TheBrit and TheYank

One of the first conversations TheBrit and I had was on accents (though I’m not sure he remember this, being old and all). For when I would say, “I so do love a Scottish accent,” TheBrit would state something along the lines that he was very fond of Mid-Lothian variations but not so much on Glaswegian. Okay, I could get that. As a native Yank, I could distinguish between someone from Texas and Alabama while a non-native Yank possibly could not. I can, however, distinguish between Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh accents but not necessarily the regional dialects. And that ability to pinpoint out various inflections has more to do with my Anglophile musical and television taste over outright study.

But what is it with the American fascination with accents? My own bland, non-descript voice is not remarkable in the slightest other than it’s husky and low. I don’t have cute diphthongs or cleverly slur vowels together. I don’t chop off consonants or adjust my pitch on specific words. I am known to make adjustments to certain word pronunciations randomly, but as far as accents go, mine is pretty boring and is also pretty fly-over-states American. But I think it is also because of my self-confessed blandness that heightens my fascination with non-American sounds.

And it was during the course of our conversation on accents that TheBrit and I discussed Mockney and the uproar surrounding it in music circles. We were interested in the phenomenon of singers (and bands) who would fake an accent (and to some degree, a life style) in order to become popular. What was is it about Cockney that is so appealing? While it predominates a small geographical area (eastern London), its influence is felt world wide. Even freakin’ Madonna has taken to speaking with a Cockney accent even though ‘ol girl is from Flint, MI. And then there is the case of certain bands, like Bloc Party, who are from East London but are definitely not defined as a Cockney band. But then you have someone like David Bowie who started his career singing in the tone of a perfect public school boy and would later change his singing style to sound more common and of the streets aka Cockney.

In recent years, acts such as Lily Allen, Kate Nash, The Streets, Adele and Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz/The Good, the Bad and the Queen) have come under fire for affecting Mockney inflections in their singing to give themselves a thought of highly desired street cred. The believability that that any of these people are really from the lower working class London is like the U.S. taking Vanilla Ice seriously as someone who came from the ‘hood.

TheBrit and I loved the idea of doing a Mockney theme but the number of artists to truly make it worthwhile is limited and we would end up using the same artists over and over again. And there was another problem — these are legitimate artists and not necessairly one-hit wonders. Damon Albarn is so entrenched world wide in the music industry that you can’t pick up an album these days without his signature on it somewhere. Lily has just dropped a new album which is getting fairly decent radio play. Adele won two Grammy and Kate Nash is doing wonderfully with her solo effort in the U.K. and here in the States. So instead, we decided to choose just one Mockney performer to scrutinize and I chose Kate Nash.

Kate Nash, is it seems one of the more new promising artists these days, was found via her MySpace page and really blew up when Lilly Allen put Kate in her top 8 - so the story goes. And if you scope out Ms. Allen’s top 8 now, you’ll notice a certain young British chanteuse who recently won a Grammy is now encased firmly in Ms. Allen’s top 8. Interesting.

But I digress. Shortly after blowing up on the interwebs, Nash released a few singles on a local indie label before signing to Fiction Records. Her first album, Made of Bricks, was released in the U.K. in August of 2007 and in the U.S. in early 2008. Her second album, as yet untitled, is apparently still in production with release date tentatively set for 2010.

What makes Kate Nash mockney? There are conflicting reports of her birth as several reputable sources place her birth in Dublin and moving to London at a fairly young age while others make the claim she was born and raised in London proper. The only consistency is that Kate was raised in Harrow, a semi-affluent borough located north-west of London. Thus by affecting a cockney delivery in her singing, which is symbolic of the working/lower class of eastern London, is what makes her mockney. She’s been referred to as a third rate third rate Lily Allen (who, herself, was called a third rate Wendy Richard).

Nash is adorable. She’s doesn’t have, really, the sizzling sexy vocal range of Adele or the in your face of Lily Allen, yet she’s a combination of both. She’s playful and fun, much like Allen is but without being so in your face that you want to bitchslap her, something that I tend to want to do after listening to Allen’s albums because Allen’s so-called in-your-face after awhile seems less like using it as a storytelling device and more like a sulky, whiny drama queen. While I like Allen’s music, I can’t listen it to for too long before I want to stab her. True fact.

Nash has the emotional depth of Adele in terms of introspection and story telling while at the same time she comes off more as adorable, approachable girl next door and not the “oh woe is me, I hate you! Don’t leave me!” soulful moodiness of Adele. Nash writes perfect pop songs that are toe tapping, jangly good fun but are not so bubbly and fluffy that they are devoid of meaning nor are they so freakin’ depressing, which Adele’s soulful tunes tend to become after listening to them for an age, that you want to go off and kill yourself.

Take Foundations, which tells the story of a girl in a relationship with a boy who perhaps she shouldn’t be with and she questions the value of their relationship which is all set to a head bopping tune. It aims to provoke a seriousness (introspection in terms of relationship) but it’s difficult to believe the seriousness of said introspection when you’re spending your time bopping around your apartment. But having been in that particular position myself, I can understand Nash’s use of fun to make something that is difficult more palatable. Having grown up in the boom years of Depeche Mode and The Cure, I wonder if I would be quite so moody if there was a Nash equivalent at that time?

Yet, remarkably, Foundations climbed the charts in the U.K. It is not difficult to believe that it has staying power or pop-worthiness but since when did hearing a pop song about the demise of a relationship make one want to blare their radio and dance around their apartment? Apparently, it does.

In Mariella, Nash explores the idea of wanting to be in someone else’s shoes with the narrative swapping between the two persons but with the Mariella verses about the difficulties of being her. We can all agree, perhaps, that there is a time in our lives when we want to be in someone else or when being ourselves can be too burdensome. Children are cruel creatures and if you’re the slightest bit different, there is hell to pay. But what delights Mariella is that while she knows that people don’t necessairly understand her, she knows all the secrets in the world and sometimes that is enough.

Kate Nash may not be the world’s greatest pop star nor will she perhaps light the world on fire with her songwriting but what he does have over most singer/songwriters is the rare mix of honesty and playfulness that makes her songwriting special. Her career will be one to watch in the future and I’m eagerly awaiting her second album.

Kate Nash - official site
Kate Nash - Wikipedia
Kate Nash - Last.fm
Kate Nash - MySpace

Sometimes a good idea is only good whilst it remains an idea. I realised this once again a few weeks back when researching for this theme. TheYank and I spent a morning / afternoon respectively deciding which bands and singers could be classified as Mockney. During this time TheYank learned a little about the sociolinguistic and geographical makeup of London — it’s not all play, you know — and I ended up wondering how the hell the term could be applied to music given there’s only a handle of artists who can genuinely be classified as such.

So we copped out and picked one each. Rather than choose from the BRIT School sausage factory that has a propensity for producing Mockney starlets¹, I’ve gone for Mike Skinner’s The Streets, who despite living in Birmingham and Barnet sounds like no-one I’ve ever known from either of those two places.

The Streets - Don’t Mug Yourself

The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material was met with some derision by the UK garage community. It’s easy to tell why: while it was lumped in with that genre, it doesn’t even to this day resemble a typical garage album - it’s too minimal, chilled and wordy (not rappy). As such it was received warmly by all types of listener - critics included - and became extraordinarily successful. Mike Skinner’s tales of girls, booze and dope delighted many, even those outwith his lifestyle, because they were told with humour and truth. Pitchfork was later to call it the “chav Parklife,” which is a compliment.

Don’t Mug Yourself was the fourth single taken from the album, itself a measure of the album’s success and impact. Recorded after a night out drinking rum in a cinema, watching Monsoon Wedding with his mate Calvin Bailey, it’s “about bugging yourself with a girl .. just really liking a girl and acting like a complete twat.” Soft but crisp percussion and a relentless unwavering bassline serves two purposes: firstly it keeps pushing the story forward, making you want to hear more, and yet it’s sufficiently uninteresting to not distract from his lyrics. The ultimate charm of this song is however the way that it collapses in a heap at the end from Calvin’s impromptu counter-piece, ending with him and Mike giggling their way into another attempt to record his vocals.

The Streets - official website
Mike Skinner - official website
The Streets - Don’t Mug Yourself (Last.fm)
The Streets - Original Pirate Material (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Blinded by the Lights

A Grand Don’t Come For Free eschewed the usual sophomore slump buy gambling on a concept album centering around the loss and eventual recovery of £1000. Second time around, the backing tracks are less melodic and harder, mirroring the darkness of the album, sometimes using rough cut classical samples and stabs to highlight the drama of Mike’s stories.

Few of its songs come with melodies, but Blinded by the Lights is one of them. Mike Skinner carries his paranoia into a nightclub, wrenched with confusion over his new girlfriend. Before he can reach any conclusion, the mix of alcohol and drugs in his body takes him away from those worries, and the loneliness he felt upon entering the club disappears. The backing, which begins with heavy snares, trancey gated pads and ravey soulful backing vocals, becomes gradually more serene. It’s a neat trick because it barely changes; rather it’s the interplay and feeling behind the lyrics that changes the perception of the music - helped by the arrival of hi-hats.

The Streets - Blinded by the Lights (Last.fm)
The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come For Free (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Can’t Con An Honest John

Success and fame treats people differently. The Streets’ third album The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living doesn’t boast, nor does it claim life to be tranquil and happy, which one might expect. Instead it has songs of introspection and the sheer hard graft of being famous and dealing with its consequences. Curiously it bears the most interesting production techniques of all The Streets music to date. The melodies, when present, are more warped, atonal and psychotic, and Mike’s vocals are delivered with even less rhythmic precision. Perhaps this was too much for some critics who marked it down in comparison with the previous two.

The story of Can’t Con An Honest John is simply one of a straightforward pub hustle (albeit a good one), accompanied by a wobbly bassline, off-key padded chords and the occasional drop into a two-stage am-dram EastEnders chorus. Mike expresses through this song his realisation that the music industry is itself a scam: “running the beats is just getting people’s confidence and then taking their money.” It’s possible that the backing and that juvenile chorus is evidence to support that.

The Streets - The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - I Love You More (Than You Like Me)

And then it all went wrong. Everything is Borrowed was the flipside follow-up: an album full of terribly obvious philosophising - probably now repeated on dozens of MySpace blog posts or Facebook memes - and almost equally bad music. A disparate set of styles employed as if they were just test tracks. Proof once again that happiness almost always leads to shocking songwriting².

Fortunately there are a couple of fabulous non-duds: I Love You More (Than You Like Me) is a story of internal, eternal apprehension, lifted by lounge piano swing, and On The Flip Of A Coin which binds risks with choices, subverts that attachment through randomness, all for a minor rite of passage: “And I got a bit scared of the fate of my baby son’s future / So I invented a reason to see if you could ever make do.”³

I’m especially cool with the former, just because of its chorus and one hilarious line. Unfortunately it never tries to reach a ravishing big band finale - restraint remains one of Mike Skinner’s musical traits - and instead the song peters out with a piano coda acting as a pause before its companion piece On The Edge Of A Cliff arrives.

The Streets - Everything is Borrowed (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Streets - Stay Positive

Mike Skinner has stated that the forthcoming album Computer and Blues will be “the final Streets album,” which given the catastrophe of Everything Is Borrowed may be just as well. An opportunity to take a break and reinvent perhaps? For this fifth and final song, I’ve chosen one that reflects what makes The Streets interesting by going back to their debut.

Stay Positive is the lengthy song that closes out Original Pirate Material. This urban sermon is delivered in a way that’s far more direct and magnetic. Spot the difference in his lyrics: “I ain’t no preaching fucker and I ain’t no do-goody-goody either / This is about when shit goes pear-shaped.”

Built from string and piano samples, rough cut and looped, it reminds me of The Young Gods daring use of classical backdrops for their early albums. I drop it here because it’s a useful contrast to the previous song. Mike’s vocals are smoother, more rounded and less blokey, and it’s easier to spend time with the words which are blunt and truthful, yet carry with them an unexpected warmth.

The Streets - Original Pirate Material (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

1. Well, okay, maybe just Kate Nash.
2. Ask Tori’s fans about American Doll Posse and her upcoming Abnormally Attracted To Sin.
3. I’m being ironic with respect to the latter song.

A couple of years ago, whilst dating a very mopey boy, I made him a 130+ mp3 mix CD entitled, “Cheer The Fuck Up!”¹ The point of the disc, at the time I thought, was to showcase that being upbeat and happy isn’t necessarily a bad thing — you know, it’s kinda of fun!² Over the years, I would create various and similar themed discs for others and myself, music designed to get fists pumping and car dancing as one drove about town, across state and various points in-between.

When TheBrit and I discussed this week’s theme to coincide with the spring solstice, it seemed fitting that we’d pick songs that would make one want to pump fists in the air, car dance, dance with sheep and just generally get the legs and body moving. Choosing only five songs, with the repertoire now much larger since twee is snarling to be in front and power pop getting more air play, has become that much harder than it was four or five years ago when I made the behemoth 130 song disc. For those of you who know me, a couple of these songs may not surprise you and I think that is because a really good pop song never dies, it just gets remixed and refreshed for the next generation.

Iggy Pop - Lust For Life

Like most of those of my generation³, I fell in love with this song when it was used as the opening theme for the dreamy Ewan McGregor movie, Trainspotting. Of course when the song was originally released, I was five years old and was all about Electric Company and Sesame Street over drugs and flesh machines. But there is something about this song, even with its so vigorous nod to Motown, that over 30 years later it stills sounds remarkably fresh and contemporary. I’ve always had a thing for Iggy ever since I read an article about him in Stuff Magazine in which he talked about the secret for staying so young was daily copious amounts of steak and sex.  Plus the song was co-written by David Bowie, so you know it has some street cred and you can’t help but want to start doing the white guy head bob when it comes on the radio, er mp3 player.

Iggy Pop - official website
Iggy Pop - Last.fm
Iggy Pop and The Stooges - MySpace
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

Supergrass - Pumping On Your Stereo

When we began hammering out the details of TBaTY, TheBrit and I decided not to confer with each other on our lists because we wanted to be surprised as to what the other would pick for their songs. Given, however, our similarity in musical taste, I wasn’t too terribly surprised to see Republica’s Ready To Go on his list and neither was he surprised to see this particular song on my list. “That’s a really great song!,” he said. “I know,” I typed smugly. Because why else would I have chosen it if it were not?

I’m not terribly sure how I got into Supergrass but I do rather adore them. I love how they do not take themselves too seriously, think Art Brut crossed with Flight of the Conchords. It was a toss-up between this song and Alright on my short list and I knew that a Supergrass song had to be in the top 5. I went with this song namely because they switch between “Humping” and “Pumping” in the song and the video has their disembodied heads on muppets. But again, the white guy head bob and fist pumping, if I could pogo in my car when this song is playing, I would.

Trivia fact: The guys who directed the video for this song, are also the guys who directed Son of Rambow and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Supergrass - official website
Supergrass - Last.fm
Supergrass - MySpace
Supergrass - Supergrass is 10 (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

Black Kids - I’m Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

Discovered this band via NPR’s All Song’s Considered, which has become one of my mainstays of new and upcoming music. I Just. Couldn’t. Get. This. Song. Out. Of. My. Head. I break into spontaneous dancing when the song comes on! It has become my default ringtone on my cell! Take a bunch kids from Florida with an obsession with Robert Smith, Morrissey, cheeky nods to double entendre and tight lyrics and voila! you have the Black Kids. Formed in 2006, self-produced their first EP in 2007 and discovered via MySpace, these “kids” have been making the rounds with their cute, cleverly wordy, overly catchy pop songs. While this song continually makes “Best Of” lists, chances are that unless you are listening to college/alternative radio, you probably haven’t heard of it. Catchy and approachable, Black Kids have not yet made it to mainstream America.

XFM Scotland did a very clever one take video of the station lip synching the song.

Black Kids - official website
Black Kids - Last.fm
Black Kids - MySpace
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

Kelly Osbourne - Shut Up

Yes, that Kelly Osbourne — daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. That Kelly, infamous for her straight shooting mouth which constantly got her into trouble, Osbourne.

The Osbournes was the only reality television show I watched from start to finish, and really, the only reality television show that I even really liked. It didn’t seem too much stretch of the imagination to discover that Kelly was interested in a pop career or that she was interested in making a name for herself outside of the family. The thing that did strike me as the most surprising is that she would keep at it, releasing vaguely decent albums that would run the gamut from originals to covers. Kelly is never going to be a great chanteuse, mind, but she does have chops to make a somewhat successful career with what she does have. If she stays out of rehab and stops bitch-slapping gossip columnists around London that is.

One of the many reasons why I love this song is that Kelly has, even at the tender age of 18 when the song was released, never censored herself or her words and for that, I will always respect her.

Kelly Osbourne - official website
Kelly Osbourne - Last.fm
Kelly Osbourne - MySpace
Kelly Osbourne - Shut Up (Amazon US, Amazon UK)

The Ting Tings - That’s Not My Name

I had originally envisioned when writing this blog that dashing these entries out would be cake — but rather, they take rather large amounts of time between choosing the songs, to what you’re going to say and then hunting down the links to go with the words. And often, in a case like this week where I had to narrow the list from hundreds to dozens to five songs, I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to the same songs over and over, figuring out why I love X song more so than Y song.

TheBF works from home and as I had spent most of the day listening to music with my headphones on making these harsh cold decisions, he had no idea what I was up to musically. Once he was off his gazillion hour conference call, I pulled the plug on the headphones and let the sound of The Tings Tings filter through our apartment. “Hey!” he said, “I rather like this song.” I looked at him in surprise. TheBF and I are as far away from each other musically as humanly possible — he likes Bob Dylan, Afro-pop and Jazz while I lay money down on Brit-pop, shoegaze, post-rock and twee. For him, happiness is a bluesy song about a guy who is bitching about the loss of his cattle to poachers; while to me, happiness is a new Interpol album.

So when either of us says we like a song that is from a genre we don’t normally dip our toes into, we tend to confirm that indeed said choices are superior.⁴

The Ting Tings, power-pop/dance duo from Salford, Manchester, UK. One could argue they are Joy Division crossed with Britney Spears — at least as far as influences go. The whole album is filled of similar simply written, catchy pop tunes that make you want to dance — which is their intent. They will never be accused of putting together overly complicated songs that take ages to decipher - which is also their point. But Katie White has an intelligence on her that one doesn’t normally find in dance pop tunes, which makes them a bit different. Either way, I adore them and am vaguely upset they are not coming to Detroit in their current US tour.

The song Great DJ was featured as the trailer for Slumdog Millionaire.

The Ting Tings - official site
The Ting Tings - MySpace
The Ting Tings - Last.fm
The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

1. I seem to have a penchant of attracting mopey (meaning introvert, philosophical, insightful, awkward) boys, romantically and platonically. I also find it ironic that what tends to cure them of their mopiness is hot sex and not necessarily with me. Does Conor Oberst know about this cure?
2. The whole wallowing in self-pity, woe is me crap drives me insane. TheBF is the king of curmudgeons and yet, around me, he’s all about peeing rainbows and shitting leprechauns. See 1.
3. Generation X, of course!
4. When, however, he discovered the name of the band was The Ting Tings, TheBF said he wanted to go vomit because he couldn’t believe he could like a band who called themselves “The Ting Tings.” Yeah, I don’t get it either.

What does Spring mean to me in respect of Music? There’s the literal interpretation, which just sounds a bit too dry to me - do you know any songs about crocuses? And there’s the figurative representation of it being about renewal, emergence and growth. I think we decided to go a third route (although you’ll have to see the column right to confirm that, I could have gotten this completely wrong.) To me, this alternative means the energy and life that some music can bring out of us to make us feel joyful and expectant. Perhaps hope is an appropriate word here too.

Spring is also a striking contrast to the gloominess of Autumn and Winter, two seasons that very much invoke depression. I can be a bit of a mope at times - and there’s an awful lot of mope-worthy music in my collection - perfectly summarised within the opening lines of High Fidelity: “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

For this theme, therefore, I’ve chosen songs that give me that fist-pumping impetus, that give me a natural high, that make me deliriously happy to be on this planet, that I love listening to when out and about, walking. Believe it not, extensive trawling through my collection revealed there to be at least thirty candidates, which for a miserablist like me is quite staggering. Here are, perhaps, my top five.

Love Corporation - Love

Just look at that cover. Ed Ball, musical polymath and one time executive at Creation Records wrote this first Love Corporation album, which he delightfully calls “the 2nd Acid House album” on his MySpace page - just in case you didn’t deduce that from the cover. It was released in February 1991 towards the closing months of the Second Summer of Love.

Love is the opening track and it’s all about the piano. Unusually, it begins like a coda. A simple but melodic, jaunty housey piano dominates. Its pitch flitting amongst the soft shuffling beats and acid squiggles. In effect a summary of all the dance music that appeared during those years. Then just when we’re becoming accustomed to its prettiness, the tune turns darker through hanging squalls and delays.

But that exists only to highlight the elated conclusion where the piano lead occasionally sprouts bluesy chords and we discover that this coda was actually just the beginning of a much longer sequence. Whether Love is composed or improvised doesn’t matter, it’s lovely.

Love Corporation - MySpace
Love Corporation - Ed Ball
Love Corporation - Last.fm

Republica - Ready to Go

It’s difficult to imagine this song existing without its accompanying videos - there are at least three of them. In fact, were it not for those videos, the song might not have the energy it does. One time N-Joi singer Saffron does her blokish ladette impression, in an extreme sneering example of what’s now called Mockney. She happened to do that on all of Republica’s songs, not that I’m complaining. So when she sings “I’m standing on the rooftops ‘aving it!” you know and feel exactly how she feels. Sure, there’s a darkness behind the exuberance of the song, but that’s not stopped it featuring on hundreds of (mostly football) compilation CDs.

Ready To Go was released in 1996 as the forerunner to their eponymous debut album, although two other singles had arrived two years earlier, including Bloke - which was part of my answer to TheYank’s curve-ball question last year “What Republica song are you?”

If you want a stereotypical example of how all house piano sounded during that time, this is it - Love Corporation’s piano isn’t full enough, which is why the US-centric rock mix of this song is so disappointing: dropping the piano and Garbage-ing it up with extra grinding guitar riffs, thereby removing much of its cheerfulness.

Such is my love of the videos that I had to include one here. This, I think, is the second version that was made for the UK market. It’s longer than the original and is special because, well, Saffron’s pink jacket is just gorgeous:

Republica - Last.fm
Republica - Republica (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Tiga - Pleasure from the Bass

Don’t get me wrong, I love Canada. Some of my favourite people are Canadian. But it’s so underpopulated that anyone who makes music ends up winning a Juno Award at some point in their career. Tiga James Sontag is no exception, winning the 2007 Dance Recording of the Year for the ‘concept album’ that is Sexor - from which this song comes.

This is ideal strutting (not walking) music, in an “opening scene to Saturday Night Fever” kind of way - although have you noticed that in the Bee Gees’ video they just amble? What’s that all about? One listen to the dot-dot dot–dot dash bassline will get you moving, especially when Tiga’s vocals join in so percussively. His fairly nonsensical phrases are usually delivered in a call and response fashion, building and releasing tension several times a measure. As with all good dance music, this is as much about the space between each sound as it is the music itself.

Once you’re hooked into the song through those rhythms, Pleasure from the Bass stays interesting by adding synth lines which mirror or complement the bass, becoming more acidic as the song nears its conclusion. Elsewhere there are builds through the introduction of other percussion - in particular the surprise arrival of lightning handclaps, which serve to defuse then reset expectations. Tiga’s monotone vocals playfully turn into melodies at unexpected moments to increase the brilliance of this track.

And it’s all over in just under four minutes.

Tiga - official website
Tiga - Last.fm
Tiga - Sexor (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Cut Copy - Lights & Music

Last year’s Cut Copy album is the one that LCD Soundsystem should have made back in 2005, instead of the tedious techno trudge that James Murphy ended up releasing (and, yeah, maybe I was the only person on the planet not to be impressed, but still). In comparison, In Ghost Colours is a neon rainbow, burning out retinas through its palatial indie-dance - and it’s proof that Australia does have some musical talent.

Lights & Music, positioned as that all-important third track, is a homage to thrill of dance, played out through the eyes of illicit or unrequited love - of what exactly we’re never told: “Lights and music are on my mind. Be my baby one more time,” and as such could be a companion piece to its predecessor Out There on the Ice.

In contrast to Tiga’s song, this works through multiple layers of sound, shifting sublimely from verse to chorus, break and drop. There’s no rush to get to the rush: that’s why there are two opening stanzas, occupied by bass and lead guitars, achingly kept apart by just that bassline and a shimmering synthetic haze, When the chorus does arrive a full two minutes in, it’s via a two-dimensional swept riff, a rollercoaster teasing us before the fall. Then - just to mess with our heads - Madonna-esque chords teleport us back to the Eighties.

Cut Copy - official website
Cut Copy - Last.fm
Cut Copy - Lights & Music (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Puretone - Stuck in a Groove (Radio Edit)

“Because I’m stuck in a groove, I didn’t hear what you said. Because there’s too many tunes going round in my head”

And lookie here: another Melbourne-ite. Josh G. Abrahams’ second collaboration with fellow Australian Amiel Daemion was less successful than Addicted to Bass, which had reached #2 in the UK in 2002, three years after its Australian debut. Stuck in a Groove is however the far more accomplished song, although it only reached #26. A sure sign of a one hit wonder.

I’m soft on songs about music, even if they start with a sleepy R&B acoustic guitar cut-up and the most trite lyrics - as this one does - because once they filter away, Amiel’s dryly processed spoken / sung intro is beguiling. Behind this, the backing revs up towards the chorus. When that hits with its power chords, sparkling keys and pad bass (think Hybrid), it’s a direct reminder of all the incredible things that music can do. Then, just to the strengthen the point, it’s re-interpreted, stripped down and bettered on the short break just before the close.

My next door neighbour often wonders why I frequently ignore her when she passes by me, out and about in Inverness. She needs to listen to this song.

Puretone - Last.fm
Puretone - Stuck in a Groove [full song]
Puretone - Stuck in a Groove (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Looking back at these five songs, three of them have some bearing or relationship to music. Not surprising really since whenever I’m out walking - and I prefer to walk anywhere than use transport - I’m plugged into my iPhone. Obsessed, me? Yes, and I love it.

Every year, millions of people grab whatever small sliver of Irish identity they have (or just simply fake it) to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. While the origins of the holiday have now been Hallmarked and Guinness’d¹ to death it is the biggest bar night (week, month) of the year with the national past-time of fending off drunken fake Irish girls with cheaply printed pins that say, “Kiss me! I’m Irish!” to crappy Celtic bands that think that by adding “Mc” to everything it’s suddenly Irish.

With that being said, when it became clear that our launch date was to be a week before St. Patrick’s Day, obviously the songs we picked must reflect that spirit and mood. At first we were going to attempt the idea of picking songs that were traditional Irish drinking songs sung by contemporary artists with the sub-rule that the band themselves had to be non-Irish AND were not Dropkick Murphy’s, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Flogging Molly or the like. Needle in a haystack people, needle in a haystack.

Thus, while TheBrit was getting lost in his cups over moody music (and yelling at me that I could not use Scottish-Celtic influenced bands, the bastard!), I took an alternate route – finding songs that celebrated the modern holiday spirit of St. Patrick’s Day – which of course, is drinking and more drinking, getting drunk and passing out. And with the following bands, everyday is St. Patrick’s Day – and you know what? I’m totally okay with that.

Dropkick Murphy’s – Dirty Glass

I broke my first rule, but you know what, so what? I love this song. I love the slow build up, the call and response between Murphy and Darcy. I love the fact that I want to either get up and start jigging on top of tables, drink whiskey and crash the empty shot glasses to the floor or just basically make a general fool of myself when this song comes on. I adore how the music crescendos back and forth and back again. It’s poppy, it’s fun, it’s light – you know, like the fake drunken Irish girls you’ll meet at the bar this weekend. Is the song about Murphy and Darcy’s relationship as lovers? As drunk and barmaid? Both? Neither? Do we care? Probably not, but one thing is for certain, put on this tune and you’ll want to jump into the fray.

Dirty Glass was not released as a single but it can be found on their album, Blackout, which was released in 2003. While it was their third studio album, it is the first one to chart at #83 on the U.S. charts and they would later have bigger success with later albums.

Dropkick Murphy’s - official website
Dropkick Murphy’s - Last.fm
Dropkick Murphy’s - Blackout (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

The Mahones – Drunken, Lazy Bastard

CANADA’S PREMIER IRISH PUNK BAND! Why does it always make me giggle when one adds “Canada” in front of anything? And the worst part is – not only am I a Yank, but I’m also a Canuk!² Either way, fronted by a real Irishman (Drats! Broke another rule!), this self-penned song is styled in the way of traditional Irish drinking songs – man loves his pints, woman threatens to leave, man continues to go to the pub, woman leaves, man goes to the pub and finds his woman with his cousin! But it’s an upbeat tune complete with tin whistles and fiddles, so you know that in the end, everything will be fine (and as long as your having a pint, cheers to Finny!).

Drunken, Lazy Bastard was originally released on The Mahones first disk, Draggin’ The Days, which is now out of print. You can find the song on Irish Punk Collection, available via Interpunk or on Paint the Town Red, which is available on amazon.com and .co.uk as an import.

The Mahones - official website
The Mahones - MySpace
The Mahones - Last.fm
The Mahones - Paint The Town Red (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

Bondo – Fuck You, I’m Drunk

The problem, admittedly with a lot of sub genres of music, is that if the lead singer sounds remotely at all like another lead singer, often there will mismatched and incorrect tagging of the initial band’s song. This is the problem with the song, Fuck You, I’m Drunk which is being purported to have been written and sung by a Chicago-based blues-Celtic band Bondo with apparent evidence going back to 1999 of them singing the song in a bar on their (I think?) website. I say purported and apparent because this IS the Internet and I could crock up a webpage declaring that I wrote War and Peace, but you know what? I want to believe that this little band that no one has really heard of outside of Chicago wrote a song memorable enough that it was apparently covered by bigger and more well-known bands. I like the idea this is the little song that could.

P.S. If anyone knows what happened to Bondo, can you let me know? The information on their garageband page is haphazard, at best.
P.P.S. While the player says “Dropkick Murphy’s,” it really is Bondo as confirmed by numerous people and the recording below is directly taken from their first album, Fistful of Biscuits.

Bondo - official website(?)
Bondo - GarageBand

The Tossers – No Loot, No Booze, No Fun

I’ll admit that I’m a lazy bastard (but unfortunately, not a drunken, lazy bastard at the moment) and when I chose this song, I based it on a quick listen and the title alone, thinking, “Hey! I can research this later!” Of course later, now that I have started writing everything out, I discover this is not a song about drinking and trollops, rather it’s a memorial to Dee Dee Ramone who died of a heroin overdose in 2002.
At first I thought it was a response to Adam Ant’s, “Goody Two-Shoes,” but you know maybe in a way it is; just 20 years down the road. For this song, pour a small bit of your Guinness on the ground for the dead Ramones and other homies.

The song appears on the band’s 2005 album, The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Tossers are currently on tour.

The Tossers - official site
The Tossers - MySpace
The Tossers - Last.fm
The Tossers - The Valley of the Shadow of Death (Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes)

Jimmy George – Token Celtic Drinking Song

One of the reasons I like Los Campesinos! is that they don’t take themselves too seriously and how can you not love a band that has a song called ...And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison? I bring this up because when searching the internets for material for this week’s column, the song Token Celtic Drinking Song kept popping up and attributed to various bands all over the place. Any band that uses the word “token” in their song title has sold me (much how LC! sold me on their elite titling powers). And even though 90% of the attribution went back to The Pogues, I decided that as long as it was not Fairytale of New York, I’m totally within my rights to use Token Celtic Drinking Song this week for the theme.

And yet, it turns out that in another case of mistaken identity, Token Celtic Drinking Song has been mistakenly appropriated to The Pogues even though when listening you can clearly tell that is not Shane MacGowan singing. The song, in fact, belongs to a long–defunct Canadian Celtic punk band³, Jimmy George. While the fans discussions over at The Pogue’s fan forums clarifies some of the misunderstandings and but yet, DAMN YOU INTERNETS! Start tagging shit correctly!

The lyrics, are definitely unintelligible (and from research, this is apparently the album version of the song by Jimmy George) and are also not cataloged. The song is fun to listen to and has all the elements of an Irish drinking song including (but not limited to from what I could figure out): the copious mention of whisky, drinking, working class, union cards, women, and I’m sure some fighting is going to happen at some point or another.

Jimmy George - Wikipedia

1. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Guinness.
2. Dual citizenship and two passports!
3. Mad love to my peeps!

It’s possible to trace the stereotyping of contemporary Irish music back to two sources. The first of these is the unexpected success of Clannad’s Theme from Harry’s Game, which became the reference point for all things “haunting” for the next decade. This led to Enya, one-time Clannad member, producing an inexplicably successful 1988 album Watermark, which served up the more understandable hit Orinoco Flow. At the time, much was made in the press of its use of multi-tracked vocals, conveniently overlooking Claire Hamill’s new age masterpiece Voices that predated it by two years and yet only used her voice.

The opposite of this sweetness comes in the form of The Pogues, whose commercial peak came around the same time as Enya’s with their album, If I Should Fall From Grace with God and which featured the UK’s #2 Christmas song, Fairytale of New York. The Pogues’ blend of traditional Irish music and punk rock has been influential across the world, seeded mainly through Irish communities (particularly in the US and Canada), and the genre which they founded remains extraordinarily popular today. For some bizarre reason, it’s this music which represents the drunken revelry involved in celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, rather than the tranquility of the former.

These five songs represent a snapshot of the diversity amongst this genre - the most interesting aspect of which is how local influences subtly shift musical emphasis and introduce new ideas.

Warblefly - Going Home

By their own admission, southern England denizens Warblefly formed in 1995 in order to “drink and play folk tunes,” which sounds good to me. But it wasn’t until they spent a week at the Cairo Hilton, Egypt as its St. Patrick’s house band that they evolved into the faster, more aggressive group that’s epitomised in Going Home. Taken from their 2004 album Crashing Through the Trees, this song surprises right from its beginning, with a lengthy bluegrass instrumental, but the vocals eventually arrive and the song kicks off to have a rollicking good time. And it’s in these vocals and the overall boisterousness of the song that you can hear their punk influences.

Despite this, anything that gets the folk-rock tag often finds itself losing the delicate touch of folk in pursuit of the more muscular rock angle. Warblefly subvert this outcome by bringing traditional instruments clearly to the forefront of their music and treasuring the value of instrumentals - especially useful since it affords live performances an opportunity to be more organic. Going Home throws its intro into a extended middle break before returning for the song’s final verse.

Warblefly - official website
Warblefly - Going Home (Last.fm)

Ahead to the Sea - Ahead to the Sea

If there’s one nation other than Ireland that should wholeheartedly embrace the spirit(s) of St. Patrick’s Day, it’s bound to be Germany. After all, Oktoberfest only comes round once a year, so having something six months’ earlier suits the drinking calendar nicely.

And you’d be right.

Ahead to the Sea, who sing mainly in English, call themselves “Riverdance on Speed,” which oversells the former, especially on their newer recordings. Frankly, their music strides so many genres that it makes it difficult to classify. So it’s best to choose something that at least has one foot in this week’s theme. And that’s their eponymous song, released on their 2005 album Urban Pirate Soundsystem. It’s significantly softer than Warblefly’s song, mainly because of the vocal harmonies - they’re one of the few bands of this genre that bring female vocals into the mix.

Ahead to the Sea is all about love, escape, getting high and having a good time. What impresses me about this song is not just the duelling vocals, but the way the electric guitars, drums and violin manage to lock their individual rhythms together, making it ideal moshing music. Probably.

Ahead to the Sea - official website (in German)
Ahead to the Sea - Ahead to the Sea (Last.fm)
Ahead to the Sea - Urban Pirate Soundsystem (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Natchez Shakers - Gretel

Sweeping across the Atlantic for our first visit to the US, Natchez Shakers bring Appalachian influences to punky Irish folk music. Or they did, because they’re now incarnated as “Revival Now.” So I have absolutely no more information about them other than that, although according to Last.fm the band “Tofu Love Frogs” is similar. You think I’m kidding?

Natchez Shakers do have several redeeming features: not least the ability of the lead singer to shamble his way through the vocals in a typically drunken fashion, occasionally hitting on the right note, if only temporarily.  This kind of performance is ideally suited for live situations where both the audience and the singer can fool themselves and each other that they can carry a tune.

But, Natchez Shakers can write songs, or this one anyhow: An accordion bears Gretel’s main melody (and that works better than it may appear to do on screen), then halfway through they slow the rhythm and go for one of those often used accelerating breaks, starting with just guitars and gradually re-introducing everything else. An old trick, but it’s executed brilliantly here.

Natchez Shakers - Gretel (Last.fm)
Natchez Shakers - Shaker Hymns (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

The Skels - Pauper’s Grave

Thus far there has clearly not been enough drinking mentioned in these songs, for which, according to TheYank, we get extra points. This I’ll correct right now, for The Skels clearly seem bound to the joys of drinking to excess and playing music, because they write on their website: “if you plan on acting like a jerk during the month of March, why not do it with your old pals The Skels.” They originated as a house band for an Irish pub in Hoboken, New Jersey and the spirit of that setting lives on in their albums. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s all they sing about.

Pauper’s Grave appears on their 2003 album Any Port In A Storm, a collection of twelve original drinking songs. Scott Heath’s tin whistle is the standout instrument on this track, which begins the song deceptively sweetly before Chris Freid starts spitting out its lyrics. You can here this song in full on their MySpace page.

The Skels - official website
The Skels - MySpace
The Skels - Any Port In A Storm (Amazon UK, Amazon US, iTunes)

Fiddler’s Green - Bugger Off

While I’m on a roll, here are Fiddler’s Green, upping The Skels’ intensity and throwing in plenty of expletives for good measure(s). Fiddler’s Green formed in 1990, come from Erlangen in Germany and play Irish Speedfolk.

Bugger Off is a cover of an Irish drinking song written by Tony Miles. It ironically opens their new album Sports Day At Killaloe because it’s definitely suited to an end of the evening live setting, which is why I’ve placed it last. Bands such as The Real McKenzies and Kevin Barry Toye And Friends have recorded this song previously but their attempts are woefully soporific in comparison to this raucous version, because it demands vigourous audience participation throughout its chorus.

You’ll hear why and how when you listen to it.

Fiddler’s Green - official website (in German)
Fiddler’s Green - Bugger Off (Last.fm)
Fiddler’s Green - Sports Day At Killaloe (Amazon US, iTunes)

The above five songs are a whistle-stop tour around music that’s been born from, or blended with Irish traditional music. Some are more folky than others and some have been clearly influenced by their country or city of origin. It’s fair to conclude that the genre is much richer than its stereotypes predict.