Why Oh Why – a soap opera

Due to the overwhelming deluge of offers of support to help maintain this blog, we’ve been having a think abvout the whole website and, thanks to our lovely friends at Music Glue, you will shortly notice some fairly major changes to how the Tw Forum website looks, resulting in Blam being moved directly into the website.

This will make it infinitely more likely that Blam will be up to date, as the posts for each night will be linked into the diary, removing the need for one of us to wander drunkenly into the office at 4am and notice that we are still showing the dates from December 1996. In case you be afeared of change, panic not. Blam will continue to be poorly written drivel with a side order of narcissism and a mile long streak of overdone sarcasm. It will be the same content, it will just be in a different place. And look nicer. And be updated a bit better.

 

THE HOLLOWAYS – Fri 6 Nov

Feeling reborn is a rare treat; but The Holloways resilience in recent times has led to what feels like a rebirth. Reaping such a rare reward was the first step along the clear path that now lies ahead for a band who once again have much to smile about; not that The Holloways had stopped smiling – not for very long anyway. “The sun doesn’t always shine” is one of the band’s phrases to live by; along with “everything happens for a reason”.

In the early months of 2009, Alfie and Bryn were busy recording additional new material to kick-start the year. By April they decided to start actively seeking new members and as luck would have it, in the very first rehearsal they found guitarist Mike Baker, who – after playing just one song with the band – had done enough for Alfie and Bryn to make up their mind. The following day Edwin Harris set up his drums and did a quick warm up and before even playing a song, the decision again, was easy. Luck had clearly swung back in The Holloways’ favour and a new lease of life took the boys into the studio for a couple of hectic weeks before doing a few gigs and recording 3 brand new songs and they’re back doing what they do best – playing music.

2008 had been soul destroying for the band. Much conspired to prevent full scale releases of the exciting new material recorded at the legendary Sawmills Studio. The biggest setback was the long, drawn out legal battle across the pond involving their stateside former label TVT. The darkest hour before the dawn came in December with a lot of smoke as The Holloways’ home – Nambucca – caught fire. Much was lost in the fire – practically everything. This was the final straw for Dave and Rob who felt the end had come with nothing seeming to go the band’s way. However, the founding members – Alfie and Bryn – felt the previous 3 years of good fortune by far outweighed the 12 months of bad fortune; and having weathered the storm, they concluded “2009 has to be good. Yin and yang and all that.” – The sun doesn’t always shine indeed.

The Holloways had an exciting start to life with the critically acclaimed debut – “So This Is Great Britain?” – and 2007 saw the band storm sold out shows across the UK with singles Dance Floor, Generator and Two Left Feet pumping on the radio airwaves.
Now, the energy and the bond in the band has seen the boys enjoy an intense schedule which is already relighting many fires ahead of the release of the new album – No Smoke, No Mirrors – which is due for a September release.
Everyone is massively excited for the summer schedule; the boys will be back on the road gigging the brand new set featuring songs from the forthcoming album alongside the classic Holloways favourites.

 

GOOD SHOES – Sat 7 Nov

Hailing from London’s Morden neighborhood, Good Shoes specialize in speedy, tightly written guitar pop that draws comparisons not only to contemporaries like the Futureheads, but past masters of that sound such as Gang of Four and the Buzzcocks. Featuring guitarist/vocalist Rhys Jones, his brother Tom on drums, bassist Joel Cox, and guitarist Steve Leach, the just-barely-out-of-their-teens foursome formed in 2005. The Jones brothers and Cox grew up together, while Rhys and Leach were also longtime pals who wrote and played music together and decided to make their project an official band. Playing as many gigs as possible, Good Shoes eventually landed a gig put on by Artrocker magazine; FC Kahuna, one of the other bands on the bill, were friendly with Brille Records (also home to Envelopes and the Knife), which offered the band a deal. Their debut single, “Small Town Girl,” arrived in 2005, and Good Shoes did an XFM session late that year. The year 2006 was a big one for the band, with the “We Are Not the Same” single arriving that spring and All in My Head — which featured a clever, Michel Gondry-esque video — coming out that summer. Just after All in My Head’s release, Good Shoes traveled to Sweden to record their debut album. Late that year, the Photos on My Wall EP arrived; the band’s first full-length, Think Before You Speak, was released in the U.K. early in 2007

 

TUBELORD – Sun 8 Nov

TIME TRAVELLER.

I have just travelled in time. I’ve done it before and I will inevitably do it again.
You see, today we recorded four songs for a London radio session. The songs will most probably be aired in a couple of weeks and the radio DJ will telephone me to ask questions about the songs, inbetween listening back to recordings of said songs.

So in other words, the state of my mind as it exists today, has been aurally recorded as a sort of… musically static diary entry. As we were recording the songs I could see from the window the people buzzing around Leicester Square; business-men and women, hobos, travellers, models and their photographers, media-creative-types and so on and so forth. This absorption of exterior reality stimulated what was to become my mood and state of mind for the day, a diary entry caught on microphone as it were. So, when you hear the bum notes and the over-distorted guitar content you will be listening back to my past self in the present.

Yet, this will then be juxtaposed with my voice in the future present answering the questions there and then.
At this conjuncture my present which will become my past will meet who currently exists as my future self in the present, and at this precise moment, we could hypothetically theorize that my self would have at that point become a time traveller, with my current (but at that point past) self intagibly locked in what was recorded being unable to alter what is being said in the future state of the present which has yet to happen.
Everything I understand as sense will crumble.

There is no way the answers can even be related to the song, the original recordings took place over Christmas 2008 and the radio session mid-September, so wherever or whenever the interview takes place, surely the only way of making sense of this presentation of songs will be an act of time travel? Clarity of mind finally fulfilled.

What are you doing right now? Where are you really? Where is your mind? Where is your sense? Enjoy listening to our album with this in mind, it’s released October 12th.

All the above gratefull stolen from http://musoguide.com which is a really rather excellent website

 

THE AUTOMATIC – Tues 10 Nov

Not content with filling your diary with Ash (Sold Out), Mumford & Sons (Sold Out) Cancer Bats (Buy a ticket now you idiot, it’s nearly sold out) The Holloways (look, do we need to say it repeatedly?) we got on our bikes and went looking for one extra super show that makes your eyes water. So here it is.

If you want to know more about The Automatic, there’s always google. Mind you, by the time you’ve finished checking out who they are, it will probably be sold out.

 

ASH – Sat 14 Nov – SOLD OUT

Hand over your Ash tickets or the band gets it.

 

THE FILLERS – Fri 20 November

The Fillers have been a tribute band of The Killers since 2006. They have performed all over the UK, Ireland and The Channel Islands. Their furthest booking was for the Hard Rock Café in the Dominican Republic. During their short career, this bunch of likeable lads from Bury St. Edmonds has experienced the same amount of adulation whilst they act, sound and look like the real thing. To add to their CV; they have been recommended by Brandon Flowers as a band that should be checked out; lead singer Trevor, has been mistaken for Brandon by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe; and Ronnie Vannacci has played drums for them at one of their gigs.  Check out the video evidence that is currently posted on The Fillers Facebook and YouTube!

We caught up with lead singer, Trevor Hurley, fondly known as ‘Fake Brandon’, whilst he tells us how pleased The Fillers are to be playing their first date in Kent at the Tunbridge Wells Forum in support of The Bridge Trust.

How did The Fillers first meet and whose idea was it to be a tribute band to the Killers?

“Most of us were in another band together. We entered a local Battle of the Bands competition and somehow lost!”. Trevor then jokes, “Yeah, amazing that something like that could happen!” He adds, “The format was that the winners of the competition returned the following year to play the closing ceremony. The next year came along and the band that originally beat us couldn’t play.  Because we were the runners up we were asked to take their place. We all found this a bit comical and came up with the idea that as we were filling in we would change our name to The Fillers. Then we performed the music of The Killers.  We set up a myspace page, and proceeded to get interest from promoters and venues and the rest is history!”

Which Fillers gig sticks out in your memory as being the best experience – and why?

“We performed to an audience of 35,000 at the Matthew Street Festival, Liverpool this year. It was amazing.

Where did you get that jacket?

The jacket was hand made by my local tailor”. Trevor adds with a smile, “That was an interesting conversation – “You want a what?”

Do you and the band members have other jobs or is being a band member in The Fillers your full time jobs now?

“We all have other jobs – A window cleaner, IT consultant, plumber, bus driver and computer programmer. Try and guess who is who!”

The gig at Tunbridge Wells Forum is part of a calendar of events that has been organised to fundraise for The Bridge Trust, a local charity that provides accommodation, support and advice to homeless people. Trevor responds,

“We are really pleased to be performing for such a worthwhile cause and we are all very much looking forward to the gig”, then he laughs as he recalls, “The last time I came to Tunbridge Wells was to collect a car, which broke down within 3 miles. We were driving around trying to find the Forum to see a band called Rx Bandits. We found it in the end, and it was a great night; but on the 20^th November I will be bringing a Sat. Nav. and a more reliable car!”

 

FRIGHTENED RABBIT – Sat 21 Nov

You are currently reading about Frightened Rabbit. They are a band who live in Glasgow and have done for some time. They record in bedrooms, cupboards and kitchens. Anyone can be in Frightened Rabbit. They have played some live shows in this city, but want to meet people from other cities, in order that they can come and blow into tubes when they play live. Lets keep pop music alive by getting it out of that dress and into a sweater.

 

TOWERS OF LONDON – Mon 23 Nov

Already the subject of heated debate on the Facebook and MySpace pages for The Forum (which falls broadly along the entrenched lines of “this is the bestest booking evah” and “why oh why are you booking this rubbish again they are shit”, many people seem to miss the point that prior to the homogenistic approach of Kaiser Lily Reverend Hoosier Kylie Play, people actually used to like or loathe music. You don’t actually have to like every piece of music a tiny little bit because it has some elements of indie, dubstep, rap, electro, rock metal in it, you can actually really like a band because they’re your thing and really hate another band because they are not your thing . If you hate this band GOOD. That’s the whole fucking point of there being bands and music.You’re not supposed to like it all, and you’re supposed to think some of it is shit.

Bread products I don’t have a particularly strong feeling about, or which hairspray is best, or which type of stairlift provides the smoothest journey. I will, however, happily debate with you for hours the relative merits of Pink Floyd (shit) The Clash (genius) Nick Drake (over-rated) Scott Walker (under-rated) Tortoise (don’t get me started) Mogwai (if they had one idea half as clever as one of their sloganeering interviews it would be just about good enough to clean the bottom of Damon Albarn’s feet) Green Day (bizarrely maligned for being tuneful) Slint (bizarrely praised for being tuneless) or any other actual purveyors of an attitude or a form of music that is actually worthgiving a shit about.

You may want to hate them, and think their music is cartoon punk, and think Donny is the most annoying quasi rock star in the history of the universe, and think you’ve seen it all before.  But let’s be honest, you have an opinion about them and that means they are worth you having an opinion about. Just by the very fact you’re rading this and not agreeing with it, Towers of London already accomplished more in three paragraphs than The Fratellis will manage in twenty albums.

In any case, that bit where he hopped over the wall was fucking brilliant. So there.

 

Why oh why oh why

Many of you will, by now, have noticed that Blam gets edited at frighteningly infrequent intervals and seemingly on a whim. There’s no rhyme or reason why we do this, no method in our madness, no secret plan to catch you unawares, we just do it when we get time and don’t do it when we don’t have time.

Nonetheless, we recognise that for many of you, life is simply incomplete without a regularly updated free rundown on all the gigs you won’t bother to go to but will later claim to have been at if it makes you look cool. To this end, we would like to invite each and every one of you to review, preview, interview, spout off, mock, publicise, slander and just generally make up whatever you want about whatever it is you want to make it up about and submit it to us so that there’s some sort of rolling content thing. This article is particularly aimed at the several dozen people whose fingers are currently poised over their keyboard on an urgent mission to send us an email bemoaning the lack of mentions to date of their own band, their cousins band, a bloke their mate once met’s band…. we don’t have time to review all the upcoming stuff because there’s too much of it, but we will happily carry whatever you send us in the shape of a ludicrously over the top puff piece thinly veiled as a critical review.

Seriously, if you don’t think there’s enough about you or somebody you care about on this website, send us something and we’ll put it up for you.

Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Eythangu.