Top Tips For 2010 Volume IV (don’t read this if you are from Sunderland)

7. Frankie and The Heartstrings

To my mild annoyance a lot of tourists visiting London just hang around in Leicester  Square (pronounced LI-CESS-TER in American, LESTER in English). Should you be one of those brave souls that does venture outside of the M25 you might want to avoid Sunderland. I passed through it on a coach once when I was younger. It was a bit like driving through one of those safari parks… the ones with loose Baboons that jump all over the hood tearing at your windscreen wipers.

Sunderland

Despite all that it has produced this little 5 piece and for that I am very grateful. One of the things I like about these guys is that they are genuine music fans. Pop on their website www.popsexltd.com and you can request mixtapes they have put together. I have a request pending for a tape featuring King Khan and The Shrines, Guided by Voices, Aphex Twin and Captain Beefheart amongst others. Hopefully they will not be one of the ten people that read this blog otherwise I can kiss goodbye to that. Anyway, material is few and far between but they did release an EP on Roughtrade late last year from which this song is taken, have a butchers.

8. Wolf Gang

Before hitting play be warned……. these tunes will rattle around in your brain and never leave. The only way to banish them is a 6 pack of Rainier and Phil Collins. Unashamedly poppy, Wolf Gang should have a big year ahead of them in 2010….. and if they don’t it’s no skin off my nose…. I’ll just delete this post and life will go on.

bloody terrible video

Keep your eyes peeled for the last installement  of top tips on it’s way from my compadre in London. After that we are out of ideas.

over and out

-georgeunderwood

Tips For 2010 – Volume III

Evenin all,

Back again with my next two tips, no muckin about, straight into it…..

5. Wild Palms

Jumping feet first into a huge conclusion, I believe they have taken their name from the 1993 Oliver Stone movie starring James Belushi (I deduced this from a google search leading me to Imdb). In the movie a large multi national corporation attempt to take over the world, using amongst other things  “the new reality” aka animated pictures beamed into living rooms by a TV company headed up by Belushi’s character. Here’s a clip, I have no idea what is going on really but it’s all set to House of the Rising Sun by The Animals which gives it an extra edge.

Back to the band…….. I bet you thought you had the wrong blog for a minute. Wild Palms are an unsigned 4 piece from flip knows where. Thankfully they have managed to cram more originality into this one song than an entire truck load of the “identikit foppy haired Pigeon Detective wannabees” I have had to trawl through to get to them. 

Jump on their myspace page, show them some love and have a listen to “over…..time….” you will not regret it.

http://www.myspace.com/wearewildpalms

6. Chew Lips

A popular tip amongst the UK music press, I am going to get on board the bandwagon and make myself comfortable. With two successful Kitsune released singles under their belt in 2009 they have a new album of entirely new material (Unicorn) about to drop on the 25th Jan.  Check out “Rising Tide” her voice sounds amazing on this track.

http://hypem.com/track/976489/Chew+Lips+-+Rising+Tide

The first single from Unicorn will be “Play Together”

If you like what you hear you can head along to SXSW in March and tell them you heard it here first.

Anyway thats about all, off for some TV and sleep. I have been half watching Bear Grylls whilst writing this post. In the time it took me to scribe this he has eaten a raw Chinese Toad and give himself an enema with fetid bird sh@t water.  In some situations it’s just better to die with dignity don’t you think?

lunch

-georgeunderwood

Top Tips for 2010 – Volume II (and my first blog)

Hello, firstly let me just introduce myself. I’m Gaz and think of me and the voice from the other side of the pond, London in fact, I’ll be keeping The Cock & Rabbit regulars up to date with all the best new music coming out of the UK, hopefully it’ll be a case of you heard it here first! I also work for a radio station called Absolute Radio in the UK and among other things produce it’s new music show every Sunday night (UK time 8pmGMT), called Unknown Pleasures.

SO, as promised tips number 3 and 4 from me for 2010

3. Delphic

Yet again, another one from Manchester…it really looks like that city is going to once again come to the forefront of UK music for a while.  The city may have finally shaken off it’s legacy of britpop and the Madchester scene, but could now be echoing some of the bands which first put the city on the map, bands like New Order and their predecessors, Joy Division.  Delphic have been compared to early New Order and despite the band shunning those comparisons, just listen to the intro of one of their early singles, This Momentary and tell me Peter Hook’s low-slung bass playing wasn’t an influence:

Delphic have claimed that they want to ‘make Manchester dance again’. To see them string around 6 songs together in one flowing mix during their live shows, I have no doubt they can get not just Manchester dancing again, but the whole of the UK (and maybe the US).  The debut album is out on Monday 11th Jan and if you need any more convincing, check out their track Counterpoint and get your ass down to a live show…i rest my case!

Two Door Cinema Club

In my quest to quench my thirst for Delphic I came accross this lot. Signed to the same uber-trendy Parisian record label Kitsune Maison they’re making electro-infused indie music you can dance to. Touring with Delphic on the Kitsune Maison UK t0ur last year, I managed to see them in a dirty warehouse somewhere deep in East London and was blown away.  Their debut album’s due out in March and is to be called Tourist History, look out for the single Undercover Martyn but in the meantime I’ll leave you to get your ears around this track called I Can Talk…enjoy! – Lndncalling

Obligatory Elvis Post

So even though it isn’t actually his birthday today (I think technically you have to be alive to have a birthday) I thought I would write a little piece to honor the big guy.

Until 2 years ago it was an often bemoaned fact that Elvis never set foot, let alone performed, in England. His one visit to the UK was thought to be a stopover at Prestwick airport in Scotland where there exists to this day a commemorative plaque and lounge in his honor. Before I go on let’s just stop for a moment to consider that, the guy does a layover in an airport and gets a plaque for it, that is about as big time as you can get!

Not to be outdone by the Scots it has recently emerged that Elvis may have actually visited England prior to his little stopover north of the border while he was stationed in Germany during the war. A fairly trustworthy source, theater impresario Bill Kenright, claimed in a BBC interview back in 2008 that he had actually spent a day in London with fellow teen idol Tommy Steele. Apparently Elvis called him, they struck up a friendship and Tommy hosted him for the day in London taking in the Houses of Parliament amongst various other sights around the capital.

Understandably officials at Prestwick have poured scorn upon this theory and demand photographic proof. Maybe it will emerge one day, maybe it won’t. I can’t help thinking that if this story was made up the inventor would have added a little extra spice to it, a day at the Houses of Parliament is not exactly rock and roll, to me it sounds just mundane enough to be true.

Well that’s my little tribute, I also got up especially early this morning to get my commemorative Bacon Doughnut from the Downtown Seattle Top Pot.

RIP Elvis…….. your legend lives on

My colleague in London has promised to post up his top tips for 2010 this weekend. The delay has been caused by much fretting over his username, excited to see what he finally comes up with.

– georgeunderwood

10 Top Tips for 2010 – Volume I

Like musical tapas we are going to break these up into several tasty posts for your listening pleasure.

By pure coincidence the first two happen to hail from Manchester in the Northwest of England, consistently a breeding ground for the best in British music (I will return to this phenomenon in a later post).

1. Everything Everything – I’ll let them speak for themselves, except to say that the lead singer reminds me a little bit of a young Forrest Griffin (the UFC fighter)

2. Hurts

Firm believers in less is more, their myspace page is black and white with just the one song, but what a song. Not only do I want to listen to their music; I want to dress like them, I want to style my hair like them and I want to get an earring, I’ve got it bad.

enjoy!

– georgeunderwood

BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge

The Live Lounge was originally a segment on BBC Radio 1 DJ Jo Wiley’s show. Various artists are invited into the studio play a few tracks live and they are encouraged to give their own take on a song written by a contemporary, typically in another genre. Results can be mixed (Bon Jovi did an acoustic version of Living on Prayer this year, that should never have been allowed, Gina did not work the diner all day to have that happen to her 5 minutes of rock and roll fame). There is also part of me that wonders why the BBC want to encourage mimicry amongst artists whose creativity we should probably encourage. Anyway, it’s just a bit of fun and over the years it has produced some absolute corkers, this year has been no exception. To help you navigate through the dross, here are my own personal favorites:

Paolo Nutini has definitely gone up in my book this year, I saw him at the Showbox under duress but came away suitably impressed, he is definitely a legit entertainer and does a great version of this MGMT song.

Mad as a bag of spanners and she forgets the words, still pulls it off though.

and finally………………….. it’s not a strictly a cover as it’s their own single but I couldn’t omit The Fleet Foxes, got to represent my adopted city.

Over and out (top ten to watch for 2010 still on the way, don’t want to rush it)

– georgeunderwood

will anyone ever read this………?

So here goes…. the debut post for our new blog the cock and rabbit……… no pressure.

If you hadn’t worked it out already the idea of this blog is to celebrate the best in British music (and help you avoid the worst). We will highlight new bands coming out of the UK, review albums, post US show dates so you don’t have to worry about it.

We are kicking off with two contributors, one a life long music fan now based out of Seattle and one out of London working as a producer for a major radio station there. We don’t pretend to know it all, there are definitely a few howlers in our record collections, but hopefully we can offer an interesting and up to date viewpoint.

So where to start? It seems customary at this time of year to make a list, we are not ones to stray to far from the customary so look out for out top 10 watch list for 2010. We are currently compiling, arguing, accepting bribes and as soon as we are done we will post it up. In the meantime check out this little number from Mumford and Sons who made a big bang in the UK this year,  loving the use of the F Word in this one:

If you like what you hear they have a couple of dates coming up this side of the pond:

-georgeunderwood

Feb 9 2010 8:00P	The Troubadour	Los Angeles
Feb 11 2010 8:00P	Pop Scene	San Francisco