Video(s) of the day (Ryland Bouchard / The Robot Ate Me)

Ryland Bouchard used to be make music as The Robot Ate Me. Under both these names he's released some of the most stunningly beautiful music I have ever heard. It's been called baroque pop, whatever that means. It's poppy, it's folky, occassionally really weird, but always completely mesmerising. He also puts an incredible amount of effort into the artwork his releases. The last one I bought, his Seeds box set, came in a wooden hand-carved box and contained, two CD's with A-sides and B-sides in handsewn cases, a DVD with short films/videos, four seven-inch records, hand screen-printed t-shirt, poster and tote bag, as well as some beautiful art prints. It's all absolutely incredible.

And the music....there's 'floury' nudity in the second video, so please cover your eyes if naked bits and bobs give you nightmares.







Ryland Bouchard official website

Mobile photos

I've had my phone since Christmas, but since I gave my special USB lead to my little sister (I'm a nice brother) I haven't been able to get any of the photos to my computer. Today, however, I realised that you can just send an MMS to photobucket and it goes straight into your album. So, here are a few photos from the past couple of months. The camera is crap, but still.

The above two pictures are of Ryland Bouchard, who I put on at The Wilmington Arms in January. He's pretty damn awesome.

February mix

I feel like sharing. Here's a bunch of songs that for one reason or another all have been played a lot this year. Some of the artists are mega famous, some are virtually unknown. Some I only discovered this year, some have been personal favorites for years. The only thing they really have in common is that they've all left a deep mark on me. 

I don't Weezer needs an introduction. This song is a B-side and was first brought to my attention in the Kevin Smith film Mallrats. 

I wrote about Trouble Books in one of the very first posts on this blog. I can listen to this song on repeat. I can't really explain why, but it just gets to me. It's only a minute long. Unfortunately the file is twice that size, but my computer skills are not great enough to sort that out manually.

The Replacements have been close to my heart for about seven or eight years and picking one song to share with the world was always gonna be a nightmare. This, like most of Paul Westerberg's songs, is just great.

I do love The Moldy Peaches. Silly, rude, simple, but oh so much fun. The live version of Rainbows is probably better than this "properly recorded" one, but just the idea of recording this song in a studio makes me smile. Perhaps the funniest first verse ever.

First time I saw Viking Moses was at the End Of The Road Festival in 2007 and he just blew me away. His voice is extremely powerful and just...well...insane. This song is relatively straight forward, but astonishing nonetheless. Genius. Check out the video on youtube.

Me and Bill Moustache once bumped into the boys in Let's Wrestle outside the Macbeth in Shoreditch. They almost begged us to go in to watch them and even put us on the cheap list. We went in and were pretty disappointed. A year later they are huge (well, you know...in my world) and I decide to give their album a go. Wow! It's fast, funny, sweet, angry and just brilliant. The most exciting young rock band around? Probably.

The Robot Ate Me is one of my favorite bands and I brought singer Ryland Bouchard to London in January to do a show at The Wilmington Arms. Not many people showed up to what was an absolutely breathtaking performance. 

As I said in my previous post, Roky Erickson has been on my mind a lot recently. This song is a personal favorite.

Weezer - Susanne

Trouble Books - Personal Tornados

The Replacements - Favorite Thing

The Moldy Peaches - Rainbows

Viking Moses - Werewolves In The City

Let's Wrestle - Song For An ABBA Tribute Record

Ryland Bouchard - Another Day No. 2

Roky Erickson - For You (I'd Do Anything)

As usual, please support these artists in any way you can, by going to gigs or buying their stuff.