'Jealousy will get you nowhere' *

Read just about any review of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah debut in the UK print media and you'll come across the same line. This, from Friday's London Evening Standard, is fairly typical: 'In the midst of all the hysteria, remember that online hype is still hype and..[not] entirely to be believed'. That is, once again - and it just keeps on happening these days - we've been beaten to the punch and are having to disguise the fact that we're playing catch-up by suggesting some loftier, more cool-headed critiquing is being brought to bear. More specifically, the print music media seem to be in a collective state of denial about the effect Pitchfork can have in breaking new music. The sales (and word-of-mouth) of CYHSY, like Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens before them, really took off after scoring a 9 points-plus review on that site, a fact which goes curiously unmentioned in the print reviews...

Other things you're not being told about..by anyone, so far as this blog can see:

There's more jaundiced jangle on the way from those LA surfer dudes & dudesses The Tyde! Third album Three's Co. comes out here on Rough Trade March 6 and there's a taster track, Brock Landers, available here...

...and while you're over in MySpace land, check out My Sad Captains, a British band with a sound not a million miles away from The Tyde's, especially the vinegary lead vocals of Ed Wallis. reallyrather hopes to catch them at the Dublin Castle on Feb 21 when they're on a bill with...

...Tilly and the Wall! [site/sounds] Over to play their first UK shows, these tap-dancin' indie-poppers first caught this blog's attention back in Jan 04 around the time they were opening shows for Rilo Kiley in the US. Those dates:
Feb 14 Freebutt, Brighton
Feb 15 Old Blue Last, Shoreditch
Feb 16 Windmill, Brixton
Feb 19 Buffalo bar, Islington (with Emmy the Great)
Feb 21 Dublin Castle, Camden

Feb 14 sees Shelley Short follow up her sweetly spartan Oh say little dogies, why?, a lo-fi limited edition on Keep Recordings which scored big around here back in '04. Captain Wild Horse (Rides The Heart Of Tomorrow) will this time come out via Hush Records...

...but Chad King, another Keep winner that year, sticks with the Tuscon label for his second solo release. Well, hell is due in March [site&sounds] and if it's anything like his first expect more atmospheric, softly-hewn alt-folk-rock stuff, a description which also broadly fits...

...another debut from '04, Boy Omega's I name you isolation. Essentially Swedish guy Martin Gustafsson, Boy Omega's follow-up Black tango fills out the sound with a few more players and gets a UK release via Stereo Test Kit sometime in March...
[boy omega][explode mp3]

And Centro-matic's new release, Fort Recovery, will be released March 7th...

*from Brock Landers by The Tyde (see above)