Nottingham

Midnight Rodeo’s latest release “Thank you for your time” is an ode to the under appreciated worker.

16th Oct 2023 — Leave a comment

‘9 to 5’ if Dolly Parton had a fuzz pedal…

Effortlessly ethereal, and exquisitely other worldly Midnight Rodeo’s new track Thank you for you time’ is an ode to the alienated, underpaid worker. Audibly alluring, a siren song, this is the music your mind listens to as it wanders off from it’s 9-5 reality, a customer is being out of order with you, your boss has just made an inappropriate comment, but you are elsewhere, escaping, dreaming knowing where you are is not where you’ll always be.

Thank You For Your Time

Made up of Midnight Rodeo is Maddy Chamberlain (vocals, tambourine), James McBride (guitar, vocals), William Crumpton (guitar, vocals), Harry Taylor (bass), Ferg Moran (drums), the Midnight Rodeo are a Nottingham based band who formed in 2021. Since then they’ve supported the likes of FEET,Black Doldrums and The Bug Club, establishing themselves as trailblazers in the indie/psychedelic pop scene.

‘Thank you for you time’ introduces a slight departure from the band’s thus far signature West Coast psychedelic stylings as they continue to diversify their sound.A dynamically rich lead guitar line dances around the ethereal vocal melody and driving bassline, all three elements responding to one another intuitively as the track builds through two anthemic choruses to one final heavy metal homage.

Lyrcially, Lead singer Maddy Chamberlain stands in solidarity with under-appreciated junior staff member, anyone that’s ever had to serve a piss-drunk stag party at a nightclub, suffered the cringe-inducing pantomime of a sales job or endured the eye-rolling shenanigans of a David Brent-esque line manager. It’s a vindicating dedication to the individual .

If it were for another era you could imagine them touring with the likes of the Beatles. If the painted people in A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte were playing a few instruments and singing a tune it would sound like “Thank you for you time’.

Escape the 9-5 and go see Midnight Rodeo live…

Live Date
22nd Oct – Nottingham, TBA
28th Oct – Norwich, Last Pub Standing NoGlum
29th Oct – Nottingham, The Chameleon
2nd Nov – Birmingham, The Night Owl 
4th Nov – Bristol, The Crofters Rights 
7th Nov – Hull, Polar Bear Music Club
10th Nov – Leicester, The Big Difference
16th Nov – Portsmouth, The Loft 
17th Nov – Southampton, Heartbreakers
18th Nov – Paris, Supersonic
23rd Nov – London, Sebright Arms
25th Nov – TBA
1st Dec – Leeds, The Royal Park Pub & Cellars
2nd Dec – Manchester, The Peer Hat
7th Dec – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
8th Dec – Sunderland, The Independent
9th Dec – Newcastle, Bobiks

Fakers Release Toxic City

21st Feb 2023 — Leave a comment

The flames of punk wrath begin as a flicker between two burning twigs before becoming a forest fire.

Fakers

Fakers encompass this inferno, their guitar riffs ablaze, drumbeats petrol to the flames. Their track Toxic city speaks of destruction, a city buried under itself due to the disrespect and damage of its people. The weight of neglect, an internal rupture, it’s life in an environmental dystopia. The soul sliced into by the systems that sets boundaries, the loss of self, a wasteland of individualism. These cynical observations, the rhythm of rebellion, remind us that not all systems serve us, sometimes to scream is to survive, never surrender and never do so silently.

The essence of punk is the anthem of the individual, championing authenticity and self-expression. The desire for change, the defiance that leads to its birth is all brandished into the punk legacy. Denial of conformity, down with he established society, you become a ruler of anarchy. A contradiction of the force you are fighting, surely any structure is one that should be defied. You cannot disapprove of systems because this in itself is a system. 

“Ain’t no jobs to pay your way
Can’t get the hours to slave away
Sit and think, it’s a fucking bore
Start to stink, stewing in your sores”

Toxic City

Fakers keep the flames of punk burning, a booming beacon, a promise of better times prevailing.If you want to shake a bit of that system off, fight for your right to be who you are then head to their next gig supporting Republica at The Hairy Dog in Derby on the 25th of February. Get tickets here

The solipsism of punk, the world only exists if I am here to perceive it, may be refreshing to sip from if you are feeling anti-establishment. Protests, petitions, campaigns, a need for people to listen are all evidence of rage being redesigned for good. Wrath with no direction is madness, if you’re mad don’t throw a fit, take action, make change.

Tennov

30th Jan 2023 — Leave a comment

Otala’s lastest song Tenov is groundbreaking in its discussion about grief, the depseration one feels when someone they were devoted to dies. This loss of self in the loss of someone else and the onset of crisis this can become.

Otala

We are all haunted by the looming headstone of an empty grave,we have see friends and family fall, their demise a reminder that we shall one day join them. What do we let fade when we focus on what is gone? Those that sleep will surley stir again, eyes stark in the daylight, but what about those that stay shut?

Tennov is written in a 4/4 time signature to reflect the ongoing cycle of love,loss and grief. The beuaty of love is that it can be lost and it is perhaps with this knowledge that we should look after it, cherish it try to make it last. Just because someone has been buried, or burned or lost does not mean the love you had for them has to die too. Losing someone is a lonely place, you isolate yourself in an effort to immortalize them in your memory.

Tennov

As a punk quintent Otala really capture the anger and exhasution of grief in Tennov which explores themes of anger, denial, helplessness. Its narrrative offers a foreboding hand down a darkened path, the mind of death and darkness. This forest of forelonging crowds our vision and we are buried in the woods, pining for all that is gone.

Grief is a mutual experience, a loved one shielded in wood once stood tall now lies still. We are left to die without them by our side. Dorothy Tennov wrote about the expereince of being in Love, researching individual cases, we may all expereince different verions of love but we will all suffer the same loss. We are in debt to those we have lost, the love we shared, the lessons learned from each other. We pay not in our suffering, each tear cried is not a currency, but with our desicion to rejoice, celebrate life as if they were still living it so they can vicariously laugh and cry with you.

The lyrics that stick out to me in Tennov are:

“Sometimes I wonder what would be and what will be if you took my hand. Red and swollen it rests in my palm. An careless act of selfishness but it could never be a lie”.

Otala are really making their mark in the music industry, with up coming gigs on the 3rd of February in The George Tavern London, The Bodega in Nottignham on the 24th of March and april the 9th in the New Adelphi Club in Hull. Click here to buy tickets!