Alphabeat: Boyfriend
Cheesy, classic pop from the Danish geniuses. Nothing too complicated, nothing too mould breaking.

We Are Scientists - Impatient
Who doesn’t love this New York duo? Another sterling video from them featuring lots of hair.

Hanson: MMMBop
Now, who doesn’t love this? Simply, pure pop magic.

Those nice folks over at Somerset house have announced details of their Summer Series 2008 events. This summer sees the likes of Fratellis, We Are Scientists and Justice all grace the old courtyard over the course of 10 days in July.

Tickets are available here on presale from Ticketmaster, and go on sale on Wednesday (14th May) at 10am.

Thursday 10th July - The Fratellis
Friday 11th July - Justice
Saturday 12th July - Unkle
Sunday 13th July - The Blue Nile
Monday 14th July - Lupe Fiasco
Tuesday 15th July - We Are Scientists
Wednesday 16th July - The Zutons
Thursday 17th July - The Feeling
Friday 18th July - Duffy
Saturday 19th July - Adele

One of the music biz’s hardest working bands, We Are Scientists have announced an April headline tour, following the release of their second album, ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’, which is due out on March 17.

Tickets go on sale at 10am this Friday, 25th January

Saturday 12th April - Glasgow Barrowlands
Sunday 13th April - Aberdeen Music Hall
Monday 14th April - Newcastle Northumbria Uni
Tuesday 15th April - Manchester Academy
Thursday 17th April - Sheffield Octagon
Friday 18th April - Birmingham Carling Academy
Saturday 19th April - Nottingham Rock City
Sunday 20th April - Norwich UEA
Tuesday 22nd April - Southampton Guildhall
Wednesday 23rd April - Bristol Carling Academy
Thursday 24th + Friday 25th April - Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Looking for the 2008 Mencap Gigs? Click here. This page is about 2007’s Mencap Gigs!

Updates: I’ve just added the 20th November gig and the 26th November gigs, thanks to a comment from Kathryn below. This was originally posted on 4th October.

The brilliant Mencap have announced this year’s “Little Noise Sessions”, a series of intimate, acoustic gigs, which will take place from Tuesday 20th November to Wednesday 28 November 2007, at Islington’s Union Chapel in London. They’ll be hosted by Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley.

To get tickets you’ll have to register here to get tickets when they go on sale. Ticket registration opens on Tuesday 2 October and closes at 12.00 Friday 19 October. Those who have registered can then buy tickets online on a first-come-first-served basis from 9am on Monday 22 October. Tickets are £35 each.

The gigs will raise money for Mencap’s Arts Awards scheme which enables children and young people with a learning disability to take part in local arts projects.

Tuesday 20th November - Secret Headliner, Jack Penate, Laura Marling, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong
Wednesday 21st November - Athlete and The Hoosiers
Thursday 22nd November - Will Young, Newton Faulkner and Adele
Friday 23rd November - Biffy Clyro, We Are Scientists and Young Knives
Saturday 24th November - The Pigeon Detectives and The Metros
Sunday 25th November - Snow Patrol and Cajun Dance Party
Monday 26th November - Kate Nash, Robyn, The Ting Tings
Tuesday 27th November - The Enemy + Special Guests
Wednesday 28th November - Keane, Rilo Kiley + Scouting For Girls

Believe it or not, Gonzo on MTV2 is 5 years old this year. To celebrate, they’re doing a tour of Barfly venues around the UK, with some of the best bands of the moment. Catch Bloc Party, We Are Scientists (who are doing yet another UK show) and The Cribs amongst other bands at each of the dates.

The ever present Operator Please are openers for each date.

Tickets go on sale at 9am on

Friday 12th October - Birmingham Barfly - Funeral For a Friend with The Dykeenies
Saturday 13th October - Cardiff Barfly - The Rumble Strips with Blood Red Shoes
Sunday 14th October - Camden Barfly - Bloc Party with Does it Offend You, Yeah?
Friday 19th October - Liverpool Barfly - The Cribs with Lightspeed Champion
Saturday 20th October - York Fibbers - Jack Penate with Dan le Sac Vs Scoobius Pip
Sunday 21st October - Glasgow Barfly - We Are Scientists with Foals

Photo is taken from Shane Bee’s flickr stream under the creative commons license

Quite possibly one of the hardest working bands in the music biz at the moment, We Are Scientists have announced a new tour of smaller universities around the country in November and December to fit in with their dates with the Kasier Chiefs. So hot is this tour announcement that its not even been mentioned on their myspace or official site - only an advert in this weeks NME has tipped me off about the dates.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Thursday 30th August) at 10am reportedly.

Monday 5th November - Preston 53 Degrees
Tuesday 6th November - Whitehaven Civic
Wednesday 7th November - Edinburgh University
Thursday 8th November - Leeds Met. University
Saturday 10th November - Surrey University
Sunday 11th November - Leicester University
Monday 12th November - Keele University
Tuesday 13th November - Norwich University
Thursday 15th November - Peterborough University
Friday 16th November - Derby University
Saturday 17th November - Plymouth University
Sunday 18th November - Southampton University
Tuesday 20th November - Swansea University
Sunday 25th November - Oxford Brooks University
Thursday 29th November - Bangor University
Saturday 1st December - Skegness The Big Reunion
Sunday 2nd December - Warwick University
Friday 7th December - Dundee Fat Sams Live
Sunday 9th December - Inverness Ironworks
Thursday 13th December - Northampton Roadmender

Normally support bands get better as the evening progresses. However, at last night’s NME awards show with We Are Scientists at London’s Astoria, this was not the case. Opener Switches started playing to a quarter full auditorium, and by the end of their set they’d converted virtually all those present.

The Southend-on-sea four piece led by the charismatic Matt Bishop took us on a romp through their brief back catalogue, with both energy and excitement. Sounding like they’d be right at home in the background of an episode of Skins on E4, they’re the anthem to a night out, and their set was all too brief. Highlights ‘Drama Queen’ and ‘Lay down the Law’ got the crowd going, and were everything the best support bands should do.

The stage was quickly turned around and soon the audience’s favourites Pull Tiger Tail came out complete with day-glo tubes and tiger masks (which they only remembered to put on halfway through). Sounding like a mix between the Killers, Panic! At the Disco and Klaxons, the London three-piece were loved by the girls on the front, whilst some of the older audience members looked on in bemusement. Their energy was briefly halted when Davo their bassist / keyboardist knocked his synths and keys off their stands, causing much amusement.

Going on the last two bands, I was hopeful that Australians “The Scare” would be amazingly good. How wrong I was. Coming on looking like the typical stereotype of the hard living rock stars, Russell Brand look-alike Kiss Reid gave it his all, telling us that we were “boring… come on, give it some”, before spending much of the last two songs in the crowd. At the end of the last song he was joined by his two guitarists, who seemed to think that we loved them more than we did. Their music was overshadowed by their dramatics, with their generic brand of rock proving as unique as everyone else.

Finally, We Are Scientists graced the stage, coming on, looking genuinely surprised to the audience’s reaction. Starting off with a new slow song ‘Spoken For’, WAS were on top form, ploughing through most of their debut album whilst also throwing in a few extra new songs. WAS’ new stuff was good, though nothing they played stood up to their debut album: hopefully they’ll have some better songs hidden up their sleeves. Their inter-song banter between Keith and Chris was amusing, though a little short compared to other times. Pretty soon they launched into ‘Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt’, when the place erupted into a sweaty mess that The Scare would have loved to have been a part of. Closing off the evening was the obligatory “Great Escape”, sending the crowd off into a frenzy once again, and bringing a brilliant evening of great (and not so great in the case of The Scare) music to a close.