Hello everybody, few days ago I found this site:
www.planetrocklosslessbootlegs.com
Here you can find a lot of bootlegs of classic rock, sign it!

English indie band Art Brut will release their third album on april 20th. The album is called "Art brut vs. Satan" and you can find on the web some bits of it plus some other songs which are not included in the recording.

On Art B>rut official site you can find "Weird science", on their myspace there is the first single, "Alcoholics unanimous" and on the site of Artrocker magazine there are three live songs: "Slap dash for no cash", "Moved to L.A." and "Modern art".

What about the stile of these new songs? You can hear the production of Frank Black; the guitars -expecially in Slap dash for no cash- seem to be taken from Pixies' "Trompe le monde"; there are a lot of backing vocals and the drummer plays crash cymbals! He didn't play them in the previous albums and live set because he used to play stand up!

 

I've not written anything here since october... I'm sorry!! I'll be writing something more interesting than this post in the next days (?) or weeks (??) or months (???)!

I'm waiting for the release of some albums: Art Brut, Peter Doherty and the Veils... I hope that I will be able to write good reviews for them!!

Contrived imagery is the debut album of the british indie-rock band Plastic Passion and has been released for the japanese label Knew Noise Recordings in september. It came after a couple of split eps and “Out of sight/ out of mind”, an ep which can be downloaded on the label Filthy litte angels site (check here and go in the download section to find very interesting music!). Contrived imagery features the re-recording of some songs previously released (like the great “Not art” and “Pass over”, two of my favourite ones). The band takes his name from the homonym Cure’s song, and their style follows the choice the name suggests: Lemmi’s voice reminds Robert Smith and the sound is fast, with guitar and bass-line creating a punk-sound without too much distortions; someone calls this “art-punk” (but “this is not art but I don’t know what is” as they sing in “Not art”) . Their style is indebted with other bands of the early ‘80s: “We have come so far” has echoes in the voice like some Clash’s songs, “Beneath the light” sounds like a Police song. Looking for more recent influences I can say that the album will sound suitable for the people who likes Bloc Party (expecially Silent Alarm) and Art Brut. The album is homogenous in its purposes, but the songs are not similar one to the others, so you can hear “scratching at the door” which seems a ‘60s romantic ballad played with acoustic guitar and organo. I can’t understand why in “File under” the bass and the drums play contro-tempo, but this is just a little strange choice on a very interesting debut album. I hope that this will be pubblished also in Europe (but nowadays it’s not difficult to have it frome the japanese hmv store, and japanese courier companies work very fast!) so we can see them live.

Plastic passion myspace is here

Some days ago the Belle and Sebastian italian fansite wrote the news that a BBC sessions album will be released, and now you can also preorder it on recordstore: the new album after two years of silence is a compilation of songs played at the BBC studios in 1996 and 2001 and will be released on november 16th (although the date isn't yet official). The band hasn't clearly pubblished that news but in the Q&A section of their site they let the reader understand this release ("Q.What has happened to the tracks Shoot the sexual athlete,Magic of a kind word,Nothing in the silence,and My Girls got miracolous technique could you tell me please. A. They'll be out soon I think.

Stevie - 12/09/08"; "

 Q.I've just heard a rumour that the slow version of Seeing Other People will not feature on the upcoming BBC sessions album. Say it ain't so!!! I love this version more than I could possibly say. A. Nah man it's really bad but it's all in the eye or the ear of the beholder Stevie - 11/09/08").

There will be also a limited edition with a concert; here you can read the tracklist and see the cover:

 

1. The State I Am In
2. Like Dylan In The Movies
3. Judy and the Dream of Horses
4. The Stars of Track and Field
5. I Could Be Dreaming
6. Seymour Stein
7. Lazy Jane
8. Sleep The Clock Around
9. Slow Graffiti
10. Wrong Love [maybe "The wrong girl"?!??!?!?]
11. Shoot The Sexual Athlete (Previously Unreleased)
12. The Magic of a Kind Word (Previously Unreleased)
13. Nothing In The Silence (Previously Unreleased)
14. (My Girl’s Got) Miraculous Technique (Previously Unreleased)

Cd2 Live in Belfast 2001

1. Here Comes The Sun
2. There’s Too Much Love
3. The Magic of a Kind Word
4. Me and the Major
5. Wandering Alone
6. The Model
7. I’m Waiting For The Man
8. The Boy With the Arab Strap
9. The Wrong Girl
10. Dirty Dream # 2
11. Boys Are Back in Town
12. Legal Man

 

I always wanted to write something about Afterhours, one of the few italian bands able to play rock sang in italian without looking odd. This is one of their most powerful tunes, Male di Miele ("honey-pain"); in their career they have mixed american influences (Pixies, the Seattle scene) with italian melodic music (Lucio Battisiti, Rino Gaetano). On their myspace you can also read their biography 

 

Hello everybody, I'm sorry but I couldn't write (I had not the concentration to write in english...sometimes I am very lazy!) the reviews to the gigs I saw on the last month; Tricky, R.E.M., Soulwax, Editors, Patti Smith and the italian rock band Massimo Volume...

Now I am on holiday, I'll write down something on the first days of september (ehm... I wish so...)

Best regards!!!

 

On Silver Jews myspace (here) you can hear their latest album, Lookout mountain, lookout sea. Who are Silver Jews? They are an alt-country band formed in the late '80s by David Berman, Steven Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich; all the three guys played both in the first Pavement and Silver Jews works but later Silver Jews became only a David's project.

David Berman is also a writer and a poet, and his lyrics are always very rich, sometimes in this album he sings like Lou Reed, and you can are also David's wife voice as backing vocals of several songs.

Here you can read a poem taken from Ultramarine, the 1986 collection of poems by Raymond Carver. This is oene of the poems in which there is a moment of peace among the difficulties of life. It’s a “relaxing” poem, different from others which are about the same thing (The possible, Balsa wood). There are also a lot of poems about being everywhere else, as the title suggests. The poem that opens the collection, This morning, has some lines about that: “but for a minute or two I did forget/ myself and everything else. I know I did”.

I wrote an italian translation of this poem, maye someone can find it interesting, maybe not.

 

 

The best time of the day

 

Cool summer nights.

Windows open.

Lamps burning.

Fruit in the bowl.

And your head on my shoulder.

These the happiest moment in the day.

 

Next to early morning hours,

of course. And the time

just before lunch.

And the afternoon, and

Early evening hours.

But I do love

 

these summer nights.

Even more, I think,

than those other times.

The work finished for the day.

And no one who can reach us now.

Or never.

 

Il momento migliore della giornata

 

Fresche sere estive.

Finestre aperte.

Lampade accese.

Frutta nella cesta.

E la tua testa sulla mia spalla.

Questi, i momenti più felici della giornata.

 

Accanto alle prime ore del mattino,

ovviamente. E il momento

proprio prima del pranzo.

E il pomeriggio, e le prime ore della sera.

Ma in particolare amo

 

Queste sere estive.

Anche di più, credo,

di quegli altri momenti.

Il lavoro giornaliero finito.

E nessuno che ci possa raggiungere adesso,

né mai.

On the first of June The Liars played at “Circolo Magnolia” an open-space near the Linate airport, in Milan. The gig was opened by the italian band Fuckvegas who had to wait the last flight of the airport before playing. Their rock was noisy and influenced both by No-Wave and Grunge (for the way they played metal solos with bass and guitar doing the same notes). Their sound was perfect to open for the music of Liars.

The american band began their set without the singer Angus; after a minute of music he entered the stage shaking his hands like a shaman. I can’t write down the entire setlist, the music was astonishing, a tribal (modern) dance with all the musicians (except the drummer) changing their instruments: screams, double drums, distorted guitars and voices took the listener into a rite. Angus talked very much with the public (we where just about 300 people, maybe not more) trying also to say something in italian. After 45 minutes the band left the stage, but the crowd –who was enjoying very much the gig –called them back and they played two other songs: the concert ended with the savage Plaster casts of everything.

During the concert I knew I had to go to the little shop that was near the stage, I wasn’t wrong! There was sold an unreleased 7” split by Liars and No Age, very strange music with alterated voices.