New Rumble Strips Video - "Motorcycle"
God, the Arctic Monkeys are so over. Get ready for the next British hype band, the Rumble Strips.
Instead of a catchy MP3, they've got a catchy video, an 80s "thing", and a real singer:
He stands there with his drab grey coat and scarf hanging off his sloping shoulders, his hair tussled at the back like he's just got out of bed and his small guitar seemingly rescued from a charity shop. His huge eyes stare into the room with a permanent squint and he looks both angry and resigned. And yet when he opens his mouth it's astounding. My immediate reaction was Specials era Terry Hall, but that's probably the brass pushing that out. There was something else I can't quite pin down (Billy Bragg maybe?) but the greatest revelation was this guy can actually sing! I don't just mean he was in tune - his voice had a power that was not assisted by the amps, nor was it mere volume. There was a controlled strength and range that you so seldom see at gigs, his singing primal and raw yet quite quite beautiful.And the rest of the band? "Very competent musicianship." You can't win 'em all.
That said, this is a pretty cool video for a pretty cool song and if you don't see it here, someone else is going to send you the link later this week, so you might as well click now. Ok, that sounded loads more enthusiastic in my head. Just watch it.
Update: Paul sent an email pointing us towards their mp3 cache.
(from Waxy)
Posted at 3:26 PM
I like it. I like it a lot more than the Death Cab knock-off of the week so often promoted here.
I agree with your Billy Bragg comment, too (A bit o' Bragg is always a good thing!), and I'm hearing some Dexy's Midnight Runners in there as well.
Agreed the guy can sing, but I think more than anything, what makes it sound strong is that it's not compressed 20 times to hell and then triple-tracked to compensate. In other words, it sounds like a pretty straight-forward, no-nonsense recording to me.
Huzzah!
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I thought they broke up.
Eh, give it a week and all the hipsters will hate it. But you can still feel good about "discovering" it.
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i haven't seen a bunch of wankers like that on bikes since the smiths 'stop me if you think' video....
i do love me some billy bragg, though....
thanks for the strange.
--maya
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how could I forget arctic monkeys, we spent ten amazing seconds together.
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That's it. I'm putting together some sort of Brit Band Embargo. They're taking valuable club space away from hard-working Amurrican bands.
Maybe if we all keep taking 300 photos/second of them, they'll stop coming.
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I'll just hate it before it's cool to hate it. That makes me uber cool
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Awesome! It's like Fun Boy Three and Madness had a baby!
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the song is rather lame (sounds like bad dexy's midnight runners) but the video is cute. but gondry woulda done it better.
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I dig it the most--definitely hear the Northern Soul elements.
What was that U2 video that did a similar thing with characters?
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bill used the d word!
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also, there's a bunch of suggestions for what the "next big thing" might be in this thread:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/46751
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All their songs sound the same.
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Finallly Billy Joel and 1996 made a baby.!!!!
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i was waiting for them to start flying above policemen with rifles-as-walkie-talkies, unfortunately no such luck.
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this song is good! wish the mp3's weren't live
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I wish the U.K. would stop hyping bands that blow.
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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so much better than J. Lo dancing in a club and 50 Cent dancing in a club and everyone else dancing in a club.
marathon -- you're thinking of the U2 video for Sweetest Thing, which included an Irish boy band I never heard of and some Riverdancers.
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Reminds me of that Hawksley Workmen video..."Jealous of Your Cigarette"?
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that's a great band name
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that is the best thing I've seen all week. And good call on the Hawksley comparison...
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That was awful. Dude has a half-decent voice; too bad his song has no melody. Even Coldplay are better than this. The only reason I kept watching it was because of the bicycle.
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Are the Test Icicles next or have they already happened?
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and ??? who gives a toss!!! like i said, they're the ones making the music. Well and you're sat infront of your pc slagging them off. And i say- fair play to you new bands- you go guys! play some music- and who cares what you sound like!!
And Billy- get with the times...Test Icicles happened a while ago...and they're still happening. You heard of Maximo Park ? We Are Scientists ? The Editors ?
Roll on Brit Rock! we Love you and who gives a toss if the rest of world doesn't ! Mwah x
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Coolio, I loved it. Very funny vid and song.
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Pageblank, how can you say this song has "no melody"? I don't think you know what melody is. I think you are an absolutely uninformed music "fan" who thinks it's cool to throw around words like "melody" but really you have no idea what that word means. If you knew what that word meant then you would understand that this Rumble Strips song has tons of it. Furthermore, it seems as though you are under the impression "melody" is somehow important to music being good. That's just not true. If you want to use words like "melody" then please take the time to learn what they mean. Otherwise, you really aren't in any position to be making technical commentary on the music. Of course your opinion is welcome, tell us if you like something or don't-- and I would even be ok with you saying "I don't like this song's melody"--- but to say that it has "no melody" is factually incorrect and shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.
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Oh, God! Not a real singer!
I want to ride my bicycle...I want to ride my bike...
What about Tom Vek's video for "C-C(You Set The Fire In Me) ? http://tomvek.tv/video.html
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Ian McCullough covering early The Who
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All Dexy's. He sounds like he's doing an impression of Kevin Rowland. Unfortunately, it also sucks. Not sure what ruins it, the boring melody or the silly lyrics but something does. Can't we get a good Dexy's wannabee?
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I hear the Dexy's, Specials, Fun Boy Three, Madness shit as well, but whatever. Its nice to hear a band just playing from their hearts rather than all the ice cold posturing that is so common place these days.
I can't remember the last time I saw a video for a British band without a single sneer or some overly pensive bullshit look.
Northern soul deserves some love and I for one welcome a band with more hugs than swagger.
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I thought Art Brut was the new hype Brit band.
I'm with J. 2006 is the year of the British Band Embargo. If they try to send more, we'll dress up like indians and throw them in the harbour.
You know, there used to be a time when Brit bands would work hard in their own farm system, and when they truely had something, they would be dropped here. I don't know about you kids, but I'm not seeing any Beatles, Zeppelins or Sabbaths in this bunch. Now, we have to listen to every turd England squeezes out. Does this seem calculated to anyone else? BTW, IMO the same goes for Canada.
Save the children, stop the limeys and the canucks. Japan is still OK.
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what i like about this song is the guy's voice. to me the thing it reminds me of in some weird way is tim booth's voice especially on the early james records (stutter and strip mine). the rest of the music echoes the sound as well. this is a v. good thing.
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Yawn...this is so boring. Tell you what- if you dont like british music- Then thats all good. Athough I cannot see how you yanks can go around shitting on all of our music and not look at yourselves and think "Hmmm....do you know what, our bands are the crap of crap." Come on. The most fucking original band you people have is My chemical romance (which is saying something about your music- i can tell you) whearas you may diss the arctic monkeys but they are more original and for real than any of your fucking twonko bands. I love the original sound that brit music has. So do all the other brits. Stop rubbishing our bands just beacause all yours are shit fake little pristine fuckers. Cheerio
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i actually saw the rumble strips on imf a few weeks ago and their song "boys and girls in love" (although not my favorite) is in the simon pegg comedy "run fat boy run." i seriously love their songs "hands" and "oh creole" personally so i'd recommend you'd check them out
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