Birmingham: It’s Not Shit

Gigbeth 2008 - myspace marathon

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Last year before Gigbeth, we did this. “This” consisted of having a quick shuftee at the myspace page of every act that was listed, listening to what we found and “reviewing” the bands based on only that. Quickly — no second goes, no in-depth research. This, we found, means we’ll be honest, without sparing feelings — the only way to judge music.

When we saw the bands (those that we managed to hunt out) we weren’t always right, but that isn’t really the point. At the very least it’s a collection of links all in one place, your opinions won’t match ours - go listen for yourself (and tell us what you think…).

So, barring falling prey to  the photo-sensitive epilepsy that myspace can induce, here we go:

Friday 7th November

Guillemots - there’s just something dull about them, maybe they try to hard. Very popular.
Young Knives - tracks are only clips, doesn’t do them justice. They are _normally_ great.
Zappa Jazz and The Tomorrow Band - theme tune to Vic Reeves Big Night Out.
BOBMO The Institubes - Nice beepy, squelchy stuff.

myspace has definitely got slower.

Oliver $ - Sounds retro to me, DJX keyboard?
Bad Robots - No tunes to listen to, which just makes myspace an ugly website. Shame, they look quite good.
Kelvra - first track up used the word “haters” which puts me off, pity as use of the word “jack” in a house stylee was good.
DJ CYS - Profile set to private - anti-social networking.
Bakerhound - Crunchy rock.
The Shaiyans - Dr Feelgood vibe, like.
Solarson - Despite listing the Beatles and Oasis and influences manage to sound quite fresh.
Brascoes - Decent songs, good brummie accent.
Subkicks - Is that horse’s hooves done by coconuts underneath overdriven guitar? It is. Big-beat-tastisc and it’s good.
Million Empire - Have stood happiest to least happy (L to R) on band photo.
The Getaways - Definitely want to be The Jam, are on the way.
Hot Monocles - Good name, song called ‘Snobs’, bluesy.
Mr Bones and the Dreamers - Goth vocals, chorus pedals, despite this there’s something to like.
Battle for Prague - Little bit pause-y for me, breathless even.
The Courtesy Group - If The Fall isn’t in the ‘influences’ section it should be - this is not a bad thing.
Raju Mali ft Kaz and the General - Scratching, and what I think is a kazoo. Bass too.

It’s this new music widget thing, takes an age to load.

Waler - They have good notices, track that played sounded like John Otway’s Body Talk.
Sarah Sayeed - starts with that hinterland between rap and poetry, not a thing I dig.
Mendi - Twinkle-twinkle little erm, I dunno listened to all the tracks an none the wiser.
the Shankojam -  “I LOVE THEM Mk1 GOLF”, er right.
Trew Selecta - DJ or filmmaker, only thing I found out was that he was “in my extended network”
Fabio - Long haired model, often on the cover of Mills and Boon books.
Hazard - Just made the other half go “woooahh”, that means loud d’n'b.
Original Sin.. AKA Adam Gdub - d’n'b with a side portion of widdly
Phase2 - d’n'b they say “Indie Bands F-K Off”, which is nice.
Vytol - I don’t want to say that all the drum and bass sounds the same…
Bassman - …as it clearly doesn’t. It does all provoke the same reactions in me, none seems to be doing…
Manikular - anything that stands out. Although Bassman has one phenomenal coat.
Accapello - I’ve given up on this one, the tracks load after the thousands of huge photos stored on imagebucket and then re-sized in the browser.
Biggie - With his Scottish heritage McBiggie raps up a storm.

Saturday 8th November

Sugar Hill Gang - They lead with Rapper’s Delight, they also have their phone number on there.
Anathema - T-Shirt and CD package available from ‘Scope’, which I guess is their record label rather than the shop on King’s Heath High St
Einstellung - They’re louder than this, lead track reminds of Belle and Sebastian.
The Keyboard Choir - Start with a “protect and survive” sample. Hint of the ‘werk, atmospheric.
Rich Batsford - Rich has a proper website, and a blog. His piano music is haunting when at its best.
Stanton Warriors - Music doesn’t bear any resemblance to what I’d have thought they be like.
Subfocus - Stadium d’n'b. Weeeeeeee Dum Weeeeee.
Joebot - Bibbly, bibbly.
Miles Hunt - Sounds in pain, Wonder Stuff are playing in town on 30h Oct
Erica Nockalls - will be fiddling while Hunty burns.
Miccoli - The Brummie Coors.
Dr Meaker - Charty, horns, very modern.
DJ Switch - Scratching - nice video of him on Blue Peter.
Mylz - Nice blue page, no sounds to check.
DJ Cro - Freestyle rapping, can rhyme but it’s flat without accompaniment on this here page.
Barrowclough - Facebook page, hip hop with humour, worth checking out.
Mr FX - Tinkly piano, far too light for my taste. Pop-hop?
D:Ream - Sorry, no. Just don’t get it. Worst type of ’soul vocals’ over nothingly tune.
The Destroyers - Will scare the merry shite out of you with zombie jazz-punk. Storming.
Bryn Christopher - Eagle-eye Action Man look in photos. Craig David-desperate for a poo vocals.

Sure there’s more to come, if you know an act that’s playing leave a note in the comments and we’ll give them a listen. Remember, we go to myspace so you don’t have to.

Tickets are apparenlty selling fast. Full details, and a now-functioning blog over at Gigbeth HQ.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am by Jon Bounds and is filed under music, what's on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.