Kev + I interviewed by the 405, and column 2 w/ RockMidgets

Just a quick update on a couple of bits and bobs that have surfaced over the last couple of days, without meaning to use the blog as my own personal mouthpiece, for lovely music sites on the web. Firstly, I penned my second column for the mighty Rock Midgets which was fun because I got to see Andrew WK in the making of it, and quote The Warriors film – which is possibly my favourite flick of all… In it I investigate creativity in music and the fact that the industry’s not dead damnit…!

Secondly is the very humbling interview I answered for the 405 music blog alongside, to put it bluntly, some of my ‘oh so much betters’ from the indie music scene. It’s well worth a read, and really interesting to see how the thoughts are similar, though subtly different. Introducing ladies and gentlemen, co-owner of Alcopop and head-honcho of BSM Kev Douch, Jane from Gravity Dip and the magnificent Dave House of Banquet – oh and me…

It’s a great read – so read if you got a moment…

We need your face!

There’s a man called Dave who presses our records at DMS (can’t recommend highly enough) who’s very patient, lovely – and often feeds us booze. He’s kindly offered to do a whole run of Alcopop samplers for us, and we want to use it to show off everyone involved in the handsome Alcopop community (aka you).

Therefore, we’ve got a team of top designers (aka the lovely Gem) to put together a cover featuring all the faces of everyone involved on all sides of Alcopop. If you want your visage to be featured – just send us a pic via info@ilovealcopop.co.uk, and we’ll put you on the cover baby.

Don’t be shy – you’ll be in fine company! And we’d be delighted… Plus then you can give a copy to your mum for Christmas, and she’ll be so proud….

Stagecoach – We got Tazers… On VHS

Well not quite, although perhaps there’s something to look into. I had a Silver Sun VHS once with four of their videos on it, and it was absolutely superb… I watched it until the spools near melted i seem to recall! Anyway I digress. You should really, if you’re only going to watch one Alcopop Records video today, take a look at this one! It’s called We Got Tazers, it’s by a lovely band named Stagecoach and it features the StayPuft marshmallow man…. Click on Luka below to see and if you love it lots, you can even pre-order the EP, or a megadeal, from the shop…

We Got Tazers! from Helsinki Films on Vimeo.

Southsea Fest: Sam Isaac, squashed pies flat – er… Tooth’s thighs out

There’s nothing better when the festival season is tailing off, to bring it all back with a cute one nighter in some far flung old town… And lo, if Southsea fest wasn’t just the answer to all my prayers. So last Saturday myself, Miss PoP, Kev BSM and a load of other rambunctious individuals gathered in the satellite borough of Portsmouth (maybe) that is Southsea – and ripped it up. Boasting a fair phenomenal line up considering the very modest ticket price, I was gutted to find that Andy Cut the Blue Wire and Kev had manage to empty the free drinks bar – but we double fisted some pints and took to the lovely Paul ‘Meat Pie Promotions’ stage for a bit of Brontide, Tellison and most notably Sam Isaac.

It’s been while since the amiable singer had found his way to Alcopop shores, but the set was magical – an enraptured pub singing along with classic Isaac tunes, whilst new songs appeared suggesting that Sam’s prophecy that ‘this is the end’ was somewhat premature. We understand that ‘Sam Isaac’ as a project may be nearing its natural conclusion… But I feel pretty sure that 2010 will see the reemergence of something even more special. Watch this space…

The night continued with a masterful My First Tooth set (who had somehow wound up playing in THE most expensive bar in town), a sausage roll in a greasy chip shop that looked like it had been sat on by an extremely fat man – before hitting the beach with aforementioned MFT, naked alcohol fuelled night swimming (always a strong idea), jeep riding and more talk about the Gareth Amwel Jones (drummer from MFT) spoken word album which you should expect to see very soon *

Kev and I finally retired to our guesthouse at 5am via a group of white robed figures singing ominously on the beach, a private party on the pier where very awful people dance awfully to an awful covers band covering awful songs – and a French girl who was so shocked that My First Tooth had an ‘insignificant, leeetle girl’ playing bass that she almost cried with delight and started babbling on about PJ Harvey for hours.

All in all, a fine night… Thanks to the magnificent Tenspeed Photography for the pics of Sam Isaac, and Ross MFT for the other image who may not have excelled quite so much in photographic excellence but… In fairness, almost managed to hold the camera straight.. Good job Ross, good job!

*ps don’t ever EVER expect this….

Bought this – it is absolutely ridiculous….

Cheers Sainsburys…. FML….

Stagecoach EP up for presale!

Dear Lord – with young Kevin away sunning himself in Cyprus, and release after release to plan it’s proving a pretty damn busy week at Alcopop… But here we are, fresh with news so ace that one can barely contain it within the walls of this blog.

You know Stagecoach right – handsome lads, strong of face… Well, their brand new and bloody ace EP is now up for pre-order from the shop. This is cool for many reasons, not least that we have a limited number of mega deal packs (T-Shirt, Tote bag, stickers – you got em!) – but also…. We know you poppers are friendly types, so we’ve furnished the first 100 copies with a bonus disc copy of the EP in dual case, so you can pick a pal with sublime taste and spread Coach Love by passing the extra copy on. Ace!

Not only that, but the boys are also we’re also gonna be off on their first UK tour in October, “partly to promote the record, but mainly to have some good times and get drunk in Crewe.” Tour poster is below, and I promise you will be made to feel most welcome… There’s one or two particularly special shows on their, but I’ll post about those in the next few days.

Candle Thieves ‘Sunshine EP’ out today…

A guilty pleasure for deep thinkers, the Candle Thieves reside in a very wonderful, weird and whimsical place. Gentle, poppy pleasures and soft-hearted sentiments with sinister undertows reside – and undulate deliciously through the ears.

Here at Alcopop therefore we are just delighted to be proudly heralding release day for their debut EP – The Sunshine EP, a marvelous collection of 4 delicious tracks ready to fill your heart with joy, and stereo with the kind of lush sounds not heard in this green and pleasant land for some while.

You can purchase it on limited edition (to 1,000 copies) CD or in digital format from the Alcopop shop… (75p straight up p&p however many things you order) And make October the cheeriest month of the year.

Viva Las Candle Thieves…

I got this email… It was lovely

Sometimes emails are awful… Full of dread, demands for money or someone just generally being horrible. Other times though they’re inspiring, lovely and basically a real tonic – re-instilling the belief in what you’re doing, and reminding you that people really do care Yesterday I received such an email… It’s awesome, and fills m full of joy to know that somewhere in a little village in Spain – the kids are digging Alcopopular 3…. Rock on!

Stupid online game… Stupid Cheltenham Town

You know when you get those stupid mental block things… The ‘I must finish this before I can do anything else’ type moments that leave you trailing in frustration over a particular task when, in reality, there are several hundred more important, worthwhile or generally more sensible things to be doing.

Well I just had one of them, playing the bloody stupid (yet painfully brilliant and addictive Play for your Club game). Basically the thing involves you pressing space bar to thump a ball into the back of the net… But here’s the clever thing. Every time you score over 10,000 points it counts towards your teams overall total – and they move up and down the league depending on how many points your lot get compared to your rivals.

Ha – what a harmless waste of 2 minutes I thought as I smacked the ball around a bit for Coventry (my side), but before you knew it my love of the underdog had prevailed; I’d found the team with the lowest number of points and bang! No sleep till Cheltenham ‘fu**ing’ town had hit 10,000 points or more past bloody Rotherham in 10 balls or less.

On I played, invariably getting faced with the screenshot below as I haplessly smashed the ball over, pinged it against the defender, all sorts of wide and well… Was generally inept. Stupid game wouldn’t let me quit… And even when I did smash a satisfying 17k points, I went and blew it all by gambling the lot on a last minute penalty which I struck agonizingly against the post in a double or quits scenario.

As yet – I remain without my 10,000 point haul… But like a particularly obedient horse with blinkers, I’m back to the grindstone… Poppers, wish me luck…  Cheltenham, your worthless points are on their way!

Free download of Stagecoach cover of The Lemonhead’s ‘Buddy’

Like the Lemonheads/ fancy listening to a nice little acoustic cover track from recent Alcopop signings Stagecoach…? No.. Oh, well this is probably the wrong post for you, and I suggest looking at a picture of a cat booting a dog in the face.. If you do though then nice one… Now’s the time!

You see, being the benevolent bunch they are, our good friends at the Coach got together to jam out a cover of the ever so epic Lemonheads song Buddy, and are offering it up as a free download – in hot anticipation of their EP ‘We got Tazers!’ coming out on Alcopop Records on the 5^th October.

To download, simply click below on my cleverly doctored image of the band and enjoy-joy-joy…