SERGIO! SERGIO! ON MY RADIO

Always good to start Friday with a touch of Bolshevik inspired Heimat romance, Russian dancing and gorgeous acoustic versions of songs you already love.

Agreed? If so scroll down.

The former is supplied by the Ally Kerr film for A New International's 'Once Upon A Time In The Revolution', the track that takes Leone to Leon (Trotsky) for tea. At least one Sergio is in my good books this week.



The latter requires a little more effort but to access session versions of both 'Come To The Fabulon' and 'When I Walked The Earth' recorded for The Culture Show (oh aye, they know their culture) go hear and then fast forward to one hour in until you hear 'Valentino', then sit back and enjoy

And, as if that wasn't enough, you can hear the whole of 'Come To The Fabulon' hear. If you haven't heard the album yet then, really, what have you been doing?

STARBENDERS - ROCK N ROLL BOYFRIEND

Loving this from Atlanta's Starbenders

And, lucky me, just got some new tracks so keep your eyes open for more later....

Now to find a way to get them over to the UK.........

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – IMPORTANT EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE BELOW

EDDIE ARGOS

Tells You How He Formed A Band And The Inside Track On Rock n Roll

SPOKEN WORD TOUR MAY / JUNE 2015

Pop music, as we all know, can be an uncertain business. Whilst a chosen few achieve their dreams of riches, world travel and mass adoration for many a spot at their local battle of the bands is the limit of their fame. 

In October of last year Eddie Argos, world renowned lead singer and songwriter with Art Brut, the London band that have spent the last decade redefining the meaning of stardom, entertained a select audience in London’s Islington with the tale of how he created Art Brut and forever changed the face of popular music.

Now the whole of the UK will have the opportunity to hear his tales of a life spent in rock n roll, from playing the vacuum cleaner onstage to lying to people in London about how he could sing like Aretha Franklin. This is his story.

Dates are as follows, tickets are available now via usual agents or links below.

May
Saturday 23rd Edinburgh, The Voodoo Rooms (Speakeasy)
Sunday 24th Glasgow, Broadcast
Monday 25th Aberdeen, The Lemon Tree
Tuesday 26th Manchester, Gullivers
Wednesday 27th Birmingham, The Rainbow
Thursday 28th Cardiff, The Globe
Friday 29th Bristol, The Birdcage Door Sales Only
Sunday 31st Leicester, The Musician

June
Tuesday 2nd Norwich, Arts Centre
Wednesday 3rd Cambridge, Portland Arms
Tuesday 16th Brighton, Komedia Studio
Wednesday 17th London, Courtyard Theatre

FOR MORE INFORMATION - LOUDHAILER PRESS
Lewis Jamieson - lewis@loudhailerpress.com / @LewJam / 07718 652582

MORE ABOUT OUR SPEAKER

Eddie Argos grew up fantasising about being the singer in a band that would tour the world, despite the fact he can't really sing. Somehow he managed it and now he is going to tell you how. Heartwarming story or cautionary tale? You be the judge.

https://www.facebook.com/eddie.argos

https://twitter.com/EddieArgos
http://www.the-eddie-argos-resource.blogspot.com
http://www.artbrut.org.uk/
http://www.eddieargos.com

LONGFELLOW SCORE A & R WORLDWIDE'S VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Our favourite South London Alt-poppers Longfellow have had their quite remarkable video for the current 'Medic' single heralded as VIDEO OF THE WEEK from those nice folk at A & R WORLDWIDE. Coming on the back of lists at 6 Music and Radio 2 here is further proof (if you need it) that Longfellow are making all the right moves as 2015 swings into action. Their headline show at London's Borderline on 26th February is all set to be one of those gigs.

A&R WORLDWIDE’S "VIDEO OF THE WEEK" – LONGFELLOW


South London’s Longfellow consists of Owen James Lloyd (vocals), James Thomas (guitar), Ali Hetherington (keyboards), Lewis Fowler (bass) and Tom Warhurst (drums) who create melodically charged alt pop. They invaded the UK’s airwaves with their singles “Siamese Lover,” which was supported at radio by the likes of Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 6 and Jo Whiley on Radio 2 and “Kiss-Hug-Make Up” which was included on the Radio 2 playlist for three weeks, which led to a special Fierce Panda X-Posure show for Xfm’s John Kennedy last May. As Longfellow gets closer to the launch of their new EP in April, they’ve unleashed the new single “Medic.” The song has appeared on the playlists of Xfm, Radio 2 and 6, which is quite the accomplishment for an unsigned band. The video clip is nothing short of amazing with the animation and positive story. Longfellow has upcoming gigs in London at The Social tomorrow night and at The Borderline on February 26th. Watch the clip for “Medic” HERE and contact Simon Williams of Fierce Panda at simon@fiercepanda.co.uk for available opportunities, as Longfellow is available for signing, publishing and synch opportunities worldwide.

Blunt Arguments

Too posh or too poor? Contrast James Blunt with The Courteeners. One is pilloried by the media for being the former, the other has a fanbase that is criticised in print for being 'yobbish', media shorthand for working class male. Both are on a blacklist at certain media. It's a funny old world.

When Chris Bryant makes the reasoned observation that entry to the arts is becoming the preserve of a moneyed elite he does us all a service. I have long argued that music, and the wider arts, is becoming the outlet for a certain view of the world, whether in television (see my previous post, that music is too centred on both London and an intern culture that is now so firmly embedded that both music and media outlets are proving self selective in their staff choices and that this self selection is proving a destructive force on musical culture as it disengages the fan of mainstream rock music in particular from the media and vice versa.

Where Chris Bryant went horribly wrong was to start naming names. James Blunt is not responsible for the narrowing of the windows of opportunity for non middle class kids on either the business end or performing end of the recorded music industry. A combination of those internships, the reduction of social welfare allowing musicians time to get their music together, a winner takes all culture and a host of other players are. Somewhat notably, many of these were the work of the very party that Chris Bryant claims membership of in its long run under Blair and Brown. Nor is Eddie Redmayne a destroyer of working class opportunities in film. Given that membership of any of the leading acting job sites racks up to hundreds of pounds per year, rep has been reduced to rubble, drama in schools is now pretty much the sole preserve of dedicated teachers giving up their spare time and deregulation of television has given rise to a host of players devaluing the core culture of television drama and therefore removing art and replacing it with cheap to air reality television (another middle class laugh at the poor trick that persists) it is little surprise that the idealism of the 60's that raised Glenda Jackson has been replaced by a low cost strategy where the only exceptions are driven by star names. Then bear in mind that the vast majority of acting jobs being fought over by far too many actors are unpaid and Eddie Redmayne's part in this reduces to nothingness.

I am glad to see a politician raise the question of culture and put it centre stage. I am not convinced that direct government intervention is the way forward. What is inescapable though is that whatever else he may be guilty of, James Blunt is not the villain of this particular piece.

Thoughts on a grey January / The Worship of metrics

In conversation with a friend in the USA last night we got onto the topic of a potential home for the phenomenally talented young band he is producing. The band, who I shan’t name as this isn’t really about them, are strident, political, engaged true believers in the power of rock ‘n’ roll to transform the dull mundanity of life in the 21st century, not least of all their own. If that sounds old fashioned to you then I would suggest that is your problem, not theirs.

In an increasingly atheistic society, music is a faith that is losing traction; to turn the language of the unbelievers back on themselves. We are all aware that choices for exposure are now made predominantly on the basis of metrics, that distribution of music, coverage, airplay, even live fees are at the mercy of a gaggle of ‘followers’ on social media, the power of the mouse click translated into an ability to shape popular culture with micro second engagement with passing tracks, bereft of context or impact, set adrift on a sea awash with flotsam and jetsam, wreckage of the next big thing or the last great movement.

In the course of that chat we discussed where we might find the new Creation or the new Sub-Pop, labels that we felt would have been a perfect fit when in their pomp for this band. The reasons were precise. In both cases these were labels that had taken the zeitgeist and shaken it at a time when rock culture, that subset of pop music that can bother the mainstream but has never set out to see it as a principal target, was in the severe doldrums. Whether it was the Mudhoney / Nirvana axis that cleared away the dead hand of hair metal in the US and the sub Smiths indie pile up in the UK or the Oasis / SFA / Teenage Fanclub / Primal Scream era of Creation that reintroduced the concepts of proper stardom, rock ‘n’ roll excess both literal and artistic and genuine joy in music and engagement that blew away the tail end, back to metal clichés of grunge’s last gasps, we concluded that there was simply no label like that in existence.

This, in 2015, seems the essence of the problem with what I will call my music culture. That culture is broad in genre, it can accommodate indie guitars with grunge metal, noise pioneering with ambient electronics, crushing techno and beats with acoustic driven sentiments but, at its heart, it is a music of belief and, crucially, at its centre is the idea. The idea that we are doing something against the mainstream culture, the idea that we are right and they are wrong, the idea that we will storm their establishment and change it for a time, the idea that our moments may be brief but they will be many and that those who journey with us will have their lives changed and enriched irrevocably and permanently. This is not an engagement with a like button.
It is easy to counteract this idea. I have released enough records, managed, pr’d and engaged with enough artists and events over 20 years to know very well that the economics of music are perilous and getting more so, that making money from promoting music in any way, from curating great talent, is not a sensible way to live but my simple response is ‘so what?’. If those at the helm are of this opinion they shouldn’t be there. Dreams are not built on certainties, culture is not transformed by careful attention to profit and loss columns. Music is not a career. It is a vocation. That applies as much to those supporting its creation as those at its centre making the stuff. Great art never came from a focus group. In truth nothing of any note came from a focus group, possibly excepting ‘Nuts With Gum’. (Ask a Simpsons fan).

January is, as ever, the month of lists. More so than ever, those high profile bands to watch countdowns, with some notable exceptions, read less like an expression of belief in the transformative power of music and more like an assessment of forward planning metric delivered by a middle manager in a mid range designer suit via Powerpoint on a wet Tuesday in a boutique London hotel. Our culture needs a counterbalance to this endless grey, to the march of the marketeers and their metric worship. If anyone does spot the new Creation or the new Sub-Pop I’d love to know. In the meantime, I’ll keep the faith and, as a wise man once said. keep kicking against the pricks.

Tatty Seaside Town

I was born in a dormitory town of a faded seaside resort in 1971. St Annes-On-Sea was ever the poor relation to Blackpool, its bigger cousin 5 miles down the coast but in the early 1900s it had a sense of grandeur and class that alluded the brasher neighbour just to the North. 5 miles south lay Lytham, another Edwardian promenading hotspot, now a genteel retirement village being overtaken by a Manchester influx of BBC employees and the creative industries clustered around the one shining example of progress the North West can offer; a sore point that has whispered rumours of 'takeover' from older residents.

These days I find only those from the North and fans of golf have heard of Lytham St Annes. I mention all this because watching the by-election in Clacton, another faded seaside town, brought up strong memories of home and also got me wondering whether the safe Tory seat of Fylde, with a majority of 13,000 odd on a 43& turnout could be another Clacton come next year.

The images of that bye-election that will stay with me are of multiple members of the public in electric wheelchairs stopped in the street mid fag puff for their opinion, a mother outside holiday accommodation become permanent housing saying no-one cared about the people who lived there, seried ranks of respectable pensioners in hiking coats of the type permanently on sale in Millets telling reporters that the politicians had no concern for their old fashioned white working class views and young people brandishing the 'change' dictum ('we've tried the others, why not them?'). It didn't matter one iota that the other parties pointed out they would elect the same MP as they had had for ten years plus, that they had this policy or that policy, that UKIP would do this or that which contradicted the very thing they claimed to care about; there was an air of inevitability about the whole process.

When I visit my dad, still in the same house in Ansdell (between Lytham and St Annes) where I grew up we always go to the workings men's club of which he has been a member since 1959. He has been President. Chairman, Committee member, his father the same before him, it is a never changing world of family lineage and permanence; my younger brother once drew a plan of where all would sit on a Sunday afternoon which was 100% correct. In that club are the people that demonstrate a cross section of the 57& who didn't vote in the Fylde. There is little interest in Westminster politics within these walls. Yet there is increasing sympathy for UKIP. There is also a similar cross section of the people I saw in the media from Clacton both here and outside the 1920's red brick walls. Electric wheelchairs abound complete with fag puffing occupiers, the Peter Storm all weather coats, the rental tenants in temporary accommodation. Like their brethren in Clacton they don't care that much about a change in income tax, a fiddling with devolution, the promises they know will be broken like last time from the 'major' parties. They are a world away from the media world of Cameron and Miliband and Clegg and they dislike all of them equally, a basic disgust at the 'other' that transcends policy and enters the personal.

If UKIP can get a decent proportion of this 57% to the polls alongside adding the disgruntled from other party voters they will walk it. Like them or not, UKIP are the English mirror image to the Scottish experience of late. Where the Scots had Radical Independence targeting the non voting working class, we have Farage and company. It is a testament to him, like him or not, that an extremely wealthy City boy can become a 'man of the people' through the simple expedient of drinking beer and smoking but it works. Compared to the awkward schoolboy on a trip to the factory schtick of the three other party leaders he offers a real world experience, an ability to communicate with normal people about normal things in a normal way. If those of us, myself included, do not find a way to counter that with our own beliefs in a similar approach, we could be looking at a very different UK come May of next year.