Happy New Year / 2007 Look Back

Happy new year.
Yanu's year has started off quietly, but we will be getting the audio from our Louisiana gig online soon.

Meanwhile, we thought we would let you know what we thought the highlights of 2007 were.

Ben:

Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage
Pinch - Underwater Dancehall
Burial - Untrue
Steve Swallow/Robert Creeley - So There
Roots and Echoes - The Coral
Philip Glass - Violin Concerto

Simon:

Iron and Wine - Shepherds Dog
Big Business - Here Come The Waterworks
The Radioheads - In Rainbows
Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat
Soulsavers - It's Not How Far You Fall, It's The Way You Land
Queens Of The Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound


Ali:

Kings of Leon - Because of the times
Bonobo - Days to come
Fink - Distance and Time
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Feist - The Reminder

James:

Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Grinderman - Grinderman
Radiohead - In Rainbows
St Vincent - Marry Me
PJ Harvey - White Chalk

The big disappointment for me was The Good The Bad And The Queen - but then this 'super-group' only had two great musicians in it, Damon and Tony. Tony was woefully under-used, and Damon sounded like he was stuk in a rut. I was also left feeling deflated by Portishead's comeback - which I totally didn't expect. Given that they've never made a song I don't really like, I'd have thought that gig would be one of the best of the year - it ended up being the worst (for me, but loads of people loved it and Simon thought they were brilliant at ATP).

I also wondered if I was missing something by quite liking, but not loving MIA and Clark's albums, which the rest of the world seems to have gone absolutely spazzy over this year. But then wouldn't it be boring it we all liked yadda yadda yadda...

The highlights for YANU:

Playing our first gig
Supporting Qui
Buying more toys than we needed or could afford
Playing the Louisiana

Gig report / New Year Plans

Well, the gig went a lot better than the last. We weren't exactly note-perfect but that's not really the point. We sounded better thanks in no small part to the engineer at The Louisiana who did a great job, and we performed pretty well I think. We had a decent audience and loads of people I'd never seen before (who I imagine were there for the headliner). The other bands (The Exhibition, and The Corrections) were both really good and well worth staying for.

This time we can offer no photos, or video - WAG and official photographer Chloe was off sick and I forgot my video camera. However, at some stage we should be getting a recording of the gig and will no doubt post the results here and update our woeful Myspace.

This is most likely it for 2007. Plans for the new year include studio time, a charity gig (plus as many other gigs as we can get), and a video (I have a killer idea for a cheap pop-promo). Yanu has been great fun this year and incredibly rewarding to get on stage - thanks to everyone who's encouraged us to persevere and for letting us know that they think our music is good.

Have a lovely Christmas and a happy new year.

Love, Yanu

Yanu is Broke / Gig Looming / New Song / Guitar Trivia

Sadly the £50 that Yanu has so far earned in its vainglorious career has run out. We spent the last tenner yesterday at our regular practice room The Muse Rooms. We had an excellent practice in which we sounded tight, and ready for the Louisiana gig on Thursday. As mentioned before we will be supporting EMI-signed The Corrections.

It should be a good gig - we've always wanted to play the Louie as a band. The other band Ali drums in, Kabuki Mono, played there a week or two ago and he said that the sound-desk did a wonderful job - so we should be sounding good - for those of you who were dissapointed at the aural soup on offer at the Fleece gig.

We also worked up a new song yesterday, working title: "Ben's Pop." It's based around an arpeggiated A Minor with a traditional verse chorus structure and Yanu's trademark dynamic build. It then breaks down to an unexpected A Minor/F Major 'chill out room' before vamping out on an equally surprising A Minor / D7/11 curve-ball. As yet, no lyrics.

In other news, I've reinstated a my blonde Telecaster as my guitar of choice, having replaced the unwieldy 11-gauge strings with some 10s.

Blonde Tele

I'm now putting the whole guitar and pedal board through my ART Tube pre-amp, which is giving it warmth, tonal fullness, and a little overdrive. It was sounding really good.

ART Tube Pre-Amp

Oh

As ever, thanks to friends for coming along - there was a lot of supoort for us (or morbid curiosity) and I'm sorry we didn't reward it with a better set. We started off pretty well but it went downhill from there... our least good performance too date. Ben gave it a generous 6/10, while I gave it 4. Simon declared it 'awful,' but Ali, no doubt deafened by years of drum abuse, seemed to think it was okay.

We're not really sure what went wrong. The mix coming out of the monitors was just weird. I couldn't hear my guitar at all at some moments and then at others just heard drums and loads of me. Rather confusing.

I think we need to learn how to set up our pedals properly and trust that the house sound is better than the monitors. If you come to the Louisiana gig on the 20th I promise we will be much better. We may even have some new material.

No doubt photos and any salvageable video will follow soon.

Mean but funny

I found this today. Well it made me laugh.

Just in case the people at wikipedia get wind of it, here is a copy of the text:

"Conor McNicholas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Conor McNicholas is a revolting, spoilt, middle-class dullard, who is editor of IPC-run music magazine The New Musical Express, better known as the NME. He sold the magazine down the river in the early 2000s by focusing on inconsequential tabloid rubbish and loads of boring identikit, indie-schmindley, pseudo-rebellious bands. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to a rodent, but has never let this get in the way of his magazine's worship of groundbreaking artists such as Dominic Masters.

His first professional post on a magazine was on a fledgling Manchester publication called Sub where he wrote a spoof horoscope under the pen name of Snufkin, which was not all funny. McNicholas went on to write for the dance press holding senior positions at both Ministry and Mixmag magazines before going on to edit Muzik.

In recent years he has turned the NME into a mainstream pop-magazine, with Lily Allen and The Mighty Boosh appearing on the front cover.

During his editorship Conor has won several industry awards including Consumer Magazine Editor of the Year (Periodical Publishers Association Editorial and Publishing Excellence Awards, May 2005), Entertainment Magazine Editor of the Year (British Society of Magazine Editors, November 2005), Tour of the Year for the NME Awards Tour 2006 (Vodafone Live Music Awards, October 2006), Editor of the Year and Music Magazine of the Year (Record of the Day Music Journalism and PR Awards, November 2006 ) and Brand Building Initiative of the Year for Club NME (British Society of Magazine Editors, November 2006). In October 2007 Conor was listed as one of the 1000 most influential people in London by the Evening Standard.

In 2007 Conor was one of the judges for the Mercury Music Prize. The winning album was Myths Of The Near Future by Klaxons.

However, there has been some criticism over McNicholas's reign as editor, especially over claims that the quality of writing had slipped, the genres of music covered have become less broad and that the magazine now contains less content than in previous years. He's a cunt.

If destroyed still true."

Gig News

We've got a couple of gigs lined up to see out the year.
The first is a local band showcase sponsored by local, reactionary, rag The Evening Post at The Fleece - one of the cornerstones of the Bristol indie/rock scene - on Tuesday, December 4th (which, I should mention, is Simon's birthday), and it's free to get in.

Here's the poster:

Media_http1bpblogspot_oadff

Yes we are bottom of the bill - it's run a bit like a league table. If you get loads of people to come along to the gig you get to play higher on the bill next time.

The second gig is supporting EMI signed London and Bristol based band The Corrections - who sound pretty good from what little I've heard - on thursday, 20th December at The Louisiana (which we've wanted to play for ages). Once again we are second support, but we are not precious and are just enjoying the experience of playing to an audience and getting more comfortable on stage.

Come along to either or both - but the plan is to have some new material ready for the gig on the 20th. Hope to see you there.

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo