BOTM October 2011 - RED DRAPES

Red Drapes are a four-piece from London, UK. Their melancholic sound and strong lyrical emphasis takes influence from post punk and new wave bands of the 80’s, The Smiths, Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen and The Cure.

Immersing themselves in the metropolis ideal of London, Red Drapes began to create melodious portraits of lovelorn places and their inhabitants. People, the self, and the romanticised notion of cities failing are all subject matters and lyrical stimulus.

Themes of isolation, banality, unhappiness can be felt and a dystopian and somewhat nihilistic view of modern life is documented and encapsulated in their songs.

Their debut was a five-track EP called 'Ep.1', produced by Laurie Latham (Echo & The Bunnymen). This immediately caught the attention of German label Humming Records who released the European version in February 2011.

The band have finally released their debut album called 'Suffer In Silence' (Artwork by Jing Lu) and you can buy it in their UK merch store: http://reddrapes.bigcartel.com/.

**Plus: 'False Alarm' reached the Top 100 in the category BEST TRACKS OF 2010 of Kool Rock Radio's Annual Report.

Roger Daltrey: 'Contemporary Music Lacks Lead Singers'

Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, says there aren't many contemporary singers who could "lead" a band.

Speaking to the Associated Press, the veteran frontman said: "A lot of the new people they choose on shows like American Idol and things like that - I don't ever hear lead singers. They always seem to pick people that are great singers, fabulous singers, but they've never got the voice that makes a great lead singer." 

He went on to name drop some of music's best singers: "You hear ten seconds of Rod Stewart, you know it's Rod Stewart," he said. "Ten-seconds of Mick Jagger, that's Mick Jagger."

Daltrey's tour wraps up in the United States on Oct. 25 in Seattle, Wash. He'll visit Canada for five dates after.

Alex Turner: Arctic Monkeys Is a 'Bad' Name For a Band

Arctic Monkeys frontman has admitted his band’s name isn’t the best, and has laid the blame squarely at the door of his bandmate Jamie Cook.

“I’ve no idea where it came from” he told. “It was Jamie’s fault, he came up with it and he’s never even told us why. If he even knows, he’s keeping it a secret from me. This is the first band I’ve been in. A lot of people in bands have a few goes at it before they find the one that works but with us, we all started playing guitar and everything at the same time.”

“There might have been other ideas for offshoots at the time, but the Monkeys was the first one. It sound like a first band name, doesn’t it? It’s so bad that the tribute bands don’t sound worse. I saw there’s an Aertex Monkeys, that’s pretty clever.”