God is in the TV

Well, it's Friday, innit ?

On the way up to T in the Park, ChrisC introduced me to a word game he'd heard on Phil Jupitus' breakfast show. It's dead simple:

Run together the name of a band and a TV show to create a new multimedia experience. The best example he could remember from the radio was TISWAS Not Was.

My inaugural effort was Coldplayschool. Later, I worked up to Eminemmerdale, Going For Goldfrapp, 24 Non Blondes and Lord Rockingham's XI O'clock News. A joint effort by ChrisC and me remains one of my favourites - The The Late Late Show.

Anybody want to join in ?

Incidentally, a few rules:

No "losing" inconvenient letters, like a trailing 's'. You can't combine the Thompson Twins and Twin Peaks to make Thompson Twin Peaks.

No sandwiching bands and programs together. They should be strictly band-TV or TV-band. Sadly, this rules out the otherwise marvellous System of a Countdown.

Dance, dance, dance to this radio-hoe-down tonight

It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

( You what? )

Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

The Broken Family Band - Honest Man's Blues

(This is a legitimate download from the band's own site.)

I first heard of the Broken Family Band a couple of years ago when, if I recall correctly, j4 rated them quite highly in her Glastonbury Festival write-up. I vaguely logged the name as one to keep half an ear out for, and promptly forgot.

Fast forward around 18 months, and I get given a home-made tape which contains a rather lovely track called Devil In The Details. Some prodding of the tape-maker reveals that this song is, in fact, The Broken Family Band.

Which is the point at which I finally cottoned on that The Broken Family Band are (whisper it) actually a straight-up country band. Their lyrics might be a little more full of twisty cynicism than is normal, but they're country. To the extent that their singing style makes you think they have southern American accents, even though they blatantly don't. And are from Cambridge.

The only album I'm familiar with is Welcome Home, Loser (off which the above track comes). I like it a lot. It's got soulful ballads, proper stompin' tunes, some very pretty guitars and the occasional funky bassline. And not that many of the tracks have banjos on. Promise.

There are a handful more downloads available on the band's website. Plus lots of dates of upcoming shows. (I'm going to see them tonight, and my plan had been to do this post a few weeks back, thus giving any impressed people a chance to join me. Sadly, the concert outwitted me by selling out extremely quickly.)