The Acorn 'Flood Pt1'...

hi again

god i am so IN YER FACE arent i?

i had some very nice tweets about the 'Crooked Legs' video (tho no one could be bothered to leave me a comment and give me even the vaguest notion that this blog is read by anyone) and requests to post the fore-runner to that..this is the first video Christopher Mills directed for the band and is equally stunning.

i will leave the visuals married to one of the best songs ever to do the talking....

The Acorn 'Flood Pt. 1' from the album 'Glory Hope Mountain' from Paper Bag Records on Vimeo.

have a good weekend..

The Acorn 'Crooked Legs'

There's a fair chance you havent seen this yet, and well, you're in for a bit of a treat...! The Acorn are one of my favourite bands in the whole world and also happen to be darlings. The video for Crooked Legs, one of the best songs on the album Glory Hope Mountain, is awesome. Canadian film-makers really do such wonderful stuff. Ambitious and glorious visually, i think you'll agree that it's a stunning piece of work. The Acorn are now recording their follow up to GHM, and we await this with baited breath. (have you ever said to someone '"your breath is baited?)

anyhow. enjoy.

The Acorn 'Crooked Legs' from the album 'Glory Hope Mountain' from Paper Bag Records on Vimeo.

my word there are so many amazing bands out there ....

for the thirty three people that currently read this blog (well it is quite new?), chances are you are a bit like me, a bit of a music freak who cannot stop listening and discovering wonderful stuff out there...? right? ok well hello. arent we amazing? yes i think so too.

i am in my mid to late forties and while i may be missing something here ( i do hope i am), i DONT see alot of other folks of my age as into music as i am. The kids came along, marriage, work too hard, slump in front of xfactor on a weekend and thats it till youre too slow to even get out the chair to piss let alone go to a feckin gig. THAT seems to be the norm from my black-coloured spectacles. but fuck come on....life aint over yet you know. have you any idea ANY IDEA how much incredible music is being made and not even released, just being made?

'when i am doing the weekly shopping at Tesco i look at the music there'
THAT ISNT MUSIC
' well i sometimes go to HMV every month and have a look at whats on offer there '
NOT GOOD ENOUGH
' well i use Genius on iTunes'
A BIT BETTER
' i was going to go to Rough Trade last year '
NOT GOOD ENOUGH. GO THIS WEEKEND

you know what i am on about. invest a bit of time in to your soul, enrich it, trust me when i tell you there is amazing music JUST FOR YOU out there that pisses all over the crap you bought this year in the supermarket trolley dash. picking up cd's and lobbing them into your cart is not really the best way to find music you're gonna love.

try these four today. you'll find them on myspace

mountain man (myspace.com/mountainmansquint)
zun zun egui (myspace.com/zunzunegui)
alessis ark (myspace.com/alessisark)
washed out (myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods)


thats all i am giving you today

(A&R men, go find your own music)

Lucas Renney's 'Strange Glory' album 9/10 NME

it's not often the nme give 9/10 for album reviews, nor is it very frequent for that album to have been produced by ME!!!!!!!! in fact quite a rarity.
the album in question is by Lucas Renney, a quite brilliant songwriter from the North East of England, and said album is now available here through Brille Records, a label run by former XL Records man leo silverman.

i initially heard lucas's songs in a very raw form and knew immediately what kind of setting i would like to put these songs. I called paul and mckenzie from Midlake, the best bass and drum team since sly and robbie, and then spoke to the arranger fiona brice who i have known a long time and think is a superb arranger, as well as being a brilliant violinist, and set to work, choosing the 15 or so songs we would work on. Over the next month or so, Fiona got to work on the arrangements, Paul and Mckenzie flew over from Texas and then we all went into rehearsals in London, and a week later all met up at Bryn Derwen in North Wales, home of my favourite studio.
It was a wonderful time, most mornings we'd start with a walk with the dogs along the quarry up to the waterfalls, back for some hearty breakfast and then setting to work around 11am. Paul and Mckenzie are such a wonderful pair to work with, as they really helped with feel and tempo, and they both really care about the work they do. Of course, running Bella Union, i should know how superb they are as musicians but seriously till you see people in the studio, you dont really know. Lucas found the experience to be quite inspiring i felt, as he had only really ever heard these songs in his bedroom on an acoustic guitar, apart from the odd song that was left over from his old band Golden Virgins. The engineer, the unique and quite brilliant Dave Wrench, someone i have now worked with on about 5 albums, was also a tremendous help throughout with his own musicality, and i think between all of us, we created a beautiful moving album. The final icings on the cakes were the backing vocals from Stephanie which added that fairy dust to the whole thing. i was also lucky enough to be able to work on the final stages of the album at my friend Bill's house, and we had some additional cameos like that one from sarah jory on pedal steel. Lucas is a lovely feller, who cares deeply about the songs he writes and his lyrics are dark and brooding, songs of loss and longing, yet there is a romance about his writing that draws you in, as poetry does. Lucas is one of only a few english songwriters whose lyrics could be published as poetry, and i urge you all to take a listen before you decide to buy...there are some songs on lastfm from the album...probably the one i enjoyed working on the most was These Same Stars, as i ended up completely reworking it while mixing as it wasnt working at all. Now i think it's one of the best tracks on the album...


you can hear at http://www.lastfm.com/music/Lucas+Renney

the 'bella union story'...kind of

i am of course much better-looking than this CGI pixar animation of me might suggest,
but i cant deny the filmmakers their little bit o' fun...
this was filmed in june 2009 at cherry red tv and was surprisingly painless!
i almost enjoyed it...almost.





thanks to ian and matt at Cherry Red for caring about the stories of the smaller labels.

the return of aunt agony.....

she's back...to help you in your hour of need.
leaking pipes?
bad body odour?
old lady bothering you?
hair falling out?
always angry?
no clothes sense?
animal problems?
work problems?
aunty steph is here to help

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/10/stephanie-aunt-agony-dosen-joins-tlobf-full-time-get-your-letters-in/

snowbird

we havent really chatted much about snowbird. i am in a chatty sort of mood, and you are too right?

good.

since cocteau twins broke up 1997 (i was in them see) i havent really felt like being in another band. why would you right?

then i heard stephanie sing. we made a record together well kind of, she sent it me from nashville and i ended up getting all carried away and sticking loads of me all over it!

after a while it was glaringly obvious that we needed to actually write an album together, especially as we live together. thing was, we just couldnt find the time. till she got deported..then we had some time! me on my own and her on her own, in different countries! so then we got offered this tour supporting loney dear, who we love. so we kinda said yes we'll do it. problem was we didnt have any songs, oh well yes we had one that we had recorded a year ago. but one wouldnt have made a very good show. so, with the tour starting in 12 days we thought we better set to it. so i perched the mac on top of the piano, no microphones or anything fancy like that, just the shitty little mac in-built thing, and opened up garageband and recorded some of me noodling on the piano. i emailed one piano piece every day for a week over to stephnie over in the usa, she was staying at her parents looking after her grandma while her parents were away, and every morning i would wake up in london to an email with my piano song back with her vocals all done, again on her mac, with her shitty little in-built mac mic. it was kinda magical and fun. she came back 12 days later and the day she arrived we went on tour. no kidding, no rehearsals or anything. well we rehearsed the morning she arrived, the morning of our first show at the 800 capacity london venue the scala> thats a whole nother story! but anyway...here is one of those garageband recordings exactly as it was done, and here is a little video stephanie made for fun..the song is called 'we carry white mice'





hope you enjoyed it a little bit xx