The Minx - No Friends

The single ‘No Friends’ is littered with punchy riffs and a kickass bassline which will have you sprinting for the dance floor. So far, everything you have ever wanted in a pop-punk band right? Well, there is more! Not content to be another replica in The Clash and Green Day legacy, keyboardist, Kieran McIntyre gives the tune some mod-flavoured soul and a hint of Subway Sect’s classic: ‘Ambition’.  Meanwhile, it is the guitarists Chris Haddon and Paul Robinson which give the band real identity. The manner in which he uses his riffs reminds TT of Steve Craddock’s work on ‘Mosely Shoals’ and ‘Marchin’ Already’. The guitar parts on both are often understated but always manage to drive the narrative of the song forward and on occasion that they are prominent they are as infectious as athletes foot in a swimming pool.

Like The Clash and Green Day however, The Minx have a social conscious. With the Coalition returning to Westminster this week and talk of yet more cuts, The Minx’s call to arms (“Too many public hiding heads under the covers, your looking after number one…”) could not come at a better time.

The first b-side ‘Cold Outside’ demonstrates The Minx’s ability to jump in and out of the genre pool and produce class pop music. We’re certain that if Bombay Bicycle Club had grown up loving The Ruts and Skids then this would be the end product.

The 3^rd and final track is ‘Scoops’, and is another 2 and half minute…….whaaaaaaaaaattt???? It’s actually 4 minutes 25 seconds!!!!!!! But don’t worry, they haven’t gone all Rick Wakemen on us yet. This is a prime example of the potential The Minx have. Sounding like a hybrid of Stiff Little Fingers and Secret Affair, it’s a good old fashioned “unite the crowd” anthem. Vocally, there is a smidge of early Alex Turner in there which should give burgeoning indie kids their way in but make no mistake Chris Haddon is his own man and will make his mark in a venue near you soon!

The combination of “Billie-Joe-with-and-English-accent” vocals and quintessential English rock n roll gives The Minx that ability to flirt with influences like Andy Gray and young female intern. The results are already proving dividends and the future of this band is going to be one to monitor very closely, folks.

'No Friends' is out now on Queen Street Records.

Live Able: Frank Turner, Billy Bragg, Mystery Jets, Miles Kane and Steve Craddock!

Steve Craddock

The OCS and Weller lead guitarist delivers a sublime slice of mod pop to get tonight’s proceedings off and running at the Roundhouse this evening. Craddock draws from his underrated solo albums The Kundailni Target and Peace City West and definitely wins new fans tonight with a polished performance. There is a guest appearance from his mate and collaborator James Buckley and then a fine rendition of OCS’ Riverboat Song to remind everyone how great he really is.

Craddock is a man of such talent and dignity surely the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brits is not unthinkable. Just check the stats:

With Ocean Colour Scene:

      11 Top 20 singles. 6 of which were top 10.

    5 top 10 albums. 1 of which was a number one.

With Paul Weller

    20 top 20 singles. 4 of which were top 10.

    11 top 20 albums. 4 of which were number ones.

Not to mention his two solo albums and producing P.P Arnold’s comeback album in 1997. Just saying.

Miles Kane

Unhinged, untamed and uninhibited. The man is possessed by the rock n roll gods and its utterly fantastic to watch. He opens with Rearrange which eases the crowd in before he lets rip with astonishing version of King Crawler. It’s aggressive, sexy, and loud!  It is everything a young Pete Townshend personified.

The mood is lightened a little when he plays the infectious Quicksand. What a terrific pop song this really is. Catchy from start to finish, makes you want to dance and never fails to put smiles on faces.

It beggars belief Kane is not leading the charge of the alternative world at the moment but with his festival schedule jam packed TT imagines it won’t be long before he has converted the UK to his rock n roll charms.

Billy Bragg

To be an English patriot is to love Uncle Bill. Huw Stephens introduces him as a legend and that is exactly what he is. Tonight he is on fine anecdotal mocking the youngsters for not knowing who he or Morrissey are. Anyone who has seen billy before will know he likes a chat between songs about issues close to his heart and tonight is no different (we apologise for any misquotes but we only had a couple of pints so sure this accurate):

“What a great year to be British and wave the flag. The Olympics lots of flag waving there, the jubilee…..watching two pensioners go down the Thames in the pissing down rain. Well, you know what made me proud to be British, a British high court judge put Murdoch on trial and held him to account over his actions. AND THE PRIME MINISTER (he shouts), yeah the Prime Minister that’s right. Wave your flag at that.”

Bragg followed this with Scousers Never By The Sun. A song that probably sums Bragg’s musical career up perfectly. It is a witty and politically biting punk/folk song with lush choruses and venomous verses.

Bragg rattles through his brilliant back catalogue with I Keep Faith and Sexuality before ending on A New England. It was very visible many didn’t know who he was at the beginning but even more evident was the respect he had earned by the end. Plus, what audience doesn’t love to see a tea bag lobbed into a crowd of people as a farewell gesture. Smashing up guitars, PAH!

Mystery Jets

What a perfect booking by Able2Able. Everyone is aware of Blaine’s condition but no-one ever cares. The World loves the Mystery Jets and that is all that matters. Tonight however, his disability does matter top the adoring crowd. The talent and graft Blaine has utilised weigh heavy on the audiences consciousness. Not as burden, but as a clear reminder that all people are equal and with extra help having a disability can produce the brightest of stars.

TT was at their Brixton gig earlier this year and must confess thought it was a bit flat. However, tonight the Jets are firing on all cylinders. The new Crosby, Stills and Nash enthused tunes are given the stadium rock treatment to sound mega. ‘Someone Purer’ lyrics’ “Deliver me from sin / Give me rock ‘n’ roll” take on a life of their own in this benefit setting whilst ‘Greatest Hits’ sets the crowd of dancing perfectly before the classic ‘Young Love’ and ‘Two Doors Down’ have the crowd in raptures.

Frank Turner

Last time TT saw Frank, we ended up pissed and emotional not fully believing he had just played to a sold out Wembley Arena. Tonight is a different experience. We have been frothing at the mouth with the prospect of new FT material. There was only one new tune tonight sadly and bugger, we didn’t catch the name but it was full of Turner’s passion and melody which make him so loveable. Vintage Frank! 

 

The decibels are upped tenfold by the crowd the moment ‘I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’ starts to the moment the barnstorming ‘Photosynthesis’ ends. No matter how many times Frank plays ‘Photosynthesis’ it always resonates powerfully with his audience. If you look closely enough you can see the goose bumps on everyone. Look too closely and you will be arrested mind.

We Must apologise to Zane Lowe and Friendly Fires as we had to leave and missed their sets but friends of Traveller’s Tunes assure us they were top notch as always.

Finally, we must say what a great cause Abel2Abel is. Music at its best is always bringing people together and tonight it does it for an excellent reason.

http://www.able2able.com/

Novella - Novella (ep)

1.       Eat Yourself

How do you announce yourself as an awesome guitar pop band? Try a thundering hum of guitars on the opening and one genius singer called Hollie Warren supplying other worldly vocals is a pretty good start. Plus any song which is a cross pollination of Sleeper and The Shangri-Las is alright by us.

2.       He's My Morning

Cobain would have loved the opening to this song. Full of great pop melodies and shrouded in muffled guitars. The subtle nods and winks to the Pixies with 60s girl group harmonies continue here with great gusto. Sit back with an ice cold beer and enjoy.

3.       Don’t believe Ayn Rand

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to your lives intellectual pop music. Remember that great feeling when you first heard Meat Is Murder, well, Novella have tapped into that feeling brilliantly.  Ayn Rand was a mere name to us at start of this song. After research (embarrassingly beginning on Wikipedia) we came to realise and debate the work of one of Objectivism’s leading thinkers. Accompanying this with Graham Coxon-esque guitar riffs circa ‘No Distance Left To Run’ makes one hell of a combination.

4.       Strange Things

All their songs have an undercurrent of The Pixies and Pavement influence but Strange Things wears it them on its sleeve. So much so you can imagine Malkmus in the studio shouting “great guitar parts, love them, but will you please stop being so freakin’ cool with your vocals”.

5.       You’re not that cool.

Lord help whoever Warren is singing to when she says “you’re not cool / I never wanted you”. From Warren, this is the vocal equivalent of hangover induced by cider and white wine in 40 degree heat. The song itself is brilliantly moody and ethereal in the beginning before building to a My Bloody Valentine state of hypnotic guitars.

The EP is out now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two Wounded Birds - Two Wounded Birds

Pop music, take a bow. Two Wounded Birds return with their self-titled début album after releasing two singles (corkers we might add) via indie legends: Moshi Moshi. It brims in equal measure with poptastic singles and spell-binding morbidity.

The album opens with ‘Together Forever’, one of the finest opening tracks in the history of rock music. It’s The Shadows, The Ramones and The Beach Boys. It's no wonder The Drums released this album on their record label Holiday Friends Recording Company. The title kind of gives the song's content away but this doesn’t detract from Johnny Danger’s ability to profess his love. If this song had been written in 1993 you can bet your left arse cheek it would have been on the soundtrack to True Romance.

'Daddy's Junk' is in keeping with the up-tempo genius of the band, transporting you to world where Chuck Berry became Lonnie Donnegan's guitar player in a Ramones tribute band. Who said all fantasies had to start with a mullet-haired, washing machine repair man and a bored housewife?

 

Being on The Drums' record label, this album was never going to be just sweetness and light. On 'My Lonesome' they adopt Richard Hawley-esque guitars circa 'Coles Corner' to leave you feeling isolated during the wee hours in a deserted seaside town. Meanwhile, 'No Goodbye's' captures in 3minutes 38 seconds what Noah & The Whale took an album to do on 'First Day's Of Spring'. The darkness looms large like Voldermort in the clouds in the chorus:

'And yooooouuuuuuuuuuu / Don't live round here no more / And from you / And no goodbyes / No calls '. 

This really is a must buy for 2012. TWB caught everyone’s attention with Beach Boys and Dick Dale pop tunes in 2011 and have transgressed this already. The future for the Margate bunch appears to be very bright, despite the infinite sadness.


Two Wounded Birds - Two Wounded Birds is out now!

The Enemy Live @Shepherds Bush Empire

Travellers Tunes must fess up…, we saw The Enemy at the Borderline this year and decided not to review the gig. The reason being that the gig was so intimate and so personal, here at TT, we felt couldn’t write anything which wouldn’t be a great big pile of self-indulgence.

However, one thing seemed really clear that night, Tom Clarke seemed bloody grateful to have a room full of people ready to have a good time in his presence again. You could see in his eyes that if ‘Streets In The Sky’ went tits up, then he would always have this. As new song ‘2Kids’ proclaims “you’ll never take our memories away”.

The reason we have now referenced this gig (a great gig, btw)is because TT was at the Shepherds Bush Empire a few days after the Enemy’s 3^rd album came out and the band’s demeanour has changed dramatically, as well as the audience’s.

In the space of 2 months The Enemy have clearly been on one hell of a journey. They are now back to playing packed venues of a decent stature but more importantly, they have crowds willing to diminish their vocal chords on the new tunes. This has clearly had a great impact on their confidence and the belief that what they are doing is worthwhile. At one point Clarke rightly declares “Who the fuck said guitar music is dead. It’ll never die cos you’re here and so are we”.

The impact the impetus from the crowd will have on the future of this band cannot be underestimated. When the crowd sing “Enemy! Enemy!” ( a-la like Liverpool fans) the super confident bassist Andy Hopkins is clearly humbled whilst Clarke is verging on tears.  It justifies everything TT believes is wrong with the X Factor and how they manipulate the audience with a character’s back story. Cowell and the show’s producers know full well they can make people cry and feel empathy for someone when Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ is played over the top of a promo. Ultimately though, it is not real. Tonight is real. In 30 years’ time someone’s kid might pick up an Enemy record and talk to their folks about them and they will relay stories about Clarke welling up at this very gig. For the boring fuckers sat indoors being fed diarrhoea……well, who gives a shit about them.

The confidence ebbing its way back into the band is apt as ‘Streets In The Sky’ is the most optimistic lyrical content they have produced so far. They have mentioned new songs have been written for album no.4 already, so fingers crossed this momentum continues and who knows, soulless drivel like Tinie Tempah and Rita Ora can be shunted to the outskirts and The Enemy can be given the airplay they deserve. Plus, TT cannot wait to see how loyal fans are when Tinie is down his luck. One assumes they will be on to the next hype!

The Cribs at The Troxy

Crocodiles

The Crib’s Support comes from San Diego’s Crocodiles tonight and boy, do they bring the decibels!!!

The band’s front man, Brandon Welchez.  seems to be a bundle of nervous energy on their opener. And whilst their Echo & The Bunnymen meets The Horrors grooves are in full swing, this leaves you  wondering whether the bottle of red that’s half empty might just blow this. Not a bit of it!

Welchez swiftly slots back into the effortlessly cool of the rest of the band and delivers some fuzzed up Spitiualized-esque guitars which is fantastically loud. The gentle swaying of the crowd this creates becomes hypnotic by the end of their set.

Their new offering ‘Endless Flowers’ has been met with plaudits across the board and with a live show this good, one feels greatness beckoning.

The Cribs

This gig has been 7 years in the making. In 2005, TT was all set to head for the Mean Fiddler to belt out the newly released New Fellas. However, Tuesday 6^th December 2005 proved to be a stupidly freezing night to go footy training and, pop goes the weasel shaped hamstring and TT temporarily lost the ability to stand up!!! But fret not, tickets for their May gig at the Astoria made their way in to TT’s grubby hands. Only a slipped disc could prevent TT from going… TT didn’t go!

Therefore, nothing will stop Traveller’s Tunes attending the Troxy tonight and what a gig it is! There are a lot of people here tonight approaching 30, something Ross and Gary have done in their time off. Among this lot, one thing is noted and muttered repeatedly. The way they haven’t compromised and essentially, never joined in the bollox of being the Next Big Thing or the biggest band in the land that so many are sucked in and spat out the other side for. This statement is more powerful to people at this age as music ceases to be new and the bullshit can be smelled a mile off.

The Cribs live at the Troxy are great. It’s as simple as that. They smash through a Greatest Hits set as if their lives depend on it, most likely their souls. One of the great things about them is the way that everything is not perfect, even after 8years together. Some of the notes are missed but the tightness of the brothers allows the songs to still sound fresh,  as if they are being made up on the spot.  

‘Hey Scenester’s’ is TT’s highlight of the set but as a friend duly notes on the way home, it’s because ‘you bought the single when it came out and then got injured like a tart’. Nevertheless the crowd is bouncing and the brothers snarl their way through the chorus with the cheap and nasty growl that makes them so loveable.

If fans thought they were a dirty punk band with their hearts nailed to the independent cross already…. well, new album ‘In The Belly of the Brazen Bull’ takes it to a new level (especially live). ‘Chi Town’ is greeted with as much love as the rare outing of ‘Baby Don’t Sweat’. Where the hunger comes from is baffling as this is a ferocious tune and the thousand strong moshing is testament to that. Especially the black converse trainer which did the rounds…

One thing must be noted about The Cribs though. Ryan Jarman, wow. Let’s make it clear, The Cribs are a great band but Ryan is something else. He sums up the struggle of life when he is on stage. He clearly loves being a Crib but can’t hide his burning desire to be an individual. This is not just because of his bedraggled jeans and insane haircut, but it’s all part of it. There were plenty of kids in the crowd tonight. One couldn’t help but hope that they are moved enough by their current single ‘C’mon Be A No One’ to be the next punk rock singer with an unflinching ability to be yourself.

Setlist

Glitters Like Gold

I’m A Realist

We Were Aborted

Hey Scenesters!

Anna

Come On Be A No One

Back To The Bolt-Hole

Don’t Believe In Me

Mirror Kissers

Confident Men

North Of England / It Was Only Love

Baby Don’t Sweat

Another Number

Jaded Youth

Cheat On Me

Be Safe

Chi Town

Men’s Needs

City Of Bugs

The Heartbreaks - Funtimes

This debut seems a long time coming after the release of first single 'Jealous Don’t You Know' in April 2011 but at last, it’s here. During the past 12 months, Miles Kane has created an undercurrent of success for classic song structure and 60's pop, and now The Heartbreaks look set to follow in his footsteps.


The album is a joyous romp from the off, with 'Liar, My Dear'; this year’s firm favourite to feature on an animated iTunes advert. Imagine if The Kooks weren’t shit, then you’re almost there. Current single 'Delay, Delay' follows this style and takes the album up a notch. The NME gave this a bit of a kicking recently, leading with 'Another kingly-jangly indie pop band singing about nothing'. Now, we all love ground-breaking, life-affirming pop tunes but we at TT acknowledge that they are rare and realise that is why they are so special. What is on the menu here is pop music in its simplest form. A catchy repetitive chorus set to the tune of The La's at their best. It may not be reinventing the wheel but who cares? It’s fun, it makes you smile and want to sing along, and it’s independent. With the NME fervently against them, it will do the world good to remember that music is not one long Mercury Awards wankfest.


Evidence that there is more to The Heartbreaks than 60s pop heaven is in the form of 'Winter Gardens' and 'Hand On Heart'. The latter sees Matthew Whitehouse give the nod to the vocal delivery of a young Elvis Costello on 'Oliver's Army' and 'I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea' whilst the free-flowing guitars are reminiscent of The Wannadies' 'Might Be Stars'. The Vampire Weekend riffs in 'Winter Gardens' suggests if Nusic Sounds give the lads time there is a lot more to come from this band!


'Jealous Don’t You Know' is an obvious tune to discuss on Funtimes. It has the type of pop immediacy Jarvis Cocker said was lacking from guitar music these days. It saunters along like The Cure's 'Friday I'm In Love' and is a hair’s breadth away from being just as good. Lyrically, it is a really sweet song displaying the naïve youthfulness of boys falling hopelessly in love and having no grip on their feelings when the bad times come. JDYK, and in particular 'Polly', demonstrate the band’s love of Morrissey and his incessant need to be wanted by what he can’t have. Despite being entrapped by beatific melodies, it’s hard to escape the image of a young lad playing 'Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want' 58 times in a darkened bedroom and each time expecting a happy ending. TT can assure you all it never comes.


Funtimes is released 7th May