the jockrock blog...
2 entries in one day. Yet, if I scroll down I see that around 5 posts ago I was talking about Tbreak 2004!
(for the uninitiated, this is the competition which allows bands to play at T in the Park's Unsigned Stage, entitling them to free tickets for the weekend, and the chance to play, depending on the weather, to either their mates plus 3 Slam tent refugees sleeping it off, or a tent packed with drenched revellers seeking shelter from the elements. Actually, that's quite harsh and doubtless it'll wind up the organisers*, but since they've not taken any advertising with us this year we're entitled. ;-)
Naa, the tent - or is it a stage? - has improved immeasurably in recent years, with a bar being installed (guess what, the tent's popularity has increased) and the sound is ok these days. This year we're even hoping the Slam tent won't drown out the acoustic acts.
Anyway, I am pleased to see in the final 48 (i.e. OFFICIAL, the best 48 unsigned bands in Scotland); Reograd, the Flying Matchstick Men, Satellite Dub and Luxury Car. There are other bands whose presence makes me smile, but the above are my SHOWBIZ MATES (i.e. acts who I've met, usually because we've put them on at a gig.)
The best way to wind them up is by describing it as a "battle of the bands". It's not, certainly in the traditional sense, as they don't pay to enter, and get Tennents lager (mmm) and possibly even cash money for performing if they get through. However, it is a battle (ok, competition) and there are bands involved.
Does this thing have a spell checker?
New year. New Franz.
ok, you'd not exactly call April the ideal time to start your new year resolutions, but having got a new Mac which will run OS X which runs Safari, which will run Blogger, maybe it's time.
I note that the last post I made, late last year, concerned Norwegian jazz. Maybe that was an omen. Since then there has abeen some discussion about exactly who the New Franz Ferdinand were going to be. Obviously that's a daft line of thinking; as far as chart-friendly Scottish acts went the selection's been prety thin for a while. but at this time of re-entering the world called blog, it's apt that there ARE some top releases coming from Scottish bands. Recently I've received new stuff from Belle and Sebastian, Sons and Daughters, Teenage Fanclub and (ahem) Mylo, all chart-bound. And all brimming with top tunes. (apart from Kim Carnes). More exciting than those, for purely indie-schmindie reasons, are the other releases also clogging up the itm? inbox. Datapanik (a new, improved bis, essentially), Satellite Dub (the thinking man's Mylo, we're told), deathmetalleers Macrocosmica, all with new releases. And, perhaps most excitingly, Hooker's Green #1, whose new album (with a stupidly long title) is on Snowstorm records, home to the likes of Candidate amd Isobel Campbell. Hopefully that heralds great things (on an indie-schmindie level) for the Aberdeen troupe, who have been decribed as a cross of Stereolab and Flaming Lips. The new Franz? NIce thought.
