Alcopop at 50… A reflection(/despicable self indulgent nonsense :-))

Back in 2006 Kev and I borrowed some money from my Dad, gambled it on a resurgent Portsmouth to beat Charlton (god bless winning goalscorer Lomana LuaLua) and started a record label… Unbelievably, 5 years and 50 releases later, we’re still going strong.

Based on vices, musical passion and a mutual respect for all things indie pop (see Fierce Panda, Symposium, Silver Sun, Llama Farmers) – we quickly discarded dreams of wealth and fame, and set about with a loose goal to take the best indie pop hits, put them out on super-fun formats (see Frisbees, menus, maps in bottles and lush cardboard artwork) and get a community of people who still believed physical releases were ace, music was definitely not dying, and that money was secondary to good ideas, true passion and wonderful music.

Kicking off with a bi-monthly singles club with released packaged in handmade, stamped, cut, folded and numbered on 3” CD – we cut our teeth (and fingers) with some wonderful acts, but we were so sick of goodbyes… So moved on from the idea of a one-off singles label, and started to expand – building relationships with a whole heap of epic bands, learning from our many mistakes – and meeting a whole host of wonderful folk as we traversed the country on various drunken adventures.

Since then, we’ve notched up 50 releases, put out the coolest compilations of all time (so say the NME anyway and I’m not one to argue), represented at every UK major festival with bands and showcases alike, racked up 100s of thousand touring miles, put on shows everywhere from ice cream shops to beaches, wholesale ripped off the Hooch logo (as yet) unpunished – and worked with our favourite bands of all time, made a whole heap of charming pals, match sponsored Gretna 2008 FC and watched Cool Runnings a record 937 times*.

Having worked with a whole host of wonderful artists including the likes of Johnny Foreigner, Stagecoach, Midget, ute, LightGuides, Screaming Maldini, This City, Sam Isaac, Freeze the Atlantic, My First Tooth, The Attika State, Jumping Ships and more – we thought seemed the right thing to do aged 50 was to recall some of the finest musical moments on a compilation CD covered in pics of Alcopop bands, fans, artists and dinosaurs – and doffing a cap to our greatest inspiration, Fierce Panda, release a very limited edition Alcopop050 jacket – all hand embroidered, and dedicated to Team PoP! (the Alcopop! Community).

So we did…

And while we couldn’t begin to thank all of you personally for every bit of love, support, kindness and awesomeness you’ve provided (honestly, it would take – like – all the words in the world) we do appreciate it so much. Thank you, and see you in August for the next installment of tasty releases and succulent tours xxx Thank you. We love you, love Alcopop!

* or so

Alcopopular review in Artrocker – 4/5!

It’s a cracker and all! I do love the handsome folk at Artrocker – great bunch… The menu is still available (with burger sleeve) from the shop. Read below… ‘Most forward thinking of record companies’ eh… Well thank you very much Emily Kendrick!

Strong Arms by Elephants is out today!

And by gum it’s a cracker… Limited to just 100 hand made polaroid fronted sleeves of friends, family and lovers (each one different of course), it’s an edgy, raw emotion-fuelled romp through delicious indie-pop and well, you can see what The 405 think of it right about here! The digital artwork features little Matty Stagecoach, but you can take a look at every photo which will feature on the front of each of the CDs below…

Who will you get? Well, it’s a veritable mix of heroes, but you’ll just have to wait and see… Luck out with a member of Stagecoach and they’ll give you a tee if you drop em a line. Get an Elephants member and you win their last single on vinyl. Get the photo of Alcokitten on the front of your sleeve though and know that she chose you as her favourite popper of all (and that’s a prize that can’t be beat!)

Observe… And pick up your copy before it sells out x

New Alcopop signing announced: Screaming Maldini!

Happy New Year… And wasn’t 2009 bloody delicious? Dancing and singing in the streets to a riot of super new sounds – but trust me when I tells ya… 2010 is going to be even better. And what better way to kick off than with a brand new signing. So it is with delight, dear poppers, that I’d like to introduce to you the name that will no doubt be a-flirtingly spangling on your lips over the next few months and beyond… Screaming Maldini!

With fresh sparkling eyes, and a myriad of melodic loveliness in their hearts, Screaming Maldini introduce themselves to the world with a 5-track EP out in February via Alcopop Records, accompanied with a UK tour alongside former PoP favourites Stars & Sons! Featuring ex-members of The Situationists, Maldini are nevertheless a very different proposition – ‘somewhere between the likes of Mew and a Muppet Babies Bloc Party’ (God is in the TV zine).

“We like guitars, horns, keys, cowbells, tambourines, choirs, horses, bicycles and excitement” they say… Which goes some way to understanding their breathlessly exciting sound which mixes lush, layered melody with the kind of foot-tapping indie-pop that makes this a particularly compelling prospect. You WILL love…

Tom Robinson, who tends to know his stuff, said “WOW! Assertive, assured, different, free-ranging…it’s an amazingly sure-footed debut record…one of the most exciting things I’ve heard for months,” but why listen to him? A few of the kids may have already heard this, but for those who haven’t, check out the MySpace or click the megaphone below to download Maldini track The Extroadinary… And get excited!

Alcopopular 3 – message in a bottle compilation for pre-order!

Hurrah! As featured in Loud and Quiet (full page) – it is with great pleasure I can announce that our newest compilation Alcopopular 3 is up for pre-order… And coming out next week

Priced up at just a fiver, and featuring delicious tracks from the likes of Pulled Apart by Horses, Apples, Paul Steel, Unicorn Kid and Stagecoach (along with many more) your downloadable comp comes in bottle with hand-browned treasure map tracklisting and is pretty much a must for any record collection.  After all, you can pretend to be a pirate and listen to some cracking tracks… Can’t beat that eh!

It’s – in a word – amazing! But you don’t even have to take my word for it as we have a number of crack Twitter reviewers, picking it apart track by track in 140 characters or less over the next couple of weeks… So I’ll be letting you know some of the highlights of what they say about each track.

Bottle – Buy now / MP3s only – Buy now

Full tracklisting is…

1. Tellison – Wasp’s Nest
2. Apples – Theo
3. David Gibb – The Oxfordshire Brigade
4. Stars and Sons – In The Ocen (piano version)
5. Town Bike – Cock Muff Bum Hole
6. Pulled Apart By Horses – E=MC Hammer
7. Stagecoach – We Got Tazers
8. Paul Steel – Psychedelia Smith
9. Unicorn Kid – Nuts n Milk
10. Arrows Of Love – Prescriptions
11. Ice King of California – I Wouldn’t Want To Do That All
12. The October Game – Cast These Waves
13. The Computers – Track Four

Purchase, and fill that bottle shaped hole in your record collection, because – as Loud and Quiet say…

“but maybe it’s now that we need labels like Alcopop to offer us something a little out of the ordinary. There’s no character in a bunch of mega bites but there’s a hell of a lot in a bottle containing a modern day pirate treasure map that leads you to some audio booty.”

Awwww

Alcopop announce new signing: Wolf Am I

I’ve been hanging this post back all week, but as Saturday dawns it seems as good-a time as any to tell you all that Alcopop have made quite one of the biggest additions to our roster in our short, but delectable, history recently – and it is with great pleasure that I can inform you that Wolf Am I are now the newest additions to the Pop family.

Formerly known as Kill the Arcade, this ridiculously exciting 5-piece have been gathering serious momentum over the last year or so, and they will be releasing their debut album ‘Lead the Way’ with us in July. Recently swapping in and out a member and embarking on a successful tour of the UK (I caught them at the sold out show at London Barfly), they have

Go and take a look at them over on their MySpace – or take a look at the freshly shot promo video for Glasgow Seven below…. We’re VERY excited! Roll on summer…

Pinnacle distribution goes under – what now for the indie record labels?

It’s been a long day, night and onwards over the last 24 hours or so – ever since the announcement reached me that independent distributors Pinnacle have succumbed to the slavering Credit Crunch – their video games arm allegedly taking down the music ‘bit’ and everything else with it.

Now from an indie music perspective in general this is terrible news. Not just because Pinnacle deal with around 1/3 of all such distribution in the UK (and 94 jobs have been lost in a very competitive industry), but also because it nudges me towards the belief that across the country, that maybe it’s not just the majors that are going to be hit! A well needed shot in the arm perhaps, but one that is really scary as far as Alcopop and all in our ilk are concerned.

Now don’t get me wrong – it’s not all bad news, and up till now I personally feel that 2008 has been a most enjoyable year for Alcopop. I hope you agree – and barring any massive problems chucked our way by this, will be considered quite a raring success. Indeed – I’m pretty convinced that with your continued support (which we’re so grateful for), we’ll be able to continue working with incredible up and coming acts and continue working with them, providing real music – for real people – who really care!

Of course – more immediate concerns abound, not least because our (very ace) distribution company goes through Pinnacle, and as is the way of the record sales world, perennially owe us cash (that we owe to others) from shop sales from the last few months – which, as any Alcopopper will know has borne a pretty hectic schedule.

Now, we’ve received assurances that everything should be OK, so that’s something… But one is never 100% certain until the money is folding in your hands, and whatsmore – what will become of our distribution company when all this fallout clears? Apparently they’re still strong, and a fiercely independent company, so hopefully they’ll simply about turn and waltz onward with someone else – but we’ll have to wait and see.

I wasn’t going to drag you all down with this kind of news (after all – this blog is primarily a happy place), but after all, I think it’s important that everyone knows what’s going on. This whole indie culture, in my eyes at least, should be a disparate community of everyone who plays, releases, writes about – or just loves music with heart! Making its way from the dingy clubs around the UK, nay the world – we know the majors have had it wrong for years – dictating to us…. Now we need to rally together and prove that we all are the way forward, whatever the economy throws at us.

Pinnacle may be gone, but indie will not be forgotten!

Ace photo courtesy of Olly Farrell

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…

Alcopop sign hot new indie-pop talent…

You may have seen it in our recent update, hand delivered so lovingly to your mailboxes (ah come on now – we don’t spam you that often) – but just in case you didn’t, it is my proud duty to inform you all that Alcopop have recently added to our roster – with none other than Brighton-based happening indie kids – Stars & Sons.

Already firm favourites amongst some of the coolest kids amongst the blogosphere… MP3hugger advise you to “forget about all the music you’ve ever heard, just clear your head and start from scratch again like an 8 year old in the company of Sgt. Peppers for the first time”, while A New Band a Day holler from the rooftops “Good work, Stars and Sons”. Well indeed…

And they make quite an effort with their presentation too!

All opinions aside though, I confidently predict that this band will melt your heart, and make you reassess EXACTLY what it is you love about indie-pop! For Alcopop archivists (and I know there are plenty out there ) Mike – who fronts the band (look at him jigging around below there)- used to be in the original 4 or 5 Magicians line-up, and was instrumental in the ‘Forever on the Edge’ single that came out on Alcopop Records a good year ago.

Listing their influences as Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle – not to mention Wham… Stars and Sons are quite simply awesome! Go and check them out at their MySpace page, and look out for the single ‘In the Ocean’ coming out in November on very limited 7″ vinyl….

Woop!

This City offer up a fine competition!

They move at just the right speed, they’re releasing a very limited 7″/digital single on Alcopop, and now This City have proved themselves to be pretty damn benevolent too, by offering a really rather corking competition on their MySpace blog, with a free track to go…

As they say, it really couldn’t be simpler – and all you have to do is buy just a single ticket for their massive upcoming tour (more details here) which will set you back not much more than a fiver. Southsea, Stoke and Norwich types… That includes you!

All you have to do is forward a ticket confirmation email / take a photo with your ticket / scan a ticket etc and email it to THISCITYCOMP@HOTMAIL.CO.UK to win….

1st prize

T Shirt of your choice
Signed We Move promo CD
We Move 7″ vinyl
Kids With Fireworks CD
ThisCity tote bag

2nd prize

T shirt of your choice
We Move 7″ vinyl

3rd prize

We Move 7″ vinyl

Whatsmore, those who buy tickets for any of the above dates will be sent a brand spanking new demo track “GHOSTS” absolutely free. Man…. What more could you possibly want!