Slow Pines are joined by London’s Local Girls and Flying Wing for a full on night of indie-rock goodness.

Slow Pines: (ex OFM, Beachbuggy, Three Torches) play indie rock somewhere between Guided by Voices and The Black Keys.

Local Girls: When not on drum duties for Graham Coxon or singing with The Fuses, Mr Stuffy likes to get out on the road with his rock group. Not to be missed etc… In support of their new album Deluxe Kicks.

Flying Wing: Members of The Wedding Present, Beachbuggy, Cha Cha Cohen etc etc are on stage at 9 sharp for the latest instalment in their performance diary.

DO NOT BE LATE! See you down the front.

It is with great sadness that I share the news that Scott Johnson, a well loved and respected member of the Doncaster music scene was killed yesterday when staging collapsed at a Radiohead gig in Toronto Canada.

Scott was known to many when he worked in the drum department of Electro music in Doncaster. He then went on to tour around the world with some well known bands as drum technician. He was doing this job that he loved, working with Radiohead, when the tragedy happened.

Electro Music Website

Our thoughts are with his family, close friends and extended family at Electro Music.

Electro Music have put today published a memorial page www.electromusic.co.uk/scott-johnson
Keane, one of the many bands that Scott worked with remember him on their site.

Throughout the day hoards of fans stopped by to help place flowers on the billboard and be part of the build. The whole event was captured on camera and the film is now available on YouTube.

I’ve had these tunes in my possession for a few weeks now with every intention of writing a review but as life is good I’ve spent very little time sat in front of this damn screen – today however, after my umpteenth listen I’m compelled to put pixels to screen for this review, because – it’s good! Really good!

Roseanne’s Town opens the show with understated guitar twang but soon builds to a Sprinsteen-esque  heights of layered guitar and horns. Quite trad americana in places it still has English quirks to latch onto. I’m bucking the trend here and avoiding mentioning Mumford & Sons… shit! never again…

“…raising a middle digit to bands without their staying power.”

Saluting Magpies shuffles into earshot next and  skips, jumps, shouts, rattles and bawls around for close to five minutes but you’d never know. With so many time changes, production subtleties and changes in direction it’s a really nice piece of songwriting raising a middle digit to bands without their staying power.

Maybe it’s the change to electric from acoustic but the band have certainly turned everything up to match the new sound. Arv is a hell of a drummer but he now gets to hit harder which really adds to the amplified sound with Jake stretching his vocal chords into a growl that their previous gentle meanderings would not have coped with.

The next track up is Beast in name only, a gentle vocal led acoustic track owing more than a nod to of Dylan, Buckley and Drake.

Mountebank takes a step back into the land acoustic but is no less immediate, building very quickly and wasting no time with a drawn out intro. All the band’s voices blend in fine style for the obligatory ‘shoop shoops’ and this EP is brought to a fitting close.

It might be a bit early in the game for matching iFoo scarf and t-shirt but I’m on board. The folk that have this EP have it on heavy rotation, so do yourself a flavour and get on the wagon.

Official site: http://ifoo.get-ctrl.com
Label: Wire Sound / http://www.wire-sound.com
Recorded by: Keith Angel @ http://www.wavelengthstudios.co.uk

Padriag Whelan makes delicate, brittle music on a beautiful Gretsch guitar.

It’s raw, naked modern folk music – touching briefly in early 20th Century American roots music passing through the late 60′s before landing sure-footed in 2012. The sound is traditional but never muddy and the quality of the recording makes for an unintrusive, almost apologetic soundscape.

Padraig’s first EP was released to great response. Rough Trade Shops featured the package as “strong lyrics, softly sung on four gorgeous, slow-burning songs. For fans of Elliott Smith, Cass McCombs and Richard James’ (from Gorky’s) solo work”

Off and On could have been penned by a 1960s Fleetwood Mac and the space around the track is refreshing with no attempt to fill every void with noise. Romantic but never dreary it’s the Sunday morning come-down you see only in movies.

The single Off and On will be released on Easter Sunday, April 9th 2012.

Catch up with Pat on his Facebook Page here

More tracks and free downloads on the Padraig Whelan Bandcamp Page

A surprising booking for Doncaster’s newest serious music venue – The Queers from New Hampshire US-of-A come to Doncaster for a rare appearance.

“THE QUEERS ARE ONE OF THE FEW BANDS THAT THE WORD LEGENDARY WAS INVENTED FOR! INFAMOUS FOR THIER BEACH BOYS MEETS THE RAMONES ESQUE SOUND, CONSTANT WORLDWIDE TOURS AND IRREPRESSIBLE HARD WORKING REPUTATION.”

See you down the front!

Check out the Facebook Events page here

Grinderman are set to release ‘Grinderman 2 RMX‘ on March 26th through Mute Records. One of the tracks featured on this remix album is a collaboration between Grinderman and U.N.K.L.E. who have teamed up to create ‘Hyper Worm Tamer’ and the video to accompany this track is now available on YouTube. The video follows the same theme as the video for the Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) remix of ‘Bellringer Blues’ which is also featured on ‘Grinderman 2 RMX’.

To celebrate the life and musical achievments of Guy Hunter, much loved local musician and teacher, in aid of The William Appleby Music Centre, a local charity that provides instruments and lessons to children where Guy had worked.

The gig takes place on Saturday, March 17, 2012 at The Hallcross, Hallgate, Doncaster.

Anyone wishing to play speak or just get involved on the night please please contact Simon Saynor through the Facebook events page.

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

I am looking for people of a left-field and inquiring bent, willing to write and contribute a track to a local(ish) themed compilation album. So far I have half a dozen bands on board, including our own fair Rob Che and Thom Smith, and I want YOU to be the next person to get on the DIY party wagon. The task is to write (or adapt an existing) track of between, lets say 1-5 minutes, of no set subject matter and no particular genre. The only restriction is there can be no use of instruments at all, just voice and percussion. The main idea should be songs stripped to the basics, but looping and sampling is fine as long as it’s confined to voice sounds, and anything else can be debated with my expert panel if you’ve got a good reason for wanting to use it.

I’m going to try and offer recording facilities if needed and we can work out a mutual time. I have access to a digital recorder and a space which should hopefully cover most things and can maybe swing for something better if you’re planning to bring a choir, funds and time permitting obviously.

Maybe you’ve never written a song before, or never sung in a band, I DON’T CARE! The only things I’m asking of you are an open mind and a willingness to back your shit up and record something that maybe is out of your comfort zone. I know these projects have always been done for charity and this will end up costing me money, but I’m willing to take the hit to say I saw the idea through to the end even if the only person who buys a copy is my mother.

Any offers of support, advice, time or facilities will be greatly appreciated however, especially the advice part because I really did not think this through when I first suggested it. Also recomendations for other bands who might be up for it. The longer I think about this post the more worried I will get so I’m just going to hit go now, if you need anything else I can be contacted on soapfragile[at]aol.com or through this thread.

ORIGINAL THREAD IS HERE →

This is one of those times, the users on the board have been pitching in with their hot picks from this years musical offerings.

From the compiled list, uber-user MonkeyButler has compiled a Spotify playlist of almost all of the lauded artists. Click HERE to take a look and subscribe. 

We’d love to hear your suggestions too – Click here to head on over to the Forum.

On seeing the three album tracks, each weighing in at over 10 minutes and simply titled I, II and III, it did very little to alleviate the mystery and suggested that I was in for a progressive, uncompromising and challenging ride.

A progressive, uncompromising and challenging ride.

After just over a minute of eerie electronic ambience, you are set upon by a huge, growling riff that steadily builds into a ferocious and precise passage of stabbing, angular rifferama, suggesting what may lie ahead and creating a tangible air of threat.

Across the remainder of this largely instrumental journey, brutal, snarling riffs and heavy grooves explicitly punctuate an undulating and unsettling landscape of drones and ambient textures, attacking and then retreating, occasionally blending with expansive, melodic fret workouts.

…an extremely potent and engaging weapon.

In addition to clocking in at an astonishingly ‘un-prog’ 37 minutes, this mix of light and shade, of ambient open space and restrained bludgeon, melody and groove makes for an extremely potent weapon.

Sit back and enjoy the ride… and wear a helmet.

The record is available on a “name your price” basis. Although this means you can download for free we urge you to make a contribution to the making of this record.
May your conscience be your guide.

Words by Ricky Elderkin.

Ricky Elderkin is head honcho at rickyelderkindesign.com and also creates beautiful and thought provoking football atire at GoalSoul.

‘Never Never’ is the first release from Bear Driver’s forthcoming as-yet-untitled debut album.

Taking influence from bands such as Sparklehorse, The Flaming Lips and Yo La Tengo, Bear Driver write loved-up, fuzzed-up pop.

After making their debut at this year’s SXSW and a chance encounter with Yo La tengo the band returned to the UK to record their debut album.

Self-produced by the band, the album was recorded live in three days in an old swimming pool in east London, favoured by Nick Cave and Graham Coxon, then mixed in a flat in Ealing on a home-made computer.

“We wanted to record live so we went up to the Lake District to work on all the new songs before we recorded them. When we got to the studio in London we just played through them all really fast and then listened back to see what we’d got. Most of them ended up being just one take. We found some cool old keyboards there too, a dusty old Wurlitzer piano that we used on ‘Never Never’, and a bright red Farfisa organ. We took the tracks home and spent a week mixing them, trying to keep as much of the live sound as possible, all the hiss and noise that you get from old mics and amps, and before we knew it we had our album”

www.beardriver.com

Never never is available now to download from the band’s Soundcloud page.

Bear Driver – Never Never by Bear Driver

Thankfully though it appears that both venues will be back before Christmas.

The Hallcross of years gone by had a great reputation for live local music but in recent years, through bad management and lazy bookings, had fallen into tribute act territory*. Under new management and the careful watchful eye of Simon Saynor (Sine FM and a big supporter of local music) we’re looking forward to seeing The Hallcross back on the map. The opening date is set as Fri Dec 2nd with White Valentine and Quillerdrive playing live.

The second venue is arguably the most successful venue Doncaster has ever produced with many successful bands taking in the sights and sounds of the traditional pub on their journey around the toilet circuit (meant in the nicest possible way of course). I truly hope this venue makes it through the next management take over, it deserves to be saved. A provisional date of 26th November has been set for the reopening… details to follow.

Fingers crossed for both venues.

*Look, I like a good cover as much as the next man but not every night hey?

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

93MillionMilesFromtheSun (93MMFTS) are two hugely likeable men from Doncaster and they have recorded an album of songs that sound very much like one Kevin Shields spent £250,000 and had 18 different engineers craft.

You want orchestral guitars? You want feedback drenched lyrics of loss and loneliness, all buried in a beautiful mess of feedback? Well good, because that’s what you’re going to get. And plenty of it. If you have ever felt the need to enter a Sonic Cathedral; come and pray with the 93MMFTS.

This, their second CD, has some real highlights of the genre and it is most definitely a genre. It’s the musical equivalent of a well thumbed Agatha Christie novel, but what better way to revel in the death of the music industry, than to gaze at your shoes and coo sweet nothings into each other’s ears. This is my own personal plan for 2012.

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
Lester Bangs, some point in the 1970’s

The Psychogeography of “Northern Sky”

What could be more uncool than coming from Doncaster?

A rather strange but rather fine thing about 93MMFTS is the lack of place in their music. This record could have been created anywhere in the world. In fact if they were from Brooklyn via Gothenburg, then this would no doubt sell far more copies than it will.

This lack of geography is probably what stops the people of Doncaster from acknowledging them as their own. Do many Doncaster bands of their stature even get to release a second album, never mind have obsessive fans all over Europe, have offers of West Coast tours, or have a Brazilian fan with the band logo tattooed on his arm? 93MMFTS are the perfect example of the “long tail” phenomenon. I imagine two or three people could adore them in every town in the world. 93MMFTS have the unenviable task of linking up those people.

Anyway where was I, the record sounds magnificent. The personnel involved, Nick (Voice, Guitar, Drones, Noise) and Rob (Bass, Drones and Noise), both well past their prime physically, have managed to record a beautiful, peaceful, yet, alarmingly noisy album.

The standout track is “Time Lasts Forever”, which sounds like it could have been on an early Ride EP and if that sounds like faint praise, I can assure you it’s not meant to be. The crooning, “I want you back, and I want you so bad”, sounds like the saddest and tenderest of love songs. Who knew that they had it in them? And all from the mean streets of South Yorkshire.

Other notable tracks are “Before You Leave”, a particularly lovely tune with a bass line like a rambunctious sexy plaything. “All you’ve left behind” is an attempt to channel the death rattle of the Jesus and Mary Chain as they are slowly licked to death by kittens.

The last track, “Sonic Assault” is factually correct. It is a “Shoegazing” cliché but this is most definitely the wall of noise that My Bloody Valentine did so well during “You Made me Realise”. It’s a terrific way to end a special hour in the company of 93MMFTS.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”
Ayn Rand

Enlightened Self Interest and Postscript

So, what next for 93MMFTS? Ten years ago, they could have had a mediocre career of two four track EPs, a Peel session, a fairly well received debut album, a well attended support tour and a sparsely attended headline tour before imploding in acrimony and record label debt without even breaking sweat.

As far as I can tell, two options artistically stand ahead:

1: Embrace dance floor culture – see the electrifyingly awesome Factory Floor. If this album needs anything it’s a bit of a kick up the arse with the drums.

2: Revel in the new gold dream of the 1980’s – see The Horrors. “Time Lasts Forever” could be “Still Life”. Yes it’s that good.

And two business options: Gamble or Stick.

1. Scrape together some cash – Hire a PR. Let the world know about 93MMFTS.

2. Plod along as they are and treat this as a hobby. Release the music and play the odd gig, now and again.

They could always find a sugar daddy to fund the PR for their next release – And on that note, a special message to 93MMFTS:

“Hello boys from 93MMFTS, my name is Bryan Crane and I’m about to be made redundant. Come and sit on Papa’s knee…. “

In the mean time, go and buy this rather wonderful album.

The album Northern Sky is out now on In At the Eye Records.
www.93millionmilesfromthesun.co.uk

Words and pictures by Bryan Crane (bryancrane@yahoo.co.uk)

“What surprises me after seeing them live is that Nick has a lovely voice, but why does every song sound like there is a vacuum cleaner on in the background?”
Eleanor Skillington, the voice of youth. October 2011

Click image for full size poster.