This Monday it’s the turn of Camera Obscura.  A band I’ve known the name of for a few years, but never known any songs of. I’m sure my colleague Calum Shanlin will pop up and inform me he knows the bassists cousin or something, he has his finger in every Scottish musical pie.

I was sitting patiently in the cinema last week waiting for The Fourth Kind to start. As ever Emma and I were there about an hour before the film began. I was enjoying the pre film CD that VUE cinemas pipe in to the auditoriums.  On came this 60′s sounding, almost Motown-esque track.  Thanks to the wonders of Shazam on my phone, I found the answer.

Shazam, by the way, is a service which has been around for about 6 or 7 years.  In the past you’d hear a song you like, phone 2580 on your mobile, play a bit of the song down the phone and it would text you back the name of the song.  Now a days modern smart phones can handle the Shazam application. Same idea in theory, except the application listens to a bit of the song, uploads it via the internet to the Shazam server and almost instantly gives you a response.  6 years on and I’m still impressed every time I use it.

The result that came back from Shazam was Camera Obscura, If Looks Could Kill. A track from January 2007. If I’d read January 1967 I’d have believed it.

Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill

By the way, for people who read this blog through Facebook, if you click the View Original Post link below, you will be transported to my blog where you can listen to these tracks that I post.

A week ago I blogged about seeing 3 gigs in 5 days. Not a spectacular challenge I know, but quite impressive for my non existent social life.

Those 5 days have been and gone and here’s the 2nd of those 3 bands.

For the record, going to see the Proclaimers was a work related freebie.  Record companies let you do that every now and again. They try to keep you sweet. They hope that in turn you will promote their bands by playing their tracks on the radio, despite the fact I have no say in what I play at all. If you are a promoter at a record company, ignore that last sentence entirely.

I’m telling you about the freebie because the Proclaimers were never a band I’d pay to see live. I only know 3 or 4 of their songs properly, and I always feel they’ve had a slightly cheesy stigma attached to them.  But hey ho, the gig was free and we duly went along.

What a fantastic show it was.  If I had known how good it was going to be, I’d have easily paid the £30 ticket price. Gig goers of all ages were there. From young 5 year old children right up to grandparents pushing 80.

So maybe their stage presence isn’t quite up their with what Liam and Noel once had.  Their in between song banter wasn’t the strongest, it mainly consisted of birthday dedications like you’d expect to hear on BBC local radio. And their introduction of songs went something along the lines of: “This is a song about coming home, and being about 3 days away”, and they’d then start playing their new song 3 Days From Home.

But that aside, the crowd bopping to “500 Miles” and “I’m On My Way”, and the almost anthemic singing to “Sunshine on Leith” made up for it.

I probably wouldn’t make the point of going to see the Proclaimers again. Once, all be it a good experience, was probably enough for me. But if you’ve never seen the Proclaimers, and you get the chance to go see them, I would whole heartedly recommend it.

Sunshine on Leith

I’ve always enjoyed Bernard Sumner’s work.  Joy Division, New Order, Electronic, all fantastic bands.

I happened to come across Bad Lieutenant, Bernie’s newest band while listening to the excellent Radcliffe & Maconie show on Radio 2 a couple of months back.  Very Electronic-esque, but that’s no bad thing.

Sink or Swim is the first single from their debut album Never Cry Another Tear.  Like a lot of New Order’s most recent work, it’s hardly ground breaking, but it’s a nice, catchy, pleasant song that you enjoy hearing every now and again when it pops up in your music collection while in shuffle mode.

Sink or Swim

So we’ll start today. With Idlewild. Seems only right seeing as my last blog post was about them.

These two tracks are from their latest album Post Electric Blues.  As I said in my last blog post, it’s not had the greatest reviews, but I think it’s up their with some of their finest work.

Readers and Writers is probably the catchiest and most mainstream sounding song since You Held The World In Your Arms.

Take Me Back To The Islands shows a folky side to Roddy and Idlewild that I quite like.  If you like Take Me Back To The Islands then you should check out some of Roddy’s solo work.  I like to think this song is about Shetland, although it’s probably certain to say it’s not.

Readers & Writers

Take Me Back To The Islands

Hope you enjoy. More next Monday.

This week however I’ll be going to 3 gigs in the space of 5 days. Suddenly my diary looks quite healthy again.

Idlewild, Proclaimers and Kasabian all in one week.  I’ll blog my thoughts.

Idlewild @ The Warehouse (06/11/09)

Idlewild @ the Outsider Festival in 2007,  from Flickr

I sway over who my favourite band ever are.  It usually boils down to Oasis or Idlewild. But I go through spells of skipping Oasis when they come up in the media player on my computer. I never skip an Idlewild song. That pretty much convinces me who wins the title.

I’ve seen them 5 or 6 times, I lose count.

I first saw Idlewild when Radio 1 took them to play Shetland. As a 15 year old desperately trying to get in to radio, for my favourite radio station at the time to come to my island and take one of my favourite bands was an amazing experience. My peers couldn’t quite grasp how in awe I was at meeting Steve Lamacq.

I’ve seen Idlewild (well Roddy and several members of Idlewild) play at  a gig where I was 1 of 10 people. Roddy came out, introduced the band and then asked in turn the names of everyone attending. I’ve seen Idlewild at the Music Hall in Aberdeen when they recorded their ‘Greatest Hits’ DVD.  I’ve seen Idlewild do a sound check prior to interviewing Roddy.

I’d say as an Idlewild fan, I’ve done quite well.

Every time I’ve seen Idlewild I have been impressed. They’ve set the bar quite high.  This time round they were good, but probably the poorest I’ve seen them.  I put it down to the venue more than anything else.  As someone who likes their space at gigs the Warehouse isn’t a good venue.  Also as casual Idlewild fans, Emma and Tom pointed out, they played a lot of unknown tracks.  For me that wasn’t so much of a problem.

Idlewild remains for me one of the most underrated bands around.

Good Points: The new album sounds good live.  It’s not had many rave reviews but I think it’s up there with some of the best work Idlewild have ever done.  And I’m glad I’m not the only man who has a daft beard, Roddy now sports one.

Bad Points: Not a massive fan of the Warehouse, or Moshulu, whatever it’s called. Especially when it’s sold out like it was on Friday.

Everytime I meet a “celebrity” I end up having a little bit of a smile on my face for the rest of the day. I’m sure it is something that will soon wear off after a few years in the radio industry.

Today was the the turn of Dr Karl Kenney from Neighbours (his real name is Alan Fletcher, but he answers to Karl).  What a nice and friendly man.  More than happy to take part in anything you asked him, and more than happy to get your photo taken with him (take note Noel). I suppose he thrives on this sort of thing.

The work load has been increased recently. I’ve gone from 14 hours on air a week to 23 hours (if only it was in one go, I could host nearly a whole day of Original 106).

You can now hear me,

Monday – Friday, 7 till 10pm.
Saturday, 2-6pm, the Saturday afternoon sports show (hosting a sports show still amuses me slightly).
Sunday, 6 till 10am, Sunday Breakfast (strangely was a really good experience despite being up at ridiculous o’clock on a Sunday morning).

106.3/106.8FM in the North East of Scotland, or www.originalfm.com if you want to listen online.

David