Wish I could be there, but can’t wait to see video footage nonetheless.

via edinburghnews.scotsman.com

Posted via email from cloody

Anything Fence is usually worth going to, and from 5pm until Midnight this promises to be a rowdy (i.e. completely and utterly pished) affair.

Anyway, here’s the link to the official Fence site where you might be lucky enough to find some tickets left:

Fence Collective show in Glasgow!.

Followed, of course, by the timeless (and better) original version.

The Wrong Car

Before I start, I should make it clear I am biased when it comes to the Twilight Sad. For my money they are the finest band to come out of Scotland for some time – indeed, I cannot think of a better Scottish band since Arab Strap.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters was released to critical acclaim in Spring 2007, the band’s first long player and a collection of nine fantastic songs, from the slow build opener ‘Cold Days from the Birdhouse’ to stonewall classic ‘And She Would Darken the Memory’ this was as exciting a debut album as I’d heard for years.

I honestly thought they’d struggle to equal it with the ‘difficult second album’ but one listen of single ‘I Became a Prostitute’ blew all of those fears out of the water. The rest of the album, of course, is equally brilliant.

So what next? I don’t often get excited about new singles / EPs these days, but I genuinely did rush home on Monday 27^th to download ‘The Wrong Car’ from itunes. Of course, the excellent video for the title track has had a lot of hits from this particular part of Glasgow since it appeared on youtube, but the quality of sound is never perfect there, is it?

The lyrics, as ever are dark, disturbing and downright fucking tremendous. They’re not going to cheer you up, but it would hardly be The Twilight Sad if they did. The title track is epic, seven minutes and twenty nine seconds of beautifully crafted guitar music. I cannot, honestly, recommend it highly enough.

The second new track, ‘Throw Yourself into the Water Again’ is also mighty fine. With it’s ‘dancing over your grave’ lyrics and squally guitars it’s maybe not quite such a towering achievement as ‘The Wrong Car’ but that is no disgrace. It’s quite immediate, if that makes sense, and will no doubt be responsible for mass moshpits when played live.

The two remixes, ‘The Room’ by Mogwai and ‘Reflections of the Television’ by current tour co-headliners The Errors are very different beasts. Going by the other reviews I’ve read, the former seems to be the most popular, but for me it doesn’t really add anything to the original. The Errors, in my opinion, eclipse this with their almost dancey background music in ‘Reflections of the Television.’ I really like this.

I always look forward to TS acoustic versions. Unfortunately as yet I haven’t been able to get my hands on the Limewire sessions, which displeases me greatly. Anyone who can help, let me know.

Here, we have a reworking of ‘Throw Yourself Into The Water Again,’ followed by ‘I Became a Prostitute.’ Both are great. Many acoustic versions offer nothing new, but because the originals are so heavy, these are like different tracks altogether. Which is how it should be.

10/10

Bad Religion – The Devil In Stitches by Epitaph Records

Haunting Through by The Douglas Firs

Tearing me away from my current favourites Deer Tick and The Twilight Sad this week has been debut EP from Aberdonian act The Douglas Firs, the brainchild of one Neil Insh. It sounds like the route to release has been a long one fraught with difficulty – indeed in the words of Neil, “I can’t really call it a demo, as it has taken years of painful obsessing to create!”

Thankfully, his efforts have not been in vain, and the EP is an absolute belter – even more so considering he is, at the time of writing, unsigned.

The opening track, “The Quickening” starts things off beautifully. It begins slowly, footsteps and drumming giving way to traditional Scottish accordion and multiple vocal layers. With the samples of the crowd noise, it almost brings to mind a packed local pub somewhere in the North of Scotland, albeit with a fantastic vocal over it. That is a compliment. It’s very nice to listen to. There is no song structure in the standard sense, but don’t let that put you off – it just works.

“Grow Old and Go Home” is a cracker. It isn’t particularly commercial, but does feel the most like a pop song I think, and moves along at a really nice tempo. Perfect listening for chilling out on a Sunday afternoon, as is final track “Soporific.” I would be hard pushed to pick a favourite track. Both work extremely well, and have had a lot of airplay here over the past week.

All in all, Haunting Through is a thoroughly enjoyable EP, and I thank Neil for giving me the opportunity to hear it. Currently available for the unreasonably low price of fifty pence to those of you who live in Edinburgh and ninety pence to those who don’t, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. You’d be lucky to find a Simple Minds cassette in a car boot sale for that sort of money, and believe me when I say this is infinitely more enjoyable.

Listen to the Douglas Firs, and buy the EP for a disgustingly cheap price by clicking this link.

Cheers, Cloody xx

Posted via web from cloody

Posted via web from cloody’s posterous

by Adam Mackay

I attended a festival called Field Day in Victoria Park in the East End of London a couple of weeks ago and said I would write a few words on the bands I saw for Cloody’s website.

The line up was quite sort of indie/alternative and can be viewed here http://www.fielddayfestivals.com/lineup/ First off we went to see a Glasgow band called Errors on the main stage. They’re sound is quite sort of electronic although they do have a full band set up with drummer, bass, guitars etc. I quite enjoyed their set, with some good dance along tunes which fitted the nice early good weather atmosphere pretty well.

A good early crowd and a lot of familiar Scottish accents also added to the vibe (There was quite a Scottish vibe to the festival with, Mogwai, Malcolm Middleton, Optimo all playing).

A little while later we went back to the main stage to see The Horrors. I’m not particularly familiar with their body of work but had read good reviews of their new album so thought I’d go and check them out. Well it was pretty much a let down and to be fair I’m not sure it was entirely the band’s fault.

The volume levels were so low you could easily have a conversation with the person next to you at normal speaking volume.

The Horrors, it struck me, were kind of about making a lot of noise and a big theatrical performance, and with the music at such low volumes it was almost impossible to get in to them. We left after about three songs.

We later went to see Mumford and Sons in one of the marquee tents. At least being in the tent the volume levels were a bit better but it could still have done with being a bit louder. I quite enjoyed their set though, sort of toe tapping folk rock I suppose. The kind of band I imagine would go down a storm at a marquee dance in the Highlands of Scotland. Someone did tell me that they’re quite heavily religious though and are a bit preachy about it. This would certainly put me off them. There are no good god-bothering bands!

Whilst in the tent watching Mumford the heavens opened and the next couple of hours were spent crammed in a beer tent with the occasional sprint to the strangest toilets ever. I don’t know if any males have experienced these at festival this year but they were basically four man, square urinals that come to about belly button height, so you’re standing taking a piss with the three other blokes all looking each other right in the face, literally about a foot and a half away.

The only other band we went to see were Mogwai, last on the main stage. Again the ridiculously low volume levels meant that their set was completely underwhelming. It is music that needs to be played loud and allowed to kind of wash over and around you -if that makes sense. I felt kind of bad that for a lot of the crowd this would be the first, and maybe only time they would see them and would just go away with a pretty poor experience.

Victoria Park where the festival was held is right in the middle of London, which is why there were such noise restrictions I suppose, but at the same time it was a daytime festival and finished at 10 o’clock so what’s the problem with a bit of noise.

I started talking about the noise problem with the people I went with and apparently it’s become a big issue over the last couple of years. Councils are coming down really hard on events who exceed the allowed levels and imposing big fines. They have people at every festival with noise measuring machines making sure the noise rules aren’t broken.

You may think that this is only a problem for city festivals but it’s not. It’s a problem for any festival with any kind of residential housing within earshot. Over the last couple of years it’s been a problem at Glastonbury and most notably Reading, where last year heavy atmospheric weather meant the sound carried more and levels had to be turned down even lower. People were complaining Rage Against the Machine were being drowned out by people talking! That’d make you want to spew!

At Glastonbury just because there are a few houses in the area the noise levels have had to be turned down over the last couple of years to the point where people are noticing and complaining about it.

That can’t be right! Surely the musical pleasure of 100,000 is more important than a few days of noise pollution for a handful of residents. Without wanting to sound too Daily Mail, it feels like it’s the sort of thing that would only happy in Britain at the moment.

So to councils of Britain I say; Turn the music back up please.

Honestly, if you were there and don’t get the shivers watching these, you are officially dead.

Outstanding stuff, and major thanks to the uploaders in the audience. If you find anymore worthy of inclusion, please send us the link.

See the original review and comments here.

Cheers.

FOS / Badlands

The River

Pink Cadillac

Born To Run

Atlantic City

Pink Cadillac / Cover Me

Bobby Jean

Thunder Road