Illness

Going away for a few days but have a lot of good stuff for stream/download. Stick with us!!!

Love Is A Stream by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

Just when I’d all but given up on ‘noise’, I stumbled accross this awesome album by some San Francisco avant-garde type. Give it a try by streaming it here. It sounds kind of like how you’d expect Loveless to sound if you believed all the guff people write about it (don’t get me wrong I do love Loveless). Like the guy wrote a pop album and then just buried it under 10ft of distortion. Tempted to get this on vinyl to check out that bleached to hell cover art up close and personal. Niiiiice

Other than the fat, all-devouring Sea Monsters festival that we blogged about last week and is taking place Tuesday-Saturday this week, there is also an excellent show on Wednesday at Hector’s House, that we will definitely be attending. Headlining are Headquarters (can’t find a link), yet to hear but the promoter Colin holds them in high regard and he has pretty good taste so sure to be worth watching. Chief draw for me, however, are the three support acts. Nitkowski make truly excellent progressive nervous rock. Guns or Knives is Stef from Shield Your Eyes solo acoustic thing. Me with others is another acoustic thing from Dave from a band/collective called Plurals, haven’t heard or seen yet but very much looking forward to checking out. Come on down! 5 on the door or 4 from Edgeworld.

Who are Crushing Blows?

Crushing Blows are a two-piece band from Derby, we played with them last November at Hockley Hustle, a festival in Nottingham. Their an awesome live act. The stuff the guitarist does with loop pedals is depressingly good. They remind me a bit of Friendship, a band we played with a few times a couple of years ago.

Why are you blogging about them?

I just found out they have released an EP for download on Bandcamp. It is also good. They were giving out one of the tracks on a CD-r at the gig we played with them and Emilio and I have enjoyed that, and now there’s four to enjoy! And that cover art is smoking - very tasteful.

Got this a couple of months ago at a gig both the bands played. It’s awesome! Everything from the 82-style recording quality to that insanely bad taste cover art just works for me. And the songs are great too! Both definitely Punk bands, Death Pedals American Hardcore in the classic sense, It Often Takes A War more down the Fucked Up/Prog punk route. IMHO

We know both bands through gigging in London. Alex from Death Pedals put us on at the Stag’s Head which was an awesome show. The night he runs (maybe with someone else whose name escapes me) is called “I Hate The Kids” and I wish I could go to it every month. Fortunately he’s started putting on gigs down here at the Cowley too so I’ll be able to enjoy his excellent taste in local heaviness more often. Rainey from It Often Takes A War is another London promoting legend. He helps run the “Rip This Joint” nights that always look excellent. We played one with Hey Collosus that was really fat. Anyway, probably best to pick it up at a gig, but you can get it here too. WORTH YOUR MONEY HONESTLY!

Brighton gigs -

Death Pedals: Feb 25th Cowley Club, Mar 26th Hobgoblin, April 16th Cowley Club

It Often Takes A War: nothing coming up! Shame!

Here both the Death Pedals tracks on their myspace

And one of the It Often Takes A War tracks on theirs

Did you know….that you can download loads of cool That Fucking Tank/Kill Yourself and related acts stuff for free here. Haven’t gone too deep into it yet, but got hold of Tank’s first album here and really enjoying it. Looking forward to hearing Kill Yourself as well. Nice!

Looks like Obscene Baby Auction is/was a label/promoter in Leeds that I think Andy and James Tank ran/helped to run/run. If you go on their website here you can read a load more about them, including details of their upcoming gigs (one on the 25th Feb looks sweet - shame we don’t live in Bradford). Go Yorkshire!

New stuff from Derby premier prog blues ‘lads’ Grande Duke over at bandcamp. Features awesome new guitarist Chris. Very refined shit IMHO. Oh, and they are playing tommorow at the Cowley Club, did I mention that enough times already? Next mission - piece of vinyl please…

Feels like ages since we played in the big smoke. But the time has come to once more book super value tickets on southernrailway.com and cruise on up to our mighty capital. And, well I’m blowed, we’re only headlining!

Lamp play kind of Enablers - Polvo - duelling post-rock guitar kind of stuff that is just incredible. I’ve only seen them live once, supporting Part Chimp, but they are seriously one of the best live acts around by my reckoning. Hopefully they will play some more gigs soon cos I really want to see them again. I think they’re kind of spread accross the country at the mo but do everyone a favour and send them a nice request to get it together and rock out once more:

http://www.myspace.com/electriclamp

I’m sure there’s more great gigs going on but these are the two I’ll 100% be going to.

Wednesday: Soccer 96 + Grande Duke + Hothead Show + Fat Bicth @ Cowley Club

Full disclosure - I, along with housemate/general member of Illness milieu Chris, are putting this one on. Still going to be awesome. Soccer 96 are a fantastic keyboard/synth and drums duo, hard to describe but awesome. Grande Duke (I think I posted about them before) are from Derby and play kind of progressive, minimal Shellacy blues. Hothead Show features the drummer from Soccer 96 and were welcomed onto the bill v. last minute, kind of funky and outre. And Fat Bicth’s reputation preceds them as just weird. Should be fun! 3 quid I think.

Thursday: Gig @ The Hydrant featuring Crooked Mountain, Crooked Sea, and others. Bit bummed out about this one as I have work until 10. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out early. We went on tour with the Crooked boys and have been listening to their as yet unreleased album the last few weeks. Looking forward to seeing them play again. They have a great nervous tension. The first band sounded great when Andy from Crooked Mountain played me their demo, just hoping I can make it in time!

Lovely!

Friday: Jovian @ The Green Door Store

Great set from the lads, the stone room really suited their massive sludge sound. And it seems they have added a new speed to their repetoire. Mid-tempo baby!

Saturday: Heliopause @ The Fairtrade Gallery

Two-man Heliopause formation in a really nice space that I haven’t visited before. Sounded like a very different band from the one with drums and electrified I saw last year. Less post-rock and more Sufjan Stevens (the quiet stuff - John Wayne Gacy etc.) All in all very very lovely vibe at the show.

Saturday: Anacondas @ The Hydrant (upstairs)

Meant to say something about these guys when I saw them last week. Some or all (I’m not sure) of the members used to be in a band called Johnny Truant. This is their new thang. Features Tim Lazer Horse on incredible drums. Very fun, catchy heaviness. Not too serious or tech, just the right amount of pathos. YES!

Relevant links:

Jovian

Heliopause

Anacondas - can’t find anything, enigma!

Finally got around to listening to Plaaydoh’s LP, released on Winning Sperm Party (rapidly becoming my favourite place for above board new music downloading), and it is seriously blowing my mind. How this band never got huge I have no idea. There’s a lot of really shoddy jangly indiepop around but this is the genuine real deal. I used to be well into this kind of stuff, around the time Rough Trade released that Indiepop 01 compilation, but a few bands in the last couple of years have given that sound a bad name. Plaaydoh have righted all those wrongs! Best track for my money - “Just Ate”. Head here and give it a whirl, all free!

(lush cover too by the way)

Alex, Todd and the boys at One Inch Badge are releasing a compilation of Brighton bands, including yours truly. Our featured track is unreleased (exclusive content alert!!!!!!!)

Anyway, they are also putting on five gigs in support of the thing at the Prince Albert. We’re playing Friday the 28th, with Pope Joan, Hind Ear and Nullifier, all of whom I’ve seen before and very much enjoyed. Should be an absolute banger. Tickets at all the usual places. Its at the Prince Albert BTW. Poster for the comp above. Also looking good is the gig the night before, with Cold Pumas (seen many times and love), Speak Galactic (seen once, intrigued), Drum Eyes (never seen, heard many good things and desperate to see) and The Sticks (haven’t seen or heard…still intrigued). 

Programme for all the gigs available here:

Jovian are playing on Friday at the Green Door Store, with some other acts who I don’t know but are nonetheless excited about seeing. Come on down! Doom!