We have a flyer!

And what flyer it is! Made by the multi-talented Paul Rains of Allo Darlin and Hexicon fame. I'm soooo looking forward to this night. It's gonna be magic. Tell your friends!

Cheapo tickets available from wegottickets - http://www.wegottickets.com/event/63485

Ho Ho Ho! Some ideas for pressies!

I haven't posted anything here for over a month. I simply haven't had time.

So, what's been happening in Nik land. Well, the new Moustache EP is almost finished. We've recorded all the songs and only need to add some keyboard bits and do some mixing. Paul from Hexicon will be doing some of the artwork, which I'm rather excited about. Woot! Hopefully it'll be ready before the end of the year, but it probably won't. Haha. We're just not very efficient when it comes to these things.

The next Allo Darlin' single, The Polaroid Song, is officially out on 7th December, but as far as I know you can pre-order the seven-inch already. If not, you should at least be able to get it at Allo Darlin' shows, the next of which is tomorrow at Jamm in Brixton. Both songs are absolutely incredible and guaranteed to make you want to dance the winter blues away. Irresistable bouncy pop songs and just the perfect stocking filler for just about anyone. Oh, and the artwork! Let's not forget the artwork, since it consists of Polaroids taken by me :)

The single cover, a Polaroid of Elizabeth taken in Brooklyn a couple of years ago.

What else is new in music land. Oh yes, the new Eagleowl single Sleep The Winter dropped into my mailbox the other week and what a stunner that is! The Edinburgh gang has really outdone themselves this time, with two glorious songs of alt-folk-fuzz-bliss that recalls Low at their very best. Hell, I much prefer it to Low. Yes, I said it. So, keep an eye out for Sleep The Winter, which is released any day soon. Another perfect stocking filler, perhaps to be used to calm down after the energy burst that is The Polaroid Song. So, in short, Allo Darlin' provides the perfect soundtrack for tearing the wrapping off your presents on Christmas morning and Eagleowl might be better suited for sipping mulled wine by the open fire in the evening. Or, I guess you could reverse the two and open your presents really slowly to Eagleowl, then get drunk on mulled wine in the evning and dance manically by the open fire to Allo Darlin'. Either way, they're both pretty awesome ways to spend Christmas.

I'm starting the new year with a bang, by putting on a show with an incredible line-up. Withered Hand, Sweet Baboo and Lofty Heights will be playing a Records Make Great Pets night at The Wilmington Arms on 22nd January. A flyer will be coming soon, but advance tickets are available now for only FIVE POUNDS from wegottickets. Another great stocking filler!

I can't really begin to say how excited I am about this show. Withered Hand's album Good News is definitely a candidate for album of the year and I can't think of anything that could beat Love In The Time Of Ecstacy to my song of the year title. Here's a clip of Withered Hand playing that very song at some birthday party in Edinburgh.



Awesome! Yes.

I don't need to tell you about the awesomeness of Sweet Baboo. Steve played the last Records Make Great Pets night in July and simply blew everyone away. Lofty Heights are from London and if their performance at the Duke of Uke's easter alldayer is anything to go by, this should just be stunning.

All bands have new releases out, so get yourself to their respective websites and get ordering.

I think that's it for now.

An warm, knitted autumn podcast

Autumn. Love it or hate it…or maybe love it AND hate it. For every fluffy pile of leaves to jump in there's soggy shoes and giant spiders. You marvel at the beautiful colours everywhere, but the daylight only lasts as long as the working day, so there's no time to enjoy it. You get excited about snuggling in front of the fireplace only to remember that you live in London and can't afford a flat with a working fireplace.

This is quite a mellow podcast. Better suited for strolling through pretty parks than jumping in piles of leaves. Kinda like the musical equivalent of a knitted jumper. Hope you enjoy it.


1. The Robot Ate Me – Just One Girl
2. Vit Päls – Vackert Väder
3. Quasi – It's Raining
4. Burl Ives – A Little Bitty Tear
5. Only Son – Only A Tool
6. Let's Go Sailing – Heart Condition
7. Pavement – Harness Your Hopes
8. All-time Quarterback – Dinner At Eight In The Suburbs
9. Palace Music – The Mountain Low
10. Camper Van Beethoven – Good Guys & Bad Guys
11. Pit Er Pat – Baby's Fist
12. Laurel Music – Dreams And Lies
13. Megamoog – Icicle
14. Mount Eerie – Domesticated Dog
15. Park Ave. – All Boy Band
16. The Mekons – Only Darkness Has The Power
17. Azure Ray – November

Download it HERE

Baby Come Dance With Me

So, last night was an absolute blast. Found out that Adam Green was playing a (not very well-kept) secret show at The Flowerpot in Kentish Town, so we headed down. The show was meant to start at 9pm, but I really didn't want to miss out, so we got there around seven. Good thing we did, cause around eight it was completely mobbed with a queue around the whole buliding.

It was just a brilliant show, with an electric atmosphere you don't get very often at gigs these days. Adam played with a full band and played a mix of newer songs and oldies, including classics like Jessica, Dance With Me and No Legs. It's a real shame I only had my phone with me, since I pretty much had the best position in the house for pictures.

Woo-hoo!

I decided to try the video recording on my phone during Dance With Me, but the quality is really, really terrible. Anyway, you get the idea :)

Definitely in the best gigs of 2009 list.

Post cards...

The third thing I ever posted on this blog was a postcard from a place in Edmonton called Story Land Valley. I had found it in a charity shop somewhere and just liked the look of it. This afternoon I was in another charity shop browsing through the postcard bin and surprisingly I found another postcard from Story Land Valley.

This time it's a picture of 'The Raccoon Club House'.

I really love the look of this place. If I ever go to Edmonton, Alberta I need to look it up.

Indietracks memories

I got a Google alert this morning saying that some Moustache videos had been posted on youtube. It's the first footage I've seen of our performance and it made me smile. We had such an amazing time.

Both clips are from our second, quieter set on the train. The first video is of Imagine.



The next video is the rather shambolic end of I Like These Shoes.

Haha. Aww, the memories. A nicer version of I Like These Shoes will be on our next EP, which will hopefully come out before the end of the year. I've also recorded a bleepy laptop version of the song myself. This can be found on www.myspace.com/fulhast

If anyone has any more footage from either of our sets, I'd love to see it.

Also, I wonder what happened to clip 2 of 3. Hmmmm?

Trash Humpers!!

A brand-spanking new film by Harmony Korine is to be unveiled at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend. After three screenings it will travel to the New York Film Festival and then....then.....LONDON BABY!!! This is the most exciting movie news I've heard all year.

I've been a huge fan of Korine since Kids (which he wrote) in 1995 and his directorial debut Gummo (1997) is one of my all-time favorite films.

Gummo (1997)

Nostalgia trip

This post will only be of interest to very few people, but I was on a bit of a nostalgia trip during my walk home from work today, so here goes...

When I was in high school I was in a punk band called Tarmgniders. The name doesn't really mean anything, but roughly translates into 'intestine rubbers', as in the verb 'rub', not the noun 'rubber'. We made some insane songs about utterly random things and recorded a lot of them in our drummers bedroom, straight into the mic on his ghetto blaster. Unfortunately, all these recordings are probably lost forever, unless he finds them in a box somewhere in the future. This picture is probably the only picture of Tarmgniders in existence, at least the only one I know of. It was taken at a gig at some point in 1995 or early 1996. I printed it out on a crappy laser printer in high school and then kept it in a folder until today.

Dana on drums, me on vocals, Andreas on bass and Martin on guitar

Anyway, at some point in 1995 or 1996 we had the opportunity to record a song properly at the local youth club. This is the resulting song, Legosoldaten (The Mercenary)

Tarmgniders - Legosoldaten

There was only one other punk band in our year in school, Happy Piraya. They were completely awesome as well.

Happy Piraya live in 1995

Happy Piraya had an amazing song called Kaktus, which we occasionally cover live with Moustache of Insanity. The original is pretty much the best song ever recorded.

Happy Piraya - Kaktus

The sound on these mp3's is absolutely terrible, but it's the best I could come up with.

music, music, music, music....all the time

Back in London after another long weekend of playing and watching music. It's been a bit full-on recently. In Edinburgh I did my first radio session ever, which was...pretty terrifying. I think I did alright, but it does sound like I'm about to break down in tears at any point. This was the first time I'd ever played any of our songs without Bill. Eek!

Interview with me + 16,000 km

It probably didn't help that Dan from Withered Hand did his session just before me...


Interview with Dan (Withered Hand + Cornflake)

I mean...how do you follow that?

On Friday we headed to Newcastle for an all-day music event at the Tyne Bar. It was us, Allo Darlin, Hexicon, The Just Joans and a bunch of local bands. Should have been awesome, but it was a bit weird for a number of reasons. First, I don't think people were really there to see either of us. Then, most of us played before anyone really showed up....I think Allo Darlin did best. They were on late and by then people had had a few drinks.

Paul Hexicon

The Just Joans

Despite the lack of people, it was great seeing the Just Joans again, though. I hadn't seen them since the WeePOP! anniversary show at The Enterprise last summer.

On the Sunday we all headed to Edinburgh for Retreat!, a free all-day event taking place in The Bristo Hall. With an incredible line-up this was one of the musical highlights of the summer.

Both Moustache of Insanity and Allo, Darlin' were invited to do acoustic sessions for offthebeatentracks.tv, an online video series similar to France's Takeaway shows.

Allo, Darlin's session went smoothly (as you'd expect), but the Moustache one was rather chaotic (again, expected). First, we had to climb over a closed gate to get into a city centre nature reserve. When we finally started playing, a rather scary-looking man started waving a giant bottle of White Lightning Cider at us. In the end he didn't kill us, but came out to watch. I'm pretty sure our fear will be reflected in the videos so keep an eye out on the website. They have a bit of a backlog, but it shoudl be up at some point in September.

Enfant Bastard

Enfant Bastard was my musical highlight of the weekend. Apparently, they played a set of songs by singer Cameron's other band, The Love Gestures, rather than Enfant Bastard songs, but having listened to his records the boundaries seem a bit blurred. Anyway, playing gritty anti-folk with quirky and slightly self-depracating lyrics, they came across like a Scottish mixture of Half Japanese and early Jeffrey Lewis. Most excellent stuff. Check them out.

Enfant Bastard myspace

The Love Gestures myspace

ok...that's about it...all musiced out for now.

Back from the homeland

It's cold, grey and miserable. The most important news of the day is the death of a big fish. Yes, I'm back in Britain. Coming back from holiday is always a bit traumatic. Late nights, sleep-ins and loads of fun is suddenly swapped for early nights, early mornings and a lot less fun. I guess it could be worse. At least I like my job.

Anyway, the past week has been amazing. Arrived in Sweden last Tuesday and found ourselves on a boat hotel (boatel if you like). On paper, it sounded cosy, sweet and rather romantic. In reality, it was rather….erm….shit. A cramped little cabin with a super small bathroom. But, we weren't in Stockholm to sleep so it wasn't a big deal.

At least the view was nice

We skipped the first two days of music to catch up with some of my old friend from high school. Since I hadn't been to Stockholm since I was twelve it was useful to have someone point out the various places/areas of interest. It was also a really weird feeling being a complete stranger in your home country.

Anyway, on Thursday we headed to the Southside Cavern (an Irish pub, run by Australians in Stockholm!) for our first Cosy Den evening. The line-up was great, with Tafra, Let's Whisper and Johan Hedberg all playing. I remember the first time I saw Tafra in April 2007 at The Good Ship. Back then he was a shy and awkward boy with a ukulele singing sweet songs about birthday presents and over-sleeping. The second time I saw him was in November that year, by which time he had armed himself with a vintage Casio, electric guitar and a Japanese back-up singer. Now, almost two and a half years after my first introduction to Niklas Tafra he had gone through a slightly more extreme transformation. Hunched behind a laptop, with Peter Gunnarsson (from Suburban Kids With Biblical Names) on drums, it was quite a surprise. Barely recogniseable from their original incarnations, the songs were drowned in electronic noise, fuzz and odd drum beats. Tafra seemed to have ventured down the darkest roads in popland and speaking to him afterwards he seemed in no hurry to return to brighter places. Fascinating for sure and the songs sound great no matter what he does to them. I can't wait to see how he will sound next time.

Tafra

Let's Whisper were great as usual, and despite this being the third time I'd seen them in less than two weeks, it all felt as fresh and fun as the very first time.

Let's Whisper with Elizabeth helping out

After too many beers and with too many people (mainly Smittens) to talk to I missed most of Johan Hedberg's set. Ah well. These things happen.

Friday was a beautiful day and we met up with The Smittens & Co and headed for Långholmen, an island in the south of Stockholm, where you can go swimming. Like the dork that I am I managed to forget my trunks, so that didn't happen.

In the evening The Smittens played at Lasse i Parken, yet another ridiculously over-priced (but rather nice) bar with an outdoor stage. Having missed their set at Indietracks it was nice to get a second chance. The audience loved it…of course. Smitterrific! Bumped into Andy (of Pagan Wanderer Lu) which was a pleasant surprise, but utterly random since he wasn't even in Stockholm for any Cosy Den-related reasons.

Smittentastic

Smittnificent

Eventually, we all headed to Southside Cavern for the after party/Twig gig, but by then me and Elizabeth were pretty knackered, so we didn't stay for too long. It was sad to say goodbye to all the Smittens, but I'm sure they'll be back at some point next year. They better be. Or else.

Saturday was the big day, the reason we went to Stockholm in the first place. With the whole of Allo, Darlin' now safely in Sweden we headed over to Gula Villan, a legendary venue in a yellow house in Haninge, just outside Stockholm. It's an incredible venue. Small, but cosy and just perfect. The beer was cheap, the music ace and the lake was five minutes away. What more can you ask for?

Vit Päls were great. I'd heard the name before, but never any of their music. They sort of reminded me a bit of The Wave Pictures with their dryly comic take on everyday life. Their album can be downloaded for free at their myspace (http://www.myspace.com/vitpals)

Vit Päls

I'd never heard of White Town until Jyoti Prakash Mishra came up to me at the merch desk at Indietracks and asked if we could sell some seven-inches for him. I later found out he had a UK #1 hit in 1997 with the song 'Your Woman', but it must have passed me by. I kind-of-but-not-really recognised it when he played it. Anyway, he played a great set and was a really nice guy.

Allo, Darlin' time and they really brought the house down (figuratively speaking). Elizabeth bounced all over the place and the audience bounced with her.

Allo, Darlin'

It had been a long time since I saw Suburban Kids With Biblical Names (two? Three years?) so I was really looking forward to their set. They certainly didn't disappoint. Sooo good.

Suburban Kids...

...With Biblical Names

What else? Hmm. Oh yes. Cats On Fire hit the stage and you know what? They were pretty damn good. I guess I never really "got" them before and maybe they weren't at their best when I saw them in London a few months back. I'm not sure if it was the booze or the music, but it just made sense. We danced like loons until someone (name withheld) pushed a lamp too hard and it came off the ceiling. The dancing continued, albeit a little less loon-like.

Cats On Fire

In hindsight I regret leaving early, but that's what we did. I would have liked to have continued drinking and seen Erik De Vahl…but, but, but….there was no booze left and the last train was about to leave so we made our exit.

Sunday was the last day in Stockholm and we headed for the archipelago. A cold beer on the ferry, followed by polka ice cream and a swim at Vaxholm. Back in Stockholm, we had the biggest pizzas known to man. There are worse ways to spend a day.

Sweden is a rather lovely place. Maybe I could live there again…maybe.

Indietracks makes me want to rock out!

That's it. Indietracks 2009 is over. Three days of far too much booze and not enough sleep...but also three days of amazing fun and great music. I must say I was a bit worried beforehand, with Elefant Records being involved and all that. I guess I feared that with bigger names on the bill, it just wouldn't be as nice and cosy this year. But, in the end it was pretty damn awesome again. Sure, I missed some things, but then some things were improved, so you know...you win some, you lose some. I missed the spontaneous late-night platform gigs from last year, but we did them in the marquee instead, so it didn't really matter. And no tea tent (meaning no tea tent gig surprises) either. Anyway, it was an ace weekend.

Some personal highlights...

Friday is a bit of a blur, but I did have an awesome time. I remember catching bits of Au Revoir Simone and they sounded lovely. Caught up with the Smittens gang and we all danced like loons to cheesy 80's pop classics in the shed. I went to the bathroom and heard Dream Bitches' Maniacal Mechanic being played in the marquee, which made me develop a giant cheese-eating grin. I love that song. In there, I remember drunkenly wondering whether the flourescent tubes on the table in the marquee were tubes of sherbet or glow sticks. I soon found out that they were full of sugary goodness. Oh and Silke gave me a Pop Kombinat tote bag. Yay! Back to the tent for drinking and funness.

Saturday was when it really started. It was hard leaving Little My in the middle of their set, but I just had to see Let's Whisper on the train. And they were awesome.

Dana and Colin on the platform before the show.

I'm sure they get awfully tired of always getting requests for the ice cream song, but it still makes me so happy.

I LIKED YOU BETTER WHEN YOU WERE EATING ICE CREAM!! LALALALALALA!

The rest of the Saturday went by quickly. The Lovely Eggs were rather brilliant in the church, despite the fact that they didn't play their amazing Christmas song. I guess it was July. Tender Trap were great on the main stage. Watched from Camera Obscura from afar whilst eating a yummy curry.

The Tender Trap gang

Malcolm from Eagleowl (who were sadly not playing)

After working a bit on the merch stand and watching Emmy The Great, it was time for my highlight of the day, the "secret" marquee gig. Members from One Happy Island, The Smittens, The Just Joans, Allo Darlin and Moustache of Insanity took it in turns to play a song or two to a packed tent.

This was seriously amazing....

Afterwards we headed back to the campsite and finally managed to get into the disco tent. Dancing, dancing, drinking, drinking....then eventually...sleep.

Sunday and I started getting nervous pretty much immediately. What if nobody would show to our train show?

Bill Moustache in front of the wheely thing.

Anyway, we watched a bit of The Smittens and headed to the platform. To our surprise the place was packed. The train was early but we all piled on. Our set seemed to go down well. When the train came back to the platform, we realised we had taken the wrong train and there was even more people waiting for us.....so we stayed on the train and played another set for them. It was much quieter, but also really nice. All in all I think we played for one hour and ten minutes and got through 19 songs. That was quite some PRS form to fill in.

Sadly this meant we missed the Talulah Gosh set, but you know....these things happen.

After the giant set we dropped of our stuff I got back to merch tent and realised that pretty much all our records had been sold. Woo zaa!

And then....one of the big highlights of the weekend. Art Brut in the shed. AMAZING!

Elizabeth and Pete

Elizabeth and The Smittens trying to decide whether to brave the rain for Teenage fanclub.

We were a bit wimpy and had an early night...no more dancing.

Elizabeth playing football with Little My.

Monday....all over....brekkie...packing up a soggy tent....

365 days or so to go to the next one.

Thank you Stuart and everyone involved for an incredible weekend.

Allo sweet whispers

Another weekend just flew past. I don't know what happened to time, but it seems to pass alot faster these days. Anyway, Friday night was incredible. At first, there was the usual fear/paranoia that goes with putting on shows. What if nobody shows up? What if the sound guy doesn't show up? What if the wrong type of crowd shows up? What if nobody likes the bands? What if I don't like them? So, I spent the first couple of hours running around thinking about stupid things, like where the chairs should be and where the table for taking door money should be. Should I do both the door and merch? How many pages should I use in the notepad? Seriously, I think about these things....and many many more. Phone call from the headliner, who's running late. Panic, panic, panic, even if he even told us before that he didn't really need to soundcheck. Anyway, two out of three bands were there, so soundcheck could start. Let's Whisper and Allo, Darlin' did their thing. Greg (from The Lofty Heights) was on sound duty and it all sounded fine. Glass of wine, a beer, sweets. After a while, quite a few strangers had already been up to ask about stage times, so I could finally relax a bit. Sweet Baboo showed up eventually, along with his brother and the biggest keyboard known to man. They soundchecked in about six minutes, so in the end we had plenty of time.

Doors and the place started filling up quickly. First up : Let's Whisper.

Let's Whisper used to really feel like a side-project. Whenever I've seen them in the past I've been left feeling like The Smittens are the real band and LW was there for songs that didn't really fit anywhere or for those times when the other Smittens weren't available. But on Friday, things really felt different. Colin and Dana were on top form and all the songs sounded great. The new songs are as good as anything by The Smittens and I'm now really looking forward to their upcoming album. They were joined on stage by members of One Happy Island and the full-band thing really worked as well. So, Let's Whisper are most definitely a sugar sweet indiepop force to be reckoned with. They were running out of time and still hadn't played When You Were Eating Ice Cream, so I let them run over a bit. It's always heartbreaking to ask bands to stop playing when everyone is having such a great time, but I don't make up the rules.

Let's Whisper has a myspace and you should pop over and say hello. They're also playing on the steam train at Indietracks at the weekend.

Next up was Allo Darlin, hot from supporting the Lucksmiths at the Scala the week before and also from a glowing review in The Guardian, with Jude Rogers calling Henry Rollins Don't Dance "the best indiepop song for years". Woo zaa. They went down a storm as usual.


Woot. Look at that! Again, they ran over and I started to feel increasingly worried about the headliner, Sweet Baboo. Luckily, I know from soundcheck that they were super quick to set up and indeed, they were up and ready to go in ten minutes.

I'm new to Sweet Baboo. I know the guys in Little My recommended him when we were up in Cardiff earlier in the year, but I hadn't really listened much to him before the show. His website is well worth visiting though, since it features a simple video for each song on his absolutely incredible, new album, Hello Wave. Go on. Watch them all - http://www.sweetbaboo.co.uk/

They played an incredible set and despite the music was rather different from the first two acts, he had the crowd's full attention. Their brotherly bickering made for great in-between songs banter. SB is not really music for dancing and parts of the audience sat down on the floor, just enjoying the songs.

His set flew past and before I knew it, I had to tell them to wrap it up :(

But, but...that's how it goes. It felt a bit short, but I don't think people were too disappointed. After all, it was only a fiver and he's back in London in a couple of weeks.

So, another successful Records Make Great Pets night. Thanks to everyone who came down to Betsey. We have some exciting plans for the future. I hope they work out.

Another Monday, another podcast

Four more long days until the weekend. I thought I'd share some songs with you in the hope that they will make your week go faster. Just like the weather in London it's a rather schizo mix, from the sweet sounds of Pants Yell! to the loudness of Emperor X, new bands along old favorites.

The lyric that sums it all up is from the Passenger Pigeon song:

"I used to think that indie music came from India and is made of turqouise"

Hmmm...or maybe not.

1. Nana Grizol - Circles 'Round The Moon

2. Urban Barnyard - Horseys In The City

3. Andrew Phillip Tipton - I Mississippi You

4. Six Cents And Natalie - Penalty Box

5. Huggabroomstik - The P Man Has A Nightmare

6. My Darling YOU! - Please Don't Talk To Me I Fall In Love So Easily

7. Shrag - Talk To The Left

8. Strip Squad - If You Don't Take Me Right Away You Might As Well Fuck Off

9. Half Japanese - Secret

10. Pants Yell! - Mixed Media Collage

11. Kanda - Too Many Boys

12. Oh Sweet Music! - My Trip To Asia

13. Siberia - Vem Som Klanger Pa Vem

14. The Passenger Pigeons - The Punk Song

15. Veronica Falls - Found Love In A Graveyard

16. Emperor X - Shut Shut Up

Download Records Make Great Pets #4

Enjoy responsibly!

That was rather awesome...

The Lucksmiths final show, with support from Daniel Kitson and Allo Darlin. Such a lovely evening. It started off rather bizarrely, when we walked into a dodgy strip joint by mistake. Seriously! We mistook it for a weird old man's pub, which would have been much preferable to all the generic gastro-lounge-nonsense bars around the Scala. The first thing I noticed was a sign that said "No Photos", which I thought was a bit odd. But, you know...maybe their clientele just didn't like tourists or whatever. Then a girl wearing not much more than her pants walked past and we realised what we'd just done. So, we left, giggled a lot and went somewhere much more forgettable.

Anyway, the gig was great. There was already quite a crowd inside when Allo Darlin hit the stage and the band was in great form. Heartbeat Chilli was a particular crowd-pleaser, but all their songs went down a storm. Daniel Kitson was super nervous about being a comedy middle act at a pop show, but he did an awesome set. The Lucksmiths were great as well and provided more than enough reasons for me to start familiarising myself with their albums.

Elizabeth

Mike and Bill hide during a drum/bass-free song.

Daniel Kitson managed to get the pop kids' attention. Absolutely brilliant.

And the headliners themselves...

Class photo! All the artists, promoters and some randomers! Woot

Now it's the weekend. Twee as Fuck alldayer tomorrow with Allo Darlin and Tender Trap. Yay! Even though the Twee as Fuck peeps never reply to my emails I shall try to enjoy myself.

Goodbye Lucksmiths, Allo Darlin'

To quote the late Micheal Jackson, "This is it". Tonight is the night of the very last Lucksmiths show. To be honest, it doesn't really mean that much to me, or anything at all actually. I like what I've heard, but that pretty much amounts to one song, T-shirt weather. I hope they play it.

I'm sure it will all be lovely, but I'm much more excited about the support acts, Allo Darlin and Daniel Kitson. It will be Allo, Darlin's biggest show to date and I'm really looking forward to seeing them on a big stage. Kitson is hilarious and it'll be interesting to see how the indiepopsters will take to a stand-up comedy support act.

The awesometastic poster for tonight's show. It's rather strange seeing your girlfriend in cartoon form. Haha.

Me and a legend

So, I was in rather fine company on Saturday. I was at an event called Sweden on Stage, celebrating Swedish culture and drawing attention to the fact that Sweden have just taken over the presidency of the European Commission. A bunch of Swedish artists were performing, including bearded ABBA legend BEnny Andersson himself. However, I had the honour of meeting Harriet Andersson, the star of several of my favorite Ingmar Bergman films. I also met Stig Björkman, filmmaker and authour of several biographies on Bergman, Lars von Trier, Woody Allen etc.

So, from left to right, that's Margot Wallström (Vide-President of the European Commission), me, Harriet Andersson and Stig Björkman.

And Harriet back in her Bergman days. This is a promoshot for Summer With Monika, which is a rather incredible film.

It's all a bit of a blur...

...but we also went to see Blur at Hyde Park on Thursday. It was pretty amazing. I have a video of Song 2 that I might put up later, but for now...two Polaroids.

ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!!!!!

Another awesometastic show coming up!

That's right. We're putting on yet another show and this one should be very special indeed.

We're doing it upstairs at The Betsey, which is a lovely little room. It should be great. Come and join the fun.

Sweet Baboo will, or should if there's any justice in the world, be massive this year. With an extremely impressive summer of gigs ahead of him (Truck Festival, Green Man etc) and an amazing new album we're extremely excited about having him with us. Simply gorgeous folky pop songs.

Allo, Darlin' has played every night I've put on and here they are again. They just keep getting better and better. With a great new single under their belt, this should be another great show.

One word to describe Let's Whisper: cute. But, not annoying cute, just awesome 'fluffy kittens and puppies and ice creams and hugs' cute. Acoustic lovelyness that's catchier than...I was going to say swine flu, but that would be inappropriate...so just really catchy.

Sweet Baboo myspace
Allo, Darlin' myspace
Let's Whisper myspace