Very sad to hear about Jimmy Saville’s death over the weekend. On the plus side though it meant hits to MBBTYB went through the roof thanks to THIS post. Maybe I should just try to predict the next celebrity death to try and drive my numbers up?
Coming up later this week has exclusive guest posts from Roy Chubby Brown and Jim Davidson. We can only hope….
Anyway, if you’re in London this week, here’s my pick of the gigs:
The Heartbreaks @ The Bull & Gate
Young Galaxy / Air Castles / M+A @ Lexington
Thursday
Duologue @ Electrowerkz
Visions Of Tress / Plant Plants @ CAMP
Wild Combination @ The Old Queens Head NEVER MIND THE BANGERS @ THE BARFLY
(Free Entry, Ollie Russian DJ set 10.30-2am)
This week I was really hoping to get a special guest posting from John Terry. Unfortunately he left me a rather slurry voicemail at about 4am this morning** saying:
‘… Who the fuck are you? Why do you keep calling me? I’ve checked your blog, it’s shit. Why would I do anything for it anyway? I don’t even like music and I hate your blog. Aesthetically I really hate the design of it, especially the background colour. Why don’t you ask some f****** b**** c*** instead?…’
I asked David Blunkett but he wasn’t available either. Gutted.
Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Lets just enjoy some tunes by The Black Keys, Their new single is fucking ace:
And as it’s a friday how about a couple of banging remixes? I’ve heard that apparently these are a certain footballers favourite tunes for when he’s getting sucked off down on the dancefloor at Faces:
**It may not have actually been John Terry, it probably wasn’t if I’m honest. Actually is wasn’t. JOHN TERRY IS NOT A RACIALIST OK!? He’s just a very naughty boy.
Today I am going to talk about 2 (yes, two) bands that I should have mentioned a while ago but didn’t. I was too busy applying to be a contestent on Bargain Hunt. I wish I was joking.
Sunless 97 have a strange name. I remember the summer of ’97 and I definitely got a suntan at some point. I think I may have touch a girls boobs as well but that is a different story. It’s probably some cool hip literary reference that I just don’t get. Anyway, Sunless 97 are made up of Alice, Ed, Matthew and Kwes (Yup, that Kwes, signed to Warp records) and they all live in London. They’ll be releasing their debut EP ‘Making Waves’ via Abeano on 21st November. That’s all I know, I should have probably asked their PR chap for more info but to be honest I’m not bothered about the other details I just like their music: Sunless 97 – Illuminations
A lot of people have been talking about Deaf Club recently, if you’re not deaf yourself maybe you’d have heard people mention them. Anyway the band are based in London, or maybe Wales, I don’t know which but I think they sound rather lovely and I really enjoyed their show.
So I spent the weekend up at SWN Festival in Cardiff and had a brilliant time. I managed to catch some excellent bands and Cardiff is a really nice city, I was pleasantly suprised. Did you know that in Wales they have their own language and everything but they still have shops like Tesco and Spar and Waitrose and Topshop and Urban Outfitters and Greggs. AND they even use the same money as us. I much prefered it to Belgium.
I shall probably write about some of my fav band’s from SWN later in the week, in the meantime here is what’s on in London town over the next week:
Real Fur @ Servants Jazz Quarters
Warm Brains @ The Barfly
Battlekat @ White Heat, Madcame Jo Jo’s
Wednesday
Charli XCX @ Islington Metalworks
Ben Howard / Lucy Rose @ Scala
Sound Of Guns / Fractures @ Hoxton B&K
Laura Marling @ Central Hall WU LYF @ Shpeherds Bush Empire
Thursday
Battkekat @ The Lexington
The Chevin / Maz Totteridge @ The Bull & Gate
Theme Park / Purity Ring @ Old Blue Last
Wildswim are a bunch of 19 year old er, young people, from Oxford. Their tender age is sickening, even more so when you find out they’ve been playing in a band together for 5 years, however, most importantly they’re actually really bloody good.
‘Another Day’ isn’t the sound of 19 year olds fucking about in a garage with Encore guitars, it has a depth to it and an otherworldly strangeness that lesser bands rarely get close to. Oxford has a habit of producing bands that like to step away from the norm, whether that be Radiohead, Foals or any of the current Blessing Force crew, now Wildswim seem next in line to carry it on. The other tune available on t’internet is ‘The Fallout’ which is a very strange beast. A big operatic vocal floating over some brilliant electronic noodling that finally breaks into what could be a bit of an indie dancefloor filler given the right tweaks. For as second it reminds me of Bloc Party (when they were good) but only for second…. I could quote another load of bands here that spring to mind to try and make myself look all cool and knowledgable but I can’t be fucked, I’ll let you guys do that instead.
Out of everything I’ve heard over the last few weeks Wildswim have got me really intrigued, to the point I think I may even head up to Oxford to catch them support Trophy Wife on 5th November. Hopefully they’ll be good…. If not we shall never speak of them again…
I’m not too bothered about whats going on in London this week. I’m pretty excited about heading to Cardiff on Friday for SWN Festival. It looks like a great line up with loads of new bands I still haven’t had the chance to check out yet and it’ll be lovely to get the hell out of London. Cardiff has a castle as well. I like castles. In fact, I might just sack off the bands and go look round the castle instead.
Today I’d like to talk to you about some new music, a new band in fact. You may have noticed this is a music blog so please don’t be that surprised. Thing is I’m too lazy to think of what to write so I’m just going to copy and paste shit from Crushed Beaks bio on their webpage. I’ll make my own notes as well because sometime these bios can be a little bit confusing. What can I say, I’m a busy chap. Twitter doesn’t read itself ya know.
“…Crushed Beaks are a duo from London (that means there are 2 of them and they live in London), comprised of Alex Morris and Matthew Poile (I wonder if Alex is related to Rae? Probably not). Fuzzy walls of noise meld with pounding drums and swirling melodies to create a sound that is much larger than its constituent parts (i.e. they make a loud noise with distortion and reverb pedals and a drum kit and some singing, quite a lot of loud noise for just two of them). Starting life as a bedroom project in 2010, they bonded over a shared love of Italian horror films (they maybe slightly geeky, or have argophobia. They pretend they have cool taste in films but really they love Legally Blonde), and a handful of hastily recorded demos quickly developed into a ferocious live show that always maintains a balance between noise and the melodies that underpin it (they sometimes manage to leave the house to do some gigs). A few months ago they set to work recording in a church and a wendy house (I believe the church bit, I think the wendy house may be a fib to make them look quirky). Crushed Beaks will release their debut single ‘Close-Ups/ Sun Dogs’ on Too Pure Records on 21st November 2011 (The band have a single coming out in November, on a record label. It’s called Close Ups and the B-side is called Sun Dogs. It’s their first release)….”
For some reason they only have the b-side to the single up online, seems a bit daft to me, unless they have cooked up an ingenious plan to create an online buzz…
Catch the band live, in London, over the next few weeks, I’ll be at one of these shows, I’m liking what I’ve heard!
14/10/11 – Servants Jazz Quarter, Dalston
15/10/11 – The Macbeth, Hoxton *All Dayze All Dayer (w/ Drums of Death, Fuck Butttons (DJ), Solar Bears and The Haxan Cloak)*
20/10/11 – The Victoria, Dalston (w/ Foe and Petscene)
9/11/11 – The Lexington, Islington *The Line of Best Fit Presents… (w/ My Sad Captains, Evans the Death and Red Kite)*
11/11/11 – The Old Blue Last, Shoreditch *TOO PURE SINGLE LAUNCH (support from the magical Canute)*
17/11/11 – The Old Blue Last, Shoreditch (w/ Young Husband)
Alex Hulme is a very polite young chap who dropped me an email a while back that I never got round to reading. He sent me another through in July and I drafted up a blog post on him. I never posted it and only just notice it’s been sat there for months. Whoops. Better late than never. I have to say I’m rather impressed with this tune from his new EP, well it’s not new anymore, but it was when I was meant to post this in July….
Some definate potential here I reckon. He’s based in the North-West and apparently started off gigging at the same open mic nights as the lovely Rae Morris. I’m keeping my eyes (and ears) out for him, you can find out more info on Alex Here.
