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Los Angeles Times Exclusive download of Appropriate Ending at the LA Times in an article about Club NME LA (scroll down underneath their photo for the link) "ESP fashion slightly warped but highly cinematic melodies that will appeal to adventurous ears" Gueros video "Electric Soft Parade scores a new fan at SXSW!" sddialedin.blogspot.com Casbah review with videos: The first is ESP talking about their ex and current labels, and the second they're on stage with Goldrush. Spaceland video Misunderstanding by king_aberdeen Flickr pics: Casbah 3-19-07 - Cedar St. Courtyard 3-17-07 - Guero's 3-16-07 Cedar Street Courtyard photos: chromewaves.net - aversion.com blog.the-napkin.org has a few photos from Spaceland. revolt-media.com (click link) Alex: "music is a way of uniting people and always will be"... herohill.com (click link) We had the chance to talk to Tom White of the ESP before they jumped back across the pond. SXSW, food poisoning, Buck 65. Like their sound, the interview is all over the map, but very enjoyable. rocksellout.com (click link) Tom: "I can cook, but don't try to help me in the kitchen. I get very territorial!" perfectporridge.com (click link to read, scroll down) We had the opportunity to chat with Tom White about the new album, how much retro music, NME and the music industry sucks and why you should avoid the lobster bisque in Chicago... D: A welcome return with Electric Soft Parade. This is what they had to say for themselves. A: Hello. T: Alright Dermot. D: Hello Electric Soft Parade. I'm quite excited… Tom: Quite excited? D: I've just seen, you have a 12 string guitar? I thought the strings were over eachother, they appear to be next to eachother. Alex: It's very hard to play. Tom: Got to press quite hard. D: Your fingers just must be shot to pieces… they actually look quite nice - oh, no they are. That's proper blue collar fingers. D: So who was ill? Tom: I was. D: So, tell me the story, because you literally just got here? Tom: If I tell you the story, I’ll be really rude about Chicago. D: Try and tell me the story without being rude about Chicago. Tom: We basically missed our connecting flight. Y'know, England-Chicago, Chicago-Austin. Missed our connecting flight, so we got a night in Chicago. D: Which you should be quite excited about right? T: Yeah it was alright. A: It was pretty good. Tom: Until I had the Lobster Bisque. The thought of it… Alex: He puked on the plane and all the staff were really amazing actually on the United flight, give them a shout out. They were brilliant. They were like, would you like us to make an emergency landing? I was like, he's only been sick. D: That's amazing. Tom: I think they would've, if I'd kicked off. Alex: I was quite tempted, I'd quite like to order a plane to land. D: The fact you almost did it is almost as good as doing it. The power was there… How's it all going? Tom: It's good man, good. D: It's nice to have you back. You never really went away, you just sort of metamorphosised. Alex: We just like to pretend so people think you've gone - element of suprise. D: But you are, I guess, struggle to say the word survivors, you do sort of seem to walk to the beat of your own drum. That must be a nice feeling. Tom: We walk to the beat of Priesty's kick-drum (Dermot laughs) Tom: We've been doing the Brakes thing for a couple of years now, ESP kinda got dropped and we had a bit of problems and stuff so to have that to kind of tide us over, doing a couple of Brakes records. Things just kind of kept us going, if we hadn't have had that we probably could've wallowed in it a bit but we haven't. D: It's good to have you back, it's good to have you with us… don't be touching that sea-food. Tom: Don't… sushi used to be my favourite food. Now I'm not so sure. Alex: There's a lobster place around the corner. D: It's almost like gin when you're 14 - Lobster is now your achilles heel. Listen, do some songs before you throw up. What you gonna start with? Tom: Gonna do a song by a band called Sick Of It All. We're gonna do Silent To The Dark. Alex: I thought we were doing Misunderstanding. Tom: Yeah, Misunderstanding. D: It's nice of you to actually have a conversation with eachother where swear words aren't involved. Tom: Do we? Alex: Like dockers. Tom: Dockers, yeah. This one's dedicated to that wee guy from the Libertines (said in a Scottish accent) D: And the staff of United Airlines. Tom: And The Hazey Janes because they're the only band from Dundee who made it to SXSW. This is called Misunderstanding. Is it? Are we doing Misunderstanding? A: Yeah. T: Alright, can I just have a swig. A: I'll play some jazz violin (on the keyboard) T: Oh jeez. A: Deep breath. T: Is it alright to get a bit of air or something in here? (Dermot in the background: oh my god, of course it's alright) T: I feel a bit hot. A: Take your bloody suit off. T: Let's just get through it. …Misunderstanding… D: Brilliant, Electric Soft Parade, that was Misunderstanding. roughmix.livedaily.com/blog Cedar Street Courtyard - I had meant to see ESP the previous night but didn't, so thanks to their double booking I got a second chance. This show was part of an extremely odd lineup that started with The Watson Twins and ended with Redman. I used to have their debut album Holes In The Wall and while I enjoyed their songcraft, I was put off by the overly-slick and fiddly production. Happily, perhaps as a result of their off-the-cuff aesthetic in Brakes or maybe simply because that's how they are live, they sounded a good deal looser and more energetic than listening to the record might have suggested. Playing loud, punchy guitar rock with a distinct British accent, they were obviously happy to be capping an intense week at SxSW. My interest in the band has been re-piqued so I'm looking forward to hearing their new one No Need To Be Downhearted. Here's hoping they forgot how to (over)use ProTools. mog.com/Rockgirl21 (scroll down for a photo) Finally Electric Soft Parade came on. The lead singer had gotten food poisoning from some bad airport food and this was their first SXSW show. They rocked it, but they only played one song from Holes In The Wall. I really need to get more of their stuff, the guys were silly and talkative, really entertaining, they even made a young girl their mascot. She was adorable dancing all over the place. They had a good set and I was glad that I waited for them to come out. |