The Devil is dedicated to unearthing unknown, unheard, unseen, unheralded, unfamiliar or down right unbelievable bands old or new that have not yet hit the radars of the British public. If you are a new band or artist and would like to be considered for inclusion then please contact me via email, twitter, myspace or facebook.
With a witch, a skeleton and Satan this track couldn't be anymore suitable for a Halloween special if it donned a scream mask and starred in a Tim Burton special. Perfect for the post Trick and Treat party.
After the sombre tones of SimpleSongs the Black Hand Gang serve up some rollicking rock 'n roll that sounds curiously like U2 if they'd been raised on a Texan ranch.
The strangely named Trojan Horse Rotavator are what Fritz Lang probably thought the future would sound like and you know he might just have been right.
If you want evidence that life is unfair and that you don't always get what you deserve then check out Chronology a cracking compilation of the best songs from the 30 year career of the incomparable Robyn Hitchcock. Despite writing 'I Wanna Destroy You', one of the best psych pop punk songs ever, a song that surpasses anything released by his better known new wave contemporaries, and a back catalogue that must be the envy of his peers he has never achieved lasting, commercial success. A mystery the combined efforts of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Columbo would fail to solve.
Chronology takes in every aspect of Hitchcock's musical life from his time as a Soft Boy through his early solo years, his Egyptian phase and his Venus 3 period. The album kicks off with the aforementioned 'I Wanna Destroy You' a track which stands up to anything that the more commercially successful Psychedelic Furs ever released. It's a new wave classic which sounds as good today as the day it was released 32 years ago and a stunning start.
Tiptoeing through the album it is really hard to avoid comparisons between Hitchcock and Syd Barrett. If you didn't know better you could easily mistake 'I Often Dream Of Trains' and 'If You Were A Priest' for long lost Syd Barrett originals. Where Barrett wrote about knicker stealers, gnomes and scarecrows, Hitchcock's songs include cross dressing Elvis impersonators, trains to Basingstoke and rocket ships. A unique blend of the mundane, the strange and the futuristic. Even the song titles sound like refugees from The Madcap Laughs. 'Balloon Man' is a Barrett title if ever I heard one. Hitchcock himself acknowledges his debt to Barrett on his typically obtuse tribute 'The Man Who Invented Himself'.
Lyrically Hitchcock even manages to out strange Barratt. On the surface Kingdom of Love is an apparently straight forward rocker but listen closely and you'll find lyrics straight out of a Terry Gilliam nightmare. "You've been laying eggs under my skin/now they're hatching out under my chin/now there's tiny insects showing through/and all them tiny insects look like you" sure beats 'Baby, baby, baby oh I thought you'd always be mine' !
It's not just the eccentric and occasionally absurd lyrics and oddball song titles that beg comparison with Barrett it's the quirky spirit and idiosyncratic sense of humour that underpins the entire album. It's a peculiarly English humour perhaps best summed up by 'My Wife and my Dead Wife' which sounds like a song from a Monty Python rock opera written by Ray Davies. Maybe this is why Hitchcock has never been more than a cult figure.
It's a mystery why the world camped out on the doorstep of a reclusive Syd Barrett for years while ignoring the equally surrealistic, whimsical English eccentricities of Hitchcock. Restore some semblance of fairness to the world by seeking out Chronologyand give Hitchcock the belated success he deserves.
This article was originally written by the Devil for The 405 and is published with permission.
Scout Killers From: Bath/Trowbridge/Bristol/Other, United Kingdom
Julien Morrez, singer with UK indie rockers and woggle haters Scout Killers, took some time out from plotting the death of Lord Baden Powell's finest to chat to the Devil about his influences, his favourite bands and hirsute jellyfish.
The Devil: Why Scout Killers? What have you got against scouts?
Julien: You'd have to ask Beau, it was his idea, and I have a feeling it was a spur of the moment thing (maybe he'd had a bad bob a job experience or had heard the last Scouting For Girls album,The Devil)
The Devil: What other names did you ponder before deciding it had to be Scout Killers?
Julien: No idea!
The Devil: Who are the biggest influences in your life and on your music?
Julien: In life? that's a big question, I'm not sure enough of my life has been lived yet to really answer that. In music however, I've been a long time fan of many genres. everything from Aerosmith, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Rollin' Stones, Rage Against the Machine, KoRn, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Haddaway, The Prodigy, Metallica, the Chemical Brothers, Led Zepplin, Thomas Newman, John Frusciante, Air, Bob Marley, Nina Simone and a lot more that at this time escape my thoughts.
The Devil: What was the first record you owned and what was the first record you ever bought with your own money? Julien: I think the first record I ever bought was definitely on cassette, I have a feeling it was Legend by Bob Marley and the Wailers.
The Devil: What makes Scout Killers stand out from the millions of other bands across the world? What makes you unique?
Julien: What makes us stand out? Our performance is fueled by anger, love, sadness, eroticism, hatred and any other emotions which also contribute to how our music develops. We haven't really gone along with our contemporaries, not that anything is wrong with how many modern musicians turn out there music. We just do it how we want, it's just lucky that some people like what we're doing, I guess maybe we cut the musical tension in terms of what you hear a lot of now. I guess there is enough familiarity in what we do which stems from how we write, but the way we write changes and everything gets re-written until it clicks just right. The Devil: Which bands or artists on the current music scene make your spine tingle with joy? Julien: There's a lot out there that is all very good. Lana Del Rey has been an often repeated artist on my itunes, the new(ish) BonIver album is pretty sweet too. I'm hoping a new John Frusciante album is on it's way.
The Devil: Favourite song? Julien: Just one? That's not fair, that or it hasn't been written, if it's been written I haven't had the pleasure of hearing it, for now though I'll say Save The Population by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Devil: Favourite book?
Julien: Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The Devil: Favourite Movie? Julien:
Comedy: Dumb and Dumber (tied with) The Graduate Drama: Spun (tied with) Carandiru Biopic: Helter Skelter
The Devil: Favourite word?
Julien: I prefer noises to words
The Devil: Tell me something that you've never told anyone before.
Julien: That jellyfish has a beard!
The Devil: If you weren't in Scout Killers how would you keep yourself occupied?
Julien: Hmmmm, maybe some sort of experimental solo/partnership type of thing.
The Devil: If you were interviewing yourself what would your killer question be and how would you answer it?
Julien: Well, the killer question would be something that reveals a secret or rumour. I'm not sure what or which that would be.
The Devil: Is there anything else you'd like to tell the Devil Has The Best Tuna readers?
Julien: Scout Killers are preparing for a 2012 tour in the UK, which will be with a new bassist, new songs and new thongs. In the mean time we've got our music available on itunes, amazon downloads, spotify and soundcloud. Tour info will be available on our facebook and myspace pages, you can also follow us on twitter @scoutkillers.
Poppet is the alter ego of California raised musician Molly Raney. She sounds like a young Bjork fan slowly going mad whispering sweet nothings to her teddy bear collection while hitting various electronic instruments with lollipops. It's truly strange music from the margins and sounds like nothing you've ever heard before. It's marmite music that you'll either clasp to your bosom like a long lost friend or throw sticks at from a safe distance.
A Jonbar hinge is a small non-descript event that had an important effect on history, but because of time travel the outcome of the choice or event was changed leading to a different future or an alternate history. Devil's favourites The Jonbarr Hinge are a band from London that should have an important effect on musical history and if they don't I'm going to build myself a time machine and ensure that they do!
They're back with some new tracks the best of which is the outstanding Spinning Rocks a gloomy indie anthem for the dark days ahead with the less than reassuring chorus 'nothing's going to be ok'. A contender for the Devil's best tracks of 2011.
Wax Idols From: Oakland, Claifornia, United States If you're a punk inspired band you have to be either very confident in your music or a little stupid to name an album after one of the best lines from the most incendiary single of all time, the one that almost single-handedly launched the punk movement. You have to have some brass cojones to take the Sex Pistol's nihilistic chant and make it your own. On the evidence of thier debut album No Future, Wax Idols are fully equipped with cojones made of the hardest platinum. But then with lead singer Heather Fedewa a veritable garage punk veteran having served her apprentice in Bare Wires, Hunx and His Punx and Blasted Canyons, supported by Sic Alps' Mat Hartman and a couple of members of The Splinters they've earned the right to be cocky.
'Hotel Room' and 'Sand In My Joints' are sub two minute blasts of garage punk to get you pogoing around the bedroom and spitting at your relatives. They'll shake you out of your post summer torpor quicker than a sea breeze in a hurricane zone. But if No Future was just a collection of short, sharp, ear splitting punk it could easily get tiring over the length of a whole album. Fortunately the band mix it up with tracks like 'Grey Area' which sounds like Blondie circa Parallel Lines, 'Uneasy' which has echoes of The Dandy Warhols and 'Gold Sneaker' which owes as much to the Bangles as Sleater Kinney. The latter almost strays into Britpop territory long deserted by British bands. It reminds me of the once moderately successful but largely forgotten British, bratish punkish upstarts Kenickie famous for spawning the ubiquitous presenter Lauren Laverne.
The album really takes off with the sludgy, grungy five minute lament to the bleakness of the human condition called, appropriately enough, 'Human Condition'. Summing up life in a twitter busting 95 characters with a pithy 'We get down we get high we get by then we die' it's not a track to play at the junior prom. There are no oblique metaphors, no messing about for Wax Idols, they're as straight as a die. With the similarly lengthy but slightly more upbeat, despite it's title and refrain of 'you're not free', Bad Future it's clear that these idols are made from something a little more solid than wax. They're in for the long haul.
This article was originally written by the Devil for The 405 and is published with permission.
Schonwald From: Italy With detached, diffident vocals over a synth sound that could have come from the Mute records archive Italian duo Schonwald are cooler than the Velvet Underground in a freezer.
Mercurial wouldn't look out of place emerging from a Berlin cellar in the late 70's wearing David Bowie's cast offs. It's the sound that Ladytron have been trying to perfect for a decade and Schonwald make it sound so easy. Check out the bands myspace site for the even better Slow Milk, the sound of the Normal if Daniel Miller had been born a girl, or check out Youtube for a live version of Sometimes I Feel which owes more to PJ Harvey than the electronic pioneers of the late 70s and early 80s.
It's not all earth shaking, ear pleasing stuff. One Day Soubrette sounds a little too close to a Ladytron cast off for comfort and the meaty, beaty Our Revolution tries a little too hard to truly convince. Still for the brilliance of Mercurial and Slow Milk I'd forgive them anything, even an electro karaoke version of There's No-One Quite Like Grandma
The brilliantly named Israeli band, TV Buddhas'track Another Day In My Head sounds like they never closed CBGB's they just moved it to Israel where it is alive and thriving.
I'm not a lover of instrumentals they're just naked songs waiting for someone to write some lyrics to make them useful. Stupid Loser's fragile acoustic instrumentals are the closest anyone has ever come to changing my mind.
It's not all new stuff on the Devil's blog. My mission is to re-introduce the world to stuff that it may have missed first time round. UV Pop are an obscure avant punk band from the early 80s. They've recently reformed so now is a good time to indulge yourself in their morise, jagged edged skrunk rock.
In a world where everyone seems to know everything about everyone. Where women give birth on twitter and couple break up on facebook it's reassuring to know there are bands and artists out there who missed the lectures on internet marketing for unknown bands and let their music do the talking rather than the misguided PR person with a random quote generator.
I know nothing about The Vestals and nor probably do you. They sent me one of the least informative emails I've ever received; a link and a brief two word message "check it". No links to the usual social media suspects, no regurgitated quotes from clearly insane bloggers, no photos of the band looking mean and moody or fun and quirky. The one link they included is to a website which is more minimalist than a tramp's cloakroom. It's just a picture and a link to the one track on their soundcloud site. But what a track. 'Seventeen' shows what can be achieved if you focus all your efforts into your music. It's a lesson to all those band's out there who spend more time planning their marketing strategy and meeting with their PR manager than writing songs. It sounds like Bob Mould's post Husker Du band Sugar with the rough edges knocked off covering a lost Ryan Adams track. It's true pop music that touches your brain and your heart.
It may turn out that the mysterious Vestals are no music virgins but when it sounds this good who cares.
Californian duo Johnny Geek (methinks not the name on his birth certificate) and Megan March aka Street Eaters are the kind of DIY, itchy, scratchy, lo-fi punk band that the Devil just loves. It's the sound of the new underground, riot grrrl without the anger and the anti male rhetoric. This could well be the best girl/boy garage duo to emerge from the US since a little known band called The White Stripes.
and as if to prove that they've unearthed a rich seam of ethereal shoegazing beneath the streets of old London town here are a couple of other belters from the 3 Ts.
Perfect pop from an oddly named band. Isn't that what the Devil's blog is all about, isn't that what you come to hear?
Go Try
MP3 - You Say France & I Whistle - Animal This track is linked direct from the You Say France & I Whistle website and is therefore already freely available so please don't claim breach of copyright MP3 - You Say France & I Whistle - Nothing Town This track is linked direct from the You Say France & I Whistle website and is therefore already freely available so please don't claim breach of copyright
On debut single Flee self confessed pop obsessed idiot Pinebocks makes Morrissey sound like a happy go lucky gadfly on ecstasy. It's like he's digested one of Morrissey's discarded notebooks and spat it out onto soundcloud. Check out the bandcamp site for My Unfunny Valentine the ultimate in downbeat miserabilism. It sounds like Orange Juice after an injection of Leonard Cohen's tears.
You can teach an old Foxx a new trick. The old man of electronica John Foxx gets out his calculator for a little maths. It all adds up to the sound of tomorrow. It's breathy electronic pop to warm the cockles of your heart as the cold wind chills your bones. Where You End and I Begin could be, should be the surprise hit of the autumn.
Today's edition of Video Killed The Radio Star is a little different from the usual random collection of videos. It's a video album from Austin band The Zoltars with a Velvet Underground/Factory vibe. The film was made by the brother of one of the band members Jerod and it fits the songs perfectly to tell a story of boy meeting girl, boy taking photograph of girl, boy and girl becoming photographs boy getting laughed at by girls. You know the usual! It's worth seeing so here it is...
The ID was the initial name that Mcluskey and Humphries performed under before they decided that Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark was altogether more catchy! This London band with a similar name owe more to the soulful electro of Heaven 17 than the more poppy OMD variety.
Snails From:Bristol, United Kingdom Snails emerge from their shell with Daylight Ends a track that defies you to describe it as anything other than lovely. It's unthreatening, pleasant music that's a balm for the ears.
Come with me and Black Tambourine on a trip to a more innocent time, a time before facebook, twitter, wall to wall celebrity TV and worldwide recession. Now doesn't that make you feel better? Go Try
How could I resist a track called My Name Is Paul from Miami 5 piece Ex Norwegian? It was like it was written for me (well apart from the being 10ft tall bit as I'm quite a bit shorter than that). The fact that it sounds like Crowded House meets Squeeze on Miami Beach merely seals the deal.
