Archive for 2011
Music Alliance Pact – December 2011
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas… so I came up with an idea.
The Jukebox player on the right-hand side of this blog was launched 17 months ago and, since then, 39 people have paid £5 each to get a track on it for a month, raising a total of £180.06 (after PayPal took their cut).
I pledged to use every donation “to support grassroots music” and now you’re about to find out what I blew the budget on…
I’ve been a huge fan of Café Disco’s song Terra Nova from hearing it played live, so I decided to take the Jimmy Eat World-loving band (featured on The Pop Cop in July) to the Old Mill Studios in Strathaven, South Lanarkshire to record it.
To be honest, I got a bit over-excited and ended up breaking open my own piggy bank to fund a promo video to go with it, made by much-revered Glasgow specialists Shootback Productions.
So sit back, put your feet up, enjoy the ace video (filmed one afternoon in Nice ‘n’ Sleazy) and help yourself to a free download of Terra Nova plus 35 other songs chosen by my fellow Music Alliance Pact bloggers from around the world.
Click the play button icon to listen to individual songs, right-click on the song title to download an mp3, or grab a .zip file of the whole 36-track compilation via MediaFire.
SCOTLAND: The Pop Cop
Café Disco – Terra Nova
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Terra Nova by Glasgow-based newcomers Café Disco. It was on a shaky YouTube clip filmed in June 2011 during one of the band’s earliest gigs. “Contains the peachiest guitar riff I’ve heard in ages” is how I described the song on my blog back then – and that verdict hasn’t changed with this studio recording, which was funded by The Pop Cop for the sole purpose of giving it away through the Music Alliance Pact, together with this rather fun promo video.
December 15, Nice n Sleazy, Glasgow (info)
January 15, King Tut’s, Glasgow (free in downstairs bar)
May 5, Brew At The Bog festival, Inverness (tickets)
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The dos and don’ts of band T-shirts
Friday, December 9th, 2011
Last month The Pop Cop launched an appeal for Scottish bands to send in their T-shirts, partly because doing something charitable in the run-up to Christmas (all of the ones which were sent in are being donated to refugees and asylum seekers by Unity Centre Glasgow) is not the worst thing in the world, but more so because there’s something quaintly romantic about band T-shirts that felt feature-worthy.
Like it or not, strangers will instantly pigeonhole you into a genre if you wear such a T-shirt in public - either they’ll know what kind of music the band plays or the design/logo will make them think they know. And they’ll decide whether to cross the street accordingly.
However, there’s little doubt that the root of countless friendships and relationships can be traced back to the risk-free conversation-starter that sporting a band T-shirt brings, so, armed with a host of donations from Scottish musicians, we investigated just how to make one stand out from the crowd (having model looks probably helps).
Take A Worm For A Walk Week
T-SHIRT VERDICT: Particularly smart font for the band name, but whether you’d want to show off caricatured images of four deranged-looking stubbly men encircled by the slogan “Look What The Worm Dragged In” is debatable.
STRANGER DANGER: High.
Donald Macdonald & The Islands
T-SHIRT VERDICT: Takes a bit of sleuthing to decipher the cryptic design (“Island”), so will probably appeal to readers of Dan Brown. Nautical but nice.
STRANGER DANGER: Low.
Donald Macdonald & The Islands – Blown Away
The Gothenburg Address
T-SHIRT VERDICT: Likely to attract inquisitive, historian types, which might see you end up in a heated political discussion – a tell-tale sign of a lousy night out if ever there was one.
STRANGER DANGER: Medium.
The Gothenburg Address – The Hessian
Randan Discotheque
T-SHIRT VERDICT: The word “Disco” will immediately convince observers you are a raver, the peculiar image of what appears to be a lady from Ancient Greek times will keep them at least 15 feet away.
STRANGER DANGER: High.
Randan Discotheque – Old & Grey
Hip Parade
T-SHIRT VERDICT: A jet-black T-shirt which screams out “I’m Fucking Dynamite” in capital letters. Wrong on precisely six levels.
STRANGER DANGER: Code red.
Hip Parade – Dynamite
Rachel Sermanni
T-SHIRT VERDICT: The microscopically-sized passage of text reads: “And I watch as he wards off the dark / With the gift that the sun gave him / And I learn from the moon what we are / All alone, but alone in a sea of lonely stars”. Perfect if you want people to spend a good 30 seconds staring at your chest.
STRANGER DANGER: High.
Rachel Sermanni – Breathe Easy
We Were Promised Jetpacks
T-SHIRT VERDICT: No hint of the band name anywhere, just a pretty cool logo that will induce knowing nods of appreciation from fellow fans.
STRANGER DANGER: Low.
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Human Error
Nevada Base
T-SHIRT VERDICT: Another very well-crafted design – just a shame it is spoilt by the need to spell out the name of the band underneath.
STRANGER DANGER: Low.
Nevada Base – All The Things She Said (t.A.T.u. cover)
Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers
T-SHIRT VERDICT: A prancing horse is good enough for Ferrari, which must makes Woodenbox the sexy supercar of Scottish indie bands. Or something.
STRANGER DANGER: Medium.
Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers – Hang The Noose
Photos © The Pop Cop
Massive thanks to all the musicians who sent in T-shirts, as well as Jetpace Industries, the staff at Hummingbird, Millerston rugby ground, Unity Centre Glasgow and The Pop Cop’s lovely model, Louise.
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Poll taxing
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Music blogging is such a selfish discipline, an autonomous vanity project in which you attempt to convince readers that your music taste is clearly so much better than the blog next door.
The quirky thing about having such an opinion-driven cartel is that you end up with lots of authors but very little authority. That might help explain why the opportunity to join forces with other bloggers in an effort to wield collective influence is so tempting.
Around 30 UK music websites, The Pop Cop included, contributed to a poll called The Blog Sound Of 2012. Its chief organiser is an English blogger who wanted to come up with an alternative to the BBC’s annual Sound Of poll, an understandable undertaking in light of the heinous Jessie J being deemed ‘the Sound Of 2011′.
Nevertheless, wilfully diluting the one commodity that sets you apart from everyone else – personal taste – doesn’t sit easily with me, and these polls have only reinforced that.
The remit of The Blog Sound Of was to supply “a list of five acts you’d like to see make it big in 2012″. However, I quickly realised the five I’d picked out were complete unknowns outside Scotland, thus rendering my selections rather pointless given the volume and demographic of bloggers being surveyed.
I therefore decided to sacrifice one of my choices in favour of a non-Scottish band who I thought might actually have a chance of being picked by other bloggers. And, wouldn’t you know, The Jezabels turned out to be the only one of my five selections who ended up on the longlist*.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this same, flawed thought process goes on in the heads of the 184 critics, presenters and producers who were surveyed for the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 poll. There’s little doubt that judges Vic Galloway, Ally McCrae, Jim Gellatly, Dave Kerr, David Pollock, Muslim Alim and Brian Paige are well-qualified to identify and nominate the best new acts Scotland has to offer, but even if all of their choices favoured indigenous talent, it would cause barely a ripple in the BBC poll given that their collective influence makes up less than 4% of the panel (which, incidentally, isn’t even close to representing Scotland in the UK proportionately).
And if the Scottish judges are also aware of the futility of championing a scene that is commonly ignored down south, who could blame them if they just gave their BBC votes to half-decent buzz bands who might actually have a chance of being in the final placings?
As a fanatic of new music, I’d much rather read about the tips of individuals I respect than a poll which, by its very nature, decrees that a group’s most unoriginal taste is its most important.
*The Blog Sound Of 2012 longlist:
Alt-J
Bastille
Beth Jeans Houghton
Daughter
French Wives
Friends
Houdini Dax
Lianne La Havas
Lucy Rose
Meursault
Outfit
The Good Natured
The Jezabels
Theme Park
Washington
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