4.52am Issue: 057 2nd November 2017 The National Issue
This week in 4.52am we are pleased to take a look at The National who produced one of the albums of the year and then just seem to keep going. From there we have a Madchester set of guitar lessons with the Roses and the Mondays. Katalina Kicks and Bad Llama are two brilliant bands that we are sure you will hear a lot more from, and then with U2 announcing their new album, we have a quick shufty there too. As for La Contessa, she serves up The Stones, Justin Hayward, Tears For Fears, Julian Lennon, Supermen Lovers and Blur.
This week in 4.52am we are pleased to take a look at The National who produced one of the albums of the year and then just seem to keep going. From there we have a Madchester set of guitar lessons with the Roses and the Mondays.
Katalina Kicks and Bad Llama are two brilliant bands that we are sure you will hear a lot more from, and then with U2 announcing their new album, we have a quick shufty there too.
As for La Contessa, she serves up The Stones, Justin Hayward, Tears For Fears, Julian Lennon, Supermen Lovers and Blur.
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T<br />
his week in <strong>4.52am</strong> we are pleased to take<br />
a look at <strong>The</strong> <strong>National</strong> who produced one<br />
of the albums of the year and then just<br />
seem to keep going. From there we have a<br />
Madchester set of guitar lessons with the Roses<br />
and the Mondays.<br />
Katalina Kicks and Bad Llama are two brilliant<br />
bands that we are sure you will hear a lot more<br />
from, and then with U2 announcing their new<br />
album, we have a quick shufty there too.<br />
As for La Contessa, she serves up <strong>The</strong> Stones,<br />
Justin Hayward, Tears For Fears, Julian Lennon,<br />
Supermen Lovers and Blur.<br />
Hope you enjoy it<br />
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Contents<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>National</strong> ........................................................................... 9<br />
Learn to Play: Stone Roses ................................................... 17<br />
Learn to Play: Happy Mondays ............................................. 19<br />
Katalina Kicks ........................................................................ 21<br />
Bad Llama ............................................................................. 23<br />
U2 ........................................................................................ 25<br />
La Contessa Presents… .......................................................... 31<br />
1960s: <strong>The</strong> Rolling Stones ...................................................... 33<br />
1970s: Justin Hayward .......................................................... 35<br />
1980s: Tears For Fears ........................................................... 37<br />
1990s: Julian Lennon ............................................................. 39<br />
2000s: Supermen Lovers ....................................................... 41<br />
2010s: Blur ............................................................................ 43
<strong>The</strong> <strong>National</strong><br />
S<br />
ome albums take a while to sink in, and for me at least <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>National</strong>’s epic ‘Sleep Well Beast’ definitely fits into that<br />
category. And it isn’t because they are a band I don’t like,<br />
or even because the album was a radical departure – it really<br />
wasn’t in the majority – but I think sometimes you can get<br />
sucked in so far with a band’s previous work that anything new,<br />
however good it may be, requires a time of adjustment.<br />
Which of course is why it is a couple of months on from its<br />
release that we are finally covering what is in effect one of my<br />
favourite bands ever.<br />
Since 2014s ‘Trouble Will Find Me,’ it would be easy to imagine<br />
that the band have done not a lot <strong>National</strong>, but the truth is that<br />
the album began in late 2014 when Aaron passed Matt some<br />
early ‘sketches’ of the songs,<br />
“We really didn’t take much of a break,” says Matt.
“We started working on this record the minute we finished<br />
touring the last one. <strong>The</strong> only break we took was from the<br />
constant pressure we put on each other.”<br />
“We didn’t feel like rushing it,” says Aaron, who produced Sleep<br />
Well Beast. “People thought the <strong>National</strong> went away, but we<br />
were just working on ideas.” With members now living in five<br />
different cities, the band made an extra effort to get together in<br />
the same room – sometimes in studios in upstate New York, or<br />
out in Los Angeles. “We’ve always worked on demos together,”<br />
explains Bryce. “But this time we were actually in the same<br />
physical space doing it.”<br />
“When we all lived in Brooklyn we rarely did these kinds of<br />
week-long sessions” says Scott. “This time we got together for<br />
long stretches, just to mess around and experiment without<br />
deadlines or distractions.”<br />
Bryce says, “We spent a week in East Berlin in this beautiful<br />
1950’s communist-era recording studio with tons of musicians<br />
from very different backgrounds, just letting them listen and<br />
react to the music we’d been cooking for so many months within<br />
the band.” “It was a very interesting way to collect new sounds<br />
and process existing ones,” says Aaron. Late in the process the<br />
band convened an orchestra in Paris to record Bryce’s<br />
orchestrations for the songs before returning to Long Pond to<br />
mix the album. <strong>The</strong>re are songs on Sleep Well Beast that are<br />
instantly recognizable as the <strong>National</strong>, but others are much<br />
harder to classify. <strong>The</strong> lyrics are about “trying to come clean<br />
about the things you’d rather not,” says Matt.
“Some of it’s about marriage, some of it’s about my relationship<br />
with Aaron and the band, some of it’s about train tracks and<br />
dancing.” Guitar solos appear like never before, yet on some<br />
songs guitars account for only a tiny fraction of the music. “It<br />
was important that we genuinely explore new territory and risk<br />
falling on our faces, or not make a record at all,” explains Aaron.<br />
“This album feels complete to me.”<br />
Find out more Here
Learn to Play:<br />
<strong>The</strong> Stone Roses<br />
B<br />
Y the time the second Stone Roses album arrived after<br />
protracted legal disputes and the re-decoration of their<br />
previous record label’s offices, you would have to say<br />
that the bar was set quite high. It may not be a popular view,<br />
given the fact that their beautiful waterfall of a sound was<br />
frankly ditched for John Squires Jimmy Page impression, but<br />
when you can do it that well, as a guitar player, around here you<br />
can be forgiven anything.<br />
<strong>The</strong> best track of the album, is one you really want to nail…
Learn to Play:<br />
Happy Mondays<br />
I<br />
F the Roses were the Beatles for our generation, the<br />
Mondays were definitely the Stones and whilst guitar-wise<br />
they probably were nowhere as recognisable, again they had<br />
some tunes you will definitely impress with if you pull them out<br />
of your metaphorical gigbag.
Katalina Kicks<br />
I<br />
F you are ready for some quite frankly, brilliant Punk/Rock,<br />
then you genuinely need to be listening to one of the freshest<br />
and most exciting bands around at the moment, the uber<br />
cool (and I don’t mean Taxi for) Katalina Kicks.<br />
New single ‘We Don’t Care’ sums them up perfectly, short and<br />
sweet and definitely in your face in the best of ways. We have<br />
been jumping around all week and so will you be. Look out for<br />
an interview in the coming weeks if we can sort it out, as<br />
Katalina Kicks are definitely a band you are going to hear a lot<br />
more about. Wicked. Check the video out Here and then go and<br />
see them live:<br />
More here, Facebook Twitter Web Site<br />
Nov 1st - 229 <strong>The</strong> Venue, London - Linkin Park benefit show<br />
Nov 5th - Hope & Anchor, London<br />
Nov 16th - Frog and Parrot, Sheffield<br />
December 1st - B2, Norwich
Bad Llama<br />
E<br />
verybody knows that the best bands are produced by the<br />
legendary Gavin Monaghan, and Burton-on-Trent’s Bad<br />
Llama are nobody’s exception. About to launch their new<br />
E.P ‘<strong>The</strong> Shedding Skin’, the band have just released the lead<br />
track as a single, ‘<strong>The</strong> Wolf You Feed’ which quite literally has<br />
been blowing us away.<br />
Musically, they are nailing that whole industrial Rock sound, and<br />
fans of Korn and Tool will love them just as much as those of<br />
Nine Inch Nails and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It isn’t all grind<br />
though, as these chaps are writing some seriously classic songs<br />
and will definitely be livening festival audiences and then moving<br />
up into the big leagues.<br />
Find out more here,<br />
Facebook Twitter Instagram
U2<br />
I<br />
t is always top excitement around here when U2 release a<br />
new album, and after much delay, the band finally release<br />
the sibling of 2014’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, ‘Songs of<br />
Experience.’<br />
As we no doubt all know this has a nod to William Blake, and will<br />
be available from the 1 st of December.<br />
<strong>The</strong> usual multitude of physical formats are available now to preorder<br />
along, with bonus digital tracks that you can’t get<br />
anywhere else etc. You know the score.<br />
Find out all about them Here
La Contessa Presents…<br />
A<br />
nd here we go again, with what is, frankly, one of the<br />
finest lists La Contessa has put together yet.<br />
We are moving to the Stones, chilling with Justin<br />
Hayward, looking meaningfully into the camera with Tears For<br />
Fears, feeling shopping trolley with Julian Lennon, grooving with<br />
<strong>The</strong> Supermen Lovers and generally being quite cool with <strong>The</strong><br />
Blurs, as they will always be to me.<br />
Enjoy!
1960s: <strong>The</strong> Rolling<br />
Stones
1970s: Justin Hayward
1980s: Tears For Fears
1990s: Julian Lennon
2000s: Supermen<br />
Lovers
2010s: Blur