THE ORWELLS DIRTY SHEETS [VIDEO]

I wouldn't have expected anything less from The Orwells to be honest with you. The last video I saw from them, for 'Who Needs You' – as epic and show-tastic as it was – does not really compare to this one. This, the video for 'Dirty Sheets' – the band's latest song, which seems to be catching the most attention out of all of them yet – is as apt for the song as butter is for toast. It just GOES. In fact, it goes off. Just like a lot of clothes slipping from a woman's body...

Whilst I'm being half-perverted here, I am half-only using what the video has shown me. Yes. It's a striptease. But a striptease shot in the gloriously drab colours and quality of yesteryear, giving this a real 70s-home-video aesthetic, with the girl having a real raven-haired lithe pin-up appeal about her. And, with The Orwells summoning the ghosts of punks past – The Misfits, The Ramones, etc. – in their music, especially in this glam-fi rockabilly scorcher of a song that documents the blossoming of grotty and tongue-in-cheek punk romance, it makes sense that the video should be just as old-school, just as punk, and just as tongue-in-cheek (the way the nipples are covered by those funny little love-hearts at the end, for instance).

There may be people out there who'd brand this with a NSFW tag but I'd just say DO watch it at work. BE PUNK. DON'T do that report. FORGET to go in on Monday. TITILLATE yourself at work. Also: how much does the girl in the video look like Katy Perry? IS it Katy Perry? I wonder. Probably not. Anyway, it was directed by Eddie O'Keefe, an auteur whose claim to fame – aside from arranging this lovely video, amongst others – is that he "gave Bill Murray a beer at a celebrity golf outing when he was six years old." Kudos.

In other news: you can grab The Orwells' Other Voices EP, released earlier this year, by clicking round about here.

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THE ORWELLS DIRTY SHEETS

Oh The Orwells. The Orwells The Orwells The Orwells. Say it 3x whilst facing a (specifically) bathroom mirror at 3am and see what happens. Well, not to ruin the surprise - cause you WILL be surprised - but what happens is the band fall through your mirror and start trashing the place. So unless you wanna trash stuff with them, I'd recommend quelling your desire to summon The Orwells into your bathroom. But The Orwells are not just things to be summoned through your mirror. They got shit to do as well. They can't be everywhere at once.

And nowadays they're especially busy. Since I first heard about them courtesy of the UK's own Parma Violets, they've been getting busier and busier. They released two EPs this year, the latter release being the Who Needs You EP which includes the eponymous hit single itself. They were even kind enough to have an interview with me. But I expect they're gonna get a whole lot busier; they've recently signed to Atlantic Records and will be releasing a new single on 13th January 2014. That's this song, 'Dirty Sheets'.

Cutting in abruptly with wailing screeches of lead guitar, it's a big sound from the offset. The drums crash cataclysmically, sounding gloriously raw in their swinging rhythm, followed by stabs of guitar chords in the verse. Rough vocals with a rippling echo start with the line: "From the East Coast to the West, we ain't the worst, we ain't the best" - A pre-emptive reply to any detractors, yet at the same time, wonderfully grand with a self-deprecating slur of mediocrity tacked onto it. The drawl of the vocals paint a definitively gritty picture of punk romance. There is a hint of glam to this, perhaps in the theatrical dynamics of the song, or maybe I'm mistaking it for the rockabilly judder of the drums and that general wiggle-to-this vibe. It's a going-places song. If you know what I mean, cool; if you don't, well, sorry.

So that's 'Dirty Sheets' for you. I expect that this means another full length album from The Orwells next year, too; in any case they've announced some UK tour dates for February 2014. I heartily recommend seeing them live if you can, cause, well, it's a crazy show - I can confirm that the energy levels are through the roof.

In other news, you can now download their Other Voices EP for free from their official site.

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RADKEY ROMANCE DAWN

I stumbled across this song a while ago and was struck more by the references in the title than anything else. Being a part-time One Piece (it's a manga about pirates) fan, you'd have looked up to find out, or already known, that Romance Dawn is the sort of proto-One Piece; it was short-lived but it grew into what is now like one of the most popular mangas ever ever. Isn't that fun? So anyway, I was quite surprised when I saw that this song by Radkey was called 'Romance Dawn' - but then I, as I so often do, forgot about it and continued surfin' the web. (That's still an expression, right?)

But I heard it on the radio the other night and was enjoying it rather a lot - without knowing it was Radkey. Then strangely I decided to look up the song again today. Long damn story short, I re-found the song and am sitting here right now writing about it.

Anyway. Whatever, right? Whatever indeed. So we continue. Read on. Radkey is or are a trio (brothers, in fact, but not triplets) from Missouri, USA, who play punk rock music. They sure do. But there's a lotta different types of punk out there: combine the word with any other genre and you have a different type every time - punk rock, punk pop, electro punk, thrash punk - so what's different about Radkey's stuff?

Well, with a distinctive voice - something like lip-curling rockabilly crossed with black-metal glam projected theatrics - the vocals lead an easy-to-chant-to galloper of a song. I don't use this epithet very much, but I'd say it's pretty "high-octane" - energy explodes out of this one. Thick guitars chomp through riffs of varying tempo, especially in the full throttle drum-spasms just before the break where the gutsy bass takes the spotlight, and a driving guitar solo noodles around towards the end - all very energetic.

The intro to the song sounds like something an aggressive biker might hear in his head in his first few seconds of waking up. It's also one heck of a build up. The drums rollick around before galloping into the verse, before the crashing chorus which is complete with some almost-obligatory "Hey-hey!"s sung by the backing vocals. There's something a bit Offspring about this - you know what I mean? Only a bit. It's different, of course, but it's nice to hear familiarity too.

This comes from Radkey's upcoming Devil Fruit (another One Piece reference) EP, out 14th October.

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