Simon Says No! Podcast

After a couple of little mentions about Norweigans Simon Says No! I was lucky enough to have chat with 3 of the lads about their forthcoming EP, playing in the states and a few other bits and pieces.

Podcast Simon Says No Podcast

VP Technical Advice and General Wizardry: the Peeblemeister

Photo credit: Petteri Lamula

Someone Should Say 'Yes' to Simon Says No!

Well a little bird tells me - actually a young chap called Dany - that SSN! will have an EP out in '09 (probably on download). Young Dany (everyone is young compared to me - sob) tells me he is the UK and US manager for the bouncy young Norweigans, so more power to his elbow.

I mentioned earlier that they bring back memories of early Hawkwind ( which may or may not be good news for the guys) and listening again to their Myspace stuff I am still struck by this, especially 'Peak'. Not sure if its intentional but I find it all rather uplifting stuff, a bit like walking along a hill ridge in a strong wind - makes you want to take flight ... enough now... Suffice it to say their fuzzywuzzy wall of guitar sound and insistent drum work is doing it for me right now.

It appears that amongst other things Dany runs a blog called Exitfare andI imagine that anyone wishing to give these Oslovians (?) a leg up ( may be a little gig on Bristol would be nice, hint hint!) could contact him through that route. Mr D also seems to contribute to the intriguing Stranded in Stereo blog and their similarly named website - I imagine that the offer of a free CD/DV's is only limited to US subscribers which is a shame if entirely understandable.

Feeling More and More like I am 16 Again

Is it just that I am getting old or what? Seems that more and more 'new' music I hear takes me back to when I had hair and stuff ... is that the destiny of everyone to constantly relate back to a earlier time? Enough of the pop psychology

There are a couple of blogs that consistently prove useful in flagging up new stuff, and certainly stuff I haven't heard of elsewhere - Ryans Smashing Life (lucky old Ryan, grimace) and the Silent Ballet a strangely poetic name methinks)

Earlier this week I stumbled through my RSS aggregator to some

recent Silent Ballet posts and tripped over a free download split sampler type album from The Mylene Sheath label (the news article seems to have disappeared unfortunately with its link for

the download). Some of the bands don't do much for me but a couple do, namely If These Trees Could Talk and Caspian. If These Trees Could Talk in particular grabbed my aural attention becausen despite their math/post/experimental rock

labelling there really did seem to be somethng more there - Signal Tree being a particular favourite. Caspian too, even with their more obvious math rock leanings, are still well worth a good listen.

Maybe my fav though this week has been courtesy of Ryan and his blinking Smashing Life (yeuk). Norweigan band, Simon Says No! (not sure why they should be so negative really) are perhaps the source of my earlier rant about feeling 16 again. Much of the stuff on their Myspace site (save the opening Sleeping Heart) really rather takes me back to that early Hawkwind album (Warrior on the Edge of Time, 1975), not so much the vocal but that insistent muddy guitar track. Have been listening to these tracks a bit now and they have carved out a little niche with me.