Everything is wireless these days – internet, keyboards, computer mice – but for some reason I have been slow on the uptake when it comes to wireless speakers. It all seems like too much hassle, and I don’t generally have the patience.
However, I’ve finally found wireless speakers that are as easy as I am lazy and with a name like SuperTooth Disco 2, how can you not love them. Oh and did I mention mine is bright green!?
For our very first HeadsUp! artist, I’d like to introduce you to the dreamy singer-songwriter Dave Dixon
I know what you’re thinking – “Not another singer-songwriter!” – but I promise Dave Dixon is not your typical skinny-jean-wearing guitarist. OK, so he might have been wearing skinny jeans when he met me before his gig at Camden’s Wheelbarrow last month, but that’s beside the point. Replace the image of the whining, sad hipster from Shoreditch you’ve created in your head with an unassuming, lovely man whose lyrics are full of emotion and guitar lines are beautifully constructed and you’ve got Dave Dixon.
He started the guitar when just a teenager, like you do. “A lot of friends at school were really good at guitar but never wanted to write anything original, and that’s the best thing for me. I’ve never really been able to learn covers,” Dave tells me over a pint before his show. “As soon as I start playing a cover I’ll find something interesting and try to develop that.”
Muskia would like to introduce our new column Heads Up!, introducing you to all the best upcoming artists we’ve seen, or rather heard, come through our inboxes.
Every month we’ll bring you interviews, videos and audio from some of the hottest bands starting with the dreamy Dave Dixon later this week. So stay tuned and enjoy the musical awesomeness coming your way.
Have you recently discovered a band so good it rocked your socks off, got your booty shaking or melted your face off (in a good way)? If so let us know and maybe they can be our next HeadsUp! artist.
By Alexandra Petropoulos
The steady decline of the record shop has been felt by music lovers everywhere and it’s a tough story to listen to, but Last Shop Standing tells the story well.
Graham Jones, the author of the book by the same name, introduces you to the faces behind the counters as well as the musicians who made these shops their homes, including Peter Weller, Richard Hawley, Clint Boon and Billy Bragg.
TOKiMONSTA (aka Jennifer Lee), who is known for her unique take on electronic/hip-hop music has collaborated with Clarks Originals and Trojan Records to celebrate the 40th anniverary of the iconic Desert Boot.
As part of the celebration, Clarks is presenting four DJ producers and their exclusive remixes of the Trojan Records reggae classic ‘Let your yeah be yeah’ by the Jamaican trio The Pioneers.
The indie rock band Menomena, consisting of Justin Harris and Danny Seim are due to release their latest album Moms on Barsuk Records on October 8 2012.
Originally consisting of Justin Harris, Danny Seim and Brent Knopf, the new album sees the band recast as a duo after Knopf took his leave to pursue his solo project. Seim and Harris, who each wrote five tracks each for the new album, explored deep, meaningful themes – Seim wrote about the death of his mother when he was but and teenager and Harris investigated his own family dynamic as a child of a single mother. Moms, as a result is a tragic and intimate 10-track record.
The Brooklyn-based band Beast Patrol are due to release their debut EP, Fierce & Grateful, on their label Space Camp Radio Records on September 25 2012.
Beast Patrol is Vanessa Bley, Robert Granata and Anthony Marchesi. Bley had been writing songs and recruited Marchesi to play a slot in a revolutionary show powered by bicycles, Natural Ass, and there they met Granata.
The Vancouver duo Japandroids debut their first music video for their single ‘The House That Heaven Built’.
Japandroids recently released their anticipated sophomore album, Celebration Rock. The video’s director Jim Larson traveled with the band on their last tour, filming at sold out shows and their life on the road between.
The documentary Last Shop Standing: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Independent Record Shop, inspired by the book of the same name by Graham Jones, will be released on DVD September 10.
The film delves into why nearly 2000 record shops have already disappeared across the UK. It charts the rapid rise of record shops in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the demise of vinyl, and the rise of the CD and other technologies.
Japandroids – Celebration Rock (Polyvinyl Records / April 2012)
By Alexandra Petropoulos
Japandroids crashed onto the scene in 2009 with their first album, Post-Nothing, of thrashing, youth-inspired indie-rock. While the album was an all-out garage rock bundle of sound, it left you wanting, with a twinge of the unintentionally unpolished and boyishly untamed. Three years later and Celebration Rock is tighter, bigger and better.
The duo from Vancouver, BC – Brian King and David Prowse – have mastered the art of the ruckus. The album starts strong and charges through the eight tracks in an exhilarating rush of drums and guitars that would be completely exhausting if it weren’t for the overall verve and vitality.
