Bit late this week. Sorry about that, but I've only just got access to the family computer. Also went over the hour mark for the first time in about a month, but I just had too much ranting. I can't help myself.

Have a look at the full list of nominations for the Mercury Music Prize. As usual there's a mix of successful albums from the upper echelons of the charts, some underground stuff that just needs exposure and the token folk and jazz contenders. I still think Hold On Now Youngster by Los Campesinos! was cruelly overlooked.


Nice collection of videos this week. The Black Ghosts' one is very clever and a lot of fun and the Five A.M. one is star studded and has a powerful message. Unfortunately it's not for the song I actually played on the podcast, but it's such a good piece of work I'm bending my rules for this week. Seabird are working on an official video for their track, but it's not ready yet so for the time being here's a live performance.

The Black Ghosts - Repetition Kills You
The Whip - Muzzle #1
Seabird - Rescue [Live Performance]
Five A.M. - Still In Love With You

See you next time and remember I'm a bit angry aren't I?

TRACK LIST

 

1: Gompa - Wormhole

2: The Black Ghosts - Repetition Kills You

3: The Whip - Muzzle #1

4: Seabird - Rescue

5: Five A.M. - Just Say Anything

6: Shearer - Wussy

7: A Shoreline Dream & Ulrich Schnauss - NeverChanger

8: Spoonbill - Bouncing Stones

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

Just squeaked under the hour mark this week. I was sure I would go over with all the ranting and wheedling there was in this episode.

I debated with myself whether to put the explicit tag on this show. My rule is that I put the tag on if there is audible swearing in any of the tracks. At the end of the day I thought it would be hypocritical of me to put the tag on. If it offends you I apologize (and grow up).

A quite nice bit of trivia for this show is we have two duos who are couples. I believe in both cases they might be married as well. Quite sweet, or at least sweeter than I usually am.

Let the comments roll in...

 

Nice selection and variety of videos this week. The Donora video was made by a project called Post Secret, which seems to be one of those places you can send anonymous confessions. It's very well put together and very effective. The Stampead video is very good as well. I'm not generally a fan of 'slideshow' videos. They never seem to quite work and are usually just lazy. This one however is very cool. Lots of interesting images that are edited together very well and fit the song perfectly. It's an almost subliminal experience.

How To Swim - Little Orgasm Of Disappointment

Donora - Shhh

Kinetica - Epoch

Stampead - Sinners, Saints & Accidents

GoodNight City - Tragedy [Live Performance]

vileevils vs. The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside

 

See you next week and remember, you don't want me to talk about masturbation do you?

 

 

 

 

 

(Do You?)

TRACK LIST

 

1: How To Swim - Little Orgasm Of Disappointment

2: The ABC Club - Tinkering Teacups

3: Donora - Shhh

4: Kinetica - Epoch

5: Plunkett - Flies

6: Stampead - Sinners, Saints & Accidents

7: GoodNight City - Tragedy

8: vileevils vs. The Zombies - The Way I Feel Inside

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

Ooops! Released a little bit late this week. I actually forgot it was Wednesday. The perils of being unemployed.

Despite the late release I hope you enjoy this final midweek show. It's a bit of a weak theme, but the songs hang together rather well I think.

 

We have a story with the videos this week. In the show I mentioned an extraordinary video that was made unofficially for The Joy Formidable's track. It featured video of various people of both genders masturbating. This was not something sleazy (OK, maybe a little) it was only shot from the shoulders up and you never saw as much as an exposed breast. It was a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit arousing and a little bit brilliant. Between my recording the show and writing this blog, those killjoys at YouTube have removed the video for violating policy. In my opinion it did not violate anything and they were stupid for removing it. The band are not going to make a stand because they now have an official video which is not controversial in the slightest. The new video is a very fine piece of work, but not nearly as memorable as the unofficial one. I just wish I could link to both versions.

Angelspit - Skinny Little Bitch [Live Performance, Poor Quality]

BANGBANGBANG! - This Way, That Way [Live Performance, Poor Quality]

The Joy Formidable - Austere

 

See you at the weekend and remember it's not fair to keep the bands waiting.

TRACK LIST

 

1: Angelspit - Skinny Little Bitch

2: The Locals - Tidal Wave

3: BANGBANGBANG! - This Way, That Way

4: The Joy Formidable - Austere

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

A tiny bit hysterical in this weeks show. I recorded considerably later than I usually do after not having much sleep. Computer failure meant I didn't have as much preperation time as I would have liked either.

This is probably the reason that I made several stumbles this week including potentially insulting my trans-atlantic colleague Jen. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And talking about insulting people, the spectre of the GK & The Renegades 'controversy' reared it's head this week. Trust me Jack it's not a big deal.

Going to be continuing with MIUK for the next few shows including izzie Voodoo making her debut as a host tomorrow. Rather enjoying it and Rowley seems to think I did a good job. I don't really care how many people listen (although you should all be subscribed of course), but I don't want to spoil the good work that Rowley's done over the past 6 months or so.

 

Pretty good selection of videos this week. Both in quantity and quality. The Come On Gang! one is only a teaser for the video which is being made now, but it promises good things to come.

GK & The Renegades - It's Down To You [Live Performance, Poor Quality]

My American Heart - The Shake (Awful Feeling)

The Crash That Took Me - Julianne

Come On Gang! - Wheels [Teaser]

Simon Wilcox - Eyes On You

Reverse E - The Windows

 

See you next time and remember, I'm babbling so lets just move on.

TRACK LIST

 

1: GK & The Renegades - It's Down To You

2: My American Heart - The Shake (Awful Feeling)

3: The Crash That Took Me - Julianne

4: A. Rex - Too Smart For Me

5: Fez - Gone Too Far

6: Come On Gang! - Wheels

7: Simon Wilcox - Eyes On You

8: Reverse E - The Windows

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

A global musical trip of epic proportions! Or just an excuse to play music from exotic corners of the world. You decide...

It occured to me after I'd finished putting this show together that it's rather surprising that there are no acts sourced from Jamendo. Whenever a band on a podcast comes from an unusual country, particularly continental Europe, 9 times out of 10 the podcaster got it from Jamendo. I managed to put together a 4 track show with a global span and never went to the Jamendo well once. I'm oddly proud of myself.

 

75% success rate on the video front this week. The Hedtrip one is very clever and rather cool.

Taken By Cars - Uh Oh

Hedtrip - Mother Love

The Ravens Court - Revolution

 

See you at the weekend for a regular show and remember, we are living in a golden age.

TRACK LIST

 

1: Taken By Cars - Uh Oh

2: Hedtrip - Mother Love

3: Ever Since The Day - Stay Silent

4: The Ravens Court - Revolution

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

With all my gushing about VQS and the sad demise of AIMP I was sure I would go over the hour mark for this show. I don't know what's been going on recently, but I'm consistently managing my ideal length of less than an hour.

One thing I forgot to mention on the show is that izzie Voodoo kindly played my promo on the last episode of her show. Unlike me she doesn't play a lot of promos, so that was really cool. She also sent me a very nice e-mail regarding the review of her album I wrote. I was worried she wasn't going to like it, but shes put the whole thing on her website. Even the mildly critical stuff I wrote.

Podcasting can be time consuming so it's unfortunately rather common for shows to stop broadcast. At least Dan told us that the latest episode of American Indie Music Podcast would be the last one. Thanks for the great music and I hope you manage to come back Dan.

The great thing about podcasting is also one of the worst things. Every week I put out a music programme. I am a complete amateur with absolutely no background in music and a competent background in technology. It is a great thing that someone like me can send music all around the world and I have verifiable listeners in the US, Sweden and Australia. We are living in a golden age where access to music can be universal. This is also a bad thing in a way. I am one person with no staff to deal with. Each week I can play exactly what I want and I do. I am imposing my personal music taste on my listeners with no checks and balances. My deep seated aversions to R & B, Jazz and the vast majority of Acoustic music can come through without any interference. But this also means that when I find a track I like in one of those genres I can mix up my policy and play it. The Ruben Angel track is really not something I thought I would have played and I have another track lined up for a few weeks that is a much heavier Hip Hop influenced track. It's my musical taste, it's weird and I can send it out worldwide very easily. Ohhh The Power!!!!!

 

Not many videos. The Femtastic one is very interesting as the whole thing's been rotoscoped. For those who don't know, rotoscoping is a process where each individual frame of a piece of film gets painted over to create animation. At least that's how it used to work. In this modern, digital age it's probably not nearly as time consuming as that. However it's done nowadays, it's an effective and interesting visual style. If you search on YouTube you can find the 'before' video so you can see what it looked like before it was painted over.

Jennings - Femtastic

Ruben Angel - Stereo Is Dead

My Secret Life - Easy When You Know How [Live Performance]

Rosalita - Way Past Bedtime [Live Performance]

 

See you next time and remember open the mic and see what happens.

TRACK LIST

 

1: izzie Voodoo - Play Bomb

2: Jennings - Femtastic

3: Circuitbreaker - Everyone Does It

4: Ruben Angel - Stereo Is Dead

5: My Secret Life - Easy When You Know How

6: Super Nashwan - Needle In A Haystack

7: Rosalita - Way Past Bedtime

8: Firework Splints - Ridiculous

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.

The second of my planned four mid-week extra episodes. This time the theme is bands I've played in the past who've recently sent me new music.

A couple of clarifications from the links in the show:

The Slants backgrounds are Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Filipino. They also have a token caucasian.

Since I recorded the show The Ropes have made another track available on their myspace. It's the title track from their forthcoming album 'What They Do For Fun'. So at time of writing you can get four lovely mp3's for absolutely nothing.

 

As with last weeks show, there's not much on the video front and with only two videos I'm not going to put the video player on the myspace page. Here are the links though.

The Slants - Kokoro (I Fall To Pieces) [Live Performance]

The Ropes - I Don't Like To Get Dirty

 

See you at the weekend for the regular show and next Wednesday for another mini episode and remember it's got an explicit tag for a very good reason.

TRACK LIST

 

1: Co.Jack - Get Me Another Drink

2: Decora - First Hit Of The E.A.

3: The Slants - Kokoro (I Fall To Pieces)

4: The Ropes - I Don't Like To Get Dirty

The Intro Music is an excerpt from 'Put You In Your Place' by The Sunshine Underground 

All songs used with permission or are available under Creative Commons licenses.