Having gone through another cock-fest (the love of Cocker, you understand) on Spotify, I found myself listening to Jarvis’s Further Complications album for probably the first time since it came out - two years ago this week - in 2009. And I’ve no idea why I haven’t sooner. The singles are take ‘em or leave ’em but the meat of the LP is really something.

Two heavily musical numbers are knockout, Pilchard agitates its way along brilliantly, and Homewrecker is a song The Zutons would surely have killed for. And there’s vocals on both but, unusually, only when they have to be. But it’s this gem of a slow song that is now on repeat at Van Doo towers: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr96A9XG1rs 

Firstly, how cool are those kids in the corner of the picture? Secondly, just how can a song about being shallow make you fall in love with it so completely? There’s confrontation and juxtaposition through the album, and this one nails it. Right at the end, the ludicrous four repeats of ”I never said I was…” - all with loaded pauses that really deserve a big band but only get a cheap and sexy sax. I dunno if anyone else could do this all with a straight face, but thank god Jarvis does - it just blackens the comedy. 

Anyway, line of the week award goes to Cocker for this:

“I’m not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle.”

…I mean, the only thing that could have improved it would have been a rhyme with ‘testicle’. - But seeing as he didn’t have the balls to give me that I guess I’ll just have to keep loving cock.

OH GROW UP X

CLUBLAD Here we are (well Si and Louis)!!

Just having a very peaceful Easter back in Helmsley! Hope everyone who made it to CLUBLAD enjoyed the show? We certainly did! Was great fun!! So what’s next? May the 9th is our next show at the Social near Oxford St! Gonna be awesome, we have Gem and the Deadheads in support who are certainly worth checking out!!! You can listen to some of their stuff at www.myspace.com/gemandthedeadheads . Oh and follow them on twitter!! @gem_deadhead

Later in May we’ll be recording some more tracks and might, just might make a video diary of it for all u guys!! So keep your eyes open!!

The Van Doos X

The last time I was this enamored with a new band it took me a weekend of taping Radio 1 and a bucketload of Sunny D (California, obvs) to learn the lyrics to their debut single. The hardest part to reconcile to my eleven-year-old mind was whether I did indeed want to be this girl’s lover, and if so, how on earth I would be able to get with her friends.

Although I was certain from the off that I definitely wanted to zig-a-zig-ah. And I definitely still do.

Spool forward a decade or so and that prepubescent giddiness has been returned courtesy of the simply wonderful band Spector. Having been fortunate enough to see them supporting The Vaccines in Camden a fortnight ago, I’ve been on Tenterhooks (see what I’ve done there?) waiting for something to come online that I can hear. And at last it arrived:

http://soundcloud.com/luv-luv-luv/spector-never-fade-away

Never Fade Away is to be their debut single, and what a statement of intent it is. An epic set closer at the Electric Ballroom, the track revels in a melodrama that is at once glorious and pathetic - in the very best sense. Fred Macpherson’s voice is the perfect vehicle for this, intimidating in its depth and reassuring in its control.

Dudley Moore, the legendary comedian and pianist par excellence, once said that the secret to a good jazz musician is the ability to play a note at the last possible moment that it is still in time - always giving the feeling that you are about to fall over the edge but never letting you go.

Macpherson has the rare ability to do this vocally, and the tension it creates will surely become a Spector hallmark. As will the Englishness of the lyricism: wit and sensitivity underpin an elegant pop refrain, “you know I’ll never fade away, but if I do, it’ll be because you ask me to”, which pulls at the heartstings.

Musically, there are nods to the 80s with some timpani-sized percussion set back from the mix, while an Aztec Camera-presence leads in the foreground.

But this music is pushing forward more than it is looking back, and the backing vocals which escalate into the ether early on (echoing “on my own”), before undulating after each chorus are an exciting and moving inclusion.

This track is the start of something very good. So get on the vibe, and slam your body down and wind it all around Spector.

Dom having it large! He’s a soul brother!

We’re headlining the Social. Gonna be awesome!

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