Keep It Fresh

The gig guide is back! Your one stop post for all the gigs we recommend spending your money on in the coming month. August’s obvious highlight is Electric Picnic which rolls into three days of great music starting on the 31st. One date that might slip under your radar is French fancy, Uffie in Rouge on the 5th. Sunday night gigs may not agree with some but this is not to be missed. Major kudos to the Antics gang for getting Winterkids in on Wednesday 8th. They also have James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem banging out a DJ set on the 29th which serves as a lil taster for things to come at Stradbally. All the months highlights after the jump. Continue reading ‘Supermassive August Gig Guide’

Hooray! They’re back!

If you’ve had a craving for some sugary, jump-around-the-gaf-like-an-eejit, feel-good, dance-your-ass-off super pop, well then look no further; Proof Of Youth is what you’ve been waiting for. The Go! Team are one of those bands that everyone likes. All the cool kids listen to them, all the un-cool kids listen to them, and the only people that don’t like them are the ones that haven’t heard them yet. So if you happen to be one of the latter, you can pre-order the album here, check out their myspace here, and have a gander at their website here. Proof Of Youth goes on general release September 10th.

-Dave B.

Just got me a ticket to Loop. It’s going to be good!! Here’s some words I robbed from thier site which I will edit down to make more digestible for readers with no time.

Some of the UK’s hottest bands will be performing in Brighton this Summer at the all new Loop – a one-day music and digital art festival spread across four specially created performance areas in the heart of the City. The current confirmed Loop line-up includes a host of leading national and international acts including Go! Team, The Aliens, Husky Rescue, Bonobo, Foals, Mira Calix, Clark, The Bays, Ultre, David E Sugar, Metronomy, Icarus and Transformer.

Loop festival will be spread across four areas: the Hub and Futures tents in the main arena will play host to the most prominent acts, while Limits will provide an internal space for the more leftfield and experimental artists. Finally, artists known primarily for their electronic work will be displaying their mellower, even acoustic side in the intimate Loop Garden. The programme will also include other aspects of digital culture, including animation, film, dance, theatre and installations, as well as VJ performances throughout the day. In the run-up to the festival, there will be a series of music and audiovisual workshops for local 14-19 year olds, who will also be performing on the day.

Tickets are priced at £20 and go on sale from May via loopbrighton.com and ticketweb.com, as well as physical outlets throughout Brighton. Ticket holders will be entitled to discounted admission to a number of LoopLate venues after the main festival. Visit www.loopbrighton.com for more details.

I’m so excited about this festival. It’s got a really great line-up and is a total bargain at £20/€30. Like all good festivals it’s nice to know that I’ll be torn between acts on different stages. It’s always annoying having to make choices but because the festival site is so small it should be no problem to get between stages in under a minute. I’m really looking forward to seeing Foals at it because they’re pretty much amazing. I’ve seen them 3 times now!! I’ve also been waiting to see Metronomy for ages.
Add The Go! Team, Fujiya and Miyagi, Husky Rescue, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Peggy Sue & The Pirates to the mix and it makes for quite a good day. I want to mention Husky Rescue again - I’m excited about them too. A lot of the acts playing are from Brighton or Brighton based too so it’s great for the local scene to have something like this.

To hear some music by acts playing Loop go to the loop site and just let it load up. The site is really nice too. I’m currently enjoying a track (’Papada’) by Transformer that sounds not unlike LCD Soundsystem.

One last thing - I mentioned Metronomy up there. I found a remix they did of a Gorillaz tune at this blog, “Badminton Stamps“. Go check it out.

- Kieran
Who else wants to come over to Loop?? - I’m looking at you Phil!

Surely some people round here are Wilco fans.
Surely some people will be pleased to read a little important sentance from Wilco’s latest mail out. It goes like this:
“If you’re in Europe, stay tuned for new tour dates in Spain, Ireland, and the UK this November.”

There’s talk of both POD and MCD having a series of gigs in November in more unusual venues. MCD are set to have 10 nights of gigs in a tent in Phoniex Park with a capacity of 10,000. Arcade Fire are strongly tipped to be one of the acts and I’m sure Interpol will end up in there and Bloc Party may play there too.
POD’s thing is 2 weeks of gigs at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham with a capacity of around 6,000.

I last saw Wilco on what was then the Rising stage at Oxegen or Witnness depending on what year it actually was and they were magical. I havn’t got their latest album because I have no money to buy music these days but Wilco never disappoint on record. As for as where they may play I’m more inclined to think that 6,000 is a more realistic goal for seeing them than 10,000. But all this talk of loads of gigs is fun. My only gripe is that I won’t be in Ireland when all of this is going on!

-Kieran

Flying Douglas are the perfect rock n’ roll template for the “Greatest Band That Never Was”. Potentially the first band to be signed to Franki Chan’s IHEARTCOMIX! label, they had impressed him both live and with earlier demos. Unfortunately, during the recording of their debut EP Flying Douglas parted ways, the songs never completed and the band showing no signs of reforming. A couple of months back Chan posted the original Flying Douglas demos on his blog and I’ve been listening to it constantly ever since. It’s is an incredibly accomplished collection of songs for a band’s first demo. If all band’s were putting out demos of this quality A&R heads would be sitting pretty. Trust me when I say Flying Douglas will make an excellent little addition to your ipod.

You can read the full Flying Douglas story and download the original demos at the IHEARTCOMIX! blog. While there have a poke around IHEARTCOMIX! and be sure to check out KIF favs Matt & Kim and Protokoll.

-Phil

Mercury Prize shortlist-er Bat For Lashes has just released a new song called The Circle Song, which is going to be part of a new compilation called “Black And White Skins Volume 2″ as arranged by some dude called Spleen. If you haven’t checked her out yet her album “Fur & Gold” is well worth a listen. The new song is available for a listen on Myspace here. Also, check out some stuff about Spleen here.

-Dave B

I can’t get enough of Mr. Oizo’s Remix of Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name. I first heard it on Annie Mac’s show a few weeks ago and wasn’t too sure at first but once I heard it a second time I was all over it!!

Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name (Mr. Oizo Remix) (via mediafire)

It’s sure to be a huge hit in clubs but I can’t see it taking off anywhere else (unlike Justice vs Simian). Evil Nine finished their set at Lovebox Dublin by playing it. Speaking of Lovebox - it’s about time one of my blogging buddies here on Keep It Fresh got some photos and a review of it. I only watched about 4 or 5 acts but had a great day. The addition of Bacardi cocktails was a nice touch!! I really love going to POD gigs and hopefully Lovebox will be around in Malahide for years to come. It’s only five and a half weeks until Electric Picnic.

- Kieran

EDIT:
(Phil: Lovebox review (and pics…ahem!) on the way shortly)

The Brighton/Oxford based band are to set play in the Village this September 21st. Having seen them at both SXSW and Great Escape in Brighton, all here agree this is a must see show. Shame about the venue though…

Check out their MySpace for some tracks, but to be fully appreciated, see them live.

Foals // The Village // September 21st 2007

-Dan

Edit:
Click here for tickets. Or go to WAV beside Whelans where you won’t have to pay booking fees.
- Kieran