4.52am Issue: 057 2nd November 2017 The National Issue

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T
his 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.
Hope you enjoy it
All at 4.52am

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Contents
The National ........................................................................... 9
Learn to Play: Stone Roses ................................................... 17
Learn to Play: Happy Mondays ............................................. 19
Katalina Kicks ........................................................................ 21
Bad Llama ............................................................................. 23
U2 ........................................................................................ 25
La Contessa Presents… .......................................................... 31
1960s: The Rolling Stones ...................................................... 33
1970s: Justin Hayward .......................................................... 35
1980s: Tears For Fears ........................................................... 37
1990s: Julian Lennon ............................................................. 39
2000s: Supermen Lovers ....................................................... 41
2010s: Blur ............................................................................ 43

The National
S
ome albums take a while to sink in, and for me at least The
National’s epic ‘Sleep Well Beast’ definitely fits into that
category. And it isn’t because they are a band I don’t like,
or even because the album was a radical departure – it really
wasn’t in the majority – but I think sometimes you can get
sucked in so far with a band’s previous work that anything new,
however good it may be, requires a time of adjustment.
Which of course is why it is a couple of months on from its
release that we are finally covering what is in effect one of my
favourite bands ever.
Since 2014s ‘Trouble Will Find Me,’ it would be easy to imagine
that the band have done not a lot National, but the truth is that
the album began in late 2014 when Aaron passed Matt some
early ‘sketches’ of the songs,
“We really didn’t take much of a break,” says Matt.

“We started working on this record the minute we finished
touring the last one. The only break we took was from the
constant pressure we put on each other.”
“We didn’t feel like rushing it,” says Aaron, who produced Sleep
Well Beast. “People thought the National went away, but we
were just working on ideas.” With members now living in five
different cities, the band made an extra effort to get together in
the same room – sometimes in studios in upstate New York, or
out in Los Angeles. “We’ve always worked on demos together,”
explains Bryce. “But this time we were actually in the same
physical space doing it.”
“When we all lived in Brooklyn we rarely did these kinds of
week-long sessions” says Scott. “This time we got together for
long stretches, just to mess around and experiment without
deadlines or distractions.”
Bryce says, “We spent a week in East Berlin in this beautiful
1950’s communist-era recording studio with tons of musicians
from very different backgrounds, just letting them listen and
react to the music we’d been cooking for so many months within
the band.” “It was a very interesting way to collect new sounds
and process existing ones,” says Aaron. Late in the process the
band convened an orchestra in Paris to record Bryce’s
orchestrations for the songs before returning to Long Pond to
mix the album. There are songs on Sleep Well Beast that are
instantly recognizable as the National, but others are much
harder to classify. The lyrics are about “trying to come clean
about the things you’d rather not,” says Matt.

“Some of it’s about marriage, some of it’s about my relationship
with Aaron and the band, some of it’s about train tracks and
dancing.” Guitar solos appear like never before, yet on some
songs guitars account for only a tiny fraction of the music. “It
was important that we genuinely explore new territory and risk
falling on our faces, or not make a record at all,” explains Aaron.
“This album feels complete to me.”
Find out more Here

Learn to Play:
The Stone Roses
B
Y the time the second Stone Roses album arrived after
protracted legal disputes and the re-decoration of their
previous record label’s offices, you would have to say
that the bar was set quite high. It may not be a popular view,
given the fact that their beautiful waterfall of a sound was
frankly ditched for John Squires Jimmy Page impression, but
when you can do it that well, as a guitar player, around here you
can be forgiven anything.
The best track of the album, is one you really want to nail…

Learn to Play:
Happy Mondays
I
F the Roses were the Beatles for our generation, the
Mondays were definitely the Stones and whilst guitar-wise
they probably were nowhere as recognisable, again they had
some tunes you will definitely impress with if you pull them out
of your metaphorical gigbag.

Katalina Kicks
I
F you are ready for some quite frankly, brilliant Punk/Rock,
then you genuinely need to be listening to one of the freshest
and most exciting bands around at the moment, the uber
cool (and I don’t mean Taxi for) Katalina Kicks.
New single ‘We Don’t Care’ sums them up perfectly, short and
sweet and definitely in your face in the best of ways. We have
been jumping around all week and so will you be. Look out for
an interview in the coming weeks if we can sort it out, as
Katalina Kicks are definitely a band you are going to hear a lot
more about. Wicked. Check the video out Here and then go and
see them live:
More here, Facebook Twitter Web Site
Nov 1st - 229 The Venue, London - Linkin Park benefit show
Nov 5th - Hope & Anchor, London
Nov 16th - Frog and Parrot, Sheffield
December 1st - B2, Norwich

Bad Llama
E
verybody knows that the best bands are produced by the
legendary Gavin Monaghan, and Burton-on-Trent’s Bad
Llama are nobody’s exception. About to launch their new
E.P ‘The Shedding Skin’, the band have just released the lead
track as a single, ‘The Wolf You Feed’ which quite literally has
been blowing us away.
Musically, they are nailing that whole industrial Rock sound, and
fans of Korn and Tool will love them just as much as those of
Nine Inch Nails and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It isn’t all grind
though, as these chaps are writing some seriously classic songs
and will definitely be livening festival audiences and then moving
up into the big leagues.
Find out more here,
Facebook Twitter Instagram

U2
I
t is always top excitement around here when U2 release a
new album, and after much delay, the band finally release
the sibling of 2014’s ‘Songs of Innocence’, ‘Songs of
Experience.’
As we no doubt all know this has a nod to William Blake, and will
be available from the 1 st of December.
The usual multitude of physical formats are available now to preorder
along, with bonus digital tracks that you can’t get
anywhere else etc. You know the score.
Find out all about them Here

La Contessa Presents…
A
nd here we go again, with what is, frankly, one of the
finest lists La Contessa has put together yet.
We are moving to the Stones, chilling with Justin
Hayward, looking meaningfully into the camera with Tears For
Fears, feeling shopping trolley with Julian Lennon, grooving with
The Supermen Lovers and generally being quite cool with The
Blurs, as they will always be to me.
Enjoy!

1960s: The Rolling
Stones

1970s: Justin Hayward

1980s: Tears For Fears

1990s: Julian Lennon

2000s: Supermen
Lovers

2010s: Blur