To say I've always loved London would be a huge lie, to say I've always loved British music would be a bigger one. The bands that shaped and sorted my teens into neat time frames were nearly all American and Canadian. I think the case of grass is always greener had a lot to do with this- with London bands they were always just there, the trans-atlanticism felt exotic.
The anticipation of a US band coming over, who they'd bring as supports, the rare overpriced merch they'd flog, the excitement of whether or not you'd get tickets was a thrill. It felt special to like Pedro the Lion, it felt special to like the Lemonheads, it felt amazing to like Sloan, etc because when they came over for those one off shows that mattered so much, they felt all yours.
The Libertines, for example, belonged to London. They belonged to a culture I wanted no part of, be that as it may due to my ridiculously pretentious "punk" determination to not be like all the underage shooter drinkers at Club NME on a Friday wearing red military coats ( I here I totally missed out...).
However, despite having grown up a little since those days, I still can't say I have warmed to much British music over the last few years. Looking over my recently played list on my I tunes, with the exception of The Smiths and the Maccabees, there aren't any British bands present. I try quite hard with this blog to be as honest as I can in regards to what I like about different musicians, and it's never been my instinct to think about where they're from until after I've listened to them, in retrospect all the best bands haven't been from this country. I can't help but wonder why this is. If you've followed this blog and listened to some of the people I have talked about you'd see some British artists have drifted in- Ellie Goulding, Video Nasties, White Lies and a few others. So after some thought I began to think if there were any other British artists that I'm starting to lean towards.
The results were minimal...
Friends of the incomparable Little Death (who have some insanely good new tracks up on myspace) Light Brigade make me want to not hate shoegaze as a term, or genre as much. Shoegaze is genre that inspires thought of wannabe hip geography teachers, and people with no personalities paired with bad hair, which I realise is pretty harsh of me to say, but hey, honesty all the way. The band have touches of Smashing Pumpkins deep, deep under their post pop exterior. Like the seaside on a rainy day (Hi people at Great Escape!) it takes a certain mood to appreciate a band like this, who aren't quite engaging on record yet, but interesting enough to warrant a growing desire to see them play.
Now this I can back. Lately rock star kids from London have been all over the media, the chiseled Simnon boys, Nick Caves son and so and so forth. Cinnamon Chaser features the nephew of one of the gentlemen in the Kinks and rather than pouting in a sultry manner in ID, this young man has chosen to beat match and create all on his lonesome. CC produces some pretty unique electronic music, which while not my cup of tea is really very good for what it is. If you like Fabric, you'll probably like this, if you like the Kinks, you will not.
Cold Pumas are a band that sound like the future: messy, loud and indirect. This Brighton band kick it real good. They go against all of what is rising as popular from the indie scene right now (i.e electric-autotuned dudes and dudettes) and so probably won't be headlining any festivals anytime soon, but man oh man would I like to see them at a house party. They'd Tear. It. Up. (Throw Hot Damn into the mix and there's a party!)
These guys sound like the Smiths, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. They've been getting lots of blog buzz from what really annoying people call "key tastemakers" and those who regular people call "industry people stalking art school students facebook profiles", and you know what? GOOD. TS are a good band and they deserve to play to A LOT of people. Check them out, it's music totally filled with sweaty, rad teen spirit.
So new that they don't even exist outside of the Internet Post Master General rise from sleepy little Exeter and have nothing recorded well. Somehow though, through the truly appalling Garageband recordings they have up on myspace I have developed mp3 lust. They sound like like the most garage rock garage band ever. Like early Black Wire. Worth keeping an eye on...
Living in London somewhere between Deerhunter, Deerhoof, Low and a really hungover Emmy the Great is Ray Rumour. This is not happy music, this is music for when it's grey and a write off Summer outside. I'm pretty happy so I actually don't like it that much, but feel like some people might. It's odd logic, but I feel maybe something will happen here. Perhaps.
This was a pretty blah update, I apologise. Tomorrow I return to writing about bands from far far away, it'll be much kinder to your ears instantly rather than test on promise of growth. Until we voyage across the ocean together...
xx
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