Tribes

Out of the plethora of new bands being hailed by the NME and others as we amble hopefully, fresh faced and still dizzy from Kanye West's album into 2011, there's one who stand out in a slightly peculiar fashion. A lot of new British acts this year, especially the guitar based ones, are being complimented and hyped up for their Britishness - carrying on the torch/band/silly haircuts of previous generations. It varies from The Vaccines (awesome) to Brother (they make me physically sick, I kid you not) who both represent the revival of two strands of British guitar rock. I suppose every Oasis will generate a Blur in retaliation. And then there's producer turned subversive pop sensation James Blake, touted as the next step in UK dubstep's evolution. But there's one act that stands out amongst that patriotic backdrop though, and it's Camden's beloved, aloof and scruffy Tribes.

Tribes have been an incredibly elusive and intangible band for the past year or so. Identities shrouded in mystery, no physical releases, and very few live shows played. We know their names and faces now however (Johnny, Jim, Dan and Miguel - yes, Miguel), their very few early live shows resulted in them SOMEHOW being chosen to support PIXIES just a few gigs and no releases into their career! There are still no physical, or (legal) digital releases to speak of. They've stated that they didn't want to do "the whole MySpace" thing where their fanbase builds online. They're literally the one hyped act around right now who have gained their following through genuine, physical word of mouth and grassroots fans. They have what can genuinely be called a cult following, and have had lots of British indie fans frothing at the mouth.

The thing that makes them stick out amongst all of the new British acts being championed all over the shop this year however is that they are undyingly devoted and in love with American guitar music. Pavement, Sonic Youth, REM, Nirvana the aforementioned Pixies, have all been mentioned by the bands in interviews as beloved influences. The aforementioned NME has touted them "the best American band in Britain". Their Yankophilia is more than evident in the few songs available on their MySpace page - the grunge tinged "Fate on Tape" and "Whenever" echo Pixies and Nirvana both in terms of the fuzzy sound, but both boasting killer hooks. And "killer hooks" seems somehow inadequate to describe their demo of "We Were Children". It's streaming below, and in it's current bare bone format it is clear it's an amazing piece of songwriting. And their BBC Maida Vale session finally gave us a taster of what a studio version might sound like. Their music doesn't revel sounding lo-fi either, these songs would sound good anywhere. They've made it clear that their intended destination is not radio/commercial success. They're sincere about making people feel something with their music. That may seem like a cliched or even contrived statement, but it's so simple and youthful, I love it. Sometimes you can get a bit tired of overly cerebral, referential and intricate indie music. Tribes - not to call them stupid or simple - sound, right now, just so right and so timely.

If I had to make a snap judgement, I wouldn't say that they're the saviours of British guitar music, which everybody seems to be looking for this year. I think The Vaccines have that in store for them, but Tribes (I hope) should grow into a fantastic new British band, riding along on their own loose, ramshackle tangent.
Tribes don't even have a fully defined sound yet. They have no physical releases and just a mysterious comment saying "tour dates coming soon..." on their MySpace. And yet they've generated this much excitement. I can't wait for whatever happens next.

Tribes - We Were children by ITCManchester

Their session at the BBC's famous Maida Vale studios (organised by the NME and Radio 1's Huw Stephens) was videoed, is is available below, courtesy of the BBC!

Resolutions and Reasons

Well a slightly belated Happy New Year to you! I hope you all indulged in sufficient merriment over the festive period. Now it's January. It's cold, wet, the middle of winter, none of us have any money because we bought presents and then spent all our Christmas money before New Year's Eve, radio DJs never seem to shut up about it being New Year and you've probably already failed to go jogging. Fun!

You're probably the same, but I've had an extremely mixed relationship with New Year's Resolutions. One year I'm for, the next I'm against. There's that constant battle between a scepticism of the concept in general, your own laziness and human inclination to fail, and your optimism, your hope, your determination. You know that, physically, you CAN do whatever it is you'd like to, so why don't you? It's odd.

This year, I've been continually toying with the idea. I wasn't sure where my sword was going to fall on the proverbial battle ground this year. Then I read a blog by a guy called Michael Hyatt. I follow him on Twitter, and he's the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Christian publishing company in the US. He is probably the best blogger I read. He is the master of crafting blog posts. They're frequent, succinct and to the point. Definitely follow him if you're into that sort of thing.

He wrote a post called "How To Make New Year's Resolutions Stick". If you want help keeping yours, read it. It's what persuaded me to make some resolutions this year and to treat them in the way I am.

Basically, he says you need to:
1. Make them specific, not generalised sentiments
2. Keep them few in number
3. Keep them SMART (see the blog post for the meaning of the acronym)
4. Write them down
4. Go public

Well, that's what I'm doing. I've made 5. Some are quite personal and just a bit irrelevant to this post right now but one is ALL about these posts.

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR 2011:
Write at least 2 blog posts a week between Monday 3rd of January 2011 and 31st December 2011.

There it is. It's out there. It's written down. And if you are a faithful reader of my blog I'd like you to pull me up on it (if you remember...) Since I started focussing specifically on music in this blog back in early October, I've pretty much averaged that, so I'm now making a strong point of it, determining myself.

At the start of a New Year, I'd also like to reassert the purpose of this blog, remind you (and myself) of why I write it.

1. It's cathartic. Writing this blog is, I guess, something I do because I want to vent my thoughts. Get them into a place where they're in front of me, manageable and subject to review.

2. To share with you. Yes you. As well as wanting to get my thoughts out for my own sake, I want to share them with other like minded or perhaps not so like minded people. I find it difficult sometimes to either find people who think and talk about music like I do, or to make enough time to talk to people who DO think and talk about it like I do. I really do hope that my thoughts on music and the music that I share/post enriches you in a very real, sincere way.

3. To practice. Practice may be the wrong word, but I want to be a music journalist. And I want to be as good at writing about music as possible, and to make myself as employable as possible one day - hopefully to a music publication that I love and respect. Writing this blog - and perhaps more importantly, writing it in a disciplined manner - will hopefully help me along my way.

So I hope that you do have a very happy 2011. A 2011 full of blessings and growth. Not necessarily happiness. I saw philosopher called Peter Vardy speak last year (woah, 2010 is now LAST YEAR!) who made a very vocal point of stating that the purpose of life is not for you to be comfy, content and happy. But I hope that in 365 days time, you will be more enriched and hopefully closer to God than you are now. God bless you this year, and may your resolutions be resolute.

BBC Sound of 2011: Rest in Peace

I'm mad about "Best of..." lists, so December is really when my ship comes in. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm not generally a meticulous, obsessive compulsive kind of person, I just love ranking things in lists. You might have guessed this from my own Top 20 Tracks and Top 12 Albums of 2010 lists.

But soon after we've forgotten the beloved entries into the "Best of the Year" lists and polls we launch into the divisive realms of polls entitled things like "Ones2Watch", "Sound of the Year", "The Future of Music" etc. Some of these lists are derided the moment they're published - and nearly all of them end up being derided 12 months later.

The worst and most criminal of the bunch is the BBC "Sound of..." poll, which is about as cursed as the Defence Against the Dark Arts staffing position at Hogwarts. The poll endeavours to dictate to us the illustrious role call of artists and musicians who will come to define the coming year musically. The winners have almost invariably paled into startling mediocrity, failing to stretch beyond their respective years, and often even failing to see that year out. Key victims/culprits here would be The Bravery, Little Boots, Keane, Corinne Bailey, Rae, Mika, Adele and, most recently, Ellie sodding Goulding. The only one to really escape the curse was the first winner in 2003, 50 Cent. And look what he's become.



Aside from the "winners", the number of bands lower down the poll who fall into the category of mind numbing filler, utterly vanished from memory now, is laughable. The Twang? Sadie Ama? Ghosts? Marcos Hernandez? Audio Bullys? The Dears? The Dead 60s? The Datsuns? Tali? Gemma Fox? Joss Stone? Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong? The Rumble Strips? Just Jack? Kubb? VV Brown? Delphic? The Thrills? Care to name me a song anyone? Any of the band members? No? Heck, most of them didn't even make any kind of impression in their respective years, yet alone do enough to remain in our minds for 2010. I would like to personally point out that I said this time last year that Delphic and Ellie Goulding were gut wrenchingly mundane and would flop, and thus, I have been vindicated!

Then there's the acts who may hang around in our memories slightly more but either because of one unusually popular hit (The Ting Tings, Black Kids) OR because they've been hyped elsewhere, but end up being as anti-climactic as The Phantom Menace(The Drums, KT Tunstall, Kaiser Cheifs, Razorlight)

The acts championed by the poll are almost invariably overly radio-friendly pop acts or supermarket landfill "indie" bands who look like the kind of Topshop boys your mother would be relatively indifferent to if you brought them home. They produce one vaguely hummable hit single in their given year and then bugger off with disappointing album sales and a terminated record contract.

As well as championing bands who have all the staying power of an old woman's fart in a gale, when the poll DOES pick a quality act, they place them criminally low in the list!

2003- Yeah Yeah Yeahs only reach 3rd, Dizzee Rascal only reaches 5th.
2005- Bloc Party inexlpicably lose out to The Bravery for 1st place.
2007- Klaxons only reach 3rd- beaten my Mika and The Twang.
2008- Vampire Weekend only reach 6th and MGMT only reach 9th.
2009- Lady GaGa wasn't first. That is all you need to know.
2010- Marina and the Diamond are robbed of 1st place by Ellie Goulding (whose picture appears in the dictionary next to "underwhelming"), whose biggest contribution to 2010 has been a dreary cover of 'Your Song' in a John Lewis advert, which didn't appear until December.

This year doesn't look that great either sadly - though there are worryingly a couple of acts in there who I'm currently quite fond of, so here's hoping they'll do a Marina & The Diamonds and buck the trend. Either way. The BBC "Sound of..." poll is almost invariably a pathetic, horrendously white middle class, radio friendly advertisement for the Radio 1 January playlist.

I'm not going to compile a list of upcoming new bands that you should watch out for. Who knows what will happen, when they'll release material, whether they'll alter their sounds. I love "Best of..." lists, as I've said, but these lists predicting the rise of new stars often seen to create a touchwood situation. So here's just a few things I'm excited about from already established artists. It's been an awesome year musically, at least as far as my tastes go. What does 2011 have to offer?


- New Radiohead album at some point
- The Strokes FINALLY set to release a new album. This is make or break for possibly the most important band of the last 10 years.
- Kanye and Jay-Z releasing an EP entitled Watch The Throne. Doesn't get much bigger does it?
- System of a Down set to reunite, at least for live shows.
- Elbow set to release new album and your. After their breakthrough with the last album, this should be interesting.
- Lady GaGa has a new album ready to unleash uponm the world. Where is there left to go for her?!
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds set to record new album. Judging by Nick Cave's side project Grinderman releasing another album this year, he's still on top form.
- Pulp reforming for live shows... MUST seeeeee thiiiiiiiisssssssss...
- Blur recording new album in January...

Those are jsut a few of the should-be-amazing musical events coming up in 2011... we'll just have to wait and see...

Any tips for 2011?