I’ve slowly fallen in love with Oxford’s Stornoway over the past year. Jess first introduced them, and then I caught them live and interviewed them at Swindon’s Big Weekend last May. Now they’re gearing up to release their debut album ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ on 24th May, and this is the (rather ace) video to accompny the first single.

Watch, enjoy, and have an amazing weekend. We’ll be back on Monday.

(PS: Looking for something to spend some money on this weekend?! Buy yourself a Blog Off! Ticket – they’re rapidly selling out, and it’d be ace to see you there – they’re only £5 in advance, and you get to see the aceness of Starlings, Jazica and Victoria and Jacob. What are you waiting for? Go book yourself a ticket or get more info here)

Beth Jeans Houghton is the Newcastle teen who looks set to be one of this years big big things, crafting finely honed melody from the fantastic and the familiar, and Stornoway are the four piece whose quintessential pop is coloured in pastoral hues (and we introduced here). Together they’re making up this month’s Twisted Folk tour, starting next week for 10 days of an amazing tour.

Tickets are going very fast though….

Monday 8th February 2010 – Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre
Tuesday 9th February 2010 – Reading South Street
Wednesday 10th February 2010 – Brighton Komedia
Thursday 11th February 2010 – London Rich Mix
Saturday 13th February 2010 – Norwich Arts Centre
Sunday 14th February 2010 – Gateshead The Sage
Monday 15th February 2010 – Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Tuesday 16th February 2010 – Manchester Band On The Wall
Wednesday 17th February 2010 – Birmingham Glee Club

Following on from the amazing lineups of the past two years, the Mencap Little Noise sessions are back again this November to raise more money for the mental disability charity.

The lineup is almost complete, with a string of pretty amazing performances scheduled. Personally, I’m most excited about Editors day, along with the pop-tastic Alexandra Burke, Mika and Newton Faulkner days – all of the shows have great talent and with the promise of special guests, I say you should hop on down to Union Chapel to check out some great music. Head on over to the Little Noise Sessions website for more answers to your questions.

The artists so far announced include:

Monday 16th November
Editors
The Maccabees
Bombay Bicycle Club
Everything Everything

Tuesday 17th November
Alexandra Burke
Alphabeat
Marina and the Diamonds
VV Brown

Wednesday 18th November
Mika
Paloma Faith
Alex Gardner
Daisy Dares You

Thursday 19th November
Richard Hawley
I Blame Coco

Friday 20th November
Lostprophets
The Blackout
Egyptian Hip Hop

Saturday 21st November
Taio Cruz
Tinchy Stryder
Chipmunk

Sunday 22nd November
Florence and the Machine
Golden Silvers
Erik Hassle
Ellie Goulding

Monday 23rd November
David Gray
The Low Anthem
Lisa Mitchell

Tuesday 24th November
Newton Faulkner
Scouting for Girls
Little Comets
Stornoway

Green Man is an annual music festival which takes place in Glanusk Park, Wales. Spanning across three days (Friday August 21st – Sunday 23rd August), it’s perhaps one of the greatest independent festivals going, and this 2009 looks set to be the best Green Man yet. Taking in everything from indie, to folk, to psych, the top three headliners this year are Animal Collective (Friday), Jarvis Cocker (Saturday) and Wilco (Sunday).

Joining this awesome trio across the weekend include the likes of Bon Ivor, British Sea Power, Errors, Noah and the Whale, Emmy the Great and Stornoway. Plus, on top of all the music, this green-friendly (as you may have guessed) festival will be offering up an exciting selection of art, literature, comedy, film and theatre fun for all the family. To learn more, head over to the festival’s website now.

Ahhh, Stornoway, how we love thee. Having stumbled across them a couple of weeks back, Jess wrote an amazing introduction to them, and I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Brian Briggs, their frontman, Ollie Steadman, their bassist, and Adam Briggs, their trumpet player before they closed the Introducing tent on Saturday night.

Some of the nicest guys you’ll find in the music biz today, Brian explained that the rest of the band were off watching Dizzee Rascal on the main stage, with Ollie joking that their in-house Russian Translator is “trying to translate the lyrics”. Very chatty, Ollie told me about their May Day celebrations at the Isis in Oxford – “I had forty five minutes sleep, then drove to work that day!”

They’ve been compared to all sorts, from Belle and Sebastian to XTC at their most whimsical. I asked the guys what they liked to be compared to, what they think they sound like. Ollie “loved being compared to The Coral on Crack”, a very apt description I think, though they seemed keen not to put labels on themselves, understandably. Brian “prefers being compare to the Guillemots than Belle and Sebastian”, and thinks that the comparisons to Fleet Foxes might “just be because they’re everywhere at the moment”.

Next weekend they’re playing Wood festival near Witney in Oxfordshire, which they’re very excited about – whilst the Big Weekend was the biggest festival he’d ever been to, Ollie thought Wood was going to be great – “it’s a really lovely experience, it’s only in its second year but I’d definately encourage people to go”.

Live, they half filled the introducing tent, with the crowd growing as people finished watching Kasabian, who Brian joked on stage that they struggle to compete “with the loud ones over on the main stage – Kasabian I think they’re called”. After opening with “On the Rocks”, they ploughed through a strong set which explained just why there’s a fair bit of buzz surrounding them – well rehearsed, interesting, different and above all great songs. Plenty of banter between songs, introducing “We Are The Battery Human”, Brian joked about the case of the dog eating the alphabet magnets, and how “we’re basically all animals, so get out there and connect with each other and the dogs!”.

If they started off a bit meekly, by the end of the set they were in full flow, closing with new single “Zorbing” (about the two New Zealand guys who invented the extreme sport) and possibly the closest they have to a radio smash hit, the amazing, rockier ‘Unfaithful’.

For more information on Stornoway, pop over to their Myspace, or the BBC Big Weekend Website. Their new single, Zorbing, is out on 8th June on vinyl and download reportedly.

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Ahhh, Swindon. Home of XTC, the magic roundabout, and, errrr, Billie Piper. And now it can add a much more credible item to that list: the host of 2009’s Radio 1 Big Weekend. Playing host to the best of today’s music, I was fortunate enough to be invited down to check out the Saturday lineup.

After a 2 mile trek to the site, I launched straight in with a quick gander at Huw Stephens, playing a rather strong set on the Outdoor stage. Having heard Westwood from a few miles away, it was nice to hear Huw dishing out some quality tunes with a lack of sound effects and horns and stuff. A quick scoot over to the “In New Music We Trust” tent to catch the rather good King Blues, who were a bit crazy but full of energy. Read my review here. Another crazy but full of energy person was Florence and the Machine (right) who I caught last summer at Ben and Jerry’s Summer Sundae, and thought was rubbish, however she had improved vastly, belting out her stories with conviction and energy. Catch a review here.

As is usual with these Big Weekends, the DJs are expected to earn a large part of their salaries by putting themselves up on stage – Chris Moyles was the first to do this, doing a 15 minute song parodies set, featuring and amazing “My Lamb Bhuna” from Comedy Dave and JLS. Not amazing, but certainly better than the repeats of “Sex on Fire” and “Jump in the Pool” that seemed to echo around the site all day. I wasn’t around in the days of the Radio 1 Roadshows, but this comprehensive festival is far better than anything anyone could do on a beach or in a small city centre. A proper festival, it’s made all the more amazing when you consider the organising and planning that’s been put in – not one band (that I saw anyway) overran or went on stage late, everyone knew what they were doing, and frankly it was incredible that it was all so expertly organised.

I took a wander over the the INMWT stage to see what all the fuss was about for Deadmau5. Turns out, he’s really quite amazing. And his hat lights up, which is always a bonus. Got everyone dancing like nobody did till Basement Jaxx. Read a review here. However, after Deadmau5 was the one I really wanted to catch – Friendly Fires. You know my love for this trio, so my third time catching them needless to say was out of this world – Samba dancing, exotic dancing girls aaaaaand a steel band section. Wow. Read a review here.

The Temper Trap (left) have been gaining a lot of press coverage lately, so I checked them out on the Introducing stage, who followed an acoustic set (well, two songs, hardly a set) from Flo and the Machine – a much more subdued set, but ace nonetheless. The Temper Trap however were far from subdued. Their tunes are really accessible, really radio-friendly, and above all really good. It’s hard not to see them getting more coverage later in the year when their album’s out. Read more here.

Taking a wander I ended up bumping into the lovely Stornoway (who Jess so expertly introduced the other day). Lovely band, lovely fellas, read the interview and live review here.

Feeling re-invigorated by some Pizza, time to catch the end of the Doves‘ (pictured top) set. “Caught by the River” and “There Goes The Fear” (after which this blog is named) showed that Jes Williams and co really did justify their high billing, sounding just as fresh as the day I first heard them. A quick dash to catch Stornoway close out the Introducing stage, and a dash back again to the INMWT tent to catch Basement Jaxx close things for me – new material, crazy stage show, louder than, well, anything that’s ever been in Swindon before. Lovely. Having caught Snow Patrol before at Tsunami Relief and Live8, I decided to call it a day.

Thanks to all at Radio 1 for making my day possible. After the jump there will be pictures, but for now, I’m going to sleep. ‘Night.

Stornoway are a five-piece outfit from Oxford, whose beautiful and effortlessly timeless acoustic-folk is much guaranteed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Indeed, what is so great about Stornoway is the fact that their music seemingly always comes complete with an under bubbling of pure glowing jolliness. They often make you feel like your at a super barn dance, and I fondly picture frontman Brian Brigg chewing down on a piece of straw while he merrily strums his acoustic (talking of Brigg – his voice really can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up – just listen to the beautifully epic ‘Unfaithful’ to see what I mean).

They echo the modern-day folk of Mumford and Sons, while rolled with the pure indie pop happiness of, say, Mystery Jets (check out ‘On the Rocks’). Unsurprisingly, Stornoway are making musical waves across the country, with everyone from BBC to The Guardian proclaiming their love for the Oxford band. They have already blagged a headline slot on Radio 1’s Big Weekend ‘Introducing Stage’ this weekend, and will also be playing at a selection of other big name festivals this year including Glastonbury, Wychwood and Winterwell.

If Stornoway sound like your sort of thing and you fancy checking out some of the band’s music, head over to their MySpace page now to learn more.

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.