The Schönbys 2011

If you hadn't noticed, it's December. The Christmas decorations in our shopping malls are already covered in dust, un-easy silences are developing in offices up and down the country after the annual party, and bloggers and journalists alike begin to think about their end of year lists.

I've seen and heard quite a bit of music in 2011 (I set new year's resolutions to make sure I did!) and therefore would like to impart to you the music that has tickled my fancy over the last 12 months, and in order to do that I've devised the Schönbys - a bit like the Grammys but with better music.
I've decided on the following awards; best band, best single, best album, best live act, best new-comer and best international artist. I don't know whether I've got something that qualifies for all these yet, nevermind a winner, but let's have a go anyway!

First up will be best live act. Keep checking the blog for the nominations and winner, but to whet your appetite here's a track from what would have been my 2010 album of the year.

The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio by clubthemammoth

Every little helps

Earlier this month I spent 90 minutes of my life trying to access (and subsequently crashing) the Tesco Clubcard website. Why? Well, they had a deal where £12.50 of your hard-earned points could get you a £25 iTunes voucher. I was so excited I bought two, looks like lots of other people had the same idea because the might of the Tesco website was brought to it's knees under the rush to get one of the 25,000 vouchers on offer.

I don't generally buy electronic music, I rather opt to buy the physical entity that is a CD and then rip the CD to my laptop - this deserves to be the subject of a blog all of it's own, don't you think johnjsills? One thing that does annoy me though is when a track is played on the radio and I think "Wow, I want to own that" and low-and-behold, it's not available for another month or so. This could be the reason why "some people" borrow tracks from the internet, and when they become available (i.e. when the CD comes out) then "they" buy that and "their" conscience is clear.

There are some tracks, however, that cry out to be owned as soon as possible - this is where I'm hoping my fifty quids worth of iTunes credit will come in. I'm sure my purchases may well appear on this blog over the coming year.

The last digital track I bought was a few months ago. I'm his girl by Friends was one such track that made me get off my electronic arse and buy it via iTunes - mainly because they'd done a great job in ensuring that "some people" couldn't get hold of it by any other means. I'm drawn in by the desperation of the need for ownership in the lyrics, and the bass is class. Enjoy.

Friends - I'm His Girl by LuckyNumberMusic

A Manifesto

It's taken me (Schönberg) a while to understand blogs. The ones I read are probably read by thousands of people and they're usually telling me something I didn't know. I kinda feel that normally I don't have anything to say that would be useful or interesting to others, so it puts me off posting. Anyway, I now realise that you don't need thousands of followers, if you're getting through to just a few people then the whole experience can be worthwhile.

Each January I set myself some musical objectives for the coming year, some people may call them resolutions. Last year it was to go to more gigs and buy more albums. This year I want to set an objective that covers both my love of music but also satisfies another objective on embracing social networking. I want to share with the followers of this blog some of my favourite music, mainstream or otherwise.

So here's my pledge to you (yes, YOU. You singular. You, the person reading this). I pledge to post on this blog at least once per week during 2012, starting from next week. Sometimes it might be something really ground-breaking, sometimes it might be something I liked on the radio, sometimes it might simply be my earworm. So, if you're reading this and you want to support me, then why not leave a message to show that there's someone out there listening?

Music bloggers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your credibility.

The Smiths - Shoplifters Of The World Unite by EmergencyBroadcastSongs

Alexander - Million Years

A Million Years from Alexander

Alexander, he of Edward Sharpe fame has just released his own album and the stand out track for me is A Million Years plus the video is pretty good too. If you enjoyed the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros album then check this out. They seem to a have spent a bob or two on the video...

MP3: A Million Years - Alexander

Thank you to his label Vagrant for letting me post this, you can buy the album at iTunes now.

Band of Skulls

With a name like Band of Skulls and a single called The Devil Takes Care of His Own you can already tell where this band are coming from. Heavy rock from the glory days of BRMC or you could even say a UK version of Kings of Leon with PJ Harvey adding extra vocals. This band are taking no prisoners and I'm looking forward to hearing their second album when it is released at the start of next year. Until I can give you more check out the video for the single...

Cocabelle

A while back I mentioned that The Jones were coming back. Well sadly that never materialised by Kris and Kev "Jones" haven't left the industry. They are involved with a bright star who might just go one step further and make it in to our charts. The soul / blues influenced lady named Cocabelle is being co-managed by the former lead singer and guitarist of The Jones as well as them writing for her. I certainly recommend checking our Lion's Den and my apologies go to Kris for not bringing this to your attention sooner.

MP3: Lion's Den - Cocabelle

Sleater-Kinney esq vocals - I think I know someone who might like that

Artists often find their real calling in the studio and can then move on to a career as a producer but every now and then you hear of a producers finally releasing their own material. It's a weird situation, having slaved away on someone else's material you're finally given a free rein, what do you do? Like a music critic you know your peers will listen closely and may not be too kind.

Doctor Rosen Rosen is one such producer turned artist (admittedly not all that famous) and he's giving away his debut EP. Entitled Girls it has four different female vocalists over four different tracks. I thought I'd bring you "Poison" but let the PR guy describe it:

"The EP definitely leans pop, but features a really cool track from a girl named Meg Myers who's voice is reminiscent of Corin Tucker from Sleater-Kinney,"



POISON (feat. Meg Myers) by DOCTOR ROSEN ROSEN

The Rassle

When I originally posted about The Rassle it was part of a larger post and I'm kinda worried you all missed it. I've been enjoying the tracks off their free EP for a while and if you haven't sat up and taken notice of this band yet then you really should. I won't go over old ground again but what I will point out to you is that they have a new free download available. On first listen it sounds pretty damn good, pretty damn good indeed.

Call the doctor

Call The Doctor have a new EP and not only are they playing Bristol but a whole host of other shows including Pen and Quill in Taunton. Wait there's more, there's even a free download to celebrate the release of their EP.  We've featured them on here a few times so I'll let you read up on them yourselves but in the meantime you can download their EP here. Oh and here's a full list of their shows:

SEPTEMBER RIOTS TOUR
////////////////////////////////////////////////

08th - BATH - MOLES CLUB
15th - NOTTINGHAM - BENSON'S*
16th - LEEDS - MILO
17th - SCUNTHORPE - LINCOLN IMP*
18th - OXFORD - THE BULLINGDON*
19th - KINGSTON - THE CRICKETERS*
21st - CARDIFF - GWDIHW CAFE BAR"
22nd - BRISTOL - THE MOTHERS RUIN*
23rd - BIDEFORD - THE PALLADIUM*
24th - TAUNTON - PEN AND QUILL
25th - BRIGHTON - THE HYDRANT^
26th - LONDON - BULL & GATE
30th - BRISTOL - START THE BUS^


So get yourself along to your local show and/or buy their new EP.

The Whip - Live

A while back I had a ridiculous idea, I would like to see each band that featured in my Top 25 most played tracks on iTunes. It can't be that hard can it, after all I have already seen White Lies, Elbow, Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay, The Courteeners,  The Virgins and some of those appear more than once so it surely it's achievable. Looking further down the list there's Red Light Company, not sure how they made it in the top 25 but I've seen them too. Ah wait, there's Queen and Dire Straits, they might be a bit trickier. Maybe I could see the song that's in the Top 25 performed live, would that do? Well either way there was one I ticked off last night, Trash by The Whip which sits high up in the list - quite rightly at number 12. As my friend came all the way over to Bristol to see Two Door Cinema Club with me recently surely I could make the trip to London to see The Whip perform. So with their new album pre-ordered and enjoying the five track sampler you get for pre-ordering I headed to London village.

The crowd was certainly older than TDCC but then again most crowds at cinemas are older than that crowd. So without being self conscious of our ages we enjoyed a band fronted by a George McFly lookalike and moshed our arses off to Trash. Number 12 ticked off.