March 15, 2008

Today's Hotness: The Same Bands We're Always On About

>> So without intending to, we took a week off. We suppose the South By Southwest music confab resulted in a lack of activity that interested us. Which is probably why the most interesting coverage of the conference to us was these Flickr photo sets [1, 2] posted by Internet radio streamer Woxy.com, for whom Glasgow's finest Frightened Rabbit and Manchester, England-based indie pop foursome The Answering Machine recorded live sessions.

>> As we expected, you can get the new Johnny Foreigner single "Our Bipolar Friends" b/w "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You" at EMusic [linky, linky]. Which we expect is pretty much the only way you can get it in the U.S. at this point, as the vinyls were so close to sold out even prior to the single's release that we expect you won't see any in shoppes here. Our vinyl copy is still making its way across the ocean, but we received an email from HMV claiming that it should arrive in the middle of next week. All of which raises the question: when will the Birmingham, England-based indie trio's hotly anticipated full-length debut Waited Up 'Til It Was Light get released? That information seems conspicuously absent. No clues in Alexei Foreigner's latest monthly round-up for Drowned In Sound, which you can read here. The entry, incidentally, describes a bit of the process that went into creating Johnny Foreigner's first official (or at least biggish-budgeted, we expect) video shoot. As for current events, this afternoon is Johnny Foreigner's final SXSW appearance for this year. We're a little disappointed that the band garnered no visible press or blog coverage, although we haven't really read much of the coverage at all -- so maybe they did, but their performances didn't make any headlines in our RSS reader. Johnny Foreigner resumes its breakneck UK and European touring schedule with an appearance Tuesday in London. These t-shirts don't fold themselves... Incidentally, the recently posted-to-MySpace tune "Henning's Favorite" has definitely grown on us -- we think we are put off a little by all the reverb and gratuitous panning, but under all that is a barnburner. Anyway, we've posted the track "All Mosely Gardens" many times, but we're doing it again, as it suits a rainy Saturday morning with a cup of coffee in Cambridge particularly well.

Johnny Foreigner -- "All Mosely Gardens" -- Undated Demo
[right click and save as]
[Buy Johnny Foreigner MP3s at EMusic here]

>> London-based indie rockers Fields have posted three new demos to its MySpace domicile here for tracks that are slated to appear on the band's planned sophomore full-length. We'd describe the tunes, "Sun In Your Eyes," "The Worst Love" and "Carry The Fire" as adequate, but perhaps a little lifeless in demo form. We look forward to hearing what the proper recordings sound like, with the belief that some big guitars, proper drumming and more vibrant vocal performances could improve upon the demos immensely. After releasing the major-label debut Everything Last Winter last spring (confusing, right?), the band executed the requisite touring and quickly dropped off the radar. As we wrote here last month, the band recently resurfaced with news about line-up changes and the new record.

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