Monthly Archives: June 2015

My iPod #515: The Young Knives – Here Comes the Rumour Mill

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Excuse the quality of the music video above; YouTube had only been existing for a year when the video was uploaded and couldn’t handle the same standards as it does today.

The Young Knives are a three-piece indie rock band consisting of brothers Henry and Thomas “The House of Lords” Dartnall on guitar and bass respectively, and Oliver Askew on the drums. They were quite the thing in 2006 (not as much as… say Arctic Monkeys were but were still a group that got people talking) releasing a string of enjoyable singles which led up to their debut album Voices of Animals and Men in August of the same year. Took me a while to find out who the band actually was. The original video for the band’s first single “The Decision” was played on MTV at sporadic times but the little animation that showed you the song’s name and artist never showed up. It also made me assume that The House of Lords was the band’s lead singer. Viewing the first video for “Weekends and Bleak Days” and “Here Comes the Rumour Mill” showed that he, in fact, was not.

And, if you didn’t see from the title, the second song is what I will be talking about today. “Here Comes the Rumour Mill” was The Young Knives’ second single released early 2006, and is about the paranoia and mistrust brought about by constant gossiping and rumours. The track is driven by a constantly moving guitar line that intertwines with Henry Dartnall’s vocals amidst a solid rhythm section before the power chords are brought out for a rip-roaring chorus in which Dartnall leaps an octave or so, shouting about the uncontrollable spread of the lies that are spouted by people. I think the track is another one of those that sound so much better when seen with its music video. It’s one that brilliant captures what the song is about visually, and what better way to exhibit it than through having the lead singer aggressively yell with huge bug-like eyes towards the camera, seeing hallucinations brought on by his mental condition? It’s a wild listen, much more so than compared to “The Decision”, and was the track that convinced me that the group was worth listening to. Most definitely my favourite song of theirs.

It’s a shame they gradually faded from the airwaves, but they’re still going strong. Their most recent album Sick Octave came out in late 2013. Still, it’s their first album that I feel most connected with. Takes me back to a simple times.

My iPod #514: The Fratellis – Henrietta

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Although “Creepin’ Up the Backstairs” had its own music video made to promote the Fratellis EP in early 2006, “Henrietta” was released as the band’s first official single a few months later, and was later placed as the opener on their debut album Costello Music. And for good reason, the first word the listener hears is a welcoming “Hello!” said by singer Jon Lawler before the track leaps into a disco-style groove accompanied by the standard guitars, bass, drums, and some distorted horns to give the sound an extra ‘oomph’.

Henrietta is a lady who the three members have grown quite attached to, and the song is something of a letter or a notice to try and get her attention. They are not the most romantic of people, and the comic self-deprecation shows that they don’t think too highly of themselves either. But in the end they know that they’ll be able to give a better time than her ‘animal’ husband. The band wish for her to leave him behind, and live with them at Costello Music – a place which I haven’t been able to locate, but led me to believe the phrase would be the title of the then forthcoming album.

All in all, the track does a great job as an album opener. It has the exciting, and welcoming tone that gives you an idea of what the band is all about and leaves you wanting more in the process.

My iPod #513: The Beatles – Helter Skelter

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After reading a magazine in which Pete Townshend of The Who described the band’s most recent single “I Can See for Miles” as the ‘loudest, and dirtiest track [they’d] ever done’, Paul McCartney took it upon himself to listen to it and decide whether the track lived up to the adjectives. For him, it did not. Finding it too ‘straight’ and ‘sophisticated’, he wrote a song in response that would really get the people going and to also hush the critics who only saw him as the one who wrote the ballads and sillier songs in The Beatles. The result? “Helter Skelter”, possibly the most manic track the group committed to tape and found on the group’s self-titled album from 1968.

The four men from Liverpool give it to you raw for the four and a half minutes the song lasts for. Whilst Ringo pounds on the crash cymbals and provides regular drum fills here and there for the track’s duration, John provides an ugly, murky sounding but appropriate bassline with George and Paul play feedback-laden rhythm guitars present but which also take a backseat in the song’s mix. Really, the highlight of the track is McCartney’s wild vocals; he melodically shouts and howls throughout, falling into fits of laughter at some points as he fails to control himself. The production is that unpolished that subtle things that would be left out on any other track are left in, such as Paul’s random utterances (2:57-3:09) and John randomly shouting and chanting “Fanny Craddock” before baaing like a sheep (2:37-2:55). They’re very strange, but only add to its chaotic atmosphere.

The version you hear on the album was the last of a staggering eighteen takes, and even if they wanted to try it one more time the chance that they would get it as perfect as they did would be quite slim. Plus, the blisters on Ringo’s fingers would have hindered him from trying one more time anyway.

My iPod #512: The Who – Helpless Dancer

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The eighth track on The Who’s second rock opera Quadrophenia is “Helpless Dancer”, a piano led march that is meant to represent the ‘tough guy’ persona of the album’s central character Jimmy. It is also one of the four themes present that portrays one of the members of The Who, in this case the song is the theme for Roger Daltrey. The narrator is angered by the unfairness and injustice within the society around him; Jimmy gives up on it, and his ‘dancing’ and naivety are brought to a sudden halt.

The aforementioned piano boldly begins the track and its chords simmer throughout the introduction, which continues to build as acoustic guitars and a French horn courtesy of bassist John Entwistle enter the mix. The melody provided by the horn is something of a motif, appearing at crucial points in the album’s storyline.  It is soon after this slow build that the track’s marching rhythm starts, led by a vamping piano which blasts out chords whilst Roger Daltrey’s passionate vocals pan regularly pan from one ear to the other. Acoustic flourishes by Townshend appear within its second verse to give the track a further boost, and the way the guitar is played is mirrored again by Keith Moon and his drums later during “The Rock” (which I actually just noticed while writing this).

The piano and French horn end “Dancer” just how it started, but a nice little snippet of “The Kids Are Alright” really closes the song off – maybe to lift a weight off the serious subject matter.

My iPod #511: The Beatles – Hello, Goodbye

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Only a few months after their success with “All You Need Is Love“, The Beatles were back in the studio in order to record what would become their next hit single. The result was “Hello, Goodbye”, a track written by Paul McCartney based on the ‘deep theme of duality in the universe’. Really it is a light, simple, and sugary tune which incorporates a lot of opposites within the lyrics and isn’t about anything very important. But you need those types of songs sometimes. I do think the pitch of the song on Magical Mystery Tour is a bit too high; the video seems to play it at the original recorded pitch and it sounds just as good to me.

John Lennon wasn’t a great fan of it and argued for his new song “I Am the Walrus” to be the next single; listening to one after the other you can see why Paul won this round. Not saying that John didn’t have an ear for melody, but you could always rely on Paul to make one that would always get you singing along to it. Mix the melody with very simple lyrics; you can’t fail. The track, with “I Am the Walrus” as the B-Side, went straight to number one in many countries.

I’ve always felt that the song sounds much better when viewed along with its video as seen above. The four guys are donned in their Sgt. Pepper costumes and do little silly things that will get you smiling, especially during the last minute of the song’s ‘heba-hello-ah’ coda. It is a promotional film that has aged very well and looks like it was only filmed the other day, let alone almost fifty years ago.