What can excite us bored consumers of alternative music? We ‘The have it all generation’ who are used to the slip of our finger on a silent screen. The click, listen, download rock n roll. These days there is no record shop with a smart arse shop owner saying , ‘the first albums their best, deleted years ago, no one’s got it anymore, it’s rare , really rare, impossible to find.’ No one has sleeve notes to read on the bus ride back to the suburbs, no one will ever scrutinise the vinyl and wonder ‘ who is this mystical porky prime cuts?’
Headphone grooving then instantly forget the song until you hear it again several days later on some random mix mode. My little sister has 4000 downloads you know, she’s a real music fan, oh no she don’t go see no live band in a sweaty dark place oh nooo not that.
Oh to go back to the halcyon days of music journalists like Lester Bangs, Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray. Whose words, only words mind! Would make you search out that single or album and play it to death. But hey no retro thinking I hear you say, get past it and get to it loser. What are you trying to entice me with? This better not be no purchasing pitch because I want my music free yeah!
Karen don’t play modern shiny stuff. Karen is a band that hope they have some heart and soul. Karen is a band that have an album called ‘Glimpsing the sun from the ocean floor’ coming out soon. Karen would love you to listen to it in its entirety whilst sat on a bean bag between two very large speakers with the volume right up. Karen have released one single called Ocean. The second single is called The Estuary.
If none of this didn’t make any sense you don’t need to worry and if some of it did, hooray!