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November 2005

The Brakes - Ring A Ding Ding (Rough Trade 7")

Champion floorfiller down our way. The title sounds like something Terry-Thomas might have uttered upon glimpsing Joan Greenwood through a crack in her dressing room, slipping from her bodice-ripping garb. Is she still with us, Joan Greenwood? Forgive my ignorance? Er, anyway, to the punk rock slab I hold in my hand now… what can I say? They've been listening to Roxy Music right? It's not just my imagination is it? This is cowpoke Roxy by indiepop supergroup? Come on admit it? Hey, it's great stuff - I'm not knocking it - not least for being under a hundred seconds long. But it owes more to Renovation than Innovation. No? Oh, who cares... how can you not love it?

 

Snow White - Stop Anything (White Heat 10" single)

Another five quid wasted were my initial feelings when I got this home and subjected my timid stylus to its abrasive grooves. The history of throat damage volume 21. I shoved it in the back of that wine box I now use for my expanding collection of ten-inchers. (Right at the back it went, way behind the Super Electrics and the So Said Kays, and the new ones by your Keren Anns and your Jeremy Warmsleys… what taste!) But then I heard it again on the radio (of all places) and reminded myself that I actually owned that blistering racket and, further, on second helpings it wasn't that bad. Yeah, so I dug it out and played it again, and again. I soon realised I was wrong and they were right. It comes on like a post art-rock generation 'Feed Me With Your Kiss' - although Snow White and the White Heat mob were probably in nappies when MBV were in the chart. Anyway the upshot is if you're partial to noisy brats abusing your speakers then it's worth your five quid (although, apparently, this is Snow White in their more reflective mode so God knows what they sound like when their in a huff.) But if you like the more esoteric then Jeremy Warmsley is more your man.

 

Larrikin Love - Happy As Annie (Transgressive 7")

This is an absolute joy. Clever, brilliant, lively, tender, romantic, tragic. A mixture of ska, punk, folk, indie performed by Dickensian street urchins. I've just read somewhere that they've been snapped up by some major label. Indie/major - who cares? So don't worry about not getting a copy of this elusive 7" - he said, the smug bastard - it's bound to be reissued/rerecorded next year and go Top 10. (I'm a champion tipster, don't you know. Guillemots to win The Mercury Prize!) I'll have two dozen more singles like this one please over the next two or three years, gladly. Bring me more.

 

The Rifles - Local Boy (Right Hook 7")

As we enter award ceremony season, if they're giving out prizes to most overlooked genius of 2005, then my vote would go to The Rifles. Their last single was fab, and so is this one. OK, sure, it's a bit Dad Rock maybe - the title recalls The Stereophonics - but, in spirit, they remind me more of The 60ft Dolls (another group allowed to wither away before their time.) Hey and have you noticed this trend for signed singles these day? It seems like every other record I buy has some two-bit popstar's indelible tag scrawled all over it. Are record sales so low that groups actually have the time and wrist power for such things? I get repetitive-strain injury just signing-on once a fortnight. I don't know whether I should be grateful or worried. Perhaps a bit of both. Anyway, back to the point: check out The Rifles.

 

Omerta - One Chance (Northern Ambition 7")

There's a kind of interesting blandness to Omerta. Even their name seems to suggest nothingness. They could be very big if they carry it through. Note how the more boring a band can be the bigger they get. Keane, Coldplay, U2. I'm left nonplussed by 'One Chance' as I was by their previous single. Its synthy new wave, part nostalgic part futuristic. I will say this though, the b-side 'Synchronise Your Smiles' whilst similar to the above also strays into Stone Roses territory with very pleasant results. So, yeah, worth buying for that I suppose, he said unconvincingly.

 

Keren Ann - Chelsea Burns (EMI 10" single)

It ain't rocket surgery. Write a good tune and you're halfway there. Sing it nicely and you've pretty much cracked it. You can't ask for anything more from this beautiful Keren Ann record. I know nothing about her - I wonder if her Keren's a Derren thing - but I reckon there's a strong sixties influence behind it. Any mention of Chelsea conjures up those psychedelic images of some Bohemian pad with hippies and beat poetry and bongs and arty pictures and sitar music and Jose Mourinho devising way-out new strategies on the chalkboard. Anyone who likes the new Cat Power single or remembers with fondness Mazzy Star's 'Fade Into You' will love 'Chelsea Burns'. I can't believe I'm saying this but EMI has a pretty neat roster at the moment. Whoever's in charge of their A&R has superb taste. That said, superb taste doesn't shift units. Quite the opposite. I'll be surprise if this gem hits sales figures requiring the comma.

 

The Hot Puppies - Terry (Fandango 7")

The Pups have been around for a while… er, well, for at least two years if not more and that's a long time in today's music business. So maybe this is their breakthrough single. Breakthrough to what I'm not exactly sure: a few spins of XFM? A review in the NME? A month long tour as support band? Anyway, it's a nice enough song - a little dated perhaps, a little early 1990s. But OK. Is 'Terry' a common name these days? I keep thinking of Dennis Waterman and Twinkle. Who's she singing about? I don't know anyone in their early twenties called Terry but then, er, come to think of it, I don't know anyone in their early twenties (Oh, er, apart from The Arctic Monkeys who are my best mates.)

 

Bromheads Jacket - What If's & Maybe's (Marquis Cha Cha 7")

I ain't sure about the use or ab-use of the apostrophe. That Eats, Shits and Bleeds woman would have a field day with this one. But I knows me Punk Rock and this one's the dog's pickled onions. Witty, observant, happening right now, and a damn brilliant tune to boot. Urban genius. A single of the year. A single of someone's life, I expect! Slightly reminiscent of Splodge's Two Pints - but less irritating, better in fact. The b-side, Lions On The Prowl, recounts a night out looking for food after the club has kicked out. It's a little bit Streets, a little bit Ritz To The Rubble. And therefore lacks the originality of it's a-side. What next? Narratives about vomiting into broken toilets? Waking up next morning with your arm around a strange kebab?