NEWS
Blog Post: The Egg Test And Ultrasound's Next Show At The Macbeth!
21st July 2011
Artist Profile »

A few years ago my friend Josh was about to boil an egg when a song came on the radio. It was The Cardigans. He had never heard them before but within the first few bars he knew he was hooked. ‘I know’, he thought, as he placed his egg in the frothing water. ‘When the song finishes I’ll take the egg out and if it’s perfectly cooked I’ll have scientific proof that this is the perfect pop song.’ Sure enough the song finished, Josh removed the egg and eureka it was a perfectly cooked egg – just the right consistency between runny and hard and all the proof Josh needed to be convinced he had discovered the perfect pop song.

Obviously, there is a flaw in this ‘eggsperiment’ (ho ho) because any pop song that lasts 3 minutes 29 seconds will create a perfectly cooked egg. Maybe other food could be used to get round this: pop and eggs, rock and bacon, indie and mashed potato etc). Anyway, I digress. The reason to mention Josh and his egg is that last week at the Bull and Gate, Ultrasound played some new songs during their sold-out 2-night residency. One new song was about three and a half minutes long and told a story about keeping some fires burning ‘til they got home, and it was as beautiful as anything written by Gram Parsons and I was totally arrested, so much so that I wanted to reach for an egg…

Once in a while it happens – every three to four years? You hear a song and you know within the first few seconds that you are going to love it. And as it reveals itself, you love it more and more. The bridge is better than the verse. That leads tantalisingly to a chorus. But it’s the middle eight that should be the pinnacle in any perfect pop song… If it’s a bad middle eight, it doesn’t count and it doesn’t matter how good the rest of the song is. Then bizarrely, frustratingly, as soon as the song finishes the whole thing escapes, leaving you desperate to hear it again (if melody sticks too easily then the song’s too chocolate-box catchy and also doesn’t count).

Because the Ultrasound song is new, it’s not been recorded so I can’t get it online and, like all unrequited love, I shall love it even more. I will now have to wait until their next show at The Macbeth on Wed 31st August to hear it again (tickets available here – plug plug). In the meantime, trying to remember how it went will be like chasing a bee… I suppose I should say something about how not getting what you want is a good thing in this age of instant gratification, which is probably true. But without wanting to make a ban pun I’d rather just say (without any scientific proof) that the song was truly eggsellent…

Here's what's coming up this week at the Bull & Gate and Buffalo Bar...

Mr Pointy.

MORE NEWS