Three Of A Kind #37

Computer geeks and music fans, rejoice! Today's Three Of A Kind is three songs about computers and codes.

The first band is even named in a coding-related way! MJ Hibbett & the Validators came up trumps with this wonderful paean to old home computing consoles (I still have my Spectrum ZX+2 in a cupboard downstairs), which was released as an internet single in 2000.

MJ Hibbett & the Validators - Hey Hey 16k mp3 (available for 7 days)

Listen to more at their myspace page and buy music and merchandise from their website.

The Hot Toddies are Heidi, Erin, Jessica and Sylvia from Oakland, California, and they've produced this slightly anachronistic-sounding doo-wop online love/hate story. www.wohwohwoh.com, indeed!

The Hot Toddies - HTML mp3 (available for 7 days)

Listen to more on their myspace page and you can also buy their album, Smell The Mitten, and merchandise from the shop there.

The final track comes courtesy of The Superfantastics and can be found on their Pop-Up Book album. It's a romantic song about love over ICQ, facebook and other internet fads. It's enough to warm the cockles of your cathode ray tubes!

The Superfantastics - The Only One I C++ Is U++ mp3 (available for 7 days)

You can hear more at their myspace page and buy music from their website.

And here's the excellent sing-a-long video for Hey Hey 16K:

"I sit at home and muse for a while"

The Superfantastics are guitarist Matt MacDonald and drummer Stephanie d'Entremont from Halifax, Nova Scotia and their name gives them a lot to live up to. Luckily, they rarely disappoint and their simple, melodic style is pleasingly versatile. When I first heard them, I couldn't quite believe that they were a duo - they sound far more fulsome than you would expect from just two people.

I've heard that they met whilst playing frisbee on the common. Stephanie mentioned that she wanted to learn the drums and thought that it would be easier if she had someone to play along with and Matt agreed to play guitar to assist - thus The Superfantastics were born. I would very much like this story to be true.

The best thing about this band is that they're so much fun to listen to. And what's more, they sound like they're having a damn good time too! Look at that picture and tell me that you wouldn't want to spend time with these people. Go on, I dare you!

Originally titled Theodore Tugboat, What Will You Do Now? after a popular children's cartoon character with his home in Halifax, the shortened-for-legal-reasons What Will You Do Now? is two minutes and eleven seconds of dynamic songwriting and performance. It's lean, punchy and memorable. I couldn't ask for more. (And have a listen to the guitar riff which kicks in about half way through. It bears a striking resemblance to The Comeback by Shout Out Louds, which I linked to in my previous entry. This is most definitely not a criticism!)

The Superfantastics - What Will You Do Now? mp3 (available for 7 days)

Oh How You Used To Know Me Well (Back Then) also doesn't outstay its welcome at a petite five seconds shy of two minutes. In fact I think it probably took me longer to type the title than it did to listen to the song! It's a country-tinged toe-tapper complete with some nifty whistling at the end. Lovely stuff!

The Superfantastics - Oh How You Used To Know Me Well (Back Then) mp3 (available for 7 days)

You can buy the album that came from, Pop-Up Book from The Superfantastics website (go on, it's a bargain!) and there are another couple of songs to download from their myspace page.

To finish off with, here's the super, fantastic video for Tonight Tonite.