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Comrades,
Just back from watching The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart play a zillion great shows in three hot and sweaty days as SXSW. Seems like the man at the NME dug ‘em too…
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=15&p=6030&more=1&c=1
So… tomorrow is our regular Beat Hotel night at the Buffalo Bar. Some of The Garden City Project have to get back to Brighton after they play, so New York anti-folkers Schwervon! are now headlining, with The Trimdon Grange Explosion (ex-Eighteenth Day Of May) and the “Dylan for the 21st century” lo-fi folk of Yo Zushi as support. That’s a lot of class acts for very little cash – tickets here:
The Garden City Project + Schwervon! + The Trimdon Grange Explosion + Yo Zushi
Friday 27 March @ Buffalo Bar, Highbury Corner N5
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/46463
Next week we have three (THREE!) shows in as many days. First off we’ve a Chemikal Underground night with the much lauded The Phantom Band and, I’m told, the possibility of some other special guests. Don’t hold me to that though!
Chemikal Underground night with The Phantom Band + De Rosa + Angil & The Hiddentracks + DJs
Wednesday 1 April @ The Luminaire, Kilburn High Road NW6
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/44061
On Thursday we’ve Shrag with the newly reactivated Tender Trap (ex-Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research, etc etc) in support, fresh from their all-conquering Popfest show:
Shrag + Tender Trap + Arthur & Martha
Thursday 2 April @ The Lexington, Pentonville Road N1
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/45411
Then on Friday we’ve a special How Does It Feel To Be Loved? club warm-up with The Loves and Pocketbooks. The club is on directly after this show at The Canterbury Arms in Brixton, only five minutes walk away and the bands at Jamm will be finishing especially early so you’ll have plenty of time for dancing to the best indiepop and soul sounds around. Not only that, but we’re offering a special discount to anyone on this mailing list or with a HDIF members card – Just click on the secret link below:
Pocketbooks + The Loves + The Give It Ups
Friday 3 April @ Jamm, Brixton Road SW9
http://www.wegottickets.com/sct/DvrpePgxCT
If we survive that then there’s a couple of great shows at The Luminaire with Steve West from Pavement’s excellent Marble Valley project…
Marble Valley (ex-Pavement/Silver Jews) + My Sad Captains + A Classic Education
Wednesday 8 April @ The Luminaire, Kilburn High Road NW6
http://wegottickets.com/event/46538
…and Nat Johnson’s (ex-Monkey Swallows the Universe) new band, with support from Fortuna POP!’s latest signing Allo Darlin’…
Nat Johnson (ex-Monkey Swallows The Universe) + Allo Darlin’
Saturday 18 April @ The Luminaire, Kilburn High Road NW6
http://wegottickets.com/event/46539
…and there’s more too…
Cats On Fire + Je Suis Animal + Little My
Thursday 23 April @ The Windmill, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton SW2
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/47073
The Crayon Fields + Le Man Avec Les Lunettes + The Super Wolfgang + Mascot Fight
Friday 24 April @ Buffalo Bar, Highbury Corner N5
http://wegottickets.com/event/46540
The Wave Pictures + Bonne Idee
Thursday 7 May @ The Lexington, Pentonville Road N1
http://wegottickets.com/event/46548
Love Is All + Ill Ease
Sunday 10 May @ The Lexington, Pentonville Road N1
http://wegottickets.com/event/45322
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart + Special Guests
Wednesday 10 June @ Cargo, Rivington Street, Shoreditch EC2A
http://wegottickets.com/event/45690
And don’t forget, the indiepop album of the year by the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart is available from us direct. It’s called simply, with a justifiable degree of self-confidence, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, and it contains ten of the best pop songs you’ll ever hear, including the singles “Come Saturday” and “Everything With You”. It’s available on CD or beautiful 12″ vinyl LP for the princely sum of £10 (UK) or £10.50 (Europe) by paypal to ministryoffinance@fortunapop.com
Hasta luego,
El Presidente
*** GARDEN CITY PROJECT + SCHWERVON! + TRIMDON GRANGE EXPLOSION + YO ZUSHI ***
Friday 27th March 8pm
Buffalo Bar, 259 Upper Street, London N1 1RU
Nearest tube : Highbury & Islington
Tel : 020 7359 6191
Web: www.buffalobar.co.uk
E-mail : info@buffalobar.co.uk
Advance: £5 from We Got Tickets/Door: £6
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/46463
SCHWERVON!
Schwervon! Is a two piece anti-folk rock band. They started making up songs soon after they met amongst the fertile Indie Rock gutters of New York City, with Nan pounding the drums and Matt reawakening his high school electric guitar rockability. Their music is a celebration of imperfect love through jagged rock minimalism. They were DIY long before it was a marketing strategy, mixing and recording the bulk of their music in their cramped little apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
“Party/ Folk Noise/ Punk band Schwervon! make cute fun out of the Big Black blueprint.” (Village Voice)
http://www.schwervon.com/
www.myspace.com/schwervon
THE GARDEN CITY PROJECT
From the kitchen of a small terraced house in the woody lanes of South Hackney village, a group of like minded individuals got together to form a musical collective in an attempt to play the kind of sounds that they wanted to hear. Moving on from these monthly kitchen jamborees, they have moved out of their village confines and are now haunting the concert halls and ale houses of this great smokey metropolis we call home. The Garden City Project have battled collective laziness, general inertia and the grind of our capitalist society to entertain their friends, themselves and other like minded individuals with a bitter sweet blend of folksy soul bossa nova psych influenced by the likes of The Byrds, The Carter Family and the Free Design.
“Hackney’s finest urban folk practitioners” (London Tourdates)
www.myspace.com/thegardencityproject
THE TRIMDON GRANGE EXPLOSION
The Trimdon Grange Explosion are a new band featuring ex-members of the greatly missed Eighteenth Day Of May – Ben Phillipson on guitar and vocals, Karl Sabino on drums and percussion, and Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton (also of The Left Outsides) on bass guitar and vocals and viola and vocals respectively.
YO ZUSHI
Described by Mary Anne Hobbs (Radio One) as “the spirit of Bob Dylan for the 21st Century”, lo-fi folk icon Yo Zushi has already released two highly acclaimed CD albums on Pointy Records (home to the Clientele, Tim Ten Yen, Flotation Toy Warning and Ladybug Transistor). According to London’s Metro newspaper, his “lucid tales of alcohol-fuzzled intrigue” exude “a warm melancholia”; Steve Lamacq (Radio Two) calls him a “raw, intriguing talent”. Q Magazine, who gave his 2005 debut, Songs From A Dazzling Drift (2005) a **** review, likens him to a “Richard Hawley with knowing winks”.
“A masterclass in storytelling” (Dazed & Confused)
http://www.yozushi.net
http://www.myspace.com/yozushiSecret Knowledge presents
*** SHRAG + TENDER TRAP + ARTHUR & MARTHA ***
Thursday 2nd April 8pm
The Lexington
96-98 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JB
Nearest tubes : King’s Cross / Angel
Tel : 020 7837 5387
Web: www.thelexington.co.uk
Advance: £6 from We Got Tickets/Door: £8
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/45411
SHRAG
Expect jagged post punk, ragged electro pop and a bundle of ramshackle, runaway energy, alongside nods to everyone from Le Tigre to Penetration. Their debut album Shrag was released on WIAIWYA earlier this year and has garnered comparisons to Love is All, Gang of Four, B52s, The Long Blondes and more.
“A spectacularly bitter indie girls-set-on-stun dual vocal attack, in what is one of the better bands to juxtapose schmindie twee and angered literary abstraction since 1990s unsung legends Prolapse.” (The Guardian)
http://www.myspace.com/shrag
TENDER TRAP
Tender Trap need no introduction as the current band of indiepop princess Amelia Fletcher (Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research). Fresh from playing the London Popfest where they reported stole the show with their punk rock for girls. Not to be missed.
“Sounding a bit like an unholy alliance between Blondie and The Magnetic Fields, Tender Trap has a bubbly synth-pop sound that is so infectious the CD should carry a warning label.”(Ink19)
http://www.listen.to/tendertrap
ARTHUR AND MARTHA
Arthur and Martha are an electronic pop duo, by bringing together their rag-tag collection of moogs, melodicas and an antique drum-machine, they pen the songs for the happy robots to dance to. This is a rare live show to support the release of their debut album ‘Navigation’ which will be released on Happy Robots in the spring.
“a British spin on The Postal Service, or Aphex Twin remixing the contents of NME’s seminal ‘C86’ tape” (NME)
http://www.myspace.com/arthurandmartha
*** POCKETBOOKS + THE LOVES + THE GIVE IT UPS ***
Friday 3rd April 7:30pm
Jamm, 261 Brixton Road, London, SW9 2LH
Nearest tubes : Brixton / Stockwell / Kennington
Tel : 020 7274 5537
Web: http://www.brixtonjamm.org
E-mail : info@brixtonjamm.org
Special Discount – £4 only for members of this list and HDIF membership card holders…
http://www.wegottickets.com/sct/DvrpePgxCT
POCKETBOOKS
Pocketbooks are a pop band from London, combining melodic boy/girl harmonies, spiralling guitars and delicate piano lines. Since appearing on How Does It Feel To Loved’s seminal “The Kids At The Club” compilation they’ve released a single on Atomic Beat records and an EP on their own Make Do And Mend label, been played on BBC 6music and played fabulous pop shows with the likes of The School, Radio Luxembourg, Butcher Boy and Saturday Looks Good To Me. Think Camera Obscura, The Pastels, Belle and Sebastian, The Sundays and expect a sprinkling of dazzling 60s soul alongside some sparkling indiepop charm!
“Nuggets of exquisitely crafted pop that slyly references the timid bashfulness of ‘Tigermilk’ era Belle and Sebastian and the spring-hued shimmer pop of early Heavenly” (Losing Today)
http://www.pocketbooks.org.com/
www.myspace.com/pocketbooks
THE LOVES
From Cardiff, The Loves mix pop psychedelia and C86 indie with a dash of Jack Daniels and beatnik cool. They released their debut single on Radio One DJ Huw Stephens’ Boobytrap Singles Club in 2001 and then made several singles and an LP with the esteemed Track And Field Organisation. They also recorded four Peel Sessions in two years (one of which was broadcast live from Peel Acres on Valentine’s Day), and have recorded sessions for Marc Riley on BBC 6Music and BBC Radio Wales. Their second album “Technicolour” was released on Fortuna POP! and was made Album Of The Week by The Sunday Times. A new album “Three” is set for release in May.
‘A wide-eyed retro-chic indie-pop sextet that sound like The Monkees playing at being The Velvet Underground.’ – (NME)
http://www.myspace.com/lovetheloves
THE GIVE IT UPS
Likened to everything from “the twee Pavement” to “Beat Happening having a fight with Huggy Bear in Mothercare”, The Give It Ups are in fact merely two girls and three boys from South London, who play short, fuzzy pop songs about stuff, and occasionally nothing, for your enjoyment and vexation.
http://www.myspace.com/theegiveitups
*** MARBLE VALLEY (ex-Pavement / Silver Jews) + MY SAD CAPTAINS + A CLASSIC EDUCATION ***
Wednesday 8th April 7.30pm
The Luminaire
311 High Road, Kilburn, London NW6 7JR
Nearest tube : Kilburn (Jubilee Line)
Tel : 020 7372 7123
Web: www.theluminaire.co.uk
E-mail : info@theluminaire.co.uk
Advance: £6 from We Got Tickets
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/46538
MARBLE VALLEY
Marble Valley are a six piece guitar pop band fronted by ex-Pavement and sometime Silver Jews drummer Steve West. Steve joined Pavement prior to recording 1993’s ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’ and remained in the band untill the end. Marble Valley are more a collective than a fulltime band, with members in the US, UK and Holland. That said 2008 has seen a renewed drive, there’s been a reissue, a brand new record and now a tour. Last seen supporting Silver Jews in 2006, this will be their third visit to Europe. 2008 has been a busy year, June saw the first UK release of 2006’s ‘Wild Yams’ and a new album followed, ‘Slash And Laugh’ in August. Both albums released by Indikator Records of Germany and distributed in the UK by Sea Records via Shellshock. This english, dutch and american coalition have created the most polished Valley CD to date. Slash & Laugh is both “together” and “out there” at the same time.
www.myspace.com/marblevalley
www.searecords.co.uk
www.indikatorrekords.com
MY SAD CAPTAINS
London-based quintet My Sad Captains take the country-tinged American sounds of Sparklehorse and Wilco and lend them a sparkling, harmony-rich pop edge, touched with occasional fiery noise outbursts. Their debut single “Bad Decisions” garnered acclaim from Uncut, the NME and Drowned In Sound; radio support from Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens and Gideon Coe; and its lilo-tastic video featured on MTV2.
“Sparkling indie pop in the vein of Pavement, the Lemonheads or Broken Social Scene, and the kind of music it’s possible to fall deeply in love to with people across the room whose gaze you momentarily caught but will never meet.” (RockFeedback)
http://www.mysadcaptains.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/mysadcaptains
A CLASSIC EDUCATION
Hailing from Bologna (home of tagliatelle, ragu bolognese, Lamborghini and Maserati), A Classic Education been together for about two years and have played with the likes of the Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Fanfarlo, Lightspeed Champion, Jeremy Warmsley, and Los Campesinos! While their debut EP owes a lot to ’90s American indie (singer Jonathan Clancy, originally from Canada, sounds a little like Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch), they’ve expanded from a trio to a six-piece (including strings and keyboards) that ups the sweeping romanticism factor quite a bit.
“Epic, multi-layered and expansive… file next to the likes of Arcade Fire and Decemberists with impunity. ” (Tangents)
http://www.aclassiceducation.com
http://www.myspace.com/aclassiceducation
*** BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL – A Fortuna POP! compilation ***
Get our Be True To Your School compilation with 25 Smash Hits from the vaults of Fortuna POP! in a dead posh digipak with a booklet with pics of the bands and ramblings and everything. Here’s the full tracklisting:
1. Y Sun Over Discordia / Discordia
2. Home / Finlay
3. Oh Katrina / Tender Trap
4. Blinky / Sodastream
5. Itsuko Got Married / Bearsuit
6. Catchy Monkey / Mark 700
7. Take It To Fantastic / Cannonball Jane
8. You’re The Prettiest Thing / The Chemistry Experiment
9. Xs and Os / The Loves
10. Yvonne / micktravis
11. Rob A Bank / The Butterflies Of Love
12. Dialling Mitt / Spraydog
13. I’m A Tiger / International Strike Force
14. TK1 / Twinkie
15. Talking Backwards / Fanfarlo
16. T-Shirt Weather / The Lucksmiths
17. Work’s All Right (If It’s A Proper Job) / MJ Hibbett
18. Fallen Angel / Taking Pictures
19. Between Delta And Delaware / Airport Girl
20. Starving Hungry In Tescos / Mogul
21. Dialling Tone / Milky Wimpshake
22. The Walk / The Aislers Set
23. Too Old / Would-Be-Goods
24. You Can Hide Your Love Forever / Comet Gain
25. Small Music / Homescience
Pretty cool huh? And the best part is that it’s only £5! If you want to order one here’s the lowdown…
BY POST: Send a cheque, postal order or IMO made payable to ‘Fortuna POP!’ to 4 Mayfield House, Rushcroft Road, Brixton, London. SW2 1LD. UK.
BY PAYPAL: Use our PayPal address ministryoffinance@fortunapop.com
For orders in Europe but outside the UK, please add 50p per item ordered. Outside of Europe, please add £1.00 per item ordered.
“An amazing roster… dive straight in to these nuggets of pop perfection and appreciate the label for all it’s done for us.” (Drowned In Sound)
“The Fortuna POP! and Track and Field labels have given me more musical pleasure than just about any other labels in the past decade and the POP! legacy is laid out here to see. One for the year-end best ofs, I think.” (SoundsXP)
“It oozes authenticity reminiscent of ‘Nuggets’, the great proto-punk-psych compilation series. If you can’t enjoy this, despite its flaws, you are a bad person.” (CMU Daily)
“If the idea of a library full of undiscovered, indie pop gold appeals to you – and it should – then this is Motown Greatest Hits volumes 1,2 and 3 for your hungry little mind.” (Artrocker)
“A mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous, of bedroom pop glory (from both the guitars and samplers divisions), DIY sonic wreckage, classic songwriting and cackhanded tomfoolery.” (Fire Escape Talking)
“As befits any indie label worth its salt, there’s often an almost wilful stylistic schizophrenia to the catalogue, which reflects the taste of its founders as much as its audience. And that’s how it should be; the sleevenotes themselves are enlightenment enough on that one. Credit crunch be damned: music is (almost) its own reward – if you’re true to it.” (Record Collector)
*** NEW LUCKSMITHS ALBUM FIRST FROST ***
A trip across Bass Strait this past winter to Tasmania has yielded First Frost – The Lucksmiths’ finest and most eclectic album to date. Camped out in the wilderness, the band was free to explore and expand the musical palette, and with all four members contributing songs, the end result is an expansive 14-song offering bound to surprise anyone who thought they had The Lucksmiths pegged as sounding too much like The Lucksmiths…
Opening cut, the Kinks-y “The Town and the Hills”, sets out some of the album’s central themes, examining the distance (geographical and metaphorical) between city and country, while “California in Popular Song” is a sweet slice of sun-kissed pastoral pop complete with sweeping strings and a throaty low-down guitar; combine this with some gentle fingerpicking and Tali White’s pensive vocal, and it’s already become your new favourite Lucksmiths song! Meanwhile, recent live hits, the jangly “Good Light” and the surprisingly glam-rockin’ “A Sobering Thought (Just When One Was Needed)” — the latter concerning a late-night drunken escapade at a public swimming pool — both receive a fine rendering on First Frost . Elsewhere on the album, The Lucksmiths’ familiar strum is traded in for brief dalliances with a disorderly fuzz pedal, a choir of misplaced mittens, and a bird that just wants to know why you got drunk. Intrigued…?
First Frost is available in the shops from November 1, distributed by the kindly folk at Cargo. It’s also available RIGHT NOW to order from us, the kindly folk at Fortuna POP! for £10, ordering details here http://www.fortunapop.com/records/buy.html
(You can read more about the recording process for First Frost and how the mice in the studio got involved in guitarist Marty Donald’s recording diary here http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/3325911)
*** NEW FIVE SONG WIMPSHAKE EP ***
The new EP from Newcastle’s fun-loving bedroom anarcho-syndicalists – a credit crunch busting value for money five songs long with covers of songs by The Yummy Fur and The Isley Brothers as well as three fizzing punk-pop originals.
A potent mixture of fizzing pop tunes, punk attitude and protest folk Milky Wimpshake have released numerous singles and compilation tracks on assorted indie labels since forming in 1993, along with three albums, 1998’s “Bus Route To Your Heart” released on singer Pete Dale’s own legendarySlampt label, 2001’s “Lovers, Not Fighters”, issued on the ultra-hip Troubleman Unlimited label (Erase Erata, Rogers Sisters) in the States, and 2005’s “Popshaped”, the latter two both on Fortuna POP! in the UK and Europe. For many Milky Wimpshake are the spiritual godfathers of the now-thriving North-East music scene, and as überlord of the Slampt label Pete was responsible for launching a hundred fanzines and as many bands, Kenickie included. Futureheads guitarist Ross Millard has paid respect to the band in the pages of NME and on Sky Sports Soccer AM!
This EP features 3 fizzing new original tunes: punk love song “One Good Use For My Heart”; the self-explanatory “(Show Me The Way To) Anarchy”; and the nonsense poetry of “Milky Cliché”; plus a medley of the old music hall number “If You Want To Know The Time Ask A Policeman” andThe Yummy Fur’s “Policeman”; and a recording of a live favourite, their cover of The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart Of Mine”. All adhere to the classic Milky Wimpshake sound – buzzsaw guitar (thinkRamones, Buzzcocks), simple bass, garage-y drums, throwaway but intelligent and humorous lyrics – and will be warmly received by their many fans and new listeners alike.
Again, in the shops soon but available from us NOW for £3, ordering details here http://www.fortunapop.com/records/buy.html
TO ORDER THESE MINOR GEMS IN A SEA OF MEDIOCRITY…
BY POST: Send a cheque, postal order or IMO made payable to ‘Fortuna POP!’ to 4 Mayfield House, Rushcroft Road, Brixton, London. SW2 1LD. UK.
BY PAYPAL: Use our PayPal address ministryoffinance@fortunapop.com For orders in Europe but outside the UK, please add 50p per item ordered. Outside of Europe, please add £1.00 per item ordered.
