I haven’t posted much about Sky Larkin before, but after this discovery I’m gonna be paying them a lot more attention.

I’ve already deafened you with my slightly over-the-top love for Bloc Party (here), but Sky Larkin have taken a stand-out track from ‘Intimacy’ (‘Ion Square’) and made it possibly even better than it was before. Slower, more stripped back, more hauntingly beautiful than the original.

MP3: Sky Larkin – Ion Square (Bloc Party cover) (via my ace new find, Separated By Motorways)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

.

There’s nothing better than seeing a band who are at the top of their game – great songs, great crowds, and still the enthusiasm of the day they first handed their demo tape to Steve Lamacq. This is the case with Bloc Party – their month long “Bloctober” gigs show off just what they’ve achieved in the course of three albums, and just how good a live band they really are.

After finding the (rather boring) Rivermead leisure complex, we caught openers Grammatics who were, as is often the case with opening bands, “good but not great”. Unmemorable, but reasonably competent to pass the time.

Soon enough Bloc Party time rolled around, and the guys ambled on, before launching into a set of songs that some bands can only dream about – fan favourites (The Marshals are Dead and Ion Square) and chart hits (Mercury, Two More Years and The Prayer) The crowd was definitely a Friday night crowd – Kele joked that he felt like he was in JLS, such was the level of screaming from the front. Playing “The Marshals are Dead” following someone throwing a request on stage, Kele mentioned their upcoming haitus – “fuck it – we only have two more shows left, we might as well play it! Ahh, that sounded kind of terminal – there will be plenty more Bloc Party shows!”

Bringing out the extra drums for Gordon for the encore, a stunningly beautiful version of “Sunday” was a personal highlight – the line “You see giant proclamations / Are all very well / But our love is louder than words” is just sublime. However, the quick downtime was soon abandoned for a song “about fighting” – Ares, Kele going through the words spitfire style, spitting them with force, quite a sight to see.

Of course, all good things have to come to an end, and with the amazing double header of Flux and Helicopter the four guys were gone, the last we’ll see of them for quite some time. I’m just hoping that they’ll come back to continue from where they left off.

After the jump: setlist and a few photos.
Read the rest of this entry »

The end of an era. Steve Lamacq’s “In New Music We Trust” Radio1 programme will be broadcasting its last-ever show at its usual Monday night 21.00-22.00 later this month. You have two chances left to hear the programme – on 17 August, there will be a session by Sheffield band Crookes (presumably named after the suburb), and on 24 August, Lammo will be hosting the Strange Boys from Austin, Texas.

Being on what I consider the wrong side of the pond, in a town where radio stations on the whole are terrible, I get most of my new music news and heads-ups on new bands from British radio. And specifically, I owe Lammo a lot – he turned me on to a lot of new bands that I never would have heard or learned about otherwise. Skint and Demoralised, borne of Wakefield pubs and new Northern soul, would have never hit my ears if Steve had not chosen their “The Thrill of Thirty Seconds” as one of his “Top 60 of 2008″. There’s a reason he’s often called “the indie rock oracle”. (Bloc Party took a chance and gave him a demo in the toilet during a Franz Ferdinand gig at the ICA. Smart move.) Not to mention he’s an all-around nice chap. He never hesitates to provide a nod on air to his global legion of fans, from Leicester to London, Stockholm to Seattle, from Warsaw to my own Washington D.C. Lammo, your Monday night programme will be missed.

But all is not lost. The Colchester United stalwart who still wears Doc Martens to this day will still be spinning records on his 6music programme Mondays through Fridays at 16.00 to 19.00 and on Radio2 on Wednesday nights at 23.00 to 0.00.

Yes, I love Bloc Party. We’ve already covered this fact. Here’s their new single, One More Chance.

I’m loving the fact that Bloc Party are simply releasing material whenever it suits them, not waiting for predictable industry schedules to release their music. If only the rest of the industry had their balls, I thikn it wouldn’t be struggling so much. Good music, good ideas. How the industry should be.

Enjoy the sun everyone, and have a great weekend.

http://www.vimeo.com/5231891

As we’ve mentioned before, Bloc Party’s amazing new remix album, Intimacy:Remixed came out yesterday, and to go with it an amazing video to go with Ares has been made from their huuuuge Olympia gigs on Easter weekend.

Watch, enjoy and buy the album.

As we announced earlier today, Bloc Party have a shiny new remix album coming out in May, featuring full reworkings of their latest album, Intimacy. The full tracklisting is below, and features some pretty big names (and ones I don’t know), so catch the tracklist below and the (slightly unnerving, but very cool) video to “Signs” below that.

1 Ares – Villains remix
2 Mercury – Hervé Is In Disarray remix
3 Halo – We Have Band Dub
4 Biko – Mogwai remix
5 Trojan Horse – John B remix
6 Signs – Armand Van Helden remix
7 One Month Off – Filthy Dukes remix
8 Zephyrus – Phase One remix
9 Talons – Phones RIP remix
10 Better Than Heaven – No Age remix
11 Ion Square – Banjo or Freakout remix
12 Letter To My Son – Gold Panda remix
13 Your Visits are Getting Shorter – Double D Remix

http://www.vimeo.com/3685706

Following on from the glorious “Silent Alarm Remixed“, Bloc Party have announced that they’ll be releasing “Intimacy: Remixed” on May 11th, featuring remixes of the whole album.

Normally these remix albums are pretty shite, however Bloc Party only pick the best, with the last album featuring M83, Ladytron and Mogwai who I went off and discovered after hearing them on Bloc’s album. Enjoy one of the new songs off the collection, Armand Van Helden’s remix of “Signs”.

MP3: Bloc Party – Signs – Armand Van Helden remix

So it’s that time of year again, the NME awards are fast approaching, the tours almost over, this year Glasvegas and White Lies headlined to bring back post punk, supported by Friendly Fires and Florence. The tour seems to have gone down well, but now all eyes are on the awards, a short week away… I bring you who I think should win…

Best British Band -The Shadow Puppets were fun, but not exactly up to scratch for this award. Oasis are pretty strong contenders, the band put out a decent record and are set to go on an arena tour in the coming months, being NME favourites it’d be foolish to count them out. But if we’re looking at quality of music, then there’s only one band destined for this year award – Bloc Party (pictured top). Kele & co. have been in full force this year, touring and of course putting out the brilliant ‘Intimacy.’ Dancefloor-filling ‘Flux’ and ‘Mercury’ have also gone down a treat and the album itself has some epic tracks. In this category they clearly deserve success..

Best International Band – Main fight here no doubt is between Vampire Weekend (pictured right) and MGMT, though Kings of Leon put up a good fight too. Two brilliant new bands with sensational records and ace singles to match. The two seem inseparable, to choose one would be madness.. take our advice and go with the one your prefer, if you can’t choose (like I couldn’t), flip a coin and see where it takes you.. Oh and whatever you do – don’t vote Crystal Castles!!

Best Solo Artist -Chances are that this being the NME Pete has pretty much walked it. Aside from this though I don’t see the need to vote for anyone, Jay-Z puts in a good shout but the true winner – Kanye West – isn’t even up for nomination!! Something is seriously wrong with this category, it’s another flip, this time between Pete and Jay-Z..

Best New Band -Fucking hell.. this is impossible, every band is deserving and each one of them should be walking away with the title. Out of them all I may like Glavegas the least but they’re still awesome (though massively overhyped too). This ones a tie folks..

Best Live Band -I haven’t been to any of their shows so perhaps I’m not the best to talk you all through, but I have seen them all on BBC Three’s Reading highlights, (if that counts for anything). If I had to go with one band, based on just energy and explosiveness it’d have to be Kings of Leon. They deserve an award this year and their live show was (apparently) flawless.

Best Album -I notice I’ve been a little indecisive over the last couple of awards, but here I’m decided. Though the nominations aren’t great and are lacking some classics from last year (Clinic, Kanye (again!), The Metros, MGMT (if counted), Xiu Xiu etc. etc.)  Bloc Party are enticing us again as are Kings of Leon, and I know I said I’d decided, but I lied..

Find out the rest of my choices tomorrow morning at 11.

The NME awards are around the corner, if you want to have your say head on over to the nominations page and cast your votes now! Voting closes at 4pm tomorrow, 19th February.

Fresh off their UK Tour which ended last night in style at Wolverhampton, Bloc Party have announced a brand new tour for October, which they have christened “Bloctober”. Genius.

Tickets go on sale on Friday morning (6th February) at 9am.

Catch the lads at:

Friday 2nd October 2009 – Blackpool Empress Ballroom
Saturday 3rd October 2009 – Edinburgh Picture House
Sunday 4th October 2009 – Inverness Iron Works
Tuesday 6th October 2009 – Aberdeen Music Hall
Wednesday 7th October 2009 – Dunfermline Alhambra
Thursday 8th October 2009 – Hull City Hall
Saturday 10th October 2009 – Sheffield Academy
Sunday 11th October 2009 – Leeds Academy
Monday 12th October 2009 – Lincoln Engine Shed
Wednesday 14th October 2009 – Stoke Victoria Hall
Thursday 15th October 2009 – Birmingham Academy
Friday 16th October 2009 – Newport Centre
Sunday 18th October 2009 – Llandudno Arena
Monday 19th October 2009 – Liverpool University
Tuesday 20th October 2009 – Bristol Academy
Thursday 22nd October 2009 – Truro Hall for Cornwall
Friday 23rd October 2009 – Plymouth Pavillion
Saturday 24th October 2009 – Brighton Centre
Monday 26th October 2009 – Southend Cliffs Pavilion
Tuesday 27th October 2009 – Cambridge Corn Exchange
Wednesday 28th October 2009 – Nottingham Rock City
Friday 30th October 2009 – Reading Rivermead
Saturday 31st October 2009 – Bournemouth Bic

To find tickets, we suggest you try using Needtickets. Needtickets.com offers you the most comprehensive ticket service in the UK. With one click you can search every nationwide online ticket agent and as a result you can find tickets for any live music event that can be booked online. Every ticket is 100% guaranteed as Needtickets.com only offers links to official agents.

I was expecting a lot heading into tonight’s show by Bloc Party. They’d done a so-so cover of Girls Aloud’s “Call the Shots” on Radio 1, and I’d heard talk on the grapevine of something sensational with an acoustic guitar.

It takes a lot to keep me happy, and when the snow meant that we arrived almost an hour after doors, I was not in a good mood. We’d missed the first support, Wet Paint, however managed to sneek our way into the downstairs bit instead of our boring balcony seats to catch Tommy Sparks, who immediately cheered me up, with his great 70s style pop. A surprising choice to support Bloc Party, but then Matt was quoted recently as saying they may well be turning their back on indie.

Then the main act… the last night on their short tour meant all guns were blazing, banter between songs at its best. Every time I catch them, Kele seems to be chattier and chattier, tonight joking about topics  ranging from his dislike of Klaxons’ legacy (the throwing of glow sticks), Matt’s new pearl necklace, and the random objects thrown on stage (shoes, condoms, dirty (guy’s) underwear). Oh yes, they were chatty compared to that first night in Southampton over 2 years ago.

The songs? Well, we got the usuals. Positive Tension’s deafening finale, Song For Clay segueing perfectly into Banquet, Kele’s front-row walkabout for Mercury. All well and good, perfect as ever. However, where were those “gig defining” moments? The ones you remember for a looooong time? Well, to be honest the first one I felt was a let down – Letters to My Son featured an acoustic guitar, which was great but not amazing – I was hoping for a reworked “So Here We Are” or, a la Placebo, a slowed down version of an old classic.Still, as Matt commented after, “I never knew when we wrote that song that we’d see a circle pit going!” Indeed they did. It seems it really is true – Sunday night is the new night to party!

However, for the encores the double drums made a more than welcome return with “Sunday” from “A Weekend in the City” being wheeled out for Gordon to go head to head with Matt. Encores? Not encore? Yes, you read me right. Everyone’s filing out as Kele, Russell, Matt and Gordon sneek back on to plunge into Girls Aloud’s “Call the Shots”. It’s far better than their version on Radio 1, bringing the energy right back to how it was at the first song – everyone ready and up for it. Flux closed the evening, but not before Matt did a quick run around the stage in some fetching fluorescent undies. Needless to say, as we trudged out into the newly fallen snow, shared smiles said it all. No words were needed, and it more than made up for the painfully slow drive home.

Yes, I love Bloc Party in an unashamedly fan-like way instead of my usual head-screwed-on music blogger kind of way. However, they really are one of the brightest hopes for today, when everything’s topsy-turvy, Kele’s lyrics and Matt’s driving drums give us something to be happy about, and something to think about. Haven’t seen them yet? They’re playing two shows at London’s Olympia on Easter weekend, and will be back for a winter UK tour most likely. As ever, keep an eye on TGTF for the latest news.

Finally, in true fan-boy style, enjoy a shaky, dodgy quality video of “Call the Shots” from last night.

After the Jump: full setlist and some pictures. Fun.

Read the rest of this entry »