Month: June 2002

The Slow Poisoners have played with the likes of Green Day, Sophie B. Hawkins and surf guitar legend Dick Dale; their first full-length recording “Great Spiders and Diamond Powders” (PopSmear Records) sank without trace, and their latest offering, “The God that Failed” was recorded at the legendary Sun studios, Memphis. So who are the Poisoners, and what are they doing languishing so cheerfully in pop’s backwaters? Well, they sound like Weezer’s hillbilly cousins, with a disarming combination of nerd rock, Continue Reading

The seven inch single as a terrifying experience? A cool band from Leicester? What times we live in, my friends. ‘Elvis Presley Séance’ is the latest offering from Fish from Tahiti, and like a lot of their material, it mines a rich seam of spoken vocal samples. This time, we are listening to a middle-aged-housewife-from-Slough cum medium describing, with a teeth grinding banality that eventually becomes creepily atmospheric, the séance she is about to conduct. Combine this vocal with the Continue Reading

Combining the bitchiness of Liz Phair, the vulnerability of Jewel and the independence of Alanis Morissette, Naomi constructs songs of survival, individualism, and self-reliance on her debut self titled EP. Naomi grew up enthralled by the poetry of James Langston Hughes and her songs evident of her admiration of this revolutionary black poet.  The New York City singer/songwriter in-your-face approach hasn’t gone unnoticed as her experimentation with both organic and electronic sounds lead her to work with the likes of Continue Reading

I’m looking at this tour anthology now from the standpoint of both the punter and the performer. I actually played on the Warped Tour a few years ago. It was a big deal for my band, and though we were pretty out of place stylistically, we still looked forward to playing for thousands of people who had never seen us. The Warped Tour looks to be an event summarizing what is “punk“ now-at least emo, pop-punk (pop-ular), and ‘core. A Continue Reading

Former DJ with chart act The Dust Junkies, Ganiyu releases his debut solo single, ‘Special’ on 1st July – the first release from the new Manchester/London label, Key Recordings. With its chilled out tempo, acoustic guitar riffs, and a half spoken Mancunian purr of a vocal, the track saunters quite happily in and out of left field, making this a pleasant slice on indie pop. Ganiyu describes his music as ‘organic soul’ but this single is a little too short Continue Reading

Not to be confused with the heavy metal band that shares the name, this Wayne is an alternative pop/rock group riding the wave of the current onslaught of the British Pop rejuvenation that has become a dominant force in music, again.   While the band is based in Birmingham Alabama, Wayne has drawn resemblance to bands such as Coldplay and Travis with their notable debut, Music On Plastic; however, despite the fact that there are some similarities to an Oasis-esque/ Brit-Pop Continue Reading