Another gathering of West Midlands musical activity noticed on MySpace. As always with this stuff taste is relative and your mileage will vary.
Sabotage Left I nearly saw once and maybe I’ll actually see them one day. Nice fast poundy guitar shouty punky stuff going on there.
Long Day Gone do melodic guitar based rock that all sounds very familiar in a road house kinda way.
Pagan are a female fronted (and I wish that wasn’t notable but it is, damn it) rock band with edges of metal. I keep thinking they should be heavier but that’s probably just the pentagram.
The Culprit are from Stratford but that’s close enough and do that harmonising metal thing.
Tobias again do the harmonising metal thing. I think the kids call it Emo, but what do I know.
Photo buck the trend slightly by coming from a more pop-punk angle and I think I can detect interesting things going on there.
The True Believers are kinda odd, with vocals sounding like 80s crooner-pop and a whole gamut of musical styles from electronica to country.
Morning View are of the acoustic songwritery vibe and need some photos taken, something I’ll hopefully be able to help with.
H.O.S.T.I.L.E. describe themselves as “Progressive / Death Metal” and have a song called “Urine Love”. Like a lot of this kind of thing it doesn’t do much for me through the headphones but I’m sure it’s enormous fun live.
I might be in an overly critical mood (music can be susceptible to that kind of thing) but not much really leapt out and grabbed me from that bunch. Of course this is all based on their music streaming from MySpace – live performances are bound to be different – so don’t read too much into that. What’s really becoming apparent is there’s a shitload of yer basic rock and metal out there and while I support that it’s not really my thing. Where are the Misty’s, the Noise Noise Allores, the Magnetophones? Give me some quirk!
Also noted: Miss Lisa is putting on gigs of the post-rock / intelli-metal (I made that one up) variety. Zoot, who put on gigs at the Flapper, have a MySpace presence, as does Arthur of the Catapult Club who does gigs at the Jug and Bar Academy. And here’s Capsule for all your Custard Factory needs.
Links to other Brum bands in the comments please, or just friend me.
By the way, the secret project is going well. I hope to have some more thing to show you soon.
I’m currently liking those Moseley yummies, Deluka….
http://www.deluka.co.uk/
Ooh, Deluka are good! Thanks for that. Not that I’d know from their “sign up to hear” site. Not picking on them specifically as most band sites are stupid like this. Why should I give them my details if I don’t know if I like them yet?
It’s saying something when a site as atrocious as MySpace can obliterate the tenuous usefulness of the current standard in band websites in one fell swoop, but I’m ranting…
Anyway, http://www.myspace.com/deluka
You’re ranting but you’re right. All the bands you’ve mentioned in your round-ups should be giving everything they’ve recorded away free (or at least under a sensible Creative Commons license), to get every last bit of exposure they can. I understand the desire to keep track of who is listening to you and who is interested in you, but at the same time I know that if I have to jump through too many hoops to listen to a band I just won’t do it. There are always other people out there!
There is a similar argument on MySpace too. Why make your tracks available for streaming, but not download? It only takes one extra button click, and it means that I don’t have to use the flash interface that fights with my mp3 player every time it’s opened.
Oh, and whilst my dander is up, if you’re reading this, are in a band, and have mp3s online, then making sure they’re fucking tagged correctly!
don’t forget us, Paisley Riot!
got some great gigs coming up in the next few weeks, supportinG The Harrisons, Shout Out Louds, Little Man Tate and Bromheads Jacket – all bands you should be checking out anyway!
grab loads of free downloads of our stuff at
http://www.paisleyriot.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/paisleyriot
cheers!
Paisly: Not forgotten! This is merely a summary of stuff I’ve found recently. There’s so much I need to keep notes somewhere and I might as well make them public. At some point I’l probably do something with all this but right now it’s a work in progress.
Nick: Since you’re in a band that kind of attitude gives me hope. As an aditional argument in favour of making tracks downloadable, were I to put together a podcast of music by local bands (and I probably will do just that as part of a new sekrit project I’m working on) you can guess which ones would be in it…
I don’t know about quirk, but have a go with Grandscope (Theirspace) for a band who aren’t quite as much your typical rock group.