The Big Dirty - the first three releases

The Big Dirty- this not what one would expect when one uses the term, “British rock”. Raw Aus-pub feel with hints of US-stadium rock in a self-proclaimed hat-tip to the “classic legends of 70s and 80s rock and metal”.

These guys ramp it up in their Bandcamp contributions to the world of straight-ahead-rock music and promise more in an album-release later this year. 

What a fine introduction following a random tweet that answered the question “What are you looking forward to in 2020?”

Under The Crimson Moon (August 2016):
A veritable rhapsody until the vocals kick in from around 90sec. This is my and the world’s introduction to the band with a hybrid of Axl Rose/Guns’n Roses and Bernard Fanning/Powderfinger weaving throughout a big, dirty, hard rocking sound that promises much for this Northampton four piece

Rhythm of my Drum (March 2017):

More G’nFn’R in this assault on the aural senses. Straight out of the blocks, I am sure I’ve heard this hook on either of the J-stations I happen across from time to time. 

As with Crimson Moon there is a surprise to keep listeners on their toes.

It’s music like this that make me wish Australia wasn’t as far away from the rest of the world; that just popping out to see them in full flight was possible. We’ll just have to wait for the ground swell to make an Antipodean tour worthwhile for them.

Sex Rock City (December 2018): 
An extended EP? A mini-album? iTunes calls any music release an album but the usual definition is 10+ tracks. Whatever you call it, here is The Big Dirty in full flight with seven songs to keep you keen: 

• Sex Rock City: Detroit Rock City but dirtier? Hell No! This eats KISS for breakfast and shits them out at bedtime! Keen on tempo changes, surprise dips and multiple stops throughout a song, these guys keep it rockin’ like it’s 1979!

• Safeword: for when it gets too much to handle. Maintain the rage! Maintain the volume! Maintain the self-proclaimed hat-tips to 70s and 80s rockers with 30-40 years’ input to keep it as fresh as anything else being created today. James Shaw’s vocals rival the vocal exercises Freddie used to do during his live performances. 

• The Day The Devil Came To Town: was he carrying a fiddle? No, but he was reaching back to the early-70s dirty Les Paul sound that made bands like Kansas, Mountain, and Blue Öyster Cult the legends they are today, sans cowbell. Add in some Chris Cornell throat-killers to make this track keep kick it along

• Punch Drunk Crazy: Brings guitarist Chris Datson’s influences out onto his sleeve!!  

• Pheromones: My favourite track so far. Had me reaching for superlatives which wouldn’t ever be able to capture the pace and emotion of this song.

• Paradise on Fire: With an opening akin to Angus Young’s Black or Salute days, a quiet intro lures one into expecting a chill out. But no, the pace is maintained. Dedicated, perhaps, to the Australian summer experience of 2019/2020?

• Queen of Hearts: The Big Dirty want to give it to us, and they have done that in spades!! But where you might walk away from your device sated by all this hard rock, you wouldn't be finished just yet
  

• Wicked Game: If you're not a collector of hard-copy music any more, make an exception for this record, even if it's only for this last track. We all know Chris Isaak's version of this song, but don't expect anything from this one- just let it smack you like the rest of this record. In true Big Dirty style, this one keeps driving over the cliff like Thelma and Louise, but unlike those passed heroines, it keeps going after it bottoms out. What a way to finish!!
  

In Richard Ayoade-as-Moss’ paraphrased words, these guys kick bottom! All killer. No filler. And a new record in the offing as we speak. How they maintain this pace is described in their tweet of 16/01/2020: 

What's your poison this morning, guys? 

I'm on a triple-shot cappuccino with vanilla syrup, 2 cans of red bull, 50ml of rum, 2 ibuprofen, an extra large jam doughnut and I've got a Tony Robbins audio pep-talk on repeat! 😝☕️⚡️💪💪🍆💦

Today is my bitch!

Get onto The Big Dirty bandwagon now, before they explode. It will be so good to be able to say, “I knew them when...”!

Rock and fucking roll my friends. Rock. And. Fucking. Roll!!

PG (Jacky) Gleeson

17 January 2020 (edited to include Wicked Game from the CD version 31/01/2020)

Polaroids and Postcards Interview with Amanda Easton, Christmas Eve 2019

Amanda Easton talks about her new “Polaroids & Postcards” EP
-- Christmas Eve, 2019 --

Peter: First of all, thank you for bringing me out of retirement to review this release! Second of all, congratulations! I said it best when I said, this is an amazing record!

Amanda: Thanks so much! It’s great hearing a review from someone who has known me from the beginning – there’s more context in what you’re saying and hopefully you’ve seen improvement along the way!

P: I wouldn’t say improvement; I would call it change. And for the better! But I just have a few questions to put to you about the new record. I know you had a site on the “Dark Web” where subscribers to your email list could download each of the tracks over a five day period, or elect to buy the record instead. What gave you that idea?

A: I think the world has become more about immersive experiences. People want more than just ‘things’ nowadays and the internet has given us the tools to create multimedia experiences out of our music. There is a movement I’ve been noticing, particularly among US-based indie artists, where they are doing this type of thing and so I’ve been watching and learning and decided to try a version of my own for this new launch. I think the traditional way of releasing music: trying to get on the radio, in the press and in the record stores; is less relevant nowadays, particularly to indies where the millions of dollars needed to make that happen effectively is not available to us! But we have the tools now to bypass many of these gatekeepers and reach potential fans directly. But I think to interest new people in music they’ve never heard of, you need to stand out and offer more than just the songs. Giving people more access to what the artist is thinking and how they are creating the art – in this case music – is one way to do that. People can go press a button on a music streaming service and hear anything they want, but the danger is they will click away 3 and half minutes later and never revisit. If you’ve managed to create a meaningful connection with the person, because they now know the story behind the song, you’ve potentially made a long term fan. I would rather have 2000 real fans than a million streams.

P: Personal connection is very important, but so is what those more established artists have. And I can only hope to have this sort of connection with an artist whose work I have been following for so long. And I’m glad of the opportunity to ask you a few questions that this amazing record brought to my mind in the hope that the viewers at home can strengthen their connection with you as an artist. First of all, I’ve noticed, after reviewing your last three releases now, that there is a distinctive Eastern flavour to your music.

A: I lived in Japan for 2 years, singing 6 nights a week with a cover band. I'm obsessed with the place and its culture and revisit every couple of years.

P: You revisit musically, and artistically. Have you been able to physically revisit?

A: Yes I actually revisit physically every 2 years or so.  I have family in Europe and so often stop over in Asia on the way – so any excuse to go back to Japan! I still have lots of friends there too so I feel like the Japanese connection is an ongoing one even if I’m not there.

P: In the cover-art for “Polaroids and Postcards”, I picked up some other kitsch that could also be related to this obsession. The imagery for your Bowie tribute, for example, for all the world looked like you were holding a radio mic. But through your subscriber-only pages, we see that it was actually a ray-gun which I would date back to perhaps Flash Gordon, Captain Proton, or even some Japanese science fiction from the 60s or 70s.

A: I’ve always been into scifi – the more schlocky the better! I loved Doctor Who and Star Trek as a kid and prefer them both when the special effects were less fancy than today’s. When I lived in Japan, I discovered how big a role scifi played in their pop culture so, of course, that made me love Japan even more. All the kitchiness of their pop culture is attractive to me – the colour, vibrancy, cuteness and theatre of it all. Japan is such a mix of its traditional heritage and its cutting-edge modernness and so you still see vintage scifi imagery – like Godzilla – in current artforms. I just love that!

P: And the science-fiction feel to the record extends to the sounds you’ve created. Do you listen to much vintage synth music or is it just something that you found in your Nord and wanted to share with us?

A: Goldfrapp is one of my favourite music groups ever and they use a lot of vintage synths, so that would be my main influence. That’s actually why I bought the Nord in the first place – it’s what they use! I’m not an expert in ‘sounds’. I play around on my Nord and get something that I Iike for my demos but I need to give credit to my producers (Mavoi for track 5; and for tracks 1,2 3 and 6 a guy who enigmatically wants to be known as ‘Wow and Warmth’) for coming up with the end results. Of course I am executive producer so they get a lot of guidance from me but they are the master at translating the ideas from my demos (and my head!) into what you end up hearing. ‘Wow and Warmth’ always says to me: “It’s good you know exactly what you want” – which I think might be his polite way of saying I’m a bit bossy, but I do have a very fixed idea of the sounds I want but not always the skill at creating them.

P: And how good is it that you have found someone who can do that for you! Definitely a keeper! Now, the credits on the sleeve liner for the record show only three musicians; that you did everythingexcept the bass guitar and cello. Yet you’ve managed to capture the sound of a whole band line-up on the title track!

A: Thank you – again I have to give credit to the producers. There are no additional live musicians or live musical instruments being played on that track. Sounds have been created/layered and built up from synths and samples. It’s weird that I perform live with amazing musicians all the time but in my recording world there is something I really love about synthesized sounds! Yes, track 5 ‘Polaroids & Postcards’ does sound more live than the others but really that is just some of the samples that were chosen – and of course that is a different producer than most of the tracks, so that may have been his influence at play there. I did film some of the live recording sessions so you will see that pop up in some music video but they probably won’t be recreated in a live context – more a unique coming together that happened just for a particular song recording.

P:  Speaking of videos, can we expect any more?

A: Yes, there are two released at this point. There is ‘I Saw the Message’ and also ‘Polaroids & Postcards’. ‘I Saw the Message’ is based around a retro computer screen – the old black screen with green writing, which spells out some of the lyrics. I showed the first rough cut to my email list but the finished version is here: https://youtu.be/e8KKK4upOOc. I’ve also released an anime video for ‘Polaroids & Postcards’ here: https://youtu.be/sMjr0B9V3oY. I have shot the green screen component of ‘Man Who Fell to Earth’ (I am an alien) and that is going to be edited in to an existing (public domain of course) vintage Japanese sci-fi movie to create a music video – so that one will probably be next. I also have some footage from the recording sessions of ‘Letter to a Small Boy’ and being a more organic song, that will have a more natural music video too. There will probably be a video for every song eventually – I love working with video but it’s very time consuming since I like to do most of the editing myself, so I tend to release them quite a bit after the actual songs!

P: And, from the eye of a music collector since the mid 1970s that notices small and probably insignificant things like catalog number and liner notes, this is EP3 of 3(1. Blue; 2. Disco; 3. Postcards). Is this a hint at perhaps there is a full album coming? A best-of? A box-set? Yes, we can access them online as they were released, but is there enough interest to be able to provide those who want one with a hard-copy of everything in the same place?

A: Love that you noticed that! No, no best-of planned, but a full length album planned for end of next year. We’re half done already!

P: Can you tell us what we can expect? New stuff, previous releases?

A: All brand new but direction-wise in the same ball park as ‘Polaroids & Postcards’, at least in part. P&Pis a very emotional and nostalgic collection of songs and so are some from the album, but I will also have a bit more attitude and fun on some of the new stuff.

P: Amanda, you must be so proud of this new record! I have never had a reaction to a release as I did with this! I should expect that you’re going to be taking it to the people as much as possible?

A: Thank you! I find it so hard to judge my own work – I’ve always been proud of everything I’ve done at the timebut the world doesn’t always like it! And of course looking back sometimes I agree with the world too! I do love this record and the signs are that there are quite a few others that agree so if that’s the case I will continue to promote it!

P: Thank you for your time, today. I really hope to be able to see you live very, very soon! I haven’t seen you since the release of Skinat Fox Studios back in the 90s.

A: Wowee I was such a babe in the woods then! I feel more at home with everything now – I feel like I have found my place more musically. Yes I hope to see you at a gig soon! Thanks so much for staying interested in what I’m doing!

…

Amanda Easton - Disco Disconnected - Independent release

I’ve been following Amanda’s work for a long time now and am impressed by how much it has grown over the years. So I was quite excited to hear, three years after I wrote about her Out Of The Blue crowd-funded project, that she had a new record in the offing.

Amanda calls it an album, but with four new tracks and a remix of each of them, it is probably more an EP. Whatever you want to call it, Disco Disconnected hits all manner of outlets at the end of the month. Apart from the influence-artists’ weaving their influence throughout, I got a sense of some late-90s Kylie with other sonic echoes in the mix.

The lead / title track has quite the Eastern flavour while encapsulating many of the eras of disco including Bros of the 80s (I also got this from the music-video), Massive Attack / Portishead of the 90s, and Goldfrapp of the 00s. An Alison Goldfrapp song recently appeared on my MP3 player and I could have sworn it was Amanda. I said as much to Amanda at the time and her response was that Goldfrapp is one of her favourite acts. That comes as no surprise when listening to Disco, or any of her previous works including Dance To The Music In My Head, Moshi Moshi, Good Old Fashioned Heartache or The Whole Shebang.   

The disconnection from disco continues on the new mini/album / EP with the chill-out of Untangle and the Bond Film outro-credits underscore Hanging By A Thread. Thread is a mix of Shirley Bassey on Goldfinger and Cilla Black in To Sir With Love combined with a nice cello. This isn’t Amanda’s first foray into Bondesque either! New Bohemians harkens back to Amanda’s previous works with some production-quality effects thrown in to keep us on our toes. This track is also getting a lot of “air” time on Amanda’s soundcloud, described by one subscriber as a “bouncy, happy, positive song.” Thus rounds off the “original mix” part of the record. 

The John Ov3rblast Remix of the single retains the mystic feel of the single but is more ethereal; more chill-out than disco. Untangle’s House Master Flex Remix would be a track you’d play between the disco and the chill-out, or something a relaxing Sunday-afternoon radio programmer would schedule. The No Qualms Remix [Hi Rez] version of Hanging By A Thread is a tilt at Kraftwerk but is another calm-down disconnection. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Amanda as a baritone, here you can! And after all the chillin’ we finish up with some serious DOOV on the New Bohemians Stereo Missile Remix: dance to it, work out to it, sweat to it, turn it up!

Amanda Easton’s Disco Disconnected would sit quite happily alongside any work for or by any of these artists, with any currently featured on so-called top-40 radio, or on alternative radio. I can picture it now- rocking up to my barista for my morning coffee, only to be woken happily by Amanda’s dulcet tones intro’d by Kyle and Jackie O- «««¶

peterg
17Mar16 

All But Gentlemen

Based in Kilmarnock, Scotland, I only know of these guys from a Facebook Games connection to the drummer's late father

So when I was asked to comment on their musical creation I was a little apprehensive. I mean, I have been sent demos and gone to gigs on the basis of knowing someone in the band and not really liked what they had to offer- heck, I was even in that band on TWO occasions!

But when this came through my Facebook feed today I held the same misgivings, despite having already heard their previous track which I reviewed thus:

You know when you learn of a friend's venture into music: you think, hmmm, OK I'll nod and smile and be polite..yeh, not that!
ABG Talk Is Cheap it a nicely crafted and well-polished item from Killmarnoch-based All Bur Gentlemen. Boasting influences like Twin Atlantic, Little Eye, Biffy Clyro, and Jimmy Eat World, this young Scottish four-piece is set to go places. And no, that's not because I know one of themAll But Gentlemen "Talk Is Cheap"- Four Stars

This review was never published because I wanted to get a hold of the EP and write about the whole thing. It still includes the typos, which is how rough the review is!

Anyway, this is the band's first video

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvFw4FDV4Uw&feature=share

My comments, by way of a spoiler, are

"Get onto and behind these guys now. Such a polished performance for such a young band!"

Do so!!!


peterg
10 Jun 14

Amanda Easton – Out of the Blue EP – Independent release

Amanda Easton’s career goes way back, back to songs like Skin, Celebrity, and Falling In, but "Out of the Blue", her latest crowd-funded 5-tracker, shows how she has grown as an artist since our first meeting back in the 90s.  

Back in the 90s I was full of praise for the sounds she was producing, and today she has grown so much from and with it. The work with the Pop Tarts, the lounge sounds of the Basement and Taronga Zoo, her work in the mainstream with names like Matthews, Reyne, Clapton, Powderfinger, and Hines have all helped generate the work behind her latest release:

Out of the Blue Track by track-

1. Dance to the Music in my Head
   Sexy, sultry- generates the vision of someone softly swaying with their eyes closed, a gentle smile on their lips .. slowly builds.

2. Moshi Moshi
   I had visions of Japanese pop with this one, that crosses Britney with Kylie, and in a good way, akin to her own early work.  

3. No Bolt Out of the Blue
   No she certainly is not! This could be a TripleJ track, given the contents of the Hottest 100 in the last few years. Brit-Pop meets Alt-Aus in the vein of Regina Spector, Sara Blasko, etc.

4. The Whole Shebang
   Very Dusty / Sandie / Cilla with her own je ne sais quoi. Her press release says that the girl-singers of the 1960s had been “disregarded as relevant to [her] type of music” but, having recently been introduced to it by Damian (Celebate Rifles) Lovelock, she’s certainly let the influence show in this and the next one.

5. Good Old Fashioned Heartache
   A gentle swinger, this time in the vain of the Spector Wall of Sound with more of that Dusty / Sandie / Cilla for good measure.

Life has been full of ups and downs for Amanda and her family, something to which I can relate, and hopefully there’s more good than bad in the future for them all! "Out of the Blue" is certainly a fine example of where she’s been, where she is, and perhaps, where she’s going.

Very nice! «««

peterg

24Mar13