Currently Listening To... The Little Ones - Sing Song EP

This 7 track EP was released over this side of the Atlantic last month, despite being recorded in 2005. As the cover (left) indicates, it's an infectiously cheery display.

I first encountered The Little Ones last year when I read a small single review on Planet Sound. Needless to say a 9 out of 10 and the mention of them being the ideal stopgap before the release of the new Shins record was enough to pique my interest. However, with Wincing The Night Away out, I can say that their position atop American indie pop is looking rather precarious. Every track on Sing Song is a gem, and 'Lovers Who Uncover' is one of the finest tracks you are likely to hear this year. At €10.99 in your local HMV, it's well worth checking out. Their myspace is here.

They recently played support to Tily And The Wall, and hopefully they will be back for the festival season.

Here is the video to their single, Oh MJ:

Members of Hope Of The States form new band

So someone went poking round, stalking in essence, on myspace and found some rather interesting information on people's myspaces. It seemed as though there was talk of a new band including members of the sorely missed (by me and a few others) Hope Of The States. Not to be confused with Troubles, a post-rock side project, this band will have a similar styling HOTS.

The thread about the original discovery can be found here.

So armed with this knowledge, I sent that link to Mr. John Earls of Planet Sound, the alternative music pages on Channel 4 Teletext. An early champion of HOTS, he was intrigued by this revelation, so went investigating.

Apparently, Sam, Simon and Paul from HOTS and Jon from Troubles are in this band, and there will be vocals. Which is good news all and all.

And because I don't need much of an excuse to do it, here is Black Dollar Bills off the debut LP, The Lost Riots.

The Smashing Pumpkins announce new show

The Smashing Pumpkins first show in 7 years will be held in Paris on May 22nd. The grand, old and intimate Grand Rex shall host the performance. It will be the first time songs from Zeitgeist shall be played live, but by exactly whom, it is unknown.

Expect a scramble for tickets when they go on sale on April 11th.

Tour dates are as follows:
Tue 5/22 Paris, France Grand Rex
Mon 5/28 Landgraaf, Neth. Pinkpop (Near Heerlen)
Thu 5/31 Barcelona, Spain Primavera Sound Festival
Sat 6/2 Nurburgring, Ger Nurburgring Race Track
Sun 6/3 Nuremberg, Ger Zeppelinfeld
Sat 6/9 Lisbon, Portugal Super Rock
Tue 6/12 Madrid, Spain Las Ventas
Fri 6/15 Nickelsdorf, Austria Nova Rock
Sat 6/16 Imola (Venice), Italy Heineken Jammin' Festival
Sun 6/17 Interlaken, Swtz. Greenfield Festival
Sun 8/5 Washington, DC V Festival at Pimlico Park
Fri 8/24 Leeds, England Leeds Festival
Sun 8/26 Reading, England Reading Festival
Sat 9/8 Toronto, ON V Festival

North American fans have been told to stay tuned for further information regarding a tour after the V Festival dates in Washington and Toronto.

As you can see, there is a gap between the Reading Fest and Toronto V that a set at Leccy Picnic would slot into nice and dandy.

A misnomer? Only time will tell.

There are many poorly named bands and acts in the world today. Kells' own Hand Sandwich are one of the latest, and worst, offenders. Echo And The Bunnymen always sounded silly to me. However all of these pale in comparison to London's Gavin Shaw. This is a man badly in need of Urban Dictionary. Since splitting from rap collective 35 Above, their demise a sure kick to the stones for the hip hop world, he has been making music under the name Gee Bag.

Yep Gee Bag, spelt that way. It reminds me of when Chandler convinced Joey to use Stalin as his stage name, except its worse and more hilarious

Gee Bag

New Manics Video

Those old favourites of mine, Manic Street Preachers, have a new album out soon. The following is the video for the upcoming single. Nina Persson of Cardigans fame, duets on it.



Underdogs, also off the new album, can be streamed here.

Personally, I think if this is the best the album has to offer, the band's chances of recapturing the masses' attention are not good.

MCD... crafty fellows

So you may or may not have heard that there is a new boutique festival starting in Scotland called Connect. Acts confirmed include LCD Soundsystem, Mogwai, The Beastie Boys and Bjork. It's on the same weekend as Electric Picnic. So my first reaction was "OMG it's gonna pair up like TITP and Oxegen"

However my parade was pissed on when, after a little bit of googling and wikipedia-ing (I dont see that getting into OED anytime soon), I found out that the promotors of Connect, DF Concerts is 67% owned by Gaiety Investments, the parent company of MCD.

OH NOES!!

Does this mean that MCD will steal even more acts from EP... well perhaps. However I have been reassured that the headliners were secured before MCD could meddle further.

There are also rumours of Latitude (the English leccy Picnic) being brought over by MCD, but I am not sure how much truth is in those.

Mark Greaney's solo project

He has one song up on his myspace. It's called Radio, and I'm liking it. Being a fan of the band, especially the second album I must say I am excited. He's also playing support to Simple Kid in May in the Village Venue. He claims on his myspace that he shall play new and old stuff.

Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan part ways

Story

The official story makes it seem all very amicable, but I believe that Lisa Hannigan soundchecked with the band last week in Germany, but was not there for the gig, nor any other subsequent gigs.

More Concerts Á Emporter

So this is the big one for Blogotheque, Arcade Fire perform Neon Bible and Wake Up



Neon Bible was pretty special huh? Wake Up was underwhelming. I'm the first to shh for silence at a gig, but come on surely the "ohhhhh oooooo awwww"s of Wake Up require crowd participation.

From what I hear Arcade Fire were somewhat disappointed at the lack of energy in that respect at some of their gigs, Manchester for one.

Oh, and Win is sick, and so they've had to pull the rest of the European tour, but having seen them in Dublin, I don't care.

The National - Concerts Á Emporter

So Blogotheque have been running this for a while now, with previous guests including Guillemots, The Kooks and I'm From Barcelona. The National were one of the more recent acts to perform. This video is of the band and friends performing Start A War, off the forthcoming album.



An intimate moment, no?

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