Radio Ladio


Someone once said "I love doing radio" and I can see their point. Back home for christmas means getting to do 'The Alternative Show' on my local community radio Stroud Fm again! It's a 2 hour show we do on Tuesday mornings but I've edited and split it into 2 for your listening pleasure.


It was presented by me and my good friend Ben Roberts, with the other regular presenter Gareth (fellow next goal winner) at work.

An attempt at rounding up 2008, it features music from our favourite acts from the last year. Including Frightened Rabbit, Johnny Flynn, Sigur Ros, MGMT, Neon Neon, Foals, The Hold Steady, White Denim and British Sea Power!

Christian.

Stroud Alternative Show - 2008 Round Up Part 1

Stroud Alternative Show - 2008 Round Up Part 2


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Theres only one number 10!


"And at the Sunrise Stage I found myself, along with every female in the vicinity, falling slightly in love with Johnny Flynn. The man looks about 12, but his lyrics struck me with such inspiring intelligince, wit, and maturity, that whilst I looked on falling more in love with him by the second, I couldn't help but feel extremely jealous and annoyed that I hadn't been lucky enough to be given such talent."

I had never read this section of the blog before now and it made me chuckle away about what a good summer it was in 08.

Bring on summer 09 for more fun and frolics!

Over and out!

Nath

Johnny Flynn - Wayne Rooney


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I think I’ll start this by congratulating my fellow bloggers on their severely lacking standards of grammar. But I’m sure that kind of thing is all hapnin’ with the kids these days anyway. I mean, that’s probably why any play production company that has ever come to your school to do a drink-drive awareness gig, usually feels compelled to throw in the ever cringe-worthy “innit” or “am I bovered”, right? I should maybe stop my grammar-snobbery before it begins, as Chris, Gaz and “N.D”, as he is calling himself these days, are all older and slightly bigger than me. Perhaps the only way I could anger one of them even more after being invited so kindly by them to write for such an illustrious blog, is to say JEFF BUCKLEY FOR NUMBER ONE BABY YEH (see Gaz’s last post), or perhaps by stating that BBC Switch is infact a Tour De Force of mind-blowing creativity, and refreshing, high-quality talent.

I think that statement brings me to my next topic nicely, Christmas songs. An obvious choice no doubt, but a choice that by the 21st of December has yet to be covered by Next Goal Wins! Each year we’re baffled by Christmas advertising left, right and centre, which somehow manages to suck the life and soul out of a vast majority of our most loved Old Christmas Classics before we’ve even managed to open our advent calendars. And the constant non-stop cyclical process, within pretty much every shop you’ll go into, that is the playing of the same Christmas songs over and over and over again, usually leaves me feeling sick and tired of the Christmas Spirit. (BE CHRISTMASSY, GO ON, BE CHRISTMASSY! PLEASE BE CHRISTMASSY! YOU MUST BE FUCKING CHRISTMASSY!)

However, there are those songs which have fought off such Scrooge-like thoughts and made me feel as Christmassy as ever. Those songs which have made my December. Those songs that warm my heart in such cold winter months – did I just say that? You know what, I think I just did – and those songs that make it feel like, in the immortal words of Noddy Holder, “IT’S CHRISTMAS!” Here are some of those songs:

Christmas In Prison - Emmy The Great and Lightspeed Champion

(Buy)

Emmy The Great's Myspace


Get Behind Me Santa! - Sufjan Stevens

(Buy)

Sufjan Stevens' Myspace


Christmas TV - Slow Club

(Buy)

Slow Club's Myspace


I'm So Confused By Christmas - Luke Leighfield

(Buy)

Luke Leighfield's Myspace


12 Days of Christmas - Relient K

(Buy)

Relient K's Myspace


Merry Christmas, Graeme.



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The best of 2008


I would put some mp3's up with this post but they keep getting taken down.shucks.

1)White Lies-Fully establishing themselves as the next big thing for 2009.Dark,brooding and epic live.

2)Friendly Fires-Go back 16 months or so and I would of predicted them to of just been another metronomy cast of but they have changed their sound to something more concrete and established.Its obvious to see they have grown up musically.Still brilliant to get down to on the floor.

3)Golden Silvers-My Favourite find of 2008.I dont know what it is about them but they still get me exicted everytime I listen to them.Brilliant at Latitude in the summer and even better at Birmingham Bar Academy in September. As for Gwillym Gold-style icon of the year.

4)Laura Marling-Praised by nearly everybody in 2008 and no compliants there.The album is heartbreakingly good and is the one person I was gutted to of missed live this year.

5)Bon Iver-A late late late find for this year,before I had come to university I had never heard of them/him but it is in the top 3 of my albums of the year.The best album to of been recorded in a remote cabin to date.Fact.

6)Johnny Flynn-Another highlight of Latitude this year as well as producing the most under prasied album of the year.When he played in Leeds Holy Trinity Church you could not of found a better venue or artist.Not only was it my favourite/special gig of the year it was one of my favourites of all time.A talented,talented artist who deserves more press coverage.

7)The Black Keys-This band make me wish I was born in the 70's.Sounding as raw and as funky as Hendrix they have open my eyes to a genre I thought I would never take an interest in.

8)Metronomy-Unique.Brilliant and just downright catchy.Nights out has the best the best dance record released this year.Joseph Mount has done Britain Proud.

9)Eugene Mcguiness-Another underated singer song writer this year.He sounds like nothing I have ever heard before but his voice feels like I have been listening to him for years on end.Brilliant

10)Interpol-Although not releasing an album in 2008 it was the year in which I had first seen them live and it was absolutley intense.On a sunday night in the rain it was the perfect setting for them and it made me go and get every single song I could get my hands on thereafter.

11)Lightspeed Champion-Way back in January Dev released Falling of the Lavender Bridge and it blew me away.To come from the brilliance of Test-Icicles to something so delicate and thoughtful as this album was a nice suprise and seeing him live with the Semi Finalists in Newcastle was heartwarming.

12)Wild Beasts-If you can show me a band that sound anything like this then I will place £5 into your hand.After seeing them support Maximo Park in Gloucester in the summer of 2007 they caught my attention so when Limbo Panto was released I was excited to get hold of it.It didnt dissapoint.Right from the opening of Vigil For A Fuddy Duddy you know you are in for something special.3 times missed live in 2008 thanks to seeing White Lies instead twice and then not realising they were playing my University Libary! they will be a dead cert on my to see list of 2009.

N.D

Wild Beasts - Devil's Crayon


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Feed Me A BOX of words

After reading NME I've always wondered what kind of creative environment these people work in, now we know for sure.....

A world where a band is labelled as "not caring for the environment" if they RECYCLE a box (paying a much heftier postage cost in the process no doubt) to brighten the days of these writers with their C.D. Let's hope NME ended up recycling this box themselves, I wouldnt bank on it. If the NME cared so much for the environment maybe they should cut down on the amount of pages (be them recycled trees or not) they waste on their scene-inventing, bandwagon jumping, unconstructive commenting articles. They've even been sent a bin for it all......

Genius idea this. Although, I don't see them complaining about how oversized this box is. I mean, how big are these people's poos? Impressive.



All things considered I don't hate NME like everyone else. They get people into good music from time to time and we all have to start somewhere right? I mean if you look at you're own music collection you havent always been the cool kid you are today. Or maybe it's just me whose first CD was Will Smith.



NME is pretty useful for bands too, but irt can also be the ruining of them. Sadly a bad review of a band is going to have a larger result then that band writing a song slating the NME.



Also If it wasn't for NME we would take good music publications for granted right?

Dananananaykroyd - Pink Sabbath (ex NME single of the week)

(Buy)

Dananananaykroyd's Myspace

Christian!



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Here comes the remix........





















Alreet just a quick post today as I have work in half an hour....anyone in Newcastle who needs to be fixed up with the latest H&M kit I'm your man.



Two things today..I need to firstly thank Elf for giving me some kind a christmas spirit, if you have scrooge like tendencies give it a go.


Secondly here's a couple of remixes doing the rounds on hype machine that I'm really rather enjoying :)

Digitalism - Taken Away (Lapse Remix)

Digitalism's Myspace


Cut Copy - Far Away (Bag Raiders Remix)

(Buy)

Cut Copy's Myspace



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Hallelujah?



It really is a wonder that we at Next Goal Wins haven't actually commented on the X Factor at all, in any form whatsoever on this here blog, seeing as both myself and Chris are both completely fascinated by it and spend our Saturday evenings texting one another with a healthy dose of irreverence but with an underlying sense of respect for the sociological phenomenon that Simon Cowell's creation has become.

So whilst Saturday night's losers (the slightly outdated JLS (did you just say "boyband"?) and the physical incarnation of High School Musical himself - Eggnog Quigg) were left to protest later to Holly Willoughby on Xtra Factor with regards to the fact that this wasn't the end, it was the beginning for them, the victor - Alexandra Burke - somewhat touchingly cried her way through her winner's song, her bid for Christmas number 1; a rendition of Leonard Cohen's
Hallelujah.

Despite the musical heresy that is the tone-up key-change occurring within Burke's version, it has to be said that it is in fact a fairly harmless version of the classic, in the respect that its not hideously bad. I wouldn't choose to listen to it, but if it came on the radio, I probably wouldn't change stations. And you can say what you want about the concept of the X Factor, but you can't deny the fact that actually Alexandra Burke has a stunning voice.

Which is just one of the reasons why it infuriates me slightly that I've been invited six times on facebook, today alone, to the group "Jeff Buckley for Xmas no 1!"

Now, whilst Jeff Buckley is of course an important figure in the history of 90's popular(ish) music, and whilst the thought of anything toppling the monopoly that the X Factor have had on the Christmas number one spot since Shayne Ward's 2005 effort "That's My Goal" is a pleasant one, its safe to say that nothing can stop the Cowell-juggernaut this Christmas...Alexandra has already shifted 80,000 digital units, and its not even Tuesday yet.

So the facebook group does beg the question, why bother? You're not going to beat Alexandra, and let's face it nothing incredibly important, or good, has been bore of a movement started on a facebook group. Just a host of stupid people getting tattoos of crap, or ruining their children's lives by naming them after fictional characters purely because there are X amount of strangers who have the technological ability to click on a small blue box that says "Confirm" on it. People who start facebook groups of this nature are either utter idiots, or worse still, understand the idiotic nature of such a venture but still think it will be funny.

You will not change the world with a facebook group. So stop trying, and go outside.

But this isn't my biggest issue with the campaign to get Buckley to number one, no that illustrious honour is given to the sheer fact that this crusade is bore mainly of musical snobbery. And worse still, it's bore of seemingly ill-informed musical snobbery.

It just seems downright mean-spirited to look down upon the perceived musical peasantry, those who like or appreciate pop music (which ostensibly is some sort of crime), or who were simply thankful for the chance to sit down in front of the T.V and relax with their family on a Saturday night, and as such will listen to Alexandra's version; this mean-spirit is all the more accentuated when we realise that actually at the very heart of the "Jeff Factor" drive, is the simple fact that some music snobs can't handle the fact that Alexandra has covered a classic song in a differing style to the original. Well, get over yourselves because Jeff Buckley did the exact same thing to the song as Alexandra has done; he covered it.

So where the hell is the "Get Leonard Cohen to Christmas number 1!" facebook group? And what about the "Let's get any one of the estimated 170 other cover versions of Hallelujah, including versions by little known artists such as Bob Dylan, KD Lang, Rufus Wainwright and John Cale to Christmas number one baby yeah!"

Nowhere, because Jeff Buckley wrote the song, right? Idiots.

So please in future, before starting facebook-centric campaigns to get certain songs to number one in the charts, read up on your popular music history and realise how silly you sound to everybody else.

And then stop creating the facebook group.
And.
Go.
Outside.


Gareth!


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Good Shoes

Say what you want about George Bush but he's got a quick reaction on him. Now Bush must be coming to the realisation in his 'lame duck' period, that nobody is really that interested in him anymore. No assassination attempts, just a journalist who was bored of his clogs. Apparently the sole of a shoe is the ultimate insult in Arab Culture. I'm sure it's one of the biggest common insults but is it really worse then hmmm 'insert the most elaborate insult imaginable'.

Christian!



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BBC switch..off


Now dont get me wrong, I love the BBC. The website is my homepage, it's radio stations often soundtrack my day and I have spent many a night in watching some of it's best and worst TV programmes. Nicholas Lyndhurst has had a hand in both these categories. But I'm not completely sold on BBC Switch, with risk of sounding like a Grumpy chap just out of his teenage years It isnt what the bbc does best. I'm stealing this topic off Gareth who originally brought this to my attention but the BBC does alot of things really well. News, Documentaries, Comedy, Sport even the odd Soap (although regrettably this has been greatly weaked since the loss of neighbours). BBC Switch is aimed a teenagers and young adults, it includes the odd radio and tv programme and aload of hip-trendy internet stuff, because thats what kids do right, surf the web?

It's difficult viewing/listening with Kelly Osbourne and Nick Grimshaw who make even the return of Noel Edmunds to kids/teen TV inviting. On top of this the adverts are awful. This is a prime example. Everyone's favourite comedian Tom Deacon, pulls a funny face with a clothes peg moustache well thats hilarious, you've roped me in I have to read this story. What? He presents a show called the 5:19 show, well thats at a really unconventional time! You're right, that IS totally random. And that's just as well because us teens are so unconventional. Next up apparently it's a slice of oddness and amazingness...phew, that's ticked both those boxes, I think we're on to a winner here. Plus 'amazingness', where do these guys get there phrases from, a underachieving english SATS student? Probably just my sisters myspace page. To cap it all off there's a little delay there with the time 'err....5.19pm' because those teenagers forget tiny details. So all in all, it sounds like a hoot.


It wasnt.
Christian.


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