It's the fella from Kenickie!   You know, the drummer with the shades!  Er yes, indeed!  Actually, Johnny X, as he was known in those days, was clearly never happy being just the drummer and live shows often saw him turn into mad axeman Johnny X, hamming it up like a cross between Pete Townsend and Porky Pig.  And now he's gone solo!  But it's actually a reasonably good effort.  Five tracks of lo-fi melodic keyboards, samplings and acoustic guitar with all sorts of little effects over the top.  None are poor though the last track overstretches his guitar skills a bit but in 'greg toland' there's a catchy little cutey that has you nodding your head like a wibbling fool. Johnny X is dead, long live J Xaverre!  Or something!

GENE Is it Over? EP

What is it with Gene and their masochistic predeliction for releasing singles which invite the unkind to have a pop?   Not long after releasing a track called "As good as it gets?" and finding themselves labeless they release a track called "Is it Over?".  Why don't they just issue one called "Look I've drawn a big target on my arse, give it a good hoof!".  90% of the music press hate Gene, partly because of the accusations of thieving too much inspiration from Mozzer and partly because in the early days Martin Rossiter was a bit of a twat.  However, twat or not, the tunes keep on coming and this EP will not disappoint Gene fans.  'Is it over?' and 'Supermarket Bombscare' are both delicate little flowers with doleful Rozzer vocals over soft acoustics.  They then turn into Ocean Colour Scene for some cod-soul instrumental 'Little Diamond' which is not the small gem it claims to be.  However, back they roar, oh alright, wimper, with yet another invite to be mocked "Who said this was the end?" which is nice, slow and not unlike the first two tracks.

THE BETA BAND Human Being

The band namedropped in High Fidelity release another one of their quirky, plodding, slightly irritating oh look it fades in oh look it fades out, now it's gone a bit feedbacky and now it's stopped, efforts.     

SUM*41 Fat Lip

Yet another spikey-topped bunch of spotty faced kids have gone mega-huga States side, dooood. It's a predictable mix of Beasties/Offspring and whilst it's not actually awful it's not so much spitting in the face of authority as refusing to wear a vest in the winter.   And the acne riddled oiks are probably millionaires by now.  

ZERO 7 In the Waiting Line

Taken from the Mercury nominated album 'Summer Things' this is a plodding, slightly jazzy electronica affair with repetative crap lyrics.

EMBRACE  Make it Last

Practically every Embrace single has irritated the hell out of me due to their use tuneless vocals over the top of a football chant chorus.  This one is marginally less annoying than most of their others but still pretty damn f... oh don't get me started.

ASH Candy

The slow orchestral one from the brilliant album.  Ok so the tune is basically pilfered from "Make it easy on Yourself" by the Walker Brothers but so what, Wheeler's added some tip top pop lyrics so it's fine by me.

ANDREW WK Party Hard

The NME recently dedicated 6 pages, including 2 covers, to this hairy rock monster from Michigan and reading their fawning scriptures you'd assume this man was right up there with The Strokes and White Stripes in brilliantly re-visiting the styles of the cult heroes of the past.  Don't be fooled, whilst the latter pair plunder the works of the Velvets, Stooges and Led Zep for inspriration, Mr WK has combined the best of ahem Ted Nugent with erm the Vengaboys.   Yes, this is thumping hard rock with a ludicriously cheesy eurobeat bunged on top.   A few years ago NME were lauding ROMO.  Nuff said.

WEEZER Islands in the Sun

One of the few moments of frivolity on their last dark album, this is a jaunty, summery slice of pop pie.  The video's worth a viewing too as Weezer gamely cuddle chimps, lions, bears, panthers and killer butterflies just to show that there really is a gentle side to all of us.  

APPLIANCE Land, Sea and Air

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, some new wavers bored by guitars, thrilled by the electronic music of  Kraftwerk and harbouring a penchant for wearing black clothes and dodgy eye make-up decided to launch their own genre of music. It was called Futurism and some of it was quite innovative and catchy. Some of it however was downright pants with simple electronic bleeps accompanied by flat monotonous vocals. I was glad to see the back of the latter.  So.... taxi for Mr Appliance!

Reviews by Mawders