Putting the Post into Post-Rock

Tired Irie, Cats And Cats And Cats, Fabulous Foxes - The Sumo, Leicester 26/01/07

First thing's first. Fabulous Foxes is not a fox; nor is there more than one of it. It is one man and one acoustic guitar. Most of his songs were pretty good, in a Neutral Milk Hotel kind of way. One song sounded a hell of a lot like a Joanna Newsom song. But it wasn't a cover. Maybe she ripped him off. He did a couple of songs a cappella. These were not so good.

Cats and Cats and Cats are not cats. Their sets starts with a Godspeed-esq drone. They have a trumpet and violin which sounds good. First song done, so far so good. But then it all goes wrong. Their bassist has an awful tone; the violin and trumpet go out of tune. There are lots of stops and starts, a couple of jerky bits, an Explosions In The Sky guitar break, then another loud bit with out of tune strings. They do a bit that sounds like Do Make Say Think. Their last song was ten minutes plus. It all got bad quickly. I'm not sure whether they have good ideas that are badly executed or they're just plain bad.

Tired Irie, unlike the other bands tonight, keep true to their name and seem a bit tired. Now a four piece, and with a slightly new direction, they sound more like The Rapture then post-rock. They have good bits, like the riff at the end of "Those That Swung Hips" (or whatever it's called) or certain vocal hooks but it's all lost in a dull, pedistrian dance-punk dirge.

After the gig, we hit up a new club night in town called Panic. It was fairly shit; do we really need to hear the same Fratellis song twice in the space of 15 minutes? Tons of underage kids there, had a whole youth club vibe going on. One floor was electro and rave. Cos it's so hot right now.


Here are some links so you can make up your own mind on said bands:
Fabulous Foxes
Cats And Cats And Cats
Tired Irie

Don't say I'm not fair.

Chips Ahoy!

Record of the Week: The Hold Steady "Boys and Girls in Amercia"


It sounds like Bruce Springsteen, with Jack Kerouac references. It also reminds me of Jawbreaker in a way. Rock and roll played by people who grew on hardcore and the like. Good lyrics from the guy who used to sing in Lifter Puller. Apparently the pharse "America's Jarvis Cocker" has been used. I could probably get behind that. Worth checking out I say.

Here's a myspace link: here.

And here's some words that i picked out:

"we had some massive highs.

we had some crushing lows.

we had some lusty little crushes

we had those all ages hardcore matinee shows."



I also acquired the new Bloc Party album. I'm not convinced.


Is this good enough to be a regular feature? Probably not.

I have no idea if this blog has had any views. Oh well.

First gig = first post

The KBC, The Maple State @ The Metro, London


First gig of the year and i'm off to a fairly underwhelming start. But it gives me a reason to start this here blog and to waste more time on the internet.

First band of the night were the maple state. They sound pretty Deep Elm-mo, nothing too offensive, but nothing too interesting. The kids seem to love them, sing-alongs and all. They'll probably be massive.

Secondly, The KBC. Run of the mill, Rapture-style stuff. Really quite dull.

Not really a good start to a gig year, or even a blog but hopefully it will pick up.