Without wishing to embarrass any body (Chris Olley for example), I’d like to bring your attention to Six By Seven if it hasn’t been bought for that purpose before.
A few weeks ago I read a Guardian article about the death of Britpop or some such thing. It might have been this about ‘Guitar Music’ or this about the low sales of Rock as opposed to Pop.
More journo twitter, really. I don’t honestly care about Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and High Flying Birds & Twitchy Eye.
Our little island has contributed more than most to proper music and not all of it needs chart ranks and arena tours.
Shamefully up until about a year ago I had never heard of Six By Seven. It happened like this .
(Insert that wiggly effect that happens just before flash back scenes in the final reveal of TV crime capers)
In my day job that shall remain nameless, I fielded an inquiry from a chap in a bat cave who had been commissioned to display his recent photographic project. ’92 Stadiums’ featured a number of pictures (I forget how many) of UK football grounds. Shot in real analog black & white he had toured the country on a motorbike and photographer all of venues whilst unused. There are virtually no people in any of the shots and in some cases the stadia are only just visible between rows of terraced houses. Whilst I confess to not giving fig or other dried fruit about football I couldn’t help bit admire the concept, intent & execution of the project. The exhibition eventually went into Derby Museum and has toured at least in part elsewhere since.
Some while after the event I got into conversation with the guy about mutual interests, photography, music etc when he drops into the conversation that he’s sold several thousand albums and been on the John Peel show on a bunch of occasions. Weird. Slightly unexpected.
Turns out Chris Olley is the main chap in critically acclaimed Nottingham based band Six By Seven. Nottingham hasn’t contributed massively to the musical landscape (unless you count the mound Paper Lace are buried under, could be worse, could be Black Lace) but 6/7 definitely gave it a good go.
Here’s an interview from 2000 or there about’s…
As well as being a unique talent Chris runs a great blog, his own record company (SNSM), has a studio in Nottingham and produces music for other artists. I’ll name drop here Julian Cope whose brother I vaguely knew of forever ago in Tamworth. There’s a man who needs more attention.
Spend some time here. There’s no point me copy pasting what you can find pre baked.
I strongly recommend The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen By Proxy and the most recent release The Death Of Six By Seven (the ‘Nebraska’ album) In fact everything I’ve heard so far is impressive and worth some time.
Here’s a song from the Munchausen…
….and here’s a video from 2008….
Check any You Tube and you’ll see great comments. The band (?) are playing live soon hopefully so I’ll be getting a ‘T’ and digging out my AC/DC cut off.
Here’s another blog by Chris and I would definitely advocate you try ‘I Can Make You Sick’ which is a strange listening experience and not something you want to explain to the kids when you are on the school run. Believe me….
Tell your friends. Bring back guitar bands. Sorry I was late to the party…..
UP DATE 11/02/12
There’s a Valentines Special now available at http://sixbyseven.bandcamp.com Four really good songs on a pay what you like transaction. Love analog, dig in with troops….
adrian4 