Music
I'm a quite keen music fan and regularly try and attend gigs by local bands. In fact this his become difficult since moving to Edinburgh as the quality is quite a lot lower than that of the Leeds Music Scene. I don't intend to list every band that I'm into; however, I would like to draw your attention to several. If you know of any decent bands in Edinburgh (similar to those below) let me know.
Itch
Itch are currently my favourite band. I've just(27/02/05) got their latest album. I had heard some of the tracks off a pre-album sampler and absolutely loved it. I've waited over 6 months for this album. It's the first time I've been excited about an album for a long time and it doesn't dissapoint.
How to describe Itch? Hmm. Rock. That narrows it down then. Stop/start rythms. Shouted and sung vocals. Songs that start out as one thing then turn around and slap you in the face. In fact, I reckon a lesser band would turn each of their songs into several mediocre numbers. Needless to say they are ace.
I first came across Itch one Friday night. I was down the Fenton with the lads when everybody kind of strarted to drift off. It was still about 7:30 and I was not quite ready to slope off home for an evening infront of the tele. I decided to walk up to the Packhorse to see if any bands were playing (I don't mind seeing bands on my own. Most of my mates aren't really into going to gigs, so I'm used to it). Anyhow, Itch were playing and they blew me away. I grabbed one of their sampler CDs and, when I listened to it the next day, it blew me further away.
This is their website: http://www.thebanditch.co.uk/
The Nervous Shakedown
Okay. So The Nervous Shakedown are my mate's band. This means I'm biased towards them. This also means that when I say "They're awesome", I might not be speaking quite so objectively as the next person. All I can say is, "Trust me, they are good" and listen to some of their mp3's (which you'll, handily, find below). They are a dirty blues rock band and are quite a slap in the face to alot of the student art rock currently doing the rounds.
Here's some mp3's by t'Shakedown.
3 Minutes
9 Years And The Devil
Machine Gun Tougue
Slow Dive
And here's their website: http://www.nervousshakedown.co.uk/
Dead Fly Buchowski
Dead Fly Buchowski are the first decent band I've seen in Edinburgh. Again, they are blues rock (I can see some sort of pattern arising here). They've just released a single (02/05) called Blackout. It's good.