wheresrhys

We’re often told that London is a very green city (by which I mean leafy, rather than environmentally friendly), and it is definitely one of its better features. In Amsterdam there are far fewer parks, and these are absolutely rammed on a hot day such as today. Whereas in London it’s easy to find a quiet spot to sit and read, here next to the Vondelpark the best I’ve achieved recently is a damp patch where wet dogs bothered me, and a spot beneath a tree weirdly covered in spider webs… which later revealed themselves to be colonies of caterpillars – COMPLETELY covering the tree (no exaggeration – it took a while to realise it wasn’t a prank involving lots of halloween fake cobweb), several of which had fallen and squirmed around in the grass next to me.

Which is why I’m indoors writing a blog post as opposed to soaking up the rays,  though it is on a subject which desperately needs sharing with the world.

When I was 17, after the fall of Britpop and the rise of Girl Power (OK Computer not only was a great fin-de-siecle album, it was also a great death knell for good, mainstream British music), I was forced to abandon the charts in search of better aural fodder. At this time I discovered some great bands whom I still love – The Delgados, Grandaddy, Mogwai, The Beta Band – but a possible standout was The Crocketts. They played angsty cowboy punk and, perhaps more importantly, they were from Wales (sort of), were Skinny and Wirey and nobody else had ever heard of them. They were my band. A painful moment for me was when I heard they were playing live in my hometown for the first time… about a week and a half after I left for uni.

A couple of albums later they disappeared… but I discovered yesterday that the Drummer and lead singer are  back (have been for about three years) as The Crimea. A very different sound to The Crocketts – less angst, more passion; less punk, more soulful – but a great band nonetheless. Reminiscent of Arcade Fire. And they offer their latest album for free on their website so by all means repay the favour and go and see them live as they’re supposedly breathtaking. I know I will be.

So, as I sit here contemplating if the time is yet right to retry the caterpillar and bikini infested park, I am happily listening to the return of a great band.

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Tags: caterpillars, dogs, end of britpop, The Crimea, The Crocketts, vondelpark

This entry was posted on Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Computers and all that, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.