Wednesday 27 January 2010

Blog Artists Update!


Since blogging about them these bands have done stuff:

Menace Ruine have re-issued The Cult Of Ruins and The Die Is Cast albums on gatefold vinyl.
Bat For Lashes has been nominated for a Brit! Toured and played with tons of brilliant artists and I think got a 2nd nomination for the Mercury music prize.. did that happen since I blogged about her?
Pixelh8 has released a 3rd studio album of 8-bit beeping!
The Horrors album has proved to be as good as it could have been!
Bigzy is still giving props to the tribal scank and has shortened his name!
S.C.U.M have been doing tons of touring
Kasms released their album Spayed which is amazing!
The Girls At Dawn released a 7" single, a 12" EP and have lots of new releases coming soon!!
Meneo have continued to be confusing, naked and get me hits on my blog! And seem to never stop touring!
Dark Meat are about to split up and are playing their last 3 gigs in early February!
Pearl Harbor have re spelt their name, released a 12" single have three 7" coming out soon on different labels!
Bosco Delray has been doing more gigs around NYC.
Doll and The Kicks have being going great guns touring with Morrissey all over Europe and Americas west coast!
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros have been touring their self titled album.

So that has been a slightly edited version of what some of the smaller bands I blogged on have been up to.





Kinema Circles EP interview exclusive!


























Recovering from their epic EP launch Kinema discuss albums, Barry White and Ferraris made out of cake!


So the Circles EP Launch went SO well were you pleases with the response?
Yeah, completely. Our Brighton shows are becoming few and far between now, so it was great to play in front of so many people we know again. Our friends have always been great to us - very few of them are wallflowers, so shows in our home town are always lively.

You guys seem to have a very sexual vibe on stage and pretty much the whole audience were hot ladies, as a band do you keep the sexual vibe going off stage?
Ha! As much as we'd like to think of ourselves as being irresistible to the ladies, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of evidence to support that. We've obviously got a couple of tunes that are inspired by the more physical aspects of life, but I'm not under any illusion that I'm Prince or anything - those songs have always got a sub-text about being worried that you aren't going to live up to the girls expectations. A lot of the time the bravado is there just to mask the anxiety.

I've noticed from your Twitter posts that you're fans of R&B crooner Bobby Valentino, who else rocks :Kinemas: musical world?
Bobby V has a special place in our hearts, but we listen to a pretty wide variety of stuff. In terms of contemporary music - I'm listening to a lot of European disco; people like Ilija Rudman, Aeroplane, Siriusmo etc. Band-wise I'm liking Casiokids, the new Yeasayer stuff and those Hot Chip boys always seem to remind you that you got a lot to learn.
We also love the Skweee from Scandanavia - Ross (:Kinema: keytar/synth operator) has a Skweee solo project under the name Boss Kite; you can check him out at this month's Donky Pitch in Brighton).

The production on this EP is pretty sweet, are you bedroom/laptop centred or did you splash out on studio time?
Funnily enough we did splash out on some studio time at a couple of places but we weren't very happy with the results. In the end we just knuckled down, stripped the songs back to their bare bones and started again doing it all ourselves. I think we had a very strong sense of how we wanted the songs to sound, as well as what we wanted them to do musically, and if that's the case then I think its going to be hard for a producer to deliver what you want.

And the EP is out on Hot Pockets yeah? Will we be seeing an album soon?
If 2010 goes exceptionally well you might see an album by the end of the year, but its more likely it will be early 2011. The songs are pretty much all there but we've a lot to sort out behind the scenes. It will probably take us several months to think of a name for it as well.

If :Kinema: could play anywhere, where would be your ideal place to play a gig?
Personally I wont be happy until we've played at one of P.Diddy's legendary birthday parties - one of those ones where he has shark tanks and ferraris made out of cake.

Again with the sexual vibe but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of girls out there desperate to know if you guys are single?
Are you sure? No one has been in touch. Anyway, yes, we are all single.

Well finally which would you rather: that for the rest of your life you had massive reverb on your speaking voice or that every time you walked into a room you had a little keyboard fanfare?
Reverb on the voice would be good. No-one likes the sound of their own speaking voice - listening to ourselves being interviewed on the radio was kind of painful; maybe a bit of reverb would sort that out. Imagine how great it would make your pillow-talk sound as well. Everything you said would sound like the intro to a Barry White ballad.


Friday 22 January 2010

Dj Set @The Prince Albert excitement!


I Djed at The Albert on Wednesday before and after the bands played (The Mekano Set, Bird Eats Baby, etc) This is the first gig I've seen where a band says on stage; "you can find us on.. if you Google our name!" So not 'you can find us on Myspace' like everyone used to say! This is the death of the Myspace shout out. Sites are better to use and so easy and Blogs are even easier and way more personel. Myspace is your bands trainer wheels and if you dont split up after 6 months then get a Blog and your own site!


This is the track listing of everything I played. I was pretty happy with this even though I dont think anyone noticed the sounds of heavy rain and thunder I faded in and out of any track fade outs!


Big Stick - "A Threat"
Red Violet Red - "Candy Cane"
Late Of The Pier - "Blueberry"
Gang Of Four - "I Love A Man In Uniform"
Barbi and The Kens - "Not Your Steppin Stone"
Gogoll Bordello - "Sally"
The Higsons - "Put The Punk Back Into Funk"
Freeze - "Boston Not L.A"
Limbo Race - "There Goes Kafka"
The Horrors - "Primary Colours"
This Mono Galaxy - "Every Day Loks Like The Last"
Gatekeeper - "Tides"
Club De Rome - "Gringhita"
Prince - "Dirty Mind"
Health - "Die Slow"
These New Puritans - "We Want War"
Twisted Wires - "One Night At The Raw Deal"
David Bowie - "Kooks"
2.3 - " Where To Now"
Gang Of Four - "Cheeseburger (live)"
Ipso Facto - "Greta"
Alec Empire - "If You Live Or Die"
Liars - "Scissor"
This Mono Galaxy - "Team Building"
Dirty Projectors - "Ascending Melody"

Monday 11 January 2010

Bosco Delray, new gigs and pics.

This is kind of weird writing about a scene and club night I've never been to but anyway.. Midnight Till Death is a club night at Don Pedros (90 Manhattan Avenue between Boerum & McKibbon) in Brooklyn.

<-- Google Earth street view of the entrance!
This is a well cool (I hesitate but think I'm 100% correct in saying) scuzy, undergound gig venue! Midnight Till Death has been going for about 2 years and is on once a month. Visualise loads of bands you wont ever have heard of but will do, shared equitment, hand drawn posters, scene kids, $6 entry, projectors, distortion and, at the one last friday, Mad Decents Bosco Delray! A Fokkawolfe favourite Bosco Delray should be way bigger than he is, we have to wait for the album out this year to see what happens. At the moment he's playing gigs all over NYC. Here's some pics of his set from the night!




























At next months Midnight Till Death a great punk band called Cerebral Ballzy will be playing, who if the videos of their live shows are anything to go by (which of course they are!) totally blow shit away! "Bad Brains on crystal meth." - NY Press

Wednesday 6 January 2010

Magic Wands, Kiss Me Dead. New Video!

Fresh out the oven its the new video for Kiss Me Dead by Magic Wands! Bringing the beats tropical
glitter space magic style to all this new shoegaze echoeverb sound that was 2009!

Monday 4 January 2010

Kinema, Circles Ep launch!


:Kinema: are celebrating the launch of their Circles EP by throwing a party of epic proportions on Saturday 23rd January at Jam on Middle street. Featuring the Kitsune signed Grovesnor and Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip!









(photo by Emily Barnett emilymarybernett@yahoo.co.uk )

The night will be split in two (one ticket, £8, gets you into the whole thing) - firstly a gig showcasing some of :Kinema:s new material + it will be a first chance for Brighton to hear live material from Grovesnor's amazing forthcoming (Hot Chip-produced) album!!

Then secondly there'll be two of London's top Dj's coming down to take the party into the small hours. Hot Chips frontman Alexis Taylor and Bugs Raplin. "Just one hour of Bugs on the decks is worth the entrance fee alone. We do not joke!"

:Kinema: have said on Facebook that.. "If this isn't the best party you ever go to we will personally refund your money."

Cant find better than that!