Released 12th July 2004, 679 Recordings (Special Edition released 7th March 2005 so it still counts)
What I thought then...
I always loved Kenickie, so it was great that another band was getting attention from that part of the world. The first time I became properly aware of them was during the first big night out I had with a bunch of mates off my course. I heard this chanting start, and someone shouted in my ear “IT’S KATE BUSH!!!” And that was it. Love. I think we sang this as we went garden hopping on the way home, vagrants that we were.
What I think now...
Yet another short, spikey Epworth produced record. The first thing that hits you is the accents. The harmonies too, it makes a difference to have the whole band providing vocals. The first five tracks run by in 10 minutes, this album rushes like it has somewhere else to be. Then and now they sound like they’re having a hell of a lot of fun.
Standout Track
Hounds of Love would be an obvious choice, but I’ll always have a soft spot for Meantime.
Live Memories
I think I caught them at both Reading 2005 and 2006, first high up on the NME tent and the next mid afternoon lost on the main stage. There was also a weekender to see them at Nottingham Rock City, but this was around the time of their second album.
What Happened Next?
My interest in Futureheads probably mimics my views on a lot of the bands here: adored the first album, strongly interested in the second, downloaded the odd song off the third, vaguely aware other albums followed later. They’re still going, and they’re always a source of gift for my Stepdad, but through no real fault of their own, I’ve no idea what they’re up to. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about my next subject...
Next Time: No show without punch…
Previously: Capture/Release | A Certain Trigger | Introduction
Thursday, 13 August 2015
The Rakes - Capture/Release
Released 15th August 2005, V2
What I thought then...
Another lean Epworth produced album - in fact, I remember really getting into Epworth’s remixes of some Rakes tracks under his Phones guise. This album made me feel like The Rakes had lived every smoky hangover they sung about - very fitting for my life back then - “I had just woke up, everything was FAHKED!”
What I think now...
“A shower and a scrub / still smell like the smoking bit / of a Wetherspoons pub” - smoking indoors! It feels so long ago it might as well be in the 1900s. And as I worked in various Wetherspoons pubs pre Smoking Ban, this line will always make me laugh/break down in terror. Another thrilling opening track in Strasbourg, followed by a rush of highlights that hardly leave time to catch your breath. Although perhaps not as consistent as A Certain Trigger, the big songs remain mighty anthems, albeit never over-performed or over-produced. A simple truth.
Standout Track
Toss up between 22 Grand Job and Retreat, both contained lines that turned into catchphrases that still light up conversations. Did we do the same degree?
Live Memories
I remember almost seeing them and missing out on a few occasions. There was a tour they were meant to support, but pulled out. Then came their Reading 2005 performance which due to the singer’s illness was covered by several guest singers - I remember everyone piling back on stage for 22 Grand Job. It was Glastonbury 2007, in the mud, where I finally saw them for real and there was a spectacular pointy dance from Alan Donohoe. Finally, they opened the main stage (such a wrong place & time) in Leeds 2009, which must have been one of their last shows.
What Happened Next?
The only band I’m reviewing that has properly called it a day, and a while back too. Ten New Messages brought some good tunes, but probably made them as successful as they were going to be. Final album Klang was a spiky effort, but they were refreshingly honest by splitting shortly afterwards.
Next Time: False conversations...
Previously: A Certain Trigger | Introduction
What I thought then...
Another lean Epworth produced album - in fact, I remember really getting into Epworth’s remixes of some Rakes tracks under his Phones guise. This album made me feel like The Rakes had lived every smoky hangover they sung about - very fitting for my life back then - “I had just woke up, everything was FAHKED!”
What I think now...
“A shower and a scrub / still smell like the smoking bit / of a Wetherspoons pub” - smoking indoors! It feels so long ago it might as well be in the 1900s. And as I worked in various Wetherspoons pubs pre Smoking Ban, this line will always make me laugh/break down in terror. Another thrilling opening track in Strasbourg, followed by a rush of highlights that hardly leave time to catch your breath. Although perhaps not as consistent as A Certain Trigger, the big songs remain mighty anthems, albeit never over-performed or over-produced. A simple truth.
Standout Track
Toss up between 22 Grand Job and Retreat, both contained lines that turned into catchphrases that still light up conversations. Did we do the same degree?
Live Memories
I remember almost seeing them and missing out on a few occasions. There was a tour they were meant to support, but pulled out. Then came their Reading 2005 performance which due to the singer’s illness was covered by several guest singers - I remember everyone piling back on stage for 22 Grand Job. It was Glastonbury 2007, in the mud, where I finally saw them for real and there was a spectacular pointy dance from Alan Donohoe. Finally, they opened the main stage (such a wrong place & time) in Leeds 2009, which must have been one of their last shows.
What Happened Next?
The only band I’m reviewing that has properly called it a day, and a while back too. Ten New Messages brought some good tunes, but probably made them as successful as they were going to be. Final album Klang was a spiky effort, but they were refreshingly honest by splitting shortly afterwards.
Next Time: False conversations...
Previously: A Certain Trigger | Introduction
Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger
Released 16th May, Warp Records
What I thought then...
I remember this being an album that was very easy to listen to on repeat. It was a tight album which was a good showcase for “the Paul Epworth sound” - crisp percussion and the rhythm section always prominent in the mix. I’d always look forward to acting out the dance routine we made up for Apply Some Pressure. Almost definite I had the album poster on my bedroom wall. They always had interesting email newsletters too, obviously written by Paul Smith and not some intern.
What I think now...
The drums in the opening track Signal and Sign sum up the urgency on this record - at 39 minutes it does not stick around. The first few tracks clatter by, shoving into each other for attention. I don’t think there’s a bad song on here - a remarkably confident début that has barely aged at all.
Standout Track
Apply Some Pressure, still a powerful song, dance routine and all. And The Coast Is Always Changing, which I always pictured as an 8-bit remix for some reason.
Live Memories
I saw them around the time the album was released at Norwich Waterfront on an NME tour with the Cribs supporting, which also would have been around my 20th birthday. Reading 2006 rings a bell too, they might have closed the festival for us. Paul Smith was always a charmer, frantically reading lyrics from a notebook.
What Happened Next?
Immediately after this album came Our Velocity and their second record. After this, I drifted away. They’re still going, now five albums in with the sixth on the way, but they’ve not been on my radar for a while. They even played York around my birthday one year but that passed me by. Of all the bands I’m going to be writing about, it’s interesting that Maxïmo Park are the only ones (so far) to succumb to The Nostalgia Tour, playing a series of shows performing this album in full. These kind of gigs are a mixed bag. On the one hand, you’re guaranteed to hear all the songs you want to hear. But it’s also a bit of an admission from both band and fans that it was all downhill after album #1. Many acts actively avoid this, and I completely understand why. But nostalgia sells. Just look at Take That.
Next Time: Everything is temporary these days...
Previously: Introduction
What I thought then...
I remember this being an album that was very easy to listen to on repeat. It was a tight album which was a good showcase for “the Paul Epworth sound” - crisp percussion and the rhythm section always prominent in the mix. I’d always look forward to acting out the dance routine we made up for Apply Some Pressure. Almost definite I had the album poster on my bedroom wall. They always had interesting email newsletters too, obviously written by Paul Smith and not some intern.
What I think now...
The drums in the opening track Signal and Sign sum up the urgency on this record - at 39 minutes it does not stick around. The first few tracks clatter by, shoving into each other for attention. I don’t think there’s a bad song on here - a remarkably confident début that has barely aged at all.
Standout Track
Apply Some Pressure, still a powerful song, dance routine and all. And The Coast Is Always Changing, which I always pictured as an 8-bit remix for some reason.
Live Memories
I saw them around the time the album was released at Norwich Waterfront on an NME tour with the Cribs supporting, which also would have been around my 20th birthday. Reading 2006 rings a bell too, they might have closed the festival for us. Paul Smith was always a charmer, frantically reading lyrics from a notebook.
What Happened Next?
Immediately after this album came Our Velocity and their second record. After this, I drifted away. They’re still going, now five albums in with the sixth on the way, but they’ve not been on my radar for a while. They even played York around my birthday one year but that passed me by. Of all the bands I’m going to be writing about, it’s interesting that Maxïmo Park are the only ones (so far) to succumb to The Nostalgia Tour, playing a series of shows performing this album in full. These kind of gigs are a mixed bag. On the one hand, you’re guaranteed to hear all the songs you want to hear. But it’s also a bit of an admission from both band and fans that it was all downhill after album #1. Many acts actively avoid this, and I completely understand why. But nostalgia sells. Just look at Take That.
Next Time: Everything is temporary these days...
Previously: Introduction
10 Albums, 10 Years - Introduction to a Retrospective
In 2005, I turned 20 and was halfway through my time at university. I was also finally starting to get a life. This life mainly focused on going out, drinking and dancing ridiculously until the small hours. In one of those planets aligning moments, it was also the time British indie music started to get interesting again.
"The Class Of 2005" was a term coined by me and my companions at the time to describe a collection of groups that didn’t really have a whole lot in common with each other. It definitely felt like a better description compared to “Nu Britpop” or whatever the NME attempted to brand it at the time.
Walking to work the other morning I suddenly realised it's a decade since all this happened. I've been on the hunt for a writing project for a while, so here's a little retrospective of ten albums that provided the soundtrack to those days and nights. I’m planning to plot a history of what I thought about this album back then, what I think now listening to it again, and what happened next. This is history as I remember it and the present how I choose to see it. Like all my writing it’s totally biased and one sided.
I normally view nostalgia as bullshit, but everyone sells out eventually.
So, let's get started...
"The Class Of 2005" was a term coined by me and my companions at the time to describe a collection of groups that didn’t really have a whole lot in common with each other. It definitely felt like a better description compared to “Nu Britpop” or whatever the NME attempted to brand it at the time.
Walking to work the other morning I suddenly realised it's a decade since all this happened. I've been on the hunt for a writing project for a while, so here's a little retrospective of ten albums that provided the soundtrack to those days and nights. I’m planning to plot a history of what I thought about this album back then, what I think now listening to it again, and what happened next. This is history as I remember it and the present how I choose to see it. Like all my writing it’s totally biased and one sided.
I normally view nostalgia as bullshit, but everyone sells out eventually.
So, let's get started...
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
RIP Cockpit
So today I found out the Cockpit was shutting down for good.
Going to the Cockpit feels so closely tied in with moving to Leeds back in the summer of 2007, exploring a massive new city and hearing You! Me! Dancing! everywhere we went. Friday nights there were just the best, absolutely rammed with a perfect atmosphere. Fridays at work always seemed to drag a little too long if I knew that's where I was ending up that night.
So many great gigs were seen there. Off the top of my head...Patrick Wolf, The Go! Team, Lykke Li, Metronomy, Maccabees, Ladyhawke, Gruff Rhys...it was the perfect mid-sized venue to catch someone just before they got huge or a rare show in a smaller setting.
It was also home to Ice Cream, the long since gone queer night that used to take up Thursday evenings. Ice Cream was the first place I felt confident and comfortable enough to chat up guys. It didn't always go well, but it was the first steps that count. One of my favourite ever stories to tell came from this night...
Me and Ward walked into the toilets to see a Well Fierce drag queen putting on her finishing touches. "Is this the blokes?" Ward asked. She turned to us and said, in a voice that could not have been more deep or Yorkshire, "waddaya think???". And off she went. I'm almost definite this actually happened.
On the walls of the bar were framed tickets from early gigs by acts who went on to be massive. The White Stripes, Amy Winehouse, Queens of the Stone Age, that kind of thing. I always hoped to catch a show there that ended up behind the glass, and I did. Last time I went there, on display was a ticket from the Foals gig in 2007.
The last time I went there. It was some time last year, a Friday night that is usually rammed. The biggest room was shut, only populated by coat racks. and the other rooms never touched capacity. Something felt like it had gone wrong a while ago. I never made it back to see if things improved.
I could go on about Why Don't People Want To Dance These Days, about the rise of wood panelling, craft beers and pretentious snacks in Leeds nightspots, but there isn't much point. I doubt those kind of places will last 2 more years, let alone 20.
The Cockpit hosted nights out that forged new friendships, nearly ended old ones and everything inbetween. A sweaty little cave with no phone signal and the worst smelling toilets. It will be missed.
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