Showing posts with label Olympic Swimmers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympic Swimmers. Show all posts
31 August 2012
04 June 2012
Olympic Swimmers - No Flags Will Fly: Track By Track
For those of you who frequent these parts on a regular basis, you may recall that I tipped Olympic Swimmers as being one of my Ones To Watch for 2012. Generally when folk start banging on about how they tipped such and such a band before they were big, it really does piss me off. The reason I mention that I tipped Olympic Swimmers as being a band to look out for this year, was purely because I had been so looking forward to hearing their debut album. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed, as it's a cracking wee record that was well worth the wait. As you I am sure you already know, I try to avoid writing reviews as I don't think I am all that great at them. So what do you do if you think an albums great, but you don't write reviews? Well if you're me, then you just get the band to do all of the hard work for you. Clever eh! In this instance I asked Susie from Olympic Swimmers to talk us through their cracking debut album, No Flags Will Fly, and here's what she had to say...
Father Said
We quite often finish live sets with it, but on the album it's the opener. This is the oldest song on the album and was on our first single/ep. My mum has said to me before that she thinks it's odd that there's no word in English for grown-up offspring, they still get called 'my children' regardless of age. I've wondered if that's a reflection of the fact that no matter how a relationship with your child might change over time as they age, a huge part of how a parent sees their child will always remain fundamentally the same. I figure that, that's not an easy process, and that's what this song is about.
We quite often finish live sets with it, but on the album it's the opener. This is the oldest song on the album and was on our first single/ep. My mum has said to me before that she thinks it's odd that there's no word in English for grown-up offspring, they still get called 'my children' regardless of age. I've wondered if that's a reflection of the fact that no matter how a relationship with your child might change over time as they age, a huge part of how a parent sees their child will always remain fundamentally the same. I figure that, that's not an easy process, and that's what this song is about.
Knots
I like a lot of Iain Crichton Smith and in particular I love his poetry about aging and the passage of time. This is influenced by those and more specifically I was thinking about the importance of memories as we age. We've actually just made a video for this so it should appear sometime soon after the album's out.
It Snows Simon put together a video for this in December last year (just as we were finishing mixing the album) using archive footage that he and Graeme chose from the Scottish Screen Archive. Oddly enough out of all the footage they looked at they chose some that had been filmed, in part, in the town that Simon and I grew up in by the grandfather of the person who taught us both piano.
Apples and Pears
This is the only other previously released song on the album and was on our second single/ep. I've heard this shouted at us during gigs on more than one occasion so either folk like it or it's the only name anyone knows. The words are based on someone I met a few years ago and their experiences. I try to think of the song as having two voices - one in the verse and one in the chorus representing two people - one is the person I met and the other is the person who supported them without the usual judgements they received from other people. It's as close to a pop song as we could manage.
Bricks of our Building
It's based on an account I read of a soldier returning to his home in Clydebank the day after the Clyde blitz in WW2, oblivious of the fact that his home was gone and the majority of his family were dead. The street that Graeme and I live on was hit by some of the bombs that were dropped that night and it's something that we've both read a lot about over the time we've lived there. The story of the soldier really hit a nerve with me and it's probably the most story-telling lyrics I've written. It's the only obvious use of acoustic guitar on the album, although it does creep in subtly in a few other places as well.
Game of the Century
The lyrics in this are generally about people living on, in a way, within the events they played a part in and personally I thought about my grandfather having been at Dunkirk. Jamie played dulcimer on this and I think it gives it a good level of 'ancient' to accompany a song about history.
I wrote the words to this sort of as a sequel in a way to a song we had on our first ep called 'I Won't Sleep', which is about the loss of a child and this is too. At the time when I wrote the words for 'I Won't Sleep' the body of Vicky Hamilton had been found 16 years after she disappeared. I remember really clearly her going missing when I was wee so I followed it really closely when she was found and it was on my mind a lot then so I suppose that's what led to 'I Won't Sleep' and in turn to 'In This House'.
This song is about shunning the help of people who care about you. There's a lot of backing oo-ing in this thanks to Jonny, Graeme, Iain (Cook) and our friend Claire Quimby.
Unlike anything else on the album the words and melody for this were written after the majority of the album was already recorded. I only came up with something a few days before I started recording vocals at Iain's studio which meant neither he nor anyone in the band had heard the melody before I recorded it. I'm glad it got salvaged from the scrap pile because it's become my favourite song on the album. About a week before I wrote the words I heard some news about someone I used to know that made me think of them very differently. I suppose this song is a bit of an apology for never seeing what was really going on with them.
Lyrically this is about friendship. We tend to always write songs by someone bringing an idea or two to practice and working on it together but unusually for us this was pretty much finished by the time it even made it to a rehearsal. Jenny Reeve, Ruth Campbell and Kev Brolly kindly added strings and woodwind to this track.
No Flags Will Fly is available now from One Up Records in Aberdeen, Avalanche Records in Edinburgh, HMV in Stirling and in Glasgow, you can pick up copies from Monorail and Love Music. The album is also available to buy from Bandcamp, iTunes and a whole host of other download stores.
You can catch Olympic Swimmers playing live this coming Thursday in Inverness at DETOUR's goNorth showcase gig alongside Cleavers, Lady North and DARC. Then on the 24th of June they will be appearing alongside the likes of We Were Promised Jetpacks Aidan Moffat, RM Hubbert and loads more, at this awesome looking gig.
17 May 2012
Like a List-errr in the Sun: Yet Another Rambling News Post
Bloody hell, there's a lot been going on lately, since the last rambling news post there have been a shit load of announcements. Some of them good and some of them down right shite. I guess it's best to get the bad news out of the way first, as it's better to end on a high, right?!
As I am sure of many of you will already be aware, the BBC have decided to call time on BBC Introducing in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and lump them all into one big UK-wide programme. To say it's a kick in the nuts for the Scottish music scene is a bit of an understatement. In recent years we have seen taken some pretty massive steps forward in the way that view folk the Scottish music scene, so I am pretty damn gutted to see it go. You can read more about what happened over on The Pop Cop.
On a more positive note for the Scottish music scene, the SAY Award shortlist was announced earlier this morning. The award which is being touted as Scotland's answer to the Mercuries, have managed to whittle down what are deemed to be the top 10 Scottish albums to be released in 2010. Admittedly I am still a bit bitter that Adam Stafford didn't even make the long list, but hey there's still loads of great stuff in there. I was pretty damn chuffed to see Happy Particles make the final list, for a band who didn't have a label and released their album on Christmas fucking Day, it's great to see them up there with the more established artists. Personally I think they might well be in with a shout, but that could be my heart leading my head.
The artists that will compete to win the inaugural SAY Award on June 19 with added bonus of a first prize of £20k will be one of the following:
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older
Conquering Animal Sound – Kammerspiel
Happy Particles – Under Sleeping Waves
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Mungo’s Hi Fi – Forward Ever
Remember Remember – The Quickening
Rustie – Glass Swords
Tommy Smith – Karma
Twin Atlantic – Free (who made the list thanks to being the winners of the public vote).
With each of the shortlisted artists are already guaranteed £1k, I guess this is the Ying to BBC Introducing's Yang. It's about time that us Scots got out there and started shouting about just how great the music our country is producing really is, I think the SAY Awards is a great way to start.
Talking about showcasing Scottish talent, King Tut's have announced the line up for this years Summer Nights Festival. The festival which runs for a fortnight in July aims to showcase some of the most exciting up and coming bands that Scotland has to offer. If you haven't already seen the line up, then it looks something like this:
Thursday 12th – Pronto Mama, Brazil Exists, The Little Kicks and Lost City Soul
Friday 13th – Hector Bizerk, Madhat McGore, Bigg Taj feat. Spee SixNine & Becci Wallace and BilL Breaks
Saturday 14th – John Wean, The NK Jays, Seed and Minor Delilah
Sunday 15th – Xavia, Lost in Audio, Atlas : Empire and Seams
Monday 16th – Daniel Docherty, Craig Fagan, Chloe Latimer and Anna Shields
Tuesday 17th – Beerjacket & Friends play 'The White Feather Trail' and other favourites, Quickbeam and Mike Nisbet
Wednesday 18th – Brown Bear And The Bandits, The Sea Kings, Aaron Wright and Lovers Turn To Monsters
Thursday 19th – Midnight Lion, Galleries and Aames
Friday 20th – Holy Esque, Queen Jane, The Mirror Trap and The 10:04s
Saturday 21st – Jack Butler, Selective Service, Mickey 9′s and Kobi
Sunday 22nd – The Recovery!, Hunt / Gather, Fat Janitor and No Island
Monday 23rd – The Unwinding Hours, Olympic Swimmers and Dead Electric
Tuesday 24th – Fires Attract, Scarlet Shift, The Darien Venture and Crusades
Wednesday 25th – Randolph's Leap, Jonny Jack, Blue Sky Archives and Bronagh Monahan
Thursday 26th – DARC, The Mouse That Ate The Cat, Johnny And The Giros and TeKlo
Tickets for all of the gigs are on sale now (just click on the link above), there will be a limited number of Golden Tickets going on sale shortly which will allow you to get entry to ever single night of the festival at a much reduced rate. For further details just check out the King Tut's homepage.
We Were Promised Jetpacks will be out on the road shortly promoting their last album, 'In The Pit Of The Stomach'. Calling all over Scotland the band have a number of dates booked up, including an appearance at the Tweedlove Festival in Peebles on Saturday the 2nd of June. The event which is being held at Peebles Burgh Hall, also features some special guests (I have no idea who this) and a DJ Set from the Frightened Rabbit boys. Tickets for the gig are £15 in advance and they're available here. The rest of the tour looks something like this:
May 23rd - Doghouse, Dundee
May 24th - Lemontree, Aberdeen
May 25th - Ironworks, Inverness
May 26th - PJ Molloy's, Dunfermline
May 31st - Tolbooth, Stirling
2nd June - Tweedlove Festival, Peebles
3rd June - The Dirty Weekender, Kilmarnock
As I am sure of many of you will already be aware, the BBC have decided to call time on BBC Introducing in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and lump them all into one big UK-wide programme. To say it's a kick in the nuts for the Scottish music scene is a bit of an understatement. In recent years we have seen taken some pretty massive steps forward in the way that view folk the Scottish music scene, so I am pretty damn gutted to see it go. You can read more about what happened over on The Pop Cop.
On a more positive note for the Scottish music scene, the SAY Award shortlist was announced earlier this morning. The award which is being touted as Scotland's answer to the Mercuries, have managed to whittle down what are deemed to be the top 10 Scottish albums to be released in 2010. Admittedly I am still a bit bitter that Adam Stafford didn't even make the long list, but hey there's still loads of great stuff in there. I was pretty damn chuffed to see Happy Particles make the final list, for a band who didn't have a label and released their album on Christmas fucking Day, it's great to see them up there with the more established artists. Personally I think they might well be in with a shout, but that could be my heart leading my head.
The artists that will compete to win the inaugural SAY Award on June 19 with added bonus of a first prize of £20k will be one of the following:
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older
Conquering Animal Sound – Kammerspiel
Happy Particles – Under Sleeping Waves
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Mungo’s Hi Fi – Forward Ever
Remember Remember – The Quickening
Rustie – Glass Swords
Tommy Smith – Karma
Twin Atlantic – Free (who made the list thanks to being the winners of the public vote).
With each of the shortlisted artists are already guaranteed £1k, I guess this is the Ying to BBC Introducing's Yang. It's about time that us Scots got out there and started shouting about just how great the music our country is producing really is, I think the SAY Awards is a great way to start.
Talking about showcasing Scottish talent, King Tut's have announced the line up for this years Summer Nights Festival. The festival which runs for a fortnight in July aims to showcase some of the most exciting up and coming bands that Scotland has to offer. If you haven't already seen the line up, then it looks something like this:
Thursday 12th – Pronto Mama, Brazil Exists, The Little Kicks and Lost City Soul
Friday 13th – Hector Bizerk, Madhat McGore, Bigg Taj feat. Spee SixNine & Becci Wallace and BilL Breaks
Saturday 14th – John Wean, The NK Jays, Seed and Minor Delilah
Sunday 15th – Xavia, Lost in Audio, Atlas : Empire and Seams
Monday 16th – Daniel Docherty, Craig Fagan, Chloe Latimer and Anna Shields
Tuesday 17th – Beerjacket & Friends play 'The White Feather Trail' and other favourites, Quickbeam and Mike Nisbet
Wednesday 18th – Brown Bear And The Bandits, The Sea Kings, Aaron Wright and Lovers Turn To Monsters
Thursday 19th – Midnight Lion, Galleries and Aames
Friday 20th – Holy Esque, Queen Jane, The Mirror Trap and The 10:04s
Saturday 21st – Jack Butler, Selective Service, Mickey 9′s and Kobi
Sunday 22nd – The Recovery!, Hunt / Gather, Fat Janitor and No Island
Monday 23rd – The Unwinding Hours, Olympic Swimmers and Dead Electric
Tuesday 24th – Fires Attract, Scarlet Shift, The Darien Venture and Crusades
Wednesday 25th – Randolph's Leap, Jonny Jack, Blue Sky Archives and Bronagh Monahan
Thursday 26th – DARC, The Mouse That Ate The Cat, Johnny And The Giros and TeKlo
Tickets for all of the gigs are on sale now (just click on the link above), there will be a limited number of Golden Tickets going on sale shortly which will allow you to get entry to ever single night of the festival at a much reduced rate. For further details just check out the King Tut's homepage.
We Were Promised Jetpacks will be out on the road shortly promoting their last album, 'In The Pit Of The Stomach'. Calling all over Scotland the band have a number of dates booked up, including an appearance at the Tweedlove Festival in Peebles on Saturday the 2nd of June. The event which is being held at Peebles Burgh Hall, also features some special guests (I have no idea who this) and a DJ Set from the Frightened Rabbit boys. Tickets for the gig are £15 in advance and they're available here. The rest of the tour looks something like this:
May 23rd - Doghouse, Dundee
May 24th - Lemontree, Aberdeen
May 25th - Ironworks, Inverness
May 26th - PJ Molloy's, Dunfermline
May 31st - Tolbooth, Stirling
2nd June - Tweedlove Festival, Peebles
3rd June - The Dirty Weekender, Kilmarnock
24th June - Oran Mor, Glasgow (alongside Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells, R M Hubbert, Remember Remember,Withered Hand, Monoganon and loads more)
Edinburgh outfit, Matt Norris And The Moon, release their new EP, 'This Kingdom' EP on the 23rd of May through 17 Seconds Records. To celebrate they're having a wee release shindig at the Voodoo Rooms the same day. Support on the evening comes from Donna Maciocia, Randolph's Leap, Nicky Carder and there will also be a DJ Set from Ed '17 Seconds). To get you in the mood you can watch the video for the single, Roots Below errrr below....
Those fabulous Born To Be Wide boys are back with another excellent seminar evenings, this month event is entitled 'Beyond The Regular Gig', and it will be focusing on playing live in unusual locations, private homes, club nights and corporate events. Panelists will include Douglas Robertson, who has hosted dozens of concerts in his Edinburgh home, Andy Richardson whose Trouble club nights include live acts, Ally McCrae, who combines his BBC activity with co-running Detour events and Nick Herd who has hosted concerts in churches, recording studios and galleries apparently. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
Right, I think that's enough ramblings for one evening, to finish up with I have Adam Stafford's new video of him performing Shot-down You Summer Wannabes live. The song which is taken from last years Build a Harbour Immediately album, is a personal favourite of mine, so I am pretty chuffed that it's going to be coming out on blue 7" via Kingfisher Bluez in August. If you're heading out to Stag & Dagger this Saturday, then you catch him playing live at Sleazy's at 4.30pm.
Edinburgh outfit, Matt Norris And The Moon, release their new EP, 'This Kingdom' EP on the 23rd of May through 17 Seconds Records. To celebrate they're having a wee release shindig at the Voodoo Rooms the same day. Support on the evening comes from Donna Maciocia, Randolph's Leap, Nicky Carder and there will also be a DJ Set from Ed '17 Seconds). To get you in the mood you can watch the video for the single, Roots Below errrr below....
Those fabulous Born To Be Wide boys are back with another excellent seminar evenings, this month event is entitled 'Beyond The Regular Gig', and it will be focusing on playing live in unusual locations, private homes, club nights and corporate events. Panelists will include Douglas Robertson, who has hosted dozens of concerts in his Edinburgh home, Andy Richardson whose Trouble club nights include live acts, Ally McCrae, who combines his BBC activity with co-running Detour events and Nick Herd who has hosted concerts in churches, recording studios and galleries apparently. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
Right, I think that's enough ramblings for one evening, to finish up with I have Adam Stafford's new video of him performing Shot-down You Summer Wannabes live. The song which is taken from last years Build a Harbour Immediately album, is a personal favourite of mine, so I am pretty chuffed that it's going to be coming out on blue 7" via Kingfisher Bluez in August. If you're heading out to Stag & Dagger this Saturday, then you catch him playing live at Sleazy's at 4.30pm.
10 January 2012
Artists To Watch Out For In 2012: #2 - Olympic Swimmers
My second choice for a band to watch out for in 2012 are Glasgow five piece, Olympic Swimmers, a band who have been simmering away quite nicely for a few years now. Featuring members of Strike The Colours, The Unwinding Hours and the soon to be defunct Take A Worm For A Walk Week, they are all set to step step into the lime light with the release of their debut album which is due out later this year.
Hello, I'm Lloyd. Who on earth are you?
I'm Graeme and I play bass in Olympic Swimmers, a band made up of my favourite people: Susie Smillie, Simon Liddell, Jonny Scott and Jamie Savage. We formed in Glasgow in 2009, have self-released two EPs, and had the pleasure of playing with lots of great bands in that time.
Seeing as your one of my ‘Ones to Watch’, what exactly should everyone be watching out for from you in 2012?
A Curse Or A Blessing by olympicswimmers
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