2 free songs for download over at our new last.fm page.
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The Nightowlers
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Nightowlers

When cabin fever sets in over Christmas holidays: Valen comes to town

Taken In
from the Boss Tuneage Album Only Souvenirs

While blowing the digital dust of my music library recently, I stumbled across many songs and rarities from my previous punk band Barefoot – songs mostly confined only to memory.  I had a great time and a lot of laughs playing, recording, gigging and touring the UK with the Glasgow-based band between 2003 and 2007 .

It was on listening to these songs again recently for the first time in ages, that I came to appreciate their quality, melodies, musicianship and energy a lot more.  Our music, labelled punk, melodic punk, power pop etc, was very much in the vein of bands like Leatherface, Mega City Four, Doughboys and (earlier) Greenday. High speed, driving drums and bass, a 2 guitar attack with melodic embellishments/solos and unique, song-defining vocal melodies and lyrics were order of the day.

Playing and working with these songs week-in week-out for such substantial periods obviously colours how you hear and feel about the songs.  It is all too easy to get lost in the minute details of something that from the outside may not be of any particular worth. Conversely, you can become completely sickened of something great when you play it repeatedly. Such is the dilemma when trying to both write and listen to songs.

Time away however, has rejuvenated these songs “in my ears’ eyes” and I can also look back nostalgically now with a clearer overview of the different musical stages in Barefoot’s short history: Early 3-piece pop punk gems like Taken In (above), Ten Past Broken and Punch Your Weight,

Ten Past Broken
from the Boss Tuneage Album Only Souvenirs

Punch Your Weight
from the Boss Tuneage Album Only Souvenirs

Via the beefed out, more jagged, 4-piece sound of the Undone and Done In songs such as Face First:

To the more updated, varied and intricate guitar sound from “Deliverance Sessions” such as On The Edge, Useless and Bitter.

On The Edge
from the “Deliverance Sessions”

Useless
from the “Deliverance Sessions”

Bitter
from the “Deliverance Sessions”

Amongst the trinkets and treasures of the clear out I also came across a markedly different side of Barefoot – a rare, more laid back, partly acoustic rock song called Secure. One that I think stands up as a great song all by itself. If Barefoot had ever wanted to be radio-friendly….

Secure
from the unreleased album Undone and Done In

Apart from this new found personal interest in the songs themselves, part of the reason for putting them up here on shanx.co.uk is because many of these songs have never actually seen the light of day. There is an album’s worth of completed songs that only those in the band or those who saw us live in our latter gigging days have ever heard. So let’s blow the digital dust off some of them…

The summer weather and Norway’s “Light at Night” at 1 in the morning allowed for some outdoor low-fi (because we know no other way) music with Stefan as part of  our “David and Me” project.  It was a beautiful evening – “one for the mind and not to be recorded” as a wise man once said.  We were visited by a curious beaver, some deer, jumping fish, a skunk (we think) and passers by.

Musically speaking for “David and Me”, melody and simplicity take precedence with bedroom noises from melodicas, ukuleles, glockenspiels and rhythm eggs also making appearances.  Magnetic fields and Herman Dune are strong influences.  Mostly though, the driving force is some sort of ode to our favourite, sadly departed all-too-young St.Thomas.  We hope summer will be kind and give us some recordings of our songs to put out.  For now, some roughness (we like roughness!)

- The Willow Tree -

David and Me – Sulking

While on the music front, Billy Spring Band have been busy in the studio recording rough demos for a full 8 or so songs.  We have quite a mixture of songs now ranging from a “skrangly” Neil Young rock sound to a smooth jazzy tune all the way to a waltz!  Check back here in the upcoming weeks for some rough demos.  BSB now have, in addition to our Myspace, an online home with the kind collective of bands @ Snotpope with whom we share practice rooms, studio and equipment.  Find it by clicking my banner design below.

Digitally, I’ve been particularly impressed with WordPress 2.8 publishing platform’s features that make running a blog  a LOT easier and much more intuitive.  Plugins, themes and widgets can all now be installed and activated directly through the WordPress Online Site Admin interface.  The sidebar widget housing your e.g. Twitter, Flickr and Last.fm feeds can be adjusted seamlessly using drag and drop thanks to AJAX.  Gone also are the cumbersome days of downloading your plugins/upgrades as zip files, unpacking them and uploading them via FTP.  One standout plugin is the  WordPress InstantUpgrade plugin by Zirona.  Once set up, WordPress is upgradable in one click – no more worries about file permissions or overwriting important files.

Watch this space for more music from David and Me and BSB.  And, above all, god sommer!

We are currently finishing up a 2 song demo that we will be giving away very soon.  Just get in touch for a copy and Ill be happy to send you one.  The sound is in and around the indie rock/country genres.  Possibly somewhere between Neil Young and Bonnie Prince Billy with some special female vocals in there.  The 2 demo songs are definitely on our rockier, less laid back side.  I play guitar on the tracks and have designed the demo’s artwork.  Let us know what you think.

click play below to listen

A short, first-takes, Sunday-evening song
mp3 download

and in the meantime, some good old Scottish indie/folk/miserablism
Foxface – Last Waltz
http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsad
http://www.myspace.com/frightenedrabbit

Listen to “Please Don’t Die”
(right click and “save target as” to download)

or simply click play below

Please let us know what you think by posting in the comments section at the bottom of this page.