September has loads of great big and small gigs to offer. One of the concerts I’m looking forward to is Placebo, whom I saw at Sonisphere Festival this summer (photo top!). But there are several other gigs to enjoy before Placebo will be playing at the Brixton Academy on the 27th and 28th. Muse will be playing at Wembley Stadium twice, and is supported by The White Lies on the 11th - a great lineup if you ask me. Dawn Landes plays on the 23rd at the Barbican, supporting her husband and wonderful musician, Josh Ritter. The lead singer of Travis, Fran Healer, will be doing a solo-gig at the great London Bush Hall, and Matthew Herbert will be celebrating the release of his new album at the Hoxton Square Bar. Tickets are only £7.50 - so no excuses to not see this fascinating experimental musician! And as if that isn’t enough yet; another musician worth seeing is Jay Fraser. Discovered his music last Friday when he was playing at The Regal Room in Hammersmith (a place to be recommended btw, if you’re looking for some lovely <free!> live-music on a Friday night!). Apart from Jay’s sweet acoustic songs, his witty comments and stories in between are very enjoyable too. Check out his MySpace, as you can get a free download of one of his new songs on there!
Listen to our playlist below for a few great tracks of some of the musicians listed above, and follow @BandsinLondon on Twitter for more updates about awesome gigs!
With the Sonisphere festival kicking off today and being all busy packing my last festival-gear before I’m on my way there, it’s difficult to think of any other gigs coming up! But that doesn’t mean, of course, that there are indeed some wonderful ones coming up. The London Electronic Dance festival in Victoria Park, where the Underage Festival takes place as well and which is only open to under 19-year-olds. The lineup of the South West Four festival sure looks good to, with Fatboy Slim and Armin van Buuren for electro-lovers. Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, one of the founding members and former guitarist of Oasis, will be playing in London as well, with his new band, The Vortex. Looking for something else? Check out some of the other great gigs listed below:
01 Aug - Underage Festival @ Victoria Park (M.I.A., Ellie Goulding, Hadoeken! and Lightspeed Champion among many others)
July started fantastically with Hard Rock Calling and the Wireless festival in Hyde Park (video footage coming up soon!), and there are several other awesome festivals to come. The iTunes festival all month, the Lovebox festival in Victoria Park next weekend, and of course the UK Sonisphere festival in Knebworth (just outside London) end of this month, starting on the 30th.
But besides enjoying some sweet music in the park, there are also various other great gigs at some of London’s finest venues. I always enjoy going to gigs of young and up and coming bands, and one of those bands I got to know recently is the Oxford based band Spring Offensive whom will be releasing their EP this month and are playing in London on the 28th. Another band we’ll see returning to the big smoke is Tom Williams and The Boat - they have just come back from Glastonbury and seem to be on fire, playing in London twice this month (of which on the 22nd an acoustic set at St. Pancras Station!), as well as recording new material here. We can’t wait!
Follow @BandsinLondon on Twitter for other concert updates, ticket giveaways, and have a listen to the playlist below for some sweet tracks of the bands listed above!
Whether day or night, Stables Market in Camden is always buzzing. A huge selection of stalls with original arts and crafts, funky clothes, and delicious food at daylight; a vibrant place for live music and quirky bars after sunset - of which most housed in restored industrial buildings from the canal and steam train ages. Last weekend I went to check out the new series of Friday night events “Tales of the Unexpected: The Forbidden Forest” at one of those quirky places, Proud Camden.
Located at what used to be a Horse Hospital, formerly used to care for horses injured pulling canal barges, the venue itself is already a unique place which has a great, alternative vibe. The old stalls of the Horse Hospital are retained and everywhere around the building you can find features of its previous life. A great place to go out, with two dance floors, an outdoor chill-out area, and sweet live music in between DJ’ing. Playing last Friday was The Collectable Few, a 4-piece band from London itself whom will be releasing their debut EP coming month. A young band with a lot of energy, singer Tarek Al-Shammaa was jumping all over the stage, and so did the audience on the dance floor. Somewhat unexpectedly perhaps, as their MySpace so far doesn’t impress too much - with only two songs featured on their profile. Guess we’ll have to wait for the release of their EP, as they did play a nice set of a mix of some of their own uplifting songs together with some covers, including The Cure’s “In Between Days” which will also appear on their debut EP. In the meantime, listen to that cover and their song “Promises” on MySpace, and have a look at the video below for some footage of the band performing at Proud Camden last Friday.
Feel for checking out Proud Camden yourself now? We’re giving away a pair of tickets this week for coming Friday night, when London-band My Tiger, My Timing and Rob The Rich from Brighton will be playing! All you have to do is follow @BandsinLondon and @ProudCamden on Twitter and tweet “@BandsinLondon ticket giveaway #ProudCamden” - sweet!
May has been an awesome month: seeing Gotan Project play live has made a true impression on me, on top of that I saw some great music of unsigned bands at the Music League gig-nights, and it’s been furthermore confirmed that I’ll be reporting from the UK Sonisphere festival this summer! Expect interviews with musicians, visitors, and some sweet video footage of the concerts - I, for one, cannot wait! In the meantime there are plenty of other great gigs to look forward to, of course, and June certainly doesn’t disappoint. Dawn Landes will be returning to the big smoke on the 2nd (remember our interview with her?), Dalas Green -perhaps better known as the singer/guitarist of the Canadian band Alixisonfire- plays twice this month at the HMV forum with his wonderful solo acoustic project City and Colour, and Norah Jones will be filling the HMV Hammersmith Apollo venue with her very fine voice on the 22nd of June. The Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park end of June looks very sweet too, with Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, James Morrison, Kings of Leon, among many other fantastic bands and musicians, all performing in the largest park of London. Check out the full line-up of the festival on Bandsintown and listen to our playlist below for some of their sweet music!
We love any event which gives unsigned musicians a chance to play their music. The music industry is a tough business and getting your music heard -by the right people- is a real struggle. Sure, you can continue posting videos on YouTube and keep looking for friends to add on your MySpace -hoping that they might have a spare minutes to listen to some of your tracks-, but with so much to see, do, and read online (including being overwhelmed by a lot of crap), it’s real difficult to stand out. And then we’re not even talking about actually getting ‘out there’ and playing live. The Music League is there to bring some change in that! A music competition in which 16 bands have to play two gigs at some wonderful venues in London over the course of two months, and in which the audience can vote for them online or straight after the gig. The winner will be playing a slot at the Winterwell Festival and The Secret Garden Party this summer, a fantastic opportunity to introduce their music to a bigger audience. The audience of every gig night also gets to win something: at every gig they give a Kodak Zi8 HD digital camera away - sweet! But more importantly, it’s an awesome platform for unsigned musicians to show off their talent and for us to enjoy it! Watch the video below to get a taster of the music, or, even better, come to one of the nights to experience their music live yourself!
Springtime totally got to me - all I feel for lately is spending time with friends in the park, drinking wine in the sun, and dancing on live music all night. And with Gotan Project having just released their sweet album “Tango 3.0”, it’s even more difficult to think of anything else. While listening to “Mil Millones” I close my eyes and allow myself to carry away a little and dream of how I’d like to be spending this coming summer. As for now those dreams are still far from reality - no flight to any exotic destination is booked (yet?), but I’m sure the live music scene in London will make up for it. At least it will do this month - Gotan Project will be playing at the Brixton Academy on the 14th and I absolutely cannot wait to see them live. Furthermore, Pete & The Pirates have made their way down to London again, just as Fionn Regan. And did you know yet that Cha-Cha will be celebrating their album launch tonight at the Camden Barfly? Check out their catchy song “Phonographic Love”!
Want to stay updated about upcoming gigs in London on a daily basis? Follow @BandsinLondon on Twitter! Also, check out our sweet new service on Twitter: @reply us with a bands name, and we’ll tell you when that band is coming to town! For example, tweet: “@BandsinLondon Gotan Project” and we’ll get back to you within seconds :)
The White Stripes called them “probably the epitome of ‘60s punk”, Kurt Cobain admitted to be impressed by the drum sound on their records despite them using only one microphone to record the whole drum set, and “the singer sounds as if he gargles with razorblades” according to John Holmstrom, founder of Punk Magazine.
The Sonics– they sure have left good legacy. Their tracks as Psycho, Boss Hoss, Louie Louie, and The Witch of course, were incredibly popular with the local kids in the sixties in the Seattle area. Some radio stations, however, restricted playing The Witch at the time and only aired them after 3PM. “They didn’t want to scare the housewives” tells Sonic Rob Lind us in an interview. Listening to the song, it’s hard to understand why - “evil chick” is perhaps the most shocking I can spot in the lyrics.
The Sonics reunited in 2008 and consists of three of its original members: Gerry Roslie (piano and lead vocals), Larry Parypa (lead guitar and vocals) and Rob Lind (saxophone and vocals), and are joined by Freddie Dennis (bass guitar and vocals) and Ricky Lynn Johnson on drums. Beginning of this month they played a sold-out gig at Le Beat Bespoke Festival in London, and we had the chance to briefly talk with them before the great show. As I heard a fan saying afterwards: “The Sonics were superb… I’ve seen guys thirty years younger struggle to hit the same beat!”
In the late sixties the band fell apart – how long did it take before you started missing the band, and perhaps had some feelings of regret?
Rob: Well, we went into different directions – graduated from school, got jobs, Gerry started a company where Larry was working, I got off to the military, and you all get caught up in what you’re doing - so it took a while. Although I always had my acoustic guitar with me when I was overseas with the military so I could sit in my room and play. Gerry did some playing, and Larry too.
You got several proposals over the years to get back together, but you felt for a long time you weren’t got enough. When did that change?
Rob: Where did you hear that? You’ve been talking to people! [laughs]
Larry: The last time, in 2007, I got a call from a guy in New York who gave me a pitch and we decided to try to get back together and just see what would happen. It was really rough, so we said that by a predetermined date that we’ll do it if we know by then that we can do justice to the music. If not, we wouldn’t. We got to that date and a little beyond that, we said “yeah.. we can probably do it”.
Rob: The three of us [points at Larry, Gerry and himself], rehearsed together for a long period of months. Just like Larry said, to get back into shape.
Larry: Yes, and to learn the songs!
A lot of radiostations didn’t play your songs like The Witch at the time it got released (because of the ‘outrageous’ lyrics), how did you feel about that?
Rob: There are a couple of stories that go along with that. We were gratified when The Witch started playing at the radio, because it made our performance fees go up and we liked that idea. The Witch at its highest got at number 2, and a song called Downtown by an English girl called Petula Clark was number 1. But we didn’t find out until later, years later, that actually The Witch was number 1 but they just wouldn’t put it there because they thought it was “savage” and maybe “nasty”. Though when you look at the lyrics, there is no nastiness at all.
Especially not when you look at some songs of today…
Larry: Yes, not compared to the standards of today! [laughs]
Rob: And the radio stations would only play it in the afternoon when the kids were getting out of the schools – they wouldn’t play it during the day to scare the housewives.
When you supported the Beach Boys in Portland, you used an English accent?
Larry: Where did you hear that?!
Rob: You have been talking to people! That was him [ticks Gerry on the shoulder]. They (the audience) didn’t know where we were from and when we took the stage to open for the Beach Boys, Gerry said [does English accent]: “Nice place, you got here.” And the whole place went ballistic. They were like “They’re English, they’re from Liverpool!”, and we were like, “Yeah, we’re from Liverpool, no problem.”
Many thanks to The Sonics. Want to see the video-footage of the interview? Click here!
Remember the wonderful The Album Leafgig at London Bush Hall we wrote about just over a week ago? Here are some more sweet photos of that show for you to enjoy! All photos by Xiang Li.
“An End Has A Start” - The Editors know it. Previously known as “Pilot”, “The Pride” and “Snowfield”, along with a change in the line-up, they changed it to “The Editors” when signing up with record label Kitchenware Records in September 2004. A few months later, at the end of January 2005, they released their debut single “Bullets” - a song they wrote when studying Music Technology at Stafford University. “Bullets” earned the honour of “Single of the Week” on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show, and the limited edition of 1000 copies sold out on the day of release. Their following single-releases of “Munich”and “Blood” were very well received and debut album “The Black Room”, released in July 2005, went platinum after reaching #2 in the UK album charts. The rest, you know. They are a big hit at festivals and attract people from all over the world for their quickly sold out concerts - including us. So when they played (twice!) in London-town last week, we were there of course!
First of all, on a side-note, big cheers for the Editors for asking everyone on the guestlist to donate 5 pounds to charity Action Against Hunger. Unfortunately not everyone is so keen to hear their request though; and it’s pretty funny, yet sad, to see how some people of big music organizations -I won’t call names- come up with obvious made up stories why this particular request doesn’t apply to them. “Liar!” the guy of security says while shaking his head after they made their way inside. Indeed, I secretly think.
By the time the supporting bands TSDole and Cold Cave have finished, the O2 Brixton Academy is fully packed – another sold out concert for The Editors of course. Standing at the front, it was a case of one hand in the air, the other holding on to your bag -or any other small possessions- as best as you possibly can, and jumping on the songs non-stop. A fantastic atmosphere, and tracks like “Bones”, ”Bullets”, ”Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors“ and”Munich“ were received with great excitement - with everyone singing along“People are fragile things, you should know by now… Be careful what you put them through.” Ah, such great lines.
Tom Smith’s voice is live just as incredible and clear as on the records, and lead guitarist and synthesizer player Chris Urbanowicz played fantastic on his right, Ed Lay impressive on drums, and bass guitarist Russell Leetch on his left came to the edge of the stage several times, performing even a few jumps in the air while playing.
“We like to add a dancefloor element to what we do,” says Chris Urbanowicz in an interview with the BBC. “Get a bit of a house beat going and see what it sounds like. We like to move people - whether it be emotionally or physically - and if we could make them do both that would be great.”
They seem to succeed: a 50-something-year-old man standing next to me gets so into their music that he takes off his t-shirt and decides the band must be collecting sweat-stinking shirts of their fans -especially the older ones-, as he throws it on stage to show his appreciation. The band itself couldn’t care less about the t-shirt I imagine, but the guy is greatly amused and feels a need to point it out to me at various times during the concert, along with several sessions of high-fives and hugs. Remembering the ecstatic mood he was in, I still sometimes wonder if he made it home safe that night.
A great show already, but the real highlight was saved for last: just after Papillon’s lines “It kicks like a sleep twitch!”a sudden incredible warmth hits my face as high flames at each side of the stage blast out - making it a spectacular night, which was only even more complimented by the enormous amount of red glitter tape blown in the air after the encore. The Editors surely know how to leave an outstanding impression.
But perhaps the most beautiful moment of the evening for me was when everyone slowly got out of the venue, looked around with their hot sweaty faces, red glitter tape still on their hair and clothes, and gave those they made eye-contact with that smile of “Damn, wasn’t that a GREAT show?!” Oh yes, it was.
The Editors will be touring several cities in Europe in April and May, and will be back in the UK in June to play at the Isle of Wight Festival. Track them on Bandsintown to see when they are playing in your city!
Just before they’re off to Asia and the States for more concerts, The Album Leaf played their last gig of their European tour in the London Bush Hall last Tuesday. Thankfully, because we wouldn’t have wanted to miss this gig! Their album A Chorus of Storytellers got released about a month ago and is their first album that is recorded with a full band - Jimmy LaValle had previously, almost always, provided the studio instrumentation himself. The change is refreshing. There are still the ambient, dreamy tones and melancholic structures, but also more uplifting tunes with a strong backbeat and the vocals more prominent than on previous albums. The mix of violins, guitar, synths and percussion makes it a beautiful album, and their sold-out gig was no less.
They played at the London Bush Hall, a venue that completely suited their music. A beautiful room with high ceilings and chandeliers, not too big, which gives it that intimate feel – exactly what you need with The Album Leaf.
The stage is packed with equipment –multiple synthesizers and amps are all over the place- and the musicians keep on moving around to change instruments and add more sound. They excellently perform songs from the new album such as There Is A Wind and Blank Pages, but also some of the older ones like Red Eye and Shine.
The audience is appreciative and seems to be greatly enjoying the show, although what quiet at first - a silence follows when LaValle asks how everyone is [doing]. “Quiet, I guess” he jokes. But that might have been because we were all taken away by the beautiful sound, the moving images at the wall, and the various light sticks on the stage which made it such a wonderful show to watch – have a look at the video below to get an idea. After a fantastic encore of four tracks, with Tied Knots their final song, we leave the venue completely enchanted by the music and wonder when they’ll be back in London again.
In short, if you have the chance to see The Album Leaf live, definitely go check them out: their fine, complex compositions aren’t only a delight to the ear – visually, their concerts are quite an experience too. Track them on Bandsintown to stay updated about their upcoming gigs!
Spring is finally here! More sun, waking up to the sound of tweeting birds, flowers and trees start blooming - ah yes, I have been waiting for this. Here in London we hit the park even when there’s only one ray of sunlight, but in case the weather even fails to bring that on certain days -it might just happen in England-, then there are plenty of gigs to keep you in that cheerful spring mood. The band James will be playing in London as part of their Mirrorball Tour - if you didn’t know yet, they’re album Hey Ma is excellent and you can listen to a preview of one of their upcoming mini-albums here. Also, GREAT news for any fan of 1960s garage rock music - the legendary band The Sonics are playing in the big smoke on the Le Beat Bespoke festival! Here are some more gigs you should check out if you have the chance to:
04/4 - The Sonics @ 229 (as part of the Le Beat Bespoke festival)
Follow @BandsinLondon on Twitter, become a fan of our Facebook page for regular ticket-give-aways and listen below to the playlist for some sweet tracks of some of the bands listed above!
The London-based experimental post-jazz band Polar Bear celebrated the release of their fourth album, Peepers, last week at the Relentless Garage and thanks to the Leaf Label we could join the party! With their music being called “dream jazz” by music critic Paul Morley, having been nominated for “Best Band” at the BBC Jazz Awards 2004 and their album Held on the Tips of Fingers nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2005, not to mention another BBC Jazz award in 2006, it promised to be a fantastic night. With Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham on the saxophone, Tom Herbert on double bass, electronics-wizard Leafcutter John, and of course Seb Rochard -the founder of the band- on the drums, their music constantly looks up the unpredictable: always experimenting with different styles and moving between various moods.
You can listen to the title-track of their new album above, which is available as a free download for a limited time or can be enjoyed on their MySpace, and watch some video footage of the gig below to see how they experiment all together on stage! But more importantly, look them up if you have the chance to – their next gig is on the 27th of March at the Firestation in Windsor and they will be playing on several festivals in the spring/summer months, including the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and the Mostly Jazz Festival in Birmingham. Or simply track them on Bandsintown.com to stay updated of course!
Exactly one week ago, Dawn Landes played a wonderful solo-show at the Monto Water Rats here in London. With her new album Sweet Heart Rodeo she has been busy touring Europe and will soon brighten up Toronto, Montreal, and several cities in the States with her fine tunes. But it’s not only her beautiful voice which made the show so wonderful and enjoyable - without exaggeration, Dawn Landes simply charms you away with her presence. She engages with the audience, got us to sing along with Straight Lines, and delivered a wonderful encore of three songs (of which one was my favourite song Twilight- yes Dawn, that was me instantly shouting “Twilight!” when you asked the audience what to play next!). I had the honour to have a drink with her in the pub before the show and we talked about living in France, her new album, and her fantastic blue-grass cover of Peter, Bjorn and John’s Young Folks which became a hit on YouTube - and is how I got to know her music in 2007!
You have been touring the US, Paris and Holland these last few weeks – how has it been?
It’s been good, the US-stuff was with my band. I have been touring a lot with the band since the record came out, so I was a little nervous to do solo-shows but it’s going well.
You lived in France for a while, how was it to go back recently?
Living in France was amazing, many new different experiences and it was great to go back, see my friends, and play. I can speak a little bit of French, so that was fun. I have a couple of French songs too. On my very first record I did a song called the French song, which apparently has terrible French pronunciation in it [laughs].
Why did you want to live in France?
I had been touring there for a while, and there is something about touring in another country and having a relationship with people you can’t understand, and who can’t understand you. When you are playing in foreign countries you are often crippled in a way, because you can’t really communicate in between the songs. I wanted to explore that a little. And also, they are just so cool. I wanted to see what they were talking about at the bar, simply go up to them and say “hey what are you talking about, it looks like you’re having such a good time,” just wanting to be part of the conversation. And I love the sound of the language too.
Your recorded your new album in your own studio - which you built yourself?
Yes! Together with some friends we built it over the summer last year.
Something you wanted to do for a long time?
Definitely. I have been working in studios for about 7 years, before Steve [Salett] and I started building this place. I don’t know if you know the politics of working in a studio, but you more or less start working as the runner, who goes and gets the coffee, stays around, gets the food, and slowly you pick up bits of knowledge of how things work. So yeah, I guess I always wanted to be my own boss and just record the stuff I want to record.
Your new album – how much does it differ from your old album?
For me, I don’t start out to make an album – I just have a bunch of songs and it becomes its own thing by the fact that it’s created at the same moment in time. It’s like a photograph, my favourite engineer Steve Albini always says he is a sound capturer or recordist, like the photographer of a band - you’re trying to capture what they’re doing at that specific moment in time.
The way I got to know you was through your cover Young Folks, how did that song come about?
I played a few times at the music festival South by SouthWest, and the first time I was there I found myself at a barbecue restaurant and saw this group of old blue grass musicians playing. They played there every Sunday night for over ten years and I just loved them. They are so much fun and quirky, and I decided to ask them to play as my band when I would go back next year. Which was crazy, because I didn’t really know them and they are all in their seventies. But I did and they agreed to do it. I then heard that song Young Folks at the festival and thought it was a great song. For them it didn’t really matter which song we did since they mostly do covers and had to learn some of my songs anyway. It was such a fun song to do, especially as I always feel a bit out of place at these kind of places, because it’s all about being cool and being the next best thing. These people have been playing music their whole lives, so for me it was like saying “fuck you” to everybody, “THIS is cool, THESE people are the shit”. And it was a great show, everybody loved it.
Any exciting plans in the near future or too busy touring?
Well, I started a girl-band! The band is called The Bandana Splits and it’s just me and two friends goofing off. We made a small EP and it’s really good but I haven’t really had time to focus on it since, so hopefully I’ll get that out more in the summer.
Many thanks to Dawn Landes for her time and such a wonderful show. Watch some video-footage of the gig below, check her out on MySpace for some sweet tunes and track her on our site for future gigs - highly recommended!
Video footage of the gig of Dawn Landes on the 1st of March 2010 at the Monto Water Rats in London. Thanks to Dawn Landes for such a wonderful evening.
This is where we write about all things Bandsintown. We also post interviews with bands, write about and review the local shows we've been checking out, and do ticket giveaways and other fun things.
