On the Demise of a Band I Liked

Sunday evening I learned a band I liked had broken up.

The band is Aerials Up. Unsurprisingly, they’re from Scotland. When I wrote about Aerials Up originally, I wrote that “there’s a certain similarity to Arcade Fire in the sound of Aerials Up; there’s a similar instrumentation, a similar mixture of male and female voices. But I also hear a certain Barenaked Ladies influence on tracks like the ‘Stay Awake’ single or the ‘I AM’ demo, the sardonic quality that BNL brings to their work that can’t help but bring a smile to the face.”

The song that stands out is “All Your Mother’s Daughters,” which is the song that, to me, sounds very Arcade Fire-ish:

The official “I Am” video, from their penultimate single:

Yesterday, the publicity person for Not Another Happy Ending, a romantic comedy film starring Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan that will film in Glasgow this summer, wanted to know on Twitter what kind of music should be in the soundtrack. I would have suggested Aerials Up, were it not for their break-up. Instead, I suggested The Scottish Enlightenment.

Not Another Happy Ending is being crowd-funded, by the way. Yes, I’ve made a contribution toward the making of this film. How could I not? 😆

Enough about that, however.

It’s sad and disappointing as someone who liked what I heard of their music that Aerials Up is no more. However, I know that, for the band, it’s a thousand times, a million times worse. This was their dream, and there’s nothing more tragic than the death of a dream.

I will treasure the Superglue EP forever. I was apparently the first person in North America to order one (physical copy, that is) from the band. 🙂

The band’s music is still up on iTunes. There’s not much of it, just six songs across an EP and two singles, but it’s very good and lots of fun.

I liked it. I’ll remember it. And I wish the talented musicians of Aerials Up all the best in their future endeavors. :h2g2:

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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