Raven Sings The Blues Presents Vol. 1

Raven Sings The Blues is one of my favourite blogs. It always presents interesting and weird music thats lo-fi, fuzzy and experimental. And it always highlights bands before they start getting hyped, its a great place to go for the next big thing in scuzzy guitar noise bands. I heard about Blank Dogs sometime last year through them and bands like Wavves and No Age have been featured on it over the last few years.
They have just put together and released their first compilation, RSTB Presents Vol.1 and its brilliant. The tracklist features 11 bands I've never heard of but are all ruddy excellent and the sleeve design is incredible.

Raven Sings The Blues Presents Vol.1

Jealous

Just a quick one as the football starts in a few minutes.
I don't usually post bands from the noisier side of my musical spectrum on funfunfun but every now and again I hear something that gets me too excited not to mention it on here. I hope it doesn't put people off my blog. Give it a try, you might like it.
Jealous produce the kind of loud, abrasive music that make flowers wilt, computers crash and lesser people shit themselves. It's just no-nonsense, fast, heavy hardcore that we don't create enough of in this country...well we might but not to this quality. The guitars are thrashy as hell, the drumming is rapid-fire and the vocals are barked like a monster. Its goddamn chaoticly brutal and it puts a smile on my face.

Jealous - Ruins

Jealous are on Anchors Aweigh records and also have a 7' out on DXC records too

Slow Club On A Bandstand

Anyone who's a regular reader of this blog will know of my love for Slow Club. Charles and Rebecca just have an amazing way of writing a tune that is sentimentally and yearning while simultaneously being a blast. So when I found out they were playing on a bandstand in North London a few Sundays back, no one could stop me from going.
I've been meaning to mention Bandstand Busking for a while. Like The Take Away Shows and The Black Cab Sessions, it takes artists/bands and shows them performing in unusual live settings but there's something really romantic about Bandstand Busking. I think I just really like the fact that all the delapidated bandstands around London are being used again, some look like they haven't been touched in decades so it's great that every few Sundays, they once again get a crowd surrounding them and their rotting structures get serenaded by some of the best live, acoustic music around including The Wave Pictures, Emmy The Great, Wild Beasts to name just a few.
The day for Slow Club was bright and sunny, perfect for sitting around Northampton Square park and listening to bright and sunny music. They played their last few singles (Because We're Dead, Christmas TV) and a few new ones that will feature on their debut album, which is coming out in June/July. I won't say anymore, just watch.



To watch the rest of the videos, go to the Bandstand Busking site. They are starting to happen every first Sunday of the month so there is one coming up next weekend. I can't wait.

Slow Club - Christmas TV

Cheers to Emmy _louise for the photo

Roll Bus Roll

There's two types of Jeffrey Lewis song. There's the ones where he cranks up the distortion on his acoustic guitar and hammers it to an inch of his life while he rants some political or social shit and his brother Jack pounds his bass and some drums get battered and its all manic and a bit neurotic and you need to catch your breathe by the end of it.
Or there's the mellow numbers. Where Jeff strums his acoustic like a loved pet and someone harmonizes with his untrained vocals, smoothing them over making a glorious vocal chord. The lyrics are always about funny or cute observations and the music reflects that by being simple and a little naive.
Roll Bus Roll is one of the latter songs. It's about fall asleep on the bus and Jeff has the ability to make that humble action into such a significant event that it warrants a whole song. But its turns out to be poignant and romantic and like everything Jeff creates, absolutely magical.
Roll Bus Roll is from Jeff's new album I Am Ere and is available on Rough Trade Records.

Jeffrey Lewis & The Juckyard - Roll Bus Roll

Speaking of Rough Trade, its Record Store Day tomorrow (well today) so be sure to come out and celebrate your local record store. I'll be in London all day, buying some records and see some free music in Rough Trade East and Puregroove. You can follow my exploits on Twitter

*Oh yeh I guess you've noticed the ill-fitting adverts I've stuck up on the blog. Just my way of making a little profit off funfunfun. If you want to give a little to me then there's no harm in clicking on the links. Remember I am giving you free music. So just click on a link and we'll both be happy. Thank you very much*

Teeth!!!

Exploring the sound of a drum kit explosively melding with a computer at the feet of a crazed, shouting lady is not something that most bands would do but it's exactly what London three-piece Teeth!!! squeals and blasts give an industrial, sound like. Consisting of Veronica (vocals), Simon T (electronics) and Simon W (drumzz), the band take fuzzy, garage, noise rock and add some modern-day mayhem. The distorted laptop'sdancey edge to the music, like on Who's Afraid Of Detroit?, but with the simple but insistent percussion and the chaotic mess it falls into at points, the outcome is more like a experimental rock band or a band practice when things take a turn for the weird.
Having recently returned from the States, where they played at LA's The Smell, and with forthcoming releases on Stop Scratching and Moshi Moshi, things are looking good for Teeth!!! Yeah!!!! And they're playing all over the capital at the moment, if you want to catch them live. Which you do!!!

Teeth!!! - If I Ever
Teeth!!! - Who's Afraid Of Detroit?

You can download a couple of free eps from the band's myspace if you so wish.

Left With Pictures - Her Father's Nose

Left With Pictures are a London-based 4-piece, three of who are classically trained musicians and the other being Ed from The Mules. Their myspace describes their music as 'chamber pop' but their more recent efforts have had more of a folky, skiffle sound to them. As far as comparisons go, I'd say a happier Inlets or Belle & Sebastian on a good day.
Her Father's Nose is the b-side to upcoming single Every Stitch, Every Line that comes out on Organ Grinder Records on 18th May. It's an upbeat and bouncy track about the difficulties and wonders of being in a relationship and with its delicately infectious melody and intricately orchestrated backing, it's a track that will radiate on cloudy days and be a perfect accompaniment to summer afternoons.

Left With Pictures - Her Father's Nose

Also check out the band's Black Cab Session. It's one of the best ones I've seen for a while.

The Zookeepers

If you like The Unicorns (like me), then you should love this. Beautiful World is a short blurt of indie rap with woodpecker percussion, a arcade-game gun mellowly firing behind it and haunting echoey synths and vocals. The Zookeepers are a quartet, hail from Boston and have a similar sound to a robotic Beck. They've got an album soon called Ballin' Outrageous. If its anything like this then it should be worth a listen.

The Zookeepers - Beautiful World

Get Love Blamma! Blamma! Style.

Blamma! Blamma! are back after what feels like ages but they've definitely returned with a bang (or maybe a Blamma!) After messing around with Blood Red Shoes, The Teenagers and Maximo Park a few years ago and having released a 12 inch, they've now remixed crazy French pop-rappers Naive New Beaters.
The track Get Love was originally a guitar-led, bassy, pretty standard modern pop tune but in the hands of Blamma!x2 it's a completely different beast. Guitars are replaced with bleeps and blips and a crisp beat adds an extra dimension. The synths sprawl and build time after time and the echoey vocals sound like they're coming from another land. I love how Blamma! Blamma! can turn something so mundane into something inspiring.

Naive New Beaters - Get Love (Blamma! Blamma! Sister Lisa remix)

Hey Everyone

This unplanned hiatus, due to lack of motivation and the everlasting struggle that is job-searching (if anyone reading this knows of any vacancies anywhere, let me know) has gone one far too long. But I'm back and what better way to return than with a post about the album I've been most looking forward to over the past month or so.
Hey Everyone is the debut album from Glaswegian racket-makers Dananananaykroyd and is being touted as something noisily special. Last year's ep Sissy Hits was a glorious collection of hard riffs, yelped duel vocals and pencil-sharp melodies compiled into exuberant, jubilant punchy tracks and with a number of them as well as some even older ones and some brand new songs making up Hey Everyone, its certain to be even better.
Dananananaykroyd were playing in London tonight but, down to lack of job(money) I couldn't get a ticket, but I have the track Chrome Rainbow for you to whet those appetites and get your ready for the rockingest album to come from these shores this year. I'm excited...

Dananananaykroyd - Chrome Rainbow

Hey Everyone is out on Monday on Best Before Records. Buy it here