| Miscellaneous ESP |
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ESP appreciation at nullifymylife.blogspot.com and larrymitnaul.blogspot.com moralbank.blogspot.com has Broadcast on their latest mix - "Great chorus". From the google translation: “The Beatles with Keith Moon on drums and Thurston Moore on guitar”, thus say ESP on their Myspace page... this (song/single?) is skilful proof that in spirit, they're really not far. Lose Yr Frown is astounding with this heavy riff that Black Francis would not have disavowed (whose E flat instead of awaited D arrives, these jumps of eighth notes… brilliant) and a delicate refrain before short final fury… Take Me Back is an uplifting two minute acoustic ballade whereas The Blind Cowboys Theme is rather long and complex but falls on its feet without any problem. Great art. (29/07/2006) Take Me Back is from Lose Yr Frown 7" and The Blind Cowboys Theme is from the CD. how lost is this? Their Mix Tape-Summa features ESP's Broadcast. Photo of ESP in Moulin - Marseille 2002 just uploaded at Flickr by pirlouiiiit. Mathew Priest (ESP's drummer) is in Q magazines "Where Are They Now": Click here blog.twistedlogicdesign.co.uk Somethings got to give from the album “Holes in the wall” by The Electric Soft Parade: It’s that chilled out guitar - syncopated, a little dirty and so simple. The harmony under ‘.. going nowhere today’ from the chrous is one of my favourite bits. monsternetwork.co.uk Skating by Dan Jacka, Russ Cowling and Paul Gonella. Filmed and Edited by Paul Gonella. Music is The American Adventure by The Electric Soft Parade. Filmed on a wet, cold winter's night in late 2002 at Lakeside at the legendary pink zone level 3, the pink 3. Nothing beats a super smooth surface and a waxed curb/manual pad and some friends making the most of one of the few decent dry spots in Essex. That night the carpark was closed and we got kicked out of the one opposite by a security guard. We asked him if they could turn on the lights in Pink 3 for us to skate and as a complete surprise he said yes they would turn on a couple of strips of lighting. Probably the best security guard ever. well, maybe. Here's a few quotes from it - click the link to read the full thing. Start Up: Actually, what are your influences? Alex: We’ve always loved The Beatles, and Elvis too. When you begin to listen to music, you always start with commercial stuff. And then you make the effort to search and develop your own tastes, you discover amazing bands in the background, which took us some time. The Super Furry Animals is the first band I was a fan of. Then, Teenage Fanclub… I couldn’t live without their records. There are a lot of American bands as well: Television, Pavement, Sparklehorse, Dinosaur Jr… We love The Silver Jews, Sebadoh, The Folk Implosion, The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev… I think you have to keep yourself up to date on everything that’s released, be curious, always try and find good records. Start Up: What do you dream of? Tom: Having one of our records produced by Dave Fridmann! (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse, Mogwai) To be able to work with him or Brian Eno would be fantastic… i'm down with the wrongest thing in town @ marwoodandi.blogspot.com: the band are Electric Soft Parade... and I think they're very good... chugging, and bouncy, and poppy, and hugely enjoyable... E.S.P. are in Ten Thousand Tracks by bellamysprotege These guys did a pretty crazy interview in the NME and I bought their album after reading that, which seems pretty to strange to say but reading back I've done it a fair bit... I love how they change their sound subtly every time yet still sound like two posh kids with guitars, but everything they do is class. My flatmate reckons The Human Body is too mainstream, but I disagree - it's just their sound changing. Can't wait for the new album. covermountcassette.blogspot.com E.S.P. appear on their latest mixtape with Headacheville. 100 Club, London 11.09.03 by Jennifer Turnbull Bristol Fleece 25.10.04 by Bristol Simon This will make you smile: spaces.msn.com/popscene They write about finally getting hold of their favourite song they'd been searching for for ages (Candy Says from the Velvet Underground) Then disaster struck: "I had a cassette. I played it on repeat for days. But shit happens. With my short-term memory, I forgot I had this cassette on while I was recording the Electric Soft Parade that came on the radio. And my life was ruined" (oh the joys of being a fan! that reminds me of when my video recorder chewed up my radio recording of ESP at the Isle Of Wight) EXERCISE1 records April 2006 newsletter has more details of 50 Minutes: a compilation album of wonderful music. It will be released on EXERCISE1 in September 2006 and all money it makes will go to Amnesty International. It will be an album of fifty minute-long tracks. i.e. every track on it will be exactly one minute long. Lots of very nice, and some very famous, people have submitted tracks. Including the following: DANIEL JOHNSTON, ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE, PINEY GIR, JOY ZIPPER, A MILLION BILLION, PANDATONE, THE CORAL SEA, JEREMY WARMSLEY, EMMY THE GREAT, CHRIS MACMATH, MC LARS, TRADEMARK, DONS MOBILE BARBERS, DEAD DEAD DEAD, THE PLAYWRIGHTS, ROLAND SHANKS, PACIFIC OCEAN FIRE, PLANS & APOLOGIES, LADYFUZZ and lots more!! The release will be issued on Enhanced CD with artwork provided by Spoiled Milk. More news as it comes. Links: exercise1.net and myspace.com/50minutes ESP are #5 in the "Top 5 Songs That Make Me Cry" at roseblite.com with Broadcast "Lose Yr Frown" was voted one of the 11 catchiest songs ever at UGO.com (thanks to tikibeatnik for the link) Click here to read (scroll down) "Give the song a listen and you're sure to find yourself humming along with the engaging chorus and, with repeated listens, losing any frown you might have" Here's a photo of Tom at the drums at pearleurope.com And there's a biog Top 30 Albums @ glenpolak.blogspot.com The American Adventure: This was never officially released here in Australia and thank god HMV had imports because I loved their first album (Holes in the Wall) I can see where this band was headed with its Radiohead style direction. Even though it’s 8 tracks long that’s all you needed to listen to the amazing sounds and lyrics. These 2 brothers have something going on with their sounds. I hear they have a new EP out in the UK will have to wait till I get back to import the bloody thing. BT- Headachville. Some quotes from it... Tom: That’s the problem of many many bands, they are stuck in the past. We are trying to do a bit of both. To sound like the whole Beatles catalogue recorded with modern technology. The boys are said to be keen on the movie This is Spinal Tap. Is their vision of the music industry altered by this? Alex: "Many things are true in that movie. The more people from the music industry we meet, the more we understand where those characters come from! I used to think that the characters were pure fiction, almost cartoons. But they do exist in real life. You just need to go to any office of any record company to see them" Tom: "We realise that we must not take all this too seriously. When you begin to have stickers on your record that say that it is the record of the year... If we believed in all this, god, we would be insane... It happened to so many bands" mp3hugger.blogspot.com on Silent To The Dark (click link to read) "All discussions on the relative worth of the band will need to include Silent To The Dark because it remains an undimmed jewel" Here's something about the Blind Cowboys (Tom's other band) at electrumnews.blogspot.com You can download one of their songs at their label: iwishiwasunpopular.com Click on Music (the downloads are at the right) From Delete As Appropriate blog (6.3.06) An interesting idea for a charity compilation album, scheduled for September if all goes according to plan. Fifty acts each record a song exactly one minute long - even if they're rubbish there won't be too much to suffer through! The biggest names signed up so far are The Crimea and The Electric Soft Parade For more info visit myspace.com/50minutes and read their blog '50minutes' will be a compilation album of wonderful music. It will be released on Exercise1 Records in September 2006 and all money it makes will go to Amnesty International. It will be an album of fifty minute-long tracks. i.e. every track on it will be exactly one minute long, no longer no shorter. There is no other criteria or theme for tracks. It is looking for contributions from anyone and everyone. If 50minutes likes it, it goes on the record. To see who has already signed up, look at the blogs If you want to contribute, or want to know more, get in touch! 50minutes needs you! We ideally want everything in by April. Alex and Tom White, the nucleus of ESP, do not hesitate to thrust Rocky Racoon from the White album in the new century, it is called “The Wrongest Thing in Town”. This achievement is even more impressive and disturbing when you know that the record was partly made in Abbey Road, thanks to BMG’s money. Alex on the American Adventure: The next record is gonna be very different from Holes in the Wall in terms of style and production. We’ll move on. Maybe people won’t understand but nevermind! We never thought people would like the first one! As long as we're making the music we love, music that sounds like us, we’ll be happy. If you’re not proud of your own music, even success won’t make you happy... On learning music: Tom: Alex began playing the piano when he was 6, and I did when I was 7. Alex: We began with classical music and then we just played any instruments we could find. Playing together was the easiest thing to do. There were two people in the house learning music with the same passion. I can’t even remember a time when we didn’t play together. It was so obvious and natural. Here's a quote but click the link for the full thing. Tom: For a band, the third record is the make or break one. We know music history and we want to release someday something as good as OK Computer. You can write that I said that. We’d rather fail miserably than be happy with something just average... The Brotherhood Of Fish (aka ESP) are also featured: Nothing sums up the Truck spirit quite like a band formed just for the purposes of the festival. And that might not be quite what happened, I can't work it out. Either way, The Brotherhood of Fish made their first ever live appearance at Truck 2003. Featuring members of Electric Soft Parade and British Sea Power (both of whom were on the bill at that festival), they played "crazy covers, old hits and new album material". Video interview @ hotpress.com It's a brilliant interview, hope all the boys enjoy it (if you know what I mean) PICTURE 1 ... PICTURE 2 BOY TALK Main website thepictureshow.nl Translation: Only the question about the next "big thing" in the British music scene the two brothers could not answer. Perhaps the third album from The Electric Soft Parade? Click arrow to go to the next pic. Then click the pics to see them larger. Here's some live pics from October 2003 I've never seen before. The first photos in the gallery are the support bands so I'll give you the link to the 1st ESP pic and you can scroll through: ESP, Portsmouth, October, 06/12/2003 To see the next pic click the arrow at the top pointing right and keep going for more. Lots of Tom. Bizarre fact: You can listen to ESP on Virgin Trains Empty At The End is on the Playlist of one of the onboard stations. For more info about their onboard radio: click here hultsfred.tv will be streaming archive ESP footage sometime in future. They say: We have lots and lots and lots of concerts in our archive to broadcast at this site. Please, have patience, we will release the site as soon as it is finished, together with the concerts in our archives. plus1magazine.moonfruit.com Click on Reviews and type Electric Soft Parade in the search box for a review from Sept 2003. Look in Photos '03 for some pics (scroll down) Rounder Records shop mural, Brighton, October 2003. I looked through the Official site's Wayback Machine Internet Archive and collected the best from it: ESP Website Archive There's nothing from 2003. But there is one picture of Alex, interviews with them both and Holes In The Wall reviews. Here's a page from 2004: ESP @ BBC Southern Counties It's a nice little biography. I also found a CD Tom once put together in Google's cache (can't find the webpage) To see the tracks he chose click here (screenshot) You can still listen to the audio stream (Tom introducing the songs) Tom @ Session Northern Ireland (3 mins 50) ESP biography @ Everything2.com American Adventure review Extract: At just over thirty-five minutes, repeated listens of this album can be slotted into the windows in your schedule between dinner-dates, tennis matches and feeding the cat so there's no excuse for not giving it the time. Like sex, the first time round leaves you wondering what the fuss is about, but go round again and a whole new world opens up before you. They also have this cute little page on the band: click here Empty at the End/This Given Line review which has recently appeared online and mentions this website at the end (yes I read that far) They say it "contains a lot of information... It also contains images of Tom White's rather inadvisable moustache" (this made me smile - I'm glad someone "enjoyed" the site) Here's interview with Tom I'd never read before. It's from October 2003. Click here to download the PDF file. They talk to him after the gig review. It's at the end of the page. There's a short interview from a 2002 gig at exepose.ex.ac.uk Click the link to download the PDF file. Charlotte Hatherley loves ESP, from a 2002 interview at: earlash.com "...there's a band called Electric Soft Parade. They're really great" From bravecaptain.co.uk Answer: I didn't know about. Are you suggesting I watch award shows? Gimme a break. My sister told me they were big fans and I was chuffed that they did well. I went to see them in Newport last year they were pretty good. I don't think they sound anything like us. I would be disappointed if they did. It's nice that they mention us, I know a few bands who tell me privately that they were influenced by something or other that we did but when it comes to interviews will pass over us for references that are within the current parameters of cool culture. Don't blame 'em. Question: Have you listened to their album? Answer: Yes a couple of times, it was ok. Good tunes. They are so young and the path is long, they have all the time in the world to make great records if they're given the chance. |