Feet up! : music/band-of-the-week

Band of the week - Buddard

This has to be my band of the week; Swedish rock band Buddard. Their Wish you were beer album, is great stuff and the album is CC licensed too, how much better can it get?

The stand out track for me has to be Two tons of steel (mp3), a great punchy driving song, rocking solidly along in classic AC/DC or ZZ-Top style. I've been tapping my toes to this all week long.

The atmospheric YouTube video made by a Buick Riviera fan is superb too.

Thanks to Ewan's new TPN-Rock sidekick Iain Foulds for finding this gem of a band.

Band of the week: Lordi

It's been a while since I've got around to fully forming my thoughts on a favourite band of the week, with so many great musicians around, how can you pick just one band?

However, this week it's easy.

This week is Eurovision week.

For non-Europeans Eurovision is a litle hard to explain, but imagine a karoake contest where the electorate (and candidates) belong to rival in-bred feuding families. That might certainly give you some of the feeling of the inter-nation friction, and for added confusion the singers and bands cover such a broad range of music that direct comparison is nigh-on impossible.

Despite this however there are clearcut winners, one is this year's entry from Finland, Lordi.

Ok, the contest is not until tomorrow night, but how can these guys fail to win? They ROCK!!

As Janne points out all you've got to do is watch, enjoy and Vote Lordi!

Band of the week: Eye Bent Grape Spasm

Well, I thought I had been here before, and heading back into the mists of blog-time I’ve found that I was raving (or was it ranting?) about them back in April 2003. As I still like and listen to the guys, I believe they are very worthy recipients of the band of the week award.

Here’s what I said about them back in April 2003

The Eye Bent Grape Spasm
Yes, erm, well I think they rock.

Today's listening is The Eye Bent Grape Spasm's seminal 1993 classic album Large Scary Nasal Hair. Personal favourites have to be Steenkin' Bandito's and Serious Jazz. What more can I say, excellent stuff, especially the Hendrix-esque excursions into previously uncharted sonic domains.

Something else to check out in a similar vein are the other bands on the Very Concerned Records site – Pompillion certainly look like a future candidate for band of the week!

Band of the week: Hoof

This week’s band are Swedish classic rockers Hoof. With hints of Deep Purple, Hendrix and a significant nod in the direction of the funky Paice, Ashton and Lord, Hoof are original and they’ve got a bundle of great tracks available for download on their website.

I’ll start with the oldest set of tracks, So Long. The slowest set of tracks, melodic, and almost Doors like (I’m a big Hammond organ fan), these three tracks from 2002 featured an early lineup of the band, the full history of the band being available on their excellent website. My favourite of this set being And You Are There the third track.

Bringing the band up to date are two sets of tracks from 2004, the Been on a Show “album” is more fluid and punchy than their earlier tracks, Child of a Vicious Mind and The Colours wouldn’t have been out of place on Deep Purple In Rock or Fireball (without the air conditioning noises). The third track, Too Tired is pure PAL, and the fourth and fifth tracks are funkier and slow the pace down whilst adding a little variety, my favourite of the bunch are And The Colours, and The Media Club with its superb lyrics.

There’s also a third set of songs – Live In Replokal. These won’t win any awards for musical fidelity being unmixed and merely recorded on a single stereo microphone at Hoof’s rehearsal studios, but they prove that Hoof can actually play and are a tight and together band, rather than the product of some painstaking studio work piecing together samples.

Hoof are smart guys, they’re the only TPN Rock featured band I’ve seen so far using Last.fm to promote their music, surely this is an obvious route for small bands to get their music heard?

So, in summary, great band, superb tunes, stylish website, the only downside being they don’t seem to gig very often. Next time they play in Stockholm I’m very tempted to grab a cheap flight and beg some floor space from Gustaf for the night (in exchange for a few beers, natch).

Yet another top band, it’s going to be tough finding something for next week, or is it?

Band of the week: Arthur Vance

Can I solo artist be "band" of the week, sure, it's my category, what I say goes!

Just to muddy the water further, Arthur's actually more of a song writer than a full-on rock star, and he didn't even play on Cool Creek his most famous track to date, but with a tune this good that really doesn't bother me, and it's an admirable bit of ego-control by Arthur. Cool Creek appeared on TPN Rock 15 and can be downloaded (alomg with 9 other cracking tracks) from Arthur's weblog, personally I'm really looking forward to hearing the other 11 tracks recorded by the guys.

Band of the week: The Supersonics

So here's part 1 of an irregular "band of the week" slot on Feet up. Funnily enough most of my choices will be pretty similar to the criteria for inclusion on Ewan's TPN Rock podcast, the band have to fit one or more of the three U's: Under-appreciated, unsigned, and unknown. To which I'll add one proviso; if the band doesn't have at least 2-3 downloadable mp3's I'll probably not mention them, after all, how can I recommend someone you can't listen to?

I'm going to start the series with a great Danish rock band, the Supersonics, they've featured on TPN Rock a couple of times now, first on show 13, and just last week on show 20, with the very appropriately timed Apollo 13 - for those of you with heads in the sand, Nasa were having yet another potential space disaster at the time the podcast aired...

Good stuff, I'd love to catch these guys live, good all-around listening, not too heavy or dull and pretty varied to boot.