Liverpool – and so she thinks

Liverpool Sound City – first names revealed

admin — Thu, 23 Nov 2017 10:10:25 +0000

Liverpool has something of a musical history, with a few famous bands have come out of the Mersey city over the years. It continues to have a thriving cultural scene, and arts and music pulse through the city. There’s plenty going on, and Liverpool Sound City, the annual showcase of local, national and international acts, has announced another fizzing line up for 2018.

It will be the festival’s eleventh year, and as usual the focus is on uncovering emerging new talent at the same time as bringing iconic artists to intimate spaces. Taking place during the first spring bank holiday Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May 2018, across the Baltic Triangle and Cains Brewery, the line up promises to be vibrant and diverse. They’ve just announced the first ten acts, and tastes are suitably whetted. Peace, Slow Readers Club, Ibibio Sound Machine, Baxter Dury, Idles, Jaws, Low Island, Cassia, The Orielles and Zuzu will all be performing at next year’s festival, which promises to be bigger and better than ever.

Q&A with Sheepy

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 12:21:02 +0000

Sheepy are a punk pop indie rock band, a group of musicians with a self confessed propensity for absorbing the music they love and whittling out hooky tunes and familiar melodies. Latest record Wild EP was released last week, and to find out more about the band and recording, I had a chat with Luke Jones (vocals and guitar) Ollie Fontaine (drums and vocals) whilst Villy Raze (bass and vocals) was busy planning world domination.

Punk pop indie rock – that sounds like you can’t decide. Do you like all kinds of music?

O:We do like all kinds of music. Villy is the Punk, Ollie is the rock and Luke is the pop song writer. But we get classified with lots of genres.

L: we may have a dance/hip hop album out some day.

Tell me about the album – how have you progressed since the last and is there any evolution in your music?

L: Wild EP is the new 4 track album. The songs have more of a groove and are a bit longer in length than some of the fast paced punkier stuff on our last album. The last track Life Is Like A Ghost Train is one of the first I recorded and it’s spooky sound works well with the other songs.

O: When we were making the last album we had dozens of tracks to choose from, which came from our live gigs. The new EP we didn’t narrow it down and we hadn’t played these songs before.

Do you think Liverpool has had any influence on your music?

L: Yeah. I think most cities have a ‘sound’ and we used to grow up playing and listening to other local bands. One of the new tracks Jeremiah Horrocks is about a 17th century astronomer who lived a mile from me In Liverpool. Songs like Glum are influenced by the people and places around me. But Liverpool most definitely isn’t glum.

You’re involved heavily in the music scene outside of playing in a band – has this helped you musically? I feel like the more collaborative and involved people are, the greater input they are prepared to put into their success, is this the case?

There is a great underground music scene in Liverpool, we try to go to as many local gigs as possible and get bands over to play when we can.

L: We’re also getting to know a lot more of London musicians and bands, where our label are based. This is just something we’ve always done. Musicians should look after each other, not try and compete.

What is success for Sheepy?

Success is being able to tour and play for a living. For where we are the next level is getting a booking agent and playing bigger gigs and festivals regularly. We’re not motivated by money, just the love of gigging, making music and seeing people enjoying the music we’re doing.

Who are you listening to at the moment?

L: Wonk Unit, Slaves, and Jungle.

O: Alabama Shakes, Spring King, Happiness and Saves the day

13 albums in what, 7 years, is prolific. Is it an urge to create, a desire to be heard, tons of ideas, or lots of fun? How do you check the quality and decide what to release?

L: I’ve always had a constant urge to write music since I was young. When I hear a song, I want to write a song. We’ll usually jam out some of my ideas and Villy and Ollie will take it to another level. We’re all songwriters and we are now writing more collaboratively than before.

Here some of that songwriting on new EP Wild, out now.

Hooten Tennis Club – Jasper

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:18:00 +0000

Hooten Tennis Club‘s motto is ‘seize the day, tomorrow’ and there’s certainly an element of the lazy slacker vibe on first single Jasper, the guitar work rolling alone as it catches up with the track of the drum beat. With an enjoyable leisurely pace but fitting in a dense array of sound, the new single strides with easy confidence and a more taut delivery than is obvious from first listen. Their downbeat lyrics and English wit combined with classic garage tunes, knotty jams and simmering guitar work caught the eye of Heavenly Recordings, and Ryan Murphy, Callum McFadden, Harry Chalmers and James Madden, who all met at university in Liverpool, have recently signed to them. Exuding breezy charm it’s an example in nonchalant perfection.
https://soundcloud.com/heavenlyrecordings/jasper-hooton-tennis-club

Sea Witches – Stars

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 14:50:56 +0000

Four piece Liverpool band Sea Witches make dirty pop music that simmers and seethes with an attractive malevolence. Punchy as well as expansive, they have a certain eighties goth vibe about them, as well as the ‘Epic angst disco’ that Jo recently revealed they are aiming for. New single Stars is brooding and full of dark reverie and passion, with their off kilter artistic backgrounds glinting through into their songwriting, with both craft and delivery having an element of the unusual enchantment about it.

All We Are – Keep Me Alive

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:11:37 +0000

A soaring pop tune, with bounding pulses, Keep Me Alive, is like a walk on an dark path, the brightness at the end teasing with twinkling stars splattered on the blackness. A solid rhythm section under chiming vocals and skittish melodies blends before building up to a persuasive R’n’B flecked psychedelic swirling apex. The single will be the latest track from the multi cultural Liverpool based band’s self-titled debut LP; coinciding with its release on the 2nd February 2015.

The Beatles visit Australia

admin — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 07:30:47 +0000

Travelling and writing about local arts and culture, I didn’t expect to be writing about The Beatles. Liverpool lads. Bit of course, The Beatles are everyone’s culture. They swept the globe, made the world twist and shout, won the love of millions of girls and the longing of millions of boys, as the Beatles in Australia exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, heading soon to Melbourne’s Art Centre, pays testament to.
Frenzied youth, chart domination – She Loves You was in the Australian Top 40 for 42 weeks – media madness, branding paraphernalia and endless promotion from anyone who could associate themselves: this was confirmation of the musical revolution in Australia. And the effect was not solely musical.
‘It was liberating,’ Glenn Barker, writer and commentator recalls on one of the many interviews, ‘we were isolated, and lived out of the mainstream of the world, we sensed there was something incredibly exciting happening in the top half of the world, the youth had taken over. Until the Beatles arrived…like a skewer to lance the the boil of stifling conservatism. They changed us completely.’
This is the main focus of the exhibition: not just their incredible music, electric presence and phenomenal feel that surrounded them, but their impact upon a generation. Survival suddenly looked so dull. Suburbia wasn’t interesting. There was a world out there and The Beatles revealed it. Their charm and talent was often deemed responsible for fuelling teenage rebellion toppling some of the conservatism that existed. For some this responsibility was a credit, for others a blame.
The Beatles only played one Australian tour, of twenty concerts, the Adelaide date only added later after an 80,000 strong petition by local residents
. Upon arrival the largest crowds ever seen in the city gathered to welcome their idols, an event which has become part of the musical history of Australia. It wasn’t only Adelaide. Throughout 1963 Australia was in the midst of an even more heightened sense of Beatlemania. Everywhere saw celebrations for Beatle Week, or B-Day. The Sunday mirror changed its name to The Sunday Beatle and offered a competition to win an invitation to Paul’s 22nd party.
The exhibition is full of memorabilia of all kinds. (One wonders what museums will do in the future when we don’t collect the physical or make scrapbooks or join fan clubs but show ‘adoration’ via a like or a click. How do we document our enthusiasm and record our lives in a lasting way that can be experienced by others?) Records and posters adorn the walls, and as well as the usual requests for signed records, kissed photos and thrown panties, one girl mailed George a piece of chewing gum with the instructions ‘chew this darling, and send it back to me.’ Women’s magazines featured cakes and goodies for Beatles parties, Paul cupcakes a highlight.
Whilst the music is rightly and loudly lauded, the focus is more about the experience of Australians. How the band and their songs threw so many segments of society into a delightful disarray of emotion and hedonism, joy, passion and mayhem. How they changed Australia, and the world in a way that many other artists, institutions and politicians envy.
As George said ‘Everyone was saying ‘There are more people here than came to see the Queen.’ Well she didn’t have any hit records.’

Liverpool Sound City – first acts announced!

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:11:37 +0000

For one reason or another Liverpool has picked up a bit of a reputation for good music. Liverpool Sound City, the 3 day music, media and technology conference, and live arts and music festival Continues that tradition when it returns to the city in May with another thrillingly compelling line up. Forward thinking and future focused, the show aims to bring the best new music, film, art and more from all over the world to Liverpool, although wings are expanding with the inaugural New York Sound City show taking place in March and further international shows to be announced.
As well as a whole bunch of good music, Seund City will be hosting the UK Music Student Awards to be hosted by BBC Radio 1’s Edith Bowman and a running in live demos, master classes, discussions and more as part of the convention exploring the intersection between art, music, business and technology.
Band wise, Professor Green, White Denim, Death In Vegas, Cloud Nothings, Yukon Blonde, Charli XCX, and Fixers have all been announced, perfectly demonstrating the breadth of talent that Liverpool Sound City aims to showcase.
Early bird tickets are available here – but be quick as the recession busting price expires at midday on February 6th. Although it’s well worth it whatever price you pay.