Tom Williams & The Boat – Doing My Best E.P

Tom Williams deserves more attention. He’s released 3 ep’s since late 2007, that’s already over 20 songs to please everyone's ears. He's adding to this bank of songs with his new E.P 'Doing My Best' a statement which, after a few listens, is difficult to deny.


The E.P itself is a progression from last year’s 8 track ‘Got Fuel’, with a bigger band sound and tracks which explore a wide range of emotions. From the upbeat, autobiographical ‘24’ to the more sorrowful ‘Voicemail’ the songs fit together perfectly. A constant theme throughout the E.P is that of growing up and not being ‘cool’ a common subject matter but something easy to relate to. Title track ‘Doing My Best’ is catchy but tracks 1 and 2 show the band at their best. ‘24’ and ‘Concentrate’ highlight the strength of Tom Williams’ song writing and cement his place as one of the U.K’s most promising singer-songwriters and the added dimension of a band only strengthens this.

On this evidence, given the recent resurgence in the popularity of British anti-folk it won’t be long before Tom Williams and the Boat gain wider recognition, on a par with those they’ve supported.

Tom Williams and the Boat - Concentrate


Tom Williams and the Boat Official Website
Tom Williams and the Boat Myspace


Christian!

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The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have kept pretty quiet since the 2006 release of 'Show Your Bones'. Ok, so there was the Is Is E.P but not enough to keep dedicated 'KarenOites' happy.

The new single, Zero, is streaming away on their myspace and on first impressions all is well. Maybe not as experimental as was reported by various sources, but the 3rd album always tends to be the one where bands claim this anyway.

Producer of the moment David Sitek is on board and with contributions from members of TV on the Radio and The Bird and the Bee I'm under the impression that the forthcoming album has the potential to make Yeah Yeah Yeahs a household name. It certainly seems the right time for this synth heavy track, what with electro influence and female vocals being on every critics lips. Oh and the album artwork is pretty cool, I prefer scrambled too.

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Take a step back. I warn you this post is not about new indie bands, not about post-rock, not about student radio shows and not even about the state of youth-directed TV. In all honesty, It's just not cool...


Most of you at some point this week probably read it, heard it, possibly even tasted it, that yes, Blink 182 are back. Whether they’ll be better than ever remains to be seen, and that point itself is determined by whether you thought them to be any good the first time round. As a totally random twelve year old dude, who could only seem to wear clothes four sizes too big for him, I admit here and now that I was a fan of Blink. I laughed as much as the next way-cool, pop-punk loving teen with a “if we’re fucked up you’re to blame” attitude, at the way-cool naked adventures of the trio in What’s My Age Again? and at Delonge’s, Hoppus’ and Barker’s mockery of the so-not-cool pop scene of the time in All the Small Things. But in fairness I was twelve, and as I grew up I began to get a feeling that perhaps there was more to this whole music thing than merely the genre of pop-punk. I did infact, grow up... I started wearing clothes that fit me, I started reading literature for fun and not just at school, I began to understand things in a way that meant pop-punk needed to be forgotten and left in late nineties/early naughties California, and allow me to get on with my life. Thankfully the break up of Blink allowed me to forget. Because it seemed that this was the nail in the coffin of Pop-punk. And until this week in my life, and the music world, it has been the forgotten genre, it’s seemed as though anyone who wants to look like they have a vaguely respectable music taste tries to acknowledge the genre being more dead than Myspace. But now that they’ve reformed, the ghosts of my music taste past have returned to haunt me. No doubt the mass fan base they acquired originally, most of them young teens such as myself at the time, will for the most part return to listening to them, seeing as the return of this band will probably also be the return of a little piece of many people’s childhood. And heck, even for those such as me who see themselves as having a taste above the genre and the music produced by the band all those years ago, we’ll probably return to listening out of curiosity. Who knows, pop-punk could truly be forgotten and they may be reforming as a post-rock act.

Unbelievably, it seems another significant band to the same years of my childhood and to anyone who was a fan of wrestling have made their own comeback, Limp Bizkit. This combined with the rumours of a return to BBC prime-time for Noel’s House Party and the fact that a close friend of mine today actually exclaimed “TMI!” at me, make me feel like I’m in a really shit time machine that’s content on making me relive the childhood bands I’m most embarrassed about having ever listened to and annoying nineties catchphrases. I can only take solace in the fact that maybe, just maybe Noel will finally be back where he belongs.

It does however, seem hard to know what to say about Blink though. I’d love to launch a scathing attack on the genre, and I’m sure it would probably be the cool thing to do to rant about how it’s clearly just a big money-grab and that the friendships aren’t really repaired or make up some conspiracy theory about how they were never even truly on negative terms as it was, or state that the majority of their fanbase probably no longer lives at home with their parents so no longer feels the need to vent their misplaced juvenile rage, or that this will most likely tarnish my memories of them... but I can’t. I can’t bring myself the energy or the will to do anything but say hell, they were fun before I'd started growing pubes so now let’s wait and see what they do. Because for me they are a band that I did enjoy growing up, albeit from the ages of ten to thirteen, and as un-cool a band they are to admit you loved in the modern age, they were certainly a part of my childhood. And heck, concerning the majority of the music produced on their final unititled album, if you just gave them northern or cockney English accents you could quite easily pass them off as indie. And I mean c’mon, whose going to be forgetting in a hurry those such monumentally inspirational words, those words that got me through such hard times in my youth, those never to be forgotten words... “we started making out, and she took off my pants, but then I turned on the TV”... genius.

Oh guys, you're just TOO wacky

Here’s a track to remember just what blink brought to the table. A track I was no doubt singing along to whilst sitting alone in my room playing on Tony Hawks Skateboarding...
Graeme x

Anthem Part Two – Blink 182

(Buy)

Blink 182's Myspace

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Finally we ended up doing our radio show.
It took us a while to break into the studio so we took to the air at 9.20..rather later I know.

Heres a Rough Version.. but dont tell anyone about it...

Me and Harry finished the proper version today but we have to process it through Lsrfm first.

So tune into www.lsrfm.com this sunday for another dazzling show and then wait for the podcast!

Over and Out
Nath

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I know I don’t really talk new music on this blog, nor do I really talk about music in general but this isn’t to say I don’t like it. I love new music me. Two acts that I really am ‘digging’ (yep I’m a beatnik) are the beautifully named Swanton Bombs and the recently renamed Soft Pack. I apologize if you’re aware of these acts already. They’ve been banded around (hoho little pun) on various ‘ones to watch’ lists lately, but I'm sure NextGoalWins is what they really wanted.

Sooo Swanton Bombs new E.P Mammoth Skull is constantly on my MP3 player at the moment. This 2 piece aren’t content with rep’ing Jeff Hardy, they go about writing catchy Indie Pop numbers too. Consisting of 4 potential hits, it highlights Swanton Bombs as a potential force for the future. The distorted vocals suit me down to the ground and I love a good 2 piece but with a polish these tracks could be commercial hits too. I only wish I had been more of a rebel and taken the opportunity to see and interview them back when I slaving away in the library for my January exams.

Secondly, The Soft Pack seemed to have been blogged to death so I imagine other posts can do them more justice than I could with my poor grasp of journalism. But I think they’re an incredible band and I haven’t heard a song I don’t like from them yet. I couldn’t help but play Nightlife on my radio show today, a lunchtime 12-2 slot, between 2 chart hits no doubt, as is my confidence that they’re going to do extremely well this year.

Christian

Swanton Bombs - Shock

(Swanton Bombs Myspace)

The Soft Pack - Nightlife

(The Soft Pack Myspace)

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After playing our gig in Plymouth last weekend it's become apparent to me that there is still a healthy need for live music at a local level. Ok, not so much healthy, the majority of these teenagers were tipsy to say the least, and comfortably below the legal age. This must have been what the now legendary social commentators Hard Fi were referring to when they sang that little ditty about living for the weekend.

I dont want to sound like a grumpy guts but "when I was their age" I cant remember being that loud and confident (police had to intervene at one point between a couple of over zealous lads). Usually the threat of my dad coming to pick me up was enough! Ok, so alcohol was a constant feature at local gigs (for some without it would be like how I felt seeing Newcastle without Given this past week) but I suppose it had less of an obvious effect (people would have moshed regardless of how many bottles of irn bru vodka they had consumed). All in all though, this gig will stick long in the memory a good turn out and an over excited crowd for what should of been abit of a rusty performance. Kinda like the recent TV series 'Tough Gig', where comedians were required to do stand up at places out of their comfort zone, only without the protection of a camera crew.



(Picture = Typical Candidates crowd)


Christian.

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