2024 – The Year So Far – #2

I’m typing this in a room inside a bland building in Acton, London.  I arrived about an hour ago, took a number from the dispenser on the wall and sat in one of the chairs that fill the room.  The little red display screen reads “26”.  I look down at my ticket and it says 53.  I look around the room, there doesn’t seem to be 27 other people in this room.  Then I notice the second room which has about twenty people in it.

I’m here to collect a Visa.  It’s my second visit to this building, about ten days ago I turned up armed to the teeth with a mound of paperwork and my passport and eighty five quid, all of which I handed over to man, after a relatively short wait, I was handed a receipt and instead of being given a Visa and my passport back, I was told that “you will be telephoned and then you come back”.  I live 300 miles away I tell the man with a pleading look in my eyes.  He shrugs his shoulders and calls the next person over.

Back in the room on my second visit, an official looking man in a blazer wanders past and says to the room, “Two Hour Wait”.  There is no apology.  There is some tutting and sighing, some of which comes from me.  I sigh and get comfy, I have no choice but to stay. I could go and get some food but I worry that the queue might speed up and I’ll miss my place and then it might automatically slow down again when I return and besides the man behind the glass screen to my left, has my passport and I need that so I sit and wait.

So that’s the reason why I am typing this in a bland room.  To make things worse, a child is crying behind me because his mother won’t let him play on a Nintendo Switch and a chubby old bloke to my right is coughing like he has just tried his first cigarette. 

The red display screen now reads 41, so things are moving slowly.  Unlike the child who has stopped crying and is now chasing another child around the room, both of them making noises like motorbikes, much to the annoyance of most of the people waiting.   They at least make me smile when one of them crashes his pretend motorbike into one of the giant flags that the official people have left lying about in a frankly haphazard way.  The blazer man is back and is lecturing the parents in another language, he waggles his finger and the mother apologises and grabs the kiddie by the arm and shoves the Nintendo switch in his hand.  I grin at the brilliant resourcefulness of the child who knew exactly what he was doing.

Here are four tracks that are all new (or relatively new) that have like a child pretending to be a motorbike, made me smile today and we are going to start with some old(ish) favourites.

Advertising Services – Problem Patterns (2023, Alcopop Records, Taken from ‘Blouse Club’) – Regular readers of this nonsense masquerading as music blog will have met Belfast riot grrl band Problem Patterns before, as they featured quite highly in the end of year tracks countdown.   They are also Kathleen Hanna’s favourite band and that as I said before, should be enough of a reason to absolutely love them but if it isn’t then the brilliant punky indie that they serve up should be.  ‘Advertising Services’ is the most political track on their debut album, a fierce, fiery blast that takes aim at inequality and fat cats creaming off the profits.

Next up today, some jazzy drum and bass from an act I know very little about but I heard it on the radio, loved it and jotted down the name.  Its incredible and that is pretty much all you need to know. 

Stop – Sully (2024, Uncertain Hour Records)

Following on from that, a band that I do know quite a lot about, having been a fan for almost as long as I’ve been sat in this room (the display is reading 50 by the way so I’m nearly there).

Loved – Four Tet (2024, Text Records) – Ok, here’s a rare thing.  I’m going to dish out some advice for free.  You can take it, which is advised, or leave it.  Here it is…if you ever find yourself stuck in a room with a long wait – be it some bland visa department of a North African country, a doctors surgery, a train station or anywhere really, take some music by Four Tet with you – it will make two hours feel like twenty minutes.  Oh and by the way Four Tet’s new work is astonishingly good, so that would be as good a place to start as anywhere.

Lastly for today, a band who my good friend Mr L brought to my attention.  We were, as it happens supposed to be going to see them tonight (Feb 29^th) at the Cavern Club in Exeter, but now I can’t be there because I’m going to be mucking around in the desert for a couple of days instead.  They are called junodream and they are great, more so if you love psychedelic shoegaze.

Kitchen Sink Drama – Junodream (2024, Visualiser Records, Taken from ‘Pools of Colour’)

A Month of Bands from Canada – #20 Nap Eyes

If You Were in Prison – Nap Eyes (2020, Jagjaguwar Records, Taken from ‘Snapshot of a Beginner’)

It turns out that the sickness that my daughter experienced on the minibus ride home wasn’t a bug that had been going around the children but a combination of exhaustion, airplane food, and terrible driving from the Bulgarian school caretaker, Boris (trust me, I’ve been in a minibus with him at the wheel and that itself is enough to make me never want to travel with him again). 

We met her and her class in the small village car park and there are hugs all round and a few tears.  Her head teacher apologises for handing our daughter over in the state she is.  She is all grey and shivery.  We are also handed a couple of paper puke bowls, ‘just in case’.  The teacher tells them that they don’t have to come into school on the next day if they don’t want to.  My daughter smiles for the first time since she has been home.

We smile and thank the teachers for taking such good car of her.  They are all wearing matching hoodies that say ‘Toronto’ on them, a present from the school that they have been visiting.  Somehow in the eight days that they have been away all the children appear to have grown by about a metre and now look like surly teenagers rather than the timid kids that they were when they left.

We slowly drive her home (she sits in the front of course and finds the bag of Starbursts that I’d left in the glove box) and have to wake up as we roll onto the driveway (its about a four minute drive).  We consider leaving her in the car asleep, but then my wife reminds me what old neighbour from our house in Exeter used to do.

She used to leave her daughter asleep in the car parked outside her house – car all locked up – until the car alarm went off – then my neighbour would know that the child as awake.   So we wake our daughter and take her inside for fear of tutting from passing local residents.

We ask her if she would like something to eat.  She nods sleepily and mumbles something about “Trying a little bit of pasta” and then proceeds to devour a huge bowl of pasta, chicken and sweetcorn.  Twice.

Within two hours, she is on the phone to her best friend chatting noisily about the trip and whispering when the certain boys names are mentioned, its good to have her home.

The final randomly chosen Canadian band are rather fittingly Nap Eyes, an indie rock band from Halifax, Nova Scotia who have released four albums, three of which get regularly played at No Badger Headquarters. They are fronted by a chap called Nigel Chapman, which means I temporarily have to take back everything I have ever written about people called Nigel and declare an immediate front runner in the newly opened ‘Best Nigels in Rock’ contest, which may or may not feature here in the near future. 

Chapman has one of those voices, that on a first hearing, you’ll think you have heard before.  Think Lou Reed or at a push Steven Malkmus in his more reflective emotional phases and you are somewhere close.   Both of which are quite apt, because Nap Eyes play a sort of slacker indie rock, rather like what Pavement would sound like if they were fronted by say Lou Reed.

My first introduction to Nap Eyes was in 2015, when they released their second album, the excellent ‘Thought Rock Fish Scale’.  An album that is full of observational tracks about battling demons, work, and emotional fragility, that are wrapped tightly in beautiful melodies and some wonderful guitar sounds.  Like these two for instance,

Stargazers  – Nap Eyes (2015, Paradise of Bachelors Records)

Alaskan Shake -Nap Eyes (2015, Paradise of Bachelors Records)

Three years after ‘Thought Rock Fish Scale’ a third album entitled ‘I’m Bad Now’ appeared to amazing reviews, and the band looked destined for greatness.   It is an album that oozed charm and is full of excellent songs that switch from reflective confessional songs that almost serenade us into submission and more rocky indie anthems.

It still largely followed the slacker rock route, laid back music surrounding by that kind of lazy drawl that Chapman brings.  Here are two highlights from an album full of highlights (seriously it’s a great album, and if you haven’t heard it then you probably should check it out).

Boats Appear – Nap Eyes (2018, Jagjaguwar Records)

Roses -Nap Eyes (2018, Jagjaguwar Records)

In 2020, the bands most recent release ‘Snapshot of a Beginner’ surfaced.  This album in true fourth album style it saw them slightly divert from their slack rock roots and purchase a Mellotron, which they used to produce an album full of gleaming harmonies.  They successful moved from sounding like Pavement to sounding like the Flaming Lips when Wayne Coyne declared that he was battling the pink robots. Still great though.

Mark Zuckerberg – Nap Eyes (2020, Jagjaguwar Records)

And so here is the final table in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest which sees rather predictably Toronto taking the crown by a significant margin. 

Toronto	8
Montreal	3
Calgary	3
Vancouver	2
Halifax	2
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Quebec	1

Tomorrow will look at some more of the best new releases of the past two months, and then Friday ushers in a new and exciting series, one that sees the return of the No Badger Required Musical Jury.  Try and contain your excitement won’t you.

Here is a clue (although most of you will already know) as to what the Jury have been voting on, and as it happens a track from an album named after a Canadian city.  If that’s not one of the greatest links in the history of links I’m not sure what is.

Transdermal Celebration – Ween (2003, Chocodog Records, Taken from ‘Quebec’)

A Month of Bands from Canada – #19 Tegan & Sara

Everything is Awesome – Tegan & Sara (2014, Water Tower Music)

Most of you with children will of course recognise that this is the song that features extensively in both the wonderful Lego Movies.  If you haven’t seen either of them, then you probably need to get out more.  They are a lot of fun.  I saw the second Lego Movie in a big cinema in Bournemouth with my daughter when she was about seven.  Back then, when she was seven, Lego rocked her world. 

‘Everything Is Awesome’ is a brilliant song – ridiculously catchy, irritatingly so in fact.  A shameless ode to friendship, working as a team and feeling great.  The sort of song that we should all hate because it is so gloriously upbeat – but its also the sort of song that is so brilliantly camp and so infectiously moreish that it is impossible not to love it.

Of course, we tried to make our own Lego movie using some stop motion software, and lots of tolerance – we spend hours building houses, cars and specific models from the Lego versions of famous films, – the huge castle from Beauty and the Beast was the backdrop for the movie.  We built schools for all the Lego figures we had collected, we built prisons for the Lego baddies, we built a beach so that the figures could use the Lego boat we built.  Our film lasted precisely 45 seconds and took nearly three days to make.  Last year when my phone got stolen in a park in London, I thought I’d lost it forever.  I’d never hear that squeal of laughter when the baddies got eaten by the Lego shark, a squeal that was just too good to edit.   Thankfully I found the back up.  If only because I want to show the video at her wedding or her eighteenth birthday or something.

In the second Lego Movie (and a huge spoiler is coming up, if you haven’t seen it – but that sort of serves you right, because it’s incredible and you missed out), a new version of ‘Everything is Awesome’ was released.  In that film, the Lego world very existence was threatened by a pair of squabbling siblings and the mother tipped all the Lego in a big bin.  The hero was stranded underneath a cupboard and a slowed down version of the track starts up.  A solitary piano strikes up and then a cast of thousands start singing about how everything was not awesome, cheeky references to listening Radiohead and Elliot Smith fire in alongside lyrics about being depressed.  Its wonderful – especially when the cheesy Disco beat kicks in where everything becomes awesome again – but not as irritatingly infectious as the original.

Everythings Not Awesome – Various Artists (2019, Water Tower Music)

Today’s randomly chosen and the penultimate Canadian act are Calgary twin sisters Tegan and Sara, who are only in my record collection because of ‘Everything Is Awesome’ and because of the track ‘Walking with A Ghost’ which I have on a compilation CD given away with a magazine.

Walking With A Ghost – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records, Taken from ‘So Jealous’)

‘Walking with A Ghost’ is taken from their fourth album ‘So Jealous’ which is perhaps their most successful record.  It saw the band move away from their more indie folk roots towards a more punky pop sound (although that is slightly pushing it – the sound is more 80s power pop to be honest).  I’ve been listening to it whilst writing this and it’s a really good album. 

Around six months after ‘Waling With A Ghost’ was released The White Stripes covered it as part of a new EP and possibly made it even better than it already is.

Walking With A Ghost – White Stripes (2005, Third Man Records)

That EP was only made available on iTunes I think – so you’ll have to put up with the You Tube version. 

Here are two more tracks from Tegan and Sara’s ‘So Jealous’ album,

Where Does The Good Go – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records)

Speak Slow – Tegan and Sara (2004, Sanctuary Records)

A couple of years ago after a short break Tegan and Sara returned with an entirely acoustic version of the ‘So Jealous’ album (called ‘Still Jealous’).  Here is the acoustic version of ‘Walking With a Ghost’.

Walking with a Ghost (Still Version) – Tegan And Sara (2021, Warner Bros Records)

Here’s the current table. Calgary making a late dash for the silver medal.

Toronto	8
Montreal	3
Calgary	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1

Here is the final lyrical clue – the first correct guess in the comments section wins the chance to walk across a room in the dark in barefeet after my daughter has been building things with Lego.

“What would that make you feel like if you couldn’t do the things that you like to do anymore Because you were in prison”

A Month of Bands from Canada – #18 Braids

Bunny Rose – Braids (2015, Arbutus Records, Taken from ‘Deep In The Iris’)

On the afternoon that my daughter is due to return to the UK, a message pings onto my phone around an hour after they have landed.  It is from the teacher, this is what it says.

“We are just off the M25 and we wanted to let you know that she has been sick…”

Oh good. 

My daughter does suffer a bit from travel sickness, she is normally ok, if her mum is driving – and she sits in the front – which normally sees me relegated to the back seats like an embarrassing friend.  On long journeys, I sit there all hunched up surrounded by bags as my daughter relaxes in relative luxury in the front.  Every now and again she’ll nod weakly and say that she is feeling ok but will probably be better if she could have another couple of Starbursts, as they help her feel better.  I don’t get offered any Starbursts, and I’m pretty sure that they would help relieve the cramp that is growing in my left calf. 

So I put this down to travel sickness and text me back saying “Is she sitting in the front and have you got any Starbursts”.  I put a smiley face after it.

The phone buzzes back almost immediately, “We think we have a bug going round, two others have been sick as well – so we are not giving them sweets, she looks like she is dropping off to sleep”

Well that’s something. 

They have of course, caught a night flight, and so I suspect that my daughter has been up all night chatting, eating junk and watching cartoons about superheroes.  I think this because that is exactly what I would have been doing aged 11 on a flight.  Then again, the last night flight I was on a man sitting three rows back from me got told off by the flight attendants because through the night time bit of the flight he kept opening and shutting the blind that covered his window.  Every time he did it – he said “Blind Go Up.  Blind Go Down” in a variety of different voices.   

So she might have been doing that.

I’ll find out in about four hours.

Todays randomly chosen Canadian band are Braids, who are according to Wikipedia, an experimental art rock from Calgary.  They have released five albums since they formed in 2006 the most recent of those came out last year.  They are big favourites in the No Badger House, fans as we are of experimental art rock.  Incidentally, in this case experimental art rock is basically trip hop.  In 2015, they released ‘Deep in the Iris’ which was their third album.  That was preceded by the single, ‘Miniskirt’ which should be familiar to you all – I mean I post it enough – but if not, here it is again, and it will still be the greatest thing you hear all day – Why? –  Because it’s one the greatest records about misogyny and rape culture ever written, that’s why.

Miniskirt – Braids (2015, Arbutus Records)

I purchased ‘Deep in the Iris’ solely on the basis of a single review of it.  It’s a marvellous thing, a break up record that isn’t about a relationship per se, but about the sensations of it.  It talks about the taste of a kiss and the dent in a pillow and the feeling of confusion that follows violent arguments.  Its an album full of crackly beats, piano interludes and half sung half narrated vocals.

Braids followed Deep in the Iris’ with the release of EP called ‘Companion’ – the pick of that EP is an upbeat track called ‘Joni’ which again focuses on the experimental nature of the band  – and drew comparisons with Bjork’s later work (only a more vulnerable, more urgent sounding Bjork, if that possible).

Joni – Braids (2016, Arbutus Records)

A few years after that a fourth Braids album surfaced, one that was apparently inspired by a solar eclipse, and one which saw them move away from the relatively low key synth pop of their early releases into a more daring orchestral pop outfit.  The best track on the album is ‘Just Let Me’’ which is all shimmering guitars, falsetto vocals and marvellous moments of grandeur.

Just Let Me  – Braids (2020, Secret City Records)

In 2023, the band released a fifth album, ‘Euphoric Recall’ something which totally bypassed me until I was researching songs that had fruits in their title.  This album sees vocalist Raphaelle Standell Preston embracing an almost operatic vocal and the frequent appearance of a strong quartet.  I’ve only listened to it a few times, and I’m going to describe it as a ‘Grower’.

Lucky Star – Braids (2023, Secret City Records)

Here is the latest table in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest which sees Calgary move up into joint third place – although Montreal could lay claim to Braids, as they are all based there now.

Toronto	8
Montreal	3
Vancouver	2
Calgary	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1

Here is tomorrows, penultimate lyrical clue, you should get the song but – who sang it??? First correct guess in the comments gets to sit in the back seat of a rusting old Capri with me, staring hungrily at the Starbursts that never quite make it past the handbrake.

“Everything is awesome, Everything is cool when you’re part of a team”

50 Twelve Inches #33

Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins (1993, Hut Records)

It’s the day before Valentines Day when I’m typing this, and the boys and girls in my daughter class have all been feeling very silly for the past couple of weeks.  You see such and such has a crush on such and such, and apparently he tried to rizz her up outside the village shop but her dad was there so he couldn’t.   We will see tomorrow how many Valentines Card fall through the door for my daughter.  I expect the postman will have to bring the bigger van though.

I sent my first Valentine card when I was 12 to a red headed girl called Louisa.  I didn’t sign it but left it sticking out of her coat pocket one lunch time, designed in a way that she would definitely find it.  Two weeks later at a lad called Matthew’s birthday party she snogged a lad called Clive, utterly convinced that he sent her the Valentines Card (I know this because she told her best friend Emma all about it). 

The second Valentine Card I ever sent was to a girl called Michelle who lived around the corner from my nan.  I used to smile soppily at her whenever I saw her, she didn’t go to my school and I thought she was cool because her mum made her wear a beret everywhere she went.  I posted the card through her door the night before Valentine’s day, creeping up to the door, ninja style and then creeping back out again, pertrified that she might see me.  I left a bunch of daffodils on the doorstep with a note and with a shoddy heart drawn on it.  It looked like a five year old had done it.  I think I must have drawn it left handed even though Michelle didn’t know my name or anything about me apart from she could see my grans raspberry plants from her garden and would have occasionally heard me and my brother playing football in the garden.  Especially when I pretending to be Tony Cascarino,  the worlds greatest footballer.

I made the fatal mistake though, of looking back and saw her dad frowning at me from the kitchen window, his arms covered to the elbow in marigolds as he did the washing up.  I have no idea if she ever got that card, or her dad even recognised me but I saw Michelle two weeks later and blushed furiously as my dad told me with a nudge that she smiled at me.   I always walked a different way to my nans from then onwards.  I was 13, give me a break.

Anyway a few days ago,  the finger of fate was order to stop upon the spine of the first single to be released from the second Smashing Pumpkins album.  ‘Cherub Rock’ was deemed in many people’s eyes as being an odd choice for a lead off single – given that ‘Today’ had already received airplay and was widely expected to be the first release, but Billy Corgan, being Billy Corgan, insisted on it and the record company, eager to satisfy his massive ego, agreed with him. 

It did ok.  It scraped the Top 30 in the UK, but has always rather sat in the shadow of ‘Today’.  Strangely, ‘Cherub Rock’ is the only twelve inch I own by Smashing Pumpkins, because I could have sworn that I had ‘Disarm’ on a limited edition 12 inch – but looks like its vanished in the midst of time.

The twelve inch of ‘Cherub Rock’ came with two new tracks.  The first was a screeching sort of affair called ‘Pissant’ which surfaced a few years later on one of the Pumpkins B Side compilations.   It’s quite heavy, quite grungey, but still like nearly everything released by Billy and his band until about 1997, pretty decent.

Pissant – Smashing Pumpkins (1993, Hut Records)

The second B Side was a track called ‘French Movie Theme’ which is supposed to be on ‘Pisces Iscariot’ according to the Internet, but its not on my version. 

French Movie Theme – Smashing Pumpkins (1993, Hut Records)

Its not your average Pumpkins track, less than two minutes long, a semi acoustic guitar strumming away alongside a voice saying “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah”. You aren’t missing much if you ignore it.

Here is the no more than five word review

“Too loud, too shouty” – which I kind of expected.  Then again, in the car today she told me that Quickspace were ‘pretty good’ (or rather the track below was).

Quickspace Happy Song #2 – Quickspace (1997, Kitty Kitty Corporation)

Anyway, here is her weekly recommendation, which I’m pretty sure she shouldn’t be listening to, and not just because its awful.

Hiss – Megan Thee Stallion (2024, Hot Girl Records)

Nearly Perfect Albums – #99

Summertime 06 – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

Ah the double album.  The musical equivalent of a Marmite sandwich.   Let’s be honest most double albums, suck.  I have on more than one occasion prepared a list of the all the good double albums for a series, only to abandon it a week or so later, after realising that absolutely nobody wants to hear about ‘Deloused in the Comatorium’, by prog rock influenced at The Drive In offshoot band, The Mars Volta, regardless of whether or not I think its quite good or whether or not it actually is a double album or not (and for the record, it isn’t very good and it is.)

Inertiatic ESP – The Mars Volta (2003, Universal Records)

The problem with double albums are that they are usually unwieldy, clunky and lacking focus, they are a brave choice, given that most of them suck.  Choosing to release one, therefore, as your debut release, rightly raises eyebrows, thankfully its rare, good ones are even rarer.  Good one from rappers, even rarer than that, brilliant ones from rappers that draws an unlikely influence from Ian Curtis and the artwork of ‘Unknown Pleasures are venturing into the rocking horse shit territory.

Enter then, Long Beach rapper and occasional Odd Future Member, Vince Staples, who not only chose to make his first album, ‘Summertime 06’, a double, he also didn’t plan it that way or make bold and dramatic statements about it being the greatest album in the world.  Ever. 

Norf Norf – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

‘Summertime 06’ is also brilliant and focused on delivering.  It gives you 20 songs in just over an hour, an hour that flies by.  The production is spot on (done by No I.D, who worked with Kanye West, until Wests ego filled the studio), with beats that clang, with a deep heavy deliberate slowness, the lyrics are sharp and sardonic, Vince’s voice is calm to the point of sounding tired but its remarkable all the same.  

Surf – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

Take another look at that album sleeve.  It may annoy some of you, but that’s a version of ‘Unknown Pleasures, and brace yourselves because that isn’t where the comparison ends.  Because, ‘Summertime 06’ is an album about trauma and about that feeling of not being able to escape that darkness that surrounds you when you are younger.  The darkness that Staples talks of (and his album is very conversational) is obviously a very different sort of darkness that Ian Curtis spoke off, Staples was escaping a past life in gang (he was very publicly a member of the Crips) and all that that entails but it is still a journey into his hell.

It is a deliberately cold sounding album (which is odd considering its about being a young man in California) the drum beats are clipped and almost minimal, the occasional blast of electric guitar is deliberately distorted (so that the melodies are a bit off centre), the synths are wonky, the effects are echo-y.  Lyrically, Staples tackles everything from racial profiling (‘Lift Me Up), drug dealing (‘Dopeman’), anger (‘Jump off the Roof), money (‘Get Paid) to police oppression (‘Norf Norf)

 Lift Me Up – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

Dopeman – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

Even the singles from the album aren’t exactly radio friendly, ‘Norf Norf’ swears liberally and ‘Senorita’ is basically Staples working a rhyme around a piano and an (almost) Krautock drum sample. 

Senorita – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

Yet despite all that – the private hell, the trauma, the minimalist drumming, the distinctly icy feeling that swims around it –  ‘Summertime 06’ is still magnificent, and whilst its definitely not a  happy album, it is, like all great rap albums that came before and after it – realistic and bluntly frank about it.

But.

There is at the end of side one (track ten), however, a real moment of beautiful tenderness, a love song of sorts, a song full of warmth, that after the coldness of the stuff that came before (and after) almost takes you by surprise.  I’ve always thought that this is the point of recording when perhaps Vince stepped outside into the California sun and realised that the sun was still there.  

Summertime – Vince Staples (2015, Def Jam Records)

A Month of Bands from Canada – #17 Fucked Up

Queen of Hearts – Fucked Up (2011, Matador Records, Taken from ‘David Comes to Life’)

Fucked Up are of course the other band with the very sweary name that somehow made it on to the playlist that I compiled for her trip to Canada.  I’m still scratching my head as to how that exactly happened.  Anyway, they are a band I love and quite honestly if she walked into this room right now and told me she’d been listening to Fucked Up and loved them, then I’d probably double her pocket money and then tell her not to drop that into causal conversation with teachers or the parents of her friends. 

But I’d be surprised if she did that, because Fucked Up are one of a number of bands that I struggle to convince anyone else to listen to, largely because of the fact that their singer, Damian ‘Pink Eyes’ Abraham has the kind of voice that suggests he as eaten a bottle of Jack Daniels before he enters the studio.  Its abrasive, growly and the sort of thing that people associate with Slipknot records and the last time I looked, my daughter didn’t like singers with that sort of voice.

Ship of Fools – Fucked Up (2011, Matador Records, Taken from ‘David Comes to Life’)

I do get it, it’s a voice that would divide opinion, and I know that I may well be in a minority and that I am speaking to a select few people here – the peoples whose lounges I have sat in and pleaded with my best puppy dog face to come and see them live with me – Fucked Up are great and you are missing out.

There is, you see, so much more to Fucked Up than the voice of Pink Eyes.  If you brush aside the bristly exterior of the band you will find a band that despite their punk leanings, very much devoted to independence, and the DIY ethos that labels like Sarah Records championed in the late eighties and the early nineties. 

Anorak City – Fucked Up (2010, Matador Records, Taken from ‘Couple Tracks’) – and if anyone has a spare copy of the original Sarah Records released 6” flexi released by Another Sunny Day that they don’t want, then I’d be happy to take it off their hands (I’d be doing you a favour – its worthless)

You also find a band who make pop records.  Well, sort of.  Pop music that has been tipped on its head and bashed it about the ribs with a stiff brush and forced to drink bleach.  But still pop music.  I mean if any other guitar band had made a guitar pop song as beautiful as this : –

The Other Shoe – Fucked Up (2011, Matador Records, Taken from David Comes to Life’)

Or this

Talking Pictures – Fucked Up (2018, Merge Records, Taken from ‘Dose Your Dreams’)

Then the BBC or Radio X would have been playing them on a constant loop for the last ten years.  Probably.   

You’d also find a band that are dedicated to releasing records that push boundaries, their latest album ‘One Day’ was written, recorded and produced in a single day.  Prior to that they have released a single dedicated to every year of the Chinese Horoscope – but they aren’t just singles, they are twenty minute long epics that weave magic into every note.

Like on this one,

Year of the Hare – Fucked Up (2015, Deathwish Inc Records) – and yes I know it’s the Year of the Dragon.

And. Just so you know.

Fucked Up’s 2018 album ‘Dose Your Dreams’ is absolutely perfect.  Every note, every scream, every word, every inch of the sleeve, every second of it.  Absolutely.  Perfect.

Raise Your Voice, Joyce – Fucked Up (2018, Merge Records, Taken from ‘Dose Your Dreams’)

Here is the latest table in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest – and given that Fucked Up are from Toronto, that means that with three to play, Toronto can now officially be crowned Canada’s Greatest Music City.  Never in doubt really.

Toronto FC – Fucked Up (2010, Matador Records, Taken from ‘Couple Tracks’)

Toronto	8
Montreal	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1
Calgary	1

Here is Monday’s lyrical clue, the first correct guess in the comment box gets to come and see Fucked Up with me whether they like it or not.

“I don’t really want to fall in love again. The laying of cold flowers offered by fate your friend”

A Month of Bands from Canada – #16 – Preoccupations

Slowly – Preoccupations (2022, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Arrangements’)

There are a long list of reasons why bands split up. 

A lot of them cite musical differences, which have usually been elevated by the drummer demanding that the bands fourth album takes a post rock direction in stark contrast to bass player wanting to make a techno record.

Some split up because the band has run their natural course.  Some split the band up because the singer is going off to become an actor or a lawyer or in the case of Jocasta, a Buddhist Monk.   Dear old Mark E Smith used to split The Fall on a daily basis, normally because the guitarist was too talented, or the bassist played with the correct amount of strings.

Very few bands split up because the band had a massive punch up live onstage in front of several hundred gobsmacked fans, enter then the Canadian labyrinthine post-punk band Women who did precisely that in 2010.  They stormed on stage, punched each other, stormed off and went on an indefinite hiatus.  That was effectively the end of the band Women, which was a shame because they were rather good in a gloomy post punk gothic-y kind of way.   Well it was sort of the end….

Black Rice – Women (2008, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Women’)

There are a lot of reasons why bands change their names.

Some, like Blur, realised that their original name was awful (Seymour), some, like Hinds were, made to change their name because of its similarity to another band.  Some infringed copyright law (like the disco art punk band Happy Meal Ltd, who upset McDonalds and changed their name to HMLTD). 

Very few bands have to change their name because it courts controversy and attracts accusation of racism and cultural appropriation.  Enter then Canadian post punk band Viet Cong.  Yup, you read that right.  They formed out of the ashes of the defunct labyrinthe post punk band Women.   Shortly after the release of their debut album ‘Viet Cong’, Viet Cong were forced to change their name because of all of the above reasons – which was probably quite a good thing because they were really rather good in a shadowy drone obsessed post punk kind of way.

Continental Shell – Viet Cong (2014, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Viet Cong’)

Which brings us in an extremely long winded kind of way to Calgary’s Preoccupations, because before Preoccupations were Preoccupations they were Viet Cong and before they were Viet Cong, half of them were Women (as in the band, not the physical sense, well at least I don’t think so) and despite the onstage fights, the extremely dodgy names, the long moody bass solos and gloomy post punk gothic undertones they are utterly magnificent and might just be the greatest thing you listen to all week (unless you are still listening to the new Kim Gordon single, in which case, second greatest thing…)

Preoccupations have lasted long than Women and Viet Cong combined and have now released three albums (and ‘Viet Cong’ and an earlier release ‘Cassette’ have both been rebranded as Preoccupations Records, making five in total) and because they are so good, here is a track from each of them.

Tearing Up the Grass – Preoccupations (2022, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Arrangements’)

Unconscious Melody – Preoccupations (2014, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Cassette’) – ‘Cassette’ was the first Viet Cong released, it is far more accessible than the Preoccupations work.  It sounds like the best bits of all your favourite eighties post punk band rolled into one big ball of fun, which ultimately means it sounds like Talking Heads.

Solace – Preoccupations (2018, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘New Material’) – ‘New Material’ was the second Preoccupations record. It is a dark and paranoid record.  All of it sounds like the band are looking over their shoulders during it.  Its full of songs called things like ‘Doubt’ and ‘Disarray’ and its uncomfortably ace because of it just don’t listen to it in a dark room after an argument with a loved one.

Zodiac – Preoccupations (2016, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Preoccupations’) – the eponymous debut album is a nod in the direction of bands like Echo and the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes in that its full of shimmering guitars and driving basslines.  It’s a bloody fine record as it happens.

Bunker Buster – Preoccupations (2014, Flemish Eye Records, Taken from ‘Viet Cong’)

All of which leads us to the table for the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest – and Toronto still lead by four with four to play, only Montreal can catch and draw with them now although judging by the lyrical clue below, that seems pretty redundant

Toronto	7
Montreal	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1
Calgary	1

Here is tomorrow lyrical clue, the first correct guess in the comments section gets to be the new bassist in the band Women.

“Hello, my name is David, your name in Veronica, Let’s be together, lets fall in love”

A Month of Bands from Canada – #15 – Wintersleep

Weighty Ghost – Wintersleep (2007, Labwork Records, Taken from ‘Welcome to the Night Sky’)

There is a sort of waterfall near our house.  You head along the coast path that runs behind the World Famous Model Village at Babbacombe through some woods, skilfully avoiding the dog turds and used condoms, walk through the small tunnel that goes under the cliff railway and eventually you’ll end up on a pretty marvellous beach called Oddicombe.  From there you can walk along a path and you will come to a waterfall.  When my daughter was younger, it was one of her favourite places to go for a walk, largely because the café on the beach serves great cakes and if you are lucky you might get to say hello to Barry.  Barry is the resident seal (I’m not sure if he is actually called Barry or not – I named him seven years ago when my daughter aged four asked me if he had a name), he visits the area every day, because he likes the view and not because the de Savery owned hotel in the cove provides him with fresh fish for lunch.   

The problem is the waterfall isn’t really a waterfall, its more a place where water from the cliff path sort of just ends up and tumbles into a small pool at the foot of the cliff.  As waterfalls go, its pretty rubbish.  More a watertrickle than a gushing torrent of natural wonder.  The cakes are seriously good though.

My daughters final day in Toronto was probably her favourite day.  She got to go on two different forms of transport for a start, a train and a boat.  The train took her and classmates to a train station near Niagara Falls and the boat took her on the river and to the huge gushing mass of water that are the waterfalls.

The photos that we received from the school don’t really do the place justice, you can get an idea of the sheer size of the place but the one thing that my daughter spoke of when asked about was the noise, the constant roar of the water, which is loud at the top on dry land, to really really loud when you journey behind it.   A sensation that she describes as weird because of the silence of the lift that is forgotten about as the doors open and you are met with this thunderous roar. 

“Its brilliant”, she says, before adding “it’s a lot bigger than the one at Babbacombe Beach”.  The only thing I can add to this, well obviously, but she’s right.  The biggest waterfall in Devon is I think at Lydford Gorge, and even that (which is massively impressive) looks like a slowly dripping tap compared to Niagara. I’m just a little bit jealous that she’s been to Niagara Falls and I haven’t. 

Today’s randomly chosen Canadian band are Wintersleep, who give Halifax, Nova Scotia their first points of the competition and delay Toronto’s inevitable victory for one more day.  I own one Wintersleep record, their third ‘Welcome to the Night Sky’ which I invested in after the NME gave away one of their tracks on a cover mounted free CD.  Its pretty good, in a they sound like early REM kind of way – which actually if you are going to sound like REM, its better to sound like what they sounded like around the time of ‘Murmur’ than anything after say 2000. 

‘Welcome to the Night Sky’ has this brooding sense of self assurance about it.  Its full of melodic post rock tracks that flit between the old familiar quiet/loud dynamic but it does that really well.  One of the picks of the tracks is ‘Oblivion’ which has this urgency and passion about it.  Again, the early REM comparisons are there, but that guitar sounds far more like something you might find on a National record. 

Oblivion – Wintersleep (2007, Labwork Records)

Elsewhere, there are some excellent quieter moments, ‘Drunk on Aluminium’ is a tremendous little affair, in which the bands singers Paul Murphy soars like Paul Simon in his more shouty piece.  It also sounds a bit like Snow Patrol – which you can take as you please.

Drunk on Aluminium – Wintersleep (2007, Labwork Records)

But it’s the eight minute album closer, the admittedly preposterously named ‘Miasmal Smoke & the Yellow Bellied Freaks’ that stands out, as the song loses itself in an epic swirl of reverb and it slowly transforms into a post rock track.  Marvellously so as well.

Miasmal Smoke & the Yellow Bellied Freaks – Wintersleep (2007, Labwork Records)

All of which leads us to the table for the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest – and Toronto still lead by four with five to play, only Montreal can catch them now.

Toronto	7
Montreal	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1
Hallifax	1

Here is tomorrows lyrical clue, the first correct guess in the comments page wins a fish supper with Barry the Seal – and this is now the hardest one of the month I think.

“Take me away from unnecessary conversations Faithlessly patient with unintended consequences”

A Month of Bands from Canada – #14 – Alvvays

Archie, Marry Me – Alvvays (2013, Transgressive Records, Taken from ‘Alvvays’)

One of things that my daughter was hoping to embrace in Canada was the chance to try some new foods.  She did this on our last holiday – she insisted on trying some big Maderian fish thing that is served with a banana sauce – I mean she hated it but at least she tried. 

So apart from the gallons of maple syrup that she poured over her breakfast pancakes every morning and the deep fried flat doughnut thing, my daughter sampled two more traditional Canadian delicacies whilst she was in Toronto.  The first one was something called a S’more.  

According to the what’s app message a S’more is a sugary cracker than contains a toasted marshmallow and some chocolate, which is then cooked over a campfire.  Which is probably why my daughter, her classmates and their new Canadian buddies are being photographed around a big campfire, wrapped up in coats hats and gloves and holding big old sticks so that they can sample the aforementioned S’mores. 

They look all gooey and sticky and according to my daughter, are “really tasty”.  To be honest that sounds like a no brainer where my daughter is concerned.  A massive marshmallow covered in chocolate sauce and shoved between two sugary cracker thing, what’s not to like there.  The funny thing is last June, when we went camping in the wilds of Dorset’s Golden Cap, we did pretty much the same thing – only we used digestive biscuits instead of the Graham crackers that the Canadians use and my daughter said it was “Urgh”.  

The second thing she sampled was poutine, now in theory, she should love this, because it is essentially chips covered in gravy, something she being a good Devonian lass has on a regular basis from our local chippy.  The problem is that poutine, isn’t just chips covered in gravy, it also has cheese curds chucked on top.  It is, my daughter tells us when she is at home, eaten by people at ice hockey games. 

“Did You like it?” my wife asks her, we know the answer before but we humour her

“Chips, I like.  Chips, I love in fact, especially from Five Guys.  Gravy I love.  Cheese wotsits (now she doesn’t mean the dayglo orange crisps here, she means curds), are horrible.  All three together is not very nice at all.  I tried to scrap the cheese bits off but couldn’t.” and with that she pokes her tongue out.

Todays randomly chosen Canadian band are Alvvays, who originate from Charlottetown, a city that is apparently the capital of Prince Edward Island.  Which means that the run of Toronto bands has been ended by ironically a band who now call Toronto home. 

Anyway, Alvvays have released three albums since they formed in 2011, all of which are excellent and are in regular rotation at No Badger Towers.  Their sound is straight down the line indie pop, pitched almost perfectly in that snug little gap between say Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub, it’s twee but not that twee, and it’s jangly but not that jangly. Their first album (‘Alvvays’) arrived in 2014 and had songs about defiant lovers, rejection and not proposing marriage to a chap called Archie.

Party Police – Alvvays (2014, Transgressive Records)

The Agency Group – Alvvays (2014, Transgressive Records)

That was followed three years later by what I think is their finest release, ‘Antisocialites’ which was more of a break up album (albeit one punctuated with wit and some excellent keyboard solos) that had more a punky feel (it still retains some of that perky jangly sound though) and contains at least one track dedicated to dear old grumpy Jim Reid.

Lollipop (Ode to Jim) – Alvvays (2017, Transgressive Records)

Not My Baby – Alvvays (2017, Transgressive Records)

Finally in 2022, after an enforced break during the Covid years Alvvays returned with their third album, called ‘Blue Rev’, which despite being unmistakably an Alvvays album had one foot in the bubblegum pop room.  ‘Blue Rev’ is a much brighter record, the hooks are bigger (and janglier!), it is a more energetic album.  The songs just feel more hungry than before, on occasion the guitars even sound a bit scuzzy in places, which is never a bad thing.

Pharmacist – Alvvays (2022, Transgressive Records)

Pomeranian Spinster – Alvvays (2022, Transgressive Records)

Here is the latest scoreboard in the Official Canada’s Greatest Music City Contest – and Toronto still lead by four – and if it came to a stewards enquiry, they would probably claim Alvvays as their own as well.

Toronto	7
Montreal	3
Vancouver	2
Quebec	1
Newmarket	1
Charlottetown	1

Here is tomorrows lyrical clue, todays prize for the first correct guess in the comments section is some lovely poutine with extra cheese curds.  Yum.   I think this is possibly the hardest one yet.

“I got out of bed today Swear to God I couldn’t see my face”