Friday, 28 November 2008

Rich Kelleway From Sennen

1. How would you describe Sennen?

I’ll keep it simple because I’ve been mysteriously struggling to answer this question for a while now. We like melodies, we like harmonies, we like a bit of Rock N’ Roll, we like noise, and we like umm, you know, genuine music that has a bit of an emotional impact. We try and incorporate all of the above, and I guess whether or not we succeed is up to other people to decide.

2. What are your main influences?

When we were young I think bands like the velvet underground and the Beatles probably shaped the way we’ve done things ever since. Then when we were starting out Larry and I used to learn teenage fan club songs and found we were alright at it, and carried on singing like that. We’re all big fans of spiritualized and sonic youth, not only their music but their attitude towards everything they do and how they make their records. I hope some of that attitude has rubbed off on us.

3. What’s the best UK gig you have played?

Good question. There’s been a few good ones along the way, but it guess you remember the most recent ones better. We’ve done a lot of shows this year, but I think the best was the end of the road festival. It was a packed tent with a fantastic atmosphere and everything just clicked on the night.

4. What country (outside the UK) Do you like playing?

If I had to choose one (and it for the purposes of this interview I do) I’d go for Germany. We did Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne supporting Deus, and the German crowds certainly seemed to connect with what we do. I think they like their noise.

5. What would you say to young guitarists trying to make it?

Well for a start I’m the wrong man to ask cause I haven’t figured out how to make it yet myself! I the only thing I’d say is don’t worry about being technically brilliant because it really doesn’t necessarily make for good music. A lot of my favourite records have been made by musicians who aren’t technically proficient, and I think it’s often those limitations that actually make these records what they are. I’m talking about records by The Stooges or the Velvet Underground or the Ramones. Great bands who believed 100% in what they were doing and didn’t care about scales or technical ability. They meant it which is infinitely more important, just find your own style and work at it.

6. Is their any work on a new album or something?

There is! We’re going into the studio just before Xmas for a few days. We’ve been playing new material on tour so we can’t wait to record again. I’ve no idea if it’ll end up as the start of the next album or not. I guess we’ll see how it turns out….

7. Any last words?

Ha! Well, I hope it won’t be last words and I hope there’s a lot more to come from us. However if this literally does turn out to be the last ever sennen interview I think you can assume our xmas recording sessions turned out worse than expected. In which case I never liked the other guys and I’ve always had one eye on “doing a solo album” as they say.

 

I really like this band and you should check them out. Seriously go see them live its such a good experience.  Will

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Pretty Little Mutiny

Line up

Jordan - Guitar/Vocals, Lolly - Drums, Joe - Bass/Vocals.

I was at their first gig and I really enjoyed them. They have this NOFX kind of sound but sometimes have aspects of heavier punk bands like Leftöver Crack and Bad Religion. They opened with this song that really captured what the band on a whole was about and how they sound. Joe and Jordan mainly sing in the band and the way in which they do it really gives a justice to the song. One thing you can tell about this band is the fact that all the songs they write are about something/someone that has affected them in some way. This isn’t what you get in most modern day music. To say that this was their first gig I was really impressed and they did undoubtedly bring a crowd with them. I didn’t really know what to expect from them but I was pleasantly surprised. The lost song they did to finish off the set was dedicated to one of Joe’s first bands called The Ghost House. I really like that touch that they used to remember the past as well as looking towards the future. I think this is a awesome band and think you should check them out by going to one of their gigs. Find them on myspace myspace.com/prettylittlemutiny

Will

Saturday, 8 November 2008

Too Late Lucy

Too Late Lucy are a 6-piece, Brass driven Pop Punk, Ska, Rock Band from the London area England, Formed in early 2008 they are just finishing off a strong set of fast paced music which they will bring to the London music scene next year.

  too late lucy
Already they have performed in the internationally acclaimed Roots Festival that took place in North East India in May 2008, becoming the first UK band to perform in the North East and the first UK Unsigned Band to play in India.

too late lucy1

This provided the band with the chance to perform their material in front of audiences of up to 20,000 people at every show. The Festival was also covered by Myspace India, Rolling Stone Magazine, the New York Times, GQ Magazine and a documentary on this years festival was aired on India's Zcafe channel on July 5th!


Currently back in the studio, listen out for Too Late Lucy in early 2009!

Monday, 3 November 2008

The Firm

1. How did you come up with the name The Firm?

First of all, it's worth pointing out that we are well aware of the fact that we are not the first 'The Firm' - there have indeed been about three others, but nobody really cares. When quizzed on this, my stock belligerent answer is that we are not called The Firm - we actually are The Firm. The name came almost as a response to the name of a band myself and Julia used to be in called Sub-Culture. Sub-Culture seemed to be all-encompassing and almost welcoming and, after the largely negative experience of being in that group, we wanted something a bit more forceful and violent, so we chose The Firm as we'd spent a large portion of time sitting in the Blind Beggar. We would sit in what were allegedly the very seats that other famous Firm sat in when having meetings, and we would make plans. None of these ever came to fruition, but that didn't stop us. We also like the business-like connotations of the name, seeing as bands - whether they like it or not - seem to be run mainly as businesses these days. It also gave us the chance to say 'we're with The Firm', which is always one of life's great pleasures.

2. What is The firm about and what are your main influences?

That almost implies that it's a film, which is a lovely thought. Unfortunately, the plot would be too long-winded to go into, so we shan't bother. Essentially, what we are trying to do is marry what we see as very leftfield elements of music and throw them into almost shameless pop songs. I have never really entertained the idea of having a particular sound and, whenever I feel we've achieved that, I've always suggested doing the complete opposite, which is probably down to me being an awkward bastard. So what people might have us down as at the moment probably won't be how it'll be in 'x' amount of time. Having said that, our primary influences at this point in time would probably include the darkest elements of post-punk, the noisiest elements of shoe gazing, the DIY ethic of punk and C86, Albert Camus, Get Carter, the very bowels of London, newspaper headlines, Pet Shop Boys, Oscar Wilde, psychedelia, Suede, The Smiths, nostalgia, poverty, depression and The Verve. We also obsess over the lyrics, which are deeply important to us because we want them to mean something to people. We don't just want to be background music, we still believe in the romantic notion that music can change people's lives and influence their lifestyles. We want to encapsulate that and therefore I make sure the lyrics stand up as poetry. Whether that is the case or not isn't really for me to say, but I like to poke fun at what people see as being tragic and depressing, but also I try and find the dramatic in the very ordinary.

3. What type of people do you bring to your shows?

Beautiful and intelligent sorts, obviously. We hope we shall see more of them! In fact, we'll probably end up scaring most of them away.

4. What’s is one of the bands gig or personal highlights?

The best thing we have ever done is set up our clubnight, which is called The Vapour Trail. We were absolutely sick of having to play with insufferably tedious bands with whom we had absolutely nothing in common, and decided to capitalize on the lack of decent nights in town. There are some brilliant ones, but they are very few and far between. So, given that Julia used to run clubnights in Hamburg and is a DJ, and also the fact that, at the time, we were very interested in the C86/early Creation scene and how the bands used to put on their own nights and write fanzines, The Vapour Trail was born. It has been an unsung inspiration and has seen a lot of excellent bands play, and some are very much involved in it to a large degree. The other highlight was a gig we played at the Buffalo Bar where we really felt The Firm was born - it was myself, Chris, Julia and Yameen onstage together for the first time and, prior to that, the band wasn't really a complete entity. We played five songs at deafening volume and just prayed that the melodies could be heard, although we also wanted people's noses to explode. As it panned out, the melodies could be heard, no noses exploded, everybody was happy.

5. What’s the worse gig you have ever played and what made it so bad?

Prior to the true birth of The Firm, an embryonic version, shall we say, played a dire gig at The Resistance's clubnight in Cambridge. The grunting fool who was supposed to be playing the drums failed to show up so we had to do a semi-acoustic gig which, against all odds, went down well. That was more to do with people feeling sorry for us, though. That said, at least we were in time, which was something of a rarity at that point.

6. Any plans for the new future?

There is plenty in the pipeline. We will be playing with some wonderful people at the Vapour Trail over the coming months and will hopefully commence touring next year. In February, we are releasing our debut single on Whimsical Records, which will be 'If You Don’t Want to Know Life's Dismal Results' and we're doing the video for that next month. Also in December, we'll be completing a huge stack of new songs because I want our set, and eventually our album, to read like a manifesto - "Life and Love according to The Firm" - although it thankfully won't be called that, or hopefully be anywhere near as dull or dreadful as that suggests! Christ, people have enough on their plates.

7. Is there any Ep's or albums that fans can get their hands on?

At the moment, there is nothing absolutely new but I'm going to compile some sort of compilation of early demos, so if anybody is interested then they can contact us through www.myspace.com/thefirmband and I'll be more than happy to post them a copy when it's finalized. Other than that, there are demos on that site, although some are not representative of where we are at currently, and are certainly not the definitive Firm. For that, you'll just have to hang on until 2009.

8. Any last words?

I'll just go and grab a dictionary. No, I think the important thing to remember is that, as the world seems to be becoming a bleaker and more depressing place, what with money disappearing and technology swallowing up reality - not to mention all of the dire things screamed at us from newspapers along with the decline in popular culture - we still have music and the romance that goes with it. The careerist crap that has been falling off the factory line in the last few years is being replaced by drama, passion, melody and mystery, not to mention a sense of anger, all the things that make for the best pop music. And at the risk of sounding like an arrogant swine, I believe we do those things very well.

Ross/ The Firm

This band is amazing and i really like their music! I think that you should check them out on myspace myspace.com/thefirmband