Archive for October, 2008
Company check!
Monday, October 20th, 2008
The music calendar is currently a battleground for heavyweight album releases with your Keanes, Snow Patrols, Razorlights, Oases and Killers all jostling for position. But while that lot engage in a war of attrition for chart domination, the next big things are already laying the groundwork to make their move in 2009.
One band who are doing a fair bit of pushing near the front of the queue is RED LIGHT COMPANY. Not only do they already possess a tasty line in blusterous Arcade Fire-esque guitar sounds, their slickly sweet singles With Lights Out, Meccano and Scheme Eugene are as bold a statement of intent as you could hope to find.
Although the group are based in London, their cosmopolitan line-up boasts members from England, Wales, America and (cue ooohing and aaahing) Scotland. We’ll have you know that their guitarist is a certain Motherwell native called Paul Mellon, formerly of Fuck-off Machete and the lesser-spotted Little Doses – a piece of trivia worth remembering for a future pop quiz if Red Light Compnay make it as big as we think they will.
4 Red Light Company – Meccano
4 Red Light Company – With Lights Out
b October 27, Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh (tickets)
b October 28, Café Drummonds, Aberdeen (tickets)
b October 29, Mad Hatters/Hootananny Ceilidh Café Bar, Inverness (tickets)
b October 30, The Captain’s Rest, Glasgow (tickets)
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Music Alliance Pact – October 2008
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
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When The Pop Cop launched in a blizzard of buy-one-get-one-free fireworks and 17 frowning pipers marching down our pot-holed neighbourhood, we deliberately made this website a platform to showcase Scotland’s music scene.
In a way, though, we are preaching to a willing and predominantly good-looking audience. You love Scottish music. You want to hear more of it.
So the question we asked ourselves was this: How could we force this nation’s mighty tunes down the ears of those who didn’t want it, need it or even give a toss about it?
Then one evening at home, it was a Thursday, while staring at tiny droplets of rain racing down the window, we had an idea… but it was shit so we scrapped it.
A few weeks later we had another idea. There are foreign music blogs who have a similar ethos toThe Pop Cop when it comes to representing their own country’s interests, so each of us should pick our favourite song every month and unite to give our our readers the greatest soundtrack on the planet.
And today – after six years of trying to find one music blog from every single nation in the world (damn your silence, Vatican City) – that is precisely what is happening for the first time under the grand name of the Music Alliance Pact, or MAP for short.
The Pop Cop has persuaded 12 of the best blogs in four continents to share their favourite song of the month and simultaneously post the entire collection on their own sites on October 15. And they will continue to do so on the 15th of every month until they die (seriously, we have it in writing).
Ladies and gentlemen, we present you with the chosen songs of the Music Alliance Pact – October 2008:
SCOTLAND: The Pop Cop
4 Roddy Hart – Dead Of The Night
Roddy Hart made the folk-rock masterpiece Bookmarks, arguably one of the best albums to have come out of Scotland. Dead Of The Night is the first fruits from its follow-up due out in 2009. It’s a live favourite and easily the most immediate pop song the Glaswegian has ever written.
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Live review: Mumford & Sons @ Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow
Monday, October 13th, 2008
It’s easy to understand why seasoned gig-goers tend to gush about the unforgettable night they saw now-famous band ‘X’ playing in a windowless basement venue to a few dozen hardcore fans.
In a couple of years’ time, there’s every chance The Pop Cop will be that irritating know-it-all, harping on about how we were there when MUMFORD & SONS had a genuine, tangible coming-of-age moment at Nice ‘n Sleazy on an autumnal Sunday evening. And it was beautiful.
In truth, the well-spoken London quartet are far too special to be judged alongside the next indie-rock hopefuls, but that’s essentially the market they find themselves in.
Frontman Marcus Mumford’s songs predominantly speak of insecurity, dreams and regrets, while the impeccable four-way vocal harmonies and banjo wouldn’t sound out of place on a rustic porch in the American Midwest, tumblers of whisky being clunked under the stars, crickets croaking in the distance.
Perhaps it’s because Mumford & Sons are such a relatively new proposition, but when they play their modern interpretation of bluegrass with the kind of honest enthusiasm they did at Sleazy’s, you can’t help but root for them.
Effectively, we’d be as well just printing the entire hour-long setlist to identify the highlights of this show. If recorded versions existed of all the songs they played we’d already be calling it the album of the year. Little Lion Man, White Blank Page, Awake My Soul, The Cave – to name but four – are every bit as spellbinding for their intelligence and wisdom as they are for the instant appeal of their melodies.
Marcus’ heroic determination to squeeze every ounce of effort out for his craft causes him to break the strings on two acoustic guitars by the time the band walk off to the sound of frenzied applause ringing in their ears. The Glasgow crowd demand more, which Mumford & Sons almost sheepishly return to the stage to provide, with the bassist confessing: “We’ve never really done an encore before.”
They better get used to it. A band as precious as Mumford & Sons won’t be a secret for much longer.
4 Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man
4 Mumford & Sons – Feel The Tide
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