Stream tazers, read German and hey baby… Come Pick Me Up!

Like a bit of AlcoPoP in your face right? Speak German… Rad! This one’s for you. Our pals at Allez Affen blog have posted a big old interview with me up on their site, accompanied with plenty of lovely photos – all done in a kind of black and white sheen, just to give it that classy edge. Thanks chaps! Oh, and whatever language you speak, you’ll be pleased to note that there’s a free Stagecoach download up too… Ice Age in face! If you haven’t heard that you really should.

Speaking of such charming band from the wistful Surrey hills – have you heard Stagecoach’s debut EP ‘We Got Tazers’? Because those lovely gents at Punktastic have got it up to stream for free on the site – and if you should ever require a reason to visit Punktastic, which you shouldn’t as it’s about the finest forum in the land, now is certainly the time…

Oh – and to round off the honourable mentions of this weeks heroes who deserve a Lemon Hooch or two, let me head for a moment to one of my favourite blogs in the land. Come Pick Me Up… She’s digging the mighty Elephants – and who can blame her?

Gretna 2008 – the return up north!

We’re all going on a summer holiday, fuckin’ blacksmiths and a bottle of booze. Yup, hungry for some more intense Gretna action after last year’s momentous travels just north of the border, myself, Kev and potential others will be heading forth to Gretna to get involved with our favourite Scottish football team… See, we’re putting together a book about the ups and downs of the club – and now it’s time to get the ‘where are they now’ conclusions.

Times have been hard for Gretna since we last slung on our sporrans and jigged toward the highlands, thistles between our toes… and now, after falling apart financially and having to rebuild as Gretna 2008 in the E.O.S. League, Division 1, they battle bravely on – and aren’t doing at all bad, currently 4th in the league.

Massively excitingly though this time, we’re using our vast record label wealth (ha!) and a cracking contribution from the good people at Cow PR to actually sponsor the match, so it’ll be Gretna2008 vs Vale of Leithen (brought to you by Alcopop Records). It’s the first time I’ve ever been involved with such high-brow dealings (just call me Glazer or Gillette or something) and it means we’ll be treated with remarkable VIP hospitality, have a page in the programme (it’s brilliant! I’ll show you next week) and get to choose, and present the Man of the Match trophy.

Awesome!

To build myself up for the event I’ve been pretty much listening to this epic non-stop, and I can only suggest you do the same. Happier times at Gretna – take a look below..

Hometown Heroes Tour – in June!

One of our goals of 2009, and 2010 indeed, was to make Alcopop a close-knit family – and with it, adopt a hearty collection of bands who love each other, creative types who help us out – and a group of exceptional folk (aka you) who knew that when they bought a record, came to a show or got involved with Alcopop in any way that not only did we appreciate it massively, but that we were all pushing in the same direction. Team PoP as it were…!

And with this, we hoped would come inter-band harmony, acts who dug playing with each other, grew handsomely together – and generally had an ace time. So it’s with great delight that I can announce the Hometown Heroes Tour, an idea incepted in my back garden with the good chaps of Stagecoach at the beginning of 2010… And now coming to fruition, where 4 vessels launched from the good ship PoP all tour together over what is likely to be a weekend of sold out shows, ripping apart rampant home towns.

The handsome bunch involve: Screaming Maldini, My First Tooth, Stagecoach and Elephants, with venues (as it sounds) in home towns – Folkestone, Dorking, Northampton and Sheffield… And believe me, this tour is going to be rad! The Poster below [designed by Owen ‘Phants lovely girlfriend) explains it all, so see you at a show yeah?

God bless record store day!

I remeber my life as a youngster growing up in Coventry… Hanging out in town of a Saturday, a cursory visit to River Island (or some such store) to buy a crap Kickers Tee I’d rarely wear – before hitting up the record shops of the city. Apologies to anyone who didn’t live in the sky blue city circa 97-98 (ahem..) but oh how I look back with joy to the delights of spending literally 2 hours thumbing through 2nd hand vinyl upstairs in ‘Freakbeat’, walking 30 minutes to get told off by the odd looking guy in ‘Hits and Misses’  - and even buying some brand new stuff from the likes of Spinadisc …

Ah grand times, and now looking back it seems obvious why I never had many of my friends accompany me into town on a Saturday – just a core 2 or 3 hardy music lovers who shared my excitement at picking up the debut Fungus minialbum for 4 quid… Or finding Theme from M.A.S.H. Manics EP for just 1.50… (That’s worth like, thirty quid, in the back of The NME!) How long we’d chat about whether it was worth buying that difficult second Kenicke album, whilst eagerly anticipating that someone would get rid of Luxury Plane Crash by Scarfo so we could buy it from somewhere other than Virgin’s ‘noone will buy this album so we’re pricing it at 15.99′ section.

Alas those days are gone, and although record shops are dwindling (literally not one in Oxford, though the excellent Rapture in Witney still rocks) there are still the very cream of the crop – alive – heart beating – and fabulous! You know where they are, by god they deserve supporting – and here’s hoping that by diversifying, remaining relevant and knowlegable… That the likes of Banquet, Pure Groove and all the other awesome record shops will stay alive.

So today on record store day… Here’s a blog post saying literally nothing but “here’s to music sold physically, and the people who continue to put the warm lovliness of records, CDs, awesome packaging and a genuine love for music ahead of the seductive kiss of a cheap mp3.” Nice one!

Free Elephants download – but is it big/little ears?

You are handsome poppers – that much is true… And while I sit in a wretched bus, stuck on a wretched road in London – wondering (just wondering) whether I made the wrong decision bailing on Reading vs. Newcastle at The Madjeski Stadium tonight (ps – I didn’t make the wrong decision – a smug Kev BSM and Joe Idle Hands after Coventry’s recent form would be quite the footballing trial)…

Either way though, I thought you might like this. Yup, it’s a free download from our most recent signing Elephants, ‘For Laika’ – a tour de force of a song that should furnish your eardrums with something pleasant for the next few minutes for sure as you no doubt wait expectantly for their first single out on Alcopop – ‘Strong Arms’, which will be handsomely touching down on 31^st May alongside literally the coolest tour ever – which I’ll be announcing officially in the next couple of days.

However, this free download isn’t quite as easy as normal – and I thought it might be fun to play a little guessing game. Below you will see two pictures of Elephants… One is African and reveals the download, whilst the majestic Indian fellow hides something so deliciously sweet that you may be brought to cry saccharine tears of sugar-candy (which will no doubt be embarrassing in a public place)! Choose carefully….

Alcopop showcase at The Great Escape festival

Ah the stony beaches of Brighton! Wind whipping bitterly through your bones as you breeze (quite literally) along the pier, rich with places to literally throw your money away. Whether you want to roll balls at holes to win a crap cuddly fish, or spend 30 seconds asking ‘how do I make this computer horse fucking move’ and paying £1 for the privelage. Brighton is an idiot’s dream… And I love it.

For me it’s synonymous with great times, excess and horrible drunken behaviour with horrible drunken bands (AKA Stagecoach, Blakfish et al) – oh and the first ice cream of the year, complete with flake, and usually kicked out of my hand.

In short it’s brilliant! But with money so easily parted from fools, how on earth are you supposed to live frugally at The Great Escape, whether you have a wristband or not? Well here’s the answer in poster form… Courtesy of Wowee Zowee promotions and our good pals Idle Hands and Ray Gun (design by @ryannevill).

To cut a long story short – Alcopop showcase at TGE in my favourite pub in the city, free entry, during the day 12-4pm… With all these bands! Lose? No way. See you there yeah, and this time the ice creams on you fate!

Alcopop loves the 90s

I’ve been listening to a fair few classic 90s albums over the last few weeks – revisiting THE most delicious old favourites… You know, like Symposium’s One Day at a Time, Cable’s When Animals Attack and The Crockett’s We May be Skinny and Wiry – and it’s been great. Of course we here at PoP are all about the new music, but it’s furiously ace to dip back and revisit all those awesome bands who inspired us to start all of this up in the first place.

And while I’ve had what probably amounts to awesome ‘aural sex’ (does that work?), there was one track that stood out in my head perhaps more than almost all of the rest! Whether it was because it was an awesome video, introduced me to the world of ‘inhaling deeply and passing it around’ as it were, or just the fact that the song was about as compelling as it could it possibly be (jam that horn baby)…

Dog Eat Dog y’all

Oh – and the singer was called JC (my initials when they’re not JP)… Ace!

July 19th 2010 > July 19th 2009 – sorry Jupiter fans!

Look what happened on July 19^th 2009! Sure, Anthony Wesley captured it perfectly! Preliminary image show a black mark in Jupiter’s South Polar Region (SPR) which is almost certainly the result of a large impact – either an asteroid or comet – similar to the Shoemaker-Ley impacts in 1994. Fuck!

Well – all that’s in the past astronomers, so forget it! What’s done is done… This time it’s all about July 19^th 2010, and more specifically – Stagecoach baby!

You see, as leaked by our elastic-mouthed pals at Idle Hands weeks ago, “The new 6 track Stagecoach EP ‘Crash My Ride’ will be out on 19th July, after being recorded with strong-of-face wunderproducer James Kenosha over two weekends in Bridlington.” This is good news all round, and expect the packaging as ever to look like something some deitiy or other may bring you in a dream, sealed with a creamy kiss.

Creamy in a nice way you know, like a Werther’s Original…

What isn’t so pure and delicious though is the origin of the name; which not only symbolises little Matty Coach reaming the edge of his cymbal with a drum stick (a lovely thing), but also banging your friend’s girlfriend… Oh Stagecoach. Gotta love their cheeky faces though eh!