I need to work on my time management. Arriving all too tardy for this show, I missed most of Jonas & Jane’s set. However, I did catch their encore, a pretty and well-performed country-tinged tune. Check out their Soundcloud page for some very sweet tracks that I regret missing out on. Read more…
Imagine where we’d be without experiments. Without theories, tests, trials and errors. Without curiosity and creativity. The world would be a dull place indeed. Just imagine how many scientific discoveries and artistic “eureka!” moments would have been missed.
Now listen to this track. Thanks to the efforts of creative people the world over, we get to have experiences like this. How awesome is that?! Read more…
Martha Paton is a fantastic songwriter – and more than anything else, Suitcase Full of Stories is a simple and unassuming demonstration of that fact. Read more…
When I first saw that poster, my first thought was that this show would turn out to be a serious sausage party, full of hot-under-the-collar guys who’d assumed that an evening spent being entertained by women would entail something very different. I was relieved to arrive at the Boileroom and find that I was wrong; like the performers, last night’s crowd was stylish, socially competent, and clearly excited to be in the presence of the following: Read more…
Guildfordian promoters Genrebomb have a serious eye for talent. Those of you who missed last Tuesday’s show at the Boileroom need to catch up, and quick, because each of that night’s three acts are set for bright futures. Main support Following Foxes already have their eyes set on stadium stages, while Martha Paton is going to prove a dream come true for some lucky publishing house. And judging from her professional and well poised live set – not to mention this EP – Hannah Dorman is going to be right up there alongside them. Read more…
Tunes like this make me proud to live in Guildford. Read more…
Although it’s great that alternative culture exists, you have to ask how much it differs from the mainstream sometimes.
Standard-model society promotes segregation on increasingly arbitrary lines (watch an episode of Come Dine With Me for evidence) and “alternative” subcultures do much the same thing – think rock and metal subgenres and the constant bickering between them all. Infighting is frequently justified on the basis of appearance (“just look at him!“) by both mainstream and alternative groups. Competitive snobbery thrives in both worlds, based as they are on stereotypical male values – and yes, despite some progress both the mainstream and alternative worlds are still male-dominated. For instance, “alt girls” have been relegated to the status of fetishised objects featured in magazines that copy the topless-babes-and-articles-which-their-readers-will-say-are-the-real-reason-they-buy-the-magazine-in-the-first-place-but-for-some-reason-nobody-ever-seems-to-believe-them model adopted by their equally standardised shelfmates. For more evidence of objectification, go see a heavy female-fronted band play live, and pay attention to how the men in the audience behave. And the online side of things is, naturally, not much different. Overall, it can be argued that “alt” culture is definable today as “more or less the same as the mainstream at a fundamental level, only with different haircuts, a different soundtrack, different clothes, and more imaginative and visible tattoos”.
So let’s say we want to find something that really deserves to be called “alternative”. Where could we start? Read more…
As we saw last December, Dani Rosenoer thinks differently. So, for this review, so will I. I’m going to attempt to sum up each track on Basement Jams 2 in a single sentence. Let’s see how it goes… Read more…
I’ve said this many times before, I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen, and I’ll say it again: The Boileroom is my favourite independent live music venue. The same statements apply to this sentence too: Genrebomb know how to put on a show. Read more…
Soothing, blissful, overlapping streams of beautifully toned notes. Classy and modest yet flamboyant delivery. Obvious passion and painstaking attention to detail and the craft of creating new art.
Roby Deaton has all of these things in spades. Read more…