Cody og Frelsens Hær...

Så er der dømt ståpels, tårer i øjenkrogen, en klump i halsen, hele pivtøjet...Cody har indspillet denne liveversion af Disharmony sammen med Frelsens Hærs hornorkester og som man ved selvsyn (selvhør?) vil kunne konstatere, er slutresultatet blevet intet mindre end ubeskriveligt smukt. Versionen kan downloades via bandcamp formedens 12 kr. og hver en bette skilling går til Frelsens Hærs Julehjælp...så sving nu Dankortet og støt en god sag i denne (alt for) kolde tid!

Mirror...

I really, really ought to write on and on about how truly fabulous the new Cody album Fractures is, but right now I'm experiencing what probably is the worst writer's block ever, since I started this blog. So instead I'll just share their new video for the wonderful track Mirror and hopefully it will inspire you to check out the album!

Do what you gotta do...

Check out the video for the Fallulah/Cody collaboration Do What You Gotta Do. Brilliant!

Should I...?

Here I am, once again trying to figure out whether or not I should bother listen to an album getting a lot of (and maybe even a little too much) attention. The just released The Resistance album by Muse is “everywhere” and at one point it felt like every second Facebook update or tweet was a comment on the album, which has made me think that I have to be the only person left on the planet, who has yet to give it a try. So I’ll probably give it a listen tonight, just to get an idea of what the whole hoopla is about. Meanwhile I’m going to read, what the Frekvens staff thinks of it.

Chris has posted it. And so has Peter. Now it’s my turn to post the amazingly catchy track A Purpose To My Sins by Swedish one-man band Danish Daycare; the solo project of Emerald Park keyboardist Daniel Jönsson. My first impression when I heard the song was that it sounded like The Cure (think In Between Days) with New Order vocals, and lo and behold, who do you guess are topping the list of influences? Taken from the album A Story of Hurt, which will be out October 9 on afmusic. What really sucks about this is that I now recall receiving a message ages ago from Danish Daycare suggesting I should check out the music, but being woefully ignorant, I opted not to (bummer!)!
+ A Purpose To My Sins

The very first of The Banana Hold-Up club nights will take place on November 14 at Jolene Bar in Copenhagen. Expect indie pop music galore.

I’ve written this so many times that it’s almost tedious. I simply don’t know how to write reviews, and as much I love getting copies of albums for reviewing, I’m not capable of producing anything worth reading or quoting. When I actually try, my so-called review basically sums up to whether or not I like what I’m hearing, and that can hardly be called a review. So regarding the Cody debut album Songs I’ll stick to what I normally do in these kind of situations; recommend that you download the sample track below and if you like it, give the rest of the album a listen, as (in this case) it’s absolutely wonderful.
+ Another Year

Hope to add more later today/tonight...

Mails, mails, mails...

If you took a look inside my head you’d probably see things spinning faster than ever before. Unfortunately this state doesn’t imply faster (or better) brain activity, but rather that I’m in some kind of state of confusion. Not exactly sure why, but today I find it incredibly difficult to think straight for more than just a few seconds. So today’s blogpost has been in the making, written and deleted a number of times!

Wish I could blame my mailbox for my current state, as it’s once again jammed. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if the mails somehow filtered themselves, so only the great (good would probably do as well) stuff would pass through? Experience does help and some promo mails end up in the trash folder without ever being read. Mails promoting Snoop Dogg, Tina Turner and other useless artists are of course easy to “file”, and some promoters have “never” promoted anything worth listening to, so they get the same treatment. But there are still plenty of mails left and I try to at least read parts of the press material, before deciding my next “move”. Still, checking them all out is impossible. Not almost impossible, but absolutely, totally and completely impossible. So more often than not several mails are deleted based on nothing but a gut feeling (bad band name, stupid song titles, no permission to share songs etc.), which obviously increases the risk of some of the good stuff being trashed.

But the past two days I’ve done my very best and have spend quite some time listening to a few artists from the ever growing promotion pile and the more listenable stuff (actually the three songs are better than just “listenable”) has been posted below. Not much I know, taking the time “invested” in this into consideration!

+ T.H. White – The Darkest Horse
The artist name is bad and the promotion material made me think of Calvin Harris, whom I absolutely loath, so no way I was going to listen to this. But the CD arrived in my mailbox (the one in the door, back home) the other day, so I surrendered, and this track is not even half as bad as I expected (feared).

+ My Little Pony – Capital of Norway
This Norwegian band mailed to inform that they will be touring Europe for the next month. Since no Danish dates are included, how could I possibly care? But the band name has a nice indie pop ring to it, so of course I had to give it a listen. And the song certainly confirms that this is the genre we’re dealing with!

+ Goldhawks – 1996
This one found in a mail saying about the band supporting The Temper Trap on a string of UK dates. More news of very little relevance, but the song is a nice uptempo and fairly catchy rock piece.

Finally; the much anticipated Cody debut album Songs arrived in the mail yesterday, and I’ve been listening to it numerous times already. But I’ll get back to that one in a later post.

IFPI revisited and more...

Is this nemesis? Just hours after writing that IFPI/Blogger hadn’t removed my re-post of the Doves remix, I received a notification that another post had been taken down. I assume you’re now awaiting a post of rage and anger, but apparently my previous post didn’t help, so why bother? And since the post in question is from February and not something removed from the “front page”, it is somehow easier to live with, though I still find it difficult to accept that they did it without contacting me first. However it does puzzle me somewhat that the post taken down is one of those “emptying the mailbox” ones, where I post various promo tracks found in the mailbox. But perhaps I should have read the mails more carefully, though I doubt very much that any of them said that I wasn’t allowed to post the track or only posting it for a limit period of time. I know I keep the songs up for quite a long time (maybe too long), but since I’m in the third or fourth wave of bloggers receiving the promo mails, the songs have most likely been posted by several other (and much bigger) blogs. So the songs are already out there, and the 5-10 extra downloads caused by me not removing the download links cannot really be what’s ruining the industry. Can it? But I’ll soldier on, though some guidelines would be much appreciated.

I’ll definitely be standing right in front of the stage when Danish quartet C’est tout Martine are playing at Start! Festival. Completely unknown to me a couple of days ago, but the band’s naive yet absolutely lovely indie pop tunes (sung in Danish) have charmed me away. This year’s line-up just keeps looking better and better and still plenty of new bands left to be checked out.
+ Faa Et Liv
+ Vender Tilbage

Superb Danish folk rocker Cody is now in New York and for the next week he and the band will be playing a number of gigs. Simply too great to miss!
+ There Is A Light (Live)

A new 7 track CD by Florida shoegazers Starring Me will (hopefully) be out in May.
+ Parallels are Endless

Cody...track of the day...

The beautiful Comfort and Rage by Cody is Bandbase.dk’s track of the day. The Danish singer-songwriter, who released his self-titled debut EP earlier this year on Slowshark Records, will spend a large part of April in New York playing several concerts. The entire gig-list can be studied at Myspace, and should some music-interested NY resident somehow read this or do you simply happen to be in NY around that time, I can only recommend that you check him out (read my thoughts on his performance at last year's Vesterbro Festival)!
+ Comfort and Rage
+ Just for You

Vesterbro Festival 2008...

This year’s Vesterbro Festival is over and now it’s time to recapture what happened during the 3 intense days of sex, drugs and rock 'n’ roll sun, music, talking and drinking. Plenty of stuff to write, so it might take a couple of days before this post will be finished, so check back every now and then for updates. As usual I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures I'm afraid (thanks a lot to Fiepige for the permission to use this photo of Ginger Ninja).

Thursday
Probably couldn't have started the festival in a better way, than "suffering" through an amazing performance by Cody. "Suffering" as the heat, which was a result of the small venue, the many people, the spotlights and the dark curtains attracting the sun, was almost unbearable. But in spite of the sauna-like conditions, it was a truly wonderful concert by a very talented band and somehow country/folk rock sounds a lot better when the weather is great and the beers are cold. Looks as if the band will not remain one of Denmark's better-kept secrets, as both The National and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy have asked the band to be the supporting act, when they visit Denmark during the summer.

Following the concert I had the fortune to (finally) bump into Ivan of Oliver North Boy Choir, and he kindly introduced me to a few friends including fellow ONBC and EPO-555 band member Mikkel. So the rest of the afternoon we had a few beers, discussed some music, where I among things tried to convince ONBC to play live (no luck), told them that they should start releasing physical albums (no luck), asked for some EPO-555 gossip including the release date of a third album (no luck), and wanted to know the story behind some EPO-555 song titles (finally I had some luck, but I won’t even try putting those explanations in writing).

Back to the music and next in line was a nice little concert by E Bird, though they did look somewhat uncomfortable (shy perhaps?) on stage. And vocally, a little less Bright Eyes inspiration wouldn't hurt.

Following a charming show by country rockers Southern Gothic Tales (with a few Cody band members on stage), there was a huge gap in the program with no interesting acts on for a few hours (though I was told that Monkey Cup Dress should be pretty good), but the weather was still fine and the beers were still cold, so a break from the music wasn't the biggest of problems.

For my part, the last concert of the evening (I once again must confess that my age is catching up with me) was by blog "darlings" BREUMM and they delivered a pretty fine performance in the (now) dark evening. Though I remain a bit puzzled why they opted not to play Ingen Verdens Ting, which I continue to rank among my favorite songs of the year.

Friday
Started the day by watching Mellemblond performing a few songs on one of the smaller venues, but the sound wasn't really good and my friend had to ask me if they were singing in Danish or English. Quite a shame, as the band was recommended to me as a pretty good live act.

So we quickly decided to move on and instead had the pleasure of watching Little Jimmy Reeves play a terrific set inside the atmospheric Øksnehallen. This is not the most complex stuff you'll ever hear, but fronted by Kashmir drummer Asger Techau, the band plays rather straightforward rock music, with the occasional inspiration from his other and better-known band.

Following the concert Asger was selling the band's EP Bring Out The Dogs (buy it here if you like) and my friend and I each bought a copy. He looked surprisingly flattered, when we told him that we had enjoyed the concert and my friend also got the inside story behind the band's name.

A little sun and a beer later, Twins Twins entered the stage, but unfortunately the band failed to impress me. The songwriting is great (no question there), but I guess it is the lack of variation that made the concert rather tedious after a while. But we still stayed and watched the entire set.

Plans were that we were going to see Halph next, but before the band entered the stage, I got a phone call from Northern Portrait front man Stefan, who just happened to be in the neighborhood and he asked if we had time for a small chat and a beer or two.
So for the next hour I had the privilege of speaking to one of Denmark's finest songwriters and among several things I finally got information on some of his previous works, news on concerts, the story behind the single cover, the record deal with Matinée Recordings etc. Some of this will (perhaps) be posted at a later and more appropriate (?) time.

A few minutes to 9 Stefan had to rush away, as he was going to play an acoustic live set (cover songs) at a nearby bar. But before leaving he suggested that we should drop by on our way to Tivoli Gardens (to see Kashmir), as we would be passing right by it. So we did and though he vowed not to do it, he treated us with a small gem, as he played acoustic versions of the two Northern Portrait songs Crazy and What Happens Next. According to Stefan it was the first time that the later was played live, so you can say that we witnessed a world premiere.

Off to Tivoli Gardens, where the plans of attending the Kashmir concert were quickly put to rest, as the length of the queues made us realize that we would be more than lucky to get in before the encore.

Slightly disappointed we went back to the Festival where we strolled around for a while trying to find some interesting bands to give a listen, but with very little luck. So instead we finished the evening at the bar, where Stefan played the third Northern Portrait song of the evening; I Give You Two Seconds To Entertain Me as well as a smashing version of There She Goes (The La's). Probably the highlight of the weekend, which in fact had very little to do with the Festival!

Saturday
It really wasn't my plan to see Evil Death Machine, but my train was delayed and when I arrived, my friend was sitting in the sun enjoying the band, so we stuck around; and I'm glad we did. Somehow I've always believed that his was an electronica project by EPO-555 member Hans Emil Hansen, which until now has kept me away from listening. But instead I (to my big surprise) found out that the music is a pleasant blend of alternative/indie/electronic pop/rock, so perhaps it's time to give in and give it a decent listen?

Waiting for No and The Maybes to start we spent 10 minutes listening to Danish electronica queen Tilde. But as I've stated a few times before, this is not my favorite genre, so when the sound of the synths suddenly disappeared...we did the same!

The start of No and The Maybes wasn't really anything to write home about, but 10 minutes into the show things somehow got adjusted and from that moment on it became very clear why this indie pop band has recently been signed by A:Larm Music, as the band played a string of catchy pop tunes and gave a charming performance.

Didium and The Black Bonnie Picture has been much hyped the past few months, so my expectations were really high. Normally the hype would mean that a large crowd would be showing up, but strangely it was one of the smallest of the entire festival! Whether this had anything to do with it I don't know, but the show turned out to be quite a disappointment. But as I do like the band's music a lot (their demo's are really great), I'll use the sound at the venue as the explanation for my disappointment and instead I'll be looking forward to the next concert (whenever I get the chance to see them again).

Luckily the last show I got to see at this year's Festival was a real treat. Ginger Ninja delivered one of the most energetic and dynamic concerts I've seen for some time and the four lads really made the most of this opportunity, and proved that they are a great and highly entertaining live act as well as more than capable of writing catchy pop tunes.

Thus ended this year's Festival and as you've probably understood by now, I had a pretty good time. So I've already started looking forward to next year's edition, but as a final remark I hope that they'll return to the original concept, so we'll see fewer of those established mainstream names that no one really (be honest now) cares about!

+ Cody - Just For You
+ Oliver North Boy Choir - Enola Gay
+ EPO-555 - Hyperschlieb
+ E Bird - Everyone Here Is Without A Past
+ BREUMM - Silhuetter (Zvook Mescalin Remix)
+ Little Jimmy Reeves - Romance on Drugs
+ Twins Twins - San Sebastian
+ Northern Portrait - Crazy
+ Evil Death Machine - Sugar In The Baby's Face
+ No and The Maybes - Mouth
+ Didium & The Black Bonnie Picture - The Twisted Way of Blues
+ Ginger Ninja - Stuck In A Rough Stream