2017 In Music
I realised I hadn’t written a look back at the year in music yet, after I did so in 2016.
Gigs
Gig wise the only bigger gig I got to was The Smith Street Band in Glasgow, which was great, as expected. There was of course the brilliant Book Yer Ane Fest 2017 too. There were a ton of smaller gigs, and unfortunately a bunch I couldn’t get to.
New Releases
Albums
Black Volvo – Bad Driving, fast as fuck dutch punk, pure braw
Broken Social Scene – Hug Of Thunder, a surprise release after 7 years of silence from a great band, 2002s You Forgot It In People is still one of my favourite albums.
Fresh – Fresh, London punks who are grand, singer has an utterly beautiful voice.
Great Cynics – Posi, enjoyable, but their previous record is probably better if you were to get only 1.
Hard Girls – Floating Now, good indie album via Specialist Subject.
Idlewild – Hope Is Important, debut album from Idlewild saw a re-release on vinyl.
Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows: re-release of the second album by Idlewild on vinyl. Has my favourite track of theirs on it I Don’t Have The Map. I made Idlewild my next band to try and complete collection of, so now need 4 albums and 2 singles to have their entire catalogue on vinyl.
Alice Marra – Chain Up The Swings, Alice Marra from the Hazey Jones with an album of covers of songs written by her dad Michael Marra.
Onsind – We Wilt, We Bloom, album number 4 from one of the best duos in the UK. Folk punk about poverty and exclusion.
Prophets Of Rage – Prophets Of Rage, supergroup effort by members of Cypress Hill, Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine which unfortunately didn’t manage to escape their musical styles of the last 20+ years, which is good, but didn’t achieve greatness.
Public Enemy – Nothing Is Quick In The Desert, there was also a surprise free album release by Public Enemy. But it’s pretty poor.
Rainer Maria – S/T, if discovering Save Ends wasn’t enough, Rainer Maria also returned with a new album. They also keep doing awesome stuff like putting up live performances online.
The Smith Street Band – More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me, I have no idea how this band stay being consistently great. Saw them in Glasgow live in a tiny venue for the nth time, whilst they were sitting at number 3 in the Australian album charts. One of the most underrated/overlooked bands in the world. Fans of Neils dugs too.
Terrafraid – Contentment, top boys fae Dundee who make you smile whilst singing about things that make you sad.
Throwing Stuff – Fit, Fine & Well, pretty good hardcore album.
EPs and other stuff
Burnt Tapes – Alterations, pretty good melodic punk.
Forever Unclean – Float, Make That A Take knocked it out of the park with EPs this year, and this was one of them.
Goodbye Blue Monday – The Sickness, The Shame. There are no words good enough to praise this release. Probably EP of the year, and pushing for best release of the year.
Tragical History Tour – Come On Home, Hero, Deeker was too busy putting on loads of shows to put out an album so treated us to two EPs this year. This one is about the fucking trainwreck of Brexit.
Tragical History Tour – Old Words, there’s also a video for this one in which I may, or may not (definitely can) be seen, as well as tons o’ ma music loving’ pals.
As you can see, a substantial amount of releases last year I bought were via Make That a Take and Specialist Subject, so I have got season tickets for both this year.
Other
The fascinating documentary So Which Band Is Your Boyfriend In? was released after their fundraising campaign 3 years ago. It’s well worth the watch, exploring the experience of women in the music scene.
Music I discovered
Pale Angels, grunge band who I caught at a gig in Dundee at the end of 2016 but must have missed off last year.
Save Ends stand out as the band I discovered this year, utterly amazing in every way.
Shit Present, a band I took a chance on with Specialist Subjects moving sale. Featuring the singer who used to be in Great Cynics.
We Grow Beards, digging through old emails I found a reference to these guys from years ago and had forgotten about them. I immediately grabbed a bunch of stuff off bandcamp. Folk punk band doing songs about working class movements, recommend this album.
Discogs
I’ve found Discogs invaluable in tracking what music I have. I have tried to use it to rate the music I have, as a guide to re-listen to it all, so that I can definitely make an effort to clear out the stuff I don’t like. I’ll definitely do this. Definitely. I managed to listen to all my vinyl albums and have been listening through all my CD albums. So far I’ve submitted almost 200 new releases that weren’t on it. I still have to go through my CD singles, rip them and check they are the correct submissions on the site too. I’m mainly loving this as in the 1990s I uses a spreadsheet of my own which I would print out and take to record fairs etc.