The Laundry Shop

These folk won't just do your washing for you and get wine stains out of your favourite white shirt, they'll also play you music synonymous with 90's alternative rock whilst looking fuck all like Pauline Fowler or Dot Cotton.

A bit like Elliott Smith fronting Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins, the Dublin threesome certainly know how to make a big noise. Inevitably, the band will get all kinds of shite quips and poor puns in reference to their name, but regardless of that, they certainly sound the part and with a singer who looks like he could've been in Sonic Youth, a lovely lady on bass and a drummer who looks like Les from Vic Reeves Big Night Out, they certainly look the part too.

And, apart from girls in hats, is there anything sexier than girls with guitars these days? I think not. The band are getting compared with the likes of the Pumpkins, Pixies, Garbage, Sonic Youth and Weezer, so that can't really be bad can it?

So get yourself over to the MySpace and have a little listen to the wonderful "Stranger In The Headlights", "Highs and Lows" and my favourite song, "Say Goodnight...."(MySpace cuts off the title so I don't know the full name, let me know).

And that's that.

Lord Don't Slow Me Down

I've sort of managed to get back into the swing of things lately.

Being annoyed and pissed off with everything has given me a bit of a second wind. I promised myself that I'll try and make at least one post on here every day from now on, so hopefully I'll be back on form and firing on all cylinders very soon.

As previously mentioned, Oasis, they of swagger and Manc-ness, have a new single. They've went and got the video up for it now over at YouTube, you can view it, in all of its black and white glory, here.

For those who haven't viewed the documentary before, it's well worth having a look when it comes out, if not just for the part where Liam refers to Michael Owen as a cunt. As he quite obviously is.

Mad for it etc.

MGMT - Time To Pretend

A new band from my favourite place in the world, New York. And not just New York, but Brooklyn, home of the fat useless tramp of a wrestler that used to smoke a cigar, The Brooklyn Brawler, as well as high flying pilot and scientologist, John Travolta.

As far as I'm aware, MGMT aren't wrestlers, tramps, pilots or scientologists, but they are capable of making very entertaining music. They've recently been snapped up by Colombia, so it won't be too long till they're making massive in roads.

The song begins off with the type of madcap palaver that you might find in a Captain Beefheart record, or at least something else very of that era. But then the drums, and almost Gary Numan-esque bass and synths kick in, and MGMT take you away with a fantastic slab of music. Think Animal Collective, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Sunset Rubdown, maybe even a little bit of Flaming Lips.

MGMT means "management" for the uninitiated and lyrics like, "I'll go to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars", mean that I have a great big smile on my face. Go and have a listen at their MySpace, and have a listen to the other gems they've got up there.

Great new band, great tunes and great lyrics. They're currently touring the States with Of Montreal, so hopefully we'll get to see them on our fair isle very soon. Actually, just as I'm finishing this short piece off, before running to the toilet, I've realised that the Time To Pretend EP is available on iTunes. I'd make the word iTunes one of them links that takes you straight to iTunes, but I can't be fucked on. Go and get it though, if you're that way inclined.

Oasis - Lord Don't Slow Me Down

Oasis’ first ever download single will be upon us in a matter of weeks. The past few weeks have bred a hive of activity on blogs all over the world wide web, and frankly, the internet is currently filled with the mess of thousands of dead links for the forthcoming single that have all but disappeared shortly after emerging.

Dodgy rips are still available in places if you dig deep enough, or you can wait for the official release on 21 October.

So what is it all about then? Well, basically, the single accompanies the DVD which is predictably out in time for the Christmas stockings. So it’s a one off and is certainly not good enough to be a leading single from a brand new full length studio album. Obviously Noel’s hype machine will suggest that it is brilliant, but it isn’t really.

It’s basically the type of one off song that Oasis can put out and make millions, just because it has their name attached to it. Idiots, like me, will more than happily fill the coffers in order to keep our record collection full, and this is why the single, good or bad, may well have smashed lots and lots of records if Oasis had cottoned on to selling stuff online yonks ago. It may not break records when it comes out, but I’d be very surprised if it didn’t go top five in the Hit Parade, if not number one.

The song itself has a Noel vocal, at times it makes me think of the same sort of pounding roll along rhythm of Sweet’s “Blockbuster”, whilst some of the vocal melody leans towards Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and the song overall wanders the same sort of Oasis territory as “Lyla” or, and I can’t quite put my finger on why, but also “Force of Nature”.

It isn’t brilliant, but it’s hardly terrible either, and I know for a fact that I’ll be buying it. Oasis have been one of the most important bands in my life, let’s hope the next album will have some real singles, the kind we’re used to, and keep this type of song as a b-side.

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

The Boss and the E Street band are back together for a new album and new tour. Devastated doesn’t even cover my anguish at not getting tickets for the tour, and now them horrible tout cunts are trying to make me re-mortgage my house if I want to go and see one of the few people who actually means anything to me anymore.

Springsteen just gets older and older, more wise, more thoughtful and reflective. You’ll not catch The Boss skipping along the street with a pair of Converse on for iTunes like that horrible 85 year old cunt McCartney did. You’ll be more than likely to find him on the stage with his kicked to fuck acoustic, making everyone around him smile, singing and dancing, and putting just as much of a shift in as a panel beater.

People slag off Springsteen and say the music is overblown, pompous and whatever else a thesaurus might throw your way. But that is the whole fucking point. Pure unadulterated escapism. Where else can you find the saxophone bearable, apart from when it’s in the hands of man mountain Clarence Clemens, and where else can you find a band that has one of the coolest characters to ever appear on TV (Silvio from The Sopranos) strutting around in full rock regalia.

I absolutely adore this album, from start to finish. The album is sentimental and testament to how good the musicians are. From the opening “Radio Nowhere”, which I admittedly disliked on first listen, but now sounds somewhere between Husker Du and Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper”, to the final remorseful “Terry’s Song”.

With every listen, the honesty, romantiscm and sincerity echoes through. The album is a fantastic sing-a-long, overblown, pompous piece of work. And that’s the fucking point.


Here's a bit classic Boss...........

Black Kids

Don’t be taken aback or offended with the title of this post. I’m not making some sort of racial attack, this is the name of the band who are currently red hot on the radar, apparently.

Whenever I think of black kids, I think of this little kid called Mohammed who moved back to Bangladesh when we were 8 or 9. Good little kid, but we never ever seen him again. No idea what happened. I always remember Mohammed for the snotty crust around his nostrils. He always had it. It became even more prominent when we’d get our milk at playtime, and the focus was brought up to his mouth area, so you could always see the dried snot from behind his blue straw. Shouldn’t have drank milk, Mohammed, didn’t do his look any favours. Massive head as well actually, for a kid. The only other thing I think of, when I think of black kids, is the fact they only ever ate fish fingers when we got our school dinners. Doesn’t make them bad people like, just saying.

From now on though, when I think of black kids, (I’ll just stress, not in a noncey way) I’ll think of this absolutely brilliant young band from Florida.

I’ve come to find, by the powers of the internet and actual written words in magazines, that this band may well be the “next big thing”. On listening to the stuff they have on their MySpace and from the general “buzz” from the articles I’ve been reading on blogs and the like, I can certainly understand why. Although the sound is far removed from the type of David Byrne delivery that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! offered us, I still get the same sort of feeling about the music when I listen to it, as if they are about to “happen”. They have a similar sort of delivery and excitement about their music that makes you feel like you’ve really discovered a band that you’re going to follow for years to come.

The comparisons are there for all and sundry, with the likes of The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and The Go! Team regularly name checked in the same breath as Black Kids.

These scamps are a very good band. Bands don’t just get younger and younger as I get older, they get better and better. Somehow, in the past few years, the world has started to produce young kids who can make amazing music. Gone are the days of sitting with a Musical Youth LP on, or teenybop wank stains Hanson appearing all over the TV set. Nowadays it’s became quite cool to like kids, again, not in a noncey way, and kids have became better and better at making music which isn’t just flash in the pan commercial, novelty shite.

The rumour mill suggests that they’ll be over to the UK in November and maybe releasing something at the same time. My luck tells me that they’ll probably just play one date in London, or they’ll support someone shite and come nowhere near where I live.

The band is still unsigned, but that shouldn’t be for much longer. So eyes peeled and keep a look out for Black Kids. It’ll make a pleasant change for a lot of people to start enthusing about Black Kids, rather than being mugged off them and accusing them of being terrorists.

Seriously though, go to their MySpace, and listen to “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You”. What a fucking amazing tune, absolutely amazing. Actually, fuck that, every song they have up there is amazing.



Here's a bit of Musical Youth to keep you going........

Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War (Arts & Crafts), Published in NARC. #19

Stars perform the futuristic type of music you might find in some sort of spaceship based romantic drama in years to come, a time when music rules the universe and people have blue hair and silver suits. Not the type of future where two cretins called Bill and Ted heal the world with their air guitar and shite catchphrases. No, this is a good future.

The Montreal based band seem to have the incredible ability of creating music that almost transcends comparison with any of their contemporaries. Choosing to create layers upon layers of amazing intricate electronica, duelling poetical vocals and melodies to melt the last remaining icebergs, Stars create intelligent, articulate and wonderfully expressive pop.

However, Stars do lose points in places. As much as most of the album is all lovely, warm and challenging, we do still have a couple of stinkers that wander the realms of Prefab Sprout at their crappest, and dare I say it, a little bit of Maroon 5, with The Ghost Of Genova Heights. Despite my ears not having complete agreement with a couple of the songs, no fool, no matter how crap their ears, can deny the glory and loftiness of Take Me To The Riot, Window Bird, My Favourite Book and the albums title track couldn’t be any more uplifting and triumphant if it tried.

For the most part, this is an absolutely cracking album, ignore my slight negativity, it’s just my way. This is certainly something that I’ll continue to listen to in the future. Whether or not I’ll be dying my hair blue and wrapping my fat torso in tin foil is another thing.

4/5



NARC. is currently available in all good record shops, pubs, practice rooms etc. etc. View more information on NARC. magazine, including outlets, at their MySpace, and at their website.