YOU BANDS ARE STILL NOT GETTING IT...

There's a million bands trying to get our attention, there are far far  too many bands in the world, we could easily lose 90% them and no one would notice. oh yes, I could so so get away with being a band slaying serial killer. No one would notice, I wouldn't have to think about getting rid of the bodies, no messing around with acid baths and pits in Epping Forest, just leave them there on the Camden mainstrip with the skunk sellers and the mouldy remains of brit pop... Open a little second hand music equipment shop down Denmark Street, sell off their equipment that they probably couldn't play in the first place... 

"oh yes nice Fender Egocaster, one careful owner (I think his mummy bought it for him), didn't play it much, couldn't write an e.mail mail let alone a tune from what I heard... no, gave up music....no, mate don't know what happened to him, I did hear he was sitting on the Camden Bridge next to the Skunk Dealers and those old Brew drinking punks and not moving much, heard he wasn't smelling too good, but hey what's another bad smell in Camden Town? Fifty quid, yeah sure, it's yours, just be sure to make a good demo then communicate properly, wouldn't want to have to sell this guitar again now would I..."

HEY BANDS, communicate properly and you might get a response and avoid being part of the great 2006 band slaying mystery...

We haven't got time if you haven't!

2:44 AM - 12 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
 

Contact: thisisquackquack@ yahoo.co.uk  www.runofthemillrecords.co.uk
 

John on the phone......

ORGAN ON YOUR RADIO @ RESONANCE 104.4FM - NOW IT'S WEEKLY! Because writing about music is like dancing about architecture - Organ on the air.. Sean and Marina from Organ present underground music, goings-on from beyond and who knows what. Alternating with the on air duties and styles, one week Marina, the next week Sean. On air every Sunday night, invading your taxi cabs, your bath times and all of your airwaves. One hour every Sunday, kicking off at 10.30pm all over London on proper radio on 104.4FM and all over the world via the web at www.resonancefm.com  Marina brings you  “The Other Rock Show” – The Other Rock is the musical exploration of the avant perverse and complex rock, progressive adventures beyond the safety of 4/4. Sean will be bringing you whatever the hell he wants, who knows?

X

1: TRANSISTOR SIX - Backyard Rocket Ship - the intro music so you can find us while you’re sailing by and tuning in (if you weren’t listening to the always excellent Sunday night play before hand).

2: JAZ KAMMER - The Worms Will Get In (Smalltown Supernoise) - First four minutes or so of their 16 minute total sludge and doom-out epic that you all loved so much when we played the little sections last time. Elsewhere on the album you’ll fine relentless gabber-drill metal and all kinds of experimental stuff - the album is called Metal Music Machine... perfect name for the album, it’s out next month - www.jazkammer.com

3: CARDIACS - To Go Off And Things (Alphabet) - Live version from the Rude Bootleg album recorded at the Reading Festival where they got their uniforms very muddy - www.cardiacs.com is where you go for more

4: SPIRRIITWO - Foundling (demo) - Her/their - is she a she or are they a band fronted by a she? Who is she? She’s from Israel, this is her rather beautiful version of the Cardiacs track, there’s very few who dare to attempt a Cardiacs cover and manage to pull it off. www.myspace.com/spirriitwo

5: HAWNAY TROOF - Out of Teen (Southern) from the new Dollar And Deed double CD - boundary pushing hop-hop from Oakland California - www.southern.net or www.myspace.com/hawnaytroof

6: MEADOW HOUSE - Hungerford Bridge (Alcohol) - from the very strange and rather beautiful album Tongue Under A Ton of Nine Volters. He appears, well I think its a he and not a band, to be from London. I don’t know, the just turned up in the post, we’ve played several tracks now, the only website address takes us to an estate agent! 

7: KEITH BURTON - Cannibal (Fanny Street) Mr Burton’s rather different version of the Send More Paramedics death metal anthem - who is he? Hoodrats next? He’s got a whole album of this stuff, whatever this stuff is? - www.keithburtonandhisbeefcurtain.co.uk

8: THE SMEARS - Wrath - Demo track from the three piece all-girl punk rock band from Nottingham who played a Sausy Lil Tart Riot Grrrrl flavoured night in Inverness Street (Camden) last week and absolutely ripped the place apart, Such nice quiet people until they hit the stage (or floor, there’s no stage in the Colours Bar). The Sob Dollies were good as well. www.myspace.com/smearsuk

9: HOT CLUB DE PARIS - Slump Life (Downloaded track from their MySpace page) The Liverpool band are playing the Buffalo Bar in Highbury Tomorrow (8th May - well that’s today now, I just got home from Resonance and its now the early hours of Monday morning), playing a lot right now, we caught them with Battles and they are well worth all the attention they’re getting right now. www.myspace.com/hotclubdeparis

10: INDICA RITUAL - Hiroshima - From the Liverpool band’s three track demo, they probably have a my Space page as well, hang on, let me see (Mummy, what did we do before in the world before My Space...?) www.myspace.com/indicaritual

11: 65DAYSOFSTATIC - Another Code Against The Game (Monotreme) Track from the Sheffield band's groundbreaking debut album The Fall Of Math, a revisit from us before their next batch of live shows - www.monotreme.com

12: THE UNIT AMA - Plastic Bertrand (Gringo) Track from their excellent new album of progressive blues/free-jazz art rock. They’re band from the North East who you need to catch live - check them out at Gringo and while you’re there check out the new album from Lords, so much good underground music around right now if you go look for it, this is a golden age - www.gringorecords.com

13: DAS WANDERLUST - I Wish I Was (Don’t Tell Clare) – Rather fine DIY release from the Middlesborough band that comes in a lo-fi hand made cover that really is a pleasure to handle. Best place to track them down is www.myspace.com/daswanderlust

14: CARTRIDGE - Fooling Around (Cartridge Music) - A track from the very recently self released debut album from one of the best new bands in London right now (and checkout all their other projects and such as well - lots to explore). The album is called Cases, you can find it in places like Rough Trade. www.cartridgetheband.com

15: CONFLICT - C.R.A.S.S.(Mortarhate) Classic slice of English Anarcho punk from back in 1986 because there’s still a need for an ungovernable force - www.mortarhate.com

16: THE LOVE SUBSTITUTES - Bangladesh Fashions (Heaven Hotel) - Track from the second album that comes out tomorrow (8th May), they’re from Belgium, part of the always rewarding Deus family - www.heavenhotel.be

17: LEAFCUTTER JOHN - Dream 2 (Staubgold) - A track from the excellent new album The Forest And The Sea (released on 19th June) - the album is a beautiful set of field noises, found sounds and post-electronica laced around songs that taste of folk and Radiohead and Nick Drake and probably sums up the spirit of Resonance FM more than almost anyone. John Burton is also part of Polar Bear and very much involved in the contemporary arts scene, his latest project was to be found at the Serpentine Gallery, a collaboration with Tomoko Takahashi. Oh look, there’s loads to explore with Leafcutter John, both on this wonderful album and with alL his other inspiring creativity 

18: LEAFCUTTER JOHN - Let It Begin (Staubgold) - Because to play just one track of this beautiful album gives you no real idea, indeed it would be misleading - Dream 2 is a two minute glowing organic electronic piece of sculpture, Let it Begin is a beautiful song, two sides of a many sided work of.... oh, enough gushing now. Leafcutter John plays a launch party gig for this album at the monthly ICA folk event Roots And Shoots on June 22nd - www.leafcutterjohn.com

19: THE KNIGHTS OF THE NEW CRUSADE - Cowards Of Christendom (Alternative Tentacles) - So what’s going on here? Best go ask Jello and save your soul, is it for real, is a bluff, is it....www.alternativetentacles.com

20: MEET ME IN ST LOUIS - We Need To Act Like We Don’t Need This Shit. Then They Gave Us The Shit For Free (Function) – Lead track from the bands five tracks debut EP. Theyre from Guildford or maybe Exeter or somewhere in Southern England and they were kind of annoyed that we didn’t rate their previous demos but hey, this is good debut single and were more than happy to eat our words and feed your ears - www.meetmeinstlouis.co.uk

21: IGGY POP - New York Is Beating Its Chest ... Again (Buddyhead) - A track from the excellent Gimmie Shelter compilation from Buddyhead. Well now I dont know 100f it is actually Iggy (but hey you don’t need to be that much of a detective) and he probably didn’t want to put his name to the track - well he wasn’t that complimentary about Moby was he? Buddyhead is an underground radio/internet/thing/webzine from LA - www.buddyhead.com – they like to "jack your ears off". 

22: THE ROCK OF TRAVOLTA - Sleep With The Lights On (Tablature) - Track from the instrumental post-rock outfits 2003 album, they’re been quiet for quite some time, theyre playing the Bull&Gate in Kentish Town very soon (with One More Kiss – who’s demo has been played on previous shows). Go surf and find the date, its very soon, we cant do everything for you. Thursday 11th May, see we do do everything for you - www.bullandgate.co.uk

Next week it's Marina's turn again, that means it's the OTHER ROCK SHOW and the rule with the Other Rock Show is rock music that flies beyond the convention of a 4/4 time signature... if you enjoy the ORGAN hour please do feedback and please do go have a look at the Resonance FM site and maybe donate a little to the Transmitter fund. Resonance FM is a unique station, you hear things you never hear on more conventional commercial stations, there is no advertising and everyone does this for free - were all addicted volunteers but hey, we hammer that equipment seven says a week, it needs repair. Support the station so we can do more of this please, please go donate a little (via www.resonancefm.com)

Thanks.  Sean O  . 
 

DEMO OF THE WEEK
OOoo, we have loads of them, just give me a moment won't yer... ..... 

ALSO CHECK OUT
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Last week's demo of the week - BROOKE

Previous demo's of the week - CARTRIDGE / PERHAPS CONTRAPTION / THE PROCESS VOID

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

LEAFCUTTER JOHN – The Forest And The Sea (Staubgold) – John Burton’s fourth full length album (out on June 19th in the UK) is a warm quiet soothing inviting set of clever sound-wave-washes along the shores of post-electronica. Gathered together field noises – crickets, birds, electronic buzzing, ticking, water falls, Scratchy piano wire, pylon hums and who knows what  - used so well to create the very rich detail within the songs (that’s the crucial point, within the songs). A dynamic mix of less-is-more avant electronica and delicate acousticness all bound together as one wholesome encompassing rewarding thing. Post electronic experimentation and very clever texture meets quiet/warm acoustic folk natured songs. It’s all very much about songs (maybe not the most conventional songs – songs though, very fine songs) and it all works so so wonderfully well. 
      We get so many pieces of textured electronic experimentation and (almost) random noise, so so much of it heading out of art school/bedroom studios in the hope of review, all trying so so hard to pass itself off as some kind of hi-brow intellectual musical exercise when all it really is, is self indulgent (boring) background sound (mess) and almost-art made by people who can’t actually play ‘properly’. Attempts that, on the whole, at best, invite some kind of reaction during that brief moment of interaction – and then quickly forgotten (most of it comes self released, and clearly pressed in very small numbers). Yes, there is some good stuff to be found and yes, it certainly does not need to revolve around song construction – the only rule is there are no rules (bring us more Lustmord). 
       Leafcutter John takes all those textured electronic things and those found field noises (and released honey bees) and keeps all the experimental left-field spirit of art as he crucially weaves it in to clever (never obvious) delicate acoustic song constructions. Right now it feels something like the atmosphere of a creaky old sailing ship adrift in the doldrums, a little while back it sounded somewhat like horses on cobbles until it subtly turned in to what sounded like amplified insects before the warm throb and hum of analogue keyboard (or maybe harmonium) eased in – and now he sounding like the more beautifully restrained glowing moments of Radiohead or maybe Nick Drake or Nick Cave (and there go those electronic crickets and grasshoppers again..) 
        There’s a lot to explore with the works of John Burton – he’s part of Polar Bear, there’s his work with u-Ziq/Speedy J, his contributions to the contemporary arts scene, his gallery/installation music, lots to explore both here with this fine album and in all his other work. The Forest And The Sea is a rather special and very accessible album, a beautiful warm glowing resonant album. The official launch takes place at the ICA with John headlining their monthly folk event ‘Roots and Shoots’ on June 22. Another must check album then (sorry), beautifully refined warm treats to get lost in for hours and hours and hours (fine album artwork as well). www.leafcutter.33-rpm.net

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 2

LORDS "This Ain't A Hate Thing, It's A Love Thing" (Gringo) - Disclaimer time. Sigh. We get so much bad music sent to us here at Organ. I only mention this, reluctantly, because, g’dammit, here comes yet another over-the-top slavering description of a preposterously good album, and it’s starting to get embarrassing. What can I say? It's soooo late at night, I'm sooo tired come back from hauling heavy Organs to bands going on tour and catching a gig and riding the night bus and my brain is hurting trying to write but I. can't. listen. to. any. more. music... There's thick black rings about my worried eyes... The first note of this Lords album, then the second, that wheezing shotgun shack intro like a gator swimming up to the porch feels good even before they kick in - and when they do, I don't need to go to no bed any more, I just want to stay up all night and dig Lords.  This life-giving number is called Pint Of Wine, should be pint of pro-plus: seven beats of bliss to the bar, so righteous. It’s just blues rock, a bunch of riffs really, but in the hands of magicians, alchemists.  That these guys are coming from Leeds just does not compute. Has global warming transformed their Yorkshire to a steamy bayou already?  This sounds hot, swampy, authentic, natural.   It also has an avant-rock foundation, sometimes more Beefheart than Beefheart, the playing is tight yet unforced, absolutely in the zone, captured with great live-in-the-studio, dirty-real production. The core members of drummer and two guitars (no bass!), are briefly reinforced with cello and clarinet, while Lord Philippe Jean Welding who appears to be the vox man, revives an ancient tradition of English voices drawling the blues to good effect, the lyrics leavened with a touch of the daft. Any excursions into the avant are swept up into the primal, raw magnificence of Lords' unfettered groove.  This Ain’t a Hate Thing... is consistently thrilling, one brilliantly rough diamond after another.    Spectacularly good.
www.gringorecords.com

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 3 (who says we can't have three albums of the week, when did you start making our rules?)

IMMUNE - 1/f (Gizeh) - An opening track, Human, that unforcedly echoes the nitty-gritty good things about Radiohead (rather than just imitating the surface sound). It's worth getting over the fact that Paul Tinsley does possess a voice pretty similar to that of Thom Yorke; having that kind of honeyed, warm vibrato in a male voice is no bad thing, at all, especially one like this, one with such with a spectacular range. There's a great deal in this album that would satisfy a hungry Radiohead fan: what it does not have is the really out there, dazzling deeply original moments Radiohead are capable of with things like Pyramid Song.  Not a problem: Immune create melody and refined, brooding, spacious atmospherics, all consistently well done. The soundscape elements are worked through and around the songs, emotive and essential where other bands tack them on. Delve into the album, give it some time, and slow revelations surface: the menace of techno-apocalypse in Selling Screen; the aching piano/voice duet of Monatomy... The moody, soundtrack-like tensions and emergent Arabic motifs in Consume and *** (that's the name of the track by the way, not a typo) both slow-build to enormous, swaying monsters, the latter gloriously ominous, their epic of epics.  A much more progressive Porcupine Tree, a smoother, restrained King Crimson, the refined introspection of Catherine Wheel: Immune could be one popular band. Both Human and the following song Monkey enjoy variations on majestic 7-beat riffs, which, if you find these musicians' terms of reference a little wearing, is best explained as a skipping groove that can be great looping beast of a rhythm when slowed down, Monkey has a particularly fine lolloping interpretation. Finally, the short, mournful, gorgeous instrumentals that top and tail the album are worth the effort alone.  If you're one of those prog-heads who find Porcupine Tree far too ‘normal’ and most avant-rock too harsh, this is what you've been waiting for.  From another perspective, Immune share the field with Muse, Oceansize and Pure Reason Revolution - epic rock, with a cool head, passionate depths, growing increasingly braver and attracting all the more devotion for it. 
www.be-immune.com
www.gizehrecords.com

ALSO CHECK OUT

KARDA ESTRA - The Age Of Science And Enlightenment (Cyclops) - Warm orchestral soundtracks to imaginary films... perhaps sweetly sinister dark fairy tales.  Pastoral, sometimes slightly gothic, harmonically a cut above most neo-classical progressive (and especially new age) recordings.  Karda Estra is the work of Richard Wiseman, composing and playing most instruments. The Age Of Science And Enlightenment is also much enriched with his arrangements for cor anglais, oboe, strings and flute, emotive female choral touches. Influences hinted at from Mike Oldfield, Sea Nymphs, Vaughn Williams, Satie, maybe a touch Bacharach, and The Enid with (huzzah!) all the schmaltzy bits completely avoided; more than a little Earlygenesis and Anthony Philips/ Steve Hackett.  And way better than that Lord Of The Rings score 
www.kardaestra.co.uk  or  www.gft-cyclops.co.uk

EVERYTHING FOR SOME – Identity (Casket) - God what a punchable voice that singer has – they do that Rage Against Will Haven thing well enough but hell hell hell and hell again, that singer sounds like he’s dancing barefoot on drawing pins and screaming for his mummy. Half decent band if you liked that relentellss Earthtone 9/Cynical Smile thing from a few years ago. Will that singer ever stop yelping like s kicked puppy with a red hot pocker up his arse though? Hey look, his name is Chicken, damn well sounds like it – yeah, I know, we have a review policy, blah blah blah, go complain to your local gooner taxi driver. www.everythingforsome.com
 
 
 

Last week's album of the week - THE UNIT AMA / BEATNIK FILMSTARS / CHAMPION KICKBOXER Previous album's of the week - THESE MONSTERS / SUNS OF THE THUNDER / TELEVISE / SONIC YOUTH / PSAPP / ENABLERS / SUNN O))) / CATNAP / THE DRESDEN DOLLS / PROUDFLESH / all the past has been deleted (for now)

-  One day, sooner or later, we'll daydream about the days of the mid-noughties. People will sigh and reminisce about sacred little gigs in tiny venues, about seeing this lost legend or that huge phenomena playing together for a fiver. There is a quite ridiculous amount of quality music about compared with, say ten, even five years ago, that I think we're spoilt.It's balanced, to be fair, by a further vast sea of the ordinary - but, still... listen:

Lower Forty-Eight are in town from San Francisco, they have a solid, muscular post-hardcore sound, delivered with absolute commitment and energy. They're going down well, but I'd love to see them support a hyped screamo band in a bigger venue just to see all those teenage jaws thunk the floor. Lower Forty-Eight build their blistering rock on an array of mathy dynamics. They avoid the math-rock pitfall of concentrating on complexity to the detriment of light and shade - in other words, they're not boring. Not by a long shot: they make their riffs nice and big and chunky, and when they change rhythms, you know about it.  The three of them blasting through their songs tight and furious make good rock spectacle at this close range.

Quack Quack are from Leeds, an instrumental three-piece consisting of bassist, drummer and keyboardist. They are absolutely charming.  The bassist is of the kind that makes you realise that most bass players are rubbish. Great bass players can hypnotise a room when grooving on one note. The drummer has me thinking, wow, two impressive drummers in one night, and he's as good as that guy in Polaris we saw the other day... kind of looks like him as well.. ahem. I suppose great drummers are still pretty rare too. So Quack Quack have this fab rhythm section that locks together to make these very Can, especially Neu! sounding, a bit Don Cab, gentle, sunny Krautrocky drivers that have everybody bobbing and smiling. The icing on this happy cake comes in the form of fat, brightly coloured keyboard daubs, a little Charlie Brown and Sesame Street and proggy-Hammond, though emanating from a couple of flimsy little things fixed up with effects pedals and what-have-you (if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd have sworn the sound came from a back-breaking stack of analogue synths). Underneath, those simple, clear tunes are quite sophisticated, innocent without being cutesy. Locked together telepathically, storming through Cut Me Some Slacks (from their first EP) and having a whale of a time, Quack Quack grab a great deal of attention, gathering the crowd pressed up to the tiny Buffalo Bar stage until they're almost playing in the round. The Leeds diaspora who've made the effort are grinning as much as the newbies, who quickly grow to love Quack Quack just as much.

Now, Lords rock.  Lords are unbelievably cool. It's the blues alright, and bastid child 'o Beefheart blues too, but the blues in good hands.  Kind of skewed, kind of thought-about underneath the way Beefheart used to, absorbed until in the bones then performed with abandon.  Not, hasten to add, debased blues of the pub variety - hah, imagine slipping Lords onto a gig like that, the carnage - but some sort of fresh start, rewind to when Humble Pie, Ten Years After and Cream were skinny and spotty and progressive, importing that strange, fresh and alien sound to these shores, and go.  The result should, if done correctly, be a very good time had by all... here in the cozy cellar of the Buffalo Bar, squished ten deep up against the noses of the band, we are indeed having a good time. It's the singer/guitarist's birthday, so double excuse to party. These Lords don't have bass guitars, you know, but a guitass and a bassar, which means someone's always looking after the bottom end. They can also slide-duel deliriously. We all try to avoid getting our noses sliced off by machine heads, and others try to not fall onto the cymbal with the sizzling chain wriggling across its surface like a coachwhip-snake.  It's tricky, because most everyone is compelled to groove to this sweaty, jazzy, magnificent rock, and trying to do so without damaging their neighbours. Much of the set is from their new album, hence superb peaks and invigorating, uplifting groove-outs, the occasional soulful pulling back to erupt later. Mainly, we just get rocked. 
Lower Forty-Eight... Quack Quack... Lords...on the surface very different, yet complementing each other nicely, each band made up of totally tight and righteous musicians joined at the head and heart, their tunes subtly complex, uncontrived, trying for something one-off in a natural way. All three way ahead of their peers. Maybe none of them will be famous one day.  (M.O.)
 

Last week's single of the week - i LIKE TRAINS

Previously - THE OXFAM GLAMOUR MODELS / PSAPP / GREENSPACE
 

PAST ISSUES -

ORGAN 156 -

ORGAN 155 - 

ORGAN 154 - 

ORGAN 153 - 

ORGAN 152 - 

ORGAN 151 - Out in print now, 40 pages A5 APRIL Organ

ORGAN 150 - NEXT LIFE, CRETIN, HAWNAY TROOF, SYMMETRY, GREENSPACE, DRUGDEALER CHEERLEADER, LAST PARTY, ALEX WARD, BURNT, INTENTION , TRACTOR SEX FATALITY, THE DRESDEN DOLLS, PROUDFLESH, THE GHOSTS, SPEED THEORY, EL TOPO, THE CULT WITH NO NAME, THE PROCESS VOID. 

all the past has been deleted (for now)