Thursday.13.March.2008

Austin, TX

Ravens and Chimes, Scouting for Girls, Cadence Weapon, Billy Bragg, The Hunnies, Jukebox the Ghost, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Peel, My Education, Our Lunar Activities, Melissa St. Pierre, High Places, The English Beat

Review

By the time we got back to the hotel room and readied for bed, it was almost 3 AM, and we were both still revved up from seeing Naked Raygun. So things started somewhat later than normal for the EvilSponge team on Thursday.

People in these orange Rock N Rights jumpsuits were all over the festival,
sweating and looking orange.

Around 1 in the afternoon, armed with coffee, we wandered over to the convention center and walked through the Vendors Area. We picked up random samplers for ourselves and for the European writers of EvilSponge, who could not make it all the way to Austin . We stopped by the Convention Center Day Stage, and stood and watched a couple of songs by a twee act called Ravens and Chimes.

This is light music with strings, keys, female voices in harmony with a male lead, and light rhythms. The music was cute and non-threatening, but not awful.

Raven and Chimes were a bit too precious for me, in a very twee sense. The harmonies were nice enough, and nothing dominated too much, but I really felt they would have been better suited to some soundtrack to a cute little Indie movie as opposed to live on a stage. Certainly, at that point, I wouldn't have spent several minutes going, "Is that girl playing a Flute? That can't be good."

They made no real impression on us, so we decided to wander back over to the hotel coffee shop to grab a nice cup of steaming hot poorly made coffee, and sit watching the people mill about on the street.

Over in Brush Square, just across the street from the Hilton, it was British Music Day at the tent. Some band was playing, and they weren't bad from where we were sitting. I guess it was standard Britpop. They did have one interesting moment: the song they ended with featured the chorus "I wish i was James Bond, just for the day." According the magic of Google, the band who sings this is called Scouting For Girls. None of the rest of what they played, and i am pretty certain i heard their whole set, left any impression with me. But this song, with it's clever lyrics and nice guitar hooks stood out. I guess it also helped that they got the whole crowd singing along. I guess this is their single, and really was a decent tune.

He headed back inside to the Day Stage in order to grab a spot to see Billy Bragg. Mr. Bragg is a long-time favorite of The EvilSponge Team, and we had managed to miss him two years ago when he was in Austin. This time, a Day Stage spot was just perfect.

When we got there, a rapper and a white guy in dread locks were making hip-hop. According to the schedule this was Cadence Weapon. The rapper bounced around like a fool, screaming more than singing, and the dreaded DJ bounced around and scratched like crazy, making a noisy beat. I suppose they were interesting. I mean, for rap.

They cleared out real quick and Billy Bragg took the stage. He's looking none the worse for wear these days, and armed with just an electric guitar proceeded to play several tunes from his new record. He chatted with the crowd, made a few jokes, as he is want to do, and ranted against "the culture of cynicism". He ended with a song he calls Old Clash Fan Fight Tune, which was loud and noisy and did succeed in invoking the spirit of Joe Strummer.

It was quite nice to see the Day Stage area pack out once Billy Bragg was ready to play. In fact, I believe at one point, the SxSW staffers had to stop more folks from stuffing their way inside. It did clear out a bit, once he pointed out he was only going to play new songs. But I enjoyed the new material, as it was just Bragg and his guitar, which is still some of the most compelling music around.

Billy Bragg is not looking for New England anymore. He's been to Boston at this point...

Good stuff from Mr. Bragg. If those songs are on his new record, then i need to pick up a copy at some point.

Our next show was at The Hole In the Wall, a small, dingy club up near the north end of the university, so we climbed into the rental Focus and drove off. It took us a while to find parking, but by the time we got there a band was playing. They were a local Austin 4-piece called The Hunnies. They were a two male, 2 female band. Most of their music was standard indie pop, which wasn't bad, but they stood out on the two songs where the two girls sang old school girl group harmonies. I'm talking about them standing there singing "Doop Doop Ooh Ooh" type of stuff, over a catchy beat and some nice guitarwork.

The Hunnies.

In general, they were fun. They appeared to be a young band, but they have some interesting ideas. I will keep my eye out for more from them.

The Hunnies were actually sort of fun. It was clear they were a little awkward on the stage, but as their set progressed and they got more confident, the music began to resonant more and become more fully realized. In particular, I liked some of their later tunes, which featured really nice backing vocals behind the man's somewhat nasally voice.

Now, theoretically at this point Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin was supposed to play. However, the manager of the club came over and asked if we were "that Boris Yeltsin band". Hmmm... no. So where are they? Local act Peel, who we saw last night and enjoyed, were setting up, but otherwise we were waiting, presumably for "that Boris Yeltsin band" to show up.

As this was all going on, you could see the club manager dragging out his cell phone and begin to make call, ostensibly to determine if the band was even coming, or were they terribly lost. I didn't hear much of the resolution, although one member of Peel commented that he heard the other band were on their way.

The Hole In the Wall proudly serves Real Ale.

We sat at a table chatting, when suddenly the bartender yelled, "Oh shit!" and ran to the wall behind us, over the jukebox. Water was pouring from a pipe in the ceiling, creating a steady drizzle onto the wall. She ran over and turned off a neon light, and then wrestled a trash can onto the jukebox to catch the water. The manager showed up and said that indicated the air conditioning was overflowing...

In and around this ruckus, we could hear music coming from out back. With Peel waiting, we stepped out onto The Hole In the Wall's patio. Through the fence, we could see a three-piece piano pop act performing on the back patio of Slices and Ices, next door. In fact, the band was Jukebox the Ghost, a DC band who we actually saw at The Drunken Unicorn, opening for Winter Sounds sometime last autumn. What are the odds?

Jukebox the Ghost, seen through the wrought iron fence between bars.

They make a Ben Folds-ish piano pop, all catchy rhythms and quirky vocals. To be honest, i think they came across really well playing outside. I enjoyed the 15 minutes i saw of them today much more than i enjoyed the 40 minute set they played months ago. Catching them was a lucky coincidence.

I didn't really care for Jukebox the Ghost the last time I saw them. I think it was mainly because their music didn't really fit it with the milieu of the evening. Seeing them without expectation, though, I thought they were a pretty fine piano-based based, accented by some nice guitarwork.

When they were done, we stepped back inside. No use sitting in the sun if you don't have to. Peel were more or less set up, but word was that "that Boris Yeltsin band" was on the way. So we had to wait.

Around 5:40 or so, they showed up -- three tall, lanky, young-looking guys. They hurriedly set up their gear on the back stage at Hole in the Wall, and with a quick apology "We wrote down 6 PM for this show!" they tore into a brief set.

Since it appeared a fair number of the few folks at The Hole In the Wall were there to see Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, I maintained my seat at a table, sipping my beer. I could hear the music perfectly, and I got to listen to Peel plan out their set as well as their evening plans. Overhearing them talk, it struck me just how likable they all seemed as people. They were laidback and didn't seem irritated by the unavoidable delay; in fact, they rather reminded of any number of local Atlanta bands, good to hang around and fairly easy going.

They opened with Modern Mystery, a song from their forthcoming album that i was familiar with from their excellent Daytrotter Session a few months back. This is an insanely catchy song, with the whole band bellowing "whoa oh" during the chorus over a head-nodding rhythm and crunchy guitars.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin,
even though they have no scheduling skills.

They played two more songs from their upcoming sophomore record, and both were equally catchy. Good to know that the new stuff is as good as their debut record. Even though i only saw three songs, i thoroughly enjoyed each. I look forward to seeing them when their tour brings them to The EARL in a few months.

A few minutes after "that Boris Yeltsin band" were done, Peel took the front stage. Well, the front stage is actually really tiny, and there are 5 members of Peel, including two big keyboards, so they took the front stage and the space near it, along the wall. The bassist and the vocalist had to stand on the floor. But that's okay, as there were only 5 or 6 people in the room anyway.

Peel spill off the stage.

We had just seen them last night, but today they played some different tunes. Some were noisy, the small red-headed guitarist really cutting loose with his distortion pedals. A couple of the songs were slow, moving at a waltzing, country-ish pace. The rest of the tunes were their standard indie pop.

I like that Peel have a lot going on. The keyboards (which sounded great today), are doing one melody, while each guitar is doing a different melody. And yet all three combine remarkably well. I think it helps that they have a powerful rhythm section to help hold it all together. Even though this was the second set i saw by the same band in less than 24 hours, i found that it held my attention. Thoroughly enjoyable...

Peel were a little more revved up, it seemed, than they had been the night before. that's not to say that they were sloppy or overblown, but rather that they had energy to spare. Certainly the music was a bit more noisy than it had seemed at the showcase (the different venue must have helped), and they were playing more loosely than before. Perhaps it was the fact that I inadvertently spend a good part of the afternoon in the same place as the band, but I could just feel their good humor oozing out of the music, and it left me particularly cheery and eager.

Side view of Peel.

As soon as they were done, however, we bolted out the door. Delays caused by "that Boris Yeltsin band" and their poor scheduling skills made us late for dinner. Not that we had reservations anywhere, but rather that i was building my day around getting food at about 6 PM. At 6:30, i was rather hungry, so we headed quickly back to the car, and sped off to Zen.

Zen in a chain of Japanese fast food places in Austin. I got noodles, veggies, and tofu fried in a spicy sauce, all thrown together and served to me in 5 minutes. Why the heck don't we have these in Atlanta? Specifically, i need a Zen franchise in downtown Decatur, within walking distance of my condo...

After that very satisfying meal, we grabbed a coffee and headed over to The Creekside EMC at the Hilton Garden Inn to catch the first act of the evening, Austin post-rockers My Education.

Before i talk about My Education, i need to mention this venue. The Creekside EMC is a conference room. In a hotel. In fact, the hotel staff were there, in Hilton name tags, with an improvised bar. The room was set up with rows of comfy hotel chairs, and there were wall sconces and hotel-type generic art on the walls behind the stage. It was surreal. I kept expecting someone to pull out a Powerpoint and start talking about "the direction our firm is going in" or "ROI in Indie Rock: How Many Pedals Does a Band Really Need?" or something like that. It was, however, by far the cleanest venue i have even seen a band perform in. Ever. The hotel cleaning staff did a wonderful job...

I was a bit taken aback by the "venue", such as it was. Like Postlibyan, I expected to see a presentation. And I think his suggestion for a "ROI in Indie Rock" panel would have been rather entertaining. In fact, that would have been almost as entertaining as the crochet cat that hung off the front of one of My Education's amps. Ah, you can't go wrong with musicians who are cat people.

This cat travels with My Education, to all of their gigs.

Okay, so, in this conference room, My Education played some post-rock. They did not have a Powerpoint presentation, which i have to admit was a minor disappointment. They did play wonderfully though.

My Education discussing their lack of Powerpoint.

My Education are a five-piece band consisting of a bassist (who is the band leader, and introduces the songs), a violinist, two guitarists, and a drummer. They make long, complex songs with layers of melody that wander in an out of focus, almost dancing with each other. I guess it is pretty standard post-rock, but it well done. They are very professional.

My Education rock the conference room.

On one song the guitarist on stage right sat down and played pedal steel, using it as a droning accompaniment to what the violin and other guitar were doing. A lovely use of an instrument i normally despise.

My Education demonstrate the correct use of pedal steel.

They also played their epic, Thanksgiving, which is a violin-driven number that grows into a nice, furious explosion of sound.

I have a strong appreciation for post-rock, especially if it involves sitting in a comfy hotel chair. Seriously, sitting down in a semi-dark room is the only way to really enjoy a meandering instrumental band. It allows you to mentally follow the tonal changes and melodic wandering which characterize the best of post-rock. It also lets you appreciate the beauty of their creation, in a way you sometimes can't in a crowded dank club. Either way, I thought My Education put on an excellent show, and I was happy to hear them once again.

Once again, i thoroughly enjoyed a My Education performance. If you have the chance to see this band, and the thought of violin-driven post-rock appeals to you, then you need to make the effort. You will not be disappointed.

Brits dominate at Latitude 30.

So we left the conference room and headed out into the night. Next stop, "The British Music Embassy" at Latitude 30. When we got there a very young-looking 4-piece act was on stage. They played some decent Britpop. Then they introduced themselves, or, rather, tried to. With some effort i was able to gather that they are Our Lunar Activities, and are from Scotland. Really though, Scots need to be subtitled for us Southerners -- i find their accents completely incomprehensible.

As Our Lunar Activities began, I immediately thought, "where the heck is the closed captioning for this club? I honestly couldn't understand a word that those tiny little folks on stag said, although I was able to parse out the fact that their real gear was in fact elsewhere.

They also explained that even though they were in Austin, their gear was in Boston. Or some place that sounds like Boston but is not Austin, i can't be sure. They were borrowing someone else's gear, and were trying to make do. As they played, their sound became more confident, and a little more ragged at the edges. The between song banter became increasingly more frustrated, as the young lads with their incomprehensible speech felt that they were blowing a big chance, all because some airline had lost their luggage.

Our Lunar Activities: the airline lost our translation device!

Tough break, really, but to be honest i thought that they played better the more frustrated they got. The lead guitar had an almost Big Country feel to it, all high-pitched whirring sounds. The singer has an adequate voice, and the rhythm section did it's job well. Their last number they introduced as a song called Little Finger (or maybe Little Spider -- it's really hard for me to tell) and this was a damned fine tune. The bass riff played off of Evil by Interpol, and the vocalist wailed his frustration. I really enjoyed that song, and i don't know if it was the edginess caused by their frustration or what, but it really worked. If they can focus that uneasiness on their records, they will go far. Overall, i would say that i enjoyed what i saw, and was impressed with the last song. Not bad at all.

I actually enjoyed Our Lunar Activities set quite a bit. It was clear they were angry about the events, and they seemed to cut their set short, which was disappointing. But like Postlibyan, when they clicked into their last song, I could hear what the band was capable of, and I wanted to tell them that really, the sound had not been that bad. Although I have to wonder what they might have done had they not been winging it.

And after that brief stop (they played for about half an hour) we headed out for ... weirdness. Sometimes you have to seek it out, just to keep the weird at bay. And sometimes when the going gets weird, you have to fling stuff back at the monkey....

We walked up sixth street , through the rampaging hordes of drunk revelers, to Congress, and then up to The Hideout. This venue is a coffee shop that, apparently, features drama and movies at night, so in the back there is a theatre. A real theatre, with stadium seating! We chose a spot about halfway up, and sat to watch the proceedings.

Like some of our other musical selections, we decided to see Collections of Colonies of Bees more or less do their name (although I kept shortening their name to "colonies of bees" or even "that bee band). I had no expectations, but we decided to go kind of weird, so I was up for almost anything going in.

A trio set up. There was a girl with one of those portable piano thingies that we had seen with Novelift at The Other Sound Festival last year, a guy with a laptop and some sort of mixing gear, and tall guy kneeling in front of a floor tom on which he had set various percussiony things.

Collections of Colonies of Bees. Melissa St. Pierre and band.

They started their set early. Shocking -- a venue which actually ran about 10 minutes ahead of schedule? Gotta love those avante-garde artists. And this was avant-garde music. The laptop churned out drones and beats, while the percussionist beat on various things and made a clattering sound that was oddly rhythmic. Complexly rhythmic -- he wasn't keeping 4/4 time over there, but it still worked. And then there was the piano, which plinking along quite nicely.

Ms. Melissa St. Pierre, as we were to learn later.

Tracers remarked that the music was "oddly engaging", and i think that sums it up pretty well. The band was called Collections of Colonies of Bees, and we went to see them for the name. They played for about 20 minutes, perhaps 4-pieces that were all vaguely similar, yet unique enough to stand out on their own. After their set, the three musicians stood up and took a bow before the clapping crowd.

Ms. St. Pierre's laptopper recieved a very interesting email halfway through the set.

I really think it was the live percussion that did it for me. I don't care how droney or pianoy you want to get, if you had some live percussion, you're always going to sound better (at least in my book). And the combination of the bleeps and scratches from the laptop combined very nicely with the piano work and the percussion to create something sort of weird, but weird in a way that I found enjoyable. I even would have liked to hear more beyond that 20 minutes. So, I guess this means I like my ambient a little on the strange side, huh?

I am proud of this nice shot of Ms. St. Pierre's drummer in action.

We picked Collections of Colonies of Bees just because of their name. We enjoyed what we heard, but hadknew nothing about the band. Well, in doing research for this review, i looked up the Collections of Colonies of Bees MySpace page, and they are a quartet, all male. Looking back at the schedule, i have concluded that the show was actually running late, and we saw someone called Melissa St. Pierre. Huh. This confusion could have been prevented if anyone had bother to introduce the band!

Anyway, Ms. St. Pierre and her friends did a fine job. They are doing some interesting things, and i like the way that their songs sort of grow as they progress. Then again, at 20 minutes nothing had time to get old and/or annoying. Maybe i wouldn't like them in longer doses, but i enjoyed what i saw here.

Deciding to stick with the weird stuff, we trekked all the way back to the other side of the music festival to the Habana Annex Backyard. Really, this venue is a parking lot behind the building across the street from the Cuban restaurant. We were going to see another band with a name we liked, Death Sentence: Panda! What a great name.

All week long, every time we saw the name "Death Sentence: PANDA!", I couldn't help but giggle a little. Any band that can get that kind of chuckle out of me has to be worth seeing right? Even if I have no clue about their sound, right?

Alas, things at the parking lot were running a bit behind schedule and we were early anyway, so we got there in time to see the entire set by the band before Death Sentence: Panda!, an act called High Places.

High Places move fast as they perform.

This was a duo consisting of a guy with a table of electronics as well as an electronic drum kit, and a girl who sang and shook percussion instruments. The drummer beat on the electronic kit with those loose sticks, you know, the kind which look like they are a handful of kebab skewers bundled together with electrical tape.

After this set, he is making kebabs!

This gave an odd effect to the electronic drums. Coupled with that was a sort of rave beat coming from the gear, and the shaking of bells and the like from the vocalist. All of these elements combined to give High Places a sort of tribal feel. As if this is the music that our indie rocker forebears danced to as they hunted and gathered across the planes, hunting the mighty wooly mammoth, in those days long ago, back before even cassette tapes!

The vocalist had a lovely voice, a soprano i think, and she danced lightly as she sang and chanted through some echo. This gave a sort of otherworldly feel to the proceedings. It was made even more surreal by the fact that the singer is a natural redhead, with skin so pale it looked like marble under the blue stage lighting...

The palest girl at the festival.

All of these elements, taken by themselves, are okay. They combined to make something really engaging. I found myself drawn in by their sounds, by the driving, almost primitive rhythms, and by the plaintive voice. I am not even sure how long they played, because i was entranced the whole time. This unknown band definitely made an impression on me. I wonder if they tour much?

Yes, that is a D.R.I. sticker on the front of High Places gear case. Hardcore!

I wasn't sure what PostLibyan would make of High Places. It was one of those bands that, once they start, I just knew he would like. but I've been horrifically wrong on that front before. For my part, I was totally involved in the electronic/percussive display as well as how the vocalist's ethereal soprano just sort of meandered over the music. It was a strange combination of the driving low end rhythms versus the lilting chanting vocals that made it seem like High Places had emerged from a different realm of existence. Certainly, I had never seen anything like it before, and I rather enjoyed it.

After their set, we stood around waiting for Death Sentence: Panda!, and we chanced across Dakota Smith and Allison Moore of the band Peel, which we had seen perform twice. We had a nice conversation with them about music, and touring, and Dakota writing the music for Neal Pollack (whose writing i dislike, but who is a friend of Mr. Smith...) It was a pleasant time, but cut short because we had somewhere to be at midnight, and reggae bands to see.

So we headed across to Smoking Music. This venue is an open building in the ruins of a place that burned down a few years back. I have some pictures of the burned out wreckage, and here it is reborn as a club run by the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company. To complete their theme, there were smoke machines mounted on the roof, pouring forth a steady swirl of smoke into the night sky. It made it easy to find the club, and of course you were not allowed to smoke inside the club, due to Texas health codes. That must chaff the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company's hide, but i am honestly surprised that a tobacco company was even allowed to sponsor something. It seems as if the prevailing societal attitude is to ignore smoking, restrict it heavily, and maybe it will go away. Like that worked so well with all of the other addictions that society dislikes...

Anyway, we went to this place to see The English Beat. I love The English Beat, in fact, Mirror in the Bathroom had been running around in the back of my brain for the past two days at this point, so i was really looking forward to the show.

True confession: I wasn't a huge fan of The English Beat back in the day. In my younger years, my musical tastes ran more towards X and The Pogues and less towards the ska. But in the intervening years, my appreciation for them has grown and I looked forward to this set, albeit without the excitement of PostLibyan.

Well, the disappointing thing is that it looks as if the only original member still in the band is Dave Wakeling.

Dave Wakeling still has it.

All of the others look like young hired guns brought in flesh out the sound. That's okay, i guess. And the young guys did a heck of a fine job. And Wakeling still has it, his voice is still vaguely gravelly, but not too much so.

Play that English Beat sax!

They played a great set: Twist and Crawl, Tears of a Clown (and i always thought Wakeling did Smokey rather well), and Mirror in the Bathroom all in the first 20 minutes. And after Mirror in the Bathroom half of the crowd left. I guess that is the song that they wanted to hear, and to be honest that was fine with me as the club was rather packed during the first half of the set. After the casual listeners headed out, the rest of us had room to get our groove on, and that was much needed. They played a great long version of Ranking Full Stop, with the new toaster really working it, and then Wakeling said, "If you rest on your laurels long enough, you end of squashing them. So here's a new song." Point well taken, sir. Even though the people here did come to see you play your old hits, i understand your need to continue to create. And the new song wasn't bad. Not on the level of any of his hits, but not without its charms.

Having spent the first 20 minutes of The English Bear's set trapped in a small place between two garbage cans and up against the wall, looking at the back of numerous heads. I was happy to see the crowd begin to clear a little. I could enjoy the music more, and it seemed like the remaining folks were so totally into the music that the energy was infectious.

And then Wakeling pulled out a surprise for the crowd and performed Tenderness, his hit with the post-English Beat band General Public. I had forgotten how much i liked that song, and made a mental note to drag my old General Public vinyl out when i returned home. Well done. They then tore into a blistering of Save it for Later, and got the whole club bouncing and clapping and singing. It was a wonderful time, and it seemed over all too soon. Intellectually i know they played a 45 minute set, but when it was all done and the house music started, i felt cheated, as if it were all too brief. Usually, that is the sign of a good performance, and i have to admit that if The English Beat came to Atlanta on tour next week, i would go and see them.

Wow! Tenderness. Now that was totally unexpected, and very well received by the entirety of the crowd. In fact, I think at times I could hardly hear Mr Wakeling over the singing from around me on both that tune as well as Save it for Later. But Wakeling seemed to appreciate the enthusiasm in the room, and even offered a couple of broad smiles, as if to signal his approval. In some ways, this was one of those great moments when the band is totally together and happy to be present and the crowd devours up what's being offered. Those moments are few and far between, and should be savored, as we obviously did.

Still, by this point we had been at gigs non-stop for almost 6 hours, and had walked all over town. So we sauntered out of Smoking Music with Tenderness imprinted on the brain, and headed back to hotel. Day 2, done, and quite nicely ended at that.

Read the entire SxSW08 review:
     Day 1 featuring Clay Leverett, Madeline, God Is An Astronaut, We vs. the Shark, Elfpower, Sean Hayes, The Wedding Present, Yellow Fever, Phil and the Osophers, Call Me Lightning, Delorean, Peel, Dub Trio, Naked Raygun
     Day 2 featuring Ravens and Chimes, Scouting for Girls, Cadence Weapon, Billy Bragg, The Hunnies, Jukebox the Ghost, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Peel, My Education, Our Lunar Activities, Melissa St. Pierre, High Places, The English Beat
     Day 3 featuring Magic Bullets, Yacht, Meneguar, Parts and Labor, Joan of Arc, Spring Tigers, Antietam , Say Hi, Cloud Cult, Kurt Vice, My Dad is Dead
     Day 4 featuring David Monks, FM3, Magic Bullets, The High Strung, Record Hop, Oh No! Oh My!, Tally Hall, Colour Music, The Autumns
Band links for today:
   Ravens and Chimes: http://www.ravensandchimes.com/
                               http://www.myspace.com/ravensandchimes
   Scouting for Girls: http://www.scoutingforgirls.co.uk/
                            http://www.myspace.com/scoutingforgirls
   Cadence Weapon: http://www.cadenceweaponmusic.com/
                            http://www.myspace.com/cadenceweaponmusic
   Billy Bragg: http://www.billybragg.co.uk/
                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bragg
                   http://www.myspace.com/billybragg
   The Hunnies: http://www.myspace.com/hunnieshunnies 
   Jukebox the Ghost: http://www.myspace.com/jukeboxtheghost
   Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin: http://www.myspace.com/boris              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Someone_Still_Loves_You_Boris_Yeltsin
   Peel: http://www.myspace.com/peel
   My Education: http://www.myeducationmusic.com/
                       http://www.myspace.com/myeducation 
   Our Lunar Activities: http://www.myspace.com/ourlunaractivities
   Collections of Colonies of Bees: http://www.collectionsofcoloniesofbees.net/
   Melissa St. Pierre: http://www.myspace.com/melissastpierre  
   High Places: http://www.myspace.com/hellohighplaces 
                    http://hellohighplaces.blogspot.com
   The English Beat: http://www.myspace.com/officialbeatspace
                           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beat_(band)
   Dave Wakeling: http://www.davewakeling.com/home.asp