Mikey Madden & Chris Altmann from The Vandas at Basement DiscsIt’s been a while since there has been an in store at Basement Discs so today’s mini show was a welcome diversion from the usual run of the mill lunch hour, where I generally go for a constitutional walk down to the centre of the city.
The Vandas have just released their debut full length CD Slow Burn which has been receiving rave reviews in the music press. They are a local four piece rock band, but today they were represented by two members, Chris Altmann and Mikey Madden, playing an acoustic version of some of the songs on the new album, as well as a few from the past.
They were pretty good I thought – their music being a mix of genres from pop to rock to country. One the songs they performed was a Hank Williams type tear jerker which they played wonderfully.
Chris and Mikey took turns with the vocals and also sounded great in harmony, both having quite distinctive voices. Chris sang with a slight American accent and at other times sounded like Aussie icon Paul Kelly. Mikey had a higher register in terms of vocals and came across as Brit Pop.
I must admit, I had not seen these guys before or even heard of them until quite recently. Basement Discs is to be commended for presenting such a diverse range of artists in their wonderful lunchtime in store shows.
Scheduled for November is Charles Jenkins, local singer songwriter and all round lovely guy, Fireside Bellows with the combined talents of Jodie Lane and Tracy McNeil and Justin Townes Earle, who is of course Steve Earle’s son, so that will really be something special.
I will be on recreation leave from work for the next two weeks, oh joy unbounded, though I won’t be going anywhere. I plan to lounge around at home and read, for a start, Neal Stephenson’s new monster novel Anathem.
Also I have just purchased a new desktop computer and will be spending a fair bit of time transferring everything from my old computer onto it. The new computer is sitting in boxes at the moment, but I am really looking forward to seeing how it performs when it’s up and going. By all accounts it should be really speedy and powerful, being equipped with a Core 2 Quad processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM.
The Vandas have just released their debut full length CD Slow Burn which has been receiving rave reviews in the music press. They are a local four piece rock band, but today they were represented by two members, Chris Altmann and Mikey Madden, playing an acoustic version of some of the songs on the new album, as well as a few from the past.
They were pretty good I thought – their music being a mix of genres from pop to rock to country. One the songs they performed was a Hank Williams type tear jerker which they played wonderfully.
Chris and Mikey took turns with the vocals and also sounded great in harmony, both having quite distinctive voices. Chris sang with a slight American accent and at other times sounded like Aussie icon Paul Kelly. Mikey had a higher register in terms of vocals and came across as Brit Pop.
I must admit, I had not seen these guys before or even heard of them until quite recently. Basement Discs is to be commended for presenting such a diverse range of artists in their wonderful lunchtime in store shows.
Scheduled for November is Charles Jenkins, local singer songwriter and all round lovely guy, Fireside Bellows with the combined talents of Jodie Lane and Tracy McNeil and Justin Townes Earle, who is of course Steve Earle’s son, so that will really be something special.
I will be on recreation leave from work for the next two weeks, oh joy unbounded, though I won’t be going anywhere. I plan to lounge around at home and read, for a start, Neal Stephenson’s new monster novel Anathem.
Also I have just purchased a new desktop computer and will be spending a fair bit of time transferring everything from my old computer onto it. The new computer is sitting in boxes at the moment, but I am really looking forward to seeing how it performs when it’s up and going. By all accounts it should be really speedy and powerful, being equipped with a Core 2 Quad processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM.
3 comments:
I've linked to you in a post. Keep up the good work and give us (all) some tips.
Hey Thanks FX.
I do follow the form dedicatedly, but of late my tipping has been appalling, as has just about everyone else.
I'll be writing an entry on the Derby later this week, but I would put my money on Whobegotyou if he wasn't such a short priced favourite.
I'm happy to have any commentary cross posted at my blog and I might be able to convince After Grog to run commentary from you too.
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