We heard it on New Year’s Day and the recording will be played in Saturday’s show.

Funnily enough my guest Paul Eastham has a coincidental connection to that sound and it comes via the album ‘The Turning Stone’ which his band Coast released in 2011.

Inspired by his daily commute on the Hythe ferry it’s a wonderful collection of Celtic rock songs flavoured with the spirit of Southampton.

The album has been doing brilliantly in Denmark where the band has a very strong following and will be touring in March.

And as Paul pointed out this is a big moment for them: “It’s our first trip where we are gigging with out the aid of festivals. They not only pay you but also give you an audience.”

No doubt this tour of large clubs will also bring them closer to the people who’ve hearing Coast daily on Danish national radio.

They will be playing major European festivals in 2012 but might not eclipse the filling of Paul’s childhood ambition in Germany last year, when Coast played Cologne’s Tanzbrunnen Park stadium in front of 14,000 people.

Not only did they follow Bryan Adams but, as Paul recalls, “it was weird to hear the crowd singing the second chorus of ‘Oceanos’.”

On Saturday night on 103.9 Voice FM you’ll hear why Coast have such a good footing in Europe, tracks from the new album and the connection between Southampton, Winchester, Coast and that sound. Show starts at 6pm.

Today I’m casting my steely glare towards the early months of 2012 in which we see ‘Band of Skulls’ releasing their much anticipated second album ‘Sweet Sour’.

Available on February 20th and eagerly anticipated, it will launch them into the upper echelons of the rock world.

Evidence so far points to the band adding another layer of polish to their impressive studio sound and all I’m waiting for to hear if they’ve retained their knack for songs filled with quality pop hooks.

As a free taster you can sign up to their mailing list at www.bandofskulls.com and get ‘Devil’s Rug’ an alternative version the single ‘The Devil Takes Care of His Own’.

Another free offering to look out for is ‘Nature Regulate’ a track from Birdpen’s second album.

Its a wonderful soundscape and is already in the playlist at Voice FM.

You’ll be able to download it from www.birdpen.com in January and it will be accompanied by a cool, artistic animated video.

Also in January Dlugokecki will be studio bound to add the finishing touches to their next album ‘Putting the Tracks in Front of the Train’.

It should be a cracker of an album, released on 12th March and you can pre-order from www.dlugokecki.net

Add to that the début début album from LST and already 2012 is looking like the year Southampton will be sticking its head above pops parapet and waving a flag of quality.

The singer/songwriter was a resident of Botley, but born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, and lost his battle with cancer on Monday night.

Even though his career began in the 70’s fronting ‘Doll by Doll, and although he has about 30 solo albums to his name, Jackie was still being labelled a new act by BBC Radio 2 in 2010.

“I have long thought of Jackie as Britain’s lost rock star.” Says Neil McCormick, the Daily Telegraph’s chief rock music critic and one of Jackie’s biggest champions.

The young Jackie Leven had the same dangerous magnetism as Oliver Reed in that a drink and a fight weren’t far away. As Neil eloquently describes Doll by Doll: “They were positively scary live, you thought they might jump off the stage and punch the audience, but the toughness of Leven’s persona was counterbalanced by the tender depths of their songs.”

Leven’s voice sets him apart from almost any other performer and once you felt the emotion it never left you.

The frustrations of knowing that he should have had wider recognition are tempered by the fact that over the coming years many people will discover this ‘new’ artist called Jackie Leven.

As Neil McCormick summed up: “…to those who knew, he was the real deal. His work has incredible depth and resonance. I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of him.”

You can hear an interview with Jackie Leven and Xan Phillips on Playdio.com

When there isn’t a specific genre you invent one, for example ‘cool/dark’ is how I’m summing up Robin Foster’s latest album.

Courtesy of the Southampton four-piece ‘Wolfe‘ a new genre “ChillWave” has been brought to my attention.

A term coined by blogger ‘Carles‘ which became ‘official’ when iTunes gave it a category and John Pareles in the New York Times summed it up as “recession-era music: low-budget and danceable.”

Wolfe dropped it into a conversation about professional acts they’ve recently supported.

Musicians such as ‘Tropics’ who headlined the club Pop in May: “Musically it worked really well and there was a mutual admiration between bands. It was great to support an up and coming band and one which is part of ‘chillwave’.”

Vocalist Gav Brook continued. “It led to a headline slot a few months later at the ‘Wednesday Night Live’ night at Pop which is a brilliant night for a more eclectic, electronic and left-field artists.”

Other acts they cite are ‘Suicide Party’ and ‘Bridpen’ because of… “the vibe that they create at gigs.”

Fronted by singer/bassist Laura Wolfe, with Paulus Fielder, Stu Rogers and Gav they created a brilliant ambiance, and very well balanced sound, when they supported ‘Maths and the Moon’ at Guava Bar in October.

Their EP “Cries” is available as a free download on Soundcloud and they’ll blow your house down.

First published in the Southern Daily Echo, Friday 11th Nov, 2011

Wolfe “Cries” by WOLFE

“How do you feel?” befuddles his Vulcan mind, yet begins to draw out his human emotions. A classic Trek moment.

Innocent questions are no problem for Sean McGowan who at first resorts to humour when asked: “Are you angry?”

“I’m angry QPR lost to Fulham, I’m angry I never got to see the Clash, I am furious that I can’t afford a better car than ‘Fiona’ my P reg banger.”

And that’s exactly what you get from his lyrics: the events and problems of daily life, expertly wrapped up in three minutes by Southampton’s folk/punk poet.

“I’m eighteen. I have strong feelings towards everything.” Sean continues, “I am angry, I feel certain things need to change. My views are expressed in my music, I have no intention to have any political influence.“

What he would like to see is debate: “I want people to question and challenge things they disagree with. Everyone has a voice and an opinion, imagine if they could actually have a ’say’ whether it be through music, art or any means necessary!”

His songs are definitely stirring up music lovers with 100 downloads, in 24hrs, propelling him to the top of the Mintsouth charts.

This Saturday, at the Joiners, he launches his début EP ‘McGovernment’ where the audience will hear a slice of what Sean calls: “The People’s Music.”

www.facebook.com/seanmcgowanmusicuk

The listener’s approach to John Peel’s radio show was probably similar to the mind set of someone considering purchasing an album by ‘The Who’.

On one hand you can appreciate each artist’s professional brilliance and on the other you’re anticipating some tracks will be hard on the ear.

With this in mind it makes sense to have a living legend like Who guitarist Pete Townshend give the inaugural BBC 6 Music John Peel lecture. Nowadays most launches need a big name to force the story under the media spotlight and Mr Townshend has all the credentials.

With this opportunity to speak his mind and let loose his ‘inner artist’ on an unsuspecting audience it is great to see the famous guitarist has come out in support of musicians living “below celebrity”.

Townshend: iTunes should be like local radio

His main thrust is that the rise in online services has led to a steep decline in the nurturing that record companies traditionaly performed – areas such as: editorial guidance, financial support, creative nurture, manufacturing, publishing and marketing.

This, he says, has left the artist floundering as only the distribution and payment of royalties is in the hands of the Internet shop or software and the musician has to manage the rest.

One of Townshend’s solutions is for services like iTunes to expand and support new artists in the other areas mentioned above. Another idea is that iTunes should become more like a local radio station and help promote new music.

His ideas have prompted me to let loose my ‘inner presenter’ and shine a light on something that is already happening on Spotify with Playdio.com, with whom I have a show. They upload my links, as if they were music tracks, and then slot them between a playlist of songs. Playdio is in its early days, and yet to be promoted within the Spotify programme, but has the potential to be a great way of guiding people to new songs and artists.

Another service I’ve had the pleasure of working with is Amazing Radio, who only play unsigned music uploaded to AmazingTunes.com. Available nationally on DAB it has become an ideal refuge for those seeking new music. And it only takes a couple of days before a whole station of unfamiliar music steadily becomes a comfortable listen – an imprtant fact radio that music programmers should take note of.

But local radio stations doesn’t support local artists as much as Mr Townshend imagines. And they should: as on-air is one of the best places a band can generate support from its community, building the necessary following that will take them to higher places.

BBC Introducing is the best example of radio helping artists take one or two steps up the ladder: first there is nothing better for a musician than hearing how your recording sounds over the air and second receiving some much needed interview experience is essential. But it is only within these BBC Introducing shows that new music flourishes.

It is quite rare for unsigned and independent acts to be added to the much coveted daytime play-lists because their music is seen as being ‘unofficial’.

Its a conundrum that gets even odder when you compare it to the rest of a radio station’s output – imagine asking the news editor to drop local stories, he’d kick you out of the station; if you asked the mid-morning show producer not to take local callers he’d suggest a different career.

But suggest the music programmer adds local acts during the day and they’ll conclude you’ve taken leave of your senses and tell you more 80’s music is what the public want.

Local news and local callers are the life blood of any good station but musically the attitude is very lazy. There is an unrational fear that listeners will turn off if they hear something they don’t recognise. So when it comes to unsigned and independent artists this fear is magnified.

Add to that the lost ability to pick a good new song without relying on BBC Radio 2 or 1 to play it first and you begin to undersatnd why most musicians listen to talk radio and BBC 6 Muisc.

The one big question local and national radio should ask is: “why does radio only play music released by record companies?”

This symbiotic relationship is on its last legs. The music industry failed to grasp the significance of digital sales and distribution, leaving it to hang off the coattails of Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and its own back catalogue while fighting the music pirates with a rubber sword.

During that time the quality of ‘home’ recordings have increased ten-fold and most listeners would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between local and signed: record companies are no longer the key holders to the best studio techniques.

If you want new music to flourish, and the spirit of John Peel to endure, then radio stations need to find someone who has the ears to pick their region’s good independently produced music and trust them to add it to the daytime playlist. Let it stand head-to-head against the best of the past and not only give the listener some new favourites but acts they can actually go and see live in an nearby venue.

There is no harm in hearing our favourite songs from our youth but for how much longer will that be the main fodder of daytime programming? And weren’t those singles unfamiliar at one time? Pete Townshend says he thought The Proclaimers and Undertones were dangerous when he first heard them. How much of a shock is that?

As Pete rightly points out there are 100s of quality songs available, waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. So the next time you hear a presenter gushing about how great the 80’s were think about this: If the film ‘Back to the Future’ was re-made today, the quaint, old-fashioned year Marty McFly would return to would be 1981.

The difference between John Peel and UK radio in its current state, is that he didn’t mind if the listener switched off – in fact he seemed to challenge you at every track. Granted he was on a public service station so he didn’t have to reply on advertising for revenue, but he was talked about, much appreciated and remains fondly remembered: there is room in every station’s schedule for a Peeler. If not, the industry is just paying lip-service to his memory.

It is time to be brave and embrace the new musicians. Peely picked some duffers but also plenty of winners, in some cases whole genres of new music.

Former Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend has given the inaugural BBC 6 Music John Peel lecture at the Radio Festival in Salford.

Its also the title of the second album from Robin Foster, a British musician living in France. [Cover photo by Benoit Pelletier]

You might not recognise his name but his music could have underscored your television pleasure as tracks from his debut “Life Is Elsewhere” have been used by Hugo Boss, Barclay’s and the US show ‘One Tree Hill’.

Robin’s latest mix of cool/dark instrumentals and songs features the south’s Dave Pen the singer from Birdpen and Archive.

Where do we go from here?

And as you’d expect Dave feels the same: “I liked his instrumentations and it felt natural to write lyrics to his music. Also the fact he was an Englishman working in France had a similarity with the musical projects I am involved in and we also connected as people which made working on these songs enjoyable and slightly mad.”

The most important aspect for Robin was the enthusiasm Mr Pen brought to the project: “I love Dave’s voice, he throws himself into it, he really brings a whole new dimension to the songs, it stops you in your tracks.”

The songs Dave has written lyrics for, and also poured his soul crushed vocals onto, are: “A collapsing light”, “Concrete Skies”, “Forgiveness”, “Black Mountain” and the almost
pop “Wait for her”.

I asked Dave if album’s title alluded to a global or inner perspective: “Its a more personal statement. The songs are about guilt, loss, hope and love, not about the state of the economy and the state of our beloved planet earth. That’s in another project you will hear about soon !!”

And many Birdpen fans around Europe are busting for news about that almost album finished!

However Robin takes us a little deeper into the background of the title: “It is also a personal statement regarding two very close friends who died while I was making the album, sparking that eternal question of “what’s next?”… It has many connotations really, it’s also a natural follow on from the first album’s title “Life Is Elsewhere”. This is the next step so to speak, though it’s not just a negative question, it’s also a hopeful one, the whole album has the recurring theme of a light in the dark. ”

For the record I think its a great listen. There is a fine balance between Robin’s instrumentals and the songs he and Dave have produced: they are like pauses during an evening’s conversation. And the answer to the album’s question? Onwards and upwards for both artists.

http://www.robinfoster.fr

Robin Foster’s upcoming live concert will feature special guest singers Dave Pen (Archive & BirdPen) et Ndidi O at the Transmusicales de Rennes, a major French music festival, Friday 2nd December.

Jean-Louis Brossard, organisateur du festival, dévoile son artiste «Coup de coeur», Robin Foster pour ces 33ème Rencontres des Transmusicales de Rennes, au Parc Expo Hall 4, vendredi 2 Décembre à 22h00.

You can visit the festival’s website : www.lestrans.com

If the four lead characters had some mates in a band, it would have to be Southampton’s ‘SomaHigh‘.

Like that very successful programme they are ‘of the now’ – SomaHigh weave great riffs around lyrics that pick the meat from people’s lives.

For example in ‘Flashback Tuesday‘ you’ll hear: “Screaming after your ex while he’s having a fight with the wall.”
Flashback Tuesday by Soma High

You’ll find more gems in ‘Paper Chaser’ (hear below) and ‘Lo Fat’ and all of the other songs which appear on their debut album “Secrets That Didn’t Happen” (released November 7th)

This disc and digital download is only 29 minutes long but if you are into tight, indie flavoured new wave, with a touch of the pathos delivered by Brit pop, then you are bound to be playing these tracks repeatedly.

They are written by singer/guitarist Sean Strugnell who’s accompanied by Leon Azor on bass, Paul Wolf keyboards and Ryan Smith driving it along with the drums.

SomaHigh launch the album tonight at The Joiners and, as Ryan explained, “this headline show is incredibly special. We’re only giving Southampton fans first listen and will be selling advance copies along with limited edition Somahigh merchandise.”

It could be another classic Joiners evening when you have the opportunity to catch a band just before they explode onto the music scene.

Find out more at www.somahighlive.com

Paper Chaser by Soma High

First published in the Southern Daily Echo, Friday 30th September 2011

The prize was an all-expenses festival gig in Canada, and although they made the London final thanks to their loyal fans voting online, they didn’t have much chance of winning as Mark explains: “it’s down to a popularity contest in the city the final is held in. They’re always decided on audience votes and everything was stacked against us.”

But Broken Links crashed in style “we just went up there, rocked it out and went a bit nuts on stage.”

Unfortunately this week brought more disappointing news with the cancellation of three gigs: two due to “riot revellers” and one to the recession.

However the good news is that Mark did have a rather nasty accident involving a tray.

Thankfully it was all due to make-up and special effects: he’s a lead zombie in “Resurrection” the new indie horror film from Hampshire based Charmed Apocalypse.

Rather than spoil the action we’ll leave the gruesome details to the cinema but Mark is a good friend of Jake Hawkins, one of the directors, and can’t praise them enough:

“I know how much effort and passion he and Andy [Phelps] have put into it from the very start. It’s a huge achievement and they’ve got a great team pulling this movie together.”

So it might be death to competitions for Broken Links this week but with a new album and promo video coming out soon, things don’t look too grave.

This is great news the south coast acts we’ve been promoting in on Playdio as they now have a potentially massive new audience that keeps its ear to the UK for inspiration.

A perfect example of that trend occurred yesterday with ska punk band ‘New Riot‘ (featuring three Southampton musicians) crossing the Atlantic at the request of a named act.

However I’m a little vague about the US ska punk scene so trombonist Ryan Stanikk filled me in:

“There are two major players, Less Than Jake & Reel Big Fish. They are both internationally renowned for being the giants of the genre and we were lucky enough to be personally invited on a US & Canadian East coast tour by Reel Big Fish.”

As you can imagine it is very rare for an unsigned band to be given such an honour and, as Ryan pointed out, “we have battled on through every obstacle to make the most of what is basically our dream opportunity.”

The reality will be long car journeys and cheap motels but that doesn’t matter to Ryan: “That’s all part of being on tour and strangely we enjoy it all no matter what!”

The icing is the gigs and they’ll be playing in some great places like Broadway, Downtown Disney and the Niagara Falls with capacities of 2000 people.

Lets hope they storm America in the same style as Spotify.

First published in the Southern Daily Echo 22nd July 2011