songs i'm sent: sportsday megaphone

ready for a surprise? i'm totally into this new british one man band! like, i never saw that one coming either.

londoner hugh frost is the mastermind of sportsday megaphone and self-described purveyor of "elaborate karaoke," a concept he describes with, well, this (he also uses lots of vocoders & walkie talkies during live shows). frost recently sent me the the two songs that are on his june 16 7" release, LA, and though this is only sportsday megaphone's second release, he is planning for the future (and how). his debut so many colours / so little time is due out in august on rob da bank's sunday best label, but he's already slated to play bestival (not surprising) and zoo thousand festivals, in addition to a couple dates around england with i was a cub scout. the songs (grab both below without delay) are more hopped-up than many of frost's one man band colleagues, and his lyrics are quite vitriolic. "LA" is a furious anti-scientology diatribe, written while frost was (appropriately) living in los angeles and an observer of the church's two-faced policies, the chorus punctuated by the declaration "you can go outside / and you can fucking die!" ( in an interview with this is fake diy, frost elaborates on "LA"'s meaning and impetus. he also takes a potshot at americans... jackass.) LA's b-side, "young lust," is a little more par for the course, electro-pop wise. a slightly vulgar song about uncontrollable teenage sex, "young lust" overflows with twee cheekiness, and offsets "LA"'s anger evenly.

i like both of these songs a lot.

"LA" & "young lust"

fun fact: one of sportsday megaphone's last.fm tags is "yay."

songs i'm sent: from LA SCALA

songs i'm sent will now be a semi-often feature about songs that appear in my inbox. the feature's full name is: songs i'm sent that are okay, probably kinda catchy, but not really deserving of the kind of thought and energy that goes into a full album review, but more than just an awesome song day! because they probably have more than one good song, so it's gonna be real informative and light on the opinion. you can figure out for yourself why i'm going with songs i'm sent.


alright, let's get this party started. the band with the honor of deflowering my latest inspirational brainwave is la scala, a chicago band that plays music that has nothing to do with their namesake. a pretty decent mix of post-punk, continental gutter pop, and shoegaze-worthy guitar lines, the harlequin, la scala's debut ep, has just been released on hometown highwheel records. in my ever-growing list of people whose names i wish i had (you'll remember the last two were finbar mallon and slim moon) is la scala's frontman, balthazar de ley. ley spent his formative years shuttling between paris and illinois, and it shows. inspired by both french crime fiction and street busquers, ley's lyrics are 3 minute neo-gothic dumas novels accompanied by soaring, off-kilter waltzes. of the five songs on the harlequin, which was produced by brian deck, "parallel lives" is the clear hit, a dance number with soaring guitar, but every song is pretty effing catchy. actually, i pretty highly recommend this.

"parallel lives" & "the harlequin"

buy the harlequin from highwheel records.