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.

Looking for a review of the Saturday of the Big Weekend? Click Here.

BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend is an annual musical festival with bit of a twist. Every year, the 2 day event takes place in a different town, with past locations including Dundee, Preston and Maidstone. This 2009, Radio 1 will be bringing their Big Weekend to Lydiard Park, Swindon, on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th of May. Tickets to the event are free, and are obtained through a random lottery on Radio 1’s website (registration has now closed). Lucky winners will blag a pair of tickets to their selected day (Saturday or Sunday), with Swindon residents receiving allocation priority in order to make the event more accessible to locals.

Every year the event has boasted an impressive line-up (past artists include Madonna, Muse and Foo Fighters), and this 2009 is absolutely no exception. Snow Patrol (pictured top), Kasabian (pictured right)and Dizzee Rascal will be headlining the ‘Main Stage’ on Saturday, while Lily Allen, Akon and Franz Ferdinand will be taking over the top slots on Sunday. Other artists who will be featuring within the main arena over the weekend include The Script, Calvin Harris, The Wombats, The Saturdays, Scouting for Girls, Ne-Yo, Alesha Dixon and N-Dubz.

Meanwhile, headline acts hitting the smaller ‘In New Music We Trust Stage’ on Saturday include Basement Jaxx, Doves and Jack Penate, while Sunday will be tastily offering up The Enemy, Maximo Park and Gossip. Further impressive artists appearing on this stage across the May weekend include Friendly Fires, Florence and the Machine, Fightstar, Enter Shikari, Ladyhawke and White Lies.

Should you fancy checking out some new music while at the event, why not head over to the ‘Introducing Stage’, where you can get up and close with a range of upcoming talent including Stornoway, The Temper Trap, Bombay Bicycle Club, Thee Vicars, Gallop and Marina and the Diamonds. And if that’s still not enough, you can catch a wide-range of top DJs spinning the decks over at the ‘Outdoor Stage’, with Radio 1 favourites including Chris Moyles, Annie Mac, Tim Westwood, Zane Lowe and Rob da Bank all making an appearance.

Registration for tickets to the event has now closed, but never fear, as the BBC will be broadcasting highlights of the festival on Radio 1 and BBC Three across the weekend. You’ll also be able to catch footage online, as well as on your trusty red button. If you’d like more information on the event, along with a full line-up, head over to the Big Weekend’s website now.

Top photo comes from Radio 1’s Flickr Stream.

Scottish guitar pop quartet Franz Ferdinand have announced a tour for October around the UK. Not quite at Bloc Party’s Bloctober proportions, it’s still pretty amazing.

Tickets go on sale on Friday (24th April) at 9am, and are sure to sell out quickly.

Sunday 11th October 2009 – Aberdeen Music Hall
Monday 12th October 2009 – Dundee Caird Hall
Tuesday 13th October 2009 – Inverness Ironworks
Thursday 15th October 2009 – Newcastle Academy
Friday 16th October 2009 – Sheffield Academy
Saturday 17th October 2009 – Manchester Apollo
Monday 19th October 2009 – Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Tuesday 20th October 2009 – Leeds Academy
Friday 23rd October 2009 – London Brixton Academy

Having a few issues at the moment keeping up with so much good new music I’ve been stumbling across. So settle in as we give you the run down on some ace new acts.

Steve introduced you to Alessi’s Ark’s (pictured top) lush colourful musical soundscapes almost a month ago, and since then we’ve been hooked – great music to listen to in the evening, really relaxing and so beautiful. She may not be destined for huge things, but it’s beautiful and may well be soundtracking the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs, going by their music policy these days.

MP3: Alessi’s Ark – Magic Weather

Crazy (but sweet) Marina & The Diamonds segues us easily between Alessi’s Ark and the rest of our colourful line up, sounding like a crazy hotpot of Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor, Goldfrapp and Bjork. Yes, it’s artistic, yes it’s great.

MP3: Marina & The Diamonds – Obsessions

One of the new blogs I’ve found recently, The Recommender, managed to suggest The Sound of Arrows, and reminded me to check out The Official Secrets Act (pictured on the right)who I saw featured in an NME “radar” feature just the other month, but never got round to checking out. Needless to say, The Recommender has links to tonnes more great bands and artists, so be sure to check it out (when you’ve run out of things to read from us, of course!

MP3: The Sound of Arrows – Danger!
MP3: The Official Secrets Act – So Tomorrow

Some of you might be trying frantically to find some sort of connection between this artists, whether they’re all pop or all dark and meaningful. I don’t think there’s much connection between them all – they’ve all got quite different sounds, though are all pretty mainstream I guess. To finish it off on the free MP3 stakes, Bangor based Two Door Cinema are so unashamedly synth-happy I may have just fallen in love again. They’ve got “that” sound that will probably appeal to the same people who love the Wombats (who incidentally they’ll be supporting at the NME awards shows – nice linking I think you’ll agree!), Team Waterpolo, Death Cab For Cutie or Los Campesinos! etc – slightly pop, slightly indie, slightly great. The only downside? They don’t have a drummer – I think every band should have a drummer, it offers that little bit more flexability, you don’t have to restart the drum loops to fit in with your mistakes.

Listen and love:

MP3: Two Door Cinema Club – Something Good Can Work

Oh, and we’ve also been majorly loving Franz Ferdinand’s new album. For obvious reasons you don’t get an MP3 out of it (as we don’t want another Cease and Desist letter!), but feel free to see what Jess thought of the first single, Ulysses, here. Also got the White Lies new album, though its taking a bit longer to get into – at the moment it’s feeling a bit of a paint-by-numbers affair. Shame.

After a near-3 year break, Franz Ferdinand are back this month with a brand new album, fittingly titled ‘Tonight:Franz Ferdinand’. ‘Ulysses’ is the debut track off the album and is set to be released next Monday (January 19th) via CD single. The track initially get’s off to a unusually slow start, with frontman Alex Kapranos subtly singing over a simplistic synth-based drum beat.

Seemingly picking up on the listeners’ brewing boredom, Kapranos cries, “I’m bored! I’m bored!”…appropriately leading the song into the full-blown explosion we were all waiting for. In comes the awesome sing-a-long chorus consisting of enthusiastic cries of “La! Lalalala!”- backed up with dark electronica beats and intense, heavy guitars.

The loud and gritty chorus contrasts nicely with the delicately whispered verses scattered about the song. The experimental track certainly possesses an air of dark mystery about it, sparking intrigue and excitment in the listener. While the track manages to hold down the cliché Franz Ferdinand vibe thanks to it’s additivity catchy rhythm, Ulysses also sounds awesomely fresh sounding.

Check out the video to the track here:

Pre-order Franz Ferdinand’s CD single, Ulysses, over at Amazon right now.

Franz Ferdinand have announced a string of UK tour dates for early next year ahead of the release of their third album, ‘Tonight: Franz Ferdinand’ on January 26th.

Tickets go on sale at 9.30am on Friday (December 12).

Saturday 28th February 2009 – Limerick Dolans
Sunday 1st March 2009 – Dublin Olympia
Wednesday 4th March 2009 – Glasgow Barrowlands
Friday 6th March 2009 – Manchester Academy
Sunday 8th March 2009 – Birmingham Academy
Monday 9th March 2009 – London Hammersmith Apollo

The sensational Shockwaves NME Awards shows have been announced for next January and February to start off a 2009 in great style. The likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Wombats and Simian Mobile Disco are among this year’s great gigs, with more to be announced shortly.

Franz Ferdinand’s frontman Alex Kapranos said of their opening night honour: “We’re going to play the gig to celebrate ‘Ulysess’ coming out and Heaven is the best place to go and celebrate. The new songs are the type that should be heard in clubs so we liked the idea of playing a show in one. We want people close to us who are dancing and sweating, that’s the vibe that we want. We definitely don’t want polite theatre shows for this record- we want some excitement!”

Tickets are available exclusively at NME from 9am on Wednesday, 26th November and then go on general sale on Monday 1st December.

UPDATE: More gigs added today (2nd December 2008) – full details below.

Catch the full details of the gigs below:

Tuesday 20th January 2009 – Franz Ferdinand @ London Heaven
Sunday 8th February 2009 – The Gaslight Anthems, Frank Turner and The Polar Bear Club @ London Shepherds Bush Empire
Monday 9th February 2009 – Howling Bells @ London Islington Academy
Tuesday 10th February 2009 – The View @ London Koko
Wednesday 11th February 2009 – Ida Maria @ London Koko
Thursday 12th February 2009 – Ida Maria @ Manchester Club Academy
Thursday 12th February 2009 – Simian Mobile Disco and Chrome Hoof @ London Koko
Friday 13th February 2009 – Ida Maria @ Glasgow Garage
Friday 13th February 2009 – Mystery Jets and Little Boots @ London Shepherds Bush Empire
Sunday 15th February 2009 – Black Lips and Vivian Girls @ London Islington Academy
Monday 16th February 2009 – Secret Machines @ London Islington Academy
Tuesday 17th February 2009 – Iglu and Hartley @ London Islington Academy
Wednesday 18th February 2009 – Black Kids, Boy Crisis, Passion Pit @ London Koko
Wednesday 18th February 2009 – Tricky @ Manchester Club Academy
Wednesday 18th February 2009 – Iglu and Hartley @ Manchester Academy 3
Thursday 19th February 2009 – Tricky @ Glasgow Arches
Thursday 19th February 2009 – Iglu and Hartley @ Glasgow QMU
Thursday 19th February 2009 – Roots Manuva @ London Koko
Friday 20th February 2009 – Tricky @ London Shepherds Bush Empire
Monday 23rd February 2009 – Wombats @ London Shepherds Bush Empire
Tuesday 24th February 2009 – Metronomy @ London Koko
Tuesday 24th February 2009 – Wombats @ Manchester Academy
Thursday 26th February 2009 – Wombats @ Glasgow Barrowlands

Hydro Connect Festival was my first proper music festival, and quite possibly one of the furthest away from home we could get. After a 9 hour drive leaving home at 5am on Friday morning, we arrived at one of the most beautiful festival settings I think you’ll find this side of Coachella.

After the horrible trek from car park to campsite (we were warned it was 20 minutes, but we’d suggest you double that if you’re carrying a tent), we set up our tent and went out to explore the main arena.

First up were Noah and the Whale and Ladytron on the Guitars and Other Machines Stage (otherwise known as the second stage for those of you who are Glastonbury / Reading / Leeds fans), before a wander around to see Amy MacDonald sporting a rather fetching kilt. I’ve never been a huge fan of her Radio 2 – lite tunes, but the Scottish crowd certainly loved the Glaswegian girl.

Manic Street Preachers were up next, and were on absolute fire as they did an amazing set. I’d heard people rave about them, but now I really can understand why – they were amazing. Kasabian headlined, but frankly were nothing on the Manics. Tom Meighan is an amazing frontman and certainly can whip everyone up some, but frankly they don’t have the tunes that the Manics do.

After an interesting night in the campsite, we slowly started our Saturday in the Speakeasy cafe on the sofas, listening to some amazing acoustic music. Quickly time rolled around and we had to amble back to the Media tent to catch a quick chat with Paul from Glasvegas and Kele and Matt from Bloc Party. After coming down from that little bit of excitement, we went to catch Friendly Fires on the Guitars and Other Machines Stage. We knew they were good having stumbled across them several times around the blogosphere, but weren’t expecting the amazingly high-energy set they provided us with. Black Lips disappointed, failing to energise the rather small crowd. Glasvegas had one of the biggest mid-afternoon crowds of the weekend, and provided the anthem of the weekend around the campsites.

A bit of food, and back to the main Oyster stage for the evening. We had high hopes for Grinderman, but simply didn’t appreciate Nick Cave’s new project, with it sounding largely inaccessible to us. Paolo Nutini I wasn’t holding out high hopes for, but he plain and simply blew me away, with his songs providing some great sing alongs. Oh, and his cover of Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? AMAZING.

We’d been excited about Bloc Party since their confirmation as Saturday night headliners, and with the announcement of their new album, Intimacy, just 10 days before the festival we were all the more excited. Kele and co didn’t disappoint, blasting through everything we’d hoped for and a bit more.

Somehow getting almost 6 hours sleep on Saturday night, we were woken by the pouring rain on Sunday morning, and took the decision to put our tent back in the car to prevent it from floating away in the increasingly boggy waters around our tent. Making the way back to the main arena we couldn’t decide who to catch, so caught snippets of a few different bands. Santagold looked rather out of place in a metallic blue dance suit compared to the muddy audience, but none the less was amazingly good, with her indenti-kit backing singers coupled with her backing band providing some surprisingly good tunes.

I’d heard about the Levellers from friends, but never actually caught them live. They were a true festival band, getting everyone moving, and really warming things up a bit. Elbow I’ve never been a huge fan of, however they again surprised me. Lead singer Guy Garvey was decidedly chatty, commenting that “this is my sort of weather – I don’t like the hot weather ‘cos people take off their clothes and it isn’t pretty from here! In Manchester just about every beer garden looks like it has about 2 dozen red eggs in it anytime there’s a mildly warm day!”

Goldfrapp were so-so. I’ve never been a huge fan of their stuff, on the basis lots of it is a bit too arty-farty for my liking. Plus, I was simply excited for Sigur Ros, who were next up and closing Hydro Connect 2008 for us. They didn’t disappoint.

With that, we left leaving Franz Ferdinand to do probably much what they did last time I caught them, and to make an exit from the car park (with the help of some amazingly nice girls who pushed us out of the mud).

What was hot:

• Amazing setting
• Great food at good prices
• The lineup… simply amazing for a festival so young and small
• The speakeasy tent with its comfy sofas and free newspapers
• Friendly and helpful security

What was not:

• Mobile reception was always hampered by “network busy” responses… if Hyde Park can cope with having upwards of 40,000 people all with mobiles, why can’t Connect? This was also the reason for a big lack of live updates from Connect – we didn’t take a laptop, and had been planning on there not
• The hideously long trek to and from the carpark
• A massive lack of toilets and washing facilities on the campsites.

Overheard:

“I now know where they let the oldies out to: we were by far the youngest in that tent!” (joked two mid-20 somethings on the walk back to the campsite)
“When you fail to perform, it really knocks your confidence… then you just can’t perform next time!” (overheard one morning at the campsite… you can only guess what it’s regarding!)
“This is SO overrated!” said by a guy completely covered in mud after wrestling his mate

Want more coverage?
Why not check out these Flickr Streams:
jjbuchan’s flickr stream
Taburetka’s flickr stream
Foofango’s flickr stream
Aaron Bassett’s flickr stream

… or these other reviews:
NME.com’s review
Sunday Herald’s review
The Lancashire Herald
The Independent
The Times

Thanks go to:
Lee and all at Burt Greener Communications for looking after us so well and sorting out the tickets.
Dan for the photos and putting up with me for a weekend.

Roll on Hydro Connect 2009 is all we can say!

So, I’m trying a new thing this week: A “daily roundup” of everything that doesn’t merit a complete post of its own. It won’t be literally every day (I do go out sometimes you know), but will be a collection of new MP3s, Videos, music etc.

It’s scary how quickly this Reading and Leeds festivals have been and (almost) gone. I’ve not really caught much coverage on the BBC of the festivals, but have checked out some of the ace videos and pictures. Particuarly loving the fact that Red Light Company are getting so much coverage from Zane Lowe, following on from my live review and initial introduction. Bloc Party look to have been amazing too – check out their live set available here for 7 days.

MP3: Red Light Company – Fascination
MP3: Red Light Company – Scheme Eugene
MP3: Red Light Company – With Lights Out

This time next week I’ll be in Scotland at Hydro Connect Festival, getting mouth wettingly-excited for the closing nights combination of Sigur Ros and Franz Ferdinand. I’ve spent much of today sorting out some pretty mundane things about the festival, like driving and what sort of coverage we’ll be having. I’ve had a look at the brilliant Winston’s Zen, who was at last weekend’s V Festival and getting a few ideas about how to live-blog the festival, amount of coverage etc. It’s gonna be hard to judge just what’s best until we get there, so don’t be suprised if you get tonnes, or next to nothing coverage wise.

One thing we’ve been having to look at is how to camp – I originally requested camping tickets, but got non-camping tickets, so have been looking at other options for us, from Tangerine Fields‘ bespoke camping options, to the goregous wendy-house style Podpads via the eco-friendly myhab’s – I’d honestly never really considered anything other than a tent, or a hotel for the posho’s.

Traditionally, August is quite a quiet time for the music industry – bands are off playing the festivals, people are on holidays, and generally the live music biz is taking a well-earned break ahead of the onslught of year-end tours. However, this week we’ve had no end of new tour announcements, with The Fratellis, Kaiser Chiefs, The Whip, Laura Marling, Joan as a Policewoman, Slipknot and Martha Wainwright all announcing stints around the UK this winter. I’m not expecting this week to have quite as many new tour announcements, but fingers crossed – this winter’s shaping up to be a great live experience.

“We’re only two songs in and already Paul’s broken the drums!” smirks Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos as drummer Paul Thomson attempts to re-assemble his broken kit. This turned out to be a recurring theme of the evening, as later on Nick’s guitar amp and strings gave up the ghost. However, regardless of all of that it was nice to see a stadium-filling band play a tiny boat in Bristol’s harbour and deal with the problems of playing a tiny stage and going back to their roots.

Kicking off the evening was Chilean five piece Panico. At first I was sceptical – South American party band supporting British indie kings? Really? But somehow, it worked. Starting off carefully, they quickly began to woo the crowd with their CSS / Gogol Bordello / Ladytron / The Music mixture of sounds, and energy laden front-man in the shape of the (ingeniously named) Memo.

Initially I was going to compare them solely to CSS, the Brazilian party stars of 2007, but realised pretty soon that that would be doing Panico an injustice. They’re much more talented, and their songs have more depth, and a sense of urgency that would put others to the test. The gorgeous Carolina held it all together more than capably on bass, providing some calm next to Memo’s crazy shapes. Whilst Carolina held it together, each member clearly is quite talented, and collectively they’re definitely ones to watch in coming months and years.

Lyrically they switch between Spanish and English, which certainly makes for interesting listening, and a more exotic feel than a typical British evening in inner city Bristol. By the end of the set they had everyone bouncing, and were the perfect warm up for Franz Ferdinand – everyone was ready to party.

9:45 rolled around and Franz marched on stage, self assuredly and immediately plunged into a new song, “New Thrill”, which went down a storm, and got them off to a good start, before peppering the rest of their set with newer tracks.

“Tonight, we’re going to play you some new songs, some old songs, and…” “some songs!” yelled a heckler as Alex was introducing themselves, to much laughter around the venue, and smirks from the band. “Yes, yes, we’ll play you some songs, if you want, they’ll be good ones!” smiled Alex, clearly in his element and enjoying the intimate surroundings of the Thekla.

Many of the older tracks sound just as good now as they did when they first arrived on our airwaves back in 2004. Take Me Out has renewed vigour, and surprisingly didn’t have the crowd bouncing the most. That award went to the set closer, This Fire, which saw the Thekla start to sway quite scarily as the boat rocked in the water with 350 people bouncing to the encore closer.

Keeping the set short left us all wanting more from the headliners, though Panico surprised me and could be ones to watch for the future.

After the jump: setlist and pics

Read the rest of this entry »