Mr Flowers
Born in the beautifully lush gardens of the Indie park lands and raised by daisies, this alternative rocker has been fighting the mainstream for all eternity. He is the most left field of the gang and likes his music to not only rock loud, but also rock quietly and strangely too....
Homepage: http://DoesItRock.net
Posts by Mr Flowers
Pavement ATP 2010 – The Spotify Playlist
May 13th
With the festival start of ATP curated by indie-legends Pavement looming tomorrow, we’ve put together a little playlist in case you haven’t had time to check out any of the bands or need to something to listen to on a long trip to Minehead!
Pavement ATP 2010 (Spotify playlist)
While you’re there, why not check out our little preview we did a few weeks back:
Motion City Soundtrack @ Electric Ballroom
May 6th
Friday 26th March 2010
Unfortunately the menacing volcanic ash cloud and a mysterious ankle injury depleted the DoesItRock team by half (and essentially ending another DIR member’s chances of making this year’s England World Cup squad) for this gig. The other downside is that it also means that the gig review duties have fallen to me. After successfully putting it off for a few weeks, RockOSaurus has finally caught up with me and I’ve been locked into an office at DoesItRock Towers with no food until the review has been written. Grim.
So how do you write a review for a gig for which you can neither remember very well or have any photos for? Well, one way is to play with the format a bit to disguise the lack of content with lots of filler, which is why today’s review will be in the style of an awards ceremony – the inaugural March Motion City Soundtrack Electric Ballroom Awards 2010 to be exact.
I can assure you now that the winners of the awards tonight have been judged with hours of deliberation by a panel of expert and professional DoesItRock writers. That were present at the gig. And could be bothered to vote. So, without further ado we go on to our first award…
Best Mosh Pit: Attractive Today
The award for best mosh pit goes to MCS’ performance of Attractive Today. Basically I can’t remember exactly what made it good, but it was probably big.
Best Crowd Sing-along: The Future Freaks Me Out / Everything Is Alright / LGFUAD
MCS’ ability to write great pop songs meant there were plenty of hearty sing-alongs on the night, and this award ended up in a three-way tussle. Due to sheer lazyness, we’ve awarded it to all three songs. They’ll need to share the award, or fight it out to the death at the award ceremony after-party.
Drummer That Looked Most-a-like Sylar from Heroes: Tony Thaxton
The unanimous, hands down winner. Also mainly by virtue of being the only drummer in the band.
Unfortunately, Tony wasn’t available to collect his award since he’s probably busy terrorising Peter Petrelli at the moment, but we’ll make sure he gets his award via Royal Mail.
Best Wrestling Entrance: Justin Pierre
I seem to have written this down in my notes for some reason. I presume he did a wrestling-esque entrance at some point during the gig, either at the start or before the encore. Probably.
Best Support Band: who knows?
Erm, we managed to miss both the support bands (Free Energy and Jenny Owen Youngs). They both look like pleasant bands in their photos on their last.fm pages, though.
Album With The Best Songs: Commit This To Memory
Happily MCS avoided the trap some bands fall into when touring a recent release and didn’t focus too much on the new album, which I admittedly didn’t love when we reviewed it a few months ago. It actually worked pretty well live, especially songs A Worker Bee and A Life Less Ordinary. However, on the night the songs with the best reception were generally from their 2005 effort, Commit This To Memory.
Earliest Finish To A Gig Ever: Motion City Soundtrack
I seem to remember this gig finished at 10pm, or something. Disappointing.
Best Band In The World Ever…
And as is customary in awards ceremonies we’ve also voted on the title of the Best Band In The World Ever. This is a coveted title in the music industry, and given the success of MCS so far – having swept the board with all the major awards this evening – they’ve got to be strong favourites.
The final award; the March Motion City Soundtrack Electric Ballroom Awards 2010 Best Best Band In The World Ever is…
U2
Oh. That was unexpected – that band always seems to win that award, and they weren’t even on the voting list. Oh well, sorry lads – can’t win them all.
That’s all for now, see you at the after party!
(Can I go home now?)
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 4
Mar 22nd
We finish off our DoesItRock perspective on this year’s ATP curated by Pavement by looking at some of the more challenging bands to listen to at the festival.
Worth a listen:
The Clean
An indie band with a few decent tunes, although they can be a little forgettable.
Listen to: Starting Point (on We7)
Marble Valley
Electronic and vocoder action with a decent beat (not bad, considering Westie cannot drum) mixed into the stoner moments.
Listen to: Pneumonia (on Spotify)
Saccharine Trust
A progressive version of Sex Pistols-esque punk; their anarchic cover of Express Yourself is fun.
Listen to: We Don’t Need Freedom (on We7)
Sic Alps
A bit 70s prog-rock; they have their bluesy moments, but predictably with an avantgarde streak.
Listen to: L. Mansion (on Spotify)
The Raincoats
The Raincoats are an all-female experimental, lo-fi band who originally formed in the 70s. Style-wise, they’re reminiscent at times of The Velvet Underground. They’ve got melodic songs, but the stripped down mechanics of their style can make you wish there was some kind of hook to pique your interest.
Listen to: Balloonacy (on Spotify)
The Bottom of the Barrel:
These are a struggle, unless you’re a hardcore underground music fan. And if you call yourself that, then your friends might not be telling you how pretentious you are:
Atlas Sound
Lift music.
Listen to (if you really have to): Quarantined (on We7)
Grails
An instrumental psychedelic rock band; they can create some interesting guitar-based soundscapes, if you can stay awake long enough to appreciate it.
Listen to: Take Refuge (on Spotify)
Faust
Instrumental ambient guitar noise at their proggiest – jazzed up songs embodies some of the trippier moments of the 70s. Requires an open mind – scoring some LSD might help.
Listen to: The Sad Skinhead (on We7)
And that’s the end of this far from definitive guide to ATP 2010 curated by Pavement. We haven’t looked at every band in the lineup: we’ve missed out the highly rated Wooden Shjips, Japanese hard rock band Boris and Scott Kannberg’s solo material (playing as Spiral Stairs) to name a few of them, but we’ll have to leave finding about them as an exercise for the reader…
Previously, on A Guide to ATP…
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 3
Mar 21st
Our penultimate look into the lineup at Pavement’s ATP; here’s today’s homework – more bands you should definitely listen to:
The Drones
Sound like a deadlier Nick Cave. It’s blues with an edge, a scowling singer, a hot bassist, and guitar riffs among noisy feedback.
Listen to: The Cookeyed Low Life Of The Highlands (on We7)
The Fiery Furnaces
Toured with Ted Leo, and Franz Ferdinand sort of gives you an idea of the company they keep in the indie world; a brother and sister combo, playing experimental rock. Some of their earlier stuff is a bit poppier, if the later, more eclectic stuff goes over your head.
Listen to: Tropical Iceland (on We7)
The Walkmen
A blues rock band. The croaky singing harks back to when Bob Dylan still sounded like Dylan, and not some weird choking caricature of Bob Dylan. Their earlier stuff sports a lot more fast paced style, as they seem to get progressively slower with new releases.
Listen to: The Rat (on We7)
Tim Chad & Sherry
This is an indie band whose style ranges from folk, pop, country and the blues, with a penchant for humorous lyrics.
Listen to: Caller I.D. (on Spotify)
Times New Viking
These noise rock maestros could if anything be a bit LOUDER at times. But if you appreciate a bit of fuzzed up noise with a nice melody, you’ll find Times New Viking right up your street.
Listen to: (My Head) (on We7)
Wildbirds & Peacedrums
A folk band who will remind you of artists like Bjork or Joanna Newson; pretty, minimalistic songs mixed with powerful drum-driven jazzy numbers, but always melodic.
Listen to: The Way Things Go (on We7)
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 2
Mar 20th
In part 2 of our trilogy in 4-parts, we’ll be looking at some of the best bands playing in this coming May at everybody’s favourite festival at a family resort.
Pavement
The headliners need no introduction, especially since the festival sold-out with only Pavement in the line-up.
Listen to: Gold Soundz (on We7)
Quasi
A two/three-piece indie pop band; slightly reminiscent in style to Grandaddy, and characterised by some excellent drumming.
Listen to: Our Happiness is guaranteed (on Spotify)
Still Flyin’
Energetic indie pop; they’ve got multiple singers (always good), the odd ska track, and a big fun sound. The list of musicians in the band reads more like a small country then an indie band.
Listen to: Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town Around Here (on Spotify)
Terry Reid
This hard rock nearly-was brings his down-to-earth, classic Rhythm and Blues rock to ATP – probably to balance out all that sickening alternative rock music at this festival. Think Led Zep.
Listen to: Dean (on We7) / Superlungs My Supergirl (on Spotify)
The Authorities
Their punk version of Ballroom Blitz is a hoot. They have some great classic-style punk songs.
Listen to: Ballroom Blitz (on Spotify)
The Dodos
An indie band in the vein of The Shins – that means they’ve got a good ear for those slow-paced pop songs.
Listen to: Small Deaths (on We7)
Stay tuned to this series for more bands to look out for, and we’ll also have a look at some of the ones you might want to avoid…
A Guide to ATP (Pavement 2010 Edition), Part 1
Mar 19th
With the final line-up for the Pavement curated ATP announced, we find a typically underground selection from the indie legends. It might be a festival of discovery for some so over the next few posts we’ll try to pick out a few bands for you to keep an eye on, ones to avoid, and the odd song to give you an idea of what you’re getting in to.
Highlights:
Avi Buffalo
Laid-back Californian rockers, with some Southern-rock pop songs.
Listen to: What’s it in for? (on last.fm)
Blitzen Trapper
Blitzen have songs ranging from pop rock replete with keyboards, drum-machines and crunchy guitar riffs, right down to simple folk songs, often with some catchy melodies.
Listen to: Crazy On You (on Spotify)
Broken Social Scene
Pretty, baroque indie songs.
Listen to: Lover’s Spit (on We7)
Calexico
Their Latin tinged indie songs often evoke the memory of those Ennio Morricone scored Spaghetti-westerns, an inventive mix, and plenty of good songs to boot.
Listen to: Victor Jara’s Hands (on We7)
The Fall
Mark E Smith’s mumbly singing style may not be for some, but he has an uncanny ability to find a brilliant tune, even if it sometimes sounds like it’s amidst the random noises and grumblings of a stroke victim. Their obliqueness and gargantuan back catalogue makes them a unique band in the history of modern music.
Listen to: Theme From Sparta FC (on We7)
Mark Eitzel
Classic style singer-songwriter with a jazz influence… and a piano
Listen to: No Easy Way Down (on We7)
Mission Of Burma
These veteran indie rockers have a sound somewhere in the middle of Husker Du-style punk and The Undertones.
Listen to: Dirt (on We7)
Monotonix
A monstrous hard-rock three-piece.
Listen to: Summers and Autumns (on last.fm)
More to come tomorrow, folks!
