Category Archives: Wednesday Top Five

Bearfaced Podcast 08: The Mammoth ‘Cast

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Lock up your daughters, it’s that time again; we’ve released another episode of everyone’s favourite podcast.  This, the latest installment, is rather on the long side.  The reason for the length is due to our somewhat ambitious choice of topic; no less a theme than our top five songs of all time.

It’s at this point that any true music fans amongst you will be be shaking your heads and saying things like “surely not” and “heavens, that’s not a task within the reach of any mere mortal man” and other variations on that theme.  But it’s true; Steve, Lloyd and myself (whom one could call the guiding lights behind the ‘cast) have each attempted to pin down their five favourite songs of all time.  Though it goes without saying that there will be just a few caveats to that claim, not least of which would be the fact that the lists are only a representation of our top five songs at the time the podcast was recorded.  And of course we didn’t need to include any songs which would be considered “classics” because it’s obvious that we’d like them.  And so on and so forth…

The basic objective of this ambitious scheme is fairly straightforward.  We’ve been waxing lyrical about music in these ‘casts for coming on for a year now, handing down our opinions from on high with scant regard for objectivity or anything approaching journalistic rigour.  So this podcast is an attempt to lay down a base-line from which to judge our opinions; we’re nailing our colours to the mast in order that you, the beloved and cherished listener, can gauge exactly how much salt to take with our ramblings.

As always, you can find the ‘cast in iTunes or can download each episode directly from the Podcast page of the Bearfaced Records website.  Enjoy…

Youth is Like Spring, an Overpraised Season: a Top Five

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Young people with talent; don’t you just hate them? This week’s Wednesday Top Five is in honour of those snot-nosed brats who managed to make meaningful contributions to the word before leaving their teens.  Damn their eyes.  According to neuroscientist Daniel Levitin it takes ten thousand hours work to make someone a “master” of any particular skill, so this is essentially a list of kids who should really have got out more…

5. Jenny Lewis, from Rilo Kiley.  Not a true musical prodigy, but she was kicking up a fuss as a child actress by the time she was ten.

Rilo Kiley – Paint’s Peeling


4. Buddy Holly. The ultimate live-fast-die-young idol.  He wrote awesome songs, got shafted by his manager, played with Elvis, and died in an plane crash; all at the tender age of twenty two.

Buddy Holly – Oh Boy


3. Laura Marling.  Last year’s darling of the London indie set, Marling wrote all the songs on her debut Alas, I Cannot Swim before she was eighteen.

Laura Marling – Night Terror


2. Conor Oberst, from Bright Eyes. This precocious scamp has been writing and recording music since he was ten.  His first EP, Water was the inaugural release for Saddle Creek Records (then called Lumberjack Records), and was recorded when he was just thirteen.  Admittedly most of his early stuff was absolute rubbish, but there were the odd sparks of genius.

Bright Eyes – Falling Out of Love at This Volume


1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  This cheeky bugger was composing by the age of five, allegedly wrote his first fugue aged six, and was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg aged only seventeen, where he performed before the Austrian royal family.  For the record, his full name is Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart (Amadeus is Latin for Theiophilus, and not actually his name at all, even though his signed all his manuscripts Wolfgang Amadeus)

W. A. Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik


Be Cool This Christmas: a Top Five(ish)

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Things have been pretty quiet round here lately, owing to all the joys of preparing for Christmas that have (quite rightly) kept me away from the ‘puter.  So to atone for having missed a Wednesday Top Five I’ve compiled a bumper Christmas Top Ten for your festive enjoyment:

10. I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake.  I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but whilst I tolerate (and on occasion actively enjoy) the cheesy Crimbo-Pop that always does the rounds at this time of year, I can’t say I think of any of them as being actual music.  There are three of them that I do like, however, and this is the first.  I’m most definitely not an Emerson, Lake & Palmer fan, but there’s something about the slow crescendo and haunting 12-string of this piece that elevates it above the muck and mire of other “Christmas Classics”.


9. Fairytale of New York by the Pogues (feat. Kirsty MacColl).  Yes he’s a genius, and yes by rights this should be at the top of the list.  But I’m growing sick-to-death of everyone saying those exact same things without any thought at all.  And it’s become the “cool” Christmas song, which automatically diminishes it in my eyes.


8. Everything’s Gonna be Cool this Christmas by Eels.  “Baby Jesus; born to rock!” ‘Nuf said…


7. Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk this Christmas) by the Decemberists.  Despite being overtly comical and a less-than-subtle lampooning of country music, this one still has a gentle appeal, if only because it has the best title of any Christmas song.


6. On Christmas Day by Spiers & Boden.  Here’s a traditional english pastoral number in keeping with the true spirit of Christmas.


5. Ukranian Bell Carol performed by George Winston.  I know it’s cheesy American-lite clean piano lounge music, but George Winston’s December album is as much a part of advent at casa EbM as Carols from King’s. The Bell Carol is also christmasy all by itself.


4. Christmas Day by Jim White.  Haunting and uplifting in equal measure, this Jim White tune is an absolute gem.  It also makes for a welcome change in mood from the rest of the sickeningly upbeat Christmas milieu.


3. God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen by Bright Eyes.  And here’s another change in mood; Conor’s esoteric delivery makes for a somewhat raucous carol.


2. The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole. It seems an awful lot of what makes a “traditional” Christmas is of yank origin: the Coca-Cola-red Father Christmas, overblown light displays, almost all the films, etc. and I have to say most of it comes across as sickly-sweet and overly sentimental.  Good ol’ Nat is no exception, but if you’re going to have an American Christmas you may as well do it with style – and that means crooners aplenty.


1. Lonely this Christmas by Mud.  This Elvis pastiche never ceases to bring a smile to my face.  Glam Rock sucked (fact!) but I’m willing to forgive Mud of all evils on account of this terifically dry and terribly funny Christmas classic.


A Music Obsessive’s Guide to Surviving the Recession: a Top Five

piggybankIf you’ve had even a passing interest in current affairs over the last few months you’ll have noticed that the nation’s in the grip of a “recession” (that’s merely official parlance for “two quarters of economic slowdown” and doesn’t mean that the sky is falling in, lest I be guilty of the kind of scaremongering that got us all here in the first place…) and thanks to our oh-so-clever friends across the pond in yankville we’ve all got a little less money to spend.

So what does that mean for us self-styled music obsessives? Those of us who have to buy at least two CDs a week or we’d explode from a lack of new music… Well fear not, for here’s the cavalry with the Top Five Ways to Get a Cheap Music Fix:

1. Don’t panic.  You don’t necessarily have to spend £10 for an album; as long as you keep your mind open and your computer on then you can amass a respectable music library for free.  And what’s more, you won’t have to break the law (well, there’re a few gray areas, but we’ll come to those later…) or resort to the bane of industry-types everywhere: the dreaded torrent!

2. Visit this site (and others like it). Any regular readers of this blog will know I’m fond of ranting about mp3 blogs, and their legitimacy, or lack of, as a route for discovering new music.  The way things stand at the moment, there are plenty of new and independent acts out there who’re desperate for promotion and press.  The current trend is for those acts to “give away” sample mp3s for bloggers to link to.  Meaning, that there’s loads of new music being given away for free: all you have to do is find it.
By far the easiest way to do this is to peruse a “mp3 blog aggregator” (a site that searches a selection of blogs for links ending with .mp3 and offers them up to you via a standard search page) such as Elbows or Hype Machine.
The other way is find a blog you like and then explore that blog’s “blogroll”.  This way you’re using the bloggers own taste to filter your results, meaning that what you find tends to be a bit more “focused”.
It should be mentioned, however, that there are a lot of unscrupulous bloggers out there who post mp3s without any permission at all.  It’s safe to assume that any song from a major label that appears in a blog had been illegally half-inched, so watch your step…

3. Be a fan.  Committed fans have been getting free sh*t from bands since the days of fan-clubs and Xeroxed fanzines…  If you sign up to a band’s mailing list you’ll be inundated with band-spam, but amongst all the “please come to our gigs” emails you’ll often find the odd link to exclusive downloads, fan-only website areas, etc.  If you go one step further and join a band or labels “street team” you’ll get even more stuff – full CDs and T-shirts – in exchange for nothing more arduous than an afternoon of handing out flyers.

4. Review stuff.  I shouldn’t really be telling you this, as it eats into my margins, but bands and labels will always hand out previews of albums in exchange for press.  If you’re a student (and therefore always poor, recession or not), get in touch with your university paper and offer to write stuff for them.  That way you’ll get free CDs and gig tickets in exchange for a (generally quite short) review.

5. Sleep with the band.  Surely the most sure-fire way of getting free stuff, and pretty self-explanatory…

He that hath no beard is less than a man: a Top 5

Goodness, it’s that time of the week again already.  This week’s top five was suggested by Andy (the drummer in my band) on account of the current rodent-like structure that has somehow attached itself to the lower part of my face. So without further ado, I proudly present the Top Five Beards in Indie Rock*.

I’ve been quite strict with my judging, so in the interests of parity, here’s the criteria I was assessing:

First and foremost: THICKNESS.  Any scrappy, bum-fluff attempts at facial furniture (Brandon Flowers, Chris Martin, et al) need not apply…

Next on the list was COVERAGE.  Obviously ‘staches and goatees were instantly eliminated (maybe there’ll be a Top 5 ‘Staches in the coming weeks…), but to make the final five I was looking for a full, even cover of most of the lower face.  This sadly knocked Dave Grohl out of the running as, despite his long term love of facial hair, he has far too much cheek on display.

GROOMING was also a crucial factor, and possibly a contentious one at that.  A neat neck-line was a plus, but over-egging the pudding (a la Prince) was a negative.

FAME.  In the event of two beards being of equal might and worthiness, the deciding factor was merely one of in-band rank: front-men out rank bassists, guitarists outrank drummers, etc.

Last but not least, COMMITMENT was arguably the most important of the judging criteria.  Any rockstar can grow a beard for a couple of months or so, but what we were looking for here was a long-term beard strategy; i.e. noone actually knows what their face looks like…

Kenny Anderson5. Kenny Anderson from King Creosote.  Number five of our list of hirsute rock demi-gods is the quiet, unassuming frontman/songwriter from Scotish darlings Kind Creosote, and co-founder of Shcotish uber-indie label Fence Records, Kenny Anderson.  Well trimmed, and possibly patchy on the upper lip, but a marvelous effort nonetheless.

devendrabanhartbeard4. Devendra Banhart.  Straggly and monstrous, and that’s just his music. Devendra, of American-Venezuelan upbringing, is the leading light in the Weird Folk movement, but as far as I’m concerned his most significant achievement to-date was showing the world that (his ex. squeeze) Natalie Portman has a thing for beards…Sam Beam

3. Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. Sometimes unkempt and huge, sometimes neat and trimmed, yet always so, so dense. Beam’s brush is a lesson to us all.Ben Bridwell

2. Ben Bridwell from Band of Horses.  All hail the almighty neck-beard.  Clearly a discerning man of taste and style.

1. E from Eels.  The king of all indie rock beards by some distance, and as far as I can tell it’s the only one on this list to be worn “ironically”.  Bask in the glory of its thickness and coverage.

E

*This is also an mp3less post, owing to my decision to keep this blog 100% legal.

I sing the body electric: a Top 5.

tesla coilI like to think of myself as a well-rounded, mature music listener who never discriminates based on genre alone, but alas, everyone has their own biases.  I for one, if I’m honest, have a definite acoustic* lilt to my tastes, and I am often caught giving second chances to records on account of their instrumental makeup.  For example, I’ll spend more time trying to “absorb” music by a band that includes a cello and an accordion than I really ought to, even if they’re obviously rubbish, whereas I’m likely to dismiss a D’n'B band without giving them the time and attention they could potentially deserve.  But hey, we’re all human, so I don’t let it bother me.  In fact, I guess you could say I embrace it.

And so to the point: as a result of our personal tastes, if we like something that could be seen as being a bit out of our musical comfort zones it’s because it’s genuinely knocked our socks off.  Q.E.D., this week’s Top Five “Electronic” Songs should be bl**dy awesome.  And before you ask, there’s not a single act on this list from Sheffield.

5. Panic Racer 500 by YMCK.  Okay, I may have shot myself in the foot already, as this track’s not actually awesome, but it made the list on account of its comedy value.  It’s some crazy 8-bit Japanese faux-arcade-game-soundtrack. Enjoy…

Panic Racer 500

4. Worked Up So Sexual by The Faint.  These guys describe their sound as “like the ’80s, but f*cked-up”, which is a pretty reasonable approximation.  The song itself is properly super, and if you want proof of this then check out Elliot Dawson’s acoustic (see, I love that stuff!) cover that can be found on the first Bearfaced Podcast.

Worked Up So Sexual

3. Such Great Heights by The Postal Service. Ben Gibbard’s electro side-project, which bizarrely seems to be more successful, in the UK at least, than his real band (Death Cab, for all the philistines out there…). This is one of those albums that sound great when you first hear them, but sadly don’t hold up at all well under the scrutiny of repeated listening.  This particular song, however, has become a bit of a poster-boy for any indie kids who want to show that they’re “branching out”… Again, the quality of the song is demonstrated by the high number of good quality covers by everyone from Iron & Wine to Ben Folds.

Such Great Heights

2. Decipher Reflections by Play Radio Play!. This wunderkind shot to fame back when everyone was convinced that you could have a career just by being on myspace.  As far as I’m aware, he got well over 2 million “friends” without any press at all, purely by word of mouth; not bad for a “true-love-waits” 16yr old.  Last time I bothered to check his ‘space he’d been snapped up by a label and was about to release an album.  That was well over a year ago, and I haven’t heard anything else since.  Pity, as he was actually rather good.

Decipher Reflections

1. Are “Friends” Electric? by Gary Numan. Ever caught yourself listening to the radio and thinking “hey, this is actually rather good” only to be disgusted when you found out it was the Sugar Babes?  Well this is why.  Sadly, the rest of the Replicas album (from which this song’s taken) sounds like the soundtrack to Look Around You.  He soon lost favour with audiences, married a member of his fanclub, and called his children Raven, Persia and Echo.  ‘Nuf said…

Are “Friends” Electric?

P.S. if anyone can name both famous uses of the quote in this post’s title, as well as the source from which it came, they’ll get a prize!

*For the record, by “acoustic” i do NOT mean the Jack-Johnson-lite drivel that graced every middle-class family’s coffee table a few years back.  I merely mean that it has acoustic instruments in it.  And Matt Costa can bugger off, an’ all…

Revolution, Dissent and the Dawning of a New World Order: a Top 5

revolutionMy, oh my; good ol’ Barack did it! Who’d've thought there’d be that many right-thinking voters across the pond.  Not I, for sure… for the second time this week I’m glad to have been proven wrong.  And now it’s Bonfire Night; hurrah!  And thus, this week’s Top Five is in honour of Obama’s 2008 victory and Guido Fawkes’ 1605 defeat.

Feast your eyes on the official* Top Five Songs About Revolution, Dissent, and the Dawning of a New World Order.

It’s kinda predictable that most of the songs on this list’ll be punk tunes, and sadly all the best punk songs are the ones that everyone knows best.  Apparently familiarity breeds contempt, and most people are already pretty darn familiar with the all the songs on my first draft of this list, and that’s really not what music blogging’s about.  London’s Calling, Anarchy in the UK, and Babylon’s Burning are great songs, but if you wanted that kind of list you’d be reading a “heritage” magazine (will Q, Mojo, Word and Uncut please stand up) so in the interests of interest I’ve gone for a slightly more “obscure” top 5.  (and this is where any genuine punk fans chip in and tell me off for being too stayed and middle class…)

5: When the President Talks to God by Bright Eyes. I guess the US election result means we’ve only got a month or so until we can’t play this one anymore, so enjoy it while it’s still relevant.

When the President Talks to God

4: Haillie Sellasse, Up Your Ass by Propagandhi.  Some downright silly and impotent punk for your listening pleasure.  So very angry, and so very cute.

Haillie Sellasse, Up Your Ass

3: The Beat That My Heart Skipped by Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. Based around a reasonably personal encounter, but still all about revolution; albeit a cultural one.  Just funny enough to avoid being pompus.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

2: Unity by Operation Ivy. Seminal ’90s punk group shouting about how war is, like, bad, man.

Unity

1: Bhindi Bhagee by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros. Now this is a song about a new world order; multiculturalism at its best.  And plus, there was no way Strummer wasn’t going to make this list in some form or another. And there’s an electric drill solo; what more could anyone want from a band?

Bhindi Bagee

*as voted for by yours truly.

Hello, Halloween is upon us…5 good songs for All Hallows Even

Uh-oh, I guess it’s time to keep a bucket of cold water by the front door (how come no one really goes in for the whole “trick” side of trick-or-treating any more? Tis a darn shame…).

So, while all the yuppies are boogying down to the strains of The Monster Mash and making out like they’re yanks, and gangs of marauding hoodies go from door to door menacing old ladies for sweets, what is there for a discerning music fan to do?

Well, fear not kids, the answer is here. Gaze on my works, ye mighty, and despair! It the Wednesday Top Five (delayed on account of the All Hallows Even festivities):

The top 5 non-cheesy Hallween songs.

5: Halloween by Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds. Okay, okay; I know they’re the least cool band in the world, but the Dave Matthews Band have actually made a couple of good records. And besides, this doesn’t really count as a DMB track, as this version comes from Dave & Tim’s Live at Luther College release. It’s properly angry (it very nearly made last week’s list…) and good for scaring away unwanted kids from the door. It does loose marks for unoriginal nomenclature, however…

4: Hellhound by Son Of Dave. What with all the talk of crossroads etc, the devil surely listens to the blues. And SoD uses the same loop pedal as I do, so I’ve got to love him. For the love of god(sic) steer well clear of the Jack on the Rocks remix, though, as it’s truly evil…

3: Frankenstein’s Party of Three: Your Table is Ready by Kelly Joe Phelps. Here’s some more blues, just for kicks. Also likely to spark off some oh-so-interesting arguments about whether or not it was Frankenstein or Frankenstein’s Monster that was the scary one…

2: This Devil’s Workday by Modest Mouse. Just plain creepy genius. Jagged and nasty, like all the best MM songs.

1: Halloween by Lupen Crook. At times Lupen verges on sounding like a musical theatre act (erugh! I feel dirty even mentioning it…) but this track serves to remind us that Kurt Weill was actually quite good. By far my favourite Halloween song, despite the lazy naming.

Lupen Crook – Halloween

For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee… The 5 Angriest Songs Ever

Everyone seems to be compiling lists lately, from the Guardian to Song, by Toad, so I figured I’d have a go at it.  Being as its now Wednesday (only just…) I guess we’ll make this a regular feature: a Top Five once a week.  This might even convince some of you lurkers out there to get stuck in and leave a comment, as I’m sure everyone will have their own views on what should/shouldn’t make the lists…

So, this week its gonna be songs about hate! More specifically, songs that are so saturated with vitriol and outright hostility that you can’t help but wince when you hear them.

Before we get stuck into the list proper, there are a couple of songs that made the longlist, but missed out on the final top five that deserve an honourable mention: Killing in the Name nearly made it, but was just far too obvious – any band with Rage in their name can’t be taking their anger seriously.  Styrofoam Plates, by Death Cab For Cutie came close too (“a b*st*rd in life; thus a b*st*rd in death”); Micah P. Hinson’s Patience just missed the cut, as it only really comes into its own anger-wise when he plays it live (apparently, I myself have never seen it in-the-flesh); and Ani DiFranco’s Lost Woman Song (the only girl to make the top 10; are women less pathologically angry than men?) a challenging rant about abortion – more blunt than Ben Folds’ Brick, but certainly less impartial…

But enough of the alsorans, and on with the main event!

5: Cheers Darlin’ by Damien Rice. Boy meets girl, girl leads boy on, girl gets picked up by fiance, boy goes home and vents his spleen onto DAT tape… what a classic story.  The one song that definitely separates Rice from the rest of the acoustic, coffee-table, Jack-Johnson-lite drivel that seems to be so popular at open-mic nights.

4: I’ve Been Eating (for you) by Bright Eyes.  Ooh, poor Conor’s been taken for a ride by a floozy who was porking all his friends as well.  He sure taught her a lesson with this bilious paean to the injustices of teenage lust.

3: Has Been by William Shatner.  My word, Bill must’ve been waiting for years to write this song.  Selfdeprecating, venomous and painfully honest.  Get’s the spurious distinction of being the only song on this list that’s not about girls…

2: Skinny Love by Bon Iver.  A current hit to keep this list contemporary.  Our hero gets dumped, shuns society and lives in a cabin in the woods for months, living off moose, and makes a sublime album of heartbreak and isolation, of which this is the stand out track.

1: When Did You Stop Loving Me When Did I Stop Loving You by Marvin Gaye.  The title says it all; Marv’ splits acrimoniously from Mrs. Gaye (a.k.a. Anna Gordy), and thanks to his fleet of cars, mansion, and coke habit he can’t pay alimony for his kid.  So, the divorce judge orders that all the proceeds from his next album should go to his Ex. missus. The result? Here, My Dear, the bitterest record ever.  It flopped when it was released, as per Marv’s plan, but it subsequently went on to become one of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  Take that, ya b*tch!