Dudebox "Track Of The Summer"

Yes yes, yes yes, yes yes, yes and yes – the waiting is finally over! Dudebox Track Of The Season is back back back! Our semi-regular round-up of new tracks added to the MySpaces of local bands from all across the spectrum of the local music scene is this time conducted by MMT and Phil. As always, in most cases the bands and musicians featured here haven’t directly asked us to review their stuff, but thanks to them anyway. And hopefully if you’re reading this you’ll find something that you like! Uh-huh. Let’s kick off…


“Love My Madness”: THE SASSY JUDYS
[[Glam-flavoured hard rock from an act we’ve not come across before – but a great name!]]

Phil: Here’s one for Brian!
MMT: I like it. I love the guitar solo, then the bass bit and then there’s a sort of drum flourish. It’s good time music, isn’t it?
Phil: It’s well put together, well produced. Not really my sort of thing, but they sound really polished. Like you could be singing along to it while you’re driving in your car. I think I’d enjoy them live, you get the energy, and the kind of… excitement of it.


“Devil Red”: PHILIPPA MOYLE
[[Young singer-songwriter who we saw earlier in the year performing with the excellent Apple and the Core at the MADCAP Turn It Up contest]]

MMT: Bounces along quite pleasantly, doesn’t it? Something summery about it.
Phil: I love her vocals. I love the delivery she has.
MMT: Is it somehow jazzy? Kind of… (struggles and fails to describe it)
Phil: It’s an intelligent, well-put-together pop song.


“Descent”: MACHINIST
[[Prog-metallists featuring our old mate Tom H on guitar – and who’ve finally got themselves sorted out with some vocals!]]

Phil: I like the fact the song sounds like an invading army, bombing the beaches.
MMT: It’s really… I mean, the beefiness of the bass and the drums is… is… I mean, I would probably be scared live, but… you also get the nice vocal / screamy vocal dynamic, and then it descends into sort of, really nice widdly guitar.
Phil: There’s some really mellow, melodic stuff going on in there as well, along with some very… controlled… beef.
MMT: Yeah. It’s great too that they’ve kept going, persevered with the band.
Phil: I think they could go far if they keep writing songs like this.
MMT: They already sound ‘more than local’, and we’ve already seen it’s easy enough for Milton Keynes bands of this genre to make the next step up.


“D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F.”: LECARLA
[[MK’s hottest band in 2010, the ace pop-metallers step up another level with their new single – check out the video on YouTube! Apparently DILLIGAF stands for ‘Does It Look Like I Give A Fuck?’ Yowch!]]

MMT: It doesn’t feel like they’re unsigned, does it?
Phil: Maybe these days you can just call up some guys on the phone and they come out and make your video for you! It just looked so well put-together, so well produced. You wouldn’t know they weren’t signed, you could have watched that on Kerrang TV quite happily.
MMT: Where would you put it on a scale between Power Pop and… Metal?
Phil: I like it. I like the vocals, I like the fact they’re not screaming. It’s heavy, but you can tap your foot along to it with a smile.
MMT: There’s a brilliant bit where it stops and they all do a sort of… choir bit together, that was fantastic. They look cool.
Phil: I’m intrigued.
MMT: I’d love a clothing endorsement of my own. I’m gonna try and see if Oxfam or Cancer Research are interested…


“Waves”: ELLIE WALSH
[[Long-standing solo performer at Monkey Kettle events, now coming back to MK after a couple of years away]]

Phil: I think it’s good. It’s well put together, well recorded, well written and everything. Some great imagery going on. It’s another broken love song.
MMT: I really like the clarity in her voice, it’s one of my favourite Milton Keynes singery voices. It sounds deceptively simple at times, but it’s genuinely affecting, especially when you see her live. Welcome back!


“Dance Rummy, Dance”: FOOTSWITCH
[[Young rockers who are new to us here at the Dudebox Lounge…]]

Phil: The first band I thought of – without them sounding that much like them – were Jane’s Addiction, in that Jane’s Addiction were a bunch of people who wanted to make something new out of rock and just threw in lots of influences from Funk, to Classic Rock, to all those things.
MMT: Yeah, you want to hear the individual influences of the members combined together to make something different, that’s the only way you’re ever going to come up with something different. It is nice to hear four or five different sorts of “sound” in there.
Phil: There’s lots going on.


“Scatter Me In The Ocean”: THE SECRET CIRCUS
[[The new band from hard-working young solo talent Josh Timmins, on an altogether darker Eighties tip]]

MMT: I think it’s a really interesting change of direction from young Josh. Kind of Gothy, Synthy Pop. Did you say something at the Waterside about Eighties Film Soundtracks?
Phil: Um… maybe…
MMT: Was that not you? Must have been somebody else.
Phil: It definitely sounds like the Eighties. I like the idea of him taking it so far as going in a completely different direction to his solo material.
MMT: The sound they’re driving at is really interesting. I love the synths. I’m also very pleased to see that a photo I took for them is their MySpace photo. And I haven’t received a penny yet.


“Bionic”: GO LUCKY
[[This season’s Great Act We Really Enjoyed But From Outside Milton Keynes – Go Lucky came and performed at one of our open mic nights, but sounds even better on these studio recordings]]

MMT: Fantastic.
Phil: I really like it too. It’s not the kind of music I’m into, but I’m inspired… a fairly simple techno backing track, and her vocal is the melodic instrument running through it. If techno’s the right word?
MMT: The genre as given on her MySpace is Electro – Club – Disco – House.
Phil: It sounds so cool. It bubbles with kind of… lots of different things going on.
MMT: I feel really bad that the sound didn’t work out for her when she came and played our open mic – hopefully we can get her back and rectify that at some point.


RUNNER-UP DUDEBOX TRACK OF THE SUMMER

“Little Moments”: JET-LAGGED JEFF
[[How has it taken us this long to review the beautiful Jeff? Criminal, is what it is – although the fact he’s now getting full recordings onto his MySpace does help]]

Phil: I love it, I think it’s fantastic.
MMT: He’s one of the nicest guys we’ve met in the entire Milton Keynes music scene. There’s something about his voice, isn’t there, that –
Phil: He growls… well, not growls, that’s the wrong word. But he kind of… growls everything in this wonderful way. It sounds original, while still sounding classic. The imagery that you can hear in the song – you can feel like the old town where it might be set in. I might have misheard all of the lyrics. And there’s something deceptively simple about his guitar work, when it’s actually quite complex underneath.
MMT: I wouldn’t normally choose to sit and listen to a whole album of just acoustic recordings, but I could easily feel like I could listen to a whole album of Jeff. When you see him live, he’s so easy with an audience, isn’t he? Due to his regular compering at the Sunset Lounge, I suppose. He’s a really good live performer.


DUDEBOX TRACK OF THE SUMMER

“The Rose”: ROSES & PIRATES
[[There’s been a lot of “Facebook Buzz” - if I can legitimately use such a term about an MK band – about R&P this Summer, and on this early evidence it’s well justified]]

Phil: I like it a lot. I love the guitar work, I like the bass. I love the way the song builds up and then drops down again. I like the way the vocals sounded quite emotional.
MMT: I really like the drums, the sort of… there was a kind of… I dunno how to describe it. Probably I should do if I’m a reviewer on the Internet. Like a, sort of a shuffling beat to it that was at odds with the guitar work, but I really liked how it sounded.
Phil: I like them a lot. I’m trying to think of a band they reminded me of…
MMT: Not every band has to sound like another band.
Phil: No. No. They definitely remind me of bands. And they had a bit of distortion in there as well. There’s a sort of different tone going on to it.
MMT: Yeah, definitely an interesting new sound.