Tag Archives: dananananaykroyd

#880: Dananananaykroyd – Muscle Memory

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Ten years ago, Scottish band Dananananaykroyd released their second album, There Is a Way. The day it was released was the beginning of the final week of my GCSE exams. But I didn’t even know that the band were even making any new music until the video for ‘Muscle Memory’ – as you can see up there – was shown on Channel 4’s breakfast music show Freshly Squeezed about a week later, I want to say. It might have even been on the last day of my final exam. Anyone remember that show? Freshly Squeezed? Anyway, I thought the track was great from the moment I saw it. Helped that the band looked like they were all having some good times in the video too. Right before it got into the shouty bridge, the video cut out and the show presenters moved on to something else. But I was left with enough. The knowledge that D’Kroyd were back with a new album. And an urge to see how the track actually ended.

By the time I saw that video, I was now a free 16-year-old who didn’t have to go to school for three months. The world was my damn oyster. So I watched the rest of that video on YouTube and downloaded There Is a Way as soon as I could. And I loved that album too. It was probably my album of the summer. And ‘Muscle Memory’ was always one of the highlights from there. The ascending riff that starts it off just sets everything in motion, and when all the other instruments join in the track is given this extra bounce that always gets my foot tapping. Vocalists Calum Gunn and John Bailie Jnr sing in unison, harmonise and alternate the lines they sing. It’s all generally a very fun listen. And what is about? Well, after some consideration in the past few weeks, I think it’s a song that’s meant to explore the relationship of a band/artist and its fans. How fans want to get closer to a band by trying to decipher their lyrics, reading their reviews, or playing along to their songs by learning them on the guitar. Dang, I think this tune’s so great. Hasn’t lost its energy ten years on.

So taking you back to 2011. There Is a Way had been out for a few months. There I was, excited for any new music videos from the band if they decided to release any more singles from it. And then out of the blue, they announced that they were to split up after their UK tour. Have to say, I was just a bit bummed out. But then again, listening to the last song on that album, the clues were there. The band had felt that they’d done their part, and from some articles I’ve seen they didn’t think they could go on with a band name as strange as theirs anyway. I miss ’em. But they have two albums that captured that essence of pure energy and joyous noise that the band were all about. And for that, I can’t be too sad.

#633: Dananananaykroyd – Infinity Milk

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About 10 years ago, my sister went to university. I was 14 years old, a teenager in year 10, and mother went to work every day usually. Whenever she wasn’t home, I would be in the house by myself…. Every teenager’s dream, right? There was a limitless amount of things I could do without either of them having to know. So what would I do? Stayed in and play FIFA all day. Really. I didn’t get out too much, no friends were really around my area. Weeks and weeks of that can take its toll. There was only so much of that game’s soundtrack (FIFA 09) I could take after a while, so I would usually put my iTunes library on shuffle and listen to that while I was in the game’s menu. It was during those times that today’s song randomly played and I realised how much of a belter it is.

I gave a somewhat curt backstory as to how I found out about the band in my post for ‘Black Wax’ six years ago. I just found that and laughed at how I worded that thing. But anyway, I downloaded the album and listened to it but probably didn’t pay much attention to all of the tracks apart from the aforementioned song and ‘Some Dresses’. Those were the only two I knew prior. ‘Infinity Milk’ I properly listened to when playing FIFA. It’s pretty mental. Comes out of the gate with a forceful ascending guitar riff that’s surrounded by two drum kits falling down the stairs in the left and right channels. It goes quiet with another sole guitar lick that alternates between sudden explosions of noise before ending in a call of ‘OH! MY! GOD!’ and finally going into the first verse.

Calum Gunn is the lead vocalist throughout most of the album. On here, he trades lines with the other vocalist (and then-drummer) John Baillie Jnr. Makes for very active listening. Gunn’ll say one line, Baillie will scream the next and by the end they’re both yelling until their lungs give out. The track pushes and pulls, emphatically slows down and thrashes for its choruses before speeding up again for the verses. It’s a rollercoaster. You don’t know where it’s going to go next. I don’t know what it’s about. The lyrics are very descriptive. Quite violent too. Mentions of blood, cutting out gums with knives, and murder in there. It’s hard to make sense of it. I read somewhere that it could be about losing your virginity(?) I can go with that. What matters is – this song is ferociously optimistic. You should give it a listen.

My iPod #521: Dananananaykroyd – Hey James

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“Hey James” is the penultimate track on Hey Everyone!, the debut album by former Scottish ‘fight pop’ band Dananananaykroyd. Despite its welcoming title the song is probably the heaviest one out of the twelve tracks, depicting an image of a barren wasteland, war and what could possibly be the end of the world itself.

In a track-by-track guide-through a week before the album’s release, guitarist David Roy confirmed that the ‘James’ in the title is a reference to their former drummer who had left to pursue other music interests in another band. The track is a tribute to him, written as “a furious sort of epic rock thing with a hint of sadness”. That hint of sadness may be an allusion to the the track’s minor key, otherwise the song is a performance of sheer energy and balls-to-the-wall noise. The use of two separate drum kits throughout the album is something to behold but both of them on here have a noticeable role on here, providing a punchy rhythm during the verses before adding to the disorderly nature of the choruses.

The track climaxes with a 6/8 time signature before closing out with nightmare-inducing whispers creepily repeating the phrase ‘hey everyone….’ into your ears. Those go on for about a minute. Although it gives you time to take in what you’ve heard it is a nervy way to end it all, but it’s all okay once they segue right into the more cheerful sounding opener of the following song.

My iPod #462: Dananananaykroyd – Good Time

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“Good Time”, the seventh track on Dananananaykroyd’s final album There Is a Way, gets the album back to the original frenetic, loud, energetic, pumped-up style set in the preceding six after a calming interlude of environmental noises after the end of “Time Capsule“.

There is a lot to take in in the three minutes and sixteen seconds this song lasts for. It speeds up, slows down for the choruses, changes time signature at one point, there is stuttering, yelping, screaming, singing in unison, it lifts you up and smacks you around. If you don’t have a physical copy of the album (cos the lyrics are in there), there is a large chance you will have no idea what is being said to you most of the time. But that’s not a bad thing. As long as you have fun, which you will no doubt, then it’s fine. Just have a good time……. listening to it.

It was its unpredictability I think that made it one of the last songs from the album that I appreciated, but after a few more listens I got it. I’m glad.

My iPod #433: Dananananaykroyd – Glee Cells Trade

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“Glee Cells Trade” is the penultimate song on ex-Scottish indie ‘fight pop’ band Dananananaykroyd’s second and final album “There Is a Way“. It comes after one of the cathartic tracks the band ever recorded, and before their grand finale of “Make a Fist” so it does the essential thing of relieving some of the tension of what you’ve just listened to, as well as settling you in for what is to come.

The track features co-lead vocalists John Baillie Jnr and Calum Gunn’s alternating their lines during the verses with tremendous ferocity before singing in unison for the emphatic choruses amongst guitar phrases which stop and start regularly and a springy bass which likes to fill in the gaps with a lick here and there. At two minutes and thirty-seven seconds it is the shortest track on the album, though it is one of the most easy-going ones on there however ear-piercing the singing tends to be sometimes. There’s something assuring about it when the two guys belt out the lines “You can’t set the way/A new baby’s meant to play” during the chorus, which also seem a bit prophetic seeing as the band would split up only a few months after the album’s release.

Admittedly it was one on the album that took me a while to get into; but, as you can see, I eventually did. And I’m glad.