75 million on the table this time round will coerce Morrissey into reforming The Smiths.

Ahead of Moz’s Autumn tour in the States, his publicist confirmed the artist refused the substantial sum offered to tour under the Smiths’ name in 2008/2009 with ex-Smith and current Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr.

Shallowest music blog post of the year

And it’s not from us. Instead, swing over to the Guardian’s music blog, where reminiscing thirtysomethings are discussing the return of The Cure:

“Robert Smith is one of those Artists who should have died young, He would be feted today in the same way as Jimmy, Jim and Kurt. Instead He’s a middle aged Fat man in make up. Sad, I loved him and want to remember him as he was…”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Is Is EP

1. Rockers To Swallow 
2. Down Boy 
3. Kiss Kiss 
4. Isis 
5. 10 x 10   

NB: if buying on iTunes, get the £1.99 version, not the £3.98 – it’s exactly the same. Unsure why Apple had to be so blatant about the rip-off.

To the music. The one line review would read: this is Fever To Tell meets Show Your Bones. So essentially about as edgier as we’d wished the second record had been.

Fans will recognise the first track as being kept back from 2004’s Tell Me What Rockers To Swallow [live at the Filmore] DVD.

It’s a short, sharp shock of songs that’s a fitting prequel to the last album. Rough, snappy, perfect YYYs. Go get.