Things have been quiet here at Tiger HQ as you may have noticed over the past few days, but it’s nothing to freak out about, I haven’t lost my blogging mojo, I’m just on holiday, being a lazy ass.
Christmas was awesome, spent it with J-Rab’s family soaking up the sun by the pool and stuffing our faces with more food than you can shake a stick at.
Otherwise I’ve been taking it super easy-breezy, reading, drinking and writing. Actually managed to bang a short screenplay out for the Jameson / Kevin Spacey competition and entered it. If I win, Kevin Spacey will produce and act in my short movie!
But that’s not why I’m writing this.
I’m writing this to wish all you crazy kids a fucking sick New Years because I don’t think I’ll have any time tomorrow to bang something out before the festivities kick in.
It’s been a trying year, but then again, aren’t they all?
I don’t mean that in a bad way. The human spirit is like a muscle, it needs to be tested, torn up once in awhile, stretched to its limits in order for it to grow and strengthen.
I wouldn’t wish easy years on my worst enemy. I wouldn’t wish hellish years either, but somewhere between the two is where you’ll strike the balance needed to grow your spirit without getting it crushed.
When all is said and done, I hope 2011 was a good year for you. High five for making it out alive.
2012 could very well bring about the end of the world if the Mayans are right so we gotta make the most of every fucking second of it.
Next year we fight tooth and nail for the things we want and we don’t fucking back down for anyone or anything.
Fight on, and when life knocks you down, get the fuck back up and headbutt it in the face.
I leave you with these words, my parting gift for 2011:
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
I tell ya, I’ve been putting this fucking post off for a good two weeks now while everyone else’s top 50, 20, 10 and 5 lists have been flooding the Twittersphere.
And no, it’s not because I wanted to suss their lists first to make sure mine’s not crap, it’s because there were so many great albums that landed this year I don’t know where the fuck to start.
In the end, I followed the tried and tested method of sorting my iTunes library by year and scrolling down whilst mentally jogging through all the albums I listened to this year, yielding the following scientifically accurate results…
NUMBER 10 – Deerhoof (Deerhoof Vs Evil)
What quickly becomes apparent when listening to Deerhoof’s 11th album is that for all its chaotic bursts of noise and bizarre musical twists and turns, this band has the kind of musical talent that borders on genius.
This album will confuse the shit out of you the first time you hear it. However, Japanese frontlady Satomi Matsuzaki’s bubblegum-pop perfect vocal delivery and guitarist John Dieterich’s ability to write effortlessly catchy guitar riffs will have you coming back for more.
If you like your music irreverent, unpredictable, catchy as hell and severely tripped out you won’t be able to put this album down. Here’s “Secret Mobilisation†to give you a taste:
NUMBER 9 – Foster The People (Torches)
Yes, yes, I know. How could anyone who considers himself a serious music critic endorse a band that produces such blatantly unapologetic indie pop?
I’ll admit that Foster The People is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine, but y’know what?
Sometimes I just want to listen to catchy singalong tunes that don’t send me spiralling into a vortex of existential angst and introspection, is that a crime?!
Torches is packed full of great hooks, clap-your-hands-and-dance-around carefree summer melodies and chorouses that bounce inside your head for days.
Here’s the video for “Don’t Stop (Colour On The Walls)†– you HAVE to watch this, it’s brilliant!
NUMBER 8 – Cults
Continuing in the indie pop vein (don’t worry, this list grows some big hairy balls later) the Cults’ debut self-titled album also impressed.
This band borrows sounds from traditional 50s teen prom-pop, doo-wop and surf rock, laces them with a heavy dose of reverb and samples of cult leaders speaking to their followers and then wraps it all up in frontlady Madeline Follin’s high-pitched cantopop style vocals.
Which is a very convoluted way of saying this band writes simple melodies, sick hooks and killer songs that are seriously easy to get into and carry just enough weight to not be completely dismissed as indie pop fluff.
Here’s the video for “Abductedâ€, the opening track on Cults. Oddly enough, it also features a lot of driving. Starting to pick up a trend here…
NUMBER 7 – Taxi Violence (Long Way From Home)
The only SA band to make it on the Tiger’s list! Yeah, I need to sink my teeth into more local music…
Long Way From Home features re-written, acoustic versions of old favourites like “The Messâ€, “Devil ‘n Pistol†and “The Turn†which sound like they’ve been taken apart and completely rebuilt from scratch. And of course, Taxi Violence threw in one or two new tracks written specifically for the album.
It’s a refreshing change from your stereotypical acoustic album where most bands just swap electric guitars for acoustic ones and serve up warmed up leftovers thinly disguised as an album actually worth listening to.
Their acoustic rendition of “Heads and Tails†is particularly noteworthy, as is “Long Way From Home†with its upbeat, bluesy / rock flavour played with bright, jangling guitars and tambourines that reminded me of some of the earlier Supergrass albums.
To give you a taste of what I’m banging on about, here’s the SICK video they shot for “Heads Or Tailsâ€, which recently won the Best Video Award at the 2011 Wirral International Film Festival.
NUMBER 6 – Seasick Steve (You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks)
I met my buddy Seasick Steve when I was down in the dumps earlier this year and we became great buddies.
See, ol’ Seasick knows how bad things can get, before he made it he used to busk in the Paris Metro, only finding fame in his late fifties.
This guy is the real deal, from his frazzled grey soup-catcher to his beaten up John Deere cap and dungarees, he is everything that is badass about old-school blues.
He has a voice like an old grizzly bear and can change it up from the low, lonely, slit-your-wrists ballad I’m about to play you to foot-stompin, redneck country and western tracks that bring words like “yeee-haw!†and “hootenanny!†to mind.
I just think he’s fucking cool. I’ve got a soft spot for old veterans like my pal Seasick. He attributes his recent success to his cheap and weather-beaten guitar “The Trance Wonder†which he bought off a friend of his in Mississippi who later revealed to Seasick that it was haunted.
Check out this video of the ol’ grizzly bear playing “Burnin’ Up†at SXSW earlier this year and dig his outburst at 2:18. What a badass.
NUMBER 5 – Yuck
My favourite debut album of the year and irrefutable proof that, like a gigantic, spindly cockroach surviving a nuclear apocalypse, the 90s will never die.
This band packs all the distorted, wailing guitar fury of bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr and the playful, foot-tapping basslines of the Pixies topped off with a fuzzy vocal tone Pavement would be proud of.
But that’s not what made this album shine for me.
What made it shine lies in this band’s seemingly effortless ability to write melodies that soar with breath-taking dexterity above the tracks that make up this self-titled debut.
One part fuzzy, wah-pedal driven slacker indie rock and one part slow-burning, melody-driven alt rock worthy of old school Smashing Pumpkins / REM, Yuck carries a powerful emotional gravitas that blazes a trail through lesser bands’ attempts at redefining one of the defining decades in rock music history.
Simply put, this album is everything that was great about 90’s garage / grunge low-fi reimagined in the 21st century.
Here’s “Get Away†so you can hear for yourself what makes this band great:
NUMBER 4 – Arctic Monkeys (Suck It And See)
Arctic Monkeys made a name for themselves by perfecting the art of writing gigantic, energetic hooks and hammering them home effortlessly a talent that the band exploited extensively in their first two albums.
Then came Humbug, one of the first albums I ever reviewed on this site and with it, a complete departure from the sound they had carved out for themselves in Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare.
They enlisted Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age to produce Humbug and with his help their sound changed almost completely from infectious indie to dark, moody desert rock in a move that showed there was so much more to this band than any of us could have guessed.
Suck It And See continues in the desert rock vein this band carved out with Homme, but this time around, the band has moulded that sound instead of copy / pasted it and as a result, sound a lot more comfortable than they did on Humbug, as phenomenal as that album was.
Killer tracks like “All My Own Stunts†with its cowboy twang and insidious bassline and “Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chairâ€, the most powerful desert rock anthem on the album, are balanced out by the caustic wit and beautiful melodies of tracks like “Reckless Serenade†and ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalalaâ€.
It has a lot of meat to it, plenty to sink your teeth into and it gets better with every listen.
Here’s “Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chairâ€, one of the most tripped out videos I’ve seen this year.
NUMBER 3 – Foo Fighters (Wasting Light)
The album that’s been KILLING everyone’s top album lists this year finds a comfortable spot at number three on the Tiger’s list because Dave Grohl is a total fucking badass and Wasting Light has to be one of the best albums the Foos have put out since my personal favourite One By One.
This time around the band threw all the modern new-fandangled methods of recording out the window and went 100% old school.
The band literally set up a studio in Dave Grohl’s garage and did Wasting Light on brown analogue tape that they then cut together by hand using fucking razorblades for god’s sake!
The result is an album of raw, aggressive, skull-fuckingly powerful rock music that pulls no punches and takes no prisoners.
“Bridge Burning†will make you thrash around the room like an idiot savant who just hit a bong and downed a pint of rubbing alcohol, “Rope†has the catchiest, most badass Foos chorous riff since “Low†and “White Limo†is sheer, hedonistic rock music at it’s most awesome.
Just watch this fucking video. It stars Lemmy from Motörhead for god’s sake! How fucking badasss is that?!
NUMBER 2 – The Black Keys (El Camino)
Narrowly missing the top spot on this year’s list are the current reigning champions of the American 70’s blues / rock revivalist movement, The Black Keys with their 7th studio album El Camino.
Unlike it’s predecessor Brothers, El Camino moves at a blistering pace – no slow-burners on this foot-stompingly infectious, monster hook-laden album, no sir. This time around the Keys have dialled things up to a whole other level and the results are nothing short of sublime.
From the rusty guitar riffs and insanely catchy chorous of “Lonely Boy†to the righteous, sleazy grooves of “Sister†and the almost Zepplinesque prog rock ballad that is “Little Black Submarinesâ€, the Keys pull no punches in this noteworthy follow up to Brothers.
And don’t even get me started on “Gold On The Ceilingâ€, which emerges like a mutated Thin Lizzy track bursting at the seams with hand-clap percussion, skuzzy organs and a pre-chorous that sounds like it was written specifically for strip club scenes in Robert Rodriguez films.
So why not list this as my top album of 2011? As I stated in my original review, El Camino’s only downfall is the fat that, at 38 mins, it’s a little on the lean side in comparison to Brothers, which is basically the only thing I can fault on this album.
There just isn’t enough of it.
Still though, it’s a sick, sick, sick record – here’s “Lonely Boy†to prove that fact.
NUMBER 1 – The Kills (Blood Pressures)
Again, I refer to my original review of this, my favourite fucking album of 2011, because it perfectly captures what I think of this album:
When I stumbled on The Kills latest album Blood Pressures, I got one minute into the first track and started grinning from ear to ear.
Some of this had to do with the dark and dangerous sound of guitarist Jamie Hince’s Hofner played in all it’s bone-rattling glory. This man has perfected a grimey, thick-as-tar tone that had me hooked from the get go.
But what really mind-fucked me was how sinister and cool frontwoman Alison Mosshart’s vocals sounded – like butter wouldn’t melt on her tongue, like she was everything sexy and dangerous in this world, like she could kill you with a look or break you with a smile.
The Kills is her band, her little broody-beautiful world that she shares with guitarist Jamie Hince and there’s something about the fuzz and the mud and the malevolence and the majesty of it all that haunted me and continues to haunt me with every listen.
“You Don’t Own The Road†saunters like a drunk cowboy waving his six shooter with the safety off, “DNA†stalks purposefully through the woods at dusk, picking its way through an undergrowth of drumsticks clattering against drumsticks whilst wading through a quagmire of swampy basslines.
“Baby Says†has the melancholy of a Cowboy Junkies track, a lilting melody to keep you company in the hollow hours before sunrise, a song that echoes back to better times.
But “Future Starts Slow†is still my favourite. Stark, defiant, sexy, it has a drum track that plays like a striptease and one of the simplest, most powerful riffs I’ve heard in a good long while.
I got a dark streak a mile wide that this album really speaks to but that doesn’t mean you’ll love it anywhere near as much as I do.
If nothing else, it’s a great example of how simple, stylised riffs (played with truckloads of badass fuzzy effects) layered with amazingly complex drums and sultry, provocative vocals can seduce you to the point of infatuation.
If you want to know what the music playing in the jungles of my Tiger-mind sounds like, get your hands on this album and if you’re anything like me, pretty soon it’ll be playing through the jungles of your mind too.
Here’s “Satellite†to sink your fangs into.
That about wraps it up for my top 10 albums of 2011, a post that’s been THREE DAYS in the making, can you fucking believe it!?
So yeah, any comments would be appreciated – what albums rocked your guys’ world in 2011?
Fuck it’s been a hardcore year. It’s not just me right? You guys feel it too, I know this because we are closely connected psychically. I’m in your head right now in fact, that’s my voice you’re hearing – hello!
So yeah. I’m fucking frazzelled guys, seriously. So I’m taking the easy way out today and doing something us bloggers like to refer to as “shooting fish in a barrel†– ie. posting pictures of hotties to get hits.
Absolutely NO intellectual content here whatsoever, just my good friend Cora Skinner (courtesy of Next Round) hanging out in a swimming cozzie.
Was there ever a pair of comic book characters more awesome than Calvin and Hobbes? I must have about 8 or 9 collected volumes of Calvin and Hobbes and I think I’ve read them about 5 times each.
Creator Bill Watterson is truly a genius. Calvin & Hobbes is a perfect mixture of wacky humour, philosophy, morality and youthful innocence. It also has a tiger in it, which immediately makes it a winner in my books.
What I really loved about C&H though was how intelligent Calvin is – he sprouts words even I have to look up sometimes and has this dark, twisted sense of humour that I really relate to.
For example, every time it snows, Calvin diligently gets to work building snowmen, but unlike “normal†kids, he takes the medium to a whole other level by building snow scenes that could have been stolen out of a Steven King novel…
Too awesome.
I must say though, being the big softie that I am, I also really related to the sentimental stuff that Watterson wrote for C&H, especially the Christmas panels.
Here is my favourite C&H Christmas panel so that my street cred as a badass, take-no-shit-from-nobody blogger can be forever tarnished in a gigantic “Awwwwwww!†moment.
Once in a while a oke come along who is not just a normal oke, he’s not just another chop head who doesn’t unnerstand the meaning of getting MASSIVE, RIPPED and BUFF and banging hot BELTERS!
This oke, he can be called a LEGEND among men, he can be called the CHOSEN CHARNA. This oke can KILL you with a LOOK, OR he can safe lives by curing any disease – AIDS, TERBUCULOZES, PREGNANCY, ANYTHING – with a flippin’ high five.
This oke walks amongst us, KLAPPING IT, MOERING okes who are kak, BANGING hot BELTERS and being a LEGEND and his name… is ANTON TAYLOR.
The second I checked this oke I INSTANTLY kakked my pants he’s so flippin’ MASSIVE AND RIPPED. Do you think just any oke’s hair grows like that? Fuck boet, come off it man!
When ANTON TAYLOR was a laaitie ous must have put him in RADIOACTIVE waste and shit or sent him from ANOTHER PLANET or bitten him with A SPIDER or something, cause the BUFFNESS of this boychay is OFF THE CHAIN!
And you think it stops there? CHARNA, that’s only where it STARTS!
FLIPPIN’ WINGS BOET! THAT THE OU CAN ACTUALLY FLY WITH!
I know EXACTLY what you’re thinking and the answer is NO! It’s not flippin’ fair that ONE OKE can naturally grow lightning bolts that point at his cheloger and HAIR WINGS on his back that he can fly around with, but you know what?
Life’s not fair boet. All us ordinary charnas can do is KLAP IT every day and hope to one day be HALF as MASSIVE, RIPPED and BUFF as ANTON TAYLOR.
I never thought a oke could ever be more buff than PAUL MAIN MAN, but flip ANTON TAYLOR, you are on a DIFFERENT LEVEL from that other ou.
I did some googalising on the interwebs and find out the following stuff about ANTON TAYLOR:
The explosion in Hirosheema wasn’t actually a plutonic bomb, it was one of ANTON TAYLOR’S PROTEIN BAFFS
The TITANIC didn’t sink because it hit a iceberg, ANTON TAYLOR went back in time and punched a hole in it because it was KAK
ANTON TAYLOR’S chest hair is what gave God the idea of LIGHTNING
The twin towers weren’t hit by a plane, ANTON TAYLOR flew into both of them when he was distracted banging two blonde BELTERS at the same time IN THE AIR
If you look directly at ANTON TAYLOR’S handlebars for longer than 6 seconds you go blind
ANTON TAYLOR caused the earthquake that destroyed Japan. He chucked his weights on the ground after his 1 000 000 000 000th rep and the resulting tremor moved the TECHNOTRONIC PLATES!
God didn’t rest on the seventh day, he gave up because he realised EVERYTHING HE CREATED WAS KAK compared to ANTON TAYLOR
Keep KLAPPING IT ma boychay, you are an inspirhation to BUFF CHARNAS the world over!
Whether you’re being ironic or not, obsessing over how incredible the 80s were is sad.
The music was pretty awful, people dressed like they’d done a LOT of coke and raided a cheap dress-up store, everyone’s hairstyles were beyond retarded and the entire world was just really, really cheesy and fucking weird.
To prove my point, here’s a dating video that someone unearthed from the 80s that features a collection of the ugliest, creepiest, saddest and downright scariest men you’re likely to see outside of a rape suspect lineup at your nearest police station.
Except for Fred the Viking. He’s flippin’ awesome
“I like to talk to people deep into the night�
“I’m currently involved in cleaning up toxic waste�
What the fuck are these people thinking?
Loved the “goddess†dude though. Looks like an extra from a Bon Jovi video.
Two years ago you had no idea who they were, then Brothers dropped and their muddy, garage-blues slowly started creeping into your life.
So you got your mitts on the album and before you knew it, you were telling everyone that would listen about how much you love The Black Keys (you still haven’t heard anything earlier than Attack & Release though).
And now you find yourself reading this to find out what your Tiger pal thinks of their new album, El Camino, even though you probably already own it.
Well, I fucking love it, and here’s why.
Sick Tracks:
Instead of folding under the pressure to produce a worthy follow up to Brothers, Pat (Carney) and Dan (Auerbach) stepped up to the challenge, got into studio with Danger Mouse (the producer behind Gorillaz’ Demon Days, Gnarles Barkley’s St Elsewhere and the Black Keys album Attack & Release to name a few) and proceeded to record one of the best albums I’ve heard this year.
From the rusty guitar riffs and insanely catchy chorous of “Lonely Boy†to the righteous, foot-stompin’ grooves of “Sister†and the almost Zepplinesque prog rock ballad that is “Little Black Submarinesâ€, the Keys keep the monster hooks coming and pull no punches in this noteworthy follow up to Brothers.
And don’t even get me started on “Gold On The Ceilingâ€, which emerges like a mutated Thin Lizzy track bursting at the seams with hand-clap percussion, skuzzy organs and a pre-chorous that sounds like it was written specifically for strip club scenes in Robert Rodriguez films.
Should You Give A Shit?
Damn straight you should give a shit! In fact, stop fucking around reading this, go out there and buy this album if you haven’t already.
Does it live up to Brothers? At 11 tracks and 38 minutes, unfortunately it will never be able to top the 15 track masterpiece that was Brothers simply because there’s less of it.
HOWEVER, El Camino is sheer filthy, raucous, soulful, ballsy, unrepentant rock ‘n roll the way God himself intended it, so by all means give it a spin or two and you’ll quickly see why I fucking love this album.
Here’s a teaser in the meantime. It’s called “Sister†and it goes a little something…
The true merit of any musician is not measured in a recording studio, it is measured from the minute they step onstage until the minute they step off.
As a performer it can be intensely nerve wracking, especially if you’re going up there alone in front of a crowd a hundred thousand miles from home that knows you for one or two songs if you’re lucky.
But if Irish singer / songwriter Foy Vance was nervous before he went onstage at &Union in Cape Town last Friday night to deliver one of the best performances I’ve heard this year, he sure as hell didn’t show it.
From the first few chords of the gospel / blues anthem “I Got Love†to the audience singing the chorous of the soulful acoustic ballad “Guiding Light†over and over, long after Foy himself had stopped playing, his performance was nothing short of inspirational.
It was interesting to note that, over the course of the evening, everyone I spoke to about his set professed to not only know exactly who he is, but were also proud to say they owned at least one or two of his albums.
Whether this was true or not I’ll never know, but either way it shows that his music struck a chord with the audience gathered at &Union on Friday, though to be honest I could have guessed that just by watching their reaction to his set.
His set was split down the middle between his own material and his favourite covers which included the Paul Simon track “You Can Call Me Alâ€, one of my favourite Hendrix songs of all time “Crosstown Trafficâ€, the Michael Jackson classic “Billy Jeanâ€, the most soulful rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car†I’ve ever heard and even a cover of the long lost Joan Osborne song “What If God Was One Of Us?â€
But for me, the highlight of his set was hearing him play “Hold Me In Your Arms†which, I found out later is one of his original songs. There’s something in the stark honesty of that song, the way it builds slowly to it’s howling, heartfelt climax that tears me up every time I hear it and Friday night was no exception.
Looking around at the sea of happy faces laughing at his jokes, clapping and singing along to his songs and demanding he go back onstage for an encore that ended up lasting another 40 minutes, I couldn’t help but feel like for that brief moment, everything was right in the world.
The wind whipped through the trees on either side of Foy as he played and his voice rang out through the streets for a five block radius from Hout Street to Wale and Loop Street to Buitengracht. The mic was his pulpit and we were his choir, the holy spirit blowing all around us while we danced and drank and celebrated being ALIVE brother!
After Foy finished up at &Union, we jumped in the car and hit the Shack to shoot the breeze and play some pool (he kicked my ass 2 games to 1, but we teamed up to play some challengers and mopped the floor with them).
I got to know the man a little better over a couple of rounds of drinks and can honestly say his talent is outweighed only by his humility and his soulfulness by his quick wit, which is sharp as a tack and had us laughing until the early hours of the morning.
It’s no surprise to me that his songs have continued to ring out inside my head from after I shook his hand and bade him farewell sometime around 3 on Saturday morning right up until now as I struggle to put the experience of meeting him and watching him play into words.
Suffice to say, Foy taught me something I consider extremely valuable, that what I previously thought was gospel – that the true merit of a musician is measured from the minute he steps onstage until the minute he steps off – isn’t actually true.
The true merit of a musician extends far beyond his performance. If the man himself doesn’t weigh up to the man onstage, his authenticity of both his character and his music becomes compromised.
Foy is a great musician because he is a great person. The two go hand in hand, and I only hope that his career continues to grow from strength to strength in the coming years and that sometime in the future, at a nameless bar on a nameless night, our paths may cross again.
Here’s the dealy-o – at this very moment, there is a singer / songwriter in Cape Town that I had the privilege of hearing last night who is not only phenomenally talented, but is also a stand up guy on all counts.
His name is Foy Vance and he was flown out here from Northern Ireland to play a gig at a brand event we were working on yesterday.
I was standing not 2 meters from the stage while this man was performing and just the memory of that, I shit you not, is giving me goosebumps.
I’m not going to go into a description of his style, I’ll let the videos below speak for themselves, but what I will say is that Foy is a rare example of a musician who can not only bring the entire room to a standstill with just an acoustic guitar and the power of his voice, but can also plug in and rock loop and effects pedals to make it sound like he’s an entire fucking band.
It was amazing to watch this man live. For one track, he detuned his top string to play the bass parts and then deftly started layering the track he was playing, one riff at a time, adding harmonising vocals as he went and even singing into the pickups inside his guitar at one stage, which created a vocal sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
South African audiences might not know him but he’s toured Europe and the States, generally performing to smaller crowds and his music lends itself better to intimate clubs and bars than it does to gigantic, vapid spaces.
His father was a preacher in the Church Of Christ in Northern Ireland where the only accepted form of music was acapella singing, instruments of any variety were forbidden. Despite this, Foy’s father played the guitar and taught his son everything he knew starting, as you do, with House Of The Rising Son.
Foy speaks fondly of the man who taught him how to play and passed on his love of music and singing to Foy at a young age. Foy’s love of music is a bond forged in blood, something he feels more than he understands, a religion to which he has fully committed his life.
Being a brand event, the audience were receptive but distracted by the fine whiskey that was being served, which was what got me and my new partner in crime Texx thinking.
What if we could get Foy a gig in a venue slightly better suited to the whole singer / songwriter vibe where he could play to a crowd that would love him the same way we did?
Ten minutes later, Texx was on the phone with the Powers That Be at &Union and I am fucking excited to say the second they Googled him and heard his stuff they were like “BOOK HIMâ€.
So tonight, for the first time ever, Foy Vance is going to be playing at &Union, kicking off sometime between 7.30 and 8 so let’s show this man some fucking love people!
Dig this video of him playing “Hold Me In Your Armsâ€. I tried to find out if this is his song or if it’s a cover but couldn’t find out enough about it.
I don’t think it matters though. It’s a deeply moving, incredible song performed with a lot of heart, that’s what counts.
Technically it actually landed yesterday, but being a laggard, your Tiger pal only got his claws in it as of 15 minutes ago.
If “Lonely Boyâ€, the first single off their new album El Camino is anything to go by, this album could very well top all the others I’ve heard this year and claim the coveted prize of The Tiger’s Best Album of 2011.
That would make The Black Keys the first band to EVER top my favourite album list two years running.
So far I’m 8 tracks in and I’m gonna be straight up honest here and say I like what I’m hearing
You can’t go wrong with The Black Keys. Such a great band.
Here’s their video for “Lonely Boyâ€. I have memorised this entire dance, but I don’t do it in public anymore. Too many people’s heads kept EXPLODINGWITHAWESOME!
Expect a full album review next week. First one your Tiger pal’s done in a good long while (bad Tiger).
Things have been quiet here at Tiger HQ as you may have noticed over the past few days, but it’s nothing to freak out about, I haven’t lost my blogging mojo, I’m just on holiday, being a lazy ass.
