bitsofbobs

This had the makings of something awesome, mostly because I knew nothing about them whatsoever other than an genius wee video they have recreating The Thing with action Figures (see below). The gig was in Mono…not stereo, don’t get confused…and certainly don’t say that things sound better in stereo, not the case. Support came from Findo Gask, again a name i’d heard but knew nothing. They were great, all kitted out matching kraftwerk-esque outfits and played music that could only be described as end of level boss music for any game on your amiga.

To the main event, I’m not a massive John Carpenter fan but was keen to see in the crowd who was…they were easy to spot. The band is made up of 2 french guys and I can only describe them as creepy version of air. A massive high Five to both guys (I only got to high five the keyboard player on the way out) but the drummer was amazing…and my word was he french. Loved the gig and glad this kind of stuff is going on, the venue was mobbed so hopefully this will open a few doors to more kind of stuff like that. High Five GFT.

Took my big slr to the gig…glad I did, got some belters…they’re here.

First gig of many this month, yeasayer @ Oran Mor. This was upgraded from king tuts due to demand, Mostly due to what looks like their successful support for bat for lashes earlier this year. Since then they have a new album out which I have to say is very much on constant repeat. Arrived good and early to catch the support Javelin just cause they sounded quite interesting. Turns out it was just two guys, one singing and the other battering a drum pad. It all loooked a bit made up on the spot, more like watching two guys in your living room, than an actual gig but funny with the occassional bit of mad dancing.

Then to the main act, I really liked them at Bat for lashes but wished I knew more about them. This was a good crowd although it was a total mixed bag, some had clearly done their homework and lots of singing followed by silly dancing quickly kicked in. The venue was packed and the first song off the new album sounded magic as an opener. I think it’s only once you’ve heard the album can you appreciate how much is going on in it, Watching live you soon realise (minus the drummer), everyone is pretty much juggling two instruments. Loved it, great atmosphere, good bit of banter but most of all a nice change of musical scenery.

On a childish note we decided the lead guitarist looked a cross between chris de burgh and rambo (first blood).

Another mini disc dug out the collection. The vines, where did they disappear to? 2002 at the height of their career and big nme hype for their single get free…then poomf gone. It is actually a rather average album, one of which I will never own on CD and never download so I quite like the fact it will only ever exist on mini disc.

For ages now I’ve been thinking about doing this, last night I got the ball rolling. I have a massive collection of Mini discs. I very much jumped on the bandwagon as soon as they came out. It still is to my mind the coolest format to keep music on. For ages now it seems my art work is getting smaller and smaller so it seemed like the right thing to do. Recently been doing alot of stuff with hand drawn type, looking back over my mini disc collection I tried to put nice writing on them but it just ended up looking like child scrawl. So I thought a nice wee project would be going back and turning each mini disc into tiny pieces of art. I’ve got some great albums and mixes that only exsist on mini disc so it only seems fair to do them justice. There’s plenty to keep me busy. I love that beck album, beck at his beckest. I think that was the last album I had to make it onto mini disc before everything went proper digital…sad indeed. I stilll very much use my mini disc and occasionally can be seen walking about with my portable…I’m so cool

The final dimension are about 3cm x 2cm.
Watercolour and 0.2 ink for the geeks.

Bigger one up on Flickr.

Been listening to these guys alot of late. Done with those pesky lyrics. They’re a thirteen piece jazz funk band I suppose, from Staten island NY more info here. good music to get your work done to, and check this awesome animated video. I loves it. They currently have 2 albums out…Both as good. You can find them on spotify.

Now to El Michels Affair. They have a great album out called sounding out the city which has been very much my summer album of choice. Same idea really all just instrumentals. El Michels Affair are also the wu tang clans live backing band and also have some well good instrumental stuff minus all that swearing check them out.

Been listening to this alot recently…thought it would be worthy of a blog. The whitest boy alive love all the artwork, but more importantly are the awesome tunes. It’s one half of kings of Convenience which I also love but occasionally I find it a bit slow and boring, I guess so did Erlend Øye. Think kings of Convenience but with some funk rubbed on it.. Check it out. There’s a couple of albums out but I prefer the debut.

Been a busy bunny of late, not too busy to accumulate some music. New month, new playlist. The last one was a chilled one. This ones a bit more dancey. enjoy…find it here. Also found this site full of peoples spotify playlists…quite good.

Twas about that time again for another gig. This time the doves. I love the doves…never done a bad tune let alone had a bad album. The support was malakai. Me and ruth arrived silly early and grabbed a drink…in shock that most of the people there were pretty old and alot of them looked a bit like fat saunders…including some women. We had some good 90’s britpop banter…hurricane#1, warmjets and sleeper to name a few. We caught all of the support who were awful..in my opinion. Saved only by the fact the lead singer looke a little like chuck norris and some really drunk people had some comedy dancing.

I had given the new doves album a good going over on the build up to gig. I loves it. Still sounds like the doves but different enough to have a few suprises. Really like their new single kingdom of rust and there’s also a few awesome remixes kicking about including this one. Love the first track of the new album and they also had some cool visuals running in the background. All in all a great gig. They have so many awesome songs to choose from…This is still there best one though

Bit of a random gig this one, I knew nothing about them…still don’t all I seen was this video and thought it sounded quite good. Average gig…maybe i’m just showing my age missed the support due to random old man pub crawling. Anyway I hopped on the last train home. I love the late night walk home, I go across morrisons car park which is always full of foxes just loitering, not looking for trouble. They’re quite tame and even followed me home one night, but didn’t come in for a coffee .

Well It’s that time of year again when you go to more festivals than you can afford to go to only to discover they’re all actually the same. I tell lies this is the only one I went to this year. Connect, if you’ve never been before is brilliant fun. The bands this year where not as good as last years but you always get some great food and good banter. This year I went down on the saturday morning…macca took my tent down on the friday so I could travel a bit lighter. A nice wee camping village setup. Great crowd down with this year. Also some quality randoms dotted about including an Australian man named toby who looked like where’s wally. Highlights this year included sigur ros, elbow, goldfrapp and a we gem from the beardyman…a beat boxer from brighton…amazing stuff. Here’s a selection of photos which may help sum up the weekend. Great weekend so much funny stuff happened that I’m too tired to even try and remember.