Welcome, I am your host Dan McLoughlin. On this page I shall be reviewing albums,gigs and sharing my opinions on the current music scene as well as any other general musings that pop into my head.
Have a look around and enjoy.
Quite simply put this is a piece of genius that looks set to invade the charts following a Facebook campaign and over 1 million views on Youtube. Buttery Biscuit Base combines edited pieces of Masterchef's Gregg Wallace and John Torode and comes up with something amazingly catchy. Personally I hope Buttery Biscuit Base will assault the UK charts and provide a welcome change from the trash that currently sits there.
I urge you to buy the song from iTunes and have a listen from the video link below.
Following the cancelation of another one of their gigs following lead singer Caleb storming off stage in search for a beer and not returning. The Kings of Leon bassist Jared was forced to admit that the band has "big problems" to deal with.
The problems had begun the previous night in Dallas with Caleb complaining about problems with his voice he went in search for a beer and to vomit he told the crowd that he would return afterward. Unfortunatly for the thousands of fans this didn't materialise (Video of this below).
There has been no word on whether or not this will have an effect on the rest of the dates on the bands US tour all we can do is wait.
The Beastie Boys are finally back. Following the long delay on this album after MCA got cancer, the trio have finally finished what was supposed to be a 2 part project and have only released Part Two. With this being the 8th Studio album from the New York collective I'm pleased to announce that with the previous 7 the Beastie boys have managed to keep the fun feelings and distinctive sound that have ran throughout previous albums such as the seminal Check your Head and Paul's Boutique. Back are the Vocoders and the vocals are distorted and dipped in reverb at many stages. Simply if your a fan of early Beastie Boys then this album should be enough to please you.
The album opens with 'Make Some Noise' which must surely be a single from this album. Its catchy. It's energetic and for me is one of , if not the best song on the album. The organ throughout will remain in your head all day after hearing it. 'Too Many Rappers' which features a cameo from NAS is another pick of best song from the album with an excellent cameo from the fellow New York MC. 'Say it' features a very catch and anthemic chorus which one can envision being screened at many of the Beastie's concerts for years to come aswell as an video game noise inspired outro.
Also, Hot Sauce Committee gives us a little taste of a more reggae feel type song in 'Don't play No Game That I Can't Win' featuring the soulful vocals of Santigold. Again when we talk about the fun side that finds itself in the Beasties noise. This is no more apparent than the songs 'Funky Donkey' and the short piece'The Larry Rountine.'
Unfortunatly, the second half of the album passes without much note and is fairly dissapointing in comparision to the first. 'Lee Majors Come Again' gives us a look back at the Beasties in their original punk ways with a brilliant bassline thrown in. There is also the instrumental track 'Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament'. For me after this the album wanes. The album ends with 'The Lisa Lisa' on a bit of a throwaway note for me.
All in all as previously stated, this album is enough to satisfy Beastie Boy fans and for the much part is a very enjoyable listen full of catchy tunes. The second half of the album lets the overall album down, however it must be said that Hot Sauce Committee part 2 is a successful return for the Beasties.
And so with the untimely but to be frank expected death of Amy Winehouse, she joins the elite club of unfortunate yet amazingly talented musicians who have died at the age of 27. Her name will now be strung with the likes of Hendrix,Joplin,Morrison,Jones and Cobain all of whom died well before their time and will be forever 27.
Winehouse like the names listed above lived fast and now has died young. Unfortunatly for her, it is unlikely that her legacy will allow her to be remembered in such high regard with her only releasing two studio albums. Albeit one being the simply fantastic Back to Black. Many peoples feelings on the death of Winehouse is that it is simply a waste of such wonderful talents. A woman who willingly diminished her own health .Simply it was a matter of time.
Therefore, hopefully Winehouse will be remembered more for her quite simply astounding voice rather than her well publicised,troubled life. The decisions she made and the people she acquainted ultimately lead to her tragic demise.
With the ex-Oasis man having picked another feud with Radiohead having told them to 'go fuck yourselves' following the release of their latest effort 'The King of Limbs' the name of which deriving from a 1000 year old tree in Wiltshire. Gallagher took exception to this and had this to say : "I like to think that what we do, we do fucking well. Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself!"
To spectators such as myself it continually appears that continuous hellraiser Gallagher now is just crying out for press attention as he continues to release and perform with the imitation Oasis - Beady Eye. He also seemingly enjoy gunning for the bands gaining bigger attention and being generally better than Gallaghers latest attempt.
Rather than go into detail about Gallaghers insults and pops at other bands i decided to list a few of his more humorous quotes
"People like 'em. They at least play guitars, but when I hear his voice I'm like, 'Ah, fuck him'." Liam on Muse.
"Mumford and Sons look like amish people."
"Bright colours and fucking weirdos on stilts? I'm more entertaining than that shit" Liam on Scissor sistors
"Fuck right off. I'm not having him. I just don't like his head." Liam on Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong
"No way, mate. She's got man hands." Liam on La Roux
And with his constant bickering with his brother, I don't think i'm the first person hoping Liam can shut up for long enough to put out a decent album or make up with his brother!
Firstly, before I delve into this review. I must admit that I am and already was a huge Foo Fighters fan before seeing them and at times it may seem that I am arselicking them a tad. This is because they were simply that good.
There are not many things that I am willing to wake up at 6.30am for not many at all, especially on a Sunday morning. However, I found myself dragging my broken body up to travel to the National Bowl in Milton Keynes. Having previously been to the Bowl for The Prodigy concert, I knew what to expect and knew that it would be essential to travel from Manchester early in order to get one of the coverted Front Pit wristbands and with the Bowl holding 65,000 people we were eager to make sure we got one! We arrived at The Bowl around 12 collected our green wristbands and went to find a place to kill some time. Myself and my mate Tom managed to find a pub just over the road from the Bowl selling two meals for £10 (much better value than the burger vans outside and in the bowl £4.50 for a burger!) and ate and had a few beers whilst we waited for the gates to open.
When we arrived back at the Bowl the gates had opened earlier than anticipated and it was filling up quite nicely. We sorted ourselves with some merchandise and took our place in the front pit and attempted to make ourselves as comfy as possible for the many hours wait before the Foos came on.
The First act to come on stage was the DJ for the day and member of Husker Du Bob Mould. This was going to be the first of many times Bob was going to come on stage and play some songs for us. He managed to raise a few laughs with his comical dancing and moving around whilst he blasted out some tunes. Overall the crowd seem a bit flat as for many of the people Bob was not playing tunes that they knew and apart from the occasional huge hit there was very little appreciation for him from the crowd. Also, Mould didn't have a mic for some unknown reason so there was little chance for him to engage the crowd either.
The Hot Rats -5/10
The Hot Rats are half of the popular British rock pop group Supergrass. This project combines the Lead singer Gaz Coombes and the drummer Danny Goffey. The duos sideproject is a coverband and therefore we were treated to covers such as "Queen Bitch" made famous by David Bowie amongst many others. The Hot Rats weren't necessarily bad so to speak but they just lacked the prescence needed to get myself or the rest of the croud going. Their covers were polished but nothing special and I would have much prefered if Gaz and Danny had been doing Supergrass covers as I feel the two would have been best suited to staying in the band that gave them their name
Jimmy Eat World -7/10
Jimmy Eat World manage to liven the crowd up after the flatness following The Hot Rats. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Jimmy Eat world and their set therefore failed to liven me up apart from what felt obligitary involvement in their most famous song 'The Middle' In conclusion, Jimmy Eat World appear to be a good live act if your into that kinda music, they managed to interact with the crowd fairly well. Personally it just wasn't for me.
Biffy Clyro -9/10
I was eager to see how Biffy would be live as I'd previously missed out on seeing them before and this was the weekend before their headline slot at Sonisphere. All I can say is that they didn't dissapoint. As soon as the opening strains from 'The Captain' went up the crowd went mental. I was taken aback with how much energy and stage prescence Biffy had. Their setlist was the perfect mix of heavy stuff such as 'That Golden' Rules and powerful singalongs such as 'Mountains', 'Many of Horror', 'Bubbles' and 'Who's got a match?' Quite simply Biffy were awesome. They managed to get the croud going so much that unfortunatly in one of the pits a lad managed to break his leg. This was the only downside of what for me was a brilliant set. Truely the best support act I've ever seen! I hope that this followed by their Sonisphere headlining slot may be the start of a huge rise for Biffy as they have all the ingredients to make it to the top. I will be suprised if within the next 4-5 years they will not be doing their own stadium shows. I urge any of you if you get the chance to see Biffy then do!
Foo Fighters - 10/10
Well Quite simply put the Foo Fighters are the best live act I've ever seen. From the moment Dave ran on stage to a tsunami of clapping,screaming and craziness from the crowd he and the rest of the band never looked back. Sprinting down the runway which lead out into the audience to acknowledge them and imploring them for more pandemonium. The Foos began their set with two songs from latest album 'Wasting Light' and let me tell you from the moment the pounding of the drums on opening song 'Bridges Burning' 2 hours and 45 minutes of mayhem,singalongs and beer chugging had begun. The Foos ensured that despite a back catalogue of over 100 songs encompassing 7 studio albums, The Foo Fighters play all the croud pleasers that you'd expect to hear such as 'The Pretender,' 'Breakout,' 'My Hero' and 'Monkey Wrench' amongst many more whilst giving the more clued up fans some lesser known songs such as 'Generator,' 'Skin and Bones' and 'This is a Call.'
As the Foos continue to smash out the hits, they have all 65,000 people eating out of the palm of their hands hanging on the every last word of Dave and going metal for each song (special mention to the guy croudsurfing in a dinghy who got White Limo dedicated to him video below) each song turned into a mass sing-a-long most notably 'Best of You' in which the fans continued to sing the 'Woahs' long after the band had finished playing the song. Leaving the stage after the riotous performance of 'All My Life,' the crowd were treated to a live back stage video of the fans with Grohl using his fingers to indicate how many songs he was going to play in the encore with cheers getting loud with the more fingers he put up. We were promised 5. We got 6.
Returning to the stage Grohl ran down the run way to a smaller stage behind the sound desk to play for the fans who weren't lucky enough to get into the front pit. What followed what an solo version by Grohl of 'Wheels' during which he paid homage to the UK fans and talked about how much the moment meant to him. Then a half solo version of 'Times like these' followed. The Foos then preceded to roll out the red carpet with special guest appearances from Seasick Steve and John Paul Jones. This lead to Grohl going on the drums for a cover of Seasick Steve's 'Back in the dog house' The Foos then ended their set with one final singalong of their timeless classic 'Everlong.'
What made this gig so special for me apart from the hoards of hits and the crowd atmosphere being orchestrated by Grohl was that you can see that the Foo Fighters love what they are doing and this is no more evident then in their frontman. Every word uttered by Grohl is followed by a huge grin that says that he is just as happy to see the fans as they are to see him and he is more than willing to please them in any way possible (one instance being him egged on by the crowd to chug a bottle of beer any time he attempted to take a drink.) As the gig went on I found myself developing more and more love for Grohl and the band as they strived to please everyone present. One way of doing this was by jamming throughout the gig meaning songs like Stacked Actors that are 4 minutes long on the studio album become 10 minute long masterpieces.
In conclusion The Foos were everything I expected and more, despite the introduction of special guests being a nice touch, I personally would have much prefered it if the Foos would have reeled more songs off their own. All in all an amazing night. Not even the woeful wait to get out of the Bowl could dampen my mood as I await for more Foo Fighters dates to see them again
Foo Fighters Played :
1. Bridge Burning
2. Rope
3. The Pretender
4. My Hero
5.Learn to Fly
6, White Limo
7.Arlandria
8. Breakout
9. Cold Day in the Sun (Taylor Hawkins on Vocals)
10.Long Road to Ruin
11. Stacked Actors
12. Walk
13. Dear Rosemary (with Bob Mould)
14. Monkey Wrench
15. Let it Die
16. These Days
17. Generator
18. Best of You
19. Skin and Bones
20. All My Life Encore
21.Wheels (Dave Solo)
22. Times like These (Dave Solo for beginning)
23. Young Man Blues
24. Back in the Dog House (Seasick Steve Cover) (with seasick steve and John Paul Jones)
25. This is a Call
26. Everlong
Needless to say when I decided to write this review I was sceptical about the potential of a X-factor contestant who didn't even win that shambles of a show is releasing a song entitled 'Swagger Jagger'. Cher Lloyd's first single from her debut album attempts to merge a whole host of musical styles together. There is rapping a la Pitbull and some trance beats thrown in too. What results is well lets just say the scepticism was correct.
This song or noise as I'd be more inclined to call it is one of the worse I've ever heard. In my eyes it's a disgrace. It begs the question why are the people who aren't even winning the X factor being allowed to release this shit! Remember Daniel DeBourg? No me neither, needless to say that after this song I hope Cher Lloyd ends up the same way.
The song itself has a chorus which samples from the American western ballad Oh My Darling, Clementine with the repetition of "swagger jagger" and "get your game on" and for heavens sake what is a jagger? Mick Jagger? Google doesn't know. It appears that Lloyd has been taking lessons from Pitbull (Rhyming Kodak with Kodak truly a lyrical genius) with such wonderful lines. The verses follow a repetitive theme also with lines such as "you can't stop lookin at me" and "you can't stop tweetin 'bout me" . This may be true Cher but as yourself why? The looks may be due to the fact that in the video to this noise shes in some sort of retarded ensemble of clothes sure to make her stand out. Onto the Tweets, for the record if u do search Cher Lloyd's name on Twitter you will see a lot of tweets related to her. From the first page I didn't see a complimentary one lets leave it at that. As the song plods along in its continually annoying way Lloyd then begins to demand the listener to "get on the floor, get,get ,get on the floor." The way I feel about this is best summed up by Lloyd's peer rapper Example who said 'Everytime I hear the line "get on the floor" in a modern pop song I think to myself "that's genius, how do they come up with this stuff?" This is pretty much my attitude to the song and sort of the whole of chart music in general but thats another rant! Later in the song Lloyd sings "Hi haters, kiss kiss I see you later." Now, I'm glad Lloyd has comprehended that she will get haters for this song so why do it why? I attempted to find any good points about this song, still nothing springs to mind, sure Lloyd has a half-decent voice but this song does nothing more than irritate more than a rash.
In conclusion this song would be best off if it didn't exist, I can honestly say I prefered Rebecca Blacks 'Friday' to this woeful racket.Cher Lloyd might as well swagger off with her jagger (whatever one of those is!)
If any of you are feeling like depressing and annoying yourself then the link to the video is at the bottom of the page!
Four years after their last album the Red Hot Chili Peppers are back with the first single from their upcoming album I'm With You. As a keen fan of the Chili Peppers I was eager to see what the future would hold for them having lost their guitarist and one of my musical heros John Frusciante. However, this single has left me with mixed emotions about the future of one of my favorite bands.
The word that sprang to mind when I thought about the track in general was average. For me the song just didn't pack the punch that i'd expected from the Chilis. Gone are the strains of Flea's bass slapping, replaced with funkier strains particularly the opening of the song and an excellent bassline. Chad Smith's drumming is as perfect as ever with added cowbell for good measure spread throughout the song. Kiedis lyrics are what are expected from any Chili Peppers song. Even new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer gives enough guitar lines to satisfy his most ardent of critics (one being me!) However, the undoing for this song in my opinion lay in the chorus which in general feels far too poppy for the Chilis. For me this is the down fall of the song it is bland and repetitive and gives the song a rather boring and for me too relaxed feel.
All in all this song is enough to keep hopes relatively high for the upcoming album but I do feel that this is a single that could have been so much more
Mud,music,madness(no not the baggy trousers kind!) the British music festival is engrained in our society. However, a problem appears to be growing for the organisers of these getaways for a large majority of the nations public. In a recent interview with The Times, festival guru Michael Evis (Owner of the farm in which Glastonbury is held) expressed his concerns about the future of the iconic festival saying "it may only have three years left."
Why is this?
One reason this may be is simply the fans attending these festivals have seen it all before. It's now seeming that only a certain number of acts are considered good enough to headline the top festivals and consistently these bands are appearing on festival line-ups after only a year or two of having previously headlining, one example of this is Def Leppard at Download headlining again this year having done so in 2009. This repetition must be beginning to bore the fans having to watch the same bands over and over. It appears that there are very few festivals willing to give up and coming acts their chance of headlining. One example of a festival inclined to do this was Sonisphere giving Biffy Clyro a headline slot, which was met positively by fans and reviewers alike. However, giving these acts the opportunity is not without its risks which may be putting may festivals off doing so. This can be seen with Eavis being quoted as saying that Glasto almost went bankrupt in 2008 when the festival controversially booked Jay-Z. The problem may however lie not in the festival organisers but in the bands themselves. Prehaps their albums have not skyrocketed them to the success of deserving to top the bill on the main stage of a festival. One band that springs to mind when thinking of this is Queens of the Stone Age. Despite having hugely recogniseable anthems (No One Knows, 3's and 7's) and having been around for over a decade, they have never headlined a British festival. Until the continuous recycling of artists of headliners is fixed then the interest in the major festivals will continue to drain.
Another reason why these festivals could be at risk of dissapearing is the huge inflation of the ticket prices in recent years. It is no longer cheap to attend these festivals. A ticket for one of the major festivals will set you back upwards of £190 for a weekend ticket. Using the Reading and Leeds Festivals as an example in 1989 a weekend ticket was a modest £32.50, In 2000 this had doubled to £80 and this years price being a huge £192.50. Clearly as festivals were growing more popular the organisers capitalised upon the loyalty of the patrons attending the festivals. However, it has reached a point where their greed has outgrown their justification for purchasing a ticket, many fans mindset is "why spend £190 on a festival where you can go and see many more music acts at stadium shows for a small fraction of that fee?" It is these unjustifiable prices that are affecting the major festivals with many of them failing to sell out and putting them in risk of extinction.
Also, with the influx of smaller festivals coming on the scene, this is causing more difficulty for many of these minnows of the festival world with many of them just not selling enough tickets in the current recession. This is resulting in many casualties dying a death without the transfusion of ticket money to keep them afloat. Casualties include Glade Festival and Northern Lights Festival. Also, these smaller festivals find themselves being muscled out of the business by the financial might of companies such as Festival Republic who own numerous festivals and therefore book the best acts due to their high bank balances. However, with these major festivals not selling out this will limit their expendatures in the coming years.
A further problem is the number of previously loyal festivalgoers choosing to travel abroad for music festivals. Festivals such as Benicassim and Coachella have seen a huge increase in the amount of Brits coming to soak up the music,atmosphere and sun! The appeal of these festivals is easy to see with the mix of a holiday and a festival with the tickets to these festivals being cheaper or the same price as their British counterparts. Also, these foreign festivals also can guarentee a brilliant line-up due to there being no exclusivity of certain bands being only able to play certain festivals like there is in this country. These foreign festivals are contrubuting to the seeming slow death of the British Music Festival.
And so with the festival season in full swing the problems are there for all to see with Reading and Leeds still having 40% of their overall tickets to sell and being sold for below face value and Latitude,Download and WOMAD all failing to sell out. It may be a time for those attending to savour the moment as it may be one of the last
