I very much get the impression they want to be famous, which I would have felt all superior about not too long ago. Now I just think ‘ah, bless…’ and probably neither reaction is really appropriate.
I’m not sure how they will feel about me labelling them stadium rock (probably don’t give a rat’s arse) but it’s that singalong mindset I get from listening to them, although there is a ferocious element to it too – ferocious fun. They are clearly enjoying themselves. Listen to Rocket and tell me you can’t picture a stadium full of lighters and hoarse voices singing along in celebration. Go on, I dare you. I’m also telling you that there isn’t a single stadium rock band out there who wouldn’t have gladly sold their mother in return for that song. If they tell you otherwise, they are lying.
However, that’s not why I want to do a post about them. I mean, this blog is supposed to be more about bands you’ve never heard of, plus my occasional posts linking music to that elephant in the room that no one ever talks about. So what gives?
What gives is how I heard them.
I read a review of their most recent album, Do Not Engage one day and flagged it up for future listening, despite the fact that some of the reference points used in that review are bands that I think are vastly overrated. Now, when I flag up something for future listening, that future is not an easily definable thing. It could be tomorrow; it might be next year. Bear this in mind if you ever get the urge to recommend me something.
Some weeks later, I had a dream. Actually, I have dreams quite often, but this particular one is pertinent here: I am going to some sort of social function in Shepshed with a work colleague, although it is not a work social do. The venue is much like upstairs at a village hall, wooden floors, tatty walls, bland tables and plastic chairs ranged around the side of the room. I say hello to some friends of mine, and then me and my colleague decide to go and sit somewhere. There is some amazing music going on, and the DJ is in the corner of the room with 2 decks on one of these tables, so I head over to talk to him and find out who the music is. Oh, and by the way, the DJ is John Peel. In typical dream logic, he replies that he has no idea who the music is, but agrees with me how brilliant it is. I hear a couple of songs before the dream goes off into something else and becomes no longer relevant to this particular story.
A couple of weeks after that, I actually get round to playing Do Not Engage. As soon as it starts playing I’m getting a strange feeling that I know this band, even though I don’t know them. It genuinely feels a bit uncanny. And then this song comes on:
I know without any doubt that this song is the exact song I was listening to in that dream, the first song anyway. I also know without the tiniest doubt that I had not heard it before in the ‘real’ world. I also know that there is no way on this Earth or any other realm that I would be able to convince anyone who didn’t believe me, although that concerns me not, since I have to live my life based on my experience, otherwise it wouldn’t be my life.
I mentioned a second song? The second song was this:
So that is why I love this band so much, despite them not being like much else I listen to these days (I would have loved them about 20 years ago, however). A lot of people like particular bands and/or songs because it reminds them of particular times in their life. I like this band cos they were in a crazy dream I had (of which there was a lot more that I’m not going to tell you), and there aren’t many, actually, there aren’t any bands who have come to me like this before.
Soundbergs 