Current Love: Epic new video from One-Eyed Doll

Title pretty much says it all. Brilliant new video from One-Eyed Doll of one of my favourite songs, Committed. Kimberly Freeman looking gorgeous as always, plus Junior makes an epic preacher. Check it out:






So. Much. Yum.

Band of the Week: Zoëtrøpe, Dana Jade, Verses and Hugh Laurie?!

What are we up to now? Three weeks of remembering to post Band of the Week? Hurray for regularity. Anyhoos, moving on to the important bits.

Let's kick off this week with the mad art punk of Zoëtrøpe. Here's the debut single from last year (I believe):

You can also check out their SoundCloud page, which has a whole bunch of other bits and pieces on it.


And now we'll have some punky rock courtesy of Dana Jade. Here's her recently released self-titled debut album:


You can also download her single Little Sister for free. Have a listen:


Next up, British rock band Verses. We're talking rock in the vein of Young Guns here. Good stuff. Actually, having said that... they remind me more of Emery. Minus the screaming. Anyhoos, I'm struggling to find a decent link for streaming, so let's have this little thing from YouTube of the track Who We Are from their new EP. I should probably point out that said EP (Come To Life) is being given away free with Rock Sound at the moment... Right, video.

You can also check out their Facebook page.

Finally, the loveliness that is the awesome Hugh Laurie singing. Y'know, Hugh Laurie of Fry & Laurie and Blackadder fame? And assorted other brilliance. Or, for American readers, House. He released an album of blues tracks last year. Much loveliness. Anyhoos, enough babbling. You can get a free download of Guess I'm A Fool from Laurie's site HERE. GO!

That'll do for this week. Check it out and pass it on.

Band of the Week: Mandala, Plurals, & more!

Well, would you look at that? I actually remembered Band of the Week for a change. Considered renaming it "Band of the indeterminate time period" but it just sounded silly... Anyhoos, onwards.

First up we have English instrumental duo Mandala. Scrummy proggy, metally brilliance. Seriously good. Here's new single Wind Secular:


Next up, more instrumental prog metal stuff! Woo! This time from Belgian project Plurals. Have a listen to the Inner Planets EP, which is currently a free download:


Then we'll have the new (ish) track from Aamir al-Loki because I only remembered it existed last week. New EP should be coming soon, so that's also pretty awesome.


Next, I think we'll have Harlequin Jones. Dark cabaret loveliness. Yum. Check out The Bad Beginning:


Finally, not really a band, but I just had to share because they're absolutely brilliant - the re-issue label Dust-to-Digital. They take old recordings, digitise them, then release them as CDs and I have found some most delicious stuff on their BandCamp. For the purposes of this post, let's have this, which is the first disc of an album of upright bass tracks:

Randomness: She Makes War - Minefields video

Just thought I'd share the video for the lovely She Makes War's new single Minefields. Here you go:

And while you're at it, why not check out the single on Bandcamp, which comes with a live album. If you really want to, you can download it for free, but I suggest you chip in a couple of quid at least. She deserves it.

God, it's posts galore this week, isn't it? Let's hope I can keep it up.

Band of the Week: Patricia Wake, Circus Contraption, Jill Tracy & assorted Minecraft wotsits

Oh my, Band of the Week? The joy.

Well, maybe not joy, but hey - Band of the Week is here again! It's now probably more like Band-of-the-whenever-the-hell-I-remember-to-post, but it'll do. Let's kick off with the glorious acoustic loveliness of Patricia Wake - a little dark, sometimes sad and some odd references to entropy... Inner geek is loving the entropy references.



Following that, the joyfully sinister madness of Circus Contraption. Let's call it dark carnival - very jazzy with big chunks of cabaret and an overall circus vibe as helpfully hinted in the name of the band. Check out their awesomeness HERE.

Next up, the ever wonderful Jill Tracy. She's just released a Christmas album. Yes, I know it's only October. Trust me, you need to listen to this. Christmas songs + Jill Tracy = hauntingly beautiful magic. Have a listen, you'll see.



Finally, some assorted Minecraft-related goodies. Minecraft is a game. It's awesome. Even more awesome - THIS:

 And THIS:

And finally, this:


Does that make up for the lack of posting? Probably not but check them out anyways and pass it on.

Current Love: The Tin Box Boys

Oh, the joy of accidental discoveries. Just thought I'd share this delightful cover of Sufjan Stevens' "For The Widows In Paradise And The Fatherless In Ypsilanti". Gorgeous stuff.

For the Widows in Paradise and the Fatherless in Ypsilanti - Cover 2 by Graham Vincent

You can also find The Tin Box Boys on MySpace HERE. Folky bluegrass loveliness. If I manage to find any more, maybe I'll do a Band of the Week for them, but for now this'll do.

That is all. 

Seriousness: Save Scartho Baths

Long time no post and this one's not even music related.

My local council are... a bit stupid? Ridiculous? They seem to operate on the basis that "if-we-say-we're-going-to-do-something-no-one-can-possibly-object". The latest example of which was their recent announcement that they plan to demolish my local swimming pool, Scartho Baths. The plan is to replace the pool with a new one at the Leisure Centre. Said new pool will be 25m long and have no diving boards. The current pool is somewhere short of Olympic standard (i.e. 50m) and has diving boards. It's on a lot of major bus routes, unlike the Leisure Centre, which is on just one bus route.

Problem, much?

Many years ago, I learnt to swim at that pool. I imagine most people in my area learnt to swim there. In the wake of the Olympics and Paralympics, demolishing a decent-sized pool and replacing it with one that's half the Olympic length seems ridiculous. What's happening with the Olympic legacy?

I should point out that the council claim that the pool is structurally unstable. Something about draining it would make the pool collapse. Now, this seems unlikely to me as I'm sure that up until fairly recently the pool was drained once a year for cleaning anyway. Obviously I know nothing about engineering. That said, the engineering report or whatever it is hasn't been made available. I'm half tempted to demand it be released so we can see how much truth is in the council's claims.

Anyways, enough ranting. I've probably missed important things out. If you're local to Grimsby, signing THIS PETITION would be vaguely helpful. And if you happen to be from the council and reading this, please think back to when you tried to shut down our nursery schools. That didn't entirely go in your favour, did it now? And I see that there's already been progress, which is also viewable at the same address as the petition.

"We won't stay silent - we'll make as much noise as we can." Enter Shikari - Tribalism