Yesterday I was driving back from Walsall, it was a beautiful sunny day and I was heading south down the M42 when I remembered that I had thrown a Mojo cover mount CD onto the iPod and hadn't listened to it yet. It was a Black Keys compilation called brotherhood and it's actually a well put together piece. One track blew me away though. A band called Royal Bangs (nothing to do with Kate and Wills from what I can gather) and the track is a masterpiece called My Car Is Haunted. And I listened to it again and again and again and well then some more...
I loved the thrill of finding something new and exciting that I wasn't expecting. It's a dirty, aggressive, noisy track, it's got nothing to remind me of an ex lover, nor anything that makes me think of the past, it just reminds me of how exciting the future of music could be if we let bands like these flourish and grow organically. The last time I experienced this was watching Phoenix supporting The Killers in Las Vegas back in 2009, but there on the M42 the excitement hit me again.
Last night (being old school) I've ordered both their albums and I am sitting here like a kid waiting for christmas. I'm not using the internet to gather too much info (I've asked Matt in the office to set them up on Gigseen) as I don't want to spoil the event of sticking the CD on, I'm going back to the days when you'd buy an album and experience it first hand, the sense of adventure and the knowledge that it was a musical lottery rolling out in front of you. Will I like the albums? I don't know, but I do know that I am more excited about the delivery of Royal Bangs Albums than I have been about any album for a long time. Why? because I have no idea what to expect. I am for the first time in a long time falling in love with a band by knowing very little about them. Sometimes too much info dampens the idea of a band. Like when a video tells a different story than the one you had in your head.
I've got Spotify, but even then it feels wrong, I want to give this band a few hours of my time unhindered on a good stereo and soak up the event that they've created for my pleasure and I really am hoping I fall in love with them. But more importantly I really wish this feeling happened more often. I love the sense of adventure and the opportunity to discover something new in an old way, just by relying on the music. Because at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.
edit: One of the Gigseen team has just informed me they are playing at Sheperds Bush Empire on Monday Night (16.05.11). I'll be there...so should you!