Tuesday 8 April 2014

JosieJo's Great Big Pair of Tips
The JosieJo Show 26
This is The JosieJo Show and it's show 26 a celebration of the short song. Normally I play two different tracks by two different artists or bands and then end with a third track by a band that I've played on the show before, but last week the final track was “Cheer Me Up” by Misty's Big Adventure and it got me thinking that good tunes are good tunes and some are made great because of their brevity. I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. I am myself considered shorter than the norm and am therefore a champion of the “small, but perfectly formed”. So I decided to concentrate this week on the tiny track. Those tunes that storm into your life, give you a big sloppy kiss, slap in the face or ruffle of the hair and then leave while you stand there blinking, wondering what that was all about and wanting to lean forward and press repeat repeat repeat. Two tracks by two different artists in a show celebrating the short track though was going to make for a very brief show 26 so this week you get five tracks. Five tracks by five different artists none of which have been played on The JosieJo Show before. Stand by and concentrate this is going to whizz by.
First up is Swimsuit Addition from Chicago, Illinois. A four piece with passion. They are Jem, Becca, Sam and Sarah and are all girl bubblepunk. Like a sort of pink punk or Hello Kitty with it's eyes gouged out. They have an EP out called Kittyhawk and play mostly round Chicago and the surrounding area, but they're looking to tour Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, you get the idea so if you like what you hear and you know of places that would love this sound then get in touch with them via their Facebook page.
This track “Gimme, Gimme” is forty eight seconds of in yer face sound. At the end you'll be pinned against the wall and in no doubt of just when they want it. It's impossible for me to make this intro shorter than the track itself, but let's limit the damage and jump straight in. So here it is Swimsuit Addition and “Gimme, Gimme”


Hahahaha. Just brilliant. Forty eight seconds of fun, frenzied punk. They do have much longer tracks and you can find them at the somewhat disturbing, yet fun website www.swimsuitadditon.com It gets me thinking that if you're only going to have less than a minute to grab your listeners then you need to wake them up fairly quickly. No lengthy intros or navel gazing introversion. This brought me to my next band and Steam punk heroes The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. What's steam punk? Well think Victoriana, Engineer minded, Dr. Who loving, waxed mustachioed punk rockers. I'll dig out some photos I've taken at their gigs and pop them onto my Facebook page. Just find me by searching for JosieJo Show. This London based band have been recently steaming themselves through America and are due to play The Balcony on the lower east side in New York City on May 15th. They have songs about gin, Nikoli Tesla and this one, my favourite, about Isambard kingdom Brunel. It's longer than the last track, but gives you no time for tea. Saying their name is almost longer than the track itself. This is The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing and “Brunel”


Those of you that are super smart/geeky will know, of course, that it wasn't actually Isambard Kingdom Brunel that built the tunnel under the Thames at Rotherhithe, but his father Isambard Marc Brunel (now known as Marc Brunel to avoid confusion), but IKB did work for his father on the tunnel as an engineer and in fact nearly drowned when the entrance hall flooded. You can still visit that entrance hall and the tunnels themselves are still used by the London Underground. Let's move on.
Master Solo from Norwich England. This band sort grew round the solo project of Mark Jennings to create the folk, blues five piece consisting of Mark, Kat Mcgregor, Zoe Ward, Mark Bromley and my colleague, and fellow soundie Rich Williams. The sound of this band is extraordinary. It is led mostly by the deep, deep, deep gravelly lead male vocal harmonised by the sweet female voice. Woven into this are often pianos, organs, glockenspiels, drums, bass, guitars and the odd melodica. The tracks are tales and tribulations delivered with wit and beats, simple yet beautifully effective. The cleverness of this band is in its naivete. The candour of the tunes engage you and the seemingly guilelessness of the structure is, in itself, clever. You expect to hear this band in the corner of a pub gradually commanding your attention.
mastersoloThis track “The Pirate and the Nun” seems like a song that should be sung round a campfire. It’s from their album “Shepherd (unmastered)” which is available as a free download on http://mastersolo.bandcamp.com/page.  It's a song about falling for a girl whilst dressed in fancy dress. Their whole relationship plays out in one and a half minutes. Wallow in the wonderful sound of Master Solo and “The Pirate and the Nun”
http://mastersolo.bandcamp.com/track/pirate-and-the-nun

You see not every short track has to be Boom boom in your face. Sometimes they are a sweet tale condensed into a few minutes and sometimes they are just an idea given form. The next track is of that kind. Two sisters Shelly and Karen Poole, Alisha's Attic were huge in the 1990s and I played and played and played their album Alisha's World. This track “Personality Lines” is a fine example of how a little idea can be captured and presented within a whole album and still hold its own and get inside your head. I'll just play it because it pretty much speaks for itself. Alisha's Attic and “Personality Lines”

Love it. Shelly is still performing with her new project Red Sky July and recently played the wonderful Green Note Cafe in Camden North London. The Green Note is a constant source of great music for me and if you are ever in the area I can highly recommend that you try and catch some live music there. It's always packed so grab your table early. Well that's it for my short tracks . I'm going to end with a whopping three minuter, but I always think of this track as a sweet little track so it seems fitting, plus it is in the top forty four of my friend Liam's all time favourite tracks. Again it's from a very successful Swedish band called I'm From Barcelona who are just happy and fun. When me and Liam saw them at End of the Road Festival I think that they broke the record for the amount of band members on the stage. I think it was about thirty or so. Then the lead singer crowd surfed on a pink li-lo. You couldn't make it up. Hope you enjoyed this show. I know it was a bit different, but back to normal next week as soon as I work out what normal is. Follow me on Twitter under the handle josiejoshow and on Facebook for extra content. All the shows are up on Mixcloud and can be found in blog form on Tumblr and Blogger. Stay to the end for an outro in Mandarin and thank, as always, for listening. This is I'm From Barcelona and “Treehouse”



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