janfurnace

I do like a lot of the bands mentioned (and, bizarrely, have shared a stage with a couple of them, even though most people wouldn't think of us as remotely math-y).

Once complaint, Mike: Helmet not-math-at-all? 'Meantime' was the first record to make me think about time signatures!

Look: the clue's in the name.

Nice review: first time I've heard a bassline called 'ribald' but it seems appropriate for House.

albums are also significant for me (G'n'R, Nirvana, Pumpkins + Shadow).

Jan, 30 1/2

Bon Jovi were the band that first made me listen to Rock.

Faith No More got me into heavier and more alternative music but also specifically Sabbath (from their War Pigs cover), Napalm Death and Corrosion of Conformity (from their tshirts). Up until that point, I only ever listened to mainstream rock that was on the Chart Show or on the cover of Kerrang! or RAW.

I can see that a lot of current bands might be gateway bands for the kids, but only because they're re-hashing what was done better before.

he's being a responsible role model. Look: he's advocating abstinence from alcohol. Or maybe Disney are being paid by the US alcohol industry? I think I've stumbled upon a conspiracy here...

Is where good bands go to die.*

* With the exception of 'Blood Sugar Sex Magic'

Actually knew it before the original (teenage affection for all things goth and aversion to anything pre-1976).

"Boohoos" for an obvious pun?

and searched for 'Castles in the Sand' by Hendrix, the popularity bar would prove him very wrong. Oh yes. People all over the world want to hear a song about a castle.

Good interview and I agree that they come across very well.

I never paid any attention to DEP (thinking they were just another floppy-haired nu-hardcore band), but I think I might have to check them out now.

What TTD and EEC (I'm THAT lazy this morning) meant by 'climate change' affecting their careers is that the cultural climate changed just enough for their particular brand of insipidness to become unmarketable.

Better do something stupid before everyone forgets you exist!

the 2p for the call.

Or was it the Libertines? Anyway, how much more experience do you want? Can't polish a turd.

Journalists aren't people!

It might be an amazing gig or it might utterly shatter my illusions...

*spoken* "And yo can tell EVERYBODY, this is YOUR sonG".

Anyone else find it slightly strange that the most enticing prospect in that list is Stereophonics? Actually, the Raconteurs covering Teenage Kicks should be alright, as Jack White can get that Feargal Sharkey yodel down pat.

:-(

Really bad track. Reminds me of eating large kebabs.

Horses for courses. But not in the kebab, obviously.

BTW, why is there a picture of Ian Brown up there?

Still good.

It'd have really complex time signatures but played really, really slowly.

Not by these jokers, mind you.

and I happened to be there this weekend. I thought long and hard (about 15 seconds) whether to take the CD home with me, but finally I consigned it to being binned by my mum.

Ban this sick filth!

All well and good, but the UK (according to a socio-economic census I can't quote because I saw it in a seminar at work recently) is now more middle-class than anything else.

Is dwarf-tossing legal in Mexico?

I'm not in love with the production like I am with 'Songs...' and 'Lullabies...' but I'm already getting fond of both the quirky and more obviously rocking numbers. Nice one, Mr Hommy (sic).

he's identified some kind of Romantic link with The Clash in his new location.

because he was mucking about playing it at Christmas and his 3 1/2 yr old daughter starting dancing. Clearly trying to hard to corner the 'yoof' market there, then...

The Ralfe Band are putting the finishing touches to their nwe album as I type this.

a couple of weeks back. The stage was small and the setup basic, with capacity for 100 people max, but they didn't pull out, so why change their requirements now?

Adge Cutler must be turning in his grave.

Unless they can successfully re-invent themselves. They seem to me to have got progressively less rocking over the years and their geographical separation presents a real danger of further recordings being 'phoned in.'

Nothing to do with age, though: 30 is the new 13, doncha know.

Will his show be delivered entirely in the format of a shouted stream of consciousness?

They haven't been around for ever, but I remember hearing buzz about 'Marvin and the Gayes' in Cornwall a long time ago. It sounds to be like they built up enough of a following down there to attract the attentions of some people in a position to help them get gigs outside the county. They also featured in a Music Week exposé on South West bands a while back, which must have garnered some more industry support. I don't have much to say about the music (nothing special), but I don't believe that they're in any way manufactured or an overnight sensation, which is what I inferred from your comment, Dom.

...but households and individuals make up a considerable precentage of CO2 emissions in the UK. There IS an increasingly powerful green lobby in the States and industry will follow because they have to, but individuals' attitudes need to change too.

You're quite right to say "carbon dioxide or whatever the fuck it is this week"; whilst I don't wish to belittle the issue, CO2 is just one of many impacts worth considering and it's an unfortunate truth that it happens to be the big 'cause' in 2007.

My hat goes off to festivals like Truck and Two Thousand Trees who, whilst unlikely to be carbon neutral (which the bigger festivals will have achieved through the dubious practice of offsetting), have a proportionally smaller environmental impact than the more established shindigs.

is Campesinos?

closing at the same time as a Strummer biopic is released can't have ecaped people's attention...

"Midnight to six man
For the first time from Jamaica..."

how their anglicisms go down across the pond.

Lovely music, lovely voice, lovely presence. She won't challenge any of your perceptions of songwriting or female solo artists, but she's good at what she does. Go see her.

It's a rip-off

Saw them at Truck 2 years ago and wondered what the fuss was all about, and I don't own any of their releases. Since then, however, I've heard their singles (i.e. them at their most populist and derivative) and some rarities (e.g. interesting arrangement of Weezer's 'Buddy Holly') and I have to say that they stand out from most bands at their level of success in their approach to songwriting.

Of course, everyone's derivative to a certain extent and no-one can claim to have grown up in a musical vacuum these days, but to accuse bands of their ilk of wholesale ripping-off/sounding like a pastiche smacks of know-it-all indiekid-ism to me. I can see elements of better Nirvana songs in what I've heard of Biffy, but not enough to constitute a rip-off (to be fair, Dom never directly made that accusation). As for the Foos B-side thing, I find Grohl's songs far blander than any of Biffy's output.

At the risk of being an iconoclast, I'm sure it's possible to level the same accusations of derivativeness at any musician, but it's truer and more obvious of people who claim to be influenced by bands, who are in themselves inherently and irritatingly derivative.

Personally, if there's a Tardis headed for the early 90s, then I'm booking my seat.

they're shit.

I once worked in a restaurant that had the entire '...Moods' series and played them constantly. Pan Pipe Moods, inexplicably, appeared one day so badly scratched, that it could never be played again. Wasn't me, honest...

Oh, Kaiser Chiefs? 3 is fair.

'Bear' singular, mind you.

It was all about putting religious power back into the hands of the People.

Sorry, it just occurred to me.

What with her history of 'gestures' to Industry execs.

Jetfire shat on all the Decepticon planes. Plus the toy was twice as big and had an awesome gun.

To play Wembley this early in your career is a pretty amazing thing.

Please leave them in a good mood for us. Thanks.

"Rick didn't show up so we got someone who would"