The Notes - Twisting And Turning Shoegaze The Post Punk Way

May 7th, 2010

 Check out an exciting new band – The Notes from Southhampton / London UK who twist and turn our conceptions of Shoegaze by introducing elements of Garage, Goth (a la Siouxsie and the Banshees), and Post Punk POP.

http://www.myspace.com/wearethenotes

 

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Take parts of The Three Johns and The March Violets, and blend them with Slowdive, The Shop Assistants, The Close Lobsters and early Soup Dragons and modernize them with The Dum Dum Girls, The XX, and The Crystal Stilts and you may get something that sounds like The Notes. Then again, maybe you won’t, but at least it gives you an idea of what I thought when I heard them for the first time. The Beauty of music is that it is in the ear of the listener, so give them a listen and tell me what you think.

Download their first single for free courtesy of Holiday records here - http://www.holidayrecords.net/notes.html

As if that’s not enough to give them a listen, they are also inspired by the Velvet Underground, Orange Juice, Joy Division, The Wake, The Sonics, and Gang of Four ensuring they have been given an education in fine music (or is that a “Bad Education” as The Blue Orchids once said). And that’s not even the best part, they are also fans of the Television Personalities and have agreed to record several covers for the TVP tribute series so keep your eyes and ears Peeled.

Enjoy!

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Superstar - Greatest Hits And Groovy Numbers

March 16th, 2009

I first heard of The Groovy Little Numbers (http://www.twee.net/Bands/g/groovylittle.html) when I purchased a copy of the 53rd and 3rd Record Label compilation (A label run by Stephen Pastel) that was released on Avalanche Records which featured some amazing tracks and a brilliant song “Happy Like Yesterday” - one that just thrills you and gets you excited about discovering a new band. Since this was a retrospective, (The Groovy Little Numbers ) sadly no longer existed, having only released 2 singles to my knowledge, but the names credited seemed familiar Jim McCulloch (BMX Bandits, The Soup Dragons, Green Peppers) and Joe McAlinden (BMX Bandits, Superstar, Nom, Teenage Fanclub).

Already being a fan of the BMX Bandits and the many related bands like Superstar, I noticed that these names were the same that feature on various releases with The BMX Bandits. It was the BMX Bandits that also got me started with Superstar (wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstar_(band)) also, along with the fact that they were on one of my favourite record labels - Creation Records - a label that kept releasing amazing records. one after another. Superstar, was one of those bands that just kept releasing amazing songs, originally influenced by the sounds of Big Star and having similarities to Teenage Fanclub and The BMX Bandits and also The Sneetches (which was all fine with me), but they kept developing their sound and heading in various directions and always delivering exceptional music with every release. Here are a few treats from their earlier work taken from - Greatest Hits Vol. One CD which was released in 1992 on Creation Records - CRECD 134 which very strangely is still available here vinyltap.co.uk/shop/artist/Superstar 

This is before the launch of their very own Camp Fabulous label where they released many more treasures and if you have not already heard these - search them out. They even inspired Rod Stewart to do a cover of their signature track “Superstar”. Members of Superstar are now in the Green Peppers ( www.greenpeppers.info/) and Nom (www.ready-steady-go.org.uk/superstar.html) as well as record in various other guises, solo and with other bands.

Enjoy!

Superstar - The Reason Why
Superstar - She’s Got Everything I Own

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Categories: Feature 45, Great Music | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments