Listening Club - 26th August 2012

Hello, hello, hello, what's all this then?

Another speedily typed intro, that's what. Yup, it's August bank holiday weekend, the weather forecast is reasonable, so that means Carnival. Lashings of rum, red stripe, chicken, rice, peas and patties served on a bed of steaming soundsystems. Looking forward, yes I am... and Carnival's 7pm curfew means there might be a chance I'll make Listening Club tonight, although what state I'll be in if I do is open to debate... so we'll see about that, yeh?

Last week, as you may recall, @JimMcCauley was in the hot seat, and his weapon of choice was The Penelopes "Never Live Another Yesterday". Response was divided in classic LC Stylee, although I think everyone agreed on the excellence of the mythical "Track Six", which definitely perked up the ears of the faithful (mine included)...

So thanks to Jim for the selection and for nominating @faberfedor for this week's choice. Over to him...

"Hello, dear Members of the Club,

I would love to tell you how I spent the week worrying over which album I should select for your listening pleasure, choosing this one then discarding it for another, worrying if I should pick something hip-hoppy or something rock-n-roll, etc. Truth be told, I knew this day would come (insert maniacal laughter) and I've had this one picked out for quite some time.

I heard this album somewhere years ago and went looking to buy it: Amazon, CD Baby, you name it. The only place I could find it was on iTunes which meant violating my personal oath of never buying anything from iTunes, but it was worth it. 

This has become one of my favorite albums. You can listen to it in the background or give it your full attention; it works both ways (mostly). I find the music to be...interesting, in the best sense of the word. I like the writing as well.

The Artist is not well-known on this side of the pond; although there was a minor hit a few years back. I'm not sure if The Artist has made a splash on your side yet.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you all think of my selection.  See you on Sunday!"

Download is here (direct mediafire link) or you can listen via Mixcloud here!

Start time, as always, is 8pm BST (GMT+1). Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin.

Spread the word! 

Listening Club - 19th August 2012

Yo ho ho, everyone.

Summertime's finally here in London kiddies, which means people have stopped moaning about the lack of decent weather and started moaning about the heat and humidity overload instead. So it's par for the course, really.

This time last week, as u know, I was stood in Hyde Park, drinking weak overpriced lager and enjoying New Order (typically shambolic), The Specials (typically energizing) and Blur (surprisingly slick). All well and good, and from the looks of things, vastly superior to the B and C-list smorgasbord that was the Olympic Closing Ceremony. As Chris TT pointed out in his blog post, whatever cultural and creative doors were driven open by the imagination of the Opening Ceremony, were well and truly slammed shut by the narrow-mindedness of the Closing. So, and slow, it goes.

Meanwhile, back in Listening Club land, @cakehugga hit a pre-wedding home run with her choice of Ugly Duckling's "Moving At Breakneck Speed", which not only went down a treat, but seems to have garnered more post-LC-replays than any album so far (well, judging by the tweets, anyway). Hooray! and thanks to her for the pick, and also for nominating @JimMcCauley for this week's selection. Over to him...

"Unlike the last time I was in charge, for this go in the big Listening Club chair I knew exactly what I was going to choose from the get-go. There’s not much of a story to this one. I find new music these days pretty much exclusively from what people mention online. For a while I found quite a bit through 6Music, while I was working in an office that had 6Music on all day (except for that weird few days when we switched to NME Radio. Imagine Steve Sutherland stamping on a human face, forever. That’s what NME Radio is like), which I can thank for things like Sleigh Bells and Public Service Broadcasting and also for kicking off my ongoing thing for discovering stuff I idiotically overlooked in my 20s (Hooray for Lush and The Sundays and Dubstar! Not so much for Curve, I’m afraid), but now it’s mostly about the social media. Luckily I follow enough people with decent taste for this to be a fairly reliable process.

So then. This lot cropped up in my Facebooks a few weeks ago and looked interesting, and so I grabbed their latest album, and I rather like it. Hopefully you missed that bit where I bigged them up on Twitter. With luck they won’t have suddenly become really famous in the few days since I typed this, and you won’t suss their identity inside a couple of bars. With a little more luck you'll rather liket it, too.

See you on the Twitters at 8!"

Download is here (direct dropbox link) or you can listen via Mixcloud here!

Start time, as always, is 8pm BST (GMT+1). Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin.

Spread the word!

Listening Club - 12th August 2012

Hi everyone,

Another week flies by and here we are again, with most of London starting to wonder what the hell they're going to talk about tomorrow after the Olympic closing ceremony. I'm tapping this out a day in advance, as tonight I'm off to witness three of my all-time favourite bands (The Specials, New Order and Blur) play in Hyde Park, or what's left of it after nigh-on 40 festival size gigs there in a row. Much beer, singing and dancing will be the order of the day, as you'd expect...

So yet again I am the absentee landlord, but @monkeytypes pick last week of Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip's "Angles" showed yet again that you lot can take care of yourselves, and whoop it up in the process. Another fine album, and the playback even received the tweeted blessing of Mr. Le Sac himself, a very kind gesture indeed.

Out of that chaos @monkeytypes picked @cakehugga for this week's selection, forcing her to put aside thoughts of upcoming nuptials to @jayesofine for an hour or two to make the pick. Over to her...

"I was a bit shocked to win listening club this week. As I’m getting married to the lovely @jayesofine in just over a week it is a hectic time to say the least! Also my Gran has been rushed into hospital this week and will not be well enough to travel to the wedding. So it’s been a tough week. 

This however meant that instead of agonising over which album to choose I went with one of my favourites, in the hope that other people will like it too. I chose an upbeat album as I needed to hear songs that made me smile this week! 

As with much of the music played in our home @jayesofine introduced me to this band. I believe that she was introduced to their music by a work colleague lending her one of their CDs many years ago. One of their previous albums is the one I always play to psyche myself up for a job interview, however this is their most recent release and I wanted to share it with others. 

The album that I’ve chosen always puts a smile on my face, makes me want to dance and sing along.

It is hip hop how it should be – beats, energy, honest and intelligent lyrics. It’s a refreshing change from all the guns, girls and bling type hip hop out there. 

I’ve been lucky enough to see this band live and they’re amazing performers – having been in the business for years they’ve taken the time to perfect their craft. 

It’s refreshing to hear lyrics about having a cheap holiday, missed opportunities, small town mentality, moving to the big city and fake nostalgia, as I’m sure lots of ordinary people can relate to these sentiments / lyrics. It’s also an album which tells a tale, and I do like a good story. 

I hope that other listening club members enjoy and if you do I suggest listening to this band’s back catalogue. Happy listening!"

Download is here (mediafire link) or you can listen via Mixcloud here!

Start time, as always, is 8pm BST (GMT+1). Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin.

Spread the word and have a good one!

Listening Club - 5th August 2012

Hi there,

Yadda yadda yadda, Lympics Lympics Lympics. It's still here, and the city hasn't fallen over, much to some people's annoyance. If anything, as many have commented, outside of Lympic zones, things are rather quiet, which is fine by me.

"Rather quiet" however, is never a phrase one would choose to describe Listening Club, although there were a few gentle moments within @thejayarr's selection last week of Okkervil River's "Black Sheep Boy", which didn't quite bowl over the LC faithful, but a generally positive reaction was noted nonetheless. Thanks to @thejayarr for the pick, and for hoisting up @monkeytypes for another turn at the hot seat. Over to him...

"Well, here I am again in the hot seat and I can assure you that this does not get any easier. Leaving things dangerously late I spent a panicked Friday afternoon raiding my CD collection. While that took took me on an interesting journey including acts from New York, Berlin and Basildon, nothing seemed to stick. I grabbed a couple of my favourite compilations but they just didn't inspire. Then, with one final, frantic search, I spotted this week's choice.

This is actually a fairly recent release and was bought purely on the strength of the single, which I'd imagine most of you will be familiar with. The track certainly featured in a few mixes at the time, which is how I first heard it. And on hearing it I fell in love with it immediately, duly buying the album soon after. Now I'd not heard this for a few years but on playing it again, it just seemed right. So here we are.

This album is inventive, intelligent but most of all, it's fun. It's a reminder of what this genre is capable of and what it used to be. So open a bottle of your favourite beverage, turn the volume up and perhaps have a bit of a boogie.

And don't forget to comment. That's what makes Listening Club what it is.

Thank you for listening.

PS I think track 6 gives the game away if you don't know the album."

So there you go! Download is here (dropbox link), or you can stream via Mixcloud here.

Start time, as always, is 8pm BST (GMT+1). Search #listeningclub to see what's going on, and follow@listeningclub for the admin.  

See you at 8! :)