Having won the last round, rather convincingly, with the help of the mighty IndianRedLopez, I knew Neil would be out to avenge his artist's (Lovers Turn To Monsters) defeat. This time, he'd have the pick of the three attributes, which has proved successful in 7 out of the opening 8 bouts. So he went into Round 9 as the favourite... but that's why I rolled out my secret weapon... Arran Arctic. Sure, he may be one man, but he's been around for the best part of a decade, has an impressive SoundCloud presence, and those two Cs make for a very decent Scrabble score. I went into this round confident of an upset.
Unbeknownst to me, Neil had plumped for a quartet of lovely ladies to fight his battle for him. Hear that people... he let four girls do his dirty work for him. Shame on you! I must say though, it was four very talented girls... TeenCanteen.
Here's a quick recap of the rules for those who, after 8 rounds, still don't have a clue what's going on. You can read them in full over here. This round, Neil picked the three attributes. For each of the three, the person with the highest value gets one point... apart from the TOTAL attribute where the lowest score wins... just to mix things up. Both get a half-point in the event of a draw and losers... get sod all! Neil went for Average Age, Twitter Follow Ratio and there was a welcome return for this rule-bending TOTAL attribute not seen since the first round. Disclaimer time... all stats were correct at the time of battle.
Right, here's the all-important stats. Ding ding, Round 9...
Things were looking promising when Arran pipped the girls' in the Average Age department by a slim, one year margin. First blood to Team Kowalskiy... but then it all went downhill from there. After scores were levelled thanks to the Twitter Follow Ratios, Neil's TOTAL masterstroke paid off in style and he won the round by 2 points to 1. In the end it was my high-scoring secret weapons, Arran's SoundCloud presence, 8 years of Arcticness and his two Cs, that proved to be my downfall. Crafty Neil!
And with that, the series is once again tied.
I say this every time, but it's not about who wins... it's all about the music! Unless I win of course, then it's a wee bit about who wins. Anyhoo, I'll start off the latest bout of plugging with one of my favourite artists I've had the privilege of covering on Kowalskiy... the wonderful Arran Arctic. His brand new album Like Lovers is out on the 18th November. It's by far his best release to date, with Covers, Armies, and some of the gorgeous instrumentals up there as his finest moments. Now, let me qualify that by saying I'm a huge fan of his previous five albums (all repackaged and for sale over here). They're all good, but this one is just brilliant. Throughout, he's made a lot of use out of his clarsach (a small harp apparently) and that sound is as refreshing as the ice-cold Arctic itself. The biggest compliment I can pay the album though, and Arran himself, is that at times I could swear I was listening to the musical maestro Get Well Soon. On the 18th, you'd best look yonder!
And now, onto this round's winners. If you cast your minds back to the early days of Kowalskiy, you might recall I featured a band called Futuristic Retro Champions a fair number of times. Well, out of their ashes, TeenCanteen sprung earlier this year. And from what I've heard so far, which is pretty much just How We Met (Cherry Pie), they sound like they'll be every bit as good as those retro champs.
If my snooping serves me right, they'll be at The Glad Cafe in Shawlands ('tis a lovely wee venue) this Friday (i.e. TOMORROW) supporting Duglas T. Stewart of BMX Bandits fame. And that's about it until Round 10 in a fortnight's time! I'm off to sign up my next member of Team Kowalskiy before Neil gets his grubby hands on him/her/them.
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