The Smith Street Band - A Conversation With Billy Bragg About The Purpose Of Art

    

  Nothing's ever gonna kill me

  If I can play guitar and sing

  Ok, so I admit it was the title of today's song that lured me in, but what a great song it is so welcome to the blog to a band that I've seemingly unjustly not paid much attention to but who've just released their 6th album. 

  The Smith Street Band are from Melbourne, they play punk infused indie rock and the name of the new album is Life After Football. It's 11 tracks of well written, lyric heavy songs about life, headed up by a vocalist with a very fine voice. It's an album I can see myself getting plenty of repeat plays from, a gateway album for myself that'll lead to me digging into the band's back catalogue. You can find it here :  https://thesmithstreetband.bandcamp.com/album/life-after-football

  This is the opening track, if this doesn't make you want to hear more than nothing will. It's called A Conversation With Billy Bragg About The Purpose Of Art...

I don’t come here with solutions
I come to you with ideas
I don’t get no retribution
Can’t make the bad thoughts disappear
I want to make great art that doesn’t sell
Tell a couple of contemporaries to go to hell
I don’t know how to save the planet
But complaining doesn’t help

I don’t come here with an answer
Nor do I think that I can
I’m the parties over dancer
Just the cleaners and the band

I’m not trying to present a fiction
And tell you that it is fact
I don’t care who’s wares you’re pitching
I don’t give a fuck about all that
I was poured into this body
For just one important thing
Nothings ever gonna kill me
If I can play guitar and sing

I don’t come her with an answer
Nor do I think that’s my job
I’m the parties over dancer in the car park smoking bongs
I don’t come here with an answer
Nor do I think that I could
I’m the parties over dancer
Pulling shapes I don’t think I should

Sauna Youth - No Personal Space

 

  Sauna Youth return today with a song from their third album Deaths ( previous long players were Dreamlands (2012) and Distractions (2015) ). Based in London and featuring Richard Phoenix (drums/vocals), Jen Calleja (sampler/vocals), Lindsay Corstorphine (lead guitar) and Christopher Murphy (bass) they found it increasingly difficult to take time out from everyday life (plus several side projects) to concentrate on getting this final act in a loose trilogy written and recorded so they booked studio space 5 months in advance and left themselves no option but to crack on with things. The result is a triumph.

  Containing 12 tracks that touch on "political rhetoric, artistic legacy, action and passivity, work and leisure and of course distraction" the album is available from Upset! The Rhythm http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/ and is also a name your price download on Bandcamp : https://saunayouth.bandcamp.com/album/deaths

  Other band news is available on Facebook and includes details about a repress for their Distractions album and upcoming gigs with the likes of Hookworms and Uranium Club : https://www.facebook.com/SaunaYouth/

  The video for this song finishes pretty abruptly so I'd recomment also listening to the song on Bandcamp and letting it continue into the next track, The Patio (hell just listen to the full album!). This is No Personal Space....

Old roses, they litter the ground 
Below me, waiting for some 
Shade and action, looking for creative factions 

No personal space 
No personal space 
No personal space 
No personal trace 

New clothing, all the boys move around and 
Wear down the floor 
Gloss over, got leave all the inconsistencies 
At the door