As part of this blog I'm going to talk about bands I love at the moment. Hopefully this will encourage me to keep searching for new bands to fall in love with and want to share with people that might stumble upon this page.
In this first edition I want to tell you to listen to an American band called Pianos Become The Teeth. I first came across this band after downloading a digital sampler from an awesome label called Topshelf Records. From the moment I heard their track "Jess and Charlie" I was hooked. I wanted more. Their mix of screamo, hardcore and post rock make a fine cocktail of noise. The guitars build up reverb heavy walls of noise whilst the drums and vocals smash straight through the middle.
What I think appeals to me most is the vocalists off kilter screams. At times he almost seems to be singing over a completely different song. OK that sounds like it should sound awful but it doesn't, it works, trust me. A couple of weeks I was lucky enough to catch them live. In the flesh the vocals tear in to your ears and make you want to just shout along just random phrases because you have no idea what he's saying but you don't care you just do it anyway. yyaaarrghharghaaaaaaahahhhh!!
If you get chance to see them live I insist you go and see them. Everything about their live show epitomises why this kind of music is great, and why I love it.
In 1975 the Sex Pistols played their first gig and Punk was born in the UK. Nirvana formed in 1987 and made Grunge the sound of the early 90's. Rebelling against this sound Oasis and Blur made Britpop the sound of British music for years to come. Then in 2001 The Strokes released "is this it?" and reinvented indie guitar bands for the next generation when Britpop had become stale. All of these artists have changed music and made it more exciting when the previous genre or sound had become the norm. One other artist did this but in perhaps a more subtle way.
Tom Vek released his debut album "we have sound" in April 2005. An album that blended the angular guitars of indie, deadpan vocals, with broken beats and bass lines more in line with Garage than with indie. Although this album only reached number 73 and none of the singles broke into the top 40 it's influenced seeped into the British music scene and made a difference.
OK so it didn't create a whole new genre and catapult Vek to number one. But would we have had Nu Rave and bands like the Klaxons without the release of "we have sound"? The home produced, "bedroom" recorded sound that we've come to expect from bands and musicians was perhaps pioneered by Tom Vek outside of urban music. In my opinion bands like Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, Metronomy, Friendly Fires, late of the pier and many others have certainly been inspired by Tom Vek and "we have sound" and possibly owe him for their successes.
Now almost 6 years since that debut album was released we now wait with baited breath to see if the sophomore album from Tom Vek has been worth the wait. This could have been an album with a lot of pressure. Will it be any good? Will it just be "we have sound pt II"? Why has it taken so long? Has the music scene moved on too much? Will it be as influential as the first album? So many artists utterly fail under this pressure (Chinese Democracy anyone?) and the second album curse that has claimed so many careers strikes again. Is Tom Vek the next Axl Rose?
I don't think so. I think he has done the best thing he could possibly do. Disappear. Try Googling him, or looking him up on Wikipedia and you won't much about him. Even his own website is pretty lacking information about the most mysterious man in music. It's surprising he hasn't been declared legally dead like lord Lucan he's been gone so long. But by doing this he avoided all the questions. Avoided all the expectations. He basically played the industry and the media at it's own game. Now there aren't such high expectations he can release his new album on his terms.
I'm sure i wasn't the only one that heard his new single on radio one the other week and went "oh yeah Tom Vek, I love that album" and spent the next few days listening to his album before excitedly pre-ordering the new record. I'm excited to hear “Leisure Seizure” when it is released later this year. I'm excited to see the reaction it gets from the public and the press, and also to see how Tom Veks bold move has panned out.
New single "A Chore" released 18th April 2011 "Leisure Seizure" is released 6th June 2011
To be honest I don't really know what Chewing Gum is. Its a project. A project I hope to develop into something amazing (simple enough). For the time being it is a blog where I can rant about the music industry and other such topics. But in time I hope to develop the project into something. It could become a music project, a club night, a collective, a label, who knows, but whatever it is it'll be fucking rad.
