SB6: last UK dates for 2011
Posted by jamie on Nov 29, 2011
Right after beng chosen as Kerrang Radio’s Single of the Week, Sonic Boom Six play their last UK shows of the year in London (2nd December) and Tunbridge Wells (8th December).
You can get tickets here.
2012: Simple Plan UK dates
Posted by jamie on Nov 24, 2011
Canadian pop-punkers Simple Plan return to the UK next May. To party like it’s 2002, go here for tickets.
Big D: UK dates CANCELLED
Posted by jamie on Nov 23, 2011
You may have heard by now, but Big D and the Kids Table have cancelled the remaining dates on their UK/European tour after Dave was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer, a cancer of the throat.
Here’s the full statement from Hidden Talent, their promoter:
I’m very sorry to inform you all of the cancellation the Big D & The Kids Table / Random Hand tour.
Yesterday Big D’s singer, Dave received a phone call informing him that he has throat cancer and must return to America immediately to have an operation. The band are currently driving from Barcelona to the UK To fly home. There isn’t much else they can do as I’m sure you will all understand.
Dave is a very positive guy and I know he’ll fight this.
Of course, we wish Dave all the best for a full and speedy recovery and hope to see him soon.
2012: Filaments London show
Posted by jamie on Nov 23, 2011
For the first time in more than a year, the Filaments have announced a headline show in London. It goes off at the Purple Turtle in Camden on Saturday 14th January, 2012. Support comes from Jakal and Stand Out Riot.
Get tickets here.
Smoke Like a Fish: Blood, Fish & Bone
Posted by jamie on Nov 21, 2011
Smoke Like a Fish
Blood, Fish & Bone – Do the Dog, 2011
17th November 2011
Jamie
Somewhat inevitably, there’s a wistful sense of regret, I guess, or at least nostalgia, that comes with listening to this final release by Smoke Like a Fish. It’s a shame, in a way, because, in Blood, Fish & Bone they’ve created a truly excellent record that, apart from being among the very best of its kind, also manages to sum up nicely what the band always seemed to be about: good-time, party friendly swing-core played with a smile.
Out of nowhere, in the summer of 2010, the guys announced on their blog that they were going to split up (you can read that here). This last record was already recorded and scheduled for release on Do the Dog Music, and a few tour dates arranged to promote the release before the band split up again.
Listening back, everything that was good about Smoke Like a Fish is here in abundance: Blood, Fish & Bone has twelve excellent original songs in the band’s signature style, and a hidden track: at last they’ve recorded the Levellers’ Fifteen Years, which had been a live favourite pretty much forever.
From start to finish, it’s bright, and unashamedly cheery, melodic sing-along two-tone ska: good, old-fashioned songs made to get booties shaking on dancefloors. They’re written and arranged really well, and, as you’d expect from a band with a three-part horn section and three vocalists as well, there’s always plenty going on.
It all makes for breathlessly high-speed entertainment, and it’s great fun from start to finish: if you’ve ever seen Smoke Like a Fish in concert you’ll know that their songs are wonderfully accessible and their shows were always great entertainment. Even if you’re new to Smoke Like a Fish, Blood, Fish & Bone is a fantastic example of exactly what won this band such a special place in so many hearts, and, besides that, will have you singing and dancing for hours: a perfect microcosm of everything that made the band great and a gem of a record that deserves to be loved all the more now that Smoke Like a Fish have gone their separate ways.
King Blues / Skints: £5 Hatfield show
Posted by jamie on Nov 18, 2011
The Skints and the King Blues are two out of five bands you can see FOR A FIVER at Jagermeister’s comically named “Ice Cold in Hatfield”.
It’s on Tuesday 29th November, with doors at 18:30.
Get tickets here.
Ian Britt, Chapter Eleven: free London show
Posted by jamie on Nov 17, 2011
Our BFFs at Men With Hats have created a lovely acousitc show in North London that costs nothing (yes, really) to attend. Aparently they have fruit-flavour beers and everything. It’s going on (and off) at the World’s End (in Finsbury Park, not the Camden Town one).
You can watch:
Smash Peters (Miacca)
See it on facebook here.
Gecko: the Pigeon EP
Posted by jamie on Nov 15, 2011
Gecko
Pigeon EP – Self released, 2011
15th November 2011
Jamie
I’ve been running out of superlatives to describe Gecko for a while now. If you’re familiar with them, I suppose, it should almost be enough for me just to write that, with the Pigeon EP, they’ve done it again.
It would be the shortest review I’d ever have written, but, in a way, it would sum this up nicely. The only problem, is that it’s sort of difficult to believe that they can keep on and on getting better and better. But they have, again, and the proof has just arrived.
If you’re not familiar with Gecko’s music, then you’ve been missing out big time. Prepare to have your horizons broadened and your heart lifted up inside you with love and joy.
Gecko play an uplifting, melodic sort of ska/pop that’s half acoustic, and covered in harmonies, and do it in such a way that they’re at once uniquely, charmingly, thoroughly innovative and completely distinctive and at the same time also knowingly and unapologetically pastiches all of the best and most satisfying hooks from so many years of classic pop song-writing. With the way that they play at times, you get the feeling that they could be anything they wanted to be, but yet it’s still patently clear that they just want to be themselves. And who wouldn’t, after all?
Opener Best Friend is a charmingly shiny, positive tale of friendship, as relatable and reassuring as I Got Time, and even catchier. It’s got a lovely little refrain that, with the harmonies, could have come straight from the vintage pop song book, and those incisive, uniquely, surreally descriptive lyrics and quick-fire vocal that set Gecko apart. And there’s a xylophone.
The title track, Pigeon, would be the anthem to most summers, a Here Comes the Sun for our generation. Contrarily, Gecko have released it twice this year, first in January, and now again in November. Right now, it’s helping my speakers to defy the weather outside, all infectious, anthemic, acoustic tropical energy. Recorded in January, it’s the only track to include Maisie Sanderson-Thwaite on backing vocals. Gecko’s own private anthem, Guanabana Juice, has, at last been re-recorded, and sounds strikingly different all of a sudden. There’s a plaintive, soulful, latin-style guitar part picked out to follow Will’s vocal from the second verse through as the song builds to a steady crescendo.
Another new song, Understand, brings the disc to a close. It’s a very understated little song, lo-fi even for Gecko, but beautiful in its simplicity and unflinchingly candid in its emotions, and instantly relatable for that. Almost as soon as it’s started, it’s gone, though, and the disc is finished. Incredibly, Gecko have, indeed, done this again.
The Pigeon EP is out now. The boys will make each one by hand. Ask them for a copy here.
Claypigeon: free London show
Posted by jamie on Nov 14, 2011
ClayPigeon, play the Bird’s Nest, on Church Street, Deptford next Friday, 25th of November. You also get My Third Leg, Call Me Malcolm and the Plan.
Entry is free. See the whole thing on facebook here. Super-exciting, free, and shareable on the internet. How excellent.
Anti-Vigilante: recording soon
Posted by jamie on Nov 14, 2011
Start drooling: Anti-Vigilante are about to go in to the studio to start work on a new album. They’ll be joined in said studio by uber-producer Peter Miles. Excited.
