"I Prefer Their Old Stuff"

As a consumer of a wide variety of music styles and genres, the concept of a “favourite band”, like the concept of favourite song or album, can seem a bit irrelevant and hard to answer, but unlike the previous two, for this category I already had a band in mind when I first saw the list.

I have expressed my love for the post-rock genre before on these pages and the band I’m choosing here have not only become my favourite post-rock artist but I think for the last couple of years they have become my favourite band, that band is God Is An Astronaut from County Wicklow in Ireland. I have to choose these guys as they are one of the few bands that I will always make the effort to go and see play live (if they’re playing locally, I’m not a total fanboy!) and will make the effort to be near the front, bollocks to those hipsters that say people over 35 should stay at the back. I have seen them each year since 2008 (twice last year) and they never disappoint, although it’s a shame that they no longer have their projection screen up at gigs showing visuals, I always thought this added an extra element to their shows (the video below is the sort of thing they would have projected at the back of the stage).

I used to be evangelical about bands I was currently into, telling whoever would listen about them. Over the years I have stopped doing this, only because I got a little tired of the effort to explain (“post/math/psych-rock/metal/core? what the hell is that?”), the blank responses and “who? oh yeah, maybe I’ll check them out sometime”. So I was thrilled when I found out that after including them in one of my past end-of-year lists, my nephew had also become a fan and got hold of everything they’d recorded. Perhaps, subconsciously, that’s why I started this blog, so I could evangelise without the blank looks and thinly disguised disinterest and also to hopefully reach other people and get bands I like more fans!

Unlike the other categories that insist on one specific tune that satisfies the criteria, this one allows a bit more free reign. Although I could now be faced with a dilemma of choice, which track off one of their five albums should I choose? But looking at the play-counts in iTunes there was one track that had twice the amount of plays as any other, so I guess I ought to pick that one. That track is “The End of the Beginning”;

Sod it, they’re so good I’m choosing another song as well! “Zodiac”, another favourite;