Nite Songs

  "Live music is dead/The funeral's on Thursday/Bring a bottle and a bed"  - Jackdaw 4  - Karaoke Ballet They were an odd one, Jackdaw 4. Emerging in the early noughties, the group were the brainchild of one Mr Willie Dowling who we've previously encountered a few times on SFTJ's past, not least due to his brief tenure with the Wildhearts in the Earth Vs  era. Willie had actually started out with late '80s Soho glammers the Grip who offered a more measured take on the whole Babysitters / Soho Roses formula and managed a pretty decent album called Be Yourself  before going their separate ways in the early '90s. It was probably while he was with the Grip that Willie befriended Ginger and CJ who were in the Quireboys and the Tattooed Love Boys respectively around this time and he would join up with the Wildhearts as their keyboard player in late '93, playing on the B-sides to the Caffeine Bomb  and Suckerpunch  singles (also appearing in the video for ...

Over the last couple of years, Willie Dowling and Jon Poole have certainly been pretty prolific with their Dowling Poole project. Always a varied band with plenty of tricks up their speed and a righteous anger firing their lyrics, Refuse  is a collection of some of these tracks which have crept out on the internet prior to the lockdown (a separate collection of the group's lockdown releases is incoming soon apparently). There's a real fury behind these songs despite the gentle nature of the lyrics - opener The Strawman  is an angry diatribe against Johnson and Trump while Fuck You Goodbye  is a sheer howl of rage set to gentle countrified backing and is a real highlight here likewise the furious Deep Breath  ( "The game is done/The wrong side won/There is no change of heart to come" ). It's not all political invective though as The Same Mistake Again  looks at dysfunctional family relationships while Miles Checks Out  is a Falling Down  style tale of o...

  So I think this is what they call sod's law - having started this column under the impression that August was going to be the "quiet bit of the year" and therefore a good opportunity to catch up with some stuff we'd missed in previous months, muggins 'ere promptly got sideswiped by a sudden avalanche of new releases the week before the thing went live and thus it became a two-parter. So here you go...a few more singles and a couple of mini-albums thrown in just because we're dead nice like that...  Anyway, kicking off the Singles Bar part 2, here's a name I've not heard for many years as Aussie garage rockers The Chevelles  return with their first new music in over a decade. Steve McQueen (I Wish I Was)  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) shows that the time hasn't changed them much but when you've got the right mix of pop-punk tunefulness and upstart snottiness that this has, that's no bad thing. Good to have you back with us gents. Bandcamp link here Speakin...

  Welcome to our monthly visit to the Singles Bar for May. Plenty of new sounds from all across the musical spectrum this month so take a seat and let us mix up something for you to enjoy... Kicking us into gear in suitably frenetic style this month are Los Pepes  with their new single Want You Back (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). This does exactly what you'd want a Los Pepes song to do essentially - whiplash riff, scowled vocals, a bit of unexpected harmonica honking and it gets in, says what it has to say and gets out again before the two minute mark. B-sides Never Get It Right  and  Tell Me  are similarly high quality too and well worth a listen in their own right.  Bandcamp link here . Making a welcome comeback this month are Desperate Journalist  with Fault (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), the lead-off single from their upcoming fourth album Maximum Sorrow . A bit more urgent than the band's usual output, the pounding drums, swirling bass and echoey guitar remind me more of Siouxsie ...

Welcome back to the Singles Bar for our March instalment. As seems to be becoming a regular occurrence at the moment, this is another two-parter with this bit being all singles and the second part a mix of singles and EP's. Let's get that first order in and see what's on the radar this month then shall we?... The Dowling Poole   have been a regular fixture in this column over the last 6 months or so and their latest release Slow Genocide  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) is a paranoid Sleaford Mods-style ode to the lockdown and the government's clueless handling of it featuring gruff vocals from Terrorvision's Tony Wright. Sinister and creepy, it's a good slice of political paranoia 2021 style. With the group's long time lyrical target Donald Trump now gone from the White House, it looks like the band are now squarely training their sights on the cabinet of leeches running the UK and there's plenty of anger here to stoke the fires of discontent. Bandcamp link here Saint Agn...

  So here we go, part 2 of the end of year rundown as we reach the Top 40. Cue up one of the old Top of the Pops themes if it helps with the atmosphere for this bit. Anyway... 40. PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS - "Viscerals" ( Bandcamp ) Unquestionably the heaviest album on this list, it's easy to get put off Pigs x7 (as I will refer to them here to save space) by the hipster-ish name but lurking within Viscerals  is a brutally heavy guitar assault with Sabbath-heavy sludge-metal riffs on tunes like Reducer , Crazy In Blood  and Hell's Teeth  which sink their teeth into you and refuse to let go. Slightly terrifying on your first listen, oddly addictive by your fourth. *** 39. RIZ AHMED - "The Long Goodbye" ( Bandcamp ) Best known for his role in the excellent film Four Lions , The Long Goodbye  proved that Riz Ahmed is a hell of a talent as a musician as well. A furiously angry diatribe from the point of view of a British Muslim which compares his relati...

  Yup, you're right, it has  come around again quickly. Sod's law being what it is, pretty much as soon as I'd finished last month's Singles Bar column two weeks ago, a whole flood of new releases came to my attention so we almost instantly ended up with enough to do another column all together. So you lucky people are getting this month's singles bar instalment a couple of weeks earlier than planned this time out - hope you enjoy... Okay, first up, I demand to know how the excellent Spunk Volcano & The Eruptions  have managed to put no less than three singles out in recent months without anyone bringing it to my attention! Oh well, better late than never. Kicking off, Football In The Sun  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) is a great and surprisingly touching ode to kickabouts in the park with your mates in the '80s with a great anthemic singalong chorus in the best Undertones stylee. If you missed it first time out, get a copy now and keep it on standby for next summer when hop...