Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Endor Disbands - Scottish Bands


     During their Grammy acceptance speech for “Best New Band,” a member of the band Fun. thanked the parents of the band members for dealing with the fact that they didn’t make any money for the first eleven years.  Our first thought was to the inconsistency of a “new band” referring to their twelve-year history.  Then, one of us said to the other, “Last week, after eleven years of being together, Endor officially announced the band had disbanded.  Imagine if Fun. were to have quit after eleven years.”
      As we admitted in our January 29 post about the new Biffy Clyro song (we like the song more as time goes on - Link to the Biffy Clyro post), we are partial to Scottish music.  It is sad to hear that Endor will no longer be generating music.  Coincidentally, just within the last three months, we brought their song “Chapel Doors” to the attention of three people (Michelle M., Michele K. and Karen M )  And this is just a short time after one of the better sites for discovering Scottish Indie music announced that it was no longer in business.  The Bandcamp portion of Kowalskiy.com is still on-line for sampling and free downloads - http://kowalskiy.bandcamp.com/.   Who would have thought that Kowalskiy is Scottish????  

  So, with Scottish bands and Scottish-specific sites falling off the music map, it's time to at least throw some songs on this blog. 
First, "Chapel Doors" by Endor. The guitar work is not complex, but it is the feature that makes the song special.

  
   Next is one of our favorite band titles - We Were Promised Jetpacks.  This band has received some high profile exposure in the U.S., but most people don't know it.  As the last commercial before the start of the 2012 Superbowl game, the band's music was used to simultaneously promote the product and motivate the viewers for the football game that followed.  Instead of a flash dance, there was a flash crowd that arrived just before the start of a Rec League men’s hockey game in Canada.  The song is “Keeping Warm” from We Were Promised Jetpacks.   



Holy Esque has a couple of songs that we could include, but let's go with "Rose"



Yusuf Azak has this song that may sound unconventional - in a good way,  "Smile Tactics"

At least for a while, "Smile Tactics" is free from Azak's studio - FLR download

How can a band that gets so much attention in one area of the world, get so little in another music-thirsty area?  That's the question around Meursault.  It's equivalent to Europe having little awareness of Fun. Here is "Dull Spark."



Another Free, Legal and Recommended Download is "Plans" from People, Places, Maps.



We plan to have a post dedicated to Frightened Rabbit, because their upcoming concert in SF should be promoted.  The problem is that we cannot write about Scottish music without a mention of this band.  So, this post will finish with another commercial, instead of a song.  The commercial is for Baxter's soup and the song is "Swim until You Can't See Land." [The combination of the band name and song title reminds the older one of us of a Jimmy Carter episode, who during his term as President had an encounter with a frightened rabbit swimming to his fishing boat, rather than to land.]


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