KEP#25 - ArmellodieP

Click the artwork to go to the EP page!

So... funny story!  For last months' EP, I sent Al over at Armellodie Records a wee email asking whether one of his roster would be up for contributing.  He only went and offered me a full EP's worth!  Not only has it spared me a few more grey hairs from last-minute track-hunting stress, but every track he's sent is brilliant.  So, a huge thanks to Al and the eight bands involved.  Now, I know what you're thinking... EIGHT!?  Well there's a very good reason for that.  At the start of August, all eight will be appearing in various combinations at a set of Armellodie On Tour gigs around Scotland.  All the details are below, but first, here's the bands on... ArmellodieP.   

1.  The Hazey Janes - Southern Lawns (Alternative Version)

"A considerably different rendition of the album version; an idea we’ve had in the drawer for while now but only just got round to finishing. It may just be the phased mellotron, but there’s something Chris Bell sounding about it. Featuring, amongst other things, accordion, glockenspiel, harmonica, lap steel and said mellotron." - Andrew Mitchell (The Hazey Janes)

2.  Le Reno Amps - Cottonmouth Rock (In Session)

"This live version of Cottonmouth Rock was recorded for the Big British Castle around Easter time 2011. Le Reno Amps have always been a real carefree live band which seems to resonate with those lucky few, and I mean few, that come to see us play. This one’s a vicious and raw holler through the drink addled thoughts of a man cuckolded. I think it’s as a good a break-up song as any in our bleeding heart cannon, it’s got beef, and as Frank Zappa once sang, broken hearts are for assholes." - Al Nero (Le Reno Amps)

3.  Super Adventure Club - Dog With Two Dicks (In Session)

"Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks This song is yet to be formally put to tape but has been a part of our live set for a good while. This version was recorded for Dumbstruck Studios and you can watch it here Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks Dog With Two Dicks." - Mandy Clarke (Super Adventure Club)

4.  The Douglas Firs - Frameworks

"This is a song from ‘ep1’, a collection of recordings we made over the past couple of years. I really hate describing songs, particularly when they are criticising humanity and exposing my ever increasing misanthropy but here goes! Frameworks is about the difficulty with thinking outside of everything we have ever learned (or, rather, been told). on a microscopic level, everything is mimetic - even these words, for instance." - Neil Insh (The Douglas Firs)

5.  Trapped Mice - Night Of Broken Glass

"I think this might count as a protest song, but I'm not sure. I'd been in Berlin on holiday, and was trying to sort through some of the stuff I'd seen at various historical monuments and memorials etc. I’m really happy with this recording; I put the synth part high in the mix, and hopefully it stops it sounding like too much of a folk country hoe-down. I also hope the bold deployment of a shaky egg doesn't detract too much from the mood of what is supposed to be a fairly emotional song or something. Night of Broken Glass is taken from our forthcoming debut album, ‘Winter Sun’ out this winter funnily enough." - Ian Tilling (Trapped Mice)

6.  The Scottish Enlightenment - Pascal (In Session)

"A song about gambling. We recorded this version for Tom Ravenscroft in the depths of winter 2010/11, when mucky snow was piled high along the roadsides and people slept in their wellies. Our perennial comrade Dan Lyth and I dragged guitars, accordions, drums and things on sledges from the bottom of Dunfermline (the wee Asda district) to the very top (by the hospital) to record at a friends house. Roads and bridges were shut and only two of the band could be there, so Dan joined in. Then we sledged a lot of the way home." - David Moyes (The Scottish Enlightenment)

7.  Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Dead Scene (Demo)

"This was one of the B Sides to our debut single and was only available on the CD, which could only be purchased direct from us, so this is the first time it has been available for people to download. We recorded it on the hoof with the guys from Small Scale Collisions as they had use of a few hours in a studio, so they snuck us in and we bashed it out. It's about privileged, close minded idiots, a type of person you meet a lot in the music scene." - Chris Devotion

8.  Cuddly Shark - Overpriced

"This is the first song to see the light of day from our forthcoming record. A couple of months ago we were 95% done with the album, recording and mixing, when the hard-drive containing the recordings caught fire, literally our tunes were smokin’! This was the only recording that was fully salvaged. We decided to get it out into the ether before anything else went wrong and made a little video to go with it." - Colin Reid (Cuddly Shark)

Talk about kicking off my third year of free EP is style.  Once again, a huge thanks to all at Armellodie.  It goes without saying I love this label!  Here's those seven dates, the venues and the bands taking the stage.  Facebook events pages too, if you click on the links...

Thursday 2^nd Aug - Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh (Super Adventure Club, The Douglas Firs and Trapped Mice)

Friday 3^rd Aug - Duke's Corner, Dundee (The Hazey Janes, Le Reno Amps and Cuddly Shark)

Saturday 4^th Aug - The Captain's, Glasgow (Le Reno Amps, Cuddly Shark, The Scottish Enlightenment and Trapped Mice)

Wednesday 8^th Aug - Art School, Glasgow (Super Adventure Club, The Hazey Janes and Chris Devotion & The Expectations)

Thursday 9^th Aug - Tunnels, Aberdeen (Le Reno Amps, The Hazey Janes, Chris Devotion & The Expectations and Cuddly Shark)

Friday 10^th Aug - The Steamboat, Lossiemouth (Chris Devotion & The Expectations, Le Reno Amps & Cuddly Sharks)

Saturday 11^th Aug - The Thunderton, Elgin (Cuddly Shark, Le Reno Amps and Chris Devotion & The Expectations)

The Dundee, Lossiemouth and Elgin dates are FREE entry too!

So that's that.  All that leaves me to do is remind you to download the EP (and the other 24 while you're there) and pay Armellodie a wee visit.  If you're in a band and wanna record a special version of something for me, or contribute something else to one of my future EPs you think might tickle my fancy, then you can send me a wee email (kowalskiy2@gmail.com). 

Coastal Skid Spy Wok v13.0

In a chance to the scheduled notcast, you've got me again to babble my way through my new favourites on SoundCloud.  Next Sunday though, once the GoNess/RockNorth musical happenings are out of the way, we'll have that special guest notcaster.  Still, there's plenty of great tracks here to keep you entertained.  First up, a new track (with the longest, most-hyphenated title imaginable) from those lads in The Beautiful Lies recorded specially for Scottish Fiction. 

   The Pale King (The Ever-Declining Returns Of The Never-Ending Youth) by The Beautiful Lies

How's that to kick things off?!  Let's follow that up with a track from one of my favourite EPs of the year so far.   Will there be a more fun release this year than the debut from Edinburgh's Toy Machene?  Is that sentence even grammatically good?  Don't know, don't care.  Here's their eponymous tale of unrequited, possibly cougar-related, love.

   Toy Machine by Toy Machene

Right, here's another question... is there a better indie label in our fair land than Armellodie?  The answer is... maybe, possibly yes.  But if that is the case, our paths have not crossed yet.  With a series of gigs on the horizon, they'll be all like 'in your face' in the coming months.  Here's one of their finest rosterees with one of their finest tracks.

   This One's Not Waiting by Le Reno Amps (courtesy of Armellodie)

It's all been quite rocky so far.  So here's a wee breather for you.

   Tiger by Bronto Skylift

All relaxed?  Good stuff.  Here's the next one from Dirty Keys.  It's an unmastered version of one of the tracks from their upcoming album The End And The Exit.  I've heard it and it's gonna knock your socks off.  With any luck, there'll be more on that in due course!

   Urban Adventure Land (unmastered) by Dirty Keys

Penultimate one then.  Great to have some new material from Edinburgh School For The Deaf.  God help those little blighters, cos this is a delight to the ears.  I have absolutely no idea what she's saying though... 

   La Nostalgie De La Boue (demo) by Edinburgh School For The Deaf

And so, we come to the end.  Hope you've enjoyed this week's tracks.  Next week we will have that guest notcaster.  My lips are sealed as to who it shall be though.  Changing the subject quickly... here's one of Campfires In Winter's brilliant new tracks.  Enjoy!

   Twelve Thousand Drops by Campfires In Winter

Kowalskiy's Free Monthly 5-track Scottish EP #12

And so the first year of free EPs comes to an end!  It's a few days later than planned thanks to my wee jaunt to a place far, far away, but fingers crossed you'll agree it's well worth the wait.  Before we hear from the five bands appearing on KEP#12, I'd like to thank them, and all the other bands who've been amazing enough to give little ol' me one of their tracks during this past year.  Soppy bit over, here goes...

1. Andrew Lindsay & the Coat Hooks - Porcelain (A wee, gorgeous, accapella cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication track.)

"Matthew, Jack and I recorded this oft-overlooked Red Hot Chili Peppers song, late at night, on June 13th, 2011. Both delicate and warm, the original is a personal favourite of mine; positioned smack-bang in the centre of the band's 1999 phoenix, Californication.

Vocalist Anthony Kiedis spoke of the song in his autobiography, Scar Tissue, stating, "I had met a young mother at a meeting. She was living in a YWCA with her baby girl, trying to get sober but failing miserably. The beauty and sadness and tragedy and glory, all wrapped into one, of this mother/daughter relationship, was evoked by the vibe of that [ultra-sparse] music.

The general ambiance lurking in the background was provided by some generous smokers outside Matthew's window." - Andrew Lindsay

On this recording the Coat Hooks are:
Matthew Healy and Jack McKay Fletcher

2. Innocents Civilian - Break Me Down (We heard the demo of this last year.  Now here's the outstanding, fully mastered version.  It will blow your socks off!)

"Well the track started out as a piano instrumental and somehow lent itself perfectly to the lyrics so we decided to make a song from it. It's kind of about about being in denial with yourself but written from the opposite point of view. After months of learning the whole technical side of producing music we feel we've struck the perfect balance between synthesized elements and organic instruments, all be it heavily side-chained guitars and hopefully it's enough for you to cut some shapes to! We'll be playing Maggie Mays on the 30th of June and the Dundee Doghouse on the 21st of July if you fancy hearing it played live." - Gary Dillon (Innocents Civilian)

3. The Tea Offensive - To The Disco (A lovely wee demo from this exciting new Hamiltonian pop rock pleasure outlet!)

"To the Disco was the first track penned by us and to us it symbolises our whole approach to writing and the music scene. Upbeat, tounge in cheek and danceable, it remains a favourite in our live sets for both us and fans. The tune was recorded by the brilliant Dominic Troup at The Silence Machine studio in Glasgow (http://www.thesilencemachine.com/)" - The Tea Offensive

4. Le Reno Amps - Had It Enough (An exclusive track from the mighty Le Reno Amps' upcoming EP)

"Had It Enough' is the bastard child of two old demos that LRA have had in the trunk for a few years. It's about blind devotion to a spouse despite their infidelity, "swinging from your pearl-trapeze to your other lover's bed". It's written from the woman's perspective, she's invested too much to do what she knows is the healthy thing and get the fuck out of there so resigns to a life of ignorance and vices, all the while telling herself, but never telling her spouse, that she will leave, one day. She won't.

We recorded the song during sessions for our recent album, Appetite, this particular one started when we laid the drums down in the now defunct Parklane studios in the southside of Glasgow in 2007, we did most of the tracking after that at The Music Box in Edinburgh last year. Our good friend Greg Barnes plays a nice, subtle Rhodes piano on it too. After all that it didn't seem to sit in the tracklisting for Appetite, like a few other tracks, so we put these wee orphans together as an EP. It's called Construction and it'll be in all those digital shoppies (via Armellodie Records) on Monday 11th July.

Appetite is available now in all good shops and lerenoamps.bandcamp.com/album/appetite" - Al Nero (Le Reno Amps)

5. The Black Hand Gang - Bricks and Mortar (We'll round off this year with a cracker!)

"Bricks is a track we wrote that kind of sums up our feeling's on the pressures faced by most folk in these hard times of tory leadership, the need to spend what we don't have, and for the lenders to lend to people that can't afford to repay while the music is both defiant and uplifting." - Steve Redmond (The Black Hand Gang)

The EP is now up for free download over on my bandcamp page, along with the rest of this first years' EPs.  Get downloading!

Normal service resumes on July 16^th as I kick off Year 2 with more of the same!  If you fancy designing the cover art,  get your entries in before noon on the 15^th of July.  Same requirements as before... square and at least 350px wide.  And as always, if any bands out there who fancy making my life that wee bit easier and want to volunteer a track for one of these EPs, then send me a wee email too.  Enjoy!

Sneak @ Pivo Pivo

Gig-goers of Scotland.. the good folk at Pivo Pivo in Glasgow cordially invite you to Sneak, their new monthly night of live music with a wee bit of a twist.  Well, three twists actually, or as they say, a "trio of delectable musical treats".  In the run-up to the night, each of the three bands on the bill will pop into Pivo Pivo and record a stripped-back performance which will appear online to whet your appetite.  Then, at the gig, the venue will be redecorated to the headliners exacting demands... "props, projections, backdrops, The Chippendales, wharrrrrevaah!".  To cap things off, as well as that, each gig will be filmed, the headline act interviewed and a wee documentary will be made and given to the bands to do with however they see fit.  Oh, and photos and a live audio recording of their set too... I think that's covered it all.

It all kicks off at the end of the month with the first headline act Le Reno Amps.  For a 'sneak' preview keep an eye out over here!

Upcoming Gigs

24^th Feb - Le Reno Amps with support from Male Pattern Band and Rose Parade

31^st Mar - Pensioner

28^th Apr - Weather Barn