Foy Vance

Long live the king

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There’s been talk for a while now about albums being dead. Talk like that is nonsense anyway, so I’m not about to write another post decrying or supporting simplistic rubbish.

What I will say is that this has been a pretty album-happy few weeks for me. I got Beyoncé‘s Lemonade and Radiohead‘s A Moon Shaped Pool as well as pre-ordering Foy Vance‘s Wild Swan (which drops tomorrow – huzzah!) and Switchfoot‘s Where The Light Shines Through.

I’m not going to get into reviewing on here. I don’t think. But I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard so far.

That said, for musicians without large followings there does seem to be less incentive to put all of that time and energy into making something as cohesive as an album. Certainly it makes more sense for me to do what I’m doing in releasing singles on a roughly regular schedule (on that note, Somewhere in between is currently with the mastering guy). This keeps me, and hopefully you, more interested and is a hell of a lot less work.

We did the album thing last year, and it took roughly 850 working hours last year to get the thing finished. And that doesn’t include physical production, launch planning, marketing or the launch itself. It was totally worth it, and we have a finished product which I don’t think is on the level of international acclaim, but which we’re really proud of and very happy with.

But it was a lot of work and a lot of waiting. And there was nothing to keep the public momentum going in between. In terms of momentum for us, that took a lot of sheer willpower and planning.

So here we are. And because it’s been a year (ish) since we went into the studio to record The Way Home, I will be posting some more about the process in the coming weeks. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the insight as much as we enjoyed making it.

Gigs gigs gigs

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I still haven’t really decided how tenuous to the site theme posts on here are going to get. I mean obviously it should be music related, but how much do you care about personal stuff? How much do I care how much you care? How much do you care how much I care how much you care? And so on ad nauseum.

This is a long way of saying that I’m going to talk about gigs. On the back of going to see MxPx on Saturday.

I’m not very punk rock. I like punk rock, but not in enormous doses. I did very much enjoy going to a punk rawk show though. I must have first heard MxPx in 96 or 97, when I picked up a Move to Bremerton EP on the basis that I had heard of them in connection with Aaron Sprinkle of Poor Old Lu. Never got to hear them live though. That is, until 20 years later. It’s been about 10 years since I last went to a big punk rock gig (Less than Jake, does that count?). All I can say from looking at the crowd is that punk rockers got older. As did I, I guess. All in all though, it was a great set, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Next gig should be Foy Vance. L’il bit different, you’ll agree. I also haven’t had a chance to hear Foy yet, but I’ve only been listening to him for a year or so. Looking forward to that one too. He’s got a way with a tune that one.

Sad to report that I didn’t manage to get tickets for Radiohead at the Roundhouse, which would have been sweet as a nut (sweet like tropicana), but I did manage to get Glastonbury tickets. I also haven’t, uh, seen Glastonbury (see, it kind of fits together!) before. The line up looks pretty cool. I’m hoping that my favourite performance won’t be anything I can predict, but from the bands listed thus far it should be pretty cool to see Muse, Adele, Beck, ELO and Sigur Rós. Amongst others.

That’s where it’s at this Monday. We’ll see if we can get you some new music this week. Dependent on factors outside our control, but rest assured you’ll hear it first here.