Alcopop and BSM dropping anchor and heading to @Southseafest!

Yes it’s early to announce and yes, there’s a few more fine festivals to hit up beforehand… But as it’s been officially aired on the facebook page, it was with no little pleasure that I can happily let y’all know that it’s going to get a bit ‘fuckin’ indie’ at Southsea Festial 2010 – as the good ship BSM and us at Alcopop Records are sharing a stage at the event @ The Edge of the Wedge! Yessir.

Although Kev and I toyed with the idea of performing a 5 hour stand-up show each, full of poorly written material and overused gags, we relented in the end and decided to book some of our favourite bands instead. Looking at something like a 10 act bill over the day in our neck of the woods, we’ve already secured the services of the likes of Stagecoach (hip), Tall Ships (hype), Elephants (hyper), Aspen Sails (handsome) and Talons (habsolutely ace) – and there will be plenty more announced (well approximately 5 actually) on the stage in the next few months.

Slotting our lovely lot alongside what I have no doubt will be a bloody beautiful bill (last year I caught Sam Isaac, The Xcerts, Blakfish, Tellison and many more) – anyone who can should definitely get down to what is a brilliant festival on the south coast. Booze flows freely, tickets are an insanely cheap £12 (yes twelve!!) in advance and last year – naked, drunken 4am night swimming with My First Tooth was made compulsory! This year, Stagecoach are aiming to make sausage roll street surfing the sport of choice. I for one am cool with that.

More updates as they come… But for now I say, ahoy there me Southsea hearties – it’s a bottle of rum for me!

Alcopop showcase at Old Blue Last: Tuesday – free entry

When the Old Blue Last and their pals at Vic mag come a calling at Alcopop Towers requesting a short notice aster showcase it seems silly to turn them down. Not least when you know it’ll be free for everyone to get in, and all sort of handsome poppers will make their way down… Add in the fact that A Gun Rack?, Dexy, My First Tooth and The Candle Thieves, hot on the heels of their stunning debut album ‘Sunshine and other Misfortunes’, are all playing majestic sets too – and March 30th is pretty much sorted.

See you there…? Yep!

Elephants rock Matt Horne, and The Candle Thieves new video is awesome!

Do you ever get that thing where there’s so much to write about, you kinda miss it all. Yes, as do I dear poppers – but today I aim to attack just a couple of things that have been in my mind to scribe over the last week or so. Firstly, to apologise for the very poor showing of Tell Massini, the stupid Alcopop horse who singularly failed to bring home the bacon – but also to let you know about a rather fun podcast, This is Reality, based in Oxfordshire, who seem to be giving us rather a love-in at the moment. Bless ‘em.

Big fans of My First Tooth, and come on now – if you aren’t you should be, it’s noticeable they tend to have a playlist of gold actually – and definitely put the work in… Just the other week I heard a specially created Alcopop megamix which was rather nice, and ith a quick glance to the playlist, one can see they regularly spin the likes of TTNG, Ex Libras and apparently a Hanson cover of Radiohead.. Sure, sure. They also boast a mascot which is a big dog thing wearing headphones… Which is cool.

Also meant to mention that the wonderful Elephants rocked up an awesome London show last week at Matt Horne’s takeover of Shoreditch party thing, wih the likes of My Tiger, My Timing and Jodie Harsh sharing the bill. By all accounts, Elepahnts slayed like tusk-wielding maniac mammals on the loose, which they tend to do in truth… And were pretty much the standout act of the evening.

It was Stagecoach who ventured that opinion too, and the good lads of Coach don’t lie – they’ve been brought up waaaay too nice for that..! (I once suggested to Nick Coach’s dad, whilst discussing his offspring, that he must have good sperm…. True story *cringe*)

Oh and finally, you should definitely check out the new Candle Thieves video for We’re all Gonna Die (have fun) which is coming out on Downtown Records tres soon… It’s magic!

Image(ine)…

A blog with no pictures – awful eh… Well it seems to be happening! Nightmare. Bear with us and hopefully WordPress will sort it out soon. Just know that we’re not a colourless bunch of sad souls – it’s all somebody elses fault. Sure, sure!

Alcopop’s gambling horse revealed…

So we’re here – Cheltenham has arrived, and the good poppers have spoken. We’ve a strong team of fantastically-hearted folk behind the pop gambling winnings crusade tomorrow, and it is with a heart bursting with pride and excitement, that I can reveal the horse we will be betting on is,

TELL MASSINI (and not just ‘cos he sounds a bit like Screaming Maldini).

With fetlocks of steel and hooves of gold, this powerful champ may well be favourite – and it’s easy to see why (check the pic). This fella just can’t lose. Keep an eye on it tomorrow…. Timeform rate him as ‘general of victory’ (probably).

And for those of you with pure hearts and clear minds, do know it’s not too late to get involved – The full rules are here, and I’ll be keeping an eye on my emails right until the off. The race is at 14.40 – so we’ll keep the promotion open until 10 minutes before.

Let’s go Team PoP – god, i feel like I own a racehorse

Alcopopular 4 – a few good details

Just a quick update to remind anyone who hasn’t got involved, to get involved with the Alcopop Cheltenham promotion (poppers across the country, nay globe, will be popping champagne corks together come Friday afternoon) – but also to give you a quick update on the new compilation which we shall we releasing within the next couple of months.

Those of you with keen minds may remember last years Alcopopular Vol 3, the treasure map and bottle thing so called by the NME “the coolest compilation ever”.., well this bad boy is going to be even better. The format for now is a closely guarded secret being worked on deep in Alcopop towers (shhh shhh) but what I can tell you is some of the fine acts who have put their names to the compilation… And this is just a sample mind you!

Sure you know the magnificent Kevin Devine who currently plies his trade on the UK’s finest alt-indie label Big Scary Monsters, but what say you fancy a bit of The Xcverts too? Anyone a fan of Liam Frost who has kindly agreed to thrust a bit of his killer material onboard, and with all of that added into the mix with Jose Vanders (pictured), Mimas… And kick-ass Canadian lot Superfantastics involved too, it’s all looking rather hip.

There’s a whole heap more for you to choose from [oops, did I let something slip there], and for an idea we’ve been honing for the last few months, I really hope it’s kinda safe to say…

I think you’re going to like this one!

Friends, roamers and gentlepoppers – Cheltenham gambling with Team PoP!

Just a quick update to tell you to ready the nags, and lay your money down – because Cheltenham Festival is on its way, and with it – the joy of the sport of kings. The whole of PoP (AKA Jack and Kev) will be heading up on Friday and, in the spirit of racing, we thought it might be fun to get the whole of Team PoP (aka you!) backing one horse to a splendid victory for us all.

So we’re proposing that for every order in the shop this week, £1.50 (or £3 if you order a tenner or more’s worth of stuff) of it will be going into the Team PoP gambling fund – and all put on a single horse in the Albert Bartlett (who are, incidentally, Britain’s largest growers of root potatoes) Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham on Friday (2.40pm). Then and if we win – we’ll split the money between every popper playing and either pay out in cash, or double it for credit in the pop shop (whichever you prefer)…

So – that means if you bought the Stagecoach EP, and we back a 10-1 winner – you’ll get back £15 cash, or £30 to spend in the good PoP Shop.

Now it just comes to choosing the horse – so take a look at this link, and anyone who gets involved can email in their vote for the horse we should bet on… I’ll tally the votes and announce who we’re backing on Friday morning so we can all cheer it to a famous victory.

Lets get gambling

Oh – and if you’re one of those super types who already has pretty much everything PoP related and gave nothing more to buy, drop me a quick email and we’ll sort you out xx

Long live the Oxford music scene?

Yada yada – another day another column. I apologise for pushing my witterings at you, but who knows – you might just fancy a butchers fair poppers. Today it’s the fantastic kids at RockMidget who have posted my words – specifically about the grand old Oxford music scene (or what little I know of it) and what on earth it’s doing. And the answer is ‘rather a lot considering’.

Just whisk yourself away into this lovable picture of the dreaming spires to read on, and find out who I think are worth a gander next time you drop anchor in our fair city… x

Stagecoach and their map to the freezer…

For anyone who has ever watched Stagecoach perform, caught the eye of their demon mandolin player, Tom, and wondered… I wonder what goes through his mind when he’s not picking jazzy hats or strumming his instrument of choice..? Well, with their entrance into the studio this weekend to record their new EP, forthcoming on Alcopop Records in July time, the answer seems obvious. Food, food, food.

And how do we know this? Well, one look at the tour diary that Tom is so deliciously updating each day, and you’ll note that but for a swift mention of Luka’s naked torso and the odd bit of playing an instrument or two – it’s all about the studio fodder on offer. A foodies dream if you will. “Day one starts badly when i allow Nick, Luke and John to go food shopping unsupervised. They return triumphantly with paper-thin ham in one of those packs that farts when you open it” he begins, quickly elucidating on the beverage situation

“Back inside I find an espresso maker tucked above the fridge freezer. Steam spurts in an exciting manner through a chrome pipe, before dripping coffee into the bowl I have positioned beneath due to absence of mini espresso mugs.” Well, quite.

To keep an eye on how Stagecoach are feasting over the next couple of days, and something or other to do with recording, keep an eye on their blog – We can Bowl Again…

Rad!

Deep breath – We all love Screaming Maldini…(part 1)

But it’s not just us you know, and in the past few weeks there has been all sorts of love from all sorts of places for the boys and girls from Sheffield. And in a blog post (or two), I’m going to attempt to sum up just some of the kind words uttered by glorious people from super places.

The ace Folly of Youth shall start suggesting that “the band manage to confound expectations and continually surprise and delight”, whilst Alter the Press mark the record 4/5 and reckon that “If you are looking for Indie Pop that guarantees a good time and harks back to the golden age of pop, this is definitely for you.” Rock Midgets give the same score asking “Is that Hugh Hefner? Screaming Maldini’s are the house band? Awesome, someone get me a martini!”

Elsewhere (on Tumblr) Music Fans Mic mark the record 9.1 out of 10 and say “Good things lie ahead for Screaming Maldini, make no mistake”, and Clicky Clicky reckon the EP is “mind-bogglingly good”. This is Fake DIY agree suggesting “This eccentric cacophony is entirely over the top but like the youthful exuberance that radiates from these three students, it’s contagious.”

I think my very favourite quote of all though comes from the lovely Matt of Heckler Spray who sums it up for me… Perfectly! “Honestly, if we could pick a band to soundtrack our dreams where we float through the clouds and eat pieces of rainbow, it would be them.” Got it in 27 words!