Archive for June, 2010
T Break 2010: The chosen ones
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Unsigned artists have been given the opportunity to play at T in the Park for all but the first two years of the festival’s 17-year existence. The T BREAK stage is where Scotland’s chosen morsels get to strut their stuff to crowds of between 5 and 500, depending on who they have the misfortune to be clashing with on the bigger stages.
Here’s The Pop Cop’s guide to who might be worth dragging yourself away from Scouting For Girls for…
BE LIKE PABLO (Friday, July 9)
They’re the Scottish Weezer so what’s not to like? Especially since Weezer have long since forgotten what it was that made them so much fun in the first place.
Be Like Pablo – Julianne
FRENCH WIVES (Friday, July 9)
This lot remind me a lot of Tindersticks. Unfortunately I can’t stand Tindersticks so French Wives are giving me bad thoughts.
French Wives – Give Him America
FRIDGE MAGNETS (Sunday, July 11)
It’s shiny happy electro-rock, although Fridge Magnets have missed the revival by at least a year.
Fridge Magnets – Andy Kane
KITTY THE LION (Saturday, July 10)
Twee acoustic folk with all the testosterone removed. Really like the singer’s voice – like a less waspish Pearl And The Puppets. Jaunty!
Kitty The Lion – Split Ends
KOBI ONYAME (Friday, July 9)
Kobi’s rapping is decent enough but Sixpeopleaway sound scarily like OneRepublic on this track and it all seems to lack depth. Nice mixture of styles, though.
Kobi Onyame – Inner City Lights featuring Sixpeopleaway
LIGHTGUIDES (Sunday, July 11)
This is much more like it. All the best bits of Biffy Clyro, Twin Atlantic and The Xcerts in one wholesome rock package. Their MySpace has a heap of good tunes which certainly deserves further investigation.
LightGuides – The Lion And The Pocketwatch
MAKE SPARKS (Friday, July 9)
Make Sparks take themselves far too seriously. Let’s agree that bands should only put exclamation marks in song titles if the track contains at least one comedy element. For example…. Danger! High Voltage, Help!, Now The Action Is On Fire!, You! Me! Dancing!, Hey Ya! God! Show Me Magic, Chips Ahoy!.
Make Sparks – Hey Kid!
MITCHELL MUSEUM (Friday, July 9)
Graduates of the Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips school of psychedelic pop. The kind of music that Pitchfork would give a glowing 7.4 review.
Mitchell Museum – Tiger Heartbeat
MOPP (Saturday, July 10)
If anyone is looking for the new Calvin Harris (please don’t, one is plenty) then MOPP would be that man. I really didn’t think I’d like this but I’ve failed miserably. Beth Wilmhurst’s guest vocals steal the show.
MOPP – Hold On featuring Beth Wilmshurst
NIGHT NOISE TEAM (Sunday, July 11)
Funky. Never a good thing. The band photo really isn’t doing these guys any favours. Next.
Night Noise Team – You Won
STANLEY ODD (Saturday, July 10)
Clever-clever rhymes, the boy Stanley’s clearly got talent. Shame the backing music is so repetitive as makes the whole thing sound dated.
Stanley Odd – Ten To One
THE DRAYMIN (Saturday, July 10)
If you’re not a fan of The Enemy and The Courteneers then not only do we have something in common, you’re not going to like The Draymin. Oh well!
The Draymin – Hold Your Position
THE RAY SUMMERS (Saturday, July 10)
They sound like The Zutons but even worse. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! Arggghhhh!
The Ray Summers – Crazy World
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (Friday, July 9)
Salvation at last. Intelligent arrangements, beautiful restraint, genuinely interesting lyrics and the singer has an exceptional voice.
The Seventeenth Century – Gregorian Calendar
THREE BLIND WOLVES (Sunday, July 11)
I know it’s petty but I refused to listen to Ross Clark And The Scarfs Go Missing because their name offended me on so many levels. Three Blind Wolves is much more palatable and their music has a countryish rockabilly vibe.
Three Blind Wolves – Hotel
WASHINGTON IRVING (Sunday, July 11)
If you go to T in the Park to drink beer in plastic cups, roll around in the grass and dance on the spot then Washington Irving are your band. By far the best thing to be heard on the Sunday. On any stage.
Washington Irving – Sisi
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Music Alliance Pact – June 2010
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Here is this month’s Music Alliance Pact, which somehow managed to be the only regular feature on The Pop Cop which wasn’t a casualty of Googlegate.
If you’re a new reader, here’s how it works: each MAP blog picks a song from their own country which is then made available as a free mp3 download on all of our individual blogs. Since MAP’s inception in October 2008, it has been my job to take charge of the organising, editing and diplomacy, but because of youknowwhat, my colleagues in Romania, Babylon Noise, took over the reins.
We do this on the 15th of every month so have a helping of what we picked for July, starting with some very likeable Scottish pop upstarts…
SCOTLAND: The Pop Cop
Kid Canaveral – Good Morning
Kid Canaveral offer a free return ticket to the mainstream indie-pop sound of the 90s, favouring the irrepressible joy of melody ahead of racking up cool points. The frantic chug of Good Morning takes in some typically Scottish themes – drinking and going out – to give a welcome indication of what to expect from KC’s forthcoming debut album Shouting At Wildlife, which is released on July 5.
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Everything continues
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
When The Pop Cop blog was shut down, I was tempted to call it quits there and then. The truth is I did… for a couple of hours anyway. Then the campaign to get my archives back from Google began.
That fateful night on May 14, a farewell Twitter message became a call to arms; a Get The Pop Cop back online Facebook group was set up by a reader I had never met. The next day I posted a detailed account of the turn of events that had led to the blog’s deletion, which prompted more comments of support, more strangers taking up the cause on my behalf.
Whether you sent an email to me or Google, or joined the Facebook group or tweeted a message of support, or wrote something about the campaign online, or even just talked about The Pop Cop with friends, you played a part in not only bringing the blog back, but persuading me it was something worth bringing back, and that this fight would not be fought alone.
It was therefore fitting that the solution would be provided by one such supporter, namely comment #19 on the original post. A reader by the name of Ah Fong discovered that a website called Google Reader (oh, the irony) had archived all three years of posts from the original blog’s RSS feed. All I had to do was copy and paste 435 posts, one by one, reformatting the HTML code in the process. A hellish job, yes, but in the absence of a response from Google to the campaign, it was the only one that could be undertaken.
The end result is that every word which was written on thepopcop.blogspot.com from June 13, 2007 now exists on thepopcop.co.uk, although it will probably take a few days for the layout to get a much-needed makeover, so excuse the lack of colour.
As for the promise of a “music blogging revolution”, this is something that will be put into action within the next week or so. Hopefully you’ll stick around to check it out.
The Save The Pop Cop campaign video at the top of this post will be a permanent memory of a lost, crazy month and couldn’t have been created without the tireless efforts of the blog’s supporters and video editor Gillian Morrison of Thought Out Media.
Thanks to you, The Pop Cop’s 3rd birthday can be celebrated today… many happy returns.
Galleries – Everything Continued (right-click to download)
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