I could hold your cigarette on Oxford Street

Ryan Adams - Karina

Ryan Adams is someone that tends to polarise people's opinions. Some think he is arrogant and overrated, others ridiculously talented - personally I think he's arrogant AND ridiculously talented...

I love the story (not sure if it's true) of a guy in the crowd at one of his concert shouting out Bryan Adams songs. The other Mr Adams promptly stopped the set and refused to carry on until the guy left - refunding him the entrance fee out of his own pocket on the spot.

Here is a song reputed to be written about Carina Round. Craftily Ryan has changed the first letter of the name of the person who is the subject of the song - but he doesn't fool me!

Ryan Adams and Carina Round toured together in the UK a few years ago and struck up a friendship. It is said that they wrote a song together, but it has yet to see the light of day. I'm not sure this track has been properly released anywhere either, but I could be wrong.

Carina Round on Ryan Adams: "I remember one line he said to me—-you probably had to be there, it was really personal—-he just said, ‘Don’t be a statue. For anyone. Don’t fit the mold of what they want you to be. You gotta be you, always.’ And that was the one part that stuck in my mind, and I think about that a lot. And that moment, to me, was the changing point of my life."

I wait all my life, just for the rush

MP3 - Carina Round - Into My Blood

Carina Round is a singer-songwriter from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, UK. However the term singer-songwriter doesn't really do her justice one bit. If you want to know more about her, then I suggest you read this interview.

You could say she is the new PJ Harvey/Patti Smith/etc etc, but in fact she has her own sound and her own voice. Passionate, soulful, intense and soothing in equal measure - that's Carina Round.

Earlier this year she signed to Interscope and is currently in LA beginning the recording of her third album, with the help of her band.

'Into My Blood' was the lead track of her fantastic second self-financed LP 'The Disconnection'.

So, when in a year or two everyone is raving about Carina Round - just remember where you heard her first.

Nameless Body Under Blackfriars Bridge

MP3 - Ikara Colt - Repetition
MP3 - Ikara Colt - Don't They Know

I once wrote a letter that was printed in the NME and signed it with the above Ikara Colt lyric. Pretentious...of course not.

Ikara Colt hail from London, but aren't anything to do with the whole Libertines/Babyshambles/Razorlight scene that is being drooled over by trendy media types at the moment. So far they've released two albums, a clutch of killer singles, been banned from the Reading Festival and the charts (for including stickers with their debut LP!).

Named after an imaginary horse or two kind of gun depending on who you believe, the band line up Paul Resende - Vocals, Claire Ingram - Guitar, Tracy Bellaries - Bass, Dom Young - Drums. Their 2 boy, 2 girl split makes them the Art Punk Abba.

Most reviews of the band can't seem to get past the fact that Resende sounds a bit like Mark E Smith. Whilst that criticism might have been valid after their first album 'Chat and Business', subsequent releases 'Basic Instructions' EP and 'Modern Apprentice have shown that the band have a lot more depth.

Angular is one of my favourite words to describe the kind of bands I like and it springs instantly to mind when listening to Ikara Colt. They deliver intelligent blasts of art punk without the over-produced gloss of bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Killers.

"We are twenty-first century; it's all about disposable information. That idea of wanting to have been around in another era is totally what we're against..." - Paul Resende.

Let a little bit of Art-Punk into your life.

Hello, Good Evening and Welcome

Well hello there and welcome to my MP3 blog. Let me introduce myself, my name is Phill and I can also be found writing over at Danger! High Postage.

Yes I know, there are a million MP3 blogs out there and this is just another one cluttering up cyberspace. But hopefully you will be able to find something different on here to what's on other sites.