It’s vacation time already? Awesome! Time to kick back, relax, and…oh, wait, I forgot: this is only a part-time writing gig, and I still have to keep doing my full-time writing gig. Oh, well, at least this means I get a bit of a break from going completely insane on Monday afternoons as I try to finish up my column on time (and inevitably fail miserably at it).
Our commander in chief, Mr. Giles, has told me on several occasions that I shouldn’t feel bad about skipping a week here and there with “Hooks ‘N’ You,” since he knows how much I have to do for Bullz-Eye. Thing is, I enjoy writing this column for the same reason all of us here at Popdose offer our contributions to the site: not because we have to, but because we want to. It’s one big ol’ labor of love, folks. Plus, really, where else on the ‘net could I have the flexibility to write a column that spotlights albums ranging from George Burns to Kylie Minogue?
What it’s also given me, however, is the opportunity to have conversations with several of the artists whose records have provided me with a lot of great spins over the years. I realize that the beauty of having a regular column on a website is that people can just click on the appropriate tag and pull up every single one of your previous works, but when I looked back myself, I realized that A) I’ve talked to a lot of great artists since kicking off this column in January ‘08, and B) even *I* got bored clicking through a year’s worth of columns. So for your easy access, here’s a quick list of the folks who were kind enough to talk with me either by phone or E-mail for “Hooks ‘N’ You” in 2008:
If there’s anything more deadly to a band’s career in the States than being pegged (however briefly) as the next big thing in the British press, it’s having a bit of a dodgy name. This problem was particularly bad for the band Dodgy, but given how politically correct America likes to think it is, you can imagine how well they responded to a group who called themselves Dogs Die In Hot Cars. (And, yet, it could’ve been so much worse: the band’s bassist, Lee Worrall, assured Designer Magazine that “you really don’t want to hear the suggestions we came up with before that, but the one that sticks out is Robert Plant in Poo Poo Land.”) Despite their decidedly non-PETA-friendly moniker, however, Dogs Die in Hot Cars – henceforth to be referred to as DDIHC – still managed to earn a certain amount of buzz in the U.S., with MTV2 picking up the video for their song “I Love You ‘Cause I Have To.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly enough. The band and their fine debut, Please Describe Yourself, soon disappeared into the same abyss which houses 95% of the Britpop artists who’ve managed to eke out a Stateside release, but if you were one of those who dared to investigate the record, then you know already what a great piece of pop it is.
It’s vacation time already? Awesome! Time to kick back, relax, and…oh, wait, I forgot: this is only a part-time writing gig, and I still have to keep doing my full-time writing gig. Oh, well, at least this means I get a bit of a break from going completely insane on Monday afternoons as I try to finish up my column on time (and inevitably fail miserably at it).