An Introduction to The Walkmen

 

Doing an introduction to The Walkmen may seem a little pointless now that they’ve announced an indefinite hiatus, but I love them, so I’m going to do one anyway.

Cass McCombs is playing Manchester’s Deaf Institute on Jan 10th

Cass McCombs is coming to Manchester on January 10th playing the lovely little venue, ‘The Deaf Institute’.  It’s only £10 and I’m pretty surprised that it isn’t already sold out.  The last time I saw Cass was at Band on the Wall in the Northern Quarter and he was very good, so he does come recommended.  Big Wheel and Others was one of my albums of 2013, despite being a little long and tailing off during the 2nd half of the album, and he does have a rather large back catalogue and numerous great songs to choose from as well.

Primavera 2013

An Introduction to Conor Oberst

Conor Oberst, where do I start.  I’ve been a big fan of his work since 2005 when the Bright Eyes albums Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I‘m Wide Awake it’s Morning were simultaneously released.  If all of the bands that he was involved with were condensed into one, he would easily be my most listened to artist of the last ten years (this accolade sits with The Beatles for now).  I’ve seen him six times over the years, travelling to London and Nottingham along the way and have really enjoyed each performance.  At the bottom of this post you will find one track from each album he’s released, and I must admit, I had a very tough time deciding which to pick.

The Staves

Only a short post tonight.  I first listened to this album on Monday and I’ve listened to it at least twice a day since.  I was recommended them back in May, but didn’t actually listen to the album until now.  Annoyingly, missing the tour in November too.

Forgotten Hits #3

Another 6 songs for you this week.  This time in the form of G, H and I.  Find them below! 🙂

George Harrison – What is Life

Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) Loses Everything in Apartment Fire

Dev Hynes, currently of Blood Orange, previously of Test-Icicles and Lightspeed Champion, lost everything he owned in a fire that destroyed his New York apartment last night.  In the blaze he lost music that he was working on, his clothes, sentimental items and even his new pet dog ‘Cupid’.

Tweeting earlier today, Dev said “Last night, the unthinkable happened. My entire apt burnt down while I was out. I’ve lost everything I own, including scores, hard drives.. clothes, sentimental items. Everything from my life is gone.  My dog died in the fire. I will love you forever Cupid. I miss you.”

I wouldn’t normally post about news outside of music and I was never really a fan of Dev during his Test-Icicles and early Lightspeed Champion days, but this is a pretty awful thing to happen to someone.  If you’d like to help out, his girlfriend’s mother has set up a page that you can donate to – here.

Albums Due in 2014 That You Should be Excited About

As I’ve said previously in my top albums of the year, 2013 wasn’t the greatest year for new music.  It was still pretty good, but a lot of the albums disappointed.  However, based on some of the releases that are due for 2014, next year has a lot of potential to better it.

Below is a list of the releases that are coming in 2014 that people should be excited about.  I’ve written a small piece about some of them and they aren’t necessarily in any kind of order.

Is there anything that you’re particularly looking forward to?  I’ll add it to the list if I’ve made any glaring omissions.

The Dead Weather release first new music in 3 years

Due to it being the Christmas season, new posts may be coming a little slower than usual, considering that I have no gigs and no new album releases to write about.

However there was a little bit of news over the weekend.  One of Jack White’s many musical outlets ‘The Dead Weather’ released their first new music since 2010, which was the year they released the excellent album ‘Sea of Cowards’.  The two tracks released (which can be found at the bottom of the post) are ‘Open Up (That’s Enough)’ and ‘Rough Detective’.

My Top 25 Tracks of 2013

As promised (although a little later than planned) I have put together my favourite tracks of the year.  Some of these are from upcoming albums, most of them were from albums released this year.

As with the Top 25 albums, I’ve uploaded each of the songs for you to have a listen to, as well as including a spotify playlist at the bottom of the page again.

Picking the order for these wasn’t the easiest of things to do, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the list.

I am fully aware that I have left out one of the best songs of the year, Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’, but I think everyone knows it and has heard it enough!

25. Chvrches – Lies

Want face value tickets to a sold out gig? Twitter is the answer!

A couple of months ago I discovered something that I wish I’d have discovered a long time ago.  Something that’s actually very simple, but I’d never thought of it before.

When I want tickets to a gig, nine and a half times out of 10, I do manage to get them.  I make sure I’m on the site at 8:55am, push on the F5 key until the buy box appears and then type my details in as quickly as possible.  However, there is that odd annoying time when the site may be running slowly due to heavy traffic and I end up missing out.  The event that led me to discover how easy it is to actually get Tickets to a sold out show was when a friend of mine wanted to also come to ‘The National’ gig at the Manchester Apollo.

Forgotten Hits #2

The format is changing already!  I’m going to upload 6 songs each week (as opposed to the previously thought 3) and they will consist of 2 songs from each letter of the alphabet.  This week it is the turn of letters D, E and F.

Doves – Satellites

Timber Timbre to release ‘Hot Dreams’ on April 1st

Waking up to see that Timber Timbre have announced a new album ‘Hot Dreams’, that will released on April 1st next year, pleased me greatly this morning.  It’s a follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘Creep on Creepin’ On’ that was released back in 2011 and was easily one of my favourites of that year.

Jamie Lenman – Night and Day, Manchester – 07.12.13

“Do you guys like the songs we can all sing along to?” asks Lenman toward the back-end of the set. “YEAH!” the crowd shouts back, “Well tough, this is ‘One of my eyes is a clock’” he says before launching into a scream that can only be described as ferocious.

Jamie Lenman has been in the music industry for just over ten years. He was formally in the band Reuben, with whom he released three albums, who are on somewhat of a ‘haitus’ right now, before getting to work on his latest effort ‘Muscle Memory’. His latest release is a double album, one disc of some of the heaviest music he’s ever done and the other of melodies and experimental tracks.  The three times that I’ve seen him (twice with Rueben) he gives it 100% on stage, playing and singing like he realises he’s lucky to be doing what he loves doing and to have fans that support him in doing it, plus he’s a pretty funny guy that fills the gaps between songs well.

Childish Gambino – Because the Internet

There has been a lot of hype about this record leading up to its release and this isn’t solely down to just musical reasons.  One is that it’s Donald Glover, or ‘Troy from Community’ as he’s otherwise known.  Another is that he’s recently had a self confidence ‘melt-down’ on Instagram, and finally, after the part-success of his previous release ‘Camp’, people were hoping he could deliver a better album.  I’ve only given this latest ‘Because the Internet’ a couple of listens, but I thought I’d do a short write up about it anyway.

An introduction to Other Lives

After re-discovering them a few days ago, I decided to write my next ‘Introduction’ about them. Other Lives are a band that deserves a lot more recognition than they’re currently getting.  The two albums they’ve released are incredible and they’re so good live that eventually saw them three times over an eight month period.

My Top 25 Albums of 2013

Most publications seem to be getting their albums and songs of 2013 lists out at the moment, so I thought I’d join in, starting with my albums of 2013.  This took me about 3 hours to do everything.. but it was still fun.  Even if you find only one song that you like and hadn’t heard before, it’ll be worth it.

I’ve seen NME pick the Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’ and although good, it’s never the best of the year.   It is all just opinions though.  Overall, I wouldn’t say it’s been an amazing year for music.  There were quite a lot of albums that were a bit of a let down, I’m looking at you Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Knife.

So within this post is my top 25 albums of the year.  I’ve included one song from each album to have a listen to, but because I’m planning on doing a top tracks of 2013 post also, it won’t necessarily be what I think is the best track off it.  Picking these was actually a lot more difficult than I was expecting it to be.

New St Vincent album to be released in February

I’ve seen the good news this morning that St Vincent is set to release her self titled new album on February 24th of next year.  The release will be her fourth and will follow on from ‘Strange Mercy’ which was released in 2011.

Forgotten Hits #1

I’ve been having a think of some weekly/monthly recurring features that I could do and decided that this could be a weekly one.  I’ll try and post a couple of classic songs a week, songs that you might not have heard in a while, but were big a few years back.

Animal Collective – My Girls 

Planning a trip to Barcelona for Primavera 2014

The final headliner was announced for Primavera Sound 2014 (which takes place 29/05 – 31/05) this morning and to mark the occasion I thought I’d write a little guide on planning a trip to Barcelona for the festival.  The headliners for next year’s event are Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire and The Pixies.

White Denim – Gorilla, Manchester – 19/11/2013

Originally, I wasn’t planning to write a review for this gig, but something took place during the set that I don’t think I’ve experienced during a show before.

White Denim, for me, are one of those bands that I really like, but I don’t love.  I don’t know much about them and I couldn’t name more than five or six actual song titles, but I still recommend them to people.  I first heard them whilst playing Saints Row: The Third, where their song ‘Paint Yourself’ was used on one of the many in game radio stations. 

An introduction to Daniel Rossen

I’m not sure what made me decide to do one of these on Daniel Rossen first, but he’s an interesting character with a lot of strings to his bow and so I figured.. why not?

Daniel is best known for the his work as co-lead vocalist in the band Grizzly Bear but originally formed a group, with his then roommate, called Department of Eagles. He has also recently released his own solo work in the form of an EP during 2012.