LIVE LISTINGS

FUNKENSTEINS / ZOOT

Sat, 3 Jul 2010 19:00:59 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance

http://www.funkinsteins.co.uk/

DOT TO DOT FESTIVAL

Sat, 29 May 2010 00:51:47 +0100

http://www.dottodotfestival.co.uk/

Inaugural event coming up - Dot To Dot events brought to you by DHP.

This one's to be held at a number of venues in Bristol. Dot To Dot is expanding next year to a this three-day event, adding Manchester's fiery musical hotbed to the firmly established Bristol and Nottingham dates.  With a growing reputation as the festival that showcases the most cutting edge new, up-and-coming bands the fifth Dot To Dot will push boundaries even further delving deep to reveal even more artists who will join the ranks of Klaxons, Friendly Fires, Gallows, Ladyhawke, Laura Marling, Temper Trap, British Sea Power, Foals, Santigold, Glasvegas, Foals, Annie Mac, Erol Alkan, Kissy Sellout and many more who have all previously played Dot To Dot Festival.

CLUB METROPOLIS PRESENT: ERLAND AND THE CARNIVAL

Fri, 14 May 2010 11:30:40 +0100

Entry // £7.50 Advance

Erland and the Carnival are a British folk rock band, formed in London, England by multi instrumentalist Simon Tong (formerly of The Verve / Blur / The Good, the Bad & the Queen), Orcadian folk guitarist and singer Gawain Erland Cooper and Drummer/Engineer David Nock (The Orb / The Cult / The Fireman).
Erland and the Carnival are best known for their contemporary arrangements of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, including Tramps and Hawkers, Sally Free and Easy, The Parting Glass, Was You Ever See and Love Is a Killing Thing collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The band's debut album was recorded at Damon Albarn's Studio 13 and released January 2010.

http://www.myspace.com/carnival

CARS ON FIRE / THE MUNROE EFFECT

Sat, 1 May 2010 19:00:03 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance

www.myspace.com/carsonfireband

CLUB METROPOLIS PRESENT: THE STRANGE BOYS

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:36:44 +0100

Entry // £7.50 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/thestrangeboys

Austin, TX's The Strange Boys evoke a wild-eyed, porcelain-skinned innocence that is capable of summoning the wayward spirit of Brian Jones. The mystery of the South couples with the mastery of rhythm to create a sound completely timeless and familiar, yet absolutely raw and avant-garde. Greg Enlow's syncopated, organ-driven grooves hark back to The Seeds' "Pushing Too Hard" while guitarist Ryan Sambol's voice wavers beyond comparison. Older brother Philip Sambol keeps the pulse with the aptly named Matt Hammer, who unmercifully pounds an old Ludwig set. The Strange Boys began as a duo (Hammer and the younger Sambol) in 2003. The other two joined in 2005 and the band has been on tour non-stop ever since. Since 2003 the Boys have recorded a wealth of material which was passed around at shows and to friends, but never officially released. In 2007, Dusty Medical Records put out the Nothing EP, and in 2008, In The Red released the ìWoe Is You and Meî single. Now, finally, the band's proper debut album is seeing the light of day. It's easy to imagine The Strange Boys' And Girls Club, a sixteen-track beast, blasting out of any stereo system between The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and Wire's Pink Flag. The Strange Boys were the backing band for Mighty Hannibal (the '50s R&B recording artist); were main support for Roky Erickson and the Explosives at the Chaos in Tejas festival; have played South by Southwest the last four years, the Fuck Yeah Fest the last three years, Austin City Limits, Festival in Music Fest Northwest, and Bamalama (all in 2008); shared bills with Daniel Johnston, Black Lips, Reigning Sound, King Khan and BBQ, Jay Reatard, Mika Miko, No Age, and BRMC; have toured with The Black Angels, Fucked Up, The Carrots, and Crystal Antlers; and will tour with Darker My Love and Mika Miko in '09.î

CLUB METROPOLIS PRESENT: LIAM FROST

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:02:01 +0100

Entry // £7.50 Advance

For some artists, three years dominated by broken hearts, the spectre of bereavement and wrangles with their record company would be the perfect excuse to churn out a set of self-pitying songs. But Liam Frost has synthesised his experiences into “We Ain’t Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain”, a brilliantly soulful pop record that mixes sweet melodies with tantalisingly dark undertones.
While his 2006 debut, “Show Me How The Spectres Dance”, understandably dwelled heavily on the impact of losing his father and older brother, “We Ain’t Got No Money…” is an album dominated by love songs. “It has a more optimistic feel,” says Liam, “The last album had so many bleak moments. I’m only 25 and I wanted to make a fun record before I hit 30. Then I can do all that maudlin stuff and turn into Leonard Cohen!” With that determination to create an unashamedly upbeat record in mind, Liam went to New York work with producer Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Sons And Daughters). “He makes really great sounding records that are rich and well layered. I also heard he was up for a party which helped,” laughs Liam.
As well as a raft of startlingly catchy songs penned by Liam alone, the album features a few written alongside Ed Harcourt, which ultimately led to Liam duetting with the radiant Martha Wainwright.

www.liamfrost.co.uk

SNG PRESENT: CHANTEL McGREGOR / HOUND

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:00:43 +0100

Entry // £8 Advance

www.myspace.com/chantelmcgregor

CLUB METROPOLIS PRESENT: FRANKIE AND THE HEARTSTRINGS / FITNESS CLUB FIASCO

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:55:17 +0100

Entry // £7.50 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/frankietheheartstrings

'Life is vicious and indiscriminate. It swipes away lives at random, crushes families or pulls them apart, infects and sickens. Sometimes, music feels like all we have. It helps us drive to work when our minds are a million miles away. It pours into our consciousness, soaks and breaks apart knotted tumours, drips out in salty teardrops. Its drum establishes rapport with our heartbeat, echoes wild frustrations and anger. Watch Harper assault the skins in ‘Fragile’, reminiscent of nothing since My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Only Shallow’. Guitars that can turn over tanks or simply make us want to dance; because life can be joyous too, and friends often gather round in times of difficulty. Music helps us celebrate, lose our inhibitions, our fears, our virginity. It trivialises, puts smiles on faces. It allow for reflection and introspection. Frankie and the Heartstrings do all of this. Like the greatest bands they come seemingly out of nothing. They refuse to follow in the muggy wave of the next or last or current new wave. Like that kid at school they’re cool by the simple fact they don’t try to be, don’t care whether they are or not, but simply do what they do because it’s what they know. But they do come from somewhere. They emerge from decades of music to be angered by, to be excited by and to be lost in. They’re fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, noughties and beyond. They’re what music was invented for. Listen, smash something, let the tears flow, sing along and don’t forget to dance..."
-Richard W. Hardwick

THE GOODNESS

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:00:42 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance

www.myspace.com/thegoodnessmusic

LOFI HIFI PRESENT: KING CREOSOTE (Solo performance) / OLO WORMS

Fri, 9 Apr 2010 18:00:46 +0100

Entry // £8 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/kingcreosote

In 1995 Kenny Anderson, then lead singer/songwriter for the scottish bands skuobhie dubh orchestra and khartoum heroes, launched his own label fence with his own solo project king creosote. With a healthy cynicism of all things music industry related, kc set out to make home recorded music in as stress-free an environment as possible, and hunkered down in n.e. fife for the long haul.
With a few cdr titles released thru’ local shops, and with brothers een (pip dylan) and gordon (lone pigeon) forming the beginnings of a fence collective, by summer 2000 fence had taken over the running of a st.andrews cd shop, had an extensive website up and running, and were packing out the local pubs once a fortnight. collective member james yorkston made sure that the fence music came to the attention of labels like bad jazz and domino, and the legendary fence gatherings were soon on the move.
independent stores such as rough trade in london, avalanche in edinburgh, monorail in glasgow, and norman records in leeds were all pushing the fence collective cdr titles when in 2003 domino helped launch king creosote’s first album proper “kenny and beth’s musakal boatrides”, which made no. 5 in rough trade’s top 100 albums of that year. in the spring of 2005 kc put out a second album for domino, the self-produced “rocket d.i.y.”, and then went off to collaborate with the earlies from burnley, lancashire, supposedly to record an ep for names/679. it all gets a bit confusing from here. the resulting album “kc rules ok” released in 2005 caught everyone by surprise, but didn’t contain enough singles, and so certain tracks were re-recorded using the all-new kc band, and “kc rules ok” was re-released in summer 2006 with an invisible companion album “chorlton and the wh’earlies” (the original album working title, as it happens) which contained the original non-single recordings as well as some of the failed single edits and remixes, and all this sort of re-packaged with new sleeve notes, thus giving “kc rules ok” a further lifespan of 3 years? the most singley single recorded in january 2006, “you’ve no clue do you”, was considered too something or other, but on listening again it became the obvious lead single for the hastily recorded “bombshell” in 2007, as produced by jon hopkins.
things were much simpler when in 2008 kc recorded “flick the Vs” on the sly and handed it over to domino. one year on, and “flick the Vs” remains remarkably unaltered. in 2009 king creosote has recorded with the burns unit, reporter, jon hopkins and animal magic tricks.

THE SPEEDWELL INVENTION / ALF HALE BAND / CASELLA

Thu, 8 Apr 2010 00:28:29 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/thespeedwellinvention

LOFI HIFI PRESENT: PORT O’BRIEN

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 18:00:47 +0100

Entry // £8 Advance
www.myspace.com/portobrien

In the summer of 2007, Port O’Brien released a compilation of previously self-released songs titled The Wind and The Swell on American Dust Records. They’ve become a touring machine since the critically lauded M. Ward first named Port O’Brien his Favorite New Band on Pitchfork Media. They have been able to perform with several of their favorite artists; touring the United States with Rogue Wave, the West Coast with both Bright Eyes and the Cave Singers, and England with Modest Mouse. Now, Port O’Brien is ready to take on the rest of the world, using the little island of Kodiak as a jumping off point.

MY OWN FLAG (Album Launch) / DEATH OF LONDON / MERRICK / BULLWHIP

Sat, 3 Apr 2010 18:00:14 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance
www.myspace.com/myownflag

"A bruising, muscular, swaggering sound full of explosive aggression and power, with big heavy riffs and uncompromising songs... puts them in a different league from your average punk, grunge or hardcore band." - Bristol Evening Post

CLUB METROPOLIS PRESENT: RACE HORSES / KID ADRIFT

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 18:00:30 +0100

Entry // £6 Advance

GOODBYE FALKENBURG is available on CD Album and Digital Download (released by Fantastic Plastic).  "A 13 track joyride, it hurts psychedelia, White Album Beatles, glam-rock, electro, barbershop, tropicalia, chamber pop and post-rock into the mix. The result is a berserk and brilliant record" SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE

“Goodbye Falkenburg is an utterly entertaining trip” MOJO

“cut from the same gonzoid pop cloth as Super Furry Animals, full of psych rock & Beatles soaked harmonies” Q

“colliery band parps, early Of-Montreal jangle, pastoral melancholy and what sounds like Beirut captaining a pirate ship maintain their standing as purveyors of mighty fine singles” NME

www.racehorsesmusic.com

MC LARS

Thu, 1 Apr 2010 18:00:47 +0100

Entry // £5 Advance

www.myspace.com/mclars

PETE LAWRIE

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:00:45 +0100

Entry // £5 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/petelawrie

INTERROBAND / 7TH SUITE

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:13:23 +0100

Entry // £4 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/interroband

BIZALI / PRESSPLAY

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:03:11 +0000

Entry // £6 Advance

http://www.myspace.com/bizali

Bizali have been a gigging foursome since 2004. With festivals such as Glastonbury, Latitude, Larmer Tree and Hong Kong’s ‘Clockenflap 2008’ under their belts, having represented England in the ‘Global Battle of the Bands’ at the grand ‘Astoria’ and featured on a BBC comedy show ‘The Wrong Door’ they have a number of impressive achievements to brag about. But Bizali are not interested in the past anymore, their focus is solely on the future; their new album 'Dance Yourself Alone' and fresh new sound.
The New Album ‘Dance Yourself Alone’Written to the back drop of the bands double edged heartache this album is an emotional roller coaster of vulnerability and blind rage. Sparse electronic beats build to blow out rock sections propelled by harrowing vocals that punch, soar and glide telling their story with all its twists and turns. It is the musical document of a year of personal revolution. The album was recorded at Jim Barr’s jandj studio (Portishead, Goldfrapp), mixed by Tom Brookhouse (Scott Matthews’ ‘Passing Stranger’) and mastered by Shawn Joseph at Optimum.