After lots of messing around, our band The Males have finally got a demo recorded and started gigging. We’d love you to take a listen to what we’re doing and give us some feedback!
We’re inspired by bands like The Bronx, DFA1979, Jesus Lizard, The Melvins, Shellac, QOTSA, etc and we’re gonna keep working on our sound and making some new recordings in the new year, if you want to catch us live, keep an eye on our facebook group that lists all of our events.
Excuse the unusual post title, but this is something I’ve excitedly meant to write a blog post about for a couple of weeks now since discovering this fantastic band Adebisi Shank, via a mix of rock-sound.tv and Spotify wanderings. Imagine a fantastic blend of Battles, Chrome Hoof, The Advantage and.. well I struggle at this point because I can’t think of more references that adequately describe this Irish Punk/Electro/Rock band ‘Adebisi Shank’.
Its something that I always look out for in a band and Adebisi Shank have it in droves – Riffs. Yeah I capitalised in there because its missing from so much modern rock, and why many rock fans return to classic rock for kicks. Just take a spin of Machine Head by Deep Purple and there it is, a wall of fantastic, driving, groove laden (fuck I sound like Tommy Vance now) riffs that stick in your head, and that’s just one part of what I loved about the latest album from these guys – their second not including an EP in case you wondered.
Called unassumingly ‘This is the second album by a band called Adebisi Shank’ – I enjoyed the subtle sense of humour these guys have and immediately sought out the first and second full length offerings upon hearing them on Spotify (Adebisi Shank) and you should too – hey you could even do it as you read me ramble on? great idea right? sweet.
Anyway as I was saying what you’ll hear is a great progression from a punk band with fantastic instrumental structures that equals far more than the sum of its math-rock parts to a band that has evolved into electro territory with more programming, effects and challenging (for you! listener!) parts in the second album – this is another example of a band that works hard and is out there creating music neither you nor they have heard before – and there’s far too much of that effort bereft dullard shit going on in the world – for more information, wiki ‘Scouting for Girls’. Then realise you’ve let yourself down by even typing that in.
</rant>
Adebisi Shank on BandCamp.com – http://adebisishank.bandcamp.com/
Massive props to Darryl for finding this one during far too many click throughs on forums.. Potentially the most awesomest guitar ever conceived of in a number of ludicrous ways – its an ESP custom shop job as you might expect, but this time they went all out!
Taken from the bmusic.com.au blog where we found this – “It was custom made for the Alfee’s guitar player Takamizawa. This is an awesome one of a kind guitar. The Alfee is one of the biggest rock acts in Japan and Takamizawa is well known for his Angel and other Gothic themed guitars”.
Got together at the weekend with my mates from way back, hit up some funk jammage in Scream studios in Brighton. They’re up at vimeo.com’s cracking HD video service, hooray!
Jam 1
Jam 2
After nearly two years hiatus, Finch finally return in recorded form with a new self-titled EP. Now I loved ‘Say Hello to Sunshine’ and still listen to it as one of my favourite modern rock records. Sadly it seems that wasn’t the case for a large enough chunk of their fanbase, who didn’t like it as much as debut full length ‘What it is to Burn’. I always found that a massive shame and it must’ve really screwed with the band who, as far as fans of S.H.T.S. were concerned, had honed their sound to an unique and matured new level.
After much pondering one can only assume that those who didn’t enjoy the second album were too hung up on the ballad-y post punk elements of What it is to Burn to embrace the new sound Finch. Songs such as Letters to You and Stay With Me had gotten a lot of radio play around the time Finch really blew up commercially, and presumably fans who enjoyed that sound were hoping for more of the same – why? well ask record promoters and they’ll tell you, it sells! (see current pop punk crap such as Fall Out Boy and Kids in Glass Houses for examples of cash injection pop success).
Sadly originality and ‘trying something fresh’ is often badly recieved – sometimes fairly as bands ‘go off on one’ with a new idea, but I always found the evolved Finch to be just that, evolved – with new time signatures, interesting use of guitar effects, massively ranging vocals in terms of style and sound, and generally a sound to the album that no other band had to offer.
In the time away, Finch hasn’t capitulated to the fans who disliked Say Hello to Sunshine, moreover – their new EP released this month seems like a band finally ready to say fuck it and carry on precisely where they left off with album # 2. With 4 tracks in all, it may seem like a tepid comeback, but the new material still sounds as fresh as Say Hello To Sunshine upon its release, with Barcalow’s vocal range and Strohmeyer’s creative guitar writing shining through as ever.
Opener ‘Daylight’ is most reminiscent of tracks from ‘..Sunshine’, and has some fantastically catchy hooks, but the band soon progress to show off further development with the other 3 tracks, sounding in places like some of the more interesting bands to emerge during their hiatus – Fall Of Troy being one that springs to mind listening to the EP. Don’t get me wrong here – i’m certainly not accusing Finch of plagiarism, i’m actually enjoying the influences these guys seem to have had whilst re-evaluating the band’s future.
The EP is available on iTunes only at the moment (press a cd damn it!) but presumably when they can afford to, a full commercial release could follow – so buy it from itunes and support this criminally overlooked band! click here for the purchase page.
finch 2008
Yet another ditty, still awaitin a drummer so its all me still im afraid, got the electric kit sounding a little better but its still not a real one, nevermind, enjoy..
Having a snowballing interest in building and modifying my own guitar pedals I started out by purchasing a kit from GeneralGuitarGadgets.com. A fantastic site run by a guy named JD Sleep, who was really helpful when I had a few questions during construction.
From GGG as they’re known, you can buy kits to build clones of many different pedals, and i’d heard good things on a few forums such as harmony-central and guitargeek about the kits from GGG, especially their tweaked Big Muff Pi Clone, so I grabbed my trusty soldering iron and had a crack at it.
Delivered pretty speedily from the states, the kit arrives with everything you’ll need for just under £40, even spare resistors should you want to modify what they guide your through making. Then you can simply print off the copious documentation online including wiring diagrams, parts lists and get your solder on!
The ease of construction with the GGG kit is fantastic, and being fairly new to soldering I had a ready to use pedal in only a few hours of work. The entire PCB was labelled for each resistor so there was little ambiguity with wiring to confuse the beginner, and as soon as the pedal was complete I was eager to try it out, as i’d heard that similarly modified Big Muff pedals are what bands such as Baroness are using – which as you’ll know if you’ve read my previous posts, im rather taken with.
Having owned a Marshall JCM 2000 head for about eight or nine years, I’ve enjoyed the sound and warmth of the ultra gain channel, but being a metal lover, always sought alternative distortion solutions. Having own a Boss Metal Zone for a number of years and enjoying it’s density, I never really got into distorted tones until I started listening to less mainstream metal bands such as Mastodon, Baroness, Torche, 5ive etc, and realised that actually my Metal Zone is really not much cop.
Post Metal Zone i’ve been using various solutions for distortion, but the GGG Big Muff is easily the best i’ve found thus far – bettering my Marshall’s Ultra Gain channel in my opinion. I recommend you get yourself a kit and get building – you won’t be disappointed. There is a sound sample on the page of the kit here :
..but I found that it has a fair bit of reverb applied and so I made a quick demo myself and tried to make sure it had no reverb, compression or eq, and hopefully it captures the sound of the pedal well, its a riff from a song I did last year called ‘Disharmonious!’ and yes, its a bit of a rip of Metallica’s ‘Orion’ before you make for the comment box!
If, like me, you’re new to the world of guitar pedal modifications, or want to design your own pedals without having to unsolder many many circuits as you mess around, then MAKE blog have highlighted a very cool guitar pedal prototyping board made by a company called Beavis Audio Research.
Called the Beavis Board it allows you to try out potential creations without any fuss or mess, check it out!
Also, read the article from MAKE here..
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