The fact that I’m posting at this hour on a Friday should say enough to you about how my weekend is going thus far… If you’re at a bit of a loose end this weekend then why not take a listen to these free playlists? You never know, you might actually enjoy yourself, you might actually have a far better time than all those ‘people’ off gallivanting with their ‘friends’.
If you would like to have your music featured on this blog in the future then please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or on twitter @monkeyhotel
Full Time Hobby have kindly uploaded some bonus tracks to their soundcloud page following the release of Erland and the Carnival’s self titled debut album, which you can buy here.
If it’s something more American-Folky you’re looking for then why not take a listen to Peter Lehndorff’s latest playlist. If you’re not familiar with his work he writes very charming and funny little songs packed with character. You have to really listen carefully to keep up with all the jokes, but if you’re reading this then I guess it’s not like you have anything better to do with your Friday night…This set was recorded live which means you get people laughing along with you, making you feel a bit less of a lonely, chuckling freak. If you like these songs then take a look at the rest of his SoundCloud page.
Somewhere between 5 and 50 times a day I get asked this question; “can you put my band/music on your blog? You can! OK, what do you need me to send you?”. The question isn’t always phrased exactly like that, sometimes it’s less specific than that, sometimes it’s an email that leads absolutely nowhere, sometimes it’s an msn chat that I don’t really have time for.
In short; yes, I am almost always willing to consider any music for this blog. It’s my favourite thing to do, find new music and share it with the world/few hundred people that bother to read this blog.
Every week I delete dozens of emails without even looking at the music I’m being directed to, simply because the person sending me the music hasn’t made it easy enough for me to work with. I’ve spoken to several other music bloggers on this and they’ve all experienced the same.
This is why I’m here to give you a hand, with my top tips for contacting music bloggers and a few ideas as how best to get your music featured on a blog.
1) Basic Manners
You would not believe how many emails I get that start “Here’s my band, check it out” or even worse, just a link to a MySpace page. It’s quite rude. A short hello and introduction is all I’m asking for.
2) Don’t Waffle
Yes, I want you to introduce yourself and give a brief description as to what you are. No, I don’t want your life story (unless it’s VERY interesting and worth writing about). If you have a press release, please don’t send it to me. If you have a badly written press release that your mate has written and you send it to me then there is a good chance I’ll use it to ridicule you later on.
3) Basic Information
Following on from the last two points on what not to write, here is what you should write; your artist/band name, members of the band, basic set up of the band, 50 maximum describing the band and most importantly how you see yourself stylistically.
4) Links
As much as I want to hear your music, I don’t want to download loads of mp3s and load them into iTunes etc. Send me a link where I can hear your music, tell me if you’re on spotify. Absolutely don’t ask me to go to iTunes and pay to download your music (so many people do this).
If I select you for review what I want is; a website/MySpace, a place where you can buy the music so I can advertise you and something I can embed in the blog post – soundcloud, youtube, vimeo…
and finally… 5) Make your email easy to read and work with
Here is what I would consider to be the perfect email from an artist;
Hi Luke, I saw your blog and would like it if you could review my band for it. My name is Rupert Piffle and I’m in a band called The Old Piss Farmers.
We are a lo-fi, electro-punk band and have just released our E.P – Piss Farming For First Timers.
You can hear the E.P in full on our MySpace page and on band camp, where you can also download it for £2. I have uploaded a track to SoundCloud for you.
Thanks,
Rupert
Obviously I’ve not included any links because none of those things exist, but hopefully you get the jist…
Anyway, if you want to be reviewed on this blog then please do get in touch, I’ll be more than happy to listen to your music and I hope this post has helped.
Welcome to the second of my midweek music suggestions.
Still doing this on a bit of a trial basis, but had a good enough response last week to keep it up.
If you would like your music to feature in future posts then please get in touch with me; luke@routenote.com or on twitter @monkeyhotel
Anyway, without further ado, let’s try to make your week pass that little bit faster by getting some new music down your lug-holes.
The first band I’m suggesting to you this week confirm my fears that I’m becoming some kind of Emo wimp in my late twenties. The Murder Act are exactly the sort of post-punk Shoegaze nonsense that I would normally spend a week happily resenting, but I like them, they remind of Joy Division in a very authentic and heart warming way.
Next some rather lovely acoustic music from a man with an extraordinarily unsuspecting name. David Whitwell writes the sort of striped down acoustic music that will please most people with a pulse. I’m currently reviewing his whole album which I’ll post for you all in the following weeks, watch out for it.
And finally, a band I initially expressed a lot of interest in, entirely because of their excellent name. Outback Eskimos (see, wonderful name) turned out not to be entirely up my street, but I think they might be up the street of the general music listening public which I assume you, dear readers, are a part of. Give them a chance, it’s the least you can do…
Monday morning eh? A whole week until you can have any kind of fun again. Well, why not wash those Monday-Moody-Blues away by checking out some (if not all) of the links below?
First up a really cool band who I’m sure will get your feet tapping, and get you through at least an hour of your otherwise dreadful morning. C.M Arnold & The Delta Breaks are a Southampton based ‘nu-blues’ band, which I’ll admit sounds like a good enough reason to ignore everything I’m about to say, but please, give them a chance. Their E.P All Hail The Songbird genuinely manages to drag the rather tired sound of delta blues into the 21st century with energy, imagination, charisma and extremely competent songwriting. The E.P can be listened to in full for free below.
Next, a punk band that might not be exactly to everyone’s taste, but still worth a listen if you’ve nothing better to do (and let’s face it, if you’re reading my drivel that’s likely to be the case!) Electricity in our Homes (pictured above) are a band I came across via the splendid music blog Super Ace Blog. The are about as close to an organised shambles as I’ll allow a band to get before I completely discredit them. I have no doubt that they’re going to be a massive success and already have a pretty dedicated following. Jump on the bandwagon before everyone else does, and feel superior to them in 12 months time by listening to the track below.
And finally a bit of a metaphorical curve ball of a song. If you’re anything like me you’ll hate children but have the mentality of one, which makes this positively charming little ditty one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in some time.
With that, I’m off to try and write some songs for children and make my millions.
The world of singer/songwriters is an overpopulated but important place. At their best, singer/songwriters can engage with their audience on a level that artists of all mediums dream of, allowing them intimate understanding of their inner most thoughts and building meaningful relationships with millions, most of whom they’ll never meet.
Intimacy and personality are the two most important ingredients for any singer/songwriter. When such an artist decides that they need to form a band, these essentials are often neglected and replaced with needless, slick musicianship, leaving the final product sounding rather overproduced and artificial . Unfortunately, this is the fate that Roland Albertson’s Legends of the Sun seems to have suffered.
‘White Wednesday’ opens the album with a pleasant enough picked guitar riff before some gentle strumming joins in. The song then fails to go anywhere for about 4 minutes. Not a promising start.
The second track (embedded below) ‘Picking Up The Pieces’ sounds like a coursework submission for an assignment entitled “write a song in the style of Coldplay”, featuring the hugely annoying 3+3+2 quaver rhythm that Chris Martin and co use in seemingly every song they record and ‘that’ delayed electric guitar sound that haunts my nightmares.
My major criticism of the album is that it feels like a show-reel designed to demonstrate just how rich this chap could make someone and how many different styles of acoustic-pop he can flourish within, rather than a serious attempt at a cohesive work of art. The album reaches it’s most ludicrous low when the preposterously American ‘Find Your Own’ opens with the dreadful line “walkin’ down the road and I can’t see where I’ve gone”, sigh…
There are two stand out songs that I actually like and demonstrate that with a taste filter applied, this guy might be able to produce something far superior. ‘Hold my hand’ has a genuinely interesting and catchy melody with extremely tasteful accompaniment that compliments the frankly lovely vocals. The album’s sign off ‘Broken’ is the only song where you feel a real sense of intimacy and for a brief period I found myself believing that a human was singing a song to me, rather than some sort of music robot bleeping at bank manager.
Recently in a pub I overheard a conversation between 4 quite average looking examples of humanity, who presumably worked together in some sort of boring office that probably provided insurance for cookers or something equally ridiculous. They were bad-mouthing someone they worked with for not thanking one of the girls of the group after she sent an email on his behalf. They were all saying things like “no, it’s not on” and “no, you’re right, you shouldn’t have to put up with that”. Are their lives seriously that uncomplicated that this is a major issue for them? Why do I bring this up? Well, I think the world that these people live in is the world that this music is designed for, a world full of people doing trivial things that are uncomplicated, inoffensive, easy and provoking no other reaction than total indifference.
That’s not to say that this is ‘bad’ music, far from it. The musicianship is accomplished, the production is flawless and the songs are extremely well constructed. I can see that a lot of people would like this, I just can’t see that anyone would love it.
The album is available to buy here on iTunes and you can find live dates by visiting either his website or MySpace page.
SICK BOY: Well, at one time, you’ve got it, and then you lose it, and it’s gone forever…
I don’t mean to be dismissive, but that quote pretty much sums up Muse’s latest offering from me. I understand that they’re one of the biggest bands in the country, if not the world, and that nothing I say here is going to have the slightest effect on their huge popularity, towering album sales, or the droves of fans who will be attending their next run of sell-out gigs. Their reputation is built mainly on the back of their big album, ‘Showbiz’ and a great live act, but I get the feeling that they’ve either lost heart, or something’s turned bitter in the emotional and creative cocktail that they used to get this far. The new album pulls in a load of odd and disparate influences, from the warbling strains of the Dr. Who theme tune heard in ‘Uprising’, or the strangely mangled Queen-like bursting operatic harmonies in ‘United States of Eurasia’ (A 1984 reference?In my anti-establishment band?).
The whole album feels forced, thrown together with a mish-mash of conflicting styles and rather samey material that doesn’t really take the band forward. I don’t know whether they’re trying to emulate bands like Radiohead and Portishead in trying for something avant-garde and different by sticking in these weird elements, but it doesn’t work for me. I now prepare to take flak for the rest of the week. As a small compensation, here’s a link to the Guardian’s rather white-washy piece with a We7 streaming widget where you can listen to the whole album.
There’s a lot of music on this album. Not just in the sense that there are 14 meaty tracks on it, but in that each one has been painstakingly written and composed. The album would feel uncomfortable being limited by a single genre, so I’ll just slop it into ‘Rock’, and then qualify it with a lot of competing styles: Coup d’Etat is soaked in drawling Country and Western guitars, with a shuffling drumbeat and a simple guitar riff riding over and under the backing and vocals. There are thumping, stadium rock beats, trashy, crashy indie guitar riffs and stabs, bluesy organs, aching prog rock dissonances and breaks, and a whole gamut of influences competing for space and attention in this music. The twin Ariadne’s threads of the album are front-man Ryan Jones’ allusive writing style, liberally peppered with literary references, and his voice, which is very mobile and fluid, and usually backed up with complex overdubbed harmonics. A fast paced, stomping, pop-tastic, sing-along chorus-fest of an album.
<– Buy it on iTunes