#the octc

[the-octc]

Friday Playlist!!

Every Friday I'm going to release a new Spotify playlist for you all of the music I think YOU need to hear!

[the-octc]

The great escape: The Zola's live

It’s come almost a year late but at last it’s here! I worked at the Great Escape, met one of my best friends and the one band I actively chose to see were The Zolas. Now picture this.

Two music students helping to run a venue, on their phones because the rush had died down and it was Saturday. The final day of the festival. We had two options, The Zolas or The Wholls. The answer to who we decided on should hopefully be obvious…

So at quarter past 11 we found our slightly disheveled selves in The Hope and Ruin. I was I.D’d every five minutes and my friend who’s already tall, standing on their tip toes trying to see when the band were coming on stage. The room was packed!

You couldn’t miss the moment they did. The crowd came to life, from their weary end of festival state to singing and dancing to the Zolas catchy tunes. ‘Molotov girls’ and 'invisible’ were definitely the best received with their catchy riffs and the wonderful vocal delivery from Zach.

The bands style varied song to song; songs taken from the album 'Ancient Mars’ had the quality of making you want to dance, cry about the memories triggered and then dance again. Their latest album 'Swooner’ is heavily influenced by pop music and is a pop album but with some depth. Lyrically they’re similar to Bastille in that the lyrics are stories.

The theatrics and hijinks that accompanied their set included stage diving, crowd surfing and crowd surfing with guitars.. If you’re aware of how health and safety conscious the U.K is, you’ll be aware that it’s to the point where sometimes people crave a bit of danger.. Thanks to out love of safety being outweighed by our lust for some fun!

Well you can imagine the crowds reaction; they went wild! I chose to use my friend as a human shield at that point as I’m not tall and I’ve had a bad experience in mosh pits before. Never the less it was amazing, I want to do it all again. Sadly I live in the U.K and seen as the Zolas are Canadian I doubt I’ll see them anytime soon, nevertheless their music is wonderful…. And you should definitely listen to them.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BVWMc7JEHdh2Ku6xgKuYL

@thezolas

All rights to Image’s go to their respectful owner/owners Written by Cara Moulton

[the-octc]

Record store day and ticket touts

Record store day is one day of the year where music and Vinyl fanatics all go bonkers, queueing overnight and storming the stores for the cause of exclusive or limited vinyl releases. Since the idea was conceived in 2007 to support and celebrate independent record stores in the U.S as well as elsewhere around the world. Last year was the first time i properly saw the scale of the day. In Kingston at Banquet records, people had queued overnight. There was tea being sold to the loyal fans who had queued over night and although it was cold everyone was happy. Due to the volume of people queuing and the size of the small store people were staggered coming into the store. Most came out with at least one record they had wanted in the end and so all in all it was a great day.

But there’s a darker side to the day. I looked on Ebay that evening for something completely unrelated to Record store day and curiosity got the better of me. So i search for ‘Music for cars’ by The 1975. I’d managed to get this E.P which surprised me as it was in such high demand but when i went on Ebay I was shocked. Not a pleasant shock either. The E.P that i’d bought at face value for £25 was being sold, starting on average at £50.

Now i have no problem at people selling vinyl on Ebay but the fact someone will buy the limited eddition vinyl to sell it on for a profit will forever irritate me. Along with ticket touts- which i’ll touch on in a bit. My main issues with reselling like this is that it’s ridiculously unfair on behalf of the people that genuinely wanted and missed out on the record thats being sold for twice the original price. Not everyone is in the position or is willing to pay £50 for a £25 LP on vinyl. Another reason I’m against the resale of vinyl is because as a music production graduate I realise the amount of work that goes into these records and the fact that producers, mastering engineers, mixing engineers, as well as many other people in the chain of people that help create an album. My point being that there’re a lot of people who worked their asses off creating a body of work for people to enjoy, maybe they deserve/need the extra money.

Ticket touting is a similar topic which angers me. A friend of mine wanted to see Adele but missed out on pre sale tickets and then general tickets as they were in such high demand. Minutes after the shows sold out the tickets were up on tout websites. The same issue arose with Catfish and the bottlemen, Hozier and The 1975- in short tours that have been highly anticipated for a while. Now, i’m by no means bashing the people who perhaps booked one ticket too many or had to cancel last minute, therefore reselling for either face value or a couple of pounds more. The people who buy huge quantities of tickets with the intention to sell them for twice the original price are the people that make me unbelievably angry. Not only is it unfair for fans who genuinely want to see their favourite band live who generally, if i’m going to generalise are teenagers living off of their parents or college/university students with a limited amount of money to spend on nights out. It’s unfair on the bands themselves because in theory a gig may be sold out of tickets but the room may not be full if nobody can afford the touted tickets which would result in a very gloomy gig.

If there was a way of taxing ticket touts that resell their tickets over face value prices so that a considerable portion of the profit goes back to the band maybe there would be some more equality in touting; for the bands at least… For the fans, tickets will always be a battle; for the hyped up popular bands at least and as for vinyl and ebay’d music collectables in general, be prepared to spend a stupid amount of money on the L.P you want if you’re desperate but maybe the best tactic is to boycott the extortionate sellers in the hope they’ll get the hint.

[the-octc]

L.A Dualize review

L.A are a band from Mallorca that I've recently discovered and regarding this album; I'm pretty late as it was released in 2013 however it's so good that I had to review it! L.A are an interesting mix musically. At time's they're reminiscent of The Fray, the mixture of anthemic guitar solos and acoustic piano in the song 'After all' which begins simply with vocals and a semi acoustic guitar that gradually builds into a louder ensemble including lead electric guitar, synths and a strong percussion section before ending in a mellow outro. Another great song is 'In the Meadow' which has a more jagged guitar rhythm yet is very retro and seductive making the song sound like a perfect soundtrack to the end of a romantic comedy or a TV series's based sometime in the 60's. In the best way possible. Songs like 'Rebel' and 'Under Radar' have a certain air about them that to my ears, sounds like a R.E.M song with elements of Elbow. The tin can vocal adds a distinct texture to a number of L.A' song's exaggerating the Motown esqe sound of their vocalists voice which is compatible to The Fratellis singer, Jon Fratelli. A great example of this is in L.A' song 'Outside' which is very much an indie rock song with its where The Fratellis' comparison will make the most sense. These songs can be found on the album "Dualize" on Spotify. Or better yet, go and buy it! Twitter: @ LAtheband ITunes: Dualize (Bonus Track Version) by L.A. https://itun.es/gb/twbLL