We Were Evergreen - Leeway (Video)

There’s something about happy sounding music that makes many a music snob turn up their noses. It’s almost as if to be considered serious about art your brain has to have a jaundiced and cynical view of anything that could put joy in people’s hearts. A pessimist is never disappointed somebody once sang and maybe that’s at the core of it for the anti-cheerful brigade. The shield of negativity protects them from being let down and in an ironic way keeps them content, or dare we say it, happy.

So here’s the new video from French funsters We Were Evergreen. It’s one to press play and watch your body react with delirious bad dancing, silly smiles and good vibes as if you’ve just swallowed some Jedward pills. The ratio of likes to dislikes on You Tube says it all really. We’re serious when we say we love this song. For those of a more downward persuasion, enjoy your negative bubble, but maybe one day it’s worth giving it a pop?

We Were Evergreen - Leeway (Video)

The Camden Crawl 2012 - Review (Saturday)

The cold wet streets of Camden are awash with drunken hordes tonight, but that’s just a typical weekend here. Thrown into that mix is a bunch of wristband wearing music seekers who are staggering their way between the pubs, clubs and venues of north London’s pleasure streets. Yes, you know it can only be the Camden Crawl.

The legendary multi-venue multi-gig festival may be the oldest swinger in town these days, imitated by many others that have arguably become more prestigious (Brighton’s Great Escape now lays claim to being the UK’s biggest and best of these sorts) but the Camden Crawl still packs some weight. Maybe it’s because of expert advance planning, maybe because of the double-dip recession or maybe that this year’s bill doesn’t hold so many must-sees as previous years, but the criticisms past of over long queues and crammed in likes sardines venues don’t transpire.

“This is really unhealthy to be playing this early,” announces frontman Denis Smith of Imperial Leisure for their 1pm set in The Wheelbarrow. You wouldn’t think it though. The 8-piece, brass wielding band may be crammed on to a tiny stage but they give it everything. It may be as subtle as a Katie Price underwear photo shoot, but their mix of sweaty shouty ska-rap-rock mix goes down a treat, especially with the two loons dressed as dancing monkeys po-going in the front row.

Up at the other end of town hard-touring Peace take to the stage and look every ounce the indie band. There are floppy fringes, fur collars, leather jackets, converse boots, skinny jeans and pale boyishness a-plenty and some half decent tunes that flourish with a crowd that is not yet too drunk to pay attention. They’re followed by Elle King who imports her songs about heartbreak, love and crap towns in Ohio with gravelly country vocals, banjos and trumpet sounds and who is gorgeously affecting.

Destroying the ideology of the Camden Crawl, a short bus ride rather than a long walk takes us to Koko where The Milk are packing as much as they can into their day with three shows. With this half hour set they’re like DJ’s with guitars – there’s no break for applause, just a continuous stream of music until the end. The Milk can play. They don’t need to soak their sound in reverb to hide their inadequacies like so many bedroom groups today. Instead there’s tight playing and great songs full of call and response vocals, slabs of 60’s r ‘n’ b influences and straining soul. Their best song Chip The Kids doesn’t even get an airing and yet they still sound on top of their game.

The Crawl is not all about indoor gig venues though. Camden Gardens hosts the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Outdoor Arena whilst down at the Roundhouse a tiny dome canopy has been erected on the outside terrace. It’s here amongst the palms, patio stonework and over large sunshade that the Melodica Melody and Me coax the sun out for a short while with their twee folk sound and We Were Evergreen charm with cute xylophone led French pop melodies. However by the time it’s over it’s become as cold as Christmas and the warmth of a grotty Camden boozer seems very welcome.

It’s at the Monarch where we get a dose of Lo(ish)-Fi  indie guitar work from Fear of Men. Vocalist Jess sings some lazy but lovely pop melodies like The Primitives or The Shop Assistants with slippers on and it’s all quite pleasantly appealing. The addition of a new female backing vocalist fleshes out the bands nostalgic sound somewhat and it’s only a lack of interaction with the audience that lessens the groups regency a little.

By now things are starting to get a little messy and Polarbear, Brum’s answer to Scroobius Pip, has to battle with the chattering drunk masses in the Earl of Camden. There may not be a raised stage but Polarbear creates one with a mix of spoken word, beats and on one track the use of the word bum-hole repeatedly. Giving out free records to the crowd and taking the p*ss out of MC’s who rap about girls “when technically they’re women,” he’s funny and endearing. His rhymes about teenage snogging in the park perfectly capture the excitement and confusion of a first kiss, his words strangely romantic and evocative.

There’s a gaggle of girls at the front for Swiss Lips (yes, it’s slang for vagina) whose short, sweet , synthy set shows a band with much promise - file under ones to watch. The band might be from Manchester but their sound doesn’t take any reference from their home cities past. Instead there are hints of Fenech Soler, The Killers, MGMT, The Bravery and Passion Pit in their catchy sound. “We’ve never seen so much movement in a London crowd,” they announce. They’re lucky to get that, some people here can hardly stand up let alone move.

Willy Moon finishes us off for the evening and the hope is he’ll answer some of the questions we’ve been asking about him, namely is he a one-trick pony? Is it all clever studio trickery? Is he actually some sort of record industry in joke?

With his sharp white suit and slicked back hair, Moon and his band look like they’ve stepped straight out of a magazine photo shoot. His guitarist is a seductively vampiric looking lady and behind them is a legs-apart-hit-‘em-hard drummer in space age bra-top and black and white striped trousers. Hidden away in the corner is a DJ who seems to have forgotten to dress for the occasion and maybe as punishment his sounds seem somewhat turned down in the mix. Moon’s studio releases to date have found a niche that mixes 50’s rock-n-roll with daft hip hop beats. Live his set is rawer, rougher and leaves us as perplexed as we were at the beginning of his set. My Girl sounds like a potential hit in the making whilst Yeah Yeah predictably gets the biggest audience response. He walks into the crowd, does some of THAT crazy dancing. It’s momentarily ridiculous and brilliant and by the end we’re still none the wiser if his blend of retro-modern cartoon pop is genius or rubbish. It’s probably a bit of both.

Listen to some of the bands mentioned in this review below.

Elle King - Good To Be A Man

Fear Of Men - Green Sea



Swiss Lips - Grow

The Saturday Surf #25

This is the 25^th edition of the Saturday Surf. If you’re new to the blog, then a quick explanation is due. It works like this.

Stage 1 - We post an iPhone Hipstamatic picture of some waves / surf. This could be interpreted as attempting to be ironically retro-cool because a while back that’s what all the cool blogs did; irrelevant arty pictures of girls in bikinis or the sea were what you did to display your knowingly hip credentials. Or it could just be because this blog is called Breaking More Waves and this feature is called The Saturday Surf which is frankly a rather obvious pun on the word surf both of the internet and the sea and therefore a picture of surf / waves seems appropriate.

Stage 2 - We post some tracks that we’ve come across this week that we didn’t get the chance to write properly about. The rules are no more than 5 tracks in a post and no more than 15 minutes of music, because let’s be honest everyone has short attention spans these days and nobody actually sits and listens to an hour of music on one blog these days do they ? So we promise not to waste more than 15 minutes of your life every Saturday. We’ll keep the text to a short paragraph as well, because we’re fully aware sometimes we waffle on a bit.

Stage 3 - Put the kettle on, make yourself a coffee or tea and spend the next few minutes listening to these songs. You may like some of them, you will hate others, but give them all a chance at least. That is how the Saturday Surf works. It’s simple really. Here’s the music.

Labyrinth Ear - Humble Ears

First up is new material from Labyrinth Ear, an electronic duo who we’ve featured a number of times previously. Humble Bones is a track from their new EP which is due on February 7. Rythmic danceable electronica that tips its hat a little towards New Order but with airy feminine vocals, it’s impeccable stuff.

We Were Evergreen - Baby Blue

Slightly twee French indie popsters We Were Evergreen have a toytown sensibility that’s built from brushed delicate melodies. There’s ukulele, banjo, toy piano, kazoo, glockenspiel, guitar and all sorts of other instrumentation thrown in. It’s fun and if the concept of fun makes you squirm and think that it can’t actually be good music then go back and listen to your dark gothic  underground dirge or whatever it is that makes you feel even more miserable, whilst the rest of the world gets on with things.

Frankie Rose - Know Me

Frankie Rose (ex-Vivian Girls, ex-Dum Dum Girls and ex-Crystal Stilts) has been whizzing round the blogs like an out of control spinning top with this rather excellent solo effort entitled Know Me which is due for release on Feb 20 before a new album surfaces in March. Check out the Cure-ish Close To Me drum intro and ethereal atmospheres straight out of a Now That’s What I Call Alt ‘80’s compilation.

Willis Earl Beal - Evening's Kiss

Finally, here’s something from a new artist Willis Earl Bill – one of the only artists we’ve come across recently that doesn’t seem to have any online social media presence. Sounding like a particularly downbeat minimalist Willy Mason this track is not his best, but right now it’s the only one streaming through Soundcloud. Have a listen for sure, but what we really recommend you do is go and look at this You Tube clip where you’ll see his acapella vintage-blues and soul come into its own. There's also some rather brilliant demos over at City of Dust blog where you can find out a lot more about the man himself.