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[newmusicgraveyard]

RIP The Rumblestrips - September 2009

Despite splitting up in 2009, The rumble strips are still my favourite band named after a traffic calming measure (Suck it The Speedbumps). Ironic then that rumble strips are probably particularly annoying if you happen to be on a motorbike -  one of the songs that broke them.

Another brilliant transgressive records band, this video washighly appealing: Scruffyy indie with a ska vibe, bikes, trumpets, saxophones and a roundabout. Obviously that list falls within Mark Ronson's list of likes as demonstrated by this handy venn diagram below. 

As a result, Mark Ronson made his own Bike Song Tribute Version

That's a good song too. Which is why it was here. Although this isn't just another random tangent - The rumbles and the ronson were unsurprisingly a natural fit and rumours abounded that Ronson was onboard to produce the second album.

In the meantime, the rumble strips also released Girls and Boys in love. A feel good summer love tune, which much like the Mumm-ra boys (see below) was destined to be picked up by mainstream marketing outfits. However unlike the global success of She's got You High (500 Days of Summer), You! Me! Dancing! (by Los Campesinos, Budweiser advert)  or Kaiser Chiefs (Fifa) I think that this tune may well have featured from an advert for Crown Paints. Which probably wasn't quite as lucrative.

So these songs came out, and although commercial success was pretty much non-existent. The fanbase was building and people were noticing the boys from Devon. And then what happened? Well.... the answer is "I Don't Know." 

The promised second Ronson-produced album came out apparently. Was it any good? Again, I don't know - I never heard it. It seemed it came out in May 2009 - I guess I was busy with my finals at uni.... but that was probably a time I was listening to more, not less, music so I imagine the logical reason was that it received no promotion at all. I've just checked out the title track "Welcome to the Walk Alone" for the first time literally three minutes ago on youtube. Frankly it's not their finest work. I even checked out a track called "Daniel" which I do vaguely remember might have been played once on XFM, which frankly isn't that great either.

So instead of tarnishing the obituary of what really was a very exciting band, I'm going to play out with some Mumford! I figure Rumble Strips probably had some influence on the Mumford boys at some point... and although I love Mumford & Sons, I definitely think they could learn a thing or two from the upbeat vibes and variety of sounds that the The Rumble Strips had.

[newmusicgraveyard]

RIP Mumm-Ra - April 2008

Around 2005 and 2006, the announcement of a band being part of the NME Awards tour used to be a sign that greatness was imminent. The 2005 and 2006 tours were some of the best gigs of my life featuring bands that have gone on to global success, and most of all, avoided listings in this blog. The cohort of world-beaters included the Killers, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, The futureheads and Kaiser Chiefs.

In 2007 alongside other big names such as The View and The Automatic it seemed that Mumm-Ra were dead-set to join the indie elites. Skipping to the punchline, however... unfortunately that never happened.

It was all looking so good. They put out a poorly-named-but-nicely-designed limited edition EP Black hurts day and night rolls on in 2006, which came in a lovely little cardboard gatepack. It featured 4 really quality tracks, the best of which was Song B. I was sure this was a fantastic investment and in future years it would be worth trillions. Mainstream, albeit slightly ropey, TV appearances followed:

And then on the back of all this hype and synthesisers, She's got you high was part of an epic soundtrack to one of my favourite films of the Decade (500 days of summer) and as this bizarre but delightful fan-trailer demonstrates, the masses were loving it.

As well they might, because She's got you high was a delightf, melodic and sweet track. In fact Mumm-Ra went on to combine this track with 10 other lovely poppy songs on the album These things move in threes. My favourite being Out of the Question.

Out of the Question by Mumm-Ra on Grooveshark

Meandering and tangential personal anecdote time.... These things move in threes was the only mp3 album I ever bought from HMVdigital.com. Why was it the only MP3 album I ever bought from there? Well it was still 2007 and the early days of MP3 purchases. And to ensure that I didn't decide to instantly share the album with the entire KaZaa community, HMV decided to sell it to me with the high technology of DRM (Digital Rights Management). A bit like modern Microsoft software this stops you from installing it on more than 3 devices. Unfortunately the technology was so good that it prevented me from putting it illegal places like my own mp3 player. Or hard drive. As such, when my computer broke and I didn't have a backup copy I wasn't keen to pay HMVdigital any more money to redownload it, but ironically chose to illegally download it instead. Needless to say (and for the benefit of those of you who didnt click the link) HMVdigital has now been mothballed and they were required to buy out someone who actually did know how to do an MP3 website.

*Edit 1: I was just listening back to my prised, semi-legal copy of these things move in threes. And feel I haven't raved enough about what a fantastic, summery, uplifting, sensational album it truly is. If I don't put the joyful What would steve do and Starlight on here then this obituary page is not worth it's salt. Apologies, conscience. I really urge everyone to give these a listen!

Starlight by Mumm-Ra on Grooveshark What Would Steve Do? by Mumm-Ra on Grooveshark

But fan-technology issues aside, I think things were going well for the band. They were a likeable bunch and made delicately placed pop music. They also made a delightful video which used to be in my youtube favourites where they trundled around Bexhill interviewing old people to the background of some of their tuuuunes.  

Bizarrely this video has now been deleted from Youtube. Maybe some of the grannies were threatening litigation that they were depicted in a bad light. Or perhaps part of some larger conspiracy to bulldoze Bexhill-on-sea and pretend it never existed. 

Anyway Mumm-Ra continued to frolic into their seventh and most succesful year as a band.... everything was rosy, and the band hardly seemed on edge. But then out of nowhere they cancelled all tour dates and released a lightning bolt "We've split up" notice (below) which basically just highlighted how great it was to be in Mumm-ra and gave no clue as to what might have been so terrible to make the group combust when they were on the cusp of wealth, fame and escaping bexhill. So long boys, thanks for the album I guess, and if you're reading this please reinstate the bexhill video on Youtube!

....

After 7 years, 11 months and 21 days of writing and playing music together us Mumm-ra boys have decided our journey as a band has come to an end. It has without doubt been the most fantastic adventure any of us could possibly have imagined all those years ago when the rather niave idea to form a band sprang from our young minds and led us to the nearest practise room.

Since then we have eaten in skyscrappers in tokyo, danced with tottenham fans in cologne, made a video in hollywood, posed with the playboy bunnies in barcelona, met real life rednecks in texas, had street fights with the view, played glastonbury, rocked the nme tour to pieces, supported the killers, the kooks and the kaiser chiefs around europe and generally just had the most incredible time along the way.

...

*Edit 2: I seem to remember that a couple of Mumm-ra members resurfaced in an excellent band called Mirrors, who made a White Lies-esque dark electronicy album that similarly displays their musical craft. I recommend listening and buying it quick before they end up here too :(

[newmusicgraveyard]

RIP Clor - May 2006

Although the band may disagree, the story of Clor is less about their musical journey and more about my encounter with a sausage on a hot summers day. But more on that later.

To my knowledge, Clor only ever existed for a period of 12 months. A perfectly reasonable half life in the world of indie bands, and they were respectable to not have outstayed the scenesters new music hype.

The year of Clor's earthly inhabitation, 2005, was preceded by 9 months of the UK population going round shaking everything like a polaroid picture; a gestation period that readily prepared the nation for the angular dance fun of debut single 'Love & Pain'. I think technically it was 'Love + Pain'... and one should be careful in generalising as there may well be deeper philological symbolism, in a quite poetic set of lyrics for a dance tune.

I was in love but that was yesterday Now I'm in pain and it's here to stay I was the bird that buzzed the bees and stole the honey The ones that you want they're the ones that get away The ones that you need never wanted to stay And there'll remain those few in-between ones, they are susceptible

Anyway the main thing about the track was the awesome jerky dance beat... and a suitably jaggedy video. The indie kids looooved it. MTV2 cleared their schedules and put it on repeat for 2 weeks. Even the hypesters at NME still haven't quite got over it, and put it on their list of top 100 albums you've never heard as recently in 2010. The video rightly commands some prime real estate on New Music Graveyard.

No other singles made a great impression, but the album was a corker. Dance remixes of the flaming lips probably sums it up as a concept. Picking which tracks to revive here is a difficult one, but I've gone with Dangerzone (A close contender to Topgun for best song about danger zones...) and Making you all mine, a funky song about winning over the ladies. Possibly.

Anyway, I promised a sausage story... and I would hate to disappoint, although it's perhaps not all it lived it up to. It was the morning Saturday 27th August 2005 and I was due to see Clor. I had been excited about the prospect for months, since I bought my ticket and was all set to get there early for a good spot to groove and pogo. Unfortunately, I had been living in a field for 3 nights, surviving only on cider and the occasional can of cold beans - It was Reading Festival. I also had severe sunstroke.

Now kids, be careful of hunger and sunstroke. It can cause you and others to act bizarrely. The first victim was my friend Garth, who had hot footed it to town to buy a pointlessly large amount of sausages - and offered to cook them up, and give them away, FOR FREE. For a 17 year old in a field this is madness. Needless to say, the next victim was myself. Instead of heading to an eternity of Indie-dance Nirvana, I listened to the Snake, ate the pointless sausage and have been cursed to tolerate the pains of Grime and Dubstep.

Fairly soon after the festival, the band announced their split, never to be witnessed live again. I'm not sure, but I think they cited a lack of fans at that reading gig as their main reason. As such, if anyone would like someone to blame for their loss (As I do), then why not contact me and I can send you Garth's email address for hatemail purposes.

Tellingly with Clor, as per easyworld below, the last track on the album is called Goodbye, and was a sort of trudgy filler play-out. In a cynical blogger-type way maybe I should keep an eye out for tracks of this name at the end of the album - perhaps deceitful tactics by record label execs to pad out an album by a band that have already decided to call it a day. 

Clor were an excellent band, and one of the few bands really doing something different. Would their second album have been any better than a second Klaxons album? Probably not, and so maybe they saved me ten english pounds. Thanks guys.

[newmusicgraveyard]

RIP Easyworld - September 2004

Eastbourne. The most noteworthy things I can tell you about it are: 1) There's a ladies tennis grass court tennis tournament there in the run up to wimbledon, that not many of the big players play at and 2) A lot of old people move there to die. However for a glorious three years, Eastbourne had a third, equally impressive claim to fame: home city of the band easyworld. 

Easyworld were not many things to not many people. But to me they were a fun indie band, that probably inspired my thirst for new music. I first saw them supporting Toploader, a band who made a bazillion pounds and scored model wives by covering 'Dancing in the Moonlight'.... Anyway after the gig it quickly dawned on me that somehow toploader had managed to string out two passable hits for two hours, whilst these young easyworld upstarts had crunched out perhaps three or four good songs in about 30 minutes.

This is where I stand

My mate was also impressed, and decided he wouldn't miss the opportunity to hand over £10 for a signed 10 track album 'This is where I stand' featuring the four hits. He insisted he would make me a copy, and as a 14 year old wanting to be part of something cool I feigned equal excitement.

Being a 14 year old boy on pocket money of £2.80 a week and with a lot of time on my hands, I ended up listening to the album far more than I would in the future of abundant cheap digital music. And I soon became hooked, most likely due to the hideous quality of the rest of my music collection (Now 36, Peter Andre, The smurfs go Pop etc)

My favourite album hit was the title track and I used to play it to everyone. It had a thunderous melodic swell, like a movie soundtrack... although I never new more than 20% of the lyrics and it's a good job no-one asks a 14 year old what a song's about because all I could tell you is that something "doesn't mean a single fucking thing" and "there's no such thing as guarantee". Looking back, I guess that's about some kind of extended warranty that doesn't cover accidental damage.... Anyway fully reading the lyrics now, perhaps its about love or something. See for yourself.

Easyworld - This is where I stand

More popular tracks on the album included romantic suicide song "Bleach", which was awesome, but again extremely confusing to a fourteen year old who knew nothing of love. Even now I still don't quite get it, but maybe that's how they do relationships down in eastbourne. To be honest, all this love and self-harm - I'm pretty sure this could well be the invention of emo.... I'll check this, it may well be that I need to write a much longer article.

"You and me" was also an epic and easier on the brain.

I know you look like you're innocent baby / I know you tell all your friends that you hate me / But every weekend we're at it like crazy - You and me

I swear was a cover version- you knew the chorus before you'd even heard it. Unfortunately, Toploader-esque success never materialised with a chart high of 57 reflecting the fact, that my friend had already bought the album.... and I'd illegally copied it.  That only left about four other fans who might feasibly buy it.

Kill the Last Romantic

Whilst Easyworld were between albums, they had steadily been becoming popular. I think this was partially due a couple of their songs appearing on ads, but also largely attributable to the fact they were starting from a very low point.

For me, my music collection had still not substantially expanded and TIWIS was still getting some good rotation. I remember being extremely excited when the aforementioned friend excitedly told me that the internet had announced a second easyworld album. I rushed to then popular search engine, AltaVista, to find the website and confirm the news - However, as demonstrated by its imminent destruction by google, AltaVista was crap - and I was unable to verify the strory.

Flash forward 2 months, and the album was out. NME generously gave it magazine real estate of about 1/16th of a page of A4 for a review, but it was positive and said something like "They're putting big music drugs in the water in Eastbourne." I'm pretty sure that didn't make sense but then they probably didn't care given that the review was only about 3 lines long. They did, also generously, slap an 8 of 10 rating on it.... turbocharging the album to number err..... hmmm.

Anyway I rated it and actually bought it this time. I thought it was so good, I even convinced a couple of friends to buy it, meaning I swung from -1 (from the pirated album) to +2 on the easyworld albums sold v stolen calculator.

Revisiting it all, I think the first album was actually vastly superior. There were 2 big hits in 2nd Amendment (Number 42) and 'Til the Day (Number 27) but the whole album had a bit of a downbeat whiny melancholy vibe. Again, is this the creation of emo? Tracks 10 (Saddest Song) to Track 12 (Goodnight) were all a bit of a strung out tired ending to the album, and much of the album felt like a kind of soggy tuna sandwich. 

But none of that matters. At the time it was still a brilliant album. "Celebrity Killer", "Second Amendment" and "When you come back, I wont be here" were bouncy, more enjoyable songs - exacerbated by the rest of the album. I'm pretty sure second amendment had a sexy video with girls washing cars in their bras. I don't claim to know anything about the american constitution... or in fact Easyworld lyrics it appears, but I'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with going to a porno car wash.

Edit: I can't find the second amendment video with the sexy carwash anywhere? Perhaps someone has a copy or knows why this might have been removed from the internet? Is the second amendment something to do with internet privacy? The whole think is a bit complex for me.

In the end, I think Easyworld crumbled because of a classic set of new music characteristics:

Band is driven by a talented frontman who writes all songs.

Band splits money equally.

Band has no commercial success.

Frontman wants more money to afford luxuries like new shoes and Jam.

  When these 4 facts come together, there are two inevitable next steps.

Frontmans solo project gets nowhere as no-one likes male singer songwriters.

Other band members' projects are terrible, and don't even get off the ground.

So 'Dav Ford', announced the separation. Shortly before announcing that he was returning his name to David Ford and embarking on an unsuccessful solo career. The bassist lady, who never looked to be particularly strong at bass, formed some band called Cherry Hinton... who were rubbish... And the drummer remained untainted by the world of celebrity. And thus was the end of Easyworld.

Their legacy? Hard to say. It would perhaps be slightly overplaying it to credit them  introducing me to exciting new guitar music, but perhaps they helped.... leading me to get more interested and directly fund other struggling artists through CD and gig sales.  Maybe my one CD purchase was the one that tipped Arctic Monkeys over the barrier to greatness or enough to convince Art Brut or Los Campesinos to make 'just one more album'. But the world of music, and their own careers, were poorer for losing Easyworld and I guess that is enough. Oh and apparently they invented emo... but let's ignore that. Cheers Easyworld.

[newmusicgraveyard]

RIP The Rakes - October 2009

For those reading this from the very distant future, you will probably have forgotten the financial crisis of 2007. Fred Goodwin will have been reduced to a waxwork in museums next to Atilla the Hun and the whole fiasco will be an insignificant spec in history and remembering it will be like trying to remember what happened at that house party you went to six years ago that you shouldn't even have been able to turn up to because you were so wasted.

Probably the biggest casualty of the financial crisis were London banker band The Rakes. The band wonderfully told of stories of smoking in pubs (until it was banned) and making lots of money in the city (until it was banned) whilst playing "angular" guitars. Alan, the frontman used to wail a lot and you often couldn't really tell what he was saying, but his strange jaunty dancing looked good, and when you did catch a couple of words that you could understand ("The world was a mess but his hair was perfect") it seemed like the kind of thing that reflected your life quite nicely.

Capture/Release

As I think will be the trend with this monument to epic music history, the band had moderate* success with the first album (*Moderate to be defined at a later date on this website). Capture/Release, which seemed to have about 6 singles released from it, only reached number 32 in the album charts. Maybe this was because they released all the good tracks as singles (3 singles crept into the top 30) or maybe it was a sign that there was actually a fairly limited record buying public of wetherspoons loitering city professionals who enjoyed the tube, we will never know. 

In 22 Grand Job, the band wrote a song that was actually audible. People outside of the M25 realised they were almost able to relate to the message "Bloke in sales likes her too. What am I supposed to do? But he's earning 28 and I'm on 22, it's alright, it's alright in the city it's alright" and clever, clever record label bosses decided that if they sped up the record then they could have a hit on their hands. 

Hypnotised by the sexy video, I had obviously decided they had. But a quick reflection on everyhit.com suggest a chart position of 39 means this might not have been the hit it could've been. Still though, it's a catchy one and worth a watch.

Whilst songs about working and then going to the pub were what really got the indie kids of the capital excited, the first album also contained some brilliant, less lauded classics that constituted the album tracks, or 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th singles if the band had got their way. Binary Love, was a ballad about Robots not being able to have sex or something... and to this day I have no idea what T-bone is about but the track booms in a seedy electro manner and i love it.

The Rakes - T-Bone

After an exhausting 2005, the rakes were buzzing. The band turned up to cap their triumphant year at the reading festival however jaunty singer Alan Donohoe failed to show, either having lost his voice or being the victim of some kind of vegetable based bender that rendered him unable to sing. Fortunately this happened in an era where british new music bands were both friendly and seemingly had a lot of time on their hands. Maximo park frontman Paul Smith filled in for a couple of songs in a stirling fashion and various Bloc-Partyers joined in to set-up an award winning British supergroup and word spread, filling the radio 1 tent to bursting point. It was all going so well until word reached the sewers that if you were british and supposedly in a group you were allowed on stage. This excited renowned knob-heads Towers of London into gracing the stage, just in time to ruin the finale; 22 grand job, which was pleasingly the only track that seemed to be captured by history.

As an aside, NME, who performed fellatio on towers of london regularly, decided to publish the resulting 22 grand job track on a compilation. Unfortunately after about 5 years of it annoyingly popping up on shuffle, I finally managed to delete it with help from my anti-virus. However now that the rakes are gone, it probably deserves a posthumous revival. 

The Rakes featuring Bloc Party, Maximo Park & Towers of London - 22 Grand Job (Live at Reading)

Ten New Messages

Again, a quick history lesson for future internet wanderers: Back before people had internet on every single device they owned, people used to carry around "mobile phones".  People quickly grew tired of talking to each other and decided it was more fun and a lot more difficult to mash 9 buttons to send often meaningless and jumbled phrases to their friends or relatives. These badly spelt pieces of prose were known as "text messages".

The rakes tried to capitalise on this phenomenon (although actually thinking it now, it was probably more about answerphone messages as reflected on one of their songs When Tom cruise cries discusses) by cleverly naming their ten song album thus. Released in the period of the terrorist attacks on the London tube network and a general global meltdown, the album was spot on with it's social commentary. The only hit making the top 40 We Danced Together reveled in the joy that the world was falling down but us Indie kids just didn't care. 

Once again, it seems album sales were hardly fantastic. A first week chart position of number 38 probably wasn't the follow-up the band were looking for. But a sell-out 11 date tour (presumably of which at least 5 dates were outside london) must've capped a triumphant period. Suspicious Eyes, a song about being on the tube (I'm not really selling the concept here... but it was actually pretty good!) was an album highlight and featured then-unknown future Mercury Prize nominee Laura Marling. 

Klang

Now even as an ardent Rakes fan with some knowledge of the bands strangeness, I cannot even begin to fathom the promotion of the third album. The band set up some kind of social network fronted by a granny called maureen that seemed to be exclusively for rakes fans or 'klangers'. Needless to say I did not join. I'm not sure how many did, but I doubt that the website enjoyed an Old Trafford-esque atmosphere. 

Klang was recorded in Germany. Wikipedia informs me this was because "The London music scene is so dull--it's like wading through a swamp of shit." Again spot-on social commentary, but unfortunately the nation was too busy enjoying rubbish dubstep to care. 

No singles made the chart, but if anything the social commentary (on the bits of the album that you could understand...) just got better. Bitchin' in the Kitchen was a fun tune about parties, and Shackleton's chorus of "We're all pawns in someone elses business" nailed my sentiments.

From here, I think the band probably felt they had run their course. 5 years of catchy office-based tunes and a stirling effort on behalf of the london tourist board were their legacy. Dozens of fans including myself were left broken hearted, but 3 albums were a pretty good stretch for a band that purposefully alienated about 70% of this already small country and our lives are richer for their efforts.