Fancy guestlist to see Arrows of Love and the King Blues?

Nima from Arrows of Love ex Hush the Many (Heed the Few) has always been a kindly soul – with a face that glitters like diamonds and a face that pours forth with kindly words (as well as beautiful songs) – and he hit me up yesterday offering all at the good ship pop a fair old deal…

“If you want to give tickets to this blaster of a show away on Alcopop then go fer your life, just send my names midweek ” he said! Here’s the show and it’s sick!

F.A.K.E. - The Fridge – Nov 13th

9pm-6am

Room 1: The King Blues, Arrows of Love, Gaggle, Laurel Collective, The Homosexuals, Pocket Lips, HoneyWeazel, Qdos…

Room 2: The Art of In The Year 2525 Exhibition, The Eraserheads, The Savants, The Supernovas, Wasp Display,

Free! Yes really – but I imagine it’s rather a limited supply. Door price is a tenner, or more on the day I think, so if you do want a freebie or two, hit me up tonight (email info@ilovealcopop.co.uk) and we’ll get you on the list (if you’re quick).

Just tell em Jack PoP sent you

Get yourself some Alcopop on Spotify

At the turn of 2008 I, with a million others no doubt, found Spotify, and since then we’ve all been tear-stained on our grass stained knees, wringing our hands in humble awe – thanking them for bringing x billion songs to our unworthy ears via the joy of streaming. Songs that we can then discard as over-hyped balls, or trot off to our nearest online e-tailer to purchase (maybe anyway)…

Well now, it is with great delight that I can announce that Alcopop related tracks are a-headed up thick and fast. No that’s not to say that the whole back catlogue is up there, far from it (although that’s not to say it won’t happen in the future) – but what I can tell you is that I’ve created a nice, none-to- imposing Alcopop playlist ‘Alcopop Tarts’ featuring some of the magnificent bands of the last year or so who have done us the service of releasing with us…

And you and your pals can now stream it, simply by clicking this link  – if you have Spotify of course (if not, get it, it’s great!)

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…

Tis the season of [their] awesome compilation

We heart Alter the Press – because not only are they a great music blog, bringing *SO* up to the minute news on bands and labels you actually care about, but also because they create compilations that are not unlike exploding planets – in that they’re very big, and very fuckin’ loud!

The compilation ‘Autumn/Winter 2009’ (alright – so it’s not very imaginatively titled but one can forgive that) includes tracks from first and foremost Alcopop’s very own Wolf Am I and Stagecoach – but also Epitaph Records’ Set Your Goals and Every Time I Die, breakthrough UK pop-punk band, You Me At Six, Welsh rockers Attack! Attack! and Brooklyn’s Kevin Devine.

On top of that, the compilation has tracks from many up and coming bands such as O’Brother, Kill Casino, Francesqa, Kyoto Drive and many more. And is well worth downloading – for listening to on the bus perhaps, or maybe on a dull cruise with your gran. What I’m saying is, it’s very versatile.

Download chaps, download…

Download the free 40+odd track Punktastic Unscene 5 compilation featuring WAI…

…But remember to donate a sheet or two… A fabnificent gentleman named Tom, and everyone’s favourite general of Punktastic Paul – have put together an awesome compilation – oh yes… it’s the fifth instalment of Unscene – and it looks fuckin’ glorious.

Not only does this badboy include the absolutely marvellous Lex Talionis by Alcopop’s very own Wolf Am I (they’re SO good) but with the likes of The Tupolev Ghost, Mutiny on the Bounty, Bayonets and Portman (amongst so many others) it’s definitely worth a hearty listen. I’ll let the handsome Tom take up the story from here….

“For the fifth installment we are supporting the work of Everyman cancer campaign who aim to stamp out prostate and testicular cancer. While this release is free to download for all, we would love it if you could visit our Just Giving page and contribute towards our fundraising for this worthy cause. More than 34,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the UK, and more than one person an hour will die from the disease. Add this to the fact that testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer among young men – and you’ll see where we’re going with this one.

Thank you to every single band who have donated their music to this release, to Pete Duffield for his awesome artwork, to Neil at The Ranch Production House for tidying up the audio and to Paul McManus for this awesome website.”

So head over, download – and if you‘re plush do donate a quid or two as well… It’s only been out half a day and Tom has already pulled in nearly a hundred quid, so anything else you can add would be brilliant… After all, who can begrudge helping out a charity when you have such compilation to listen to while you’re doing it!

Ace stuff

Candle Thieves interviewed and another free MP3

 As if Wolf Am I giving away Lex Talionis wasn’t enough – it seems that The Candle Thieves have only gone and added to the aceness of this week, by offering a free song for you all. You see, they’re giving away a free download of our song http://www.musicglue.com/thecandlethieves. “It was recorded around the time of the forthcoming EP but it won’t be appearing on there, or the album so it’s the only place you’ll find it.”

Go for it – its ace!

Meanwhile, some chaps at a blog called beat surrender have been busy interviewing them too – asking them a whole heap of questions, including “You’ve signed to Alcopop Records, did you have other offers and what drew you to that label in particular?” To which Scott said…

“Well we kind of knew straight away they were perfect for us, it was all done very quickly! I was a massive Midget fan growing up, and the label’s inspired by them, and then to have Andy Hawkins (Midget bass player) produce our record, it all just seem to fit. And they add this really cool personal touch to their records, like their compilation in a bottle with a little treasure map, we love that! In a world of downloading and what not it’s awesome to have physical CD’s done in different ways.”

Aw… Thanks lads x

You can read the rest over here….

Alcopop expecting… Free MP3

Like a pregnant mother heavy with child about to go into labour, there’s excitement afoot at Alcopop HQ as on Monday we announce our third summer signing to join the family. Wolf Am I and The Candle Thieves are settling in just nicely with everyone else and we just know our new boys will too.

Look out for the official announcement on Monday, but until then we’d like to give all of you chaps a little taster of what’s to come. So if you’d like a free MP3 of ‘the new boys’ – just drop us a line on info@ilovealcopop.co.uk or @ilovealcopop on Twitter and we’ll send you a link to download the track straight away. Just keep it under your hat till Monday yeah

Stars and Sons ‘In the Ocean’ 7″ available to preorder! Tasty rare MP3 with every copy

I was told by so-called ‘reliable’ chum Crunkfish that today was International Caps Lock day… Therefore, I saved this post ready to cram full of capitals. Loads of them. I was going to start at the beginning and literally thrash it so full of big ol’ letters that the majority of people would stop reading almost immediately.

Somewhat luckily he was wrong. It was yesterday! So therefore I’ll keep the caps to a minimum, and leave the news to tell itself – namely that the very limited 7″ copies of Stars and Son’s ‘In the Ocean’ are available NOW to pre-order, which is pretty awesome news.

You can order it from our shop, along with a whole heap of oher exciting releases (and it will cost you no more than 50p for postage however many you go for) – and whatsmore… Everyone who orders will receive a free MP3 piano version of the A-side via email, which is not only gorgoeus, but won’t be available on the vinyl or from any of your favourite digital music stores, giving you 3 tracks for the price of one, and something to enjoy while you’re waiting for the vinyl to drop on the release date (17th November).

Huw Stephens has said of S&S that they are “Big brash intelligent indie pop” – and he’s not bloody wrong. Check them out here, and then (when you’ve fallen in love) buy the single here…