House of Brothers

No matter how much music you listen to, how many gigs you attend and how many hours you spend chatting about music at the bar, there will always be great musicians out there who you will never hear of. As a music obsessive, this fact is a constant source of trouble to me. I can't stand knowing that musical diamonds exist, longing to be heard, if I only knew where to listen. These missed gems are even more enfuriating when you find out that they were burried in your back garden all along.

I spend a few years living near Nottingham, home of Andrew Jackson without ever really registering who he was. Andrew was formerly a member of The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the finest post-hardcore bands the UK has seen in recent years. My lack of love for anything hardore (excluding certain 'adult' publications) would explain this gap in my knowledge.





Much like Million Dead front man Frank Turner, Andrew has now embarked upon a solo route which is much more appealing to the ears of mild mannered indie kids such as myself. This solo project is known as House of Brothers. The difference in style is profound, with it's beautifully intecate guitar work and soft vocals which wash over you. I am told that influences include Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, Tom Waits, Iron And Wine and Sun Kil Moon. Andrew has also played live with some great names including Loney, Dear, Howling Bells, Jack Penate, Blonde Redhead and Laura Marling.

With the debut EP, 'Deadman', set for release via Big Scary Monsters Records on 26th November, a free MP3 of the title track is available for mp3 download

The EP can be pre-ordered from www.bsmrocks.com and all orders will receive a free, limited edition badge. Buy

House of Brothers Myspace

The least musical city in the UK

According to the Guardian online, Gloucester (my home town) is the least musical city in the UK. It's probably a fair comment. The city does have some promising young bands at school level, but they tend to go their separate ways to go to University. The experience of living somewhere other than Gloucester is usually enough to convince them never to return!

Read the Guardian piece here

I am in the process of setting up my own music business. I hope to help local musicians by operating in an ethical way; by putting much of the money earned back in to local music. Check it out at our myspace page

In other news, you can buy the new Matchbox 20 album 'Exile On Mainstream' on USB pen here.



Above: Matchbox 20 - Lets See How Far We've Come

Maritime

I like this...



The band are kindly giving away some free mp3s on their website

Future Is Wired mp3
I Used To Be A Singer mp3

And there are more free tracks on their myspace.

CDs are of course available to buy.

A new dawn for music

This month will be remembered as an historic turning point for music. Big name bands have finally started to ditch the record labels and go it alone. Radiohead have whipped up a media storm by releasing their album at a price decided by the buyer. Yup that's right, you get to pick the price you want to pay, even if that is £0.00!

Buy it here



Musicians make a very relatively small pecentage of their earnings from CD sales, (which incase you hadn't noticed are in freefall). By releasing tracks for free the band broaden their fan base and generate more cash from ticket sales and merchandise. The band win, the fans win. The only losers are major record labels. At last, those in the industry who refused to allow their outdated business model to be prized from their cold dead fingers, have had the lid of their self made coffins firmly slammed shut. Sorry, got a bit carried away with it all there.

The Charlatans have also decided to release free songs on the xfm website. More details on this story can be found here.