Milestones: Tye Die Tapes

Milestones is a feature looking to gain an insight into the tastes of a particular character or bunch of people of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions and they kindly answer.


Tye Die Tapes are a cassette only label based near Sheffield run by two friends, and are pretty much the go-to people if you want to find a new band in the north-east of England. Putting out releases by Sealings, Bhurgeist, and Cold Hands among others - as well as putting on some excellent gigs - they do what they do for all of the right reasons and are much-deserving of some more love and attention. Check out James' and Adam's responses to the generic Milestones questions below.

The album that first got you into music:

James: I dunno really, it was probably Nimrod I think I still know all the lyrics to that album.


Green Day - Prosthetic Head

Adam: It was Offspring but not one of the good ones. Conspiracy of One. I seem to have missed all the good albums by bands by one all throughout my life.


The Offspring - Want You Bad


The band that dominated your teenage years:

James: Green Day! I had all their albums on either cassette or CD, I lost interest after'Warning but I still enjoy Dookie and Nimrod.


Green Day - When I Come Around

Adam: I really couldn't pick one. Most of it was pretty bad thrash and death metal. At the Gates blew my mind when I first heard them and I still listen to Slaughter of the Soul sometimes and enjoy it. I used to be really into their earlier stuff too. I also dug some pretty crap stuff. In Flames were pretty good, their early stuff was great. Korn until I was like 15. This really isn't cool, is it?


At The Gates - Blinded By Fear


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

James: My dad had a really 'dad' taste in music, you know Queen, AC/DC, and Thin Lizzy. I remember thumbing through his record collection and be fascinated with the AC/DC album that has Angus Young getting impaled by his SG, but I never really listened to it, because I was like 5 or 6 and didn't get records. But for an album that made a lasting impression I'd have to say it was my mother's Simple Minds greatest hits album Glittering Prize 81/92. I fell in love with the colours on the art work and I'd sit next to the Hi-Fi with my Dad's big headphones on listening to it on repeat.


Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)

Adam: I used to think the front cover to Sgt. Peppers was pretty cool. Never liked the music though. My mum has a lot of New Romantic stuff that is good. There's a Bill Withers greatest hits in there too which has a bunch of tracks off the first album and it's got Use Me pretty early on there, that's a good CD and Bill Withers is the man. I have to pick just one don't I? Bill Withers then.


Bill Withers - Use Me


The album that has dominated your last 12 month's listening:

Adam: Formlessness by The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die. Only four tracks but they're brilliant. Their record label (wish I could remember the name!) gave it out for free with a bunch of not-so-good stuff and I grabbed it on a whim. Before I got a job the 'first thing I'll buy when I get a job' was their second EP but I've still not got around to getting it. I kind of don't want to because it might ruin the magic of that first record. Whoever recorded Formlessness knows how to give a band room to breathe and it's a work of art.


The World Is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid To Die - Gordon Paul

James: URGH! So many! But if I'm brutally honest it's either the new Mazes record or Broken Dreams Club by Girls. I'll go with the Mazes record because it is perfect, I'm such a Mazes fan boy, they are real gents, and Jack writes some of the best pop songs i've ever heard, my personal favourite is 'Boxing Clever'.


Mazes - Boxing Clever


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

James: Hookworms. Without a doubt, they are easily one of the best bands I've seen and heard this year. They are so passionate about what they do, Matt J the singer runs Suburban Home, and when you spend a prolonged period of time with him, as we did when he recorded our band. The first thing you realise is how quietly proud he is of the band, and so he should be there record is phenomenal and there live show is intense. BUY EVERYTHING THEY RELEASE.



Adam: There are too many, that's why we do this. Twisted are one of my favourites but they've split up already. There are a bunch in Sheffield like Best Friends and Drenge who are ace. Kristen Ward who is Shiny Penny has started a new one called mmhmm or something like that and anything she does is great. Sealings are ace and will no doubt get picked up by some biggish label sometime soon.


Sealings - My Boyfriend's Dead


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:

Adam: That's difficult, I guess some of the songs I've heard 50+ times when dubbing tapes before I got a tape deck that could do it at 2x speed. I think Rusty Arms by Ethiopians is my favourite track out of what we've put out so far. I actually know the lyrics to that one too. Ethiopians are now Captain Cult Leader and are still rad. I would say a Sealings track because I love them but I have no idea what the lyrics are; they slam everything so hard on their recordings that it's just like an excellent wall of noise. Sometimes you can make stuff out but I usually have no idea what's going on.

Black Out by Captain Cult Leader

James: Oh I've no idea. But I've been listening to Portastatic all day and fist pumping to his song 'Polaroid' so I'll choose that, because it's real nice and I hope we do real nice stuff.


Portastic - Polaroid

Find out more about Tye Die Tapes on their Tumblr, stream some stuff on their SoundCloud, or give them money in exchange for tapes at their online shop.

Milestones: Will Grant

Milestones is a feature looking to gain an insight into the tastes of a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions and they kindly answer.



Will runs his own music PR company in Two Tap Digital and is also a writer for The Line Of Best Fit and Drowned in Sound. Affectionately known as G-Grant, and also part of the Lost Lost Lost clan, Will is an annoyingly-bloody-good writer (his review of Antlers' most recent album is good evidence of that) and is also doing a bloody good job at representing the artists he does (he was behind the latest Acid Glasses single, which received mass-blog coverage and also featured in the NME). He also supports Nottingham Forest, so go and tweet "Schteeeeeve" at him - he could do with some sympathy. Check his responses to the same old Milestones questions below.


The album that first got you into music:

There are a few actually, all for very different reasons but each pretty much essential in forming my tastes and opinions of music during different times in my life. I don't think I would have reached a semblance of understanding musical sophistication without having gone through it's pre-pubescent bretheren first - things like The Offspring's 'Americana' (yes, their 'sellout' album - urgh) and Blink182's 'Enema Of The State' kind of sated my need for snottiness when I was younger.

But there's no doubt the most important, for me, is At The Drive-In's 'Relationship of Command'. It was something that I'd never quite realised the potency of when I was first exposed to them - I have the disgust of hindsight that I saw two songs of their Reading Festival set back in 2000 when they were just hitting that point of being 'The Saviours of Rock'n'Roll'. What a horrible tag that is, as well.

I don't think there will ever be as potent or perfect statement of intent from a rock band ever again, to be honest. It's an album that could quite easily have its artwork alongside 'catharsis' in the dictionary - it's just so unrelenting in its power and putirty. Going back now and watching all of the live videos and interviews with them, you can still sense that dramatic urgency about what they were doing, knowing that they were on their final breaths of life as a band and not giving a fuck. It's just so powerful. Cedric was at his frontman finest, Omar a driving force of guitar virtuosity; they were just an encapsulation of everything a band should be. For me, no band again will come close to being as good or as vital as them at that time.


At The Drive-In - Cosmonaut

Nowadays, there's actually few bands that I've gone out of my way to listen to - I don't know why that is, apart from maybe how my head was turned by some incredible electronic stuff that was passed my way during university. That was all pretty much bred through following Warp Records - Chris Clark's Ceramics Is The Bomb and Empty The Bones Of You were especially essential in helping me to discover and explore that world further. Haven't looked back since, and Clark's still going strong to this day. I still always get incredibly excited when he does anything new.


Chris Clark - Shonny

Oh, and Daft Punk's Discovery. Sampled or not, they have a peerless sense of melody and that album is up there with my favourites of all time.


Daft Punk - Veridis Quo


The band that dominated your teenage years:

Again there were a couple - Green Day probably the most. Whilst they may be all stadium rock gods not with their rock operas and all that, I really caught on when I was handed Nimrod at like twelve or thirteen. Then I went backwards to find Dookie and ended up convincing myself that Insomniac was the best album ever made. Definitely not the case, especially given my little ATDI rant above, but it's still a wickedly cynical and abrasive piece of pop-rock.


Green Day - 86

Deftones were another. For me White Pony is still a staggering album and it still kind of grates on me (let alone them) how much they got lumped into the nu-metal thing. They completely transcended any of that with 'White Pony', I think - there's such a brilliant balance between absolutely pummelling heaviness and really jaw-dropping, spaced out beauty.


Deftones - Korea


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

I actually made a pretty concerted effort to avoid dipping into my parent's collection. I still have jokey arguments with my dad to this day comparing saying that nothing by The Beatles could even come close to the obvious genius of Oasis (obviously, I was and still am taking the piss - I mean, Beady Eye?!).

I think my dad's quite happy to see me dipping back in now though - going straight for things like Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Elton John's Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road. But if there was any album that had the most influence it was The Beatles' Yellow Submarine. My dad used to put that on for me and my sister when we were really young, and I remember feeling unbelievably sad every time Nowhere Man came on. I still do to this day, although am a bit more aware of the wanton psychedelic references in the video.


The Beatles - Nowhere Man


The album that has dominated your last 12 months listening:

As with everything else, there's never just one. Caribou's Swim from last year was an incredible record. It really was amazing to see him come to an absolute musical fruition and find his feet with a more dance driven sound. The talent's has always been there, it just always seemed a bit more deliberately confused and psychedelic, especially on Andorra. But Swim was just so special, it had such an amazing romanticism to it. The final track, 'Jamelia', was probably my favourite song from last year too - Luke Lalonde's vocals on it are heartbreaking.


Caribou - Jamelia

Then there's the inevitable runners for this year already. I don't know if it's possible to burn out digital streams of stuff, but I'm doing my damnedest to bleed everything I can out of The Field's new one at the moment, Looping State of Mind. The Antler's Burst Apart was incredible too - had the pleasure of waxing lyrical on that for The Line of Best Fit. But I don't think I can look past the Bon Iver album this year - it's just so magical. It sounds so liberated. I imagine Justin Vernon wanted it to be that way considering all the jibes about 'Hipster Boy from The Cabin' and all that. But it's a really, really beautiful album. I got it on 12" I loved it that much, going as far as to having those ridiculously cheesy High Fidelity moments of emotion when I put the headphones on for it.


Bon Iver - Holocene


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

I have the absolute pleasure of working with some great new artists, so I can't help but be MASSIVELY biased. I love Halls so, so much. I think what Sam's doing is insanely beautiful - it's wonderfully honest and really moving. He'll probably cringe his balls off if he were to read this, but I'm really excited to see where things go for him next. Those first couple of releases were really fantastic, and to see his remix on Gold Panda's Marriage EP was something amazing as well. Not to mention the Theme Park remix too - they're another band to keep an eye out for. Definitely going to go very far.


Halls - Chakra Drums

Beyond that, I really love what Cascine are doing and am a huge fan of Jensen Sportag. They just have this incredible ability to write universally infectious pop music - I don't think there's a cynic out there that can deny what they do. It's just too good. They've released the Pure Wet EP on Cascine, and I saw they'd released things like 'Jackie' (which I put on Lostx3) as well, but I can't help but feel their next step is going to be something special above special.


Jensen Sportag - Everything Good


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:



Check out more from Will's Two Tap Digital, or follow him on Twitter for regular excitement about music, 'vibes', or groans about his football club.

Milestones: Paul Bridgewater

Milestones is a feature looking to gain an insight into the tastes of a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions and they kindly answer.



Live editor and sessions producer for The Line Of Best Fit, writer for Noisey, live shooter for The Fly and general music photographer extraordinaire, Paul Bridgewater is London based and bearded. Rather than semi-good at those three (shoot, film, and write about music) varying roles, Paul is one of those talented swines who is able to do them all to an annoyingly high level. And I still owe him a pint. Doesn't it make you sick? Find Paul's responses to the generic Milestones questions below.


The album that first got you into music:

From the age of around five I can remember being enchanted by music. Certain songs - Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, PiL's Public Image, Talking Head's This Must Be The Place all stuck in my head as weird audio sketches as a child. I had no idea who was singing them or what they meant - something just resonated. I was a late bloomer with albums though; didn't really discover them until my teens.


Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill

Getting into new music always led me to seek what the bands I liked were listening to. The sense of discovery was (and is) part of the thrill of new music - tracing a path through history and seeing where that leads you. The blandest music is inevitably inspired by the most obvious influences I think - interesting stuff begats more interesting stuff.

Anyway, I would inevitably end up more into the influences than the influenced. So as a teenager raised on Shoegaze and Britpop, I ended up going backwards - to Bowie, The Byrds, The Clash, all that Nuggets stuff Lenny Kaye put together. Patti Smith too - the Horses record was a phenomenal part of my teenage years.

Public Enemy's first few records. 'Fear of a Black Planet' blew my mind in a massive way. Sad white boy that I am, I can recite every single line on that record. This is why I never go to karaoke. It would be too tempting to rip the nearest clock from the wall and put it round my neck on a chain....


Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

It wasn't the album that really hooked me into music though - that was The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. I probably got to it via seeing Bowie in Labyrinth as a kid and Brett Anderson name checking him in interviews. Plus Bowie was always kinda just there throughout - releasing albums every few years when I was a kid, popping up at that fucking hideous Freddie Mercury tribute concert to recite the Lord's Prayer.

Fuck, I listened to that album so much - I know it inside out, every note, line, the sequence of songs. There's something so perfect about it. Even the B-sides from those sessions were incredible ('Sweet Head' & 'Velvet Goldmine' - hard to believe they weren't actually part of the record).

It's not my favourite Bowie album though - that would be either Low or Heroes, depending on my mood - although Let's Dance is getting more play these days. And I kinda like that All Saints collection of instrumentals that came out a few years back.


David Bowie - Sweet Head


The band that dominated your teenage years:

Again, I was out-of-time as a teenager. I didn't particularly like bonding with others over bands - it was very much a private relationship. I grew up largely around people who didn't see music as the saviour I did. While Bowie's record was on regular rotation, I was seeking out music by a long-split band who at that time weren't necessarily as revered as they are now.

The Smiths hadn't been the subject of any reissues at this point and so you couldn't even get hold of all of their records. The first time I heard 'How Soon Is Now' (I'd be maybe 13 or 14) it was like a bomb had exploded inside me. The fact that they'd split up left them unsullied, perfect. Like a time capsule discovered in the garden. I made it my mission to obsessively hunt down rare copies of The World Won't Listen and Louder Than Bombs - which were almost impossible to get in my small northern town - at record fairs or via the backpages of Record Collector magazine.


The Smiths - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want

At that time Morrissey was pretty much hated by the music press - he'd just done that ridiculous flag-waving thing in Finsbury Park that had him branded a racist. I wasn't so much in to his stuff - I dislike almost everything he's done. He's a good lyricist. He's a good vocalist. But to me he's a mouthpiece for Marr's songs.

All in all, I think I listened to nothing but The Smiths for about four years solidly before the next band came along and they were forgotten for a bit.


The Smiths - Asleep


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

Not for the music but for the cover - ELO's A New World Record. Gatefold vinyl. Dudes in the desert clutching some weird glowing ELO orb type thing. Of course the record is great too but I didn't really dig ELO until much later. Here's the front:




The album that has dominated your last 12 months listening:

Hard to answer - I'm not so much an album person anymore. I guess it's either Kanye or The Weeknd though. Let's go with Kanye.

It's really a proper album eh? With a concept that comes together lyrically and musically. It's got a beginning, middle and end, some kind of narrative thread and the entire package - artwork and songs - is cohesive. I think it's a brilliant pop record and I find it hard to see where he can go from here to top this.


Kanye West - Dark Fantasy

The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

I think I fall in love with a new band every two weeks. I've been this way since I first found music. I don't think there's anything wrong with that - although we have to acknowledge that the hyperbole and pomp we heap on these artistes with nary more than an MP3 or EP on import are wholly subjective judgements.

Music is about more than what's on the record though and when you have a new artist and little more than the artwork, the photographs, title and some minor biography, it can be very compelling - we create our own backstories or revel in the mystery of the unknown. And that's a good thing and I don't think it's a new thing. This whole idea that blogs are either the new A&R or blogs are killing music or blogs are being ridiculously over the top - I don't care about any of that. As a music fan, you react instinctively to what you like and sometimes you want to tell the world about it, even if two weeks later you're over it and onto the next thing. It's human nature.

I was absolutely head over heels with Keep Shelley in Athens for a while and fate transpired against me so I missed all of their London shows. We tried to get them for a session but everything came around too quickly and it never happened, which I'm sad about. We'll get them next time I hope. I still love them a lot - their first EP is a lovely, simple, geniune record. I'm excited to see what they do with an album.

Keep Shelly in Athens - Hauntin' Me by Keep Shelly in Athens

Right now though I'm kinda in love with I Break Horses, who are on Bella Union and about to release their debut Hearts record, which is this wonderful mash of disco beats, early shoegaze and glam rock. It's 9 tracks too, which I love. I think every record should be 9 tracks.

I Break Horses - Hearts by Bella Union


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:


David Bowie - Always Crashing in the Same Car

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Steal yourself an ace new desktop background from one of Paul's many excellent shots on his website, check out some of The Line Of Best Fit Sessions, or just follow the gent on Twitter. Maybe if you're kind enough he'll buy you a pint too?

Milestones: Noel Gardner

Milestones is a feature looking to gain an insight into the tastes of a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions and they kindly answer.



Noel Gardner is one rocking dude. A regular writer for Drowned In Sound, The Quietus, and the BBC album reviews site, and music editor for Cardiff independent magazine Buzz, Noel is a genuine inspiration of mine for the consistently high quality of his writing, how amazingly prolific he is at it, and his pretty incredible knowledge of such a wide range of music. Any regular gig-goer in Cardiff will recognise him, often found swaying back and forth at the front of gigs or stood to the side with a notepad in hand - or promoting them under his (and friends') Lesson No. 1 guise - and to learn about the development of his music taste is something I've found fascinating to read. Find Noel's responses to the generic Milestones questions below.


The album that first got you into music:

I guess there are about ten or 12 albums from say late 1993 to a year after which all make an equal claim for the above but I’m pretty sure the first album I bought (on cassette) with my own money was What Hits!?, which was a Red Hot Chili Peppers compilation with only one actual hit song on it. When I was 14 I thought that RHCP were just the coolest a band could be, which was a result of having almost no social context for what ‘cool music’ might be. (I grew up in Cornwall, where older people who looked, to me, like they’d figured out how to live dressed more or less like the Chili Peppers.) By the time I found out that the members of the band actually had ‘cool’ and ‘acceptable’ taste in music, eg old LA punk and Neu! and stuff like that, I found the Red Hot Chili Peppers pretty hard to listen to.

This song ‘Backwoods’ off of it is a good and typical 80s RHCP song, I think. It is quite sweet how they attempt to educate their listeners about the old music they love (see the lyrics) but do it in a completely excruciating way.


Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Backwoods


The band that dominated your teenage years:

Real talk: from the ages of I think 10 to 13 (until I bought the above album) the only band I liked or listened to was Status Quo. Honestly I think my mum and stepdad were pretty disappointed in me. After that however it went something like – 13-15: RHCP, Faith No More, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Blur, Portishead, Smashing Pumpkins; 16 and 17 Stereolab, Mogwai, Sonic Youth, DJ Shadow, Chemical Brothers, Radiohead; 18 and 19 Underworld, Orbital, Flying Saucer Attack (and the whole area of badly recorded drone rock in general), Tool, Fugazi, Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, Godspeed! plus shit tons of old records by (mostly punk) bands that didn’t exist anymore. Almost all those bands are still AOK with me.

I feel like you can see the evolution from hapless dipshit willing himself to like grunge music so he’d be more popular at school, to NME-reading entry level alt with a small A-level student grant, to annoying indie dork who thought writing for the student newspaper would be the best decision he’d ever make. In answer to your question, there isn’t one band really.


Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit


Sonic Youth - 100%


Fugazi - Waiting Room


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

I could write, like, an essay on the music that was round the house when I was growing up. Maybe one day I will, but the long and short of it is that most of it was really good and interesting stuff that is held in pretty high regard by ‘tastemakers’ today. I don’t think my parents (and stepdad) were in any way the 80s equivalent of ‘hipsters’ or whatever so I think it’s just kind of a coincidence, and/or the result of archivist/nostalgist culture reassessing absolutely everything.

Anyway, in my preteen years there was an effort to have me (and my brother and sister) listen to stuff from their collections that was kind of wacky in a way kids would like, which incorporated singing ‘Rocky Raccoon’ and ‘Sloop John B’ in the car, and a bit later things like Ivor Cutler, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and Tom Lehrer. If anyone reading this has kids, playing all the aforementioned to them is a totally awesome idea, although there is a necrophilia joke on one of the Tom Lehrer records. I have a really high tolerance for stupid novelty bullshit music today which I think pretty definitely traces back to that.

When I finally got into borrowing my folks’ LPs, the one that jumped out as being obviously rad and made by heroic people was Vincebus Eruptum by Blue Cheer. It belonged to my dad and was definitely the heaviest thing he owned. This album fucking rules and has one of the best guitar sounds ever. Listen to ‘Parchment Farm’ which incidentally I never knew was a cover until just now.


Blue Cheer - Parchment Room


The album that has dominated your last 12 months listening:

I have a problem, albeit one that results from a situation I appreciate, with not listening to albums for long enough. This is mainly cos people send me free shit in the post/email all the time, so like I say, not complaining, but it does mean that loads of good things get short shrift. The three things I’ve probably listened to the most in the last year (with links to me writing about them cos I’m a fuckin narcissist OK) are Made Fles by Extra Life; New Brigade by Iceage and On A Mission by Katy B. The last two of those are doing perfectly well for themselves as far as I can see but the Extra Life album really deserves more love.


Extra Life - Head Shrinker


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

This would probably be Iceage again, especially if ‘exciting’ for you incorporates “this band have the potential to reach the audience their excellent music deserves”. I am completely terrible at recognising if a band has ‘commercial potential’ or is going to get big somehow, and very rarely invested in it happening, but when I first heard Iceage in January of this year that was something that really struck me about them. There does now appear to be a pathway being created for them to be successful, ie selling about 5,000 albums and having 50,000 people illegally download their album, so hats off to me and my 1% success rate of prediction.


Iceage - Broken Bone

Of other, less blogged-about stuff, I think The Lowest Form are maybe the best new band in the UK. Or my favourite because it’s not a competition, man. Anyway they just put out a 7” that will kill you if you like stuff like Void and Die Kreuzen and Double Negative.

The Lowest Form - "7.4.3"


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:

Milestones: Oliver Primus (The 405)

Milestones is a feature looking to gain an insight into the tastes of a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions and they kindly answer.


Oliver Primus is the founder and editor of music and culture website The 405 and, aged 26, his dedication to keeping the site running over the past few years has been pretty darn impressive - especially coming from my personal perspective of that of a contributor to the website, ensuring The 405 is packed full of top critical reviews and ace features. More recently the radio series was a big success and, following a re-design, the site is looking really ace. Perhaps most incredibly is that that is indeed his real name.

The album that first got you into music:

I think the first record I really got into was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins. It's a great record because it manages to stay consistent over two discs, showcasing the most brutal aspects of the band, as well as the most beautiful. I used to listen to it daily, but after killing it for a few years I took a break from it. I remember hearing it again a few years later and thinking "fuck, Infinite Sadness really is awesome." When I was younger side Mellon Collie (the heavier side) was what I really connected with. Teen angst and all that I suppose.


Smashing Pumpkins - Muzzle


The band that dominated your teenage years:

Alongside Smashing Pumpkins, I listened to a lot of Fugazi, At The Drive-In, a lot of Silverchair (don't judge!) and probably a million other bands that I don't really listen to anymore.


At The Drive-In - One-Armed Scissor

Growing up in Norwich, my gig choices were pretty limited, but there was a period when Hundred Reasons / Jetplane Landing / Biffy Clyro / Hell Is For Heroes / Lostprophets used to play in Norwich all of the time. I look back at that period of my life (about 10 years ago) with a smile on my face. Biffy used to be great when they started. I know people often say stuff like that because they think it makes them sound cool, but seriously, they used to be great. What went wrong?


Biffy Clyro - JustBoy


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

I had a conversation with my girlfriend last week about this as we were trawling through YouTube looking at videos that reminded us of our youth. My earliest childhood memories in that respect came from our weekly drive to London to see my grandparents/cousins/extended family. My dad would always pick the music on the way there, and my mum on the way back. My dad would 9/10 pick blues stuff like Clapton, BB King etc but also threw in a lot of American rap stuff too (which seems odd now that I think about it). My mum on the other hand would pick stuff like Simply Red. I suppose my dad had better taste, but my Mum's poor taste as a 30 year old woman probably helped me decide what I really didn't like, so I thank her for that.

Saying that though though, her record collection (despite its brevity) is actually quite cool. Lots of Roxy Music, Zeppelin, Cohen etc. The Country Life record by Roxy Music sticks in my mind the most. Not really for the music so much, but more the album artwork.


Roxy Music - The Thrill Of It All


The album that has dominated your last 12 months listening:

Oh man, this is when I have to consult iTunes... So it turns out Baths and Kanye West have had a lot of plays over the last 12 months. They always say it's the records that you don't instantly fall in love with that will stick with you the longest. Okay, I've never actually heard that before, but it sort of makes sense I suppose.

I came to Cerulean by Baths quite late in the day really. In fact, it was a Twitter suggestion that made my pick it up. Whoever suggested it...thanks! Whenever people ask me to explain what style of music Will Wiesenfeld makes, I tend to skip the genre tags in favour of what it feels like, which is the feeling you get when someone you like gives you a hug. It's warm, homely and lovely.


Baths - Lovely Bloodflow

The Kanye West record (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) took me a while to get used to. I've always dipped in an out of his work, and felt that this was another case of 'two strong songs, a few ok tracks, rest filler'. The more I listened to it, the more I came to realise how great it is. Ok, so it has a few silly moments in it, but overall it's very strong.


Kanye West - Power

A special shout out to the Broken Dreams Club EP from Girls. They followed up a fairly solid debut album, with a perfect EP. Great move.


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

My brain is setup to breakdown the second I get asked questions like this. Let me go look through iTunes again...

Einar Stray is a pretty exciting dude. His album Chiaroscuro is a marvel and I had the pleasure of seeing him Norway last year. He was phenomenal. Another Norwegian band I like is Team Me. They have stupidly massive pop hooks.


Einar Stray - Chiarscuro

On the basis of his unreleased album, Youth Lagoon is up there as one of my favourite people on the planet right now. Just wait until you hear The Year of Hibernation. Holy crap, what a great record!


Youth Lagoon - Cannons


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:

Broken Dreams Club by Girls or, if I'm cheating, the Pop Massacre compilation from Friends of Friends. Does that make sense? Basically self loathing and constantly doubting yourself, all whilst working every second of the day. Welcome to the music industry baby.


Girls - Broken Dreams Club

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Milestones: Music Fan's Mic

Milestones is a new feature looking to gain an insight into a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions about music, and they do their best to answer.



From one blogger onto another, this week's Milestones throws the same questions as last week at music blogger and writer Jamie Milton of Music Fan's Mic. Jamie is 19 years old and yet is already a regular contributor to esteemed music publications such as This Is Fake DIY and The Line Of Best Fit; and his own blog - Music Fan's Mic, which he has run for a number of years with friend Gareth - is a respected source for new music and artistic critique of its own - not forgetting the excellent podcasts that he manages to put together on a worryingly regular basis. And he has a girlfriend. And still manages to squeeze in some Football Manager. I don't know how he does it.

The album that first got you into music:

Moby's Play crosses a multitude of genres. I seem to remember picking it out of some catalogue (because that’s how music was ordered in 1999…) and asking my Mum to get it. I might have heard ‘Natural Blues’ on top of the pops and so that’s what most likely led me to it. I wasn’t necessarily so keen on the straightforward chill-out stuff – I was really into the darker material, like ‘Natural Blues’, which is about a kid coming home and finding his brother dead. Those lyrics only became prominent after a few years of having the record, though! It was mainly the elements of blues and soul that made me so intrigued.


Moby - Run On


The band that dominated your teenage years:

I feel like my love affair with Radiohead is very much over. That’s a shame, considering how blown away I was by their records. It wasn’t immediate. I had OK Computer from when I was about 13 but I once sat down with Hail To The Thief and all of a sudden Thom Yorke was shouting at my ears; “You have not been paying attention!” and God damn, he was right. It span off from there.

I’m still a fanboy – I can’t deny that because I fell for The King Of Limbs like there was no tomorrow. But I’m sick of the mystery; the secret, last minute announcements – it’s all grown tiresome. I will always play their records though. Kid A remains my favorite all-time album, alongside The Knife's Silent Shout.


Radiohead - Idioteque


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

Buddy Holly – That’ll Be The Day. It’s a vivid memory: Me dancing around the kitchen to this with my Mum. It was all-out catchy and I loved it. Then, as I’ve grown up, I’ve seen this guy’s work reflected in many of today’s acts. Part of me still wishes the rock’n’roll scene had emerged around now so that I could’ve spent my teenage years in those well-lit discos you see in films like Walk The Line.


Buddy Holly - That'll Be The Day


The album that has dominated your last 12 months listening:

Portishead – Third. I suppose it’s justifiable that I came so late to discovering this band. In between their second record and this one, I’d gone from cracking my head open on the edge of a door after running around a slippery kitchen, dressed as Batman, with my eyes closed (1994 – aged 3), to getting a job and saving up for a few months away in Australia with my girlfriend (2008 – aged 17). In other words, I’d grown up whilst Porishead had gone walkies.
I didn’t get hold of Third when it first came out – my interest was numbed by the fact that I hadn’t heard any of their stuff before. Then ‘Machine Gun’ got played on the radio and I began to understand (mainly because every music publication said as much) that this was a very important band, returning to the fore like they’d never disappeared in the first place. It’s an incredible work, particularly production-wise. I don’t know if there are many people out there I respect more than Geoff Barrow, especially when you consider his recent work with The Horrors.


Portishead - The Rip


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

When I grew up, Brighton, despite being a beautiful, vibrant place, didn’t have much to boast about musically apart from Fatboy Slim and The Kooks… Now, things seem to be turning a page. There’s Cold Pumas, who I’m particularly excited about but I guess Regal Safari represent what I’m into at the moment that little bit more. It’s glimmering, visceral electronic music and because they’re a full band, there’s the potential for a wonderful live show. I’m imagining a grand stage and a dazzling visual display from these guys one day.

Regal Safari - Light

And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:

Because we’ve gone through more domain changes, site hacks, design tweaks than most blogs tend to survive. I feel very comfortable with how MFM is going at the moment; I think it’s only just beginning to find its feet. But of course, it’s always susceptible to change.


LCD Soundsystem – I Can Change


Keep up with Jamie's Music Fan's Mic on Facebook and on Twitter for some excellent new music tips and a soothing voice.

Milestones: The Pigeon Post

Milestones is a new feature looking to gain an insight into a particular character of the music 'industry'. We ask them a few questions about music, and they do their best to answer.



Featured this week is Matthew Britton, music writer, new music expert, and the 'brains' behind on-the-ball blogs such as The Pigeon Post and lostlostlost. Any regular follower of Basement Fever will know that we're good friends so it seems only right to have Matthew as the first feature. And if we're being honest, Basement Fever probably wouldn't exist were it not for The Pigeon Post. So...

The album that first got you into music:

There are a load of contenders for this, but I've decided to go for the album that properly got me into music, rather than just being the first time that I appreciated it or felt slightly excited about it. So there's no place for the variety of novelty hits of the early 90's that I made my Mum buy on cassette (Mr Blobby, you were purely misunderstood in your genius) and there's thankfully no room for Limp Bizkit and the nu-metal crew that blighted my mid-teenage years.

It's a choice probably typical of people my age and skin colour - The Libertines cast a huge shadow over everyone who went after them for quite a while, and for a few breif years their sense of brotherhood and ability to make a nice little ditty were the central narrative to my life. I joined their forum, downloaded Pete's acoustic, solo stuff (the material of which would go on to form the basis of his entire career as a solo artist) and toyed, however shortly, with the idea of getting a libertine tattoo when I was old enough. The first album intrigued me, but the second sent me over the edge, and I spent day upon day listening to it on repeat, eking out the details of it's minutiae, desperate to get closer.

It'd be nice to look back upon the time fondly - it gave me a sense of musical identity, a sense of the broader world outside of the terrible second rate pop-punk I'd listened to before hand and gave me enough courage to try out more stuff of a similar vein. sadly, a lot of people didn't see it as such an opportunity, and have instead decided to sit upon the legend, boldly guarding it every Saturday night in indie discos up and down the land, as they get played alongside the ridiculously less exciting likes of Oasis and The Courteneers. Just like Pete himself, the chance to step up the pantheon of true greats was there, but instead it's wallowing in the gutter.


The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now


The band that dominated your teenage years:

...and this is what it led me onto. The Libertines might've made the inroads, but Forward, Russia definitely took over my life for an inhumane amount of years. I own, at last count, about 15 of their trademark t-shirts, I went to their every Manchester show (except one where they supported Biffy Clyro, in which I got the date wrong and spent a week moping afterwards over the ticket I'd already purchased), purposely turned up late to work just to go see them do instore performances. I threw abusive messages at their roadie after learning that he'd slept with someone from their forum, of which I was subsequently banned for said abuse (taking signs with the legend 'Bentley is a Paedo' on don't go down well, apparently), and at their last show I almost broke down in tears after travelling to Leeds just for the occasion.

More than that, it's defined the years afterwards, too. A load of people who used to go to the gigs have gone on to do much more important things - Jamila, who runs Cruel Rhythm (formerly Fucking Dance) was at the front of every show, taking pictures, Cal from D/R/U/G/S once put on the singer's solo project on at his house and, more relevantly for me, it's house I first became friends with Miriam (my girlfriend).


Forward, Russia - 12


The album in your parents' collection that made a lasting impression:

My mum didn't really listen to full albums - she just used to make these little mixes for the car. We didn't even really listen to radio that much, come to think of it, but the mixes were always present, and occasionally themed - around the time of Euro '96 and World Cup '98, she'd swap over to her football based tapes. But there was one that always seemed to be on, and the one track that always stuck with me was Crash, by The Primitives. It was largely mixed in with stuff by Blondie and other 80's pop music, so for years I presumed Debbie Harry was signing on this, but it's a pretty perfect pop song, heavily weighted towards the chorus with a load of 'nah nah nah' action to pad it out.

Famously (in the family, at least), the mix carried on halfway through this song the first time we got in the car after Diana's death. I'd be certain that my mum had got in the car to get up to that section if she didn't spent the the entire funeral crying about it all a few days later.


The Primitives - Crash (Live)


The album that has dominated your last 12 months' listening:

There are loads of good albums and then there are a few that are brilliant. Then, every couple of years, there's an album that completely redefines everything you thought you liked and utterly refuses to go away. I didn't really get on with Kanye's first couple of albums, and even the better tracks on them still felt a little bit weak. But My Dark Beautiful Twisted Fantasy isn't anything like his past works at all. In short, I think it might be perfect.

Only Kanye could've made this album, purely due to the level of depth and complexity you have to endure as a listener. We all know about his ego, his many misdemeanours, his connections, mis-trust of the media and his background, and the joy of the album is watching them all play up against each other, the bombast and bravado having to go up against humility and self loathing - and god, does he know how to self-loath. Runaway is, without doubt, one of the great masterpieces of the decade - you're essentially listening to a man have a nervous breakdown, but he's doing it with such bluster that it never descends into the realms of emo or massive self-indulgence. Then you play it against the likes of Power, and the pure pop of All of the Lights, then consider he's got the larger than life Monster on there too - it's beyond brilliant. A man of sickening talent, he is never ever going to top this as an album, and we can only hope that he doesn't try.


Kanye West - Runaway


The most exciting new band you've heard recently:

Might not grab straight away - certainly didn't for me - but Bos Angeles have the potential to be the biggest thing to spring out of the bandcamp-combing scene, and I can only hope that they do. The fact that they're pretty much the complete package already defies belief, too.


Bos Angeles - Beach Slalom


And the one song that best represents what it is that you do:

On a loop.


Lovvers - Wasted Youth

Follow Matthew on Twitter, or read more of his stuff at The Pigeon Post or over at LostLostLost to find some of the genuinely best new music from around the world.