JosieJo's
Great Big Pair of Tips
The
JosieJo Show 26
This
is The JosieJo Show and it's show 26 a celebration of the short song.
Normally I play two different tracks by two different artists or
bands and then end with a third track by a band that I've played on
the show before, but last week the final track was “Cheer Me Up”
by Misty's Big Adventure and it got me thinking that good tunes are
good tunes and some are made great because of their brevity. I don't
mean that in a sarcastic way. I am myself considered shorter than the
norm and am therefore a champion of the “small, but perfectly
formed”. So I decided to concentrate this week on the tiny track.
Those tunes that storm into your life, give you a big sloppy kiss,
slap in the face or ruffle of the hair and then leave while you stand
there blinking, wondering what that was all about and wanting to lean
forward and press repeat repeat repeat. Two tracks by two different
artists in a show celebrating the short track though was going to
make for a very brief show 26 so this week you get five tracks. Five
tracks by five different artists none of which have been played on
The JosieJo Show before. Stand by and concentrate this is going to
whizz by.
First
up is Swimsuit Addition from Chicago, Illinois. A four piece with
passion. They are Jem, Becca, Sam and Sarah and are all girl
bubblepunk. Like a sort of pink punk or Hello Kitty with it's eyes
gouged out. They have an EP out called Kittyhawk and play mostly
round Chicago and the surrounding area, but they're looking to tour
Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, you get the idea so if you like what
you hear and you know of places that would love this sound then get
in touch with them via their Facebook page.
This
track “Gimme, Gimme” is forty eight seconds of in yer face sound.
At the end you'll be pinned against the wall and in no doubt of just
when they want it. It's impossible for me to make this intro shorter
than the track itself, but let's limit the damage and jump straight
in. So here it is Swimsuit Addition and “Gimme, Gimme”
Hahahaha.
Just brilliant. Forty eight seconds of fun, frenzied punk. They do
have much longer tracks and you can find them at the somewhat
disturbing, yet fun website www.swimsuitadditon.com
It gets me thinking that if you're only going to have less than a
minute to grab your listeners then you need to wake them up fairly
quickly. No lengthy intros or navel gazing introversion. This
brought me to my next band and Steam punk heroes The Men That Will
Not Be Blamed For Nothing. What's steam punk? Well think
Victoriana, Engineer minded, Dr. Who loving, waxed mustachioed punk
rockers. I'll dig out some photos I've taken at their gigs and pop
them onto my Facebook page. Just find me by searching for JosieJo
Show. This London based band have been recently steaming themselves
through America and are due to play The Balcony on the lower east
side in New York City on May 15th. They have songs about
gin, Nikoli Tesla and this one, my favourite, about Isambard kingdom
Brunel. It's longer than the last track, but gives you no time for
tea. Saying their name is almost longer than the track itself. This
is The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing and “Brunel”
Those
of you that are super smart/geeky will know, of course, that it
wasn't actually Isambard Kingdom Brunel that built the tunnel under
the Thames at Rotherhithe, but his father Isambard Marc Brunel (now
known as Marc Brunel to avoid confusion), but IKB did work for his
father on the tunnel as an engineer and in fact nearly drowned when
the entrance hall flooded. You can still visit that entrance hall
and the tunnels themselves are still used by the London Underground.
Let's move on.
Master
Solo from Norwich England. This band sort grew round the solo
project of Mark Jennings to create the folk, blues five piece
consisting of Mark, Kat Mcgregor, Zoe Ward, Mark Bromley and my
colleague, and fellow soundie Rich Williams. The sound of this band
is extraordinary. It is led mostly by the deep, deep, deep gravelly
lead male vocal harmonised by the sweet female voice. Woven into this
are often pianos, organs, glockenspiels, drums, bass, guitars and the
odd melodica. The tracks are tales and tribulations delivered with
wit and beats, simple yet beautifully effective. The cleverness of
this band is in its naivete. The candour of the tunes engage you and
the seemingly guilelessness of the structure is, in itself, clever.
You expect to hear this band in the corner of a pub gradually
commanding your attention.
This
track “The Pirate and the Nun” seems like a song that should be
sung round a campfire. It’s from their album “Shepherd
(unmastered)” which is available as a free download on
http://mastersolo.bandcamp.com/page. It's a song about falling
for a girl whilst dressed in fancy dress. Their whole relationship
plays out in one and a half minutes. Wallow in the wonderful sound
of Master Solo and “The Pirate and the Nun”
http://mastersolo.bandcamp.com/track/pirate-and-the-nun
You see not every short track has to be Boom boom in your face.
Sometimes they are a sweet tale condensed into a few minutes and
sometimes they are just an idea given form. The next track is of
that kind. Two sisters Shelly and Karen Poole, Alisha's Attic were
huge in the 1990s and I played and played and played their album
Alisha's World. This track “Personality Lines” is a fine
example of how a little idea can be captured and presented within a
whole album and still hold its own and get inside your head. I'll
just play it because it pretty much speaks for itself. Alisha's
Attic and “Personality Lines”
Love it. Shelly is still performing with her new project Red Sky
July and recently played the wonderful Green Note Cafe in Camden
North London. The Green Note is a constant source of great music
for me and if you are ever in the area I can highly recommend that
you try and catch some live music there. It's always packed so grab
your table early. Well that's it for my short tracks . I'm going
to end with a whopping three minuter, but I always think of this
track as a sweet little track so it seems fitting, plus it is in the
top forty four of my friend Liam's all time favourite tracks. Again
it's from a very successful Swedish band called I'm From Barcelona
who are just happy and fun. When me and Liam saw them at End of the
Road Festival I think that they broke the record for the amount of
band members on the stage. I think it was about thirty or so. Then
the lead singer crowd surfed on a pink li-lo. You couldn't make it
up. Hope you enjoyed this show. I know it was a bit different, but
back to normal next week as soon as I work out what normal is.
Follow me on Twitter under the handle josiejoshow and on Facebook
for extra content. All the shows are up on Mixcloud and can be
found in blog form on Tumblr and Blogger. Stay to the end for an
outro in Mandarin and thank, as always, for listening. This is I'm
From Barcelona and “Treehouse”
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