You can keep up to date with TGTF's festival coverage here.
Don't forget to like There Goes the Fear on Facebook! ~TGTF HQ x
I Dream in Colour are back with their single ‘London,’ with vocals that manage to pierce your heart effortlessly and with the kind of riffs which wouldn’t sound unfamiliar on ‘The Joshua Tree’.
They’ve done it again, producing music that is just so uplifting in nature that it can never fail to put a smile on your face, whether it’s the subtle drips of piano underlying the track or just the fact that through being quite minimalist it manages to just sound gorgeous. Now anyone who knows me will know I love a good belting chorus, screamed at the top of your voice ala Foo Fighters. But I Dream in Colour have won me over with pure catchiness and a simplicity. It’s easy to make your way as middle of the road indie band these days, but this band, while not being particularly out there and groundbreaking, have the ability to portray serious emotion, in a catchy and generally uplifting way.
While the airwaves are crammed full of Cheryl Coles and other generically rubbish acts, I Dream in Colour again with ‘London’ have produced something refreshingly real, showing real craft and vision and exceptional thought.
It’s a real treat to listen to, I recommend you do.
8/10
I Dream in Colour’s next single ‘London’ will be released on the 21st of May. The band will appear at the Alternative Escape in Brighton this Friday (11 May) at 14.00 at LIFE, then at Liverpool Sound City on Thursday (17 May) at Zanzibar Club at 21.00. They are also on tour this month starting next Monday at Sheffield Soyo; all the details are here.
By
Mary Chang on Wednesday, 9th May 2012 at 11:00 am
‘You Are the Quarry’ had been called Morrissey‘s comeback album in May 2004 after the much-maligned ‘Maladjusted’ released in 1997. Things were looking good for the Mozzer; the album was his highest charting album ever in America. Fast forward a couple months and I’m flipping through cable channels to find something interesting to watch and I hear a couple bars of something familiar. I look more closely at the television. It’s the new MTV teen reality show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, and during what I’m guessing was supposed to be a tender moment, what do I hear in the background but ‘First of the Gang to Die’.
Sadly, I don’t have a YouTube video to go along with this; the video above is taken from the film for Who Put the M in Manchester?, filmed live at the MEN in 2004 (I’ve played my DVD of this so many times, my DVD skips, I think I broke it). But in my research for this piece, I also learned it was used in an episode of Date My Mom, such that a boy and the coed his mother chose as his date can disappear into the sunset. By limo. We have no way of knowing if Steven Patrick Morrissey himself approved the usage of this song, but it’s hard to believe he would allow the song, about a kid in a Latino gang who becomes a martyr by being the first in his group of friends to die, to be used in either context. While it is a pop song, it’s not really a song about sunny days and going out on dates.
It seems not surprising that the E4 reality drama Made in Chelsea, essentially the UK’s answer to Laguna Beach with well-heeled rich kids from a posh area of London, also uses current ‘hot’ songs in their shows. I won’t list every artist, but a quick glance at the tracklisting for the first episode of the first series for Made in Chelsea lists tunes form some pretty impressive stars that we’ve written about before: Adele, Dragonette, Morning Parade, Muse, the Script, Tinie Tempah (erroneously credited as ‘Tinie T’) and Two Door Cinema Club (twice!). Either the producers have been reading up on the music blogosphere or consulting with people in the know on ‘what’s hot’ (more likely the latter).
That said, what role – or what rights – do artists have in permitting (or not permitting) the use of their songs on television. The use of Noz’s ‘First of the Gang to Die’ and the Made in Chelsea soundtracks came into my mind when I read that Australian singer/songwriter Gotye, recent Saturday Night Live performer and pretty much world pop sensation, was complaining that his mega hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was no longer his. Specifically, this had to do with its usage in the American pop tv sensation Glee. You know, that show where famous songs are redone by teen actors and generally speaking, the original versions of the song gain quite a lot of publicity, while the young people of the world get confused about music history. Goyte’s quandary? “I wasn’t sure whether something so mainstream was right for my music and whether it reflected on my music in my bad way. But I think I realised that the song’s so popular, it’s kind of out of my hands, so when something like Glee comes along, why would I say no?”
The man subsequently whinged on the success of the song, saying, “sometimes I feel like I’m a bit sick of it. My inbox, on any given day, has at least five covers or parodies or remixes of it and there’s only so many times you can listen to the one song.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t even begin to count on both hands how many bands I’ve met over the last 3 years that would love to be a similar position of ‘discomfort’. I guess success – and the happiness you get from success – is a fickle thing; maybe when you have it and realise it’s not so great, you want to bash it and everything that comes with it. Careful though: Goyte had to give his permission to the producers of Glee to use ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ in one of their episodes. He could have easily put the kibosh on the matter entirely by blocking its use on the popular American tv show; there are probably others, but most notably Kings of Leon and Foo Fighters have refused the Fox tv programme permission. Dave Grohl’s response to the invitation: “It’s every band’s right, you shouldn’t have to do fucking Glee. And then the guy who created Glee is so offended that we’re not, like, begging to be on his f**king show… f**k that guy for thinking anybody and everybody should want to do Glee.”
While I agree with Grohl on this – I personally can’t stand the show and how it repurposes already great music, only to redo them in charmless, overblown, unworthy imitations – there seems to be no right or wrong answer for an artist or band considering allowing commercial use of their songs. Some bands still and will always feel that allowing such permission debases the artistic value of their hard work and inspiration. However, maybe the gold standard yet groan worthy rule of PR applies here: “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” As much as Goyte might complain that the song he wrote no longer belongs to him, ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ is still #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third week running. Suffering for one’s art? Maybe not so much.
By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 28th February 2012 at 9:00 am
Gaining momentum from a sold out show at London Cargo 2 weeks ago, Essex’s I Dream in Colour have announced details of an upcoming UK tour for May. Tickets are on sale now. They’ll be celebrating the release of their next single in London, rather appropriately with the name ‘London’, on the 20th of May at the Borderline.
Monday 14th May 2012 – Sheffield Soyo
Tuesday 15th May 2012 – Newcastle Cumberland Arms
Wednesday 16th May 2012 – Glasgow Berkley Suite
Saturday 19th May 2012 – London Borderline (single launch party)
Monday 21st May 2012 – Nottingham Red Room
Tuesday 22nd May 2012 – Leicester Firebug
Wednesday 23rd May 2012 – Bristol Thekla
Thursday 24th May 2012 – St. Albans Horn
Friday 25th May 2012 – Cambridge Corner House
By
Mary Chang on Friday, 10th February 2012 at 2:00 pm
Richard Judge, the frontman of I Dream in Colour and a previous celebrity guest reviewer for us here at TGTF, have revealed this solo cover of a lesser known track by Manchester Britpop masters Oasis. ‘(It’s Good) to Be Free appeared as one of three B-sides to the 1994 single ‘Whatever’. Watch the performance below that’s sure to raise some hairs on the back of your neck in awe.
By
Mary Chang on Tuesday, 6th December 2011 at 4:00 pm
I Dream in Colour‘s latest single (released yesterday actually) is called ‘Strangest Place’, and the Essex band recently played the song for City Sessions. It certainly sounds different (check out the xylophone?); listen to the original either below as part of the official promo video or read John’s interview with frontman Richard Judge here. If live coverage is what you’re after, read my review of the band’s triumphant turn at the Bull and Gate in mid-November when I was over in London for hols here.
By
Mary Chang on Monday, 21st November 2011 at 2:00 pm
My first gig in Kentish Town, at a Club Fandango night at the Bull and Gate, allowed me to make a comparison between a small DC venue like DC9 to this similar one in North London. I can say for certain that the sound system at the Bull and Gate is incredible and blows our venues out of the water, even the ones that are twice its size (sorry, Washington) and aesthetically, the lighting options are a lot better as well. But enough with the pedantic, jaundiced eye: you’re here to read about the I Dream in Colour gig you couldn’t get into, because it was sold out, right? I have come to your aid, even if I was running on 3 hours of sleep and I nearly walked into a wall down a corridor towards the Northern line (why didn’t anyone warn me that changing from the Central to Northern line required heading down a corridor that has a slanted floor? Not good for someone still woozy from motion sickness medication, but I digress…)
The openers’ band names are a good study on how to (or not to) come up with a proper name for a band. Heroics were up first; their name conjures up good deeds of Biblical proportions like David taking down Goliath. Or maybe something closer to home, like the art of sport and competition with respect to next summer’s Olympics. In the right light, the lead singer ** looks like Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club, and this band plays likable indie rock. I’m guessing the folks milling about in the bar directly outside the performance room would have really liked them, if they gave this band half a chance. What was heard was pretty good for a band I’d never heard of; with their energy, they sound like they could be a commercial hit, if promoted properly. They have an EP out on the 8th of December, so keep an eye on these guys.
Portsmouth’s Anchor and the Wolf, on the other hand, has a name that makes you wonder if they consulted a clairvoyant when pressed for a name. Are we supposed to believe that the backing band is the anchor, and the singer out front is the wolf? Or vice versa? And what is a predatory wild animal doing with something that belongs deep in the ocean, anyway? Zoe Mead sings like she’s trying to be Adele, which seems strange given the context: she plays acoustic guitar and xylophone and wears denim shorts Adele would never be caught in. But there’s also an element of Alessi Laurent-Marke (Alessi’s Ark), if she’d gone more rock. The xylophone of course is prominently placed front and centre, but sadly it’s more of a gimmick than anything else, not adding anything of value to their performance. “Only love can set you free”? Can we say ‘cliché’?
Of course everyone has come out to the Bull and Gate for tonight’s headliners. This is the closest to a hometown gig for these boys from Essex, and there are plenty of loud and proud family and friends in the audience. What is interesting (or disappointing, depending on your musical taste) is the band’s progression to a more commercial sound. ‘Get Along’ (video at the bottom of the main part of this post), one of the band’s earliest songs, has a bit of country twang with indie rock. But newer track (and freebie as a former MP3 of the Day here) ‘Long Cold Lonely Winter’ has the band, at least according to a punter that wished to remain anonymous, “sounding more like Coldplay”. What drew me first to the band was the power chords and heavy guitars (say hello to guitarist Michael Thackeray’s pedal board, which is probably as wide as I am tall) and while I like piano in rock music surely and am not against it, if I Dream in Colour is going this direction, they’re heading into what is already a very crowded market, going against behemoths Keane and Chris Martin and co. (My guess is that if Tom Chaplin makes good on his wish to work with Kanye on the next Keane album and continue the way of last year’s ‘Night Train’ (EP review here), IDIC will fill in their vacated spot easily.) But I will say that Richard Judge’s songwriting, indicated by hearing bits and bobs of demos he’s worked on with just his voice and the keys, will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
We’re here tonight for the single launch party for ‘Strangest Place’, another piano-led track. Still, it is clear that their fans, widely ranging in age from uni kids to people in their 40s and 50s and refreshingly, an even mix of males and females (usually a rarity at male-heavy rock gigs and female-heavy pop gigs), like the way this band is headed and already know every word to every song. For a band who hasn’t even put out a proper album yet, this is very promising, watching everyone clap their hands with frontman Judge’s encouragement. At the end, women vie for half-drunk water bottles, which generally only happen to pinup bands, right? The vibe was so electric that if this band wants mainstream success, it should come. Soon.
After the cut: more photos and set list.
Continue reading Live Review: I Dream in Colour with Heroics and Anchor and the Wolf at Kentish Town Bull and Gate – 18th November 2011
