Bomb The Music Industry! do some cool things. They endeavour to make every show all ages, even if it means paying venues extra to do so. They also try to keep all shows quite cheap, at around $10.
And you know what else is really cool? Sometimes they tell people to bring along instruments and help out.
Yup. They let people come along and play the band’s stuff with them, and that’s exactly what this Australian tour will be like. So grab whatever instrument it is that you play, and get along to one of these shows to play some music with Jeff Rosenstock (and potentially the rest of the band, although I think these might be solo shows) (oh, and I doubt this kinda thing will happen at Playground Weekender).
But yeah. Get out to a gig, okay? It’ll be fun. Promise.
It’s been a busy few months for Birmingham punx Johnny Foreigner. Between all of the work put into their latest album – Johnny Foreigner Vs Everything – they’ve played launch shows, released singles and an EP, and visited Japan. But that isn’t going to slow them down one bit.
Recently it was announced that their label, Alcopop, will be releasing a double 12″ vinyl of Vs Everything! The album itself will take up 3 sides of it, while the 4th side will bring together all of the b-sides from the singles. Pre-orders will be available from March, and what’s potentially the most exciting thing about all of this is:
“… the first 100 preorders will recieve a totally unique present and an some instructions on what to do with it. This is going to be most grandiose/stupid interactive art thing we’ve ever done, will tell more soon.”
Jump over here to check out the upcoming gigs they’re playing. They’re kind of redoing their launch parties too, and from what I heard, they’d be well worth getting along to.
On top of all of this, they’ve recently thrown a new track up on SoundCloud called “(small fraud)”. It’s from the Vs Everything album sessions, and it’s a spoken-word piece against a busy, whirring, electronic back-drop. Most bands can’t pull this stuff off, but Alexei’s ability to turn a phrase can’t be rivalled by many, and it kind of works for them.
Take a listen below! And if the SoundCloud downloads are all gone, grab it for free here!
WONDERING WHY THERE’S A LEAK HERE? Well it’s not real. Check out this to find out what I joined in on.
I’m not normally in the habit of posting leaks at On The Tune, but today is a pretty special day.
Johnny Foreigner’s new album has leaked ahead of it’s November release, and I figured I may as well share it with you. You’re going to just get it somewhere else – may as well share the love, right?
It’s an album full of frenzied guitar jams, and slow-crawl acoustic numbers. If you like JoFo already, this’ll be right up your alley – this is basically the culmination of all of the work and effort they’ve put into past releases, and it shows. Pretty strong contender for Album of the Year if you ask me, provided Los Campesinos! don’t take the cake. 2011 is shaping up pretty nicely.
Artist: Johnny Foreigner Album: Johnny Foreigner Vs Everything Size: 64.2 Mb.
Tracklist:
1. if im the most famous boy you’ve fucked then honey yr in trouble
2. with who, who and what i’ve got
3. 200x
4. hulk hoegaarden, gin kinsella, david duvodkany, etc 1
5. johnny foreigner vs you
6. concret1
7. electricity vs the dead
8. jess, you got yr song so leave
9. supermorning
10. what drummers get
11. new street, you can take it
12. concret2
13. (don’t) show us your fangs
14. you vs everything
15. doesn’t believe in angels
16. the swell _ like neverwhere
17. alternate timelines piling up
Note: The track list is going off the file names, as tracks hadn’t been tagged properly.
Don’t forget to buy stuff from these guys too. Support them, go to shows, buy merch, etc. They’re brilliant artists.
Our favourite Birmingham punks Johnny Foreigner made some big announcements today!
They now have a rather snazzy looking website over here for you to peruse. On top of that, JoFo announced the details for their new album, Johnny Foreigner vs Everything, due November the 7th on Alcopop. The band also announced a new promotional YouTube channel to put up snippets of songs and footage to sate our appetite until the release.
What else? Oh yeah, only a couple of brand new songs from them! In the form of a double-a-side single, you can listen to (Don’t) Show Us Your Fangs / The Hand That Slaps You Back over at BandCamp. There are a limited number of free downloads for “(Don’t) Show Us Your Fangs”, so get in quickly! But don’t forget to fork over a couple of dollars and buy them, ’cause the band will send you some skateboard stickers. I think I’m going to buy a skateboard just so I can use one of these properly.
There’s also yet-to-be-announced news regarding pre-order packages, and multiple album covers, so listen out for that too.
Yesterday a friend of mine directed me to a YouTube video, and my mind was absolutely blown.
Although uploaded over a year and a half ago, and consisting of a home recording from their lounge room, Big Bird’s Bear Trap’s video shows them displaying serious vigour and energy as they perform one of their earliest songs. Their fan-base may not have expanded far beyond the local region, but if the video is anything to go by, then BBBT have one of the wildest live shows going around right now.
Of course, the harsh instrumentation and occasional screaming may put some listeners off, but the beautiful undertones of honesty and integrity in the lyrics will hit home for many, and it’s the contrast between the quieter moments the band has and these brutal surges that really differentiate them from other artists.
I caught up with Mitch Reinke from the band to talk about the band’s future and how they feel about their older material.
On the Tune: You guys have been fairly quiet recently, what’s happening? Can we expect some new material soon?
Mitch: Yeah, you’re right we have been quiet for a while. We sort of took a year of to pursue other goals we had and we were going to just see what happens I guess. We have a few projects going and a few new bands coming up but you never know, BBBT might be back sooner than you know.
OtT: Your live shows look insane – any chance of a tour sometime soon?
M: Look, we are in the process of working out logistics for a tour but with the tightening rules around firework accessibility, gun control regulations and the fact that OH&S say were not allowed to get 17 independently powered Van der Graaf generators to make the crowds stand on end, due to a high risk of mass electrocution to what ever city we would be touring in first, it might be a little while before its up and running. But we will keep the fans informed.
OtT: What was your inspiration for “Ode to Beethoven”? Apart from Beethoven, of course.
M: “Ode to Beethoven” was a fantastic breakthrough song for us as we were really experimenting through many different genres of music, which ones sort of just melded naturally together, and low and behold it turns out we stumbled upon something. Who knew Classical and what we like to call DESTRUCTO METAL would fuse so perfectly together in a sort of harmonic and sanctimonious love fest of notes. I guess the reason that we were inspired to dedicate this song to Beethoven was just that we wanted to have a song that really showed the evolution of music from where it was back then to where it is now, and I think that Beethoven’s music really summed up the feeling in his day, and I believe our music really sums up the world we live in now. But again that is open to the individual’s interpretation.
OtT: I hear Warner Music have picked you up recently, is this true? Are you signed now?
M: That’s a simple misunderstanding there, but the label was in fact WarNed not Warner. WarNed Records is a record company based in Austria and the rough translation is War=WAS and Ned=NOT. Its great working with Was Not (to use their English name) Records, they’re all really great guys and despite not being able to understand them we have had a great time. This would also answer a question of the next album release date which will be, as far as I can gather from the reaction I got from our producer when I asked him the question, “ich verstehe dich nicht, ich verstehe dich nicht, ich weiss nicht was du hast gesagt.” And I can only presume that is good, so it shouldn’t be too long.
Produced by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 fame, the new record from pop-punk band Motion City Soundtrack, "My Dinosaur Life", is to be released on January the 19th. The whole album is currently available for streaming on their MySpace page, but I’ll be reviewing the track "Her Words Destroyed My Planet" today.
If you go into this track expecting Motion City Soundtrack to reinvent the metaphorical pop-punk "wheel", you’ll be sorely disappointed. Even their "new style" doesn’t seem that much different to the work on "Even If It Kills Me", albeit the lack of dominating synthesizers, which I must say on the whole is an improvement. Though they can be used to good effect, I found them to get on my nerves more often than not. But I digress. Despite the fact "Her Words…" isn’t anything revolutionary, it’s not a bad effort for what they’re trying to do.
From what I’d read about Hoppus working with the band, I had a lot of hope for a more refined sound and maybe something a bit more outside their comfort zone. I guess maybe it is, but to me it just seems like a small step for the band when I was hoping for something a bit more ambitious. However this is just one track from a whole album, it could very likely be a bad indicator on which to judge the remaining tracks, both stylistically and in terms of quality. Time will tell. Strong fans of the band will no doubt love this track, and it may introduce some new people to the band. But for me, I’m currently doubting any longevity I had previously hoped for.
Okay, so I like pop-rock/pop-punk music in the same style as Fall Out Boy (some of their stuff anyway), Taking Back Sunday, etc. Phew, it’s out there. I don’t care, I think simple power-chords are catchy.
Anyway, here’s a quick review of two EP’s by a band I found on Last FM and another site one day, before I go off to do my Extension English assessment.
You, Me, and Everyone We Know are pretty catchy, and some of their songs use some pretty stock-standard techniques and sound similar to other stuff I’ve heard. There’s a few differences however.
1. Both discs I’m reviewing actually have some varying styles of songs, they aren’t all the same. They manage to develop nice hooks and create songs with different vibes.
2. Both of these discs have been released for free. Which is very nice of the band.
I highly recommend checking out these guys. Seriously. Even if you hate bands like Fall Out Boy because they’re the idols of screaming scene kids everywhere, these guys have a relatively small following, and they sound just as good, if not better. And considering it’s all for free, what’ve you got to lose?
Claiming on their triple j Unearthed profile to write songs to “inspire people to get drunk and run around aimlessly”, this two piece sound, well, in my opinion not that great. Though I can see it as being quite a good song for some people. It uses synths and has been compared to Death From Above 1979, so if you’re into that kinda stuff, maybe try it out. Maybe their sound will change over time, but this just doesn’t do too much for me.
You can get a free download of “The Mess Up” from their triple j Unearthed profile, or check out their MySpace page to get access to more of their music.
On The Tune 