Terrible breakfast of shit, Mumford & Sons, want us to listen to them talking about their next album. As if it wasn’t enough that we had to endure their beige, tepid, tuneless, flaccid music in the first instance. And don’t say ‘Don’t like it, don’t listen’ because they’re bloody played EVERYWHERE, ALL THE STUPID TIME.

Anyway, they’ve got some new, awful material to release. You’re probably wondering what it sounds like.

Well, according to the self imposed trampery that makes up the band, the new album will sound like “Black Sabbath meets Nick Drake”. Forgive us while we puncture the vital, thick veins that run down our necks, now.

Of course, there’ll be fans out there desperate to defend Mumford & Sons. They’ll probably point out that they went to a gig which they thought was incredible. That’s just conjecture though because your opinion counts for shit.

Or, perhaps fans would like to point out that ‘Sigh No More’ has sold a squillion units! It’s just been certified platinum in the US and four times platinum in the UK! Yep. Popularity equals quality doesn’t it. That means we can assume that Mumford & Sons fans are ready and willing to fight the corner of LMFAO and Black Eyed Peas.

Maybe, just maybe, you think they’re really talented because they write their own music. Never mind the fact that 99% of Motown records weren’t written by the artist that sang them and that scum like Bruno Mars writes his own stuff. No, writing your own music is definitely advantageous to someone listening to a record, right?

Where were we?

Oh yes, speaking to Rolling Stone about their second studio album, bassist Ted Dwane said:

“The second record is just a reflection of our mindsets, where we’re all at. It’s doom folk, kind of like Black Sabbath meets Nick Drake.”

Doom folk. Nick Drake meets Sabbath. That was said without a hint of irony. Mumford & Sons actually believe they can aim toward either outfit. That’s because they’re spectacular, chinless goons in bad suits.

2012 is the year the LP comes out and, with any luck, humans will have evolved into complete deafness by that point.

According to various reports, Bert Jansch has died. He may not have been hugely famous, but this is sad news all the same… and we’re going to tell you why.

Jansch was a titan of the folk scene who inspired many artists ranging from Led Zeppelin to Blur’s Graham Coxon to The Smiths’ Johnny Marr. He’s arguably one of the finest guitarists the world ever saw, mercifully eschewing awful axe-wielding and 30 minute guitar solos.

The legendary Scot has suffering from lung cancer for a good number of years now and it would appear that he’s finally succumbed to the disease (although, everyone is awaiting confirmation of his death, thereby potentially making us all look a bit stupid with these pre-emptive tributes). Either way, this is a perfectly good time to look at some of his best music.

Jansch – a founding member of ace folk combo Pentangle – has recently cancelled shows, with a statement on his official site saying he was “unwell” and set to spend “at least” one week in hospital.

With Pentangle, Jansch made a comeback to the live arena, teaming up with long friend/enemy Jon Renbourn. Jansch also co-headlined a US tour with Neil Young.

Bert’s work influenced many, with Paul Simon, Bernard Butler, Nick Drake, Donovan and Devendra Banhart all citing him as an influenced, as well as the aforementioned.

And so, let us look at some of his work, and stop this cloying business at once.

Bert, you’ll be missed.

**UPDATE** Reports confirmed. Bert Jansch RIP.

Travelling Song

Black Waterside

Moonshine

Light Flight

It Don’t Bother Me (With Johnny Marr)

Lucky Thirteen

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!

Liam Gallagher, a man who facially resembles a cross between a Dickensian henchman and a brain damaged howler monkey, is well known for holding certain controversial views on the world around him. He’s the kind of gent that, if he were punch a GPS satellite out of the sky for ‘looking at him funny’, most people wouldn’t be 100% surprised.

Now, the former front brother of Oasis has decided to launch into a fashion crusade in an effort to clean up the image of some of music’s biggest stars. The bowl-cut-toting funster’s love of the finer fashions have often seen comparisons drawn between him and some of the most flamboyant characters in modern celebrity and fashion.

Who can forget that parka that he wore at Glastonbury 1996, T in the Park 1998, V Festival 2005, Knebworth well, actually… pretty much every live show that Oasis have done**. Still, it had a nice furry hood and was very practical in the winter, according to his mummykins.

Seemingly hoping to reignite some sort of North-South music rivalry with one of the biggest indie bands of the last two years, Gallagher has slated the style of ‘folk’ band Mumford and Sons.

“They look like f****** Amish people…”

Gallagher, who has clearly never seen an Amish person, was speaking in an interview with The Sun newspaper. Of course, the Oasis moaner is never short of a ridiculous pejorative and went on to say:

“You know, them ones with the big sides that don’t use electricity? Growing their own food and putting barns up…I need music to be a bit more sexy and played by people who look a bit f****** dangerous.”

We’re no experts but there are many hazards which are inherent in both farming and construction. Have you ever been to a building site? It’s full of signs telling you how dangerous things are. What about growing food? I doubt anyone who has ever had their hand passed through a wheat thresher would try to tell you that farming is a safe occupation.

Oh, hang on. He doesn’t mean dangerous in the sense of hazards to health. He means the Beady Eye sense of ‘dangerous’. C’mon. You know the one. The people that love Oasis and Kasabian and throw their arms around as though they’re plants desperately trying to drag themselves up towards the sun by swaying back and forth. The sun in this case being the one that Liam seems to believe shines out of his rectum.

Still not with us on the danger thing? He means idiots in parkas and Adidas gazelles that have haircuts that look as though they’re an experiment designed to prove the effects of gravitational pull and are liable to glass anyone who looks at them for too long for being a ‘f**king ponce’. Yeah- those guys. Liam’s guys.

**hecklerspray would like to point out that we couldn’t care less if Oasis ever actually played these festivals on these dates.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Folk music has been taking a bit of a kicking of late with bands and artists claiming folkiness by virtue of the fact they bought themselves an acoustic guitar and couldn’t find someone to drum for them.

And so, the circle jerk of self-confessional, mewing horsepiss continues as acts open their hearts to the listener with imagined woes and vague interested in Olde World topics such as hangmen and infanticide, when really, they’d rather be listening to the awful Florence And The Machine or something.

However, some folkies get it just right, channelling the ghosts of music past and recreating that echoing eeriness of mountain music without trying to sound like a revivalist act. One such group are Arborea who have two impressive LPs to their name already, and here we are, faced with their third, ‘Red Planet’.

Previous outings, the eponymous release and the seriously good ‘Wayfaring Summer’, have seen Arborea creating the kind of music that has the chilling stillness of a murderous road movie coupled with the yearning, sexual tension of fables or yore.

While they are a very modern band with sensibilities drawn from a whole host of relatively recent outfits, this outfit feel like they’re a hundred years old, resonating down the wind while you find yourself stood under the Joshua Tree staring at that big ol’ sky. There’s a sense of this music finding you, rather than you finding it, which makes for an unusual set-up when that sense of feeling a little lost in the wilderness creeps up on you when listening, especially in songs such ‘Black Is The Colour’ and ‘Wolves’.

Yet this isn’t the work of someone indebted too heavily to The Carter Family or some Appalachian mountain choir. While Arborea may well share that other-worldliness that makes certain folk and country records so appealing, there’s something else in the mix… something cinematic.

The title track, ‘Red Planet’ and closer ‘A Little Time’ feel like Boards of Canada – unplugged, while ‘Careless Love’ is most definitely a twilight sex-scene from some forest dwelling b-movie about witchcraft. There’s a sense that this is a band that want to invite you to a place you won’t find on any map with songs that have huge amounts of space in them… great chasms of open sky that could be filled by countless instrumentation, but cannily, it’s what isn’t there that makes Arborea’s work so enchanting.

Singer Shanti’s voice filled the canvas with delicate falsettos or, when needed, a low murmur that will certainly send the wandering stranger to his death in some remote place, all the while, sitting beneath you’ll find sparse banjo or plucked guitar, coloured with bottlenecks and harmoniums which hold back and use just the right notes with an almost Kraftwerk-esque precision and efficiency.

It appears that, while most bands find album three the trickiest to approach, Arborea have once again created a document that invites us into their strange world of white magic, hallucinogenic sex and whispered secrets. This really is a wonderful LP and one that deserves as wide an audience as possible.

If we gave marks out of five, this would get a six.

You can still catch the band on the last leg of their European tour before they head-off to their cabins in North America and ‘Red Planet’ is available to buy now.

Wed 22nd – Edinburgh, Forest Hall
Thurs 23rd – Aberdeen, The Tunnels
Fri 24th – Glasgow, Wellington Church Hall

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Bob Dylan is 70 years old today. That’s quite impressive for a man who has sounded, and looked 70 years old since 1962. Really. He owns a voice that sounds older than coal. He’ll be having his little birthday party today, with his little party hat on and cake shaped like a racing car, surrounded by whooping chums while he sits glumly in the middle of it all.

We wouldn’t want him to enjoy himself too much now, would we?

Of course, Grumpy Bob is just one of the many characters he’s made for himself over the years. He’s been Electric Bob, Folkie Bob, Born Again Christian Bob, Gypsy Bob and, unbelievably, for a brief moment, Rapper Bob. So who is he these days?

We all know that Bobby Zimmerman is one of the most drily sarcastic pop stars we’ve ever had. He’s prone to giving evasive answers in interviews and generally taking the Michael out of anyone who tries to penetrate his psyche, which of course, every simpleton Dylanite tries to do on a daily basis.

His biggest prank is that everyone believed him to be a sincere artist, despite the fact he clearly created characters for himself like Bowie.

“All I can do is be me, whoever that is.”

He started off as a Mini Woodie Guthrie, with his little cap, harmonica and battered guitar. Pretty much everyone bought it, although friends of his note that he was very quick to turn himself into a folk singer, stealing everyone’s records when he went ’round their houses. He passed of the hobo minstrel thing and somehow, quite bafflingly for a man with such an uncommercial voice, became a superstar.

A generation of stoners and wastrels kinda liked what he was saying, despite not being able to work out what it was he was actually getting at, and decided to have him as their king. He was the voice of their generation, even though you suspect that Dylan didn’t exactly know what it was he was saying at all. Lest we forget, he was but a kid and still trying to work himself out at this point.

And of course, he enjoyed the trappings that came with fame and got his fair share of women and drugs – which isn’t exactly the life of a poet minstrel. Not that Dylan would care.

Then, it was obvious that Dylan tired of hanging around with worthy folkies and plugged-in. He decided to play “fuckin’ loud”, which prompted Aran sweater wearing trad.arrseholes to cry all over their socialist pamphlets as Dylan started to make ‘pop music’.

Of course, Dylan wasn’t making pop music. Listen to the frenetic lyrics of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, it isn’t exactly a ‘Boy Meets Girl’ song is it? The charts were still dominated by ballads and paeans to being lovelorn, while Dylan was singing from his nostrils and at times, seemingly reading from a bunch of cryptic crossword clues.

And for those that stuck by Dylan through the electric years, they’d have to hold tight as the singer went about dropping more masks to reveal more characters. Country Gent Bob appeared briefly, completely changing the way he sang for tracks like ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and his duet with Johnny Cash. He somehow mixed Folk Bob, Electric Bob and Country Gent Bob for the Desire LP.

All the while, never revealing himself – something that a supposed protest singer is supposed to do. Dylan may have stuck his neck out creatively, but he always had more creations to fall back on and, perhaps, hide behind.

Eventually, this paved the way for Born Again Dylan and… well… Bad 80s Dylan. That’s right, Bad 80s RAPPING Dylan, who appeared on Kurtis Blow’s LP, providing his nasal twang atop a clunking drum machine. As awful as it sounds, you can’t knock him for trying to push himself in new directions, but this writer suspects that he’s probably did it to annoy his fans.

See, the only constant thing in Dylan’s career is his willingness to grate those that love him. It seems that he’s determined not only to challenge his devotees, but to kill his previous incarnation so comprehensively that followers will actually turn on him.

It’s actually impressive how little regard he has for the people who buy his records. With each Dylan Death comes a rebirth and now, on his 70th birthday, we hope he’s planning on killing Croaky Olde Timey Bob and rebirthing himself all over again.

But to what? Dubstep Bob? Heavy Metal Bob? GaGa Pop Bob? No-one knows. No-one ever successfully second-guessed Dylan because he’s too obtuse. But while his chums chew cake and pop corks around him today, we can only hope that he’s hatching some dastardly scheme where he ends up irritating everyone with a sleight of hand so sneaky that we barely notice that he’s spelled out “I Hate You All” with a skywriter. When he releases a new album, we turn to it, not noticing the huge billboard he’s erected behind us all which features Dylan showing us all his arse.

It’s brilliant.

All that is left to do is to wish a miserable birthday to the biggest liar of them all and to imagine a world where he covers Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’, just to really grind everyone’s gears…

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Pretentiousness is something into which you have to throw yourself. Give into entirely. Not pretentiousness as in the arch cynical theatrics of someone who has simply studied how the eccentric behave, but true commitment to an ostentatious display of self-belief.

And at Sufjan Stevens’ gig, we were treated to a soundtrack to the apocalypse, songs about the inner body and outer space, and a lesson on how sound is more important than language. During one of many such talks, Stevens explains how noise is the more potent form of communication, used by the screaming baby fresh from the womb, but how language becomes dominant as you grow up.

As you read this, it probably reads like cod-philosophical gubbins but like a psychedelic experience it all made sense at the time. And unlike the meanderings of an acid-fried mind, it all makes sense afterwards as well. Why? Because we saw theory become application.

Dressed in a pair of angel’s wings he opens with Seven Swans playing the acoustic parts of the original version before enormous controlled sound bursts forth from the players. Most of tonight’s  performance is based around his Age of Adz album; a collection which many feared would be his Metal Machine Music (respected performer experiments with sound at the expense of what everybody loves about them), but it was closer to his Kid A (artist(s) simply interpret their vision with different sounds). With 11 people on stage painted in Day-Glo surrounded by 3-dimensional image, it’s more akin to watching an orchestra in a planetarium than a band.

He wisely broke up the intensity of their interpretations of the long and complex album tracks with simple acoustic folk songs (including a sublime cover of REM’s The One I Love), like breaks on a road (space) trip. The album tracks are presented visually throughout; during Vesuvius, for instance, the band appeared to be consumed in a burning hell. Before they played Get Real Get Right, Sufjan told us all about Louisiana artist Royal Robertson. It’s a fascinating story in its own right but the purpose is to provide some context for the themes of the album in general and the song specifically. Robertson’s work is then animated for the backdrop.

The main set, like the album, finishes with the 25 minute Impossible Soul. A 25 minute song? This idea would ordinarily fill us with horror, but it is essentially five songs, with changes in tempo, costumes and the stage-set itself.

Before the start of the night we had been desperately hoping he might at some point play something from his 2005 masterpiece Illinois. By the time the band came on de-costumed (thereby providing a deliberate separation from the main set) and played three songs from it, we were already satisfied, making it a welcome over- indulgence. The evening was one of most atmospheric, uplifting and engaging performances we have ever seen- a treat for fans, but, importantly, accessible if you are unfamiliar with, or undecided on him.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Samuel Beam has been making records under the Iron & Wine moniker since 2002, specialising in lo-fi, hushed, folksy acoustic storytelling, but 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog’s full band and upbeat tempos opened a new chapter.

It was difficult to categorise (if indeed you desire the ordered world of categorisation) and took sounds from different places musically and geographically. Its skill wasn’t in its courage for plucking ideas from far-flung corners but in the casualness with which it carried it out.

It doesn’t scream its influences in your face, Albarn-like. Instead it found the thread that runs through folk music regardless of its origin. You might spot calypso, west African, or dub if you listened out for it but you’d probably just hear infectious songs sung with a gentle lilt.

Iron & Wine stopped off  in Manchester as part of their tour to support fourth album Kiss Each Other Clean. The bearded Beam was surrounded by seven musicians for an evening of re-arranged songs culled from all four albums and more besides.   .

The arrangements were intricate and songs flowed into each other beautifully. It’s exciting to watch a band make such complex material look so effortless. What isn’t quite so exciting is watching a band having a jam, which is what the performance lapsed into on a few occasions. And then there’s the saxophone. It worked when it was just one part of many, but even then it dominated.

Now it’s difficult for hecklerspray to have perspective on this issue. The evil of saxophone ran rife in the eighties ruining otherwise good ballads left, right and centre, all in the name of injecting ‘class’. Since then we wince when one is blown (‘one’ being a saxophone, not ‘one’ as in the Queen’s English first person singular, although we suppose technique is a contributing factor in both cases).

It’s hard to fault the songs chosen and Beam’s material, when concise, was warm and his voice was ethereal but strong. The band, when they were slightly reined in, added an uplifting quality to the old material and did justice to the new.

Refreshing also for a band to play for so long and then do a simple one-song encore rather than the modern-day standard of manipulatively leaving three of the biggest hits for the end. An enjoyable night, just one where on accasion there was bit of distance between performers and audience.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Music has a special place in the hearts of the writers of hecklerspray. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to block out the shriek from protesting nut job fans outside our office. Some of us are even externally employed by naïve club promoters to spin vinyl discs and cause disco inferno via booty shaking antics.

There are other things we like including free alcohol, solid chocolate Twix’s, being ushered to the front of a queue due to our awesome status and our football team winning.

Sometimes we can only admire the qualities of other people such as their dashing looks or ability to draw. Pat Dam Smyth sees us showing an awful lot of bromance as we marvel at his tremendous wares. That’s pretty much makes our lives complete, music and awesome facial hair. Seem we’re easily pleased.

Before we begin, we are going to dispel the myth that Pat Dam Smyth is just another one of those singer/songwriter types. Did we just say singer/songwriter? Indeed we did, but fear not dear reader, he isn’t the sort to proclaim he stopped World War III like James Blunt, use his status to tell us naughty meat eaters off like Paul McCartney does or act like an all round dick, a la Pete Doherty.

The beauty of Pat Dam Smyth is that he lets the music speak for himself. These days it’s a rarity for an artist to not become swept in the PR hype and believe all the bollocks that’s been written about them. Few keep their minds focused on the music and seem to believe that a starring on the cover of NME will be another to boost their career.

Not since Duke Special have we had such warm praise for an Irish act. Okay, Pat Dem Smyth may have Greek heritage flowing through his veins, but we’re not going to gripe over that small fact. Now whilst we are already singing his praises, people who really know what they’re talking about are also speaking highly of Pat Dam Smyth.

You may well be familiar with the works of Mick Jones and Paul Weller – well, these two have already had Smyth accompany them on vocal duties.

Listening to tracks by him, we can’t help but feel that these songs have been reluctantly released for our pleasure. They have an almost personal and unique meaning and message attached to them. Sometimes, singing about topics so close to home can be a hindrance, but a perfect balance has been found.

They are the sort of songs that could be performed in the back of a dingy club or in archaic surroundings of a traditional pub whilst the rain batters at the windows.

With an album due in early December, we have been given special permission to let you listen to the album, The Great Divide in its entirety. Not because anyone anticipates a leak, but you may as well try before you fork over the petty amount of £6.

You can’t even get three pints for that, especially if you’re one of those London types.

Feel good folk with a rock n roll edge? We’ll have some of that please. To listen to the album in its entirety without annoying adverts like on Spotify, click here: http://patricksmyth.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-divide

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Sixties and seventies revivalism is, for the most part, such an ugly thing. As fun as the Super Furry Animals are, you have to endure the insufferable Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and Kula Shaker (and, clearly, this requires a reviewer to be stuck in some ’90s mindset… don’t worry, it gets better).

Of late though, there’s been a batch of bands seeping through the cracks to bring that authentic ’60s sound and, most importantly, a degree of playfulness that made the best of the ’60s so much fun to listen to.

No-one wants a po-faced axeman chopping out endless 12 bar blues. The best revivalists get stuck into the dressing up box and mess with every dial in the studio to create kaleidoscopic toytown symphonies… and Colorama are stuck in this wonderful world of make-believe.The musical heartbeat behind Colorama is the obscenely talented Carwyn Ellis who has cut his chops with a number of established musicians like Edwyn Collins, Shane MacGowan and the aforementioned Gallagher brothers, however, it’s when he’s in his Colorama cloak that we get to see what he’s really capable of.

Along with bands like The Junipers, The Maladies of Bellafontaine, The Postmarks and the sadly defunct Beep Seals, Colorama is pushing for the other-wordly playtime of British psychedelia. When Brian Wilson hears all these bands, he’ll know that all those nervous breakdowns were worth it.

After a fistful of ace releases, Colorama finally get ’round to releasing a proper full-length album. There’s a lot to live up to as well, as anyone who heard early single ‘Sound’ will testify (which, coupled with the b-side, showed someone appallingly fully-formed).

And this new record won’t dent the reputation of Colorama at all.

It switches between achingly lovely music-box folk to fun popsike, as well as making time for some moody, fairytale-dark numbers that paint all manner of images in that brain of yours. It really is a very, very good piece of work.

Title track ‘Box’ and single ‘Candy Street’ are unashamedly cheery, which between them crib notes from Pepperland era Beatles, Harry Nilsson, Teenage Fanclub at their most Byrdsy while songs like ‘Autumnal’ and ‘Mynydd Hud (Magic Mountain’) have the echoes of Meic Stevens and the pleasing weariness of Ray Davies.

As the nights draw in and get darker and colder, Colorama’s ‘Box’ is the album that will simultaneously soundtrack eerie night-walks and give you a shot of sunshine right in the arm.

For fans of the ’60s underground, there’s a lot to love about this album and, for everyone else, this LP is teaming with great hooks, ear-worm melodies and enough in the layers to keep you intrigued for a good while yet. Sure, this is an album steeped in an era long gone, but it has enough about it to maintain a relevance in 2010.

You need this album. Hibernating never sounded more fun than this.

Hear a preview of the album here.

Colorama ‘Box’ is release 1st November on See Monkey Do Monkey Recordings.

It is strange that more bands and musicians haven’t embraced the internet to make interesting videos. Even the most average song can be livened up by a quirky video (hello there Weezer!). And pop-folkie Lissie is doing exactly that with a track that tells you the weather in your home town.

Lissie Maurus’ new song ‘Cuckoo’ is a typical singer-songwritery thing and not likely to blow your brains out. However, this new video of hers is a cute enough little gimmick to pique your interest.

If you watch the video, after telling it where you live, you’ll either see her and her band playing in lovely sunshine, or maybe a grey windy day… or one filled with rain. It depends where you’re watching it from.

The video changes according to live weather conditions and viewers zoom in on a city or area on an interactive Google world map with the video backdrop changing according to current local conditions.

Obviously, you could just look out of your window, but that’s not as fun.

If you pick a different location, the song continues while a mustachioed weatherman gives you a new forecast.

The American folk rock singer and her band shot the “Cuckoo” video against five different backgrounds to cover all their weather bases. The song comes from Maurus’ full-length debut album “Catching a Tiger,” which was released in June.

Watch it at http://www.lissie.com/weather/

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Remember José González? Yeah, he’s the guy who soundtracked all those coloured balls falling down that hill in that TV commercial. Well, him and his lovely voice are back with his new band Junip. Well. We say ‘new’, they’re actually his old band as they were formed in the late ’90s… but chances are, you haven’t heard of them before.

Junip is González on guitar along with drummer Elias Araya and organ/moog player Tobias Winterkorn. They’ve done a mini tour of the States in June and has been playing the European festival circuit all summer.

Now they’ve got a record out one Mute/City Slang and will be touring North America… and you can have a listen below.

If you visit Junip’s new website, there’s videos and things to look at and listen to… www.junip.net. Better still is that, there, you can download the group’s Rope & Summit EP for free.

That’s nice isn’t it?

If you want to suck it and see, you can stream the new single, “Always,” from the band’s new record, Fields, which is released on September 14, 2010.

To hear, “Always,” click HERE

If you live in North America, then here’s some tour dates to read:

November

1 Philadelphia, PA World Café
2 Boston, MA Royale Nightclub
4 Montreal, QUE Belmont
5 Toronto, ONT Lee’s
6 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
7 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center
10 Seattle, WA Neumos
11 Vancouver, BC Venue
12 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
13 San Francisco, CA The Independent
14 Los Angeles, CA Music Box At The Henry Fonda
16 Phoenix, AZ Rhythm Room
18 Austin, TX Mohawk
19 Houston, TX Fitzgeralds
20 Baton Rouge, LA Spanish Moon
21 Atlanta, GA The Earl
22 Carrboro, NC Cats Cradle
23 Washington, DC Black Cat
24 New York, NY Irving Plaza

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Apparently, the most recognised instrument in modern day music is the guitar. Anyone can pick it up and have a strum, though most people produce better sounds then the ones we belt out. But never mind, we aren’t overly jealous and we’re quite content with our homemade tambourine.

Some people also say that the human voice is something that can make or break a song; depending on how well the vocal sounds, it can add that little bit extra to the track. Once again, singing is not ranked highly on our list of talents – but when the karaoke bug bites, just watch hecklerspray go.

One person we’ve found who has all the musical skills that we wish to possess is the solo artist Rivulets. Using just his trusty guitar, he is yet again one of the artists making music that is sadly being ignored by everyone. Maybe there’s something naff about guitar music at the moment.

To be fair, it is literally dominating everything in the charts. Crap boy bands use a few guitar licks to swoon the ladies, soft indie boys try and become rock 'n' roll to impress anyone they can and everyone just sees a decent guitar chord as the best thing to stick in a song. Frankly, it’s a bit tedious and boring.

There are a few bright solo artists doing their own thing including: Bright Eyes, Duke Special and Newton Faulkner. Granted, not all of those artists are to our liking but they are producing music that has more passion and feeling stitched in to it than your usual desperate chart-topping twerp.

Rivulets is another one, and to be honest we don’t know much about him or his background. His Myspace literally has four songs, a tour date and a link to a website. Even a link to his website doesn’t prove much help to finding out the background and identity to this man. Though we can at least guess he doesn’t have a fan base consisting of childish girls who leave him five/six comments a day saying: “omg I love you, please come and tour near me again soon”. In many ways like our wonderful comment-leavers here at hecklerspray.

But then again, do we really need another prolific singer whose every move is documented? Sometimes our fascination with an artist usually means they’ll end up making a crap album due to the pressure placed upon their shoulders. For once, maybe it would be nice to see a successful artist who isn’t constantly hassled by the media. But because Rivulets is making such incredible music, this may be hard to stop.

Interestingly, the songs on his Myspace player are quite dated, with songs from 2002 listed, up until 2006 releases. Whilst your usual pop-suck-music can sound dated after a few years (or weeks, or days), these songs are still sounding new and fresh. Take the song Waited For You: released in 2004, the gorgeous plucking of guitar just sounds mesmerising. Producers of crap American college am-drams would love this song, perfect for when a love struck couple have a blazing row, only to see the bloke out of the relationship wait outside his woman's house with cheap flowers as he tries to win her back. He'll probably fail, as he's not a nice person, but still – at least the music will fit.

It's obviously something of a bonus that the remaining three songs are as equally beautiful. If you love acoustic chilled music, we know Rivulets is the artist for you. With a discography going back to 2002 and containing many albums and EPs, this talented individual has yet to play a bum note in his quest for musical stardom.

For more:

Rivulets Myspace