BBC 6 Music!

Just a quick one, thought I would let you all know I was BBC 6 Music yesterday having a nice chat with Steve Lamacq on the phone! Was on for a good 10 minutes, managed to plug a local band called The Mexanines, who I like alot and are playing on the BBC Introducing stage at Leeds Fest and I even gave some of my friends a shout out! I kinda asked for a job aswell? Oh well if you don't ask, you don't get! So the two songs I had sent in were 'Plage' by Crystal Fighters and 'If Ever I Stray' by Frank Turner and when it came to it I went with Frank Turner, but then Steve played 'Plage' later on in the show anyway! Looking at the whole show playlist, it looked like a brilliant show! Going to have to listen to it in full later.

The one thing that everybody who has listened to it has mentioned is my accent and how good it sounds on the radio! Always nice to hear! Look out, one day soon I will be on 6 Music!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013fj7h

LATITUDE: Saturday!

(Really I should have done this post the day after I did the Friday one, but I'm ridiculously lazy! I will try do the Sunday asap, as next week I go to Leeds Fest and when I come back I'll be wanting to write about that!)

Right so I had worked the graveyard shift in the early hours of Saturday morning (1am - 9am), which wasn't too bad, we met a 50 year old family man that worked for the BBC and was looking for his tent (all of this he told us) who was completely wrecked, got a free bacon butty and brew and I even had a little kip in the kids area on the bouncy castle things... So as soon as I got back to my tent I went straight to bed! And unfortunately didn't get up till 2 in the afternoon, meaning I missed a few artists I would have very much like to have seen! James Vincent McMorrow, They Might Be Giants, Steve Mason and Trophy Wife! I also missed Ed Sheeran, but I've seen him live before so it wasn't too big a deal. I'll have to write about them in their own posts sometime soon!

So out of the artists I did actually see Foals had to be my Saturday favourite. They were headlining The Word Arena and were up against Paolo Nutini, who was headlining the main stage, but I saw the first 15 minutes of his set and not that much was happening, just old people and young kids attempting to dance. Now the atmosphere in Foals I thought was rather excellent, I tend to think of them as a little bit shoegazey, their music to me feels like abit of a murky dream kinda thing, you just drift in and out of it..... They opened with 'Blue Blood' which is one of my favourites, but had to stop half way through the song as somebody at the front had been injured or something? Anyway there were no complaints from me as I got to hear them play it again! Yay! Most of the stuff they played was from their second album 'Total Life Forever', which I have and love and of course they played 'Cassius' to which everybody knew the words! Surprisingly they didn't play 'Spanish Sahara' last, but somewhere in the middle! I suppose they were trying to go against what the crowd were expecting. If you like to think you’re into Indie music and you don't like\ never heard 'Spanish Sahara', you’re not really into Indie music. It came first on BBC 6 Music Top 40 of 2010! Also I love Yannis beard in the video. That’s a nice bitta facial hair right there!

Bellowhead. What an amazing band to dance to! Not club dancing like, just a good old jive! Loved to see they had such a huge crowd and it was made up of all different people, families, older people, younger people, just everybody having a great time! What more can you ask for? It’s a shame they hardly get any radio play, simply because they aren't the same as this mainstream crap that’s spewed out in the 'Top 40'. I think if someone had just had a really bad day and they put the radio on and Bellowhead was on, they would soon feel much better! 'New York Girls' has to be my favourite song by them, 'You'll have to get up early to be smarter than a whore!' great line.

Dog Is Dead was the other band I saw, they are a great new band and I see big things happening for them in the near future! I have actually already done a post on them the other month, so I won't go too much into them, but I will say they are just as good live as they are on cd, well worth a listen and a watch! Seen as I posted 'Glockenspiel Song' on the other post about them, this time I'll post 'Young' and in all honesty I don't think I could choose which is my favourite out of the two!

So that’s about it really for Saturday! Turns out didn't actually see that much! I saw abit of I Am Kloot and also stopped as I was walking past Spector, who I quite liked the sound of and after listening to their stuff on youtube, I will be aiming to see them at Leeds Fest, so look out for a post on them shortly!

LATITUDE! Friday!

(Sorry I actually started writing this like two weeks ago, but because I went on holiday and because I'm just lazy I've only just finished it off! Again I say I'm sorry!)

So last night I was reading a review on Latitude that was done by The Guardian and it was absolute shit. The guy had no idea what he was talking about! He compared it to Glastonbury and said it wasn’t rock and roll enough. First off, it’s not meant to be rock and roll. Second, Glastonbury is one of the biggest festivals going so why is he comparing it to Latitude, which is a festival meant for less mainstream artists?! But the worst thing about his review was that it was done before the festival had even finished! Any artists that played on Sunday were not reviewed! Eurgh. Anyway I've decided I'm going to do three posts, one for each day and just tell you a little about the artists I saw.

So I'm going to start off with my favourite band on the Friday and the main stage headliner: The National. These guys are dark, but good god I love it. It’s weird because you don't actually realise how dark some of the lyrics actually are when listening to them, 'I was afraid I'd eat your brains' and 'All the very best of us, string ourselves up for love', I would call this dark. But not emo dark, it’s kind of a soothing catchy dark if that makes sense? As the lead singer (Matt Berninger) said ''We're a nice, happy band really! We just like to sing about eating each other.'' So these guys have been around for quite some time, their first album came out in 2001, but they only really came to public attention last year with their newest album 'High Violet', which I highly recommend! As they were my favourite band on the Friday I've stuck on two songs, both personal favourites of mine (even though I love all of their songs), the first being 'Terrible Love' and the second is 'Conversation 16'.

KT Tunstall was great on the main stage; I've been wanting to see her live for some time, so this was my opportunity! The things she can do with a loop pedal..... The only thing that spoilt it was I had sun cream in my eye and it would not stop watering! So when she said 'this is a sad song, I want to see some tears' I said 'ohhh dear...' She also had a woman doing each song in sign language, which is rather cool! I think KT has to be one of my favourite women artists, when I think of rock and roll women, I think of KT Tunstall. 'Uummannaq Song' is easily one of my favourites by her; it’s off her newest album 'Tiger Suit' and it just makes you want to move!

Now I love Chapel Club, but their live set wasn't too great..... This was mostly due to the instruments, especially the drums being too loud, meaning the singers’ voice was just drowned, which is just a shame as I think he has a great voice. I feel if they had just turned the volumes down slightly it would have much better. I may give them another chance at Leeds Fest if they don't clash. Anyway I love their album 'Palace' and I would recommend it to anyone. Their music is abit shoegazey and it’s nice to just sit and let it drift in and out. Was hard to pick a song, as I like just about all of the album, but I managed to decide upon 'Five Trees' for your listening pleasure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3-Ouc257ko

I have always thought that The Vaccines were not very good, but seen as my friends were off to see them and nothing else that stood out was on at the same time I decided to give them a go. Ok, after seeing them live I will admit they are better than I thought they was (Although I still think they aren't as good as everybody makes them out to be) and some of their songs are good to sing and bounce to. I feel it’s mostly the radios fault for giving me wrong views on the band, as all I ever hear by them is 'Post Break-Up Sex' which is played constantly and is a pretty poor song really! If the main radio stations played some of their other songs for a change, such as 'If You Wanna' or 'All In White' then maybe then I would have liked them more! BBC 6Music were playing 'If You Wanna' earlier this week (shows you which radio station plays more variety!) so that’s the song I'm putting on here! P.S: There was some random man who climbed up the pole holding the tent up and the band had to stop to ask him to come down?!! I got told it was four stories high?!! Ohh god.....

There were a few other artists I would have liked to have seen, but unfortunately they either clashed with one of the artists mentioned or I was eating! These Artists include: Various Cruelties, Paloma Faith, Caribou and Admiral Fallow. My friends also say that Bombay Bicycle Club and Bright Eyes were very good.