11 APRIL 2015 – TURN UP THE VOLUME Published First Ever Post 10 Years Ago Today
11 April 2025
After writing 2 years for former American indie blog 53rd & 3rd (named
after a Ramones song) I (Jean-Luc) started my own blog (never been a good
team player), and named it TURN UP THE VOLUME.
As a (Belgian) music junkie for the whole of my life (I’m much older than Justin Bieber and much younger than Keith Richards) I wanted and still want to write about my never-ending passion, in my own way.
No pedantic journalistic analyses. Just writing about music from the heart, the soul, the belly and the ears about all noizz – old and new – that made/makes my hair in my neck stand up, on record and live.
Over the years more and more daily followers/visitors, artists, PR agencies
and record labels found their way to TUTV which motivated me to write
more and more and, eventually, spending (still do) almost all of my free
time on the blog.
The blog views kept on growing and growing. 2024 was an absolute record year with 128.449 views (41% from America, 30% from the UK, 8,50´% from Canada, 3.60% from Germany, 3.50% from France, 3.30% from Australia, 2.40% from Italy, 2.30% from Ireland, 2.25% from Belgium and 3.15% rest of the world).
Big thank-you-very-much to big league artists, such as Johnny Marr, Kristin Hersh and
Throwing Muses, The Dandy Warhols, Manic Street Preachers, Therapy, Mercury Rev, Blur‘s guitarist Graham Coxon, The Waterboys, Afghan Whigs, Fontaines D.C., and the late great Mark Lanegan, whose social media interaction over the years with TUTV, to come this far. Most important thing: the huge attention that stars attracted/attract to the blog, benefited/benefits the exposure for the indie underdogs I love the most to write about.
Oops, I almost forgot to thank my fantastic family who always supported me throughout and didn’t/don’t mind that I had/have my earphones on, and hit my PC keyboard for about 4/5 hours a day and dived/dive into the night to see live action. Love, all my love.
Below, my very first post, 10 years ago today.
A live review of Philly‘s indie rockers The Districts
(Jeez, what an awful section banner that was).
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11 April 2015
THE DISTRICTS – Botanique Club, Brussels – April 9, 2015
Ladies and gentlemen, from Philadelphia… The Districts. That was exactly the feeling I had after the show: ‘hello world, listen to this awesome teenage four-piece’. After hearing the euphoric (awesome bass intro) single ‘4th And Roebling’ I searched the internet for these four American youngsters en learned about their thrilling 2012 debut EP which they recorded while still at school. Last February they released their debut album ‘A Flourish And A Spoil‘.
An impressive big bang. The first three tracks (the aforementioned single, ‘Peaches’ and ‘Chlorine‘) are outstanding. Epic, melodic power rock, grunge punches, passionate vocals and towering choruses. Mind you, the album is an overall debut success but if you never heard about this gang check 1-2-3 first. Last Thursday in our city of Brussels The Districts’ huge compositions became exploding fireworks. Sublime!
The club was packed with ‘we already know this band and we love them‘ audience.
Several people even sang along word by word. An emotional frontman Rob Grote was charmingly moved by the big reception, furthermore that this was their first date of their first European tour. They will grow and will be huge. Trust me. Therefore the good news for me is that I will see them again in two weeks in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Hell yeah ! In the meantime let’s enjoy this emotional & soulful live rendition of ‘Chlorine’ on Seattle radio.
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Thank you guys.
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