Sunday, March 25, 2007

Getting Focused

Browsing through a Saturday magazine last week I was confronted by a Ford advert, entitled.... 'Own The Road... Unplugged!'. It features a fresh faced young acoustic type by the name of Ben Griffiths. Ben who? "Well, I'm a singer/songwriter from Brighton and I'm starting out, which means loads of gigs, so I need a decent car as much as a good guitar" reads the ad.

More important than a decent guitar and a nice shiny car, is something glaringly obvious in its ommission. Decent songs?

Now, how many budding musical types just starting out can really afford a new car? Never mind one that costs £13,000. Promoters at these acoustic nights tend to not pay very much, if anything at all. So Ben, what do you really do? Rob banks on the way to the gig? Work in a call centre in Hove? People smuggling? No, that would require a Galaxy.

Also of some irritation on his myspace site, is the statement that his is the "Soundtrack to the Ford radio and press adverts". Soundtrack to a press ad? I must be missing out on some new technology.

Come on Ben, get a shit white van and get on the road proper with some crusty guitar tech. Sack the job off and lose the Ford ads, embrace the rock ethic, get out there, get your electric guitar out and some effects pedals and crank the distortion up.

Even better, write a song dissing Ford, or talking about the problems with the central locking not working. Or some kind of eco-rock anthem about electric cars, something interesting and rebellious. Or you might end up being the next James Blunt, and no-one wants that.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Got to get a nu pair of shooz

The latest ad campaign for Jaguar fell onto our television screens a few weeks ago, soundtracked with the track Collarbone by Fujiya and Miyagi.


F&M aren't a couple of Japanese electro types but a three piece from Brighton who knock out electronicy-krautrock stuff, and they've got a good line in non-sensical ramblings that float along over the top of low-slung basslines. Lyrics remind me of Karl Hyde from Underworld at times (ie: lyrically it doesn't make much sense), with ramblings about pixelated jazz mags, and on closer inspection an obsession with broken bones and injuries - wonder if one of them was particularly injury prone? Works great on the motorway, and we had a few trips last year with this keeping us going. It maybe gets a little samey when played end to end, but a very promising first record, and distanced from the rest of this new rave nonsense that is kicking about. I first heard Ankle Injuries on the radio, and got the album soon after, subsequently discovering a 7" I had bought by them about a year before kicking about in my collection.

The advert is pretty standard car ad fare as it goes, sexy looking car, good looking people, dark and moody so the Jag's lines look sleek and its all jolly fashionable. Meanwhile F&M's track grooves away in the background adding to the atmosphere and reinforcing the message. The key vocal in the track that emerges at the end of the ad is 'got to get a new pair of shoes'. A not so hidden message that we all need to buy a nice shiny £40,000 car so we can be very good looking and live a successful and beautiful life too. Where's the showroom?

Another 7" in my collection, and another with a shoe reference is Nu Shooz - I can't wait. A downtempo number from the 80's which might have worked just as well for Jaguar. Its quirky, poppy, and the lyric is 'on message'. However, as I followed this train of thought I found this site - celebrating 20 years of the 'song that wouldn't die'.

On viewing the site, stick with the Fujiya and Miyagi, and I'll be putting those ropey 7s on ebay, and dispensing with any further smart arse thoughts on this matter.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

(Superstar DJs) Here we go

This site intends to pass comment on the music that is out there every day, being consumed all day by the unsuspecting and passive public.

Likewise I might attend the odd gig and maybe stick that on here, or if a decent album or similar passes my way I might pass ill-informed and misguided comment on those too.

Mostly, it is intended to be about the everyday stuff that pops up and causes some kind of reaction. Some band doing a Candy Flip-style cover of The Smiths (on the O.C. a couple of weeks back - made me get The Smiths on the iPod again), or a weird remix overheard on a pirate station that you can't find again (this week as I was driving home late one night - could have been a Young Knives remix).

That's the intention anyway. Might all turn out completely different.