Polly Scattergood - Lancaster Library, 11 April 2009

Polly played Lancaster Library recently. I can't quite remember how I heard of Polly, but these nights at Lancaster library have some great music in a different environment, so along I went after only hearing the album a couple of times, but mostly liking what I heard - a little overly "different" in places, it's like the "kooky" dial has been twisted a little too far for my liking.

Anyhow, after a decent support set by Marina and the Diamonds, Polly came out with her band, and opened with my favourite track, "I hate the way". The live setting really suited her songs, which come across with a lot more power than the more delicate interpretations on the album. Polly's voice was as distinctive and fragile, despite her suffering from a cold which left her swigging "medicine" between songs.

It was a short set of around 40 minutes, but no time was wasted, with limited but affectionate banter with the audience between songs, and an encore of one song, after a fantastic main set closer of "Nitrogen Pink" which probably benefitted most from the live setting, racing along with more momentum and force.

A really enjoyable set from someone who is probably a little too left-field to become massive, but is certianly worth a look if you enjoy earnest singer-songwriters.

Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood (on Spotify)

Tore up all your photos, didn't feel too clever

I wasn't terribly into music when this track came out, but it got quite a lot of airplay due to the Britpop thing sweeping the nation at the time, and Sleeper probably stood out from the crowd because they had... shock horror... a female singer. I bought the single, on a cassette, and I put it on lots of compilation tapes. I thought it was incredibly catchy, mainly because of the way it races away at the end - I've always been a fan of songs that do that.

But I liked the words as well, romantic fool that I was and struggling with all my conflicting emotions, and the idea of a relationship was fascinating to me, even one that's clearly not working like the one being described in this song.

Summer is coming and I hope I feel better by the time it does

I got an ipod last year after refusing to be interested since they came out. I've had a hard disk mp3 player for about seven years now, first a big bulky archos 10GB model, then a Creative Zen 60gb model. I lost my Zen on a trip to Edinburgh last year, and was shocked by how hard it was to get an decent capacity mp3 player that wasn't also a video player, so I ended up cracking and buying an ipod. I really like it, I love the dynamic playlists, and the way it syncs nicely with itunes and last.fm (I like to listen to stuff based on what I've played before).

Anyway, I've been listening to a lot of stuff recently that I haven't listened to in a while, and I stuck on Charlotte Hatherley's (once of Ash) album. I really liked this when it came out, but I never really got into the follow-up album. The first album, Grey Will Fade, is a lovely and light little number, perfect as the time of year is changing, the temperature is rising and the sun has decided to come up. Summer is coming indeed.


MP3 - Charlotte Hatherley - Summer, BBC 6 music session

You know that we've changed so much since then

The "Do you remember the first time" gig finally turned up on iplayer. Here's a selection of some of the tracks. More will follow in the next few weeks.


MP3 - Pananma Kings - Golden Recruit

MP3 - Pananma Kings - A life less ordinary

MP3 - Duke Special - Fisherman Blues

MP3 - Duke Special - Diggin an early grave.

MP3 - Ash - Mrs Robinson

MP3 - Ash - Shining light

MP3 - Therapy? - Screamager

MP3 - Therapy - Alternative Ulster

MP3 - Therapy - Teenage Kicks

I can't remember a worse time

I was really looking forward to listening to Do you remember the first time? on the iplayer, and I'd checked a few days beforehand to see if it said "coming soon", as some music things can't be put on because of rights issues. So yesterday I got home after a long and tedious course in Manchester, looking forward to listening this and getting a few mp3s by Divine Comedy, Duke Special, Ash and Therapy, only for it to say "not available" on the iplayer. I'm gutted - it looked like a great night - every band played one of their own tracks, and a cover by another band they'd seen play at the Ulster Hall, completed by everyone on stage at the end playing "Teenage Kicks"

Never mind, maybe something will turn up. In the meantime, here's a few MP3s of other Irish bands collaborating:


MP3 - Ash and Neill Hannon - Oh Yeah
MP3 - The Frames & Ash - Debaser

I've seen you draped in an electric veil, shrouded in celestial light

Ash have been a pretty important band to me over the years. They were one of the first bands I got into heavily, around the time 1977 was released, and seeing them in Belfast on the Nuclear Sounds tour was one of the first gigs I ever went to. They're written some fantastic pop songs, and it's easy to see why they're often a great draw as festivals, as their "Greatest Hits" set is right up there with some of their best.

Shining Light was getting it's first airplay around about the time I split up with my first serious girlfriend. We'd been going out for about 15 months, and it had just got a bit tits up. Sometimes in a relationship one person likes the other more than the other person likes them, and I think I was the one giving out more than I was receiving. Around this time, I was hurt, angry and confused, but I really liked this song, and I wanted to hear it more. Previously I'd listened to the Evening Session on Radio 1 regularly, but with Ash being a proud exponent of local music, I started to listen to Radio Ulsters "Across the Line" show, which had more of an emphasis on local music, as well as wider ranging alternative music. Previously, it had been presented by Mike Edgar, and although incredibly enthusiastic about local music, I had found the show quite dry.

Across the Line became a fixture for me for the next year or so, as I really enjoyed the music, discovered some great bands, but loved the show more than anything. It had some great presenters - Rory and Paul in particular on Tuesday and Wednesday nights often descended into fits of giggles as they were presenting. Professional, no, entertaining, very much so. There was an element of listener participation with competitions and comments, and I would regularly email the show and get responses from the presenters or be featured on air. I doubt it was because mine were better than any of the others, more likely down to a lack of other contributions.

Eventually the format of the show changed, and Rory and Paul didn't present the show any more, and Rigsy and Donna took over three nights a week. It was still good, but it lost it's sparkle. Things were changing for me too. I'd joined the Ash messageboard round about the time Shining Light came out and had made quite a few friends on that board. I flew to the mainland a few times to meet them at various Ash concerts, and all of a sudden I didn't feel quite so lonely any more. Then I started to talk to one of these fellow fans more regularly via MSN and well, things moved on from there.

Anyway, Shining Light, remains one of my favourite Ash songs, but one I don't listen to an awful lot, probably because I listened to it too much when it first came out. I prefer the extended single version to the album version, it's just strung out a little longer before the massive key change, which gives it more impact. The lyrics are pretty striking, they're a lot more poetic than a lot of standard "I love you" songs, and remind me a little of some of Billy Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins lyrics. The video for the song is pretty awful though.


MP3 - Shining Light (Live at the Wireless, 2004)

MP3 - Shining Light (Duke Special Cover)

With a face like this I won't break many hearts

I first heard this song at a Christmas Concert in secondary school. The band played a few fairly medicore Oasis covers, then played this with the comment "We're not supposed to play this but we're playing it anyway", which was incredibly rock and roll to a 14 year old like me.

I'd no idea who it was by or even what the song was called, but I remembered the distinctive chorus of "I've got nothing to do but sit around and get screwed up on you" throughout my teenage years, as I sat alone in my bedroom listening to music and thinking about girls I'd never probably even pluck up the courage to speak to, never mind go out with.

Time moved on, and the internet arrived in my house and one day I remembered about this song that echoed at various times in my youth and I looked up the lyrics, and downloaded it via Napster (in it's naughty, illegal days). I was a little thrilled for some unknown reason to find out that Therapy? were a band from good old Northern Ireland, as if their origin was ever significant in anyway. Maybe the two fingers to the establishment of performing the song in my fairly straight-laced grammar school endeared it to me even further.

I've never really had any interest in Therapy? outside of this track, and another called "Lonely, Cryin', Only" which was such a minor hit that to even call it a hit in the first place is somewhat inflating it's impact (it's not even featured on their Greatest Hits album), but I've found both of this tracks important over the years, and the latter even more for some reason.