Track Of The Week: Bombay Bicycle Club - Sixteen

It's Thursday, it's FA Cup Vinyl, it's track of the week.

Ok FA Cup Vinyl has another cracking track for you this week and we're jazzing it up a bit and going for something a bit more modern in comparison to our recent classic tracks of Oasis and Blur and are going for a Bombay Bicycle Club B-Side, too much aliteration there.

From their self-released EP 'The Boy I Used To Be', to us this is Bombay Bicycle Club when they were at their peak, that's not to say they're not still good, but they were playing and creating good indie music and their first album 'I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose' still remains one of our favourite albums of the noughties? Ergh noughties doesn't sound right. But yeah it's one of the best albums we heard around 2009 in a long time, but we're rambling as usual, we'll just let the music do the talking.

Bombay Bicycle Club - Sixteen

FA Cup Vinyl Reviews... England's Euro 2012 Performance

The picture sums it up really, dismay, dejection, disillusioned. What's that, Wimbledon's on?

Yes England fans, it's deja vu for the umpteenth time, England go out on penalties, again.

Just when you thought it was going to turn around and we were going to win Euro 2012 because of that team spirit they had, they go and make a complete h-ASH of it. (Get it? Because ASH-ley Young and ASH-ley Cole missed their penalties? Oh god we're surprised that isn't a headline from 'The Sun'.) (P.S. We also hope that no-one genuinely thought England were going to win purely because of team spirit).

Anyway in all seriousness, England probably deserved to lose against the Italians, we say probably, they did deserve to lose because they were simply the worst team, and because no-one closed down Pirlo! We were shouting it at our T.V screen every time he had space, but obviously they can't hear us in Ukraine from our living room. While it may be heartache for some, but to others like us who have grown up watching England lose to so and so on penalties, it's become an all too familiar. But let's focus on the positives.

6 weeks before the tournament had started, a certain Roy Hodgson was appointed not Harry Redknapp, who was the firm favourite by fans, journalists and even players. Many doubted the FA about the decision to appoint the former West Brom boss as the manager of the 'Three Lions' but even the sceptics out there (those miserable Roy Keane types) can't deny that England exceeded your expectations.

We started very well against a France side that were unbeaten before going into the tournament on a stupidly good run of games, we took the lead with Joleon Lescott before Samir Nasri equalised by in his words, 'deceiving' Joe Hart with a low aimed strike. Alright Samir you had a good shot it's not Die Hard. Yes we did just relate that to Die Hard.

Followed by a rather impressive showing by England against Sweden where we managed to go in front with a great set up by Gerrard followed by an even better header by Andy Carroll. oh and when we say impressive we mean we took the lead, conceded two soft goals by Mellberg, yes the dodgy former Aston Villa defender before actually managing to win inspired by a bizarre brilliant performance by Theo Walcott who scored a fantastic if not lucky goal and also assisted to a marvellous back heel by Danny Welbeck. 

I know we were shocked too. It gave us hope that every England fan has when we do alright, 'This isn't atrocious, oh we might do well!' then we'll lose to a team who have far less better players than us and then it's 'oh it happens every time, I told you we weren't going to do well.' C'mon you know you've said that at some point if you are England fan, FA Cup Vinyl even may have ushered those words themselves. May have.

But Ukraine was our final game, the co-hosts, we only needed to avoid defeat and we were through, so being typical England what happens when it comes down to the crunch... We win. Unexpected right? We delivered, didn't play well, but we got the result and that's what matters. Yes how intense. Plus the match marked a return for Wayne Rooney, who also bagged the winner, albiet one of the most easy tap in headers we've ever seen. Oh and this happened.

 See didn't cross the line... No England were lucky not to concede this as the match official who is stood on the end of the pitch to see if the ball crosses the line, didn't see it. WHAT IS THE POINT OF HIM BEING THERE THEN? *cough* Goal-line technology *cough*

Then we played the Italians in the quarter finals, well you know what happened. Surprisingly it managed to stay 0-0 for England over 120 minutes in a game of which they were dominated by Italy who had a number of chances to win the match but somehow failed to grasp any of them. Despite having a disallowed goal in the second half of extra time it was clear the Italians should have won the game, plus we would have never beaten Germany. Good luck Italy.

So overall FA Cup Vinyl think that it was a good performance from Roy's Boys and who knows with a bit of improvement and a bit more attacking mentality we might be able to beat a Germany or Spain one day. But until then, we'll have to celebrate defeating minnows like Andorra.

Let's hope the next major tournament we fare a bit better, that's of course if we qualify. 

What FA Cup Vinyl did today...

So today FA Cup Vinyl took a day trip to Leeds, one of the capitals of the North, apparently. Now while we like Leeds, we can't help but be annoyed by what we saw today, so being the amazing people we are (some would argue cynical), FA Cup Vinyl noted the top 5 things we hated seeing in Leeds.

1. The Christian lunatic that stands in the street with a microphone: Now we know every city may have one and we shouldn't discourage Leeds as the only city for having it, but seriously get a grip. Stop forcing religion down people's throats during their lunch break when all they want is a Starbucks, not to be told they will burn in hell. 

2. The Majority of girls between the age of 16-18: You are not in Made In Chelsea, so stop acting like you are, a stupid air head with a lot of money and spending it on pointless things... come to think of it. Oh and shopping in Jacks Wills does not make you a better person, in our eyes it makes you worse.

3. The Man wearing Yeezy 2's: JUST LOOK AT THEM, THEY'RE AWFUL! Also this man appeared to be wearing leggings, that means two things: 1) You're wearing Yeezy 2's, that means you're automatically a prat.  2) Leggings? You're male and they were brightly coloured blue, are you on drugs?

4. Those pretentious folks who sit inside Pret A Manger on their laptops thinking they're big shots: Enjoy filling out that online application for Monsoon, Mr. Big Shot. 

5. The clipboard woman who stopped us in the middle of the street to ask a few questions: We obliged because we're friendly and know it's a miserable job, she then proceeded to become annoyed with us because we were too young to fill in her survey and claimed we had lied deliberately to avoid taking part. 

So all in all, it's not really Leeds itself that annoyed FA Cup Vinyl, it was the people plus the weather was miserable whic didn't help, so the message you should take from our adventure is not don't go to Leeds, you should do it's a lovely city, it's not to end up as miserable bastards like us.

Track Of The Week: Oasis - Cast No Shadow

It maybe Friday but we missed Thursday's input anyway, you know the score by now it's Track Of The Week.

After last week being Blur, we thought to be all controversial and go for Oasis. I know, we're sooo rebellious. (We'll never do that 'sooo' again)

Anyway the Britpop battle begins, we had 'Chemical World' taken from Blur's second album 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' and now we have 'Cast No Shadow' from Oasis' second album which you should all be familiar with '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?'

Both are great albums, both are excellent bands and although the whole Britpop battle was mostly media hype and basically nothing, what we did learn from it all was that we had two brilliant British Bands.

With the band currently split with the Gallagher's doing different projects, Noel with his High Flying Birds and Liam and the rest in Beady Eye... Yeah don't bother with the latter, Oasis should be a band you all know too well, but you may have not listened to them in a while. Well FA Cup Vinyl is here to rekindle the love you had with the Mancunians with this absolute gem from (What's the Story) Morning Glory?'


Oasis - Cast No Shadow

Track Of The Week: Blur - Chemical World

Hello, once again we have to apologise for not updating the blog we've been pretty busy sorting out FA Cup Vinyl to make it better and watching the Euro's,  probably more of the latter really.

Anyway it's Thursday again, so after much consulting we've officially decided to make Thursday 'Track Of The Week Day'. You'd think it would make sense to post it on Monday, but you know we live life on the edge!

Swiftly moving on, this week's track is an old favourite of ours that we have recently rediscovered and has now made it into the various summer playlists that we've put so much effort in making on iTunes. Taken from Blur's second album 'Modern Life Is Rubbish', (which we might add is a very good album) is Chemical World.

This is a perfect time to be listening to Blur, with what the band reforming to play a special gig for the London Olympics in Hyde Park with other favourites New Order and The Specials as well as Bombay Bicycle Club. God we wish we were going to that.

The video of Chemical World is also worth a watch as well, so we'll speak no further, just click on the link below and thank us later.


Blur - Chemical World

Track Of The Week: XXYYXX - About You

Hello everyone, FA Cup Vinyl are back again. Sorry we've been pretty busy sorting out some matters, but after that 6 day period of nothing (which I'm sure you're all lost without us) we're back to business, starting with our new feature: Track Of The Week.

It may be something old or something new, but you know it's going to be good.

Kicking off the first week is a track that we simply can't stop listening to, XXYYXX's 'About You' and you can check it out below, which we suggest you do as the video is great and simple.

Please enjoy.

XXYYXX - About You

The XX's New Tracks

Now we're sure that you know that FA Cup Vinyl are a big fan of The XX, hence our earlier post about them a couple of days ago declaring them to be one of our favourite new bands. Well after the band recently playing some live gigs this year, those lucky people who went to see them were able to hear some of the new tracks, I know, how annoying. Well for those of you that haven't had chance to hear them yet, good old FA Cup Vinyl has found someone post them on YouTube for you all to listen to. They are all linked below, please enjoy.

The XX - Devotion

The XX - Strangers

The XX - Closer

The XX - Friction

The XX - Leave