They're The Real Thing

Jonny Cola & The A Grades
Genre: Pop / Glam / Indie
From: London, Zone 2, United Kingdom

In the history of British indie music of the past 25 years the names of Blur, Oasis, Radiohead, The Libertines and The Smiths will be writ large. The influence of these five bands hover over the British indie scene like a London smog. A smog that is dangerously close to suffocating the life out of the British music scene.

So it's a perfect time for a great British band to emerge who draw from a different well. A band with the androgynous mystery of Suede, the camp decadence of the mascaraed glam rockers of the early 70s and the knowing wit of Pulp. A band with ex members of Luxembourg and The Rocks, and a name that makes them sound like Merseybeat has beens on the shrimp in a basket circuit. Ladies & Gentlefolk give a big hand for tonights turn the creators of glit pop, Jonny Cola & The Grades.

The band recently released the mini album 'The Yellow Mini' which cements their place in the pantheon of new bands not influenced by the suffocating quinumvirate. The humorous 'Disappearing Act' with it's sorry tale of a geek who loved and lost sounds like Jarvis Cocker does The Bravery and could well be their 'Common People'. 'Heroics' with it's 'Trash' like guitars and JC's Brett Anderson vocal stylings could be an outtake from 'Coming Up' if Suede had a secret Bonnie Tyler fixation while the short but perfectly formed 'Tarmac On Converse' with it's piano is pure 'DogManStar' era Suede if they'd taken themselves a little less seriously.

Elsewhere on the album the contrast between the subject matter of 'We're All Going To Die' and the jaunty upbeat sound is similar to that deployed by the Smiths on 'Girlfriend In A Coma' while the title track, 'The Yellow Mini', with a backing that sounds suspiciously like an elastic band on a stick is a lo-fi beauty, a Hunky Doryesque oddity with the feel of a demo.

Jonny Cola is refreshing the parts other bands cannot reach and clearing the indie smog from the lungs of the British people.

Go Try

MP3 - Jonny Cola & The A Grades - One Day All Of This Will Be Yours
MP3 - Jonny Cola & The A Grades - Summer Of Hate
If anyone from the IFPI is reading this track is published with the permission of Jonny Cola so please refrain from alleging infringement of copyright.

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Jonny Cola & The A Grades - Myspace // Last.FM

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Jonny Cola & The A Grades
We're All Going To Die