New stuff me likey

Here are some recent stonking albums that have been doing the rounds on my ipod, go get 'em!

The National- High Violet... please listen to this, it's eatable. Matt Berninger's lyrics are as smooth and deep as a great chocolate mousse. 'Sorrow' is achingly beautiful.

The Black Keys- Brothers.... I love the Black Keys, funky bluesy guitars and hankering after girls. I'll take it.

Surfer Blood- Astro Coast... Great wee album by the Floridians. You would struggle to put a decade on it, sounds like Pavement to The Drums via the Beach Boys whilst discovering punk. Nice. 'Anchorage' is fantastic.

Sleigh Bells- Treats... I saw them live at Brighton last week and they were pretty terrible but it's a great record. Sounds like a bit of an assault on the ears at first but give it a chance and you'll be wiggling your touche around your desk before you know it.

Foals- Total Life Forever... didn't think I would enjoy this as I wasn't mad on their last effort but the boys have done good, a lot poppier but definitely not the worse for it...Math rock is dead.

LCD Soundsystem- This is Happening. Great album, I need to listen to it more but love the aggressive break down (it's more of a break up) on Dance Yrself Clean.

Broken Social Scene- Forgiveness Rock Record. Need to listen to this more too but 'All to All' and 'Highway Slipper Jam' are fucking great. Saw them at Great Escape last week and they tore it up. 

A couple of other yummy things worth a looksie...

Middle East- Blood
http://www.myspace.com/visitthemiddleeast

Cults- The Curse
http://cults.bandcamp.com/

Warpaint
http://www.myspace.com/worldwartour

The Besnard Lakes LIVE @ Cargo

photo taken from Brooklyn Vegan

Cargo is a funny one for gigs, it's a beautiful bar under a tunnel so a bit of an acoustics nightmare but at the same time really intimate- you can basically stroke the band while they play if you want.

Luckily I positioned myself right in front of the smoke machine which The Besnard's are not shy of using... A sense of dread crept over me with every atmospheric build up, shortly followed by a gobful of carbon dioxide. Nice. The overall effect was great though, dream-like vocals with grungey bass and fuzzy guitars enveloped in smoke is a winning combo. The set was pretty trippy and very distortiony, the lead singer has an alter boys range, hitting notes I didn't think were even possible. They totally rocked out at the end, with Hendrix-inspired guitar solos. There was also an awesome song which belonged on a Tarantino soundtrack, I can't remember the song names hot dang but both albums are up on Spotify.

The crowd was packed tight with hardcore TBL fans, I've never seen a more devoted following... hanging on every note and baying for more. It was kind of fitting that the lead singer looked like a demented Jesus- he had long flowing golden hair, Brian Jonestown Massacre sunglasses, a cowboy shirt, regulation black M&S worker style trousers and sensible black shoes. The trousers were the most unsettling... His wife, who sings and plays guitar, looked like Alanis Morrissette/Mary (mother of God) with long black hair to her navel and a wrappy dress thing and the drummer had this immense beard (it was very impressive, definitely in the top 3  beards I've ever seen).

As it was the last date of the tour, they had a pretty odd picture moment where they brought the support band up (Wolf People- don't look them up they're not great...) and got the audience to take pictures and then gave their email address to send them to. Then the singer referred to himself as a child molester. Very odd.

All in all a great gig though. Go check them out if you get a chance.

Songs for the Drunk

I don't know about you but there's nothing I enjoy more than having a few too many and heading home to sit on the kitchen floor to shout (I don't think you could actually qualify it as singing) songs at my friends.

Entirely different from going out and dancing like a maniac whilst screaming your head off (that's a whole other playlist), the magic is you can recline in a heap, preferably with candles and a guitar, horrible (delicious) warm cans or leftover neat spirits and copious amounts of cigarettes.
This method also works wonderfully on a beach with tinnies in the leftover hours of night- watching the sun rise afterwards gives you an enormous sense of accomplishment.

Older songs take precedence- this is a time for nostalgia, plus everyone knows the words. If you don't have a geetar, someone's gonna have to sing the riffs. The songs will come randomly into your drunk little head but I've tried to include a playlist of some of my favourites.

Before you listen: STOP, go get drunk then find a guitar and enjoy. :)

... I got a little carried away when I started this. Also Spotify don't have Beatles or Pink Floyd, wah.

Lola-The Kinks
Heart-Shaped Box-Nirvana
Where is my mind?- Pixies
All along the watchtower-Jimi Hendrix Experience (yesssssss)
Drinking in LA- Bran Van 3000
Golden Brown- The Stranglers
Under the bridge- Chili Peppers
Karma Police- Radiohead (you could pick loads, but this is great for shouting)
The Drugs don't work- The Verve
Maps- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Every Morning- Sugar Ray (classic)
Butterfly- Crazy Town (don't lie, you know you know ALL the words)
Gatekeeper- Feist (for quiet refrain)
Lover's Spit- Broken Social Scene
Everlong- Foo Fighters (teenage youf)
Sleepyhead- Passion Pit (works well acoustically, surprising but GREAT)
Senorita- Justin Timberlake
Jumpin', Jumpin'- Destiny's Child (might be a girls only one)
Music When the lights go out- The Libertines
Shiny Happy People- R.E.M (:D)
Roxanne- The Police (PUT ON THE RED LIIIGHT)
The Chain- Fleetwood Mac (I can still hear you sayyyyy)
White Rabbit- Jefferson Airplane (helps to have an Emily present to dance shapes at you)
Like A Rolling Stone- Bob Dylan (I would have so many better choices for this (Corrina, Corrina; It's all over now baby blue; One more cup of coffe) but Spotify cannot supply.... boooooo)
My, My, Hey, Hey- Neil Young
Light my Fire- The Doors
Hallelujah- Cohen
Skinny Love- Bon Iver
Molly's Chambers- Kings of Leon
Trouble- Coldplay (coldplay goes down well with everyone, as much as people slate them great first two albums)
Boy with a coin- Iron & Wine
The Blower's Daughter- Damien Rice
This Charming Man- The Smiths
There is a light that never goes out- The Smiths (mmmm)
Lovecats- The Cure
Someone Great- LCD Soundsystem (great end to a great night)

Here's a handy spotify playlist: Drink and Shout

Awesome Band in Animal Collective meets Grizzly Bear shocker!

 Le Loup are a charming little six-piece hailing from Washington DC. I've been a bit slow on the uptake on this one, Family was released last September but has only just wormed its way onto my ipod priority list. It's bloody good though. It kicks off with Saddle Mountain which has this awesome tribal energy, it's kind of like a folky funeral dirge except happy. Grow has amazing energy and is full of joy. Morning song is one of my favourites with fantastic harmonies and plucky banjo, yum. Title track Family starts out fairly dull and then explodes a few minutes in into a kind of Arcade Firey greatness, this only lasts about a minute though which is disappointing. Forgive me is all over the place, it's great- a kind of folky Animal Collective. Go East is like a rising sunset, lovely. I think my favourite track from the whole album is Sherpa- shouty and drummy with a smile-inducing melody. Celebration is also shouty, harmonised greatness. Go listen. 

Unfortunately, they don't have Family on spotify but they DO have their first release, 'The Throne of The Third Heaven Of The Nations Millenium General Assembly', a pretty unnecessary title but beautiful nonetheless. They use everything from banjos to telephones in their songs. It's a consistent album packed full of pretty little ditties but Fear Not is definitely the stand out track, other good un's include Planes Like Vultures, To the Stars To the Night and Breathing Raptures.

They remind me slightly of Bear in Heaven; a band getting a lot of attention following the recent SXSW Music Industry shindig in Austin, Texas. Except Bear in Heaven are a bit shit. Wholehearted Mess is a half-hearted mess attempt of a song. They have been compared (wrongly, in my opinion) to Atlas Sound who are amazing. Howeverrr, Lovesick Teenagers is quite interesting, it sounds like an 80s video game and Dust Cloud is pretty good. I've actually decided I hate them now but check them out for yourself.

Another gem I stumbled across recently is Memory Cassette; ethereal, pretty noise- a bit like Air France, in a good way. Asleep At A Party is pure class, you can hear the muffled rumblings of people talking in the background JUST LIKE WHEN YOU'RE ASLEEP AT A PARTY! I like, check it out.

Spotify all the above: Good shit

Hyped new band Summer Camp have a similar sound- dreamy, muffled backing and nostalgic vocals are the order of the day. It's a little bit twee but I love it anyway. Here's the video for new single Ghost Town:


Summer Camp - Ghost Train (viral) from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

Alice Fever

I can't wait to see Alice in Wonderland, I was trying to hold out for imax but it's sold out for a million years and anyway those stupid glasses hurt my face. I thought it would be fitting to create a homage to all things Alice as everyone is going mad as a hatter (ha) for anything remotely Wonderland-ful.

This remix did the rounds last year- it's FANTASTIC. They've taken sounds solely from the Disney Alice and made something beautiful. Well done.



The official soundtrack to the new film, 'Almost Alice', not only features Avril Lavigne and The All-American Rejects but also a cover of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. Several things about that sentence disturb me.

Here's my go at an Alice-inspired playlist:

Jefferson Airplane- White Rabbit.
Why the hell they didn't use the original in the soundtrack is beyond me, Grace Slick's vocals on this track never fail to send shivers down my spine. What starts off with gentle, spanish-infused guitar builds to a now-famous crescendo (Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing tries to get him to chuck a toaster in the bath 'at the crescendo' because it's so beautiful. and because he's on lots of drugs.), it's just an awesome song really, you can practically smell the sweaty hippies dropping acid in a tie-dyed boudoir.

Little Dragon- Looking Glass. Nothing beats a bit of Swedish electronica now does it?

Tom Waits- Alice. What a lad. He actually wrote an entire album dedicated to Lewis Carroll's forbidden love with 11 year old Alice Liddell which supposedly inspired the Adventures in Wonderland.

Mad Hatter- The Stranglers. This song is kind of shit but it's very apt and it's the Stranglers!

Joe's Waltz- The Dodos. Pretty tenuous reference but the Dodo is an integral part to the story and I just like them so...

Mad World- Tears for Fears. I'm kind of struggling now, this isn't as easy as I'd thought.... I'm giving up now except I would also add that 'Alice- who the fuck is Alice?' song- I can't find it on Spotify, rage.

http://open.spotify.com/user/ronniemeade/playlist/1bZuxZHVETFTOxNGM4PQLo

Girls make big noise good

                                       
There's something about girls that can play good guitar. And I don't mean Alanis Morissette- did she even play her own guitar? Anyway she has marred many a European campsite (the spaniards are particularly keen), along with Hotel California. God I hate that song. I digress. Guitars are actually quite feminine instruments with their curves and penchants for being flung over boys legs and strummed... When a girl masters a guitar a beautiful thing occurs- she morphs into a masculine, delicate wonder. There is something innately attractive about a lady knowing how to handle a boy's toy. It's not quite the same as finding your brother in your lipstick and heels but there is something of the forbidden about it.

The epitome of the mix between delicacy and 'rockin with her cock out' is Feist- being able to write a song like The Park or Intuition whilst completely losing it on stage. Awesome. She just knows how it works- I've seen her live a few times now and each time the audience can't help but swoon at her feet and do her bidding. This is the best I could find but it doesn't do her justice, GO AND SEE HER.






By far the most impressive strummer of the bunch has to be Gabriela of Rodrigo y Gabriela fame. I don't know how she still has hands by the end of a set. Watch this solo, it looks more painful than childbirth.




Again I've got to give Cat Power a shout out. In this video you can't make out whether she's a grungey teenage boy or a totally awesome chic- luckily her fragile vocals give it away.

I can't get enough of the canadian band Land of Talk at the minute- the lead singer and undoubted leader of the band, Elizabeth Powell, has crafted a modern version of punky grunge and by golly I think she's on to something. I saw her live in the Wilmington Arms and she was propa divs though- she left the audience waiting on a couple of numbers while she yelled at the sound man.

She doesn't play the guitar but god can she make noise... my other eternal love affair is with Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I don't know how she makes the noises that she does but she is a complete ledgebag. I think I might make a shrine.

Last but not least, the lovely St Vincent. They are absolutely fantastic live. Love this chick, she's like a little doll and then this low, gutteral voice comes out of her.


I've made a playlist in homage to these rock goddesses plus a couple more new ones I've discovered including She Keeps Bees, Peggy Sue, Alessi's Ark  who are all pretty cool, relaxed guitary chicks (Check out Lonelady too, I reckon she could be pretty big... Pitchfork are bumming her right now.

spotify:user:ronniemeade:playlist:0uNNTNtwXbnb9MLjOYcuFg

Friday Spotify Playlist

It's Friday, the sun is shining and I'm having steak later- high time for an excellent playlist:Click me