Today the 11th edition of the Great Escape, the festival for new music, gets underway in Brighton with over 450 bands, 3,500 music industry professionals and thousands of regular punters swarming into the seaside town to get their fix of bands, booze and the beach. Unofficially it kicked off last night with a couple of pre-parties; I managed to catch indie fuzz rockers Yuck at a fairly raucous Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar where, despite the low basement ceiling height, several members of the audience managed some pretty determined and effective attempts to crowd surf. One of the acts playing today that (queues and venue capacity permitting) I’m planning to catch is Anteros, who last impressed with the snap crackle and pop of Breakfast, the video of which found lead singer Laura Hayden joining the rapidly expanding list of musicians who promote their music by jumping in the bath (I still have no answer to why musicians do this except that either they’re bonkers or attention seeking whores – probably both). Timed nicely to coincide with their Great Escape show comes another new tune from the band. Blue has one of those ‘we don’t really have any money or time, so let’s just shoot a tour footage video which involves us driving around and playing some shows and then larking around a bit and that'll do’ videos whilst their easily digestible pop music provides the soundtrack. If you want to see what I’m up to at Great Escape, follow me on Twitter (here) – I’ll be tweeting throughout the event. If you want to see what Anteros are up to you can follow them by using this link here - let's hope their tweets are a bit more exciting than 'driving to another gig'. Anteros - Blue (Video)
The oddly named Seramic has already wowed the blogosphere and radio tastemakers with his first two releases, the soulful funkiness of Waiting and the hymn like People Say, but it’s his third tune that is his first real showstopper. Like a junior wizard about to become a master conjurer Found has some colossal magic tricks up its sleeve. This is a huge gospel pop odyssey that throws in the lot; a choir, dirty squirming rock guitars that will make you shit yourself, big electronics that will make you pee yourself, and a massive hook that will leave you dribbling and drooling, yet it still manages to sound 100% human. It's like Prince taking on Jack Garratt after a couple of 16oz steaks. Just wow. Song of the month? Almost certainly. Heaven is a place in the recording studio. If this guy can capture the power of this live he’s a must see, which is handy as he’s playing a whole raft of UK festivals this summer, starting with Brighton’s Great Escape this weekend. I hope to be in the front of the queue for that one. Seramic - Found
Today I’m turning my attention to a Scottish act who shone oh-so brightly but oh-so briefly in the mid 80’s, releasing some bafflingly brilliant singles and two sweetly fantastic, lyrically oblique, trashy pop albums. This blog might be mainly about new music, but the chances are that for most readers this old band will be a new (hopefully top-notch) discovery. The name of these Edinburgh based upstarts was Win, and they were formed by Davy Henderson and Russel Burn who were previous members of The Fire Engines (who more recently were covered by Franz Ferdinand) together with Ian Stoddart, Simon Smeeton, Emmanuel Shoniwa and later William Perry. The two albums were Uh! Tears Baby (A Trash Icon) from 1987 and Freaky Trigger from 1989 which received rave reviews from critics at the time. “An alluring lucky bag stuffed with candy, sex oblique jokes and cartoon funk metal,” wrote Stuart Maconie before going on to give it 10/10 in the NME. “These are the ten best songs Salvador Dali never wrote,” he added. “The immaculate pop conception,” raved Sounds. “One of the few jewels that shine out of this bad, bad world,” said List. The critics loved it. The public (mainly) never heard it. It just didn’t happen for the band. The first album failed to chart, the second reached the giddy heights of number 51 in the UK for one week. Every one of their quirky, ideas stuffed singles didn’t make the top 75, except for Super Popoid Groove (a song which I’ve been sneakily referencing on this blog for years) which hit number 63. You can see the video below, with the band wearing bizarre supersize coats and singing of "chewing gum baby for the ears, a dashing young valium to soften the fear" make of that what you will. It's first-rate bonkers. Win - Super Popoid Groove (Video)
Frankly I find this lack of success unfathomable. Shampoo Tears, Dusty Heartfelt, What’ll You Do Till Sunday Baby and You’ve Got The Power, which did find some favourable outcome soundtracking a rather odd TV advert by McEwan’s brewery (see below), seemed genuine contenders, with an intelligently arty buzz-pop sound that found reference to ABC, Prince, Heaven 17 and Marc Bolan. But by 1990 the band were dropped and split. Win - McEwans Lager Advert (includes extract of You've Got The Power)
Maybe they were just a little too out there for the masses. After all, this was a band who had songs called It May Be A Beautiful Sky Tonight But It’s Only A Shelter From A World At Risk, What’s Love If You Can Kill For Chocolate and Mind The Gravy. Lead singer Davey once described what an ideal Win gig would be like: “Win should ideally have 30 humans on stage dressed in pink riot gear and have a musical director.” What Win left behind was some of the most wonderful pop music that most of the world has never heard. It’s why I’m writing about them. If they weren't on your radar till just now (statistically the chances of that are high), don't pass them by. You can hear the whole of Freaky Trigger on Spotify (click here). Considering it was recorded in the 1980’s its production still sounds remarkably sharp and the songs, of course, still sound subversively fun. Copies of Uh! Tears Baby occasionally crop up on E-Bay and the CD version fetches anywhere between £30 and £100 (there are more copies of the vinyl floating around). I’m keeping everything crossed that one day someone somewhere makes that record more easily available.
There’s something disturbing about the new Glass video that makes me either shiver with the awkwardness of it all or laugh as a method of psychological protection. After all, the whole thing seethes with a violence and rage that looks almost genuine. It's unsettling nature continues to the multi-layered lyrics: “Mind how you go, take it slow, or the next thing you’ll know, you’ll be wed, you’ll be dead, if that’s what you want, then go on ahead,” raps lead singer Jessica like a modern day Sarah Nixey from Black Box Recorder. Meanwhile behind all of that a super popoid groove keeps the music all sparky and interesting. You can find the duo at Great Escape Festival in Brighton next week. They also play Blissfields and Secret Garden Party this summer. I've still yet to see them live, despite me booking them for their first UK show outside of London at a festival I helped put on (Dials) and then returning to my home city just a few days ago for another gig. It's time to put them on my Great Escape schedule for sure. If you're going, you should too. Glass - Be Careful (Video)
