25/06/09
The ideas are taking shape, albeit fairly slowly. At the moment the prospect of writing an album's worth of songs (of the standard I'll be happy with) is pretty daunting - like I'm standing at the bottom of a shear rock face knowing I've got to get to the top. With no rope! Still I've done it twice before, so I know it's possible. Thanks to Tim for pointing out my mistake in the last entry - "I am a Tree" was written by Doug Gillard, not Bob Pollard - however it doesn't detract from the fact that GBV constantly came up with ace tunage! And "Gold Star for Robot Boy" has to be the greatest lo-fi tune ever! On an entirely unrelated note, if you get a moment, check out Tom Atah's recent blog - I gigged with him last year and he was pretty fantastic, but as you can see he's obviously got many strings to his bow!
05/06/09
Just listening to "I am a Tree" by Guided by Voices (one of my favourite bands, like, evah!) on Spotify - and when people ask me what inspires me to write music, which they very occasionally do, from now on I'll point them to this song. Cheers Bob! Which reminds me, you can hear all Captain Wilberforce's greatest hits on Spotify now; basically it's like a radio station where you can listen to any song you want at any time, for free. Worth a shufty. And since you were asking, yes, the new CW songs are slowly beginning to evolve from the primordial ooze of ideas on various cassettes spanning the last 4 years! Can't wait for them to reach the stage when I can introduce them to polite company. Finally Shindig magazine have given the album a great review which you can read here (9th review from bottom of page): review synopsis - "brimming with first rate pop, highly literate tunes and lush, layered vocals". Splendid.
030/05/09
*cough* - the gigs at the Cavern went really well - cheers to those who came along. My voice lasted through both sets, just about, even though the previous day I couldn't even speak. You'll be unsurprised to hear that I'm suffering for my art now! *splutter*
24/05/09
2 days to go til probably our last 2 gigs of 2009 (at the IPO festival) - hope some of you can make it along even though it's a school night. The reason it's likely to be the last full band gig this year is that I want to get a new album's worth of songs written (and hopefully recorded) before Christmas. This is probably mission impossible, but rehearsing and gigging really eat into the schedule, especially when the band line up is as fluid as mine happens to be, and I need to focus! Another couple of reviews have come in: Rock'n'Reel magazine (now rebranded as R2) gives the album 4/5, and Vibrations magazine carries a glowing live review of the Leeds gig. Smashing. I'll put up links to both as soon as they're online. Now, as it's sunny for a change, I'm off outside to take advantage.
10/05/09
Uh oh, another big gap in the blogging - and it's not like there hasn't been lots to write about, but I've been extra busy in the academic world. (If you're interested, I'm getting my thesis published, and have been editing it within an inch of it's life - plus I gave a presentation at the UWE, Bristol which needed lots of preperation and I have another one coming up this Saturday at the ITI conference, London.) See, I have a real life as well as my shadowy alter ego! Right, to things Wilberforcean... Firstly, I won the Musical FA Cup. You're all impressed now aren't you? Ok, so it's not an Ivor Novello, but a knockout competition along the lines of the real FA Cup - Kids aged 11-16 at a local school were presented with 2 songs every day and voted for which song they preferred. Over 6 nailbiting rounds the kids voted for "The Girl Who Broke Her Own Heart" against all opposition tunes and it won, proving beyond all doubt that the future of music is in safe hands! Sad news though about Sandman magazine - it's now defunct, which is a shame as it was up until fairly recently a useful source of info on the Leeds music scene. However Vibrations magazine goes from strength to strength, which is great, as this month there's a very complimentary review of the "Everyone Loves a Villain" launch gig at the Smokestack (link to follow asap). Lastly, if you want to catch the full band live for probably the last time this year, you'll have to be in Liverpool on Tuesday 26th May - we're playing the International Pop Overthrow festival again (at the Cavern Club + Pub). Looking forward to it lots!
14/03/09
Sunday evening was fun! Dan (Bass player extraordinaire) and I played a few acoustic tunes from the album at ELFm's Disco Dungeon. We also got to waffle on for the best part of an hour and choose a few top tunes. You'll be able to hear the edited version of this programme here, or alternatively you can download the whole unedited programme from here. A couple more reviews of the album have surfaced: Whisperin'AndHollerin' give the album 8/10 and references XTC, The Kinks and Badly Drawn Boy. The Irish Times however didn't like it much, but in the spirit of all self publicists since time immemorial, I'll take a quote out of context and use that - "A 37-minute triumph" he says. Anyway, you can check out every that "Everyone Loves a Villain" has received on the reviews page.
09/03/09
The album is officially released in the UK today - you can buy it online from this site, Crash Records or Jumbo Records as well as still being able to buy the CD in the USA from NotLame, CDBaby and KoolKat. I should have mentioned that the gig at the Actress + Bishop went really well - as always many thanks to those who came along. It was our first gig with the new line up, but we seem to have gelled pretty well and are looking forward to the Leeds and London shows.
03/03/09
You can now read the Uncut review in its full glory here. And just to show that this juggernaut of a press campaign hasn't lost an iota of its momentum, there's a new 4 star review of the album at MusicOHM.com - The reviewer suggests that yours truly possesses an "utter mastery of harmonic guitar pop"; you may not be able to see it from there, but I'm blushing, honest.
27/02/09
I just had word from Gerard at Pop Dreams a French radio show playing the best Powerpop / alt pop. Seems that "Everyone Loves a Villain" was his album of the week last week! He's even asked me to record a jingle for the show - it's on my 'to do' list! Another review has surfaced online, this time from Americana Uk - "It�s a Yorkshire ripper." is the tag line; hmmmm - anyhow, they go on to say "the album is more than the sum of its influences featuring an epic chorus here or a crunching guitar line and jerky rhythm there to make the songs stand out from the crowd". Splendid. Anyway, I suppose I should remind you of the upcoming gigs so scroll down to the 17th Feb (below) and you'll find all the details including the event pages on Facebook and LastFm - � plus, mes amis!
25/02/09
Geraint has been working his wonderful PR magic again - The album is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut magazine! You'll all have to rush out and buy a copy as it's not up on the site yet, but I'll paste up a copy of the review asap. It's a really positive review comparing the songs to Squeeze, XTC and Elvis Costello giving the album 3/5. Colour me chuffed.
18/02/09
Just noticed a couple of nice mentions on websites - Bruce at NotLame.com has generously put me in his top 20 powerpop albums of the year (only just, I'm no. 20!)and has even done a podcast explaining his choices. You might also notice that Larry Koestler's (ThisIsWhatWeDoNow.com blogspot) Top 10 of 2008 is reprinted on the site, which is cool as he puts "Everyone Loves a Villain" at no.4. The other site is Rumblefish, a big US music licensing site - they've focussed on a song from Mindfilming, "I Haven't Got Any Famous Friends" to spotlight both albums' potential to TV/Film clients. Amusingly, they claim; "Such a sparkle would make it the perfect accompaniment to makeover or shopping montages in teen films" (Full review here). Ace. Show me the money!!
17/02/09
Get your diaries out, there's some gig news. The full Captain Wilberforce band will be playing to support the official UK album launch of "Everyone Loves a Villain" in March.
05/02/09
Got another nice review, this time on AllGigs.co.uk - the reviewer focuses on the lyrics which makes a nice change. And I have begun Twittering, god knows why: I'll probably keep it up for about as long as I looked after my Tamogotchi many years ago (i.e not long). Still, if you want to follow my inane ramblings, you can do it here.
02/02/09
It's like a winter wonderland here in Leeds at the moment, outside my window, children are creating snowmen of various shapes and sizes and then pelting their neighbours with snowballs. Bah humbug! It's too damn cold - I wish I was somewhere warmer, somewhere idyllic, like say St Croix in the Virgin Islands. Which is where, strangely enough, JJ Rocks is from. Who is JJ Rocks, you might well ask? I'm not exactly sure, but he has a cool name and he's sort of reviewed the new album here. Click on the link and you'll see what I mean! Daily Music Guide liked about a third of the album (it seems that I'm "A singles band", yay) but still gave it a respectable 3/5. Of course, being the stubborn blinkered fool that I am, I refuse to take any criticism to heart and instead consider anyone with opinions on the songs that are contradictory to mine "poor misguided fools". Toodle pip.
28/01/09
So there I was, listening to Gideon Coe's show on BBC 6Music last night, when out of the blue "The Twilight Kids" comes on. I nearly choked on me Horlicks. So the PR company seems to be paying dividends, cheers Geraint ;o)
17/01/09
Happy New Year. Ok, I'm a couple of weeks late, but who cares? Especially when the new year starts with Bob Harris playing "Geat a Grip (My Dear)" on Radio 2 tonight, just after 11pm. Yep, this is happening tonight but if you're in the UK you can listen again all week - chalk it up as another little victory!
