Camden Crawl 2008 Bands to Watch

Sooner or later I'm going to plan ahead and actually attend the Camden Crawl. If you don't already know, it's London's quasi version of SXSW. It's two days of all the up-and-coming British bands playing in any pub, venue or space that can fit a stage. It's 48 hours of waiting in line! Sign me up.

As a side note, I love what Todd Barry had to say about SXSW, "What? You don't want to see 30 bands in one day?"

The past few years, Arctic Monkeys, Wolfmother, Guillemots, Hard-Fi, Hot Chip, Maximo Park, Magic Numbers, Art Brut, Pipettes, Forward Russia, Klaxons, Humanzi and The Automatic all made their name first at the Crawl. Last year saw Kate Nash, Calvin Harris, New Young Pony Club, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Foals, Adele, Jack Penate and Emmy the Great all start their buzz machine.

This year's line-up has names you are already familiar with: Los Campesinos!, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Lykke Li, Operator Please, Johnny Foreigner, Fanfarlo and M83. Here are some you should keep on eye on.

Ladyhawke: If I were to look into my crystal ball and venture a guess, I would think disco queen Ladyhawke (Pip Browne) would be the act that all the U.K. kids will be fawning over. You can have your Robyns and the like, I'll hang with this New Zealand native. She's M.I.A., Peaches, Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry all rolled into one. I'll listen to anyone who lists video games and Jem & The Holograms as influences. I can see her collaborating with Justice easily. Now, I wonder how many times she's seen Ladyhawke.

Make Model: Having already done the SXSW thing, they are well into the processe of planting their foot onto the U.K. music scene. The six-piece band out of Glasgow are making big arena rock without all the ego. Their latest single is called The LSB, a glammy, fun number with a bratty chorus and foot-stomping rhythm. They do veer from all-out dance numbers to more straight-forward rock out tracks. Their debut album will be out this year. 

Royworld: Royworld! For all your Roy needs. One of the many U.K. bands that will eventually be compared to Keane because of their heavy use of piano. The four piece from London know how to fill a song with musical prowess -- plenty of piano pounding, big vocals and aggressive guitars. For some reason, their song, Man in the Machine, reminds me "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold. It's a cheesy, yacht rock song from the man who wrote "Thank You for Being a Friend."

Bobby Cook and the Sleepers: Nice Something and The Something band name. B.C. already has indie cred having been the opening act for Vampire Weekend on their U.K. tour. HA HA HA! That's just a loaded statement right there. If that was on BrooklynVegan that would have gotten 100 comments. I digress, the guy has a voice made for British pop music -- part Ben Folds, the other part James Walsh of Starsailor. His music has a fine sense of grandeur and space.

Team Waterpolo: Here's an example of band that have been anointed the next big thing even though they've only been a band since last July. Since then, they've toured with Joe Lean & The Jing Jong Jong and appeared on Lily Allen & Friends. Now, they'll have tour stints with The Teenagers, The Automatic, Air Traffic and the next NME New Music Tour. So what's the big deal? My lord are they out there in the pop music. I don't think you can get any more extreme then they do. It's just one dance party song after another. It's The Go! Team meets Black Kids meets Franz Ferdinand.

I just want to point out one great band name, Rolo Tomassi. I heard about this agri-punk/electronica band a few years ago, and lovedthat they named themselves after an obscure movie reference. You know it? Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. It's an obscure character in L.A. Confidential and it was Kevin Spacey's characters dying words. Other great names: Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames, Cutting Pink with Knives, and The Creepy Morons

Comments

[ed]

rolo tomassi was orignially a character in twin peaks long before la confidential came out

[theo]

The new video for Royworld's next single "Dust" is up on youtube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ay7VCjmnslI

[Davey]

Can't wait for Royworld - saw them on the Library tours! Think they're gonna be huge this year!

[fluff]

Came across the video for Ladyhawke's single 'Back of the Van' on audiotube.

http://audiotube.com/file/2793-ladyhawke-back-of-the-van.html

Top tune, she's really cool!!!!!Reckon she'll go down a storm in Camden!!!