Articles by Martin Austwick

Nice one, guys.

Apart from the fact I got woken up at 4.30am on Sunday morning by my neighbours putting it on rilly rilly loud… it’s. Fucking. Bullshit.

So, volume one: I’m not a cynic who believes that “the public” are shit at everything and they should stick to watching/listening to/eating/drinking/consuming the quality products that The Professionals in our society create. People are more than capable making their own music, cooking their own food, and making their own fun without recourse to a higher expert. We don’t need to rely on the outside world for everything. For music specifically, this is not just theory, this is reality: in the last 20 years, and at a rapidly accelerating pace, music has become a cottage industry.

X-factor takes the starting point that everyone has a talent that they can get pleasure from (in this case, singing), and implants the notion that a panel of tasteless parasites can admit a select few into the ranks of “the chosen” -  those in our society who can exploit their talents for monetary gain, attention, power and popularity. In other words, these are the people who create the product that the docile masses -  those without such talent -  must consume, for they know and can do no better. The only thing that stops this collapsing under the weight of its own contemptuous ego is the fact that some people are content to buy the bullshit that the X factor is selling.

Point one: X factor is irrelevant. That isn’t the way music works any more. If you want to make music: do it. Don’t go through some filtering process by a bunch of industry leeches, just. Make. Music. Get a computer, get a 4-track, get a guitar, get a turntable, or borrow one, get working.  Here are three chords. In fact, it’s not the way anything works or has ever worked. Stop waiting for someone’s permission and just fucking do it. If you want to seize the sound, you don’t need a reservation.

Point Two. I love singing. It’s one of the most joyous things in the world. Just try it. I love listening to good singers, or people who aren’t good singers who nevertheless have interesting things to say. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BEING TEH BESTEST SINGER. If you’ve reached a level of technical competence where you might conceivably be compared to another singer, you should probably start singing a bit more like yourself and a bit less like the person you’re “competing” against. Bob Dylan can hit exactly the same notes as Caruso. And if you’re not technically competent - well, either PRACTICE or find another way to make yourself worth listening to. Don’t go on an “emotional jouney” and expect anyone to give a fuck.

Tied into point one, singing is one of many wonderful, creative and communicative acts that enriches people’s lives. Now, while I am happy to accept that prepubescent girls and psychopaths need music too, there is no excuse for fully-functioning adults to find nothing better to fill their time with than watching needy attention-seekers sing karaoke. It is no more interesting and fulfilling than that, and less so than watching Your Mate Dave do it, who can do an amazing Barry White when he’s had a few.

People’s defence of the X-factor, and boy bands, and manufactured shit pop in general, tends to be either irony or the limp “it doesn’t hurt anyone”. Yes, yes it does. It’s elitist, consumerist, money-obsessed crap which by default goes against the joy of expression, creation, communication and the individuality of the human spirit. It literally makes baby Jesus cry. Unless it’s Motown.

That, as they say, is a different story.

The latest podcast is out, featuring a new demo for a song called “Up! went my dreams”. If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, you can do so by clicking >>>>HERE<<<<<. It’s totally free, and you’ll get a new song every month. You can also listen to the song itself here:

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or download it here:

http://www.thesoundoftheladies.com/wordpress/audio/demos/up demo.mp3

Up! Went my dreams is a real Halloween/All Saints’ Day song -  it was total coincidence that that was when I released it. It’s about that middle-of-the-night dreamtime when you wake up from a nightmare and slightly doubt that you’re awake and that the world isn’t just about to be ripped away from under you. And then, if you’re lying with someone, you catch sight of them and feel that little bit less afraid and alone.

A small song for a small moment, one might say.

I just came back from the wedding of a couple of brilliant friends of mine - which I could write about at length because it was really wonderful, but because that’d be a bit off topic I’m just going to talk about a specific cool thing that happened. A lot of the couple’s friends are musicians, and I was asked, with others, to contribute some music to the reception. Also present were Mimi and Vicky from Aqute Couch. Now, the name might not be familiar to many, but back in the day Aqute Couch rocked the house.

There style is pretty hard to describe; they use classical guitar, double bass and the blend of Mimi and Vicky’s voice to create theatrical, dynamic, surreal pop music. Imagine a cross between Tori Amos and the Tiger Lillies as a starting point and go from there. What to me was always incredible about their music was the interaction between the bandmembers; the timing was always incredibly fluid, hinging on the phrasing of the lyrics and interplay between the two vocalists. On this occasion, their guitarist was up in Manchester, so given that I can play precisely one Aqute Couch song (Treat-a-Lady), they asked me to join them.

If you want to get a feeling for my frame of mind at that moment, imagine a hitherto unfilmed Bill and Ted (or Wayne and Garth, your choice) movie where they somehow arrive backstage at a Van Halen concert, only to find that the drummer has broken his hand and bass player has missed a connecting flight and can’t make the gig.

[Eddie Van Halen]: No way man, we can’t pull the gig now. All these people have come to see us.

[Dave Lee Roth]: Hang on, hang on! Bill and Ted know the songs, right? Why don’t you guys jam with us for this one night, then the concert can go ahead!

Yup, I’m kind of sad like that. Then, of course, I spent the run up to the performance worrying that I was going to be the guy who fucked up Mimi and Vicky’s performance of my favourite Aqute Couch song. To top it all, the pair hadn’t performed together for about two years, so there was an additional Pixies/Spinal Tap reunion vibe too…

In the end, it went fine, I didn’t fuck it up too much, and they sounded great. It was like being on stage with the fuckin’ Stones. Just call me the indie schmindie Ronnie Wood.

On Saturday I played a great gig at The Cross Kings, organised by The Footage. I’d heard The Footage and headliners Left With Pictures before as I’ve gigged with both of these bands in the past (unfortunately I missed LWP’s set on this occasion, which I was pissed off about, because they sounded rocking in the soundcheck), but The Leisure Society were new on me, and were quite great. Their myspace makes them sound quite Iron and Whiney* - live they were a lot more gutsy, and blew away the more cloying folk cobwebs. But that’s just personal preference, you might like that bent more than I do. The crowd were quite talky which was a bit of a shame, but they did a really good show nonetheless. Check ‘em. I should also give honourable mention to Matthew Radcliffe, who opened the night - but as I can’t find a link to his music, you’ll have to imagine what he sounds like. And I’m not going to help you. Guess.

No. He sounds NOTHING like that. You IDIOT.

*Iron and Wine are far from my favourite band.

I’ve put up the demo from the latest podcast on the website; you can stream it here, or

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or download it here:

http://www.thesoundoftheladies.com/wordpress/audio/demos/hand punches air demo.mp3

and I’ve created a page for any demos I add here.

<Hand punches air> is influenced by a recent John Carpenter season I’ve been having. The Thing is genuinely awesome, and Prince of Darkness is like a shit parody of Assault on Precinct 13 mashed up with the Exorcist, inadvertently crossed with a fucking incredible movie. The “this is not a dream” bits are so perfect… people from the future trying to send whatever tiny scraps of warning they can so an inevitable disaster of cosmic proportions can be avoided… wow. Also Richard Acton from Limn kind of got me into John Carpenter, and before I met him I had never really even imagined the phrase “hand punches air”… but after seeing him rock out to metallers The Capricorns, it’s been indelibly stained into my vocabulary, and I had to write a song about it.

I’ve also been reading a lot of H P Lovecraft (thankfully the less racist stories), but the John Carpenter films I’m talking about pretty much rip him off… but that’s a different story. Maybe next time.

I am in bed with a proper “rivers of snot” cold which built from a shitty mood via a feeling of totally exhaustion over the last couple of days, so I’ve had to cancelled my scheduled appearance at Broken Toy Music tonight. Which pisses me off because I hate cancelling at short notice, I like the night and I like the people who play and the people who run it, so instead I’ll tell you a bit about it.

The first cool thing about the night is that it’s run by musicians. Actually, most of the nights in London I’ve played are run by musicians, but that doesn’t always translate to an understanding of what musicians want and like, and what makes good music, or even what kind of music goes together; not the case here. In the case of BTM, Steve and Gabby are both well-established and respected players, Steve heading up Revere and Gabby being the titular Gabby in Gabby Young and Other Animals. They have links with lovely people like Jess Bryant and Kat Flint and Nick Hirst (who I only mention because I almost formed a band with him in college, rock family tree fans). Their nights are great. There’s plenty of rubbish floating around the acoustic music scene, and they don’t book any of it (present company excepted). You really must check them out.

Having plugged them, I have now only to plug my fucking runny nose… I’ve got news about a new song, but it may have to wait until I can breathe.

Ah. The world loves me again. Subba-cultcha featured a brief but very nice review of Scrape The Paint, which said “A gorgeous voice, and a set of songs awash with angst, pain and beauty… melancholy, minimalist and touching” which was really nice.

My life is turning into a causal loop. Oliver, who reviewed Scrape the Paint recently got in touch to mention his having seen me play at Robin Ince’s night, a couple of regulars at Robin’s night came to the gig I did with The Monroe Transfer tonight, which also featured Fireworks Night, whose keyboard player works with Olly Mann from Answer me This!, and while playing a Sound of The Ladies gig on Friday I bumped into Gemma Burditt, who created the animated film for The Monroe Transfer’s I dreamt I was a hammer and everything was glass and who, it turned out, knew the gig’s promoter, the lovely Tim Eveleigh. I’m becoming concerned that I basically know 3 people and they’re running around trying to look like a crowd. It looks as if that number is dwindling and soon everyone I know will be me in various hats. Finally we’ll reach a singularity of infinite interconnectedness, and achieve nirvana.

That’s the least likely endpoint of a record review I’ve ever heard.

Well, not the whole world. The whole world hasn’t heard of me. This is a long way of saying I got two bad reviews last week but as I always link to the biggups I get, I feel-duty bound to link to the slaggings too.

First up, I played at Robin Ince’s School for Gifted Children at the British Library last Tuesday, which was reviewed by Fazzington Wangpipe of Chortle.co.uk, the comedy website. While I appreciate that name-calling a comedy critic who’s given you a bad review is not the most grown up thing to do, neither is using the phrase “dirge-like” in a review of a musical act. Dr Wangpipe’s love of the very talented Gavin Osborn (new album out soon) convinced me that he is not a complete moron. Just. I’m not linking the review, you can find it yourself

Better written but still not really a fan of The Sound of The Ladies is the 405, who posted this review last week. I had a chat with the guy who runs the site, he’s a very nice man, Mr Jazzflaps. Kidding! His name’s Oliver Primus, and although not loving Scrape the Paint, he does run a cool site, so check it out. Don’t listen to his review though, check out the EP yourself! Who’s right, you or those fuckers who want to tell you what to think? Uh, sorry, channeling a bit of Hicks there…

Hopefully next week the world will love me again…

The lovely people at Music is Power podcast recently featured The Clouds at the Top of the Sky in one of their episodes. It reminds me to give a shout out to Penny Broadhurst, who featured the same track on her podcast a couple of months ago - at a time when I wasn’t updating my blog very regularly… thank you the internets for liking clouds so much!

Thanks again to Cris Tanzi, this time for providing the below video snippet from our gig together in Brighton last month. This is a bit of Deep Dish, which is on the new EP, and the latest podcast. Sorry the video’s so dark, it was a very brooding performance and it sucked all the light out of the room like some kind of an indie event horizon.