Archive for June, 2008

The model patience

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

THE CAVE SINGERS are probably just one song short of “doing a Band Of Horses”. Band Of Horses first caught most people’s attention with the epic five-minute beast that is Funeral and while their Seattle neighbours have delivered a beautifully crafted debut album called Invitation Songs, it lacks the kind of standout tune that turns a snowball into an avalanche.

The National singer Matt Berninger once touched on this effect when he amusingly described Fake Empire as their Hey Ya! because of the amount of new fans the first taster from Boxer helped draw to them.

Structurally, The Cave Singers go down a similar path by creating intelligent, thoughtful music but there’s more of a leaning towards campfire folk that gives their songs a slow-burning appeal which rewards those who can cope without a quick-fix.

If you agree that patience is a virtue you’ll soon fall in love with this band.

4 The Cave Singers – Oh Christine
4 The Cave Singers – After The First Baptism

b June 27, King Tut’s Glasgow (tickets)

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Original sin

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

We rarely go out of our way to write about music that doesn’t inspire us in some way. It always just seems a horrible waste of everybody’s time. It’s like when people start conversations about how much they hate Big Brother – yes, we all know it’s brain-numbing TV at its worst but change the channel if you don’t want to watch it and, this is the important part, stop talking about it!

Today, we feel compelled to devote this post to SERGEANT and ATTIC LIGHTS, two bands who are currently enjoying increasing amounts of exposure thanks to major label backing.

We might be expected to pat them on the back for proving that Scottish groups can infiltrate the UK mainstream but in all likelihood our hands would end up slowly creeping up their backs and to their necks as we throttle them for having such an utter lack of originality.

Alan McGee, the bald 47-year-old who the tabloid press turns to in order to find out what teenagers are listening to, threw his hat into the ring with this nugget: “I wasn’t prepared for the sublime genius of Sergeant”. We can only assume McGee hasn’t come across The View as a quick blast of Hats Off To The Buskers would have left him more than prepared for these clones. In fact, Sergeant sound so similar we’re amazed there’s as much as 28 miles separating their hometown of Glenrothes from Dryburgh.
Attic Lights, on the other hand, are so infatuated with the well-trodden path of sickly sweet jangly guitar pop they roped in sometime Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis MacDonald to be their manager and singer Kevin Sherry recently revealed in the band’s blog that they spend their rehearsal time playing Big Star songs to “try to work out the genius behind them and write songs as good as that”.

It seems to our ears that neither Sergeant nor Attic Lights feel any urge to want to win fans with some ideas of their own. We’d give a penny for your thoughts, boys.

4 Sergeant – K – Ok
4 Sergeant – Sunshine
b June 20, King Tut’s, Glasgow (sold out)
b June 23, Snafu, Aberdeen (tickets)
b July 13, T in the Park, Balado (sold out)
b July 31, The Garage, Glasgow (tickets)
b August 12, The Liquid Room, Edinburgh (tickets)

4 Attic Lights – God
4 Attic Lights – Ton Of Love
b July 26, Wickerman Festival, Dumfries & Galloway (tickets)
b August 2, Live At Loch Lomond, Balloch Country Park (tickets)
b August 9, Tartan Heart Festival, Belladrum, Inverness-shire (tickets)
b August 23, Mull of Kintyre Music Festival, Campbelltown (tickets)
b August 30, Feugh Fest, Banchory, Aberdeenshire (tickets)
b August 31, Hydro Connect, Inverary (tickets)

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Win the rarest Belle & Sebastian DVD in existence

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

A couple of months ago, you may remember we wrote about the day we discovered some lost gems while rummaging through our music collection. What we didn’t tell you was that the most priceless item we came across was a full video of one of the most exclusive gigs BELLE & SEBASTIAN have ever played… and we’re going to give it away to whoever wants it the most.

On February 28, 2001, the band appeared in the John McIntyre Hall at Glasgow University in support of Stuart Murdoch’s bid to become rector of the university. The capacity was limited to just 250 students, most of whom sat on the carpeted floor to watch Belle & Sebastian play what was their first show in two years. The free afternoon gig lasted 40 minutes, with Murdoch also taking questions from the audience between songs about his rector credentials.

The “campaign rally” – as it was officially labelled – was memorable for many reasons. It was the first time the Glasgow group had publicly played Fuck This Shit and Big John Shaft (both of which were released a year later on the Storytelling soundtrack), they covered Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones and Isobel Campbell bizarrely wore a thick brown coat back-to-front during the last of the eight songs, Legal Man.

The concert did spark some amusing tabloid-world controversy. Two days before it, the Daily Record accused Murdoch of playing the gig in an attempt to bribe students to vote for him. In the end, though, the singer was pipped to the rector post by unfunny Canadian comedian Greg Hemphill.

Anyway, to show our appreciation for all the positive feedback we received following our 1st birthday post and to mark another landmark (this is The Pop Cop’s 200 post), we’ve decided to run a competition to win a DVD of Belle & Sebastian’s full gig at Glasgow University.

The show, which was professionally filmed on three different video cameras in the hall, was made into a VHS cassette (this was 2001 remember) and later converted into DVD. Having acquired the film from its source, The Pop Cop has the only copy that exists on the planet so getting your hands on it would probably be like winning the lottery for anyone who likes the band.

As we said earlier, we’re going to give it away to whoever wants it the most. So here’s what you need to do. Read carefully…

The winner of the DVD will be the person who posts links to The Pop Cop homepage (http://thepopcop.co.uk/) to the most number of UNIQUE websites by 23.59 GMT on June 30. These links can go on messageboards, social network sites, forums, other blogs, etc, but they MUST be accompanied by something that identifies yourself as the author (like a username or pseudonym) – that way you can prove who added the links. You MUST also keep a tally of the number of links you have posted AND have the direct website addresses in which they can be found, so that we can verify your claim.

Finally, on July 1, send us a single email to thepopcop@gmail.com with your final tally and a list of verifiable links. Whoever has the most will be sent the Belle & Sebastian DVD by post, to wherever you are in the world, simple as that.