Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Diary of a Music Fan: Dream Sequence

God bless support bands. Not that all of the support acts I’ve ever seen deserve my love (a few would probably deserve court orders), but sometimes you get a pleasant surprise. But there I was, supping Jamaican lager beer and waiting for Brooklyn groove-glam rockers Amazing Baby when I was introduced to power trio Band of Skulls. Or should I say re-introduced......?

(Cut to wibbly lines as I look up in the air and we are taken back to when I used to live in York and I was once in my bedroom...no, not like that, listening to the radio.....ahem)

After John Peel died, Radio 1 couldn’t work out a way to cover the sheer volume of stuff he used to get through without resorting to more than one human being. As a result, a rather relaxed and jovial Welshman called Huw Stephens ended up doing a two hour show covering indie(ish) every Tuesday night. I once flicked it on mid-show to catch the magnificent riff-based ending of a song called “Hollywood Bowl” by some bunch called Fleeing New York. Hmmmm, good I thought. Must pursue EP, I noted. I did, enjoyed it’s straightforward, raucous charm and played “Hollywood Bowl” loads.

(Wibbly lines return, catching me mid relaxed contentedness as a result of having caught interesting new trio, Band of Skulls and having had another beer, relax, I’m not at work tomorrow, what’s the problem....)

A riff starts, a shouty boy/girl “hey!” refrain and a lyric – “Took my baby, to the Ho-lly-wood Boooooowl......”. So Band of Skulls used to be Fleeing New York. I can’t really compare the joy of suddenly having a song that you know very well, love very much and suspect few others know at all suddenly being played at you by a live band.

Makes it all worthwhile, quite frankly.

No comments:

Post a Comment