We Smoke Fags

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh! new favourite band for this week at least. This band are wonderful; stroppy, sneery, loud and thumping. On their MySpace they reference The Slits and Public Image amongst others but there's so much more at work here. Their sound is solid, guitars and driving synths badda badda badda like a big throbbing love thing on the dancefloor. if I was a fifteen year old boy, or girl, instead of a fifty year old man, I would have this lot on repeat all the time. They would be the soundtrack of my life. Look.

The video was shot in Paris, according to Promonews, and that must have been a blast. Somewhere between Vince Clarke's angry grandson and These New Puritans (a past favourite band of the week) they deserve to have their picture up on millions of bedroom walls. I notice that Joey, Mr Main WSM obv, plans on producing the first album himself. Fucking brilliant.

So many fat-sounding bands end up getting pushed into the studio with some engineer-producer who has absolutely no idea of the power and thrill of live music, being on stage, shagging groupies and being generally totally misappropriate in their youth. As a result they worry if the hi-hat is loud enough, does the bass sound as good as the last Coldplay album and talk reverentially about the guitar sound on the Duffy album. Fuck 'em. Bands should produce themselves and be really careful who they give their stuff too to mix. So We Smoke Fags why don't you get Vince to do a remix for you, anyone who can make Happy Mondays sound good has to be an expert.

These guys can do a 38 date tour, according to Rough Trade's review, without even releasing a record.

Cage The Elephant???

So I was round at Promonews.tv HQ end of last week and the main guy, Dave Knight, was in the process of putting up the new video by Cage The Elephant. Naturally I was interested as there's been words on the wire about this band with various people banging on about their hotness and general fabulousness. So I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that they were basically the new Gomez.

What I mainly got from them was a band who, as usual, wanted to be The Stones but were coming at it via Black Crowes or a band like that. So in effect they are copying a copy-cat band, in that sort of phoney rock 'n roll fashion.

I know, I know. Lots of people liked Gomez and they won the Mercury Prize blah blah blah but come on. They were one of those bands that people like my brother in law, who let punk pass him by as he was on the road with Mike Oldfield, would deem "real music". Oh come on. A bunch of white college boys trying to be all delta does not make it real. If I come across a bit like Steve Buscemi in Ghost World well so be it. I'm sure they're a great night out but it's all a bit too contrived for me. Mind you I like the Ami Barwell pics on their myspace.

Anyway file under whatever.