Archive for January, 2010
Introducing Bandcamp, the MySpace slayer
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
From day one of The Pop Cop, this blog has directed readers to the MySpace page of any artist we’ve written about. The social networking site’s instant ability to let fans hear streamed songs packaged in a consistent, practical set-up made it a much more reliable alternative to linking to a band’s custom-made website.
Recently, however, it has been pretty hard to resist the urge to hunt down the people who run MySpace and give them a right good kick to the crotch. They seem hellbent on making the experience increasingly annoying for everyone. Musicians are no longer able to make their playlisted songs downloadable; casual users find it impossible to navigate without their browser getting blitzed by an oversized advert for some overhyped major-label act; and worst of all (from a personal point of view), MySpace recently decided it would be a good idea to flag up all links to Blogspot websites – such as The Pop Cop – as spam, irrespective of its content. Not clever.
It might seem hypocritical to complain when these irritations still haven’t stopped us promoting the music on MySpace, but there has been no superior alternative to recommend… until now.
Popout
BANDCAMP is still in its infancy yet it trumps MySpace at virtually every turn as a one-stop-shop for groups and fans. Not only can you play full songs on individual artist pages at a very listenable 128kb/s bitrate, Bandcamp also lets visitors download high-quality mp3s – either for free, at a fixed cost or at a name-your-price fee (aka the Radiohead model).
We’ve already come across 30 Scottish acts who have signed up for the service and undoubtedly hundreds more will follow as word spreads. Frightened Rabbit are the most high-profile converts, while Beerjacket has already been convinced enough to remove all of his MySpace songs in favour of a Bandcamp page, and Edinburgh rapper Werd is making and sharing some of the most gutsy and intrepid hip hop Scotland has to offer.
It’s by no means perfect. At the moment, there is no way to search for artists on the website without manually trawling through pages and pages of alphabetised names. There is also no option for artists to enter their location when they register so, for example, if a visitor wanted to track down all the Aberdeen-based musicians on Bandcamp it would be an impossible task.
Those hurdles will almost certainly be cleared as the website grows in popularity and other standard features the site currently lacks such as gig dates, latest news, biogs and band photos will be rolled out soon, according to the FAQ section.
In the meantime, here are those 30 acts from Scotland on Bandcamp we’ve painstakingly found (a lot of Googling research went into this), plus one Scottish record label to round off the list:
Abstract Greens
Andrea Marini
Atlas
Beerjacket
Cybraphon
Eagleowl
Enfant Bastard
Esperi
Fake Gods
Found
Frightened Rabbit
Jack James
Joe Covenant
John Alexander
Kid Canaveral
Maple Leaves
Martin John Henry
Meursault
Mitchell Museum
Numbercult
Perfect Practice
RM Hubbert
Steve Foulds
The Lafontaines
The Scottish Enlightenment
The Second Hand Marching Band
The Whisky Works
The Years
Werd
Your Neighbour The Liar
SL Records
…and here are some of the best songs The Pop Cop downloaded for free on Bandcamp today:
Beerjacket – Island
Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff (demo)
Kid Canaveral – Good Morning
Maple Leaves – Kirsty
Werd – Committed
Withered Hand – Hard On (via SL Records)
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Music Alliance Pact – January 2010
Friday, January 15th, 2010
It’s the 15th of the month so that means it’s time for the Music Alliance Pact, the planet’s greatest mixtape. The rules are pretty simple: one song per blog, one blog per country. And on behalf of Scotland, we take immense pleasure in introducing the world to the aural delights of GALLERIES, one of our hottest 10 tips of 2010 no less.
SCOTLAND: The Pop Cop
Galleries – Underground Overground
Galleries have only been in existence for a matter of months, yet the quality of the songs on their MySpace page can’t help but mark them out as a band whose reach is sure to extend much wider than the blogosphere. The Glasgow group is made up of three students and, interestingly, BBC political reporter Andrew Black on drums. The lush sounds of Underground Overground beautifully hints at their The National and Jimmy Eat World influences and is taken from Galleries’ forthcoming debut EP. It’s a MAP exclusive download so feel privileged that you’re getting to own it first.
March 2, Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow
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Five bands with secret Scottish connections
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Stornoway aren’t the only non-Scottish band with an unlikely Scottish connection, so for today’s post The Pop Cop has rounded up a few you may or may not already know. Feel free to add any others you can think of in the comments section.
STORNOWAY
Singer Brian Briggs called the Oxford band after the Isle of Lewis capital because he liked the name when he saw it on a UK weather forecast map. Briggs has never been to the town despite his best efforts.
He said: “I tried to go there on a friend’s yacht three years ago but unfortunately the weather was pretty rough after setting out from Mallaig so we only made it to Harris. But we look upon Stornoway as our virtual home and we want to play there in the spring. It will feel like a homecoming even though we’ve never been there. We offered to play at last year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway but we were turned down by the organisers. We would love to put Stornoway on the map more widely around the world.”
Stornoway – Fuel Up
January 20, ABC 2, Glasgow (tickets)
JAMES
Violinist/guitarist Saul Davies was born in Oldham in 1965 but relocated to Scotland when he was a child, before moving back down south to Hull in 1980. Seven years later Davies crossed the border again, buying a house in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, where he lived throughout James’ heyday in the Nineties. He now calls Scotland his home. In 2006, he took Glasgow band Unkle Bob under his wing, managing them and producing their debut album Sugar & Spite, which he released via his own Friendly Sounds/Mother City label.
Bass player Jim Glennie lived in Ullapool from 2001 to 2006 before moving back down to Manchester when James reformed.
James – Porcupine (live)
April 5, Corn Exchange, Edinburgh (tickets)
COLDPLAY
Bassist Guy Berryman was born in Kirkcaldy in 1978 and lived just behind Raith Rovers’ football stadium, Stark’s Park. He attended The Edinburgh Academy until the age of 12 when his family moved to Canterbury, Kent after his dad got a job as project manager for building the Channel Tunnel.
Coldplay – See You Soon (live)
THE DARKNESS
Frankie Poullain was born in 1967 in Milnathort, a small village which neighbours the site of T in the Park, and moved to Edinburgh when he was 11, where he attended The Royal High School from 1979 to 1985. While in The Darkness, the bass player pretended to be five years younger than he actually was until the Sunday Mail rumbled him, producing his birth certificate as proof (real name: Francis Patterson). He was sacked by the band in 2005, a year before they split up. His mother is married to Phil Kay’s dad, which makes the comedian his step-brother.
The Darkness – Growing On Me
RED LIGHT COMPANY
Guitarist Paul Mellon is Motherwell born and bred. Before joining Red Light Company, he played in Scottish bands Fuck-Off Machete and Little Doses, the latter still counting sacked Snow Patrol founder member Mark McClelland as one of their members.
Red Light Company – Fine Fascination
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