CD Picks

Hall of Fame

  • Bands I've Seen Four Times or More:
    • Arcade Fire
    • Nicole Atkins & The Sea
    • Beck
    • Bloc Party
    • Blur
    • The Brunettes
    • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
    • Death Cab for Cutie
    • The Decemberists
    • Doves
    • The Duke Spirit
    • Editors
    • Feist
    • Franz Ferdinand
    • French Kicks
    • Gorillaz
    • Grand National
    • The Grates
    • Immaculate Machine
    • Langhorne Slim
    • Les Sans Culottes
    • Love Is All
    • Kaiser Chiefs
    • Mates of State
    • Kate Nash
    • The New Pornographers
    • Northern State
    • The Parlor Mob
    • Phoenix
    • The Pipettes
    • The Puppini Sisters
    • Radiohead
    • The Rakes
    • Ra Ra Riot
    • The Roots
    • Salt & Samovar
    • Secret Machines
    • The Shins
    • Sons & Daughters
    • Bruce Springsteen
    • Supergrass
    • They Might Be Giants
    • Tilly & The Wall
    • The Tings Tings
    • Vampire Weekend
    • Yeah Yeah Yeahs
    • Yo La Tengo

Guitar Pick Recipients

  • Recipients of the MusicSnobbery.com Guitar Pick
    • Damon Albarn
    • Nicole Atkins
    • Win Butler of Arcade Fire
    • Laura Cantrell
    • Inara George of The Bird & The Bee
    • Dave Hollinghurst of Nicole Atkins & The Sea
    • Ivan Howard of The Rosebuds
    • Dev Hynes of Lightspeed Champion
    • Sam Isaac
    • JayMay
    • Jay Jay Pistolet
    • Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand
    • Langhorne Slim
    • Sondre Lerche
    • Emanuel Lundgren of I'm From Barcelona
    • Moby
    • David Moltz of Salt & Samovar
    • Peter Morén of Peter Bjorn & John
    • Keith Murray of We Are Scientists
    • Kate Nash
    • Carl Newman of The New Pornographers
    • Jack Peñate
    • Juanita Stein of Howling Bells
    • Anna Ternheim
    • Katie White of The Ting Tings
    • Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn & John

The Music

    • Air
    • Arcade Fire
    • Arctic Monkeys
    • Ash
    • Athlete
    • Nicole Atkins & The Sea
    • Avalanches
    • Basement Jaxx
    • Beastie Boys
    • Beck
    • Belle & Sebastian
    • Bentley Rhythm Ace
    • Beta Band
    • Bloc Party
    • Blur
    • BR5-49
    • Broken Social Scene
    • The Brunettes
    • Neko Case
    • The Charlatans
    • Chemical Brothers
    • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
    • Cornershop
    • Graham Coxon
    • Daft Punk
    • Danger Mouse
    • Death Cab for Cutie
    • The Decemberists
    • De La Soul
    • The Delgados
    • Dizzee Rascal
    • Doves
    • Editors
    • Elastica
    • Faithless
    • Fatboy Slim
    • Feist
    • Flaming Lips
    • Franz Ferdinand
    • Gorillaz
    • Gotan Project
    • The Go! Team
    • Grand National
    • Groove Armada
    • The Guillemots
    • Hard-Fi
    • PJ Harvey
    • Interpol
    • Chris Isaak
    • Ivy
    • Jesus & Mary Chain
    • Joy Zipper
    • Kaiser Chiefs
    • Kings of Convenience
    • Kraftwerk
    • Leftfield
    • The Libertines/Dirty Pretty Things
    • Luna
    • Luscious Jackson
    • Madness
    • Magnetic Fields
    • Manic Street Preachers
    • Man or Astroman?
    • Massive Attack
    • Mates of State
    • M83
    • M.I.A.
    • Moby
    • Morcheeba
    • Van Morrison
    • Morning After Girls
    • My Bloody Valentine
    • My Morning Jacket
    • New Order/Joy Division
    • The New Pornographers
    • Oasis
    • Of Montreal
    • Oingo Boingo
    • Olds 97
    • Beth Orton
    • Pavement/Stephen Malkmus
    • Phoenix
    • Pixies
    • Portishead
    • Postal Service
    • Primal Scream
    • Prince
    • Prodigy
    • Public Enemy
    • Pulp
    • Radiohead
    • The Rakes
    • The Raveonettes
    • Razorlight
    • R.E.M.
    • Rilo Kiley/Jenny Lewis
    • The Roots
    • Royksopp
    • Saint Etienne
    • Secret Machines
    • DJ Shadow
    • The Shins
    • Sleater-Kinney
    • Sons & Daughters
    • South
    • Southern Culture of the Skids
    • Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
    • Spiritualized
    • Bruce Springsteen
    • The Smiths/Morrissey
    • Stars
    • Starsailor
    • Stereolab
    • St. Germain
    • Stone Roses
    • The Streets
    • The Strokes
    • The Sundays
    • Super Furry Animals
    • Supergrass
    • They Might Be Giants
    • Tosca
    • Travis
    • A Tribe Called Quest
    • Underworld
    • U.N.K.L.E.
    • U2
    • The Verve/Richard Ashcroft
    • We Are Scientists
    • The White Stripes
    • Wilco
    • Lucinda Williams
    • XTC
    • Yeah Yeah Yeahs
    • Zero 7
    • All the classics that a person like me should have in his collection

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November 01, 2006

The Sunshine Underground/The Holloways/The Pigeon Detectives/Pull Tiger Tail @ KOKO, Oct. 24

Sunshine_underground1This was a good night to catch the new British acts that NME will salivate over and a chance to check out this beautiful, yet oddly constructed venue. It was billed as ShockWaves New Music Exclusive!. As I found out, ShockWaves is a brand of hair products marketed to British teenagers who think they'll get laid if they use their products. What ended up happening is that the free samples given to us were used to throw at the artists. Good idea, people.

Sunshine Underground closed out the night with one of the most impressive performances from an up-and-coming act I've seen this year. They have that dance rock thing down to a science. Funky bass lines? Check. Heavy, driving percussions? Check. Soaring vocals? Yup. Cowbell? Most definitely. Then what's the big deal? You have to listen and look for yourself.

On appearance alone, they don't look like The Killers. They look like the Arctic Monkeys with their hoodies and baggy pants. They'll get a lot of comparisons with The Rapture with their jerky dance rock rhythms, love of the cowbell and shouting lyrics. When comparing the two bands, I feel that the Sunshine seem more down-to-earth and less-scenester like. The Sunshine have more focus on building layers of percussions and jarring guitars to create full force, powerful sound. Take a gander at the samples on their myspace page.

Of all the bands tonight, they were the ones who acted and performed like a band who didn't need to act like idiots to show how rocking they are. As I'll explain with the Holloways and Pigeon Detectives, the Sunshine Underground didn't have to jump into the crowd, force people to clap or climb on the speakers to get the crowd revved up. The four-man outfit, based in Leeds, is fronted by Craig Wellington, who just owned the night. His vocals were loud and aggressive. On their popular single, "Commercial Breakdown" he hit those high notes with sincerity and crowd went ballistic for him. I was stunned to see how controlled he was on his extended cowbell solo.

The band is a complete package: great choruses, an expert live act that can get the crowd dancing and just musically exciting. My hope is that all the people who like The Rapture will dump their asses in favor of them. No word yet if their album, Raise the Alarm, will be available here in the states. I picked up a copy and in time we'll see if the New York rock kids will flock to them.

Sunshine_underground2

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Sunshine_underground5

I thought the Holloways were the more popular act right now, with their single "Generator" charting, but the organizers saved Sunshine for last. Anyway, it took a while for me to get into the Holloways. I thought they would be more ska and poppy in the vein of Madness and The Specials. "Generator" is kind of a misnomer because it's the one song that's different from the rest of their repertoire. It's fun, happy-go-lucky quality that's instantly infectious. The rest of their song sare not up to the quality of "Generator". Their other well known song is "Two Left Feet," which reminded me of Dexy's Midnight Runners with it's the fiddle part in there.

As a live act, they crowd really took to them, but I was on and off with them. They have a pleasant pop sound but that can only sustain them for a handful of songs. The rest seem like filler to get to the good songs. I liked "Hallelujah I Love Her So" with it's barbershop quartet like chorus. "Sound of the Sunshine" felt passive and not very engaging. The crowd didn't seem to mind, they were moshing to anything at this point. Their guitarist was in full rock mode, climbing on top of the speakers in front of me, then surfing the crowd a few times. You'll aloud once guy, that's it. Twice, you're pushing it.

So I was left kind of disappointed with the Holloways. I was expecting more pop goodness through out, but it they need some better songs to compliment their hits.

Holloways2

Holloways1

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I hated the Pigeon Detectives. HATED them. They were sloppy post-punk idiots. They can't even rip off The Strokes effectively. Basically, they start with a guitar riff, beat into the ground, screaming some lyrics about being drunk and repeat for 30 minutes. The frustrating thing about it was that he crowd responded best to them. The moshing started and people were crowd surfing like crazy. I looked around me in front and every loved them. I had enough and went to the back and found people who felt the same way I did, "Who are these wankers?" So it was just a vocal minority. I'm sure this minority also likes The Kooks.

BTW, the lead singer looks like Bill Spooner from The Tubes.

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I had to look up who the first act was because I didn't remember. It was Pull Tiger Tail. Bore-ring. They are one of those acts where people won't stand right up front for them -- just leave a little circle in front of them. Don't remember what they sounded like. Oh well.

Pulltigertale

So KOKO is a really nice venue, which opened a couple of years ago. It's spacious and sounds great. Although there are steps everywhere. I think the venue has five levels of balconies. You'd look behind you and see all these people standing on the railings. You actually enter the place in the middle balony, then you take stairs down to the floor or up for more balcony space.

Comments

you sir are a grade A PRICK. take that stick out of your arse and start writing proper reviews bellend

In my own words, you're a "twwwaaaaaaaat"

How very dare you!

hmm pretty much agree with the comments above. But to put your review into context to show how stupid it is, you're a music journalist right.. well supossedly anyway, but on the Pigeon Detectives you wrote:

"So it was just a vocal minority. (that liked them) I'm sure this minority also likes The Kooks."

To have any credibility as a music journalist perhaps you should realise that the minority of people that like the Kooks meant that their debut album spent more than half of 2006 in the UK Top 20 and sold more than 1,000,000 copies in the UK alone.

In essence this shows what you know about music, and i think that everyone else thats spent their time commenting on how they dissagre with you higlights that it may actually be you thats in the minority here.

you get paid to rip the shit out of bands? thats a disgrace

i dont see you on stage performing to thousands?

surely bands success means theyre liked. ur a nob

you're not very good at your job are you.

Pull Tiger Tail - "Don't remember what they sounded like. Oh well."

i thought it was in your job description to actually LISTEN to the music. pathetic.

NOBBA

you twat pull tiger tail are the tits...i think you are probs really fat and you have a tiny willy cos any normal looking person wouldnt be stuck at home writing crap like this x

Did you hit your head off something on the way home! Pull Tiger Tail are amazing and if have some sort of problem with modern music i suggest you get another job! next time you go to a gig try to listen to the music and not get distracted by what a twat you are, you might be able to write proper review that way!

you seemed to pay more attention to the venue then the music!

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