I think I’ve got a bit of a band-crush on Standard Fare. It’s getting a bit out of hand, if I’m honest. I think I’m just a sucker for several things, various little trigger points in my head that close the series of synapses that leads to me to completely forget myself. Stuff like boy-girl vocals, clean choppy guitars, start-stop drums, and buckets of vim. That sort of thing. Hence, I guess, the crush. Seriously, they’re fucking brilliant. There’s no point arguing the toss with me, either, it’ll be like you said something about my sister. Just a delight from top to bottom, a bloody great grin put to vinyl, one that has never yet failed to cheer me up when I hear it, and for those unfortunate souls who know me, that’s some fucking achievement given the towering mood I’m normally in. Aces, just aces.

Standard Fare are:
Emma on vocals & bass
Dan on vocals and guitar
Andy on sticks & drums

Where are you all from?
Dan: I’m from Buxton, in North Derbyshire
Emma: I’m from York
Andy: and I’m originally from Buxton, but now live in Sheffield through studying at Uni.

How did you meet? What made you stay together?
Dan: I first met Emma at a gig where a mutual friend was playing in a band. We got chatting and not long after, our different bands at the time played a gig together. Anyway, those bands fell apart but me and Emma starting playing, and when we needed a drummer my Brother introduced me to Andy.
Andy: Yeah I was playing in a band with Dan’s brother at the time but this soon took over
Dan: it was good cause my brother didn’t really seem to mind!
Emma: it took a bit of work to stay together when me & Andy moved to different universities but we still really enjoyed it and relocating the band to Sheffield gave us loads more places to play.

Why are you in a band?
Dan: When we started out we played dozens of gigs to just the other bands and the sound guy, but I still got a kick from it, and now we’re starting to play to crowded rooms and to people who’ve gone out of their way to come see us, those kicks just get bigger.
Emma: I am in a band because music is a massive part of my life and playing with the same 2 people for a number of years means you have a connection to them that is different to friendship and it feels amazing when we’re writing together and all on the same wavelength.
Andy: One thing lead to another really, it stems from me tapping on school desks, spending a lot of my dinner times in the music department, to now playing with Standard Fare.

How come you sound like that?
Andy: I think the different types of music we grew up around plays a part in where we get our influences from. My parents listened to a lot of country music and although it’s different to what I listen to now, it still draws me in.
Dan: for me, the band that got me into music was Green Day. I heard them when I was about 12 and their sound was so different to anything my parents listened to and it just blew my mind.  That sparked me to pick up a guitar and I still haven’t managed to put it down!
Emma: for me it was Blondie, Fleetwood Mac and Sam Cook that had the biggest influence on me, alongside my mother playing music in bands. It all influenced the way I wrote songs when we first starting playing together.
Dan: Yeah, when we started out we had some songs that sounded a lot heavier and raunchier and some quieter ones, but as we managed to smooth the contrast between the songs we found a sound that just seemed to work better for us.
Emma: But it’s not finished yet, we’re still working on it!

Where do the songs come from?
Dan: Sometimes me or Emma will bring a song we’ve been working on and it can be nearly complete, but other times one of us may have idea and we just play around until it becomes a song we’re happy with.
Emma: they’re mainly about our own experiences, Dan’s are sometimes stories about friends. It’s really trying to say something that you couldn’t say at the time or daren’t say now
Dan: and somehow the emotions you feel about saying them always find a way through.
Andy: We sometimes get a basic structure of a song putting together different ideas, and then play it over and over until we get what we want. And sometimes get something that’s completely different to what we started with.

Does it ever get boring/repetitive playing live, or recording or rehearsing the same songs over again?
Dan: Every gig is different so at the moment i’m not worried about things becoming repetitive.
Andy: It’s quite scary just how many times we’ve played some of the older ones!
Emma: We had a good time recording ‘Night With A Friend’ and its also good fun to play live. I generally get excited about the newer songs we’ve written but performing all the songs is good fun I always find myself getting in the frame of mind I was in when I wrote a song when I perform it.
Dan: The guitar parts on ‘I Know it’s Hard’ are probably my favourite bits, and the recording sounds nice and raw.
Andy: I think ‘Dancing’ is my most favourite and best creation, I tried to create a beat people could dance along to, also wanting it to be quite funky and disjointed.
Andy: ‘Wow’ really takes you through a journey, It starts so slow and quite unusual, and then by the end of the song the pace really quite fast and energetic. ‘fifteen’ is my most fun song to play, really bouncy and there’s quite a lot of stops in it too, I’m practically dead by the end of that one!

Why will people hate you or your songs?
Andy: We just enjoy to play really, we don’t mean to make any kind of statement, so I think people will either like what we do or just not take interest.
Dan: I thought more of my friends would have a problem with us being associated with a city we’re not originally from, but they seem ok with that..I’ve probably just started this one off.
Emma: There can be backlashes if people get overly complimentary about us then other people will think its unjustified or over the top and that can be annoying to them. I don’t think we are really doing anything revolutionary and so people could say we are boring or unoriginal.

Tell us a story from your life that sums you up?
Emma: I think we all just came from small towns where there wasn’t much to do and although we all began to really love music there was not much live music around. We started learning our instruments and then found each other and the rest came easily.

Is it hard to stand out these days?
Dan: It’s a lot easier for new bands to reach more people, but with more bands doing it makes it a lot harder for any one band to do well. It proper scares me that we’re one of several million bands all doing a similar thing.
Emma: But the technology side of it has to be a good thing, the amount of positive coverage and gig offers etc we’ve had through the internet has got us to where we are now.
Andy: Getting in to a music scene of a city of where you’re not from and also building a fan base has been quite a long process, using the internet has made things a lot easier, finding bands and then being able to message them within minutes.

Have you been to SXSW before?
Emma: No, first time for us all. It’s our first time over to the states as a band so we’re really excited about the whole trip. Getting to meet some other bands and make some contacts will be great, and I’m sure we’ll want to go back!

Standard Fare have the single ‘Fifteen’ out at the moment. There’s a bunch of gigs round the UK planned for the next few months (see myspace.com/standardfare). The album is released March 29th in the Uk and March 16th in the USA. They’re playing a bunch of gigs in the north east of the US in March before SXSW where alongside our showcase gig we’ll be doing a couple of day parties and other bits and pieces. They’re also playing at Indietracks and FarmFestival in July.

URL
myspace.com/standardfare

MP3
Night With A Friend

Video

Look, they’re from Sheffield, guitars that sound like that are issued on arrival, let’s just move on from anything that mentions the Arctic fucking Monkeys, shall we? Excellent. The Crookes, then, instead of going down the rampantly excitable route, tread the lesser-travelled, but much, much more difficult path of trying to weave in Motown references, big choruses and The Smiths, without it all sounding like a mess of the first water. The soon-coming single ‘Bloodshot Days’ is a little cracker, with some fine crooning, musically managing to reference almost all of my favourite records at some point or another. There seems to be some chatter about them at the moment, and it’s well-deserved. I’d dearly love to end with a really duff joke around how The Crookes should become famous or it’d be criminal, but I think we’re all well past that, and I’m not sure everyone finds the same stuff as funny as me.

The Crookes are:
George Waite – Vocals and Bass
Alex Saunders – Lead guitar
Daniel Hopewell – Guitar
Russell Bates – Drums

Where are you all from?
We’re from all over, but met at University in Sheffield.

How did you meet?
We did English literature together, but spent more time a similar clubs and music venues than studiously attending classes.

Why are you in a band?
Getting laid wouldn’t hurt. But I think having a career where we could play live every night would be amazing. That’s always been our favourite part of being in a band. We don’t mind going in the studio, but getting out and playing to people is what we enjoy most.

How come you sound like that?
To be perfectly honest, we don’t know. Its hard for us to tell what we sound like or why but its probably got something to do with our mutual love of all things 60s. Melody is really important to us – so groups like The Shirelles and other motown acts really inform that side of things. We’re starting to explore some different rhythms to get people dancing too. Seeing a crowd of people at our gigs up and dancing would be massive.

Where do the songs come from?
Since moving in together in June the writing process has become more collaborative. Whilst we were all at university Alex and Dan would write all the songs but now we live together it is much more of a group thing. The songs can come from anywhere; a line in a book, a scrap of of a tune, but recently though they have been arriving out of a sense of panic… we are set to start demoing our debut album soon and we are feverishly writing songs so that we can operate a squad-rotation system when it comes to live shows and album tracklisting.

How do the songs come about?
In terms of writing we never had a problem coming up with catchy parts it was fitting them into a song that was the challenge. Recently I think we have become much better at constructing songs more intelligently with more interesting structures. When it comes to playing live we have our favourites and its always more exciting playing new songs but the older ones usually get a better reaction.

Why will people hate you?
‘Cos really under all the pretence were actually a rubbish band. All the positive press and radio support has been cleverly engineered lies, Max Clifford is our publicist.

Was there a pivotal moment in your life that got you where you are now?
There were three main moments:
- When all of us got rejected from our first choice universities and ended up at Sheffield
- When Daniel saved George from a near fatal equine accident – it really bought them closer
- When Alex became attrached to our balding drummer Russell. In a sex way.

Is it hard to stand out these days?
I think it’s much harder to stand out when music is so easy to access, but when you twitter as much as we do about 1990′s footballers, how can you not stand out?

Have you been to SXSW before?
Unfortunately, we’ve never been to SXSW – we’re all looking forward to it. We’re hoping to have a great time and hope that out of the 1500 bands on offer, someone actually comes to one of our shows.

The Crookes have a single ‘Bloodshot Days’ coming out in April, coupled with a month-long tour

URL

http://www.myspace.com/thecrookesmusic

MP3

Bloodshot Days

Belfast’s Strait Laces are one of the Northern Irish contingent at SXSW this year. I always find Northern Irish bands – and the Northern Irish in general for that matter – to be ever-so-slightly but fundamentally crazy, in a cheery but quite patently demented sort of way. Brilliant fun, sharp as a switchblade, but invariably the sort that will leave you for dead in a drinking competition, a race, or a fight. It’s endearing in many ways. Unsurprisingly – to me, anyway – Strait Laces come across exactly like that, all yelping and occasionally unrestrained voltage. As if the wheels are about to come off, but only because they’ve unscrewed them all.

Strait Laces are:

Jonny – Bass
David – Guitars and vocals
Pando – Drums

Where are you all from?
We are from Ireland and we were all born in the same hospital. It has a thatch roof.

How did you meet? What made you stay together?
We met through playing shows and going to shows as kids. You can’t teach that.

Why are you in a band?
With a complete lack of academic achievements and a head full of dreams, it was the best choice.

Who made you start playing music, what band first opened your ears?
When we were younger, the best music we knew was local, friends’ bands – without them we wouldn’t be playing today.

Where do the songs come from?
Each song is wrote with something specific in mind. we don’t want to write meaningless lyrics to any piece of music so our lyrics are based upon world events, betrayal, ambition etc. Something we can perform passionately on stage.
As for musically, if you imagine Biffy Clyro from five years ago fighting Arctic Monkeys with Brand New as referees, then you have a fair idea of where we get inspiration.

Why will people hate you or your songs?
We have terrible accents, they’re not even endearing.

Is it hard work being in a band?
There’s so many bands and so many scenes that you have to work extra hard, especially on the whole internet thing. We’re all a bit rubbish with social networking. It took us ages to even understand what a fucking tweet was.

Have you been to SXSW before?
We’ve never been. We’re hoping it’s worth the visa application, what a nightmare. Also it’s St. Patrick’s day while we’re there, which is, obviously, good.

Myspace

http://www.myspace.com/straitlaces

MP3

Seconds Out

As has become annual now, I’ve gotten bored again and have been casting around like an idiot to see if there’s anything else besides bourbon that can keep my idiot little mind from chattering away like a team of ranger monkeys. All this blogging crap’s done the trick for some years now, taking over from actual – non-internet – music writing (I’m that old, yes) and before that, from scribbling reams and reams of crap into notebooks by hand. Usually, I just go away and get smashed for a month, and come back with another badly-executed version of what’s gone before, but I suspect I’m out of turns in that particular game. I have a horrid feeling I’m going to have to come up with something actually productive this time. Last year I came up with Off The Beaten Tracks which has kept me roundly amused for over a year now, and I’m not stopping doing that anytime soon, but I’ll need to find something else to do with this thing. The SXSW stuff’s been fun, but as the technology’s caught up, it’s just a pain in the arse now, if I’m honest, and even the major publications are starting to do more on it, muscling in on the amateurs. More power to them, but I can’t be bothered to compete with that. Call me lazy if you like, you’d be dead right.

So anyway, with less than six hours before my cab comes to get me to go to Austin, I’m going to finally push out the three remaining SXSW previews I wanted to do with Strait Laces, The Crookes and the absolutely dreamy Standard Fare. Even if only because I said I would, and they all put the time in to do it, and I haven’t gotten round to it, and I feel really bad about that, even if it was mainly due to the universe screwing around with me, and not just because I’m a lazy arse.

But once those three are out, that’s it, I’ve had it with blogging. I’m no good at it, if I’m honest, and that’s as good a reason as any to pack it in. I’ll think of some other way to publish crap on the internet, but just avoid the blog part as the focus. Hell, I don’t know.

Anyway, once I’m back from SXSW, I may or may not stick up some notes on what awesome bands I ran into (or more likely, a series of moans on what awesome bands I managed to miss but everyone else saw), and then I’ll close the doors here for a bit. I’ll be back in the summertime I reckon, so for anyone who cares, thanks for coming by, and emailing, and saying hello, and generally being kind, I’ve appreciated it. Thanks.

It can’t be easy orgainising SXSW, I appreciate that, so the fact that the list of showcasing bands has changed umpteen million times should surprise no-one. Still and all, the grid (hurray, the grid!) is now live on sxsw.com for all your nerdish planning needs, while I’ve weeded out the brits who are playing after the wotsit.

****UPDATE**** – sorry folks, the feed that puts all these bands on the page seems, helpfully, to be having a bit of an episode. So if you’re seeing this message, the list below is probably all wrong. You know that sport where hillbillies try and catch a greased-up pig? That’s my life, right there.

****UPDATE AGAIN**** – Right, that’s just fucking annoying. Why would you create a widget that only takes links from the CURRENT CALENDAR YEAR, and why would you do it WITHOUT AN OPTION TO CHANGE IT. Yahoo, you are not making my life any goddamn easier. The list is now down, so sorry if you’ve arrived here looking for it – it will be back shortly once I rebuild it by hand. Again, Yahoo, thanks a fucking bazillion. Bah.

Right, all done.

Enormous thanks to Peter and Jane for the lists, and to Dear Scotland (who, by the way, are doing a really cool series of previews on the Scottish bands at SXSW), really appreciate the help. If you’re going to Austin, I owe you all a Shiner.

Here’s the band list – with links – as it stands:

65daysofstatic
Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody
Allo Darlin
Alvarez Kings
And So I Watch You From Afar
Angry vs The Bear
Asking Alexandria
Athena
Athlete
Attack! Attack!
Band of Skulls
Banjo Or Freakout
Beans On Toast
Billy Bragg
Black Spiders
Blue Roses
Bobby Long
Broadcast 2000
Broken Records
Bury Tomorrow
Cate Le Bon
CHEW LiPS
Chris T-T
Christopher Rees
Clock Opera
Codeine Velvet Club
Colin MacIntyre aka Mull Histroical Society
Cosmo Jarvis
Crystal Fighters
DJ Yoda
Django Django
Doll & The Kicks
Erik Hassle
Everybody Was In The French Resistance … Now
Everything Everything
Exlovers
Failsafe
Fanfarlo
Fangs
Fenech-Soler
Fighting With Wire
Findlay Brown
Flood of Red
Frightened Rabbit
Fyfe Dangerfield
Gadarene
Gaggle
Gemma Ray
General Fiasco
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Gloria Cycles
Goldheart Assembly
Good Shoes
Grammatics
Helen Boulding
Hudson Mohawke
Ian McLagan & The Bump Band
Invasion
Jack Beats
Jackie Oates
Jesca Hoop
Jim Moray
John Smith
Johnny Flynn
Jon Allen
Jon Kennedy
Josh Weller
Kasms
Katie V
Kava Kava
Kill It Kid
Kristyna Myles
Last Man Standing
Laurel Collective
Let’s Wrestle
Lindsey
Little Fish
Lo-Star
Lovvers
Lucky Jim
Mads Langer
Malachai
Male Bonding
Marcus Bonfanti
Marina and the Diamonds
Mark Mulholland
Middle FInger Salute
Middleman
MRK1
Muchuu
Munch Munch
My Tiger My Timing
N-Type
Nat Jenkins
Noush Skaugen
Olivia Chaney
One NIght Only
Pete Molinari
Pivot (UK)
Plastician
Polly Mackey & The Pleasure Principle
Pulled Apart By Horses
Race Horses
Richard Walters
Rose Elinor Dougall
Sal
Scanners
Scars on 45
Serious Sam Barrett
Shit And Shine
Smoke Fairies
Smokey Angle Shades
Sophie Barker
St Deluxe
Standard Fare
Straight Lines
Strait Laces
Stricken City
Ten Bears
The Blue Aeroplanes
The Boxer Rebellion
The Candle Thieves
The Chapman Family
The Coal Porters
The Coolness
The Crookes
The Ghost of a Thousand
The Gin Riots
The Golden Filter
The Invisible
The Jim Jones Revue
The Law
The Lovely Eggs
The Members
The Rifle Volunteer
The Sea
The Unthanks
The Veils
The Wailin’ Yeahs
The Wave Pictures
The XX
Thee Vicars
This Town Needs Guns
TODD
Tom Eno
Tommy Reilly
Toy Horses
Treetop Flyers
Trembling Bells
Turbogeist
Twin Atlantic
Unicorn Kid
Vadoinmessico
Viv Albertine
Viva City
Wave Machines
We Were Promised Jetpacks
White Rose Movement
Young Fathers
Zun Zun Egui

Broken Records
Codeine Velvet Club
Colin MacIntyre aka Mull Historical Society
Fangs
Frightened Rabbit
Hudson Mohawke
The Law
St Deluxe
Tommy Reilly
Trembling Bells
Twin Atlantic
Unicorn Kid
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Young Fathers

The Enormous Band List Of Doom just keeps on getting bigger, and from a quick whizz down the list, I can see that ever-such-nice-boys Athlete, as well as Ian MacLagan & The Bump Band (he was in the Small Faces, y’know) have been added to the British SXSW contingent.

The schedule still hasn’t gotten any more accurate, so the list’s still pretty unwieldy – and is anyone else having bands just arbitrarily deleted off your schedules? No? Just me, then.

Fanfarlo’s Reservoir LP from last year was – and is – one of my favourite records, jam-packed full of glittering little gems. They only visit Scotland quite rarely, so the first time I caught them, ridiculously, was at SXSW a couple of years ago, and promptly went all gooey. The thing I like most is the sense that they’re the reverse of the iron fist / velvet glove thing, that underneath the robust and orchestral and soaring music is an extremely fragile core. A highlight, for sure.

MP3:Fanfarlo – Ghosts

Video: Harold T Wilkins (Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time)

Jesus, this must have taken FOREVER. Over at the very excellent The Pop Cop, there have clearly been some late nights and some square eyes as they’ve gone through Google and listed all the Scottish bands they could find on Bandcamp. I’d taken my eye off Bandcamp, but on the back of this list it looks like it’s getting some traction from bands (Frightened Rabbit, Meursault,  Amanda Palmer for example), and I’ve got all my fingers and toes tied up in knots this continues, because – just like everyone else – I’m flat-out sick of linking to them simply by default. The Pop Cop’s got the scoop though, so have a nose around, tell bands about it, tell your friends about it and encourage it. It’s just better that way.