Monday night poppin’ at the Old Blue Last

8.00pm on a Saturday night and quite frankly, I’m lacking inspiration. Been packing up Screaming Maldini CDs to the accompaniment of Winter Olympics all afternoon, I’m a few beers down after a majestic Coventry City victory this afternoon against floundering Palace – so all things considered probably a fine time to tell you about Monday night. Sure, sure…

Really – it’s an Alcopop explosion right? Because with Screaming Maldini, Stagecoach and Ross from My First Tooth all treading the boards alongside former PoP pals Stars & Sons, everything will be coming up lovely. And what’s more, it’s all free, free, free to get in. Can’t beat a bit of that. So Old Blue Last tomorrow is surely the only place to be in London town… And if you need more convincing you can download a free Screaming Maldini and Stars & Sons track just here.

Oh, and The 405 & Alcopop DJs will be dropping bombs inbewteen acts…! Yes!

Say you’ll be there.

Screaming Maldini vs Stars and Sons Feb mini tour

With fresh sparkling eyes, and a myriad of melodic loveliness in all of their hearts, it’s rather nice that Screaming Maldini and Stars & Sons met – and have decided to bring their differing brands of balls-out, joy fuelled power pop to the UK this February, taking in a handful of shows and a whole heap of miles in a mission to start the summer early.

Catch them at the following venues

Feb 21^st Sheffield – The Grapes

Feb 22^nd – London – Old Blue Last (w/ Stagecoach &  Ross MFT Telecaster sessions)

Feb 23^rd – Brighton – The Albert

Feb 24^th – Northampton – The Labour Club

Feb 25^th – Oxford – The Cellar

To download tracks from both bands to try before you buy, visit http://drop.io/listenwithmother – and do feel free to distribute/ post… If you fancy popping alone than absolutely do. It should be a really, rather lovely tour!

Alcopop instore @Pure Groove

It’s taken me a good few weeks to post this update about Alcopop’s recent Pure Groove jam (waiting for photos which have now arrived and are beautiful) – but I thought I’d relay the events of the eve, which were – in truth – bloody ace.

Somehow it was the first time I’d ever been to Pure Groove and it was lovely. Basically an opulent Faringdon bar with a record shop spread amongst shelves around the shop – it’s the ideal haunt for anyone with a penchant for the limited editions and niche formats.

Putting on a bill of Stagecoach *acoustic set* and Stars and Sons with Paul Steel providing a delectable melodic introduction, we all bonded over a small message in a bottle compilation – the bands entertained, and Kev and I (along with a few of the great and good from the indie music industry and plenty of happy poppers) assaulted the bar.

Highlight of the evening for me, for its unexpected appearance as much as highly polished form, was perhaps a delicate Stagecoach cover of The Lemonheads’ Drug Buddy. Awesome… What followed was an evening at the Ish Bar, a high octane Team Stagecoach Vs Team PoP pool match (we’ll get you next time Stagecoach), phantom tequilas (where do they always spring from) and plenty more hi-jinks…

The next one’s on October 7^th for Stagecoach and more… See you there yeah

Alcopop @Pure Groove this Wednesday w/ Stagecoach, Stars & Sons and Paul Steel

*Excitement*

It’s the first Alcopop Pure Groove instore (I was so excited to see us on the listings ), and coincides with the stocking of Alcopopular 3 ‘map and bottle compilation’ by said emporium… Great times, free entry and 7pm (ish) start to see:

Stars and Sons (full band) play “Big brash intelligent indie pop” – Huw Stephens
New Alcopop signings Stagecoach (acoustic) rock out “a sumptuous slice of Wilco-esque alt.country” (The Fly)
- with Paul Steel provideing a melodic piano ballad interlude with his “veritable masterwork of pop brilliance” – Under the Radar

And we can all get boozed too in London’s finest record shop – winner? Winner! See you there…

Twitter update: The third!

Thanks so much for all your compilation orders. They’re still coming in and my beer consumption is still v high – in no doubt partly thanks to the erstwhile heros still twittering about the compilation – I haven’t updated the blog daily with everything that’s coming in (it would leave me no time for anything else) but here’s just some of my very favourite tweets from the past few days. Take a look below, oh and if you want to be entertained with delightful tweet after tweet on the nation’s favourite micro-blog network… You could do worse than to follow these champs…

Mike from Stars and Sons belts out the hits

YouTube always turns up some gems when looking for hot rock covers, provided you manage to avoid the perilous pitfalls of whiney American kids wailing horrible covers of Dashboard Confessional B-sides – then you’re pretty much there…

Provided by the ever handsome Mike from Alcopop favourites Stars and Sons, and accompined by nothing more than a keyboard – take a look at his youtube channel for Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend, Come Together by the Beatles, Sensual Seduction by Snoop Dogg  and my very favourite – No One Knows by QOTSA…

Speak of the devil, here it is now…

Alcopop CHRISTMAS PARTY – 15th December

Ah – Christmas time again, and time for a good-ol’ Alcopop knees up. It’s been a super year, and we’d love to see it off in style…

So what better than:

Sam Isaac
Stars and Sons
Pavilion
Nima (ex Hush the Many now w/ Arrows of Love performing a magnificent solo acoustic spot)

As you can see, we’ve picked just some of the finest acts from our current rosta to tantalise and delight you on a miserable Monday evening. Expect magnificent music, Christmas cakes, 90s dance/indie/Christmas DJs -

And, a loving Christmas present for the first 15 people through the door……

Tickets just a fiver – will cost more on the door!

Stars and Sons live video. Light it up

It’s Friday, brother. I’ve watched so many episodes of The Wire over the past three days the voice inside my head has turned into a gangster and I feel like I should be out selling yellow tops and dropping bodies right now, you feel me? Instead, I’m going to have a busy, civilized day of doing ‘bidness’. I guess I’m more Stringer Bell than Avon Barksdale.

Here’s a video of Stars and Sons live from last months In The City event, courtesy of those lovely people at Channel M. The stupid thing won’t embed so just follow that link, homes.

Cornflakes or toast?

Hi Poppers!
From the sounds of thing, Jack is having an absolute ball in New York. I for one am definitely not jealous as I sit here in my freezing cold flat, faced with a day of fairly boring record label tasks and pondering the big question: Cornflakes or toast?

As you will have seen below, Stars and Sons brilliant debut single ‘In The Ocean’ is out this week. Zane Lowe loves it, and so do we. It’s available to purchase from our online shop and we don’t really expect it to be around for too long because, well, you know, it’s bloody great an’ that.

Anyone watch the football last night? I’m determined to get carried away, but anyone who can persuade Downing to actually have a good game must be doing something right. After the match I watched way too many episodes of The Wire, fell asleep and dreamt that Kevin Doyle (Reading’s star striker) was my older brother. It was all a bit gay really.

We’ll soon be announcing details of our Alcopop Christmas Party. It’s on 15th December in London and will feature four bands. Not sure whether to roll them out one by one each day or just to hit you in the face with the full, festively exciting lineup in one big go? hmm. I’ll make that decision once I’ve solved my earlier quandary. Cornflakes are currently edging it, if you were wondering.

Stars and Sons In the Ocean 7″ out today! – read what the net says…

Boom!

Tis the 17^th, and with it cometh the new single from the Alcopop stable. This time, the majestic steeds whinnying with impatience to get going in their inaugural race are Stars and Sons (pictured here at Shepherds Bush Empire). Brainchild of Mike Lord, and featuring Paul Steel – you should definitely buy this vinyl (ltd. to just 500 copies)… But why? Well, I thought I’d let the blogosphere explain that for me. Partly because I’m lazy… But also because they are princes of semantics, fine purveyors of taste – and knowers of musical knowledge!

Firstly, Sweeping the Nation, who said “lovely lovely Alcopop Records, previously responsible for singles we’ve openly admired by 4 Or 5 Magicians and This City, are putting out a limited edition 7″ from an outfit that we had a homemade EP from ages ago and have since had quite a bit of specialist radio play and even praise off evil Jonathan Ross. We talk up so many new bands that by the law of averages eventually one of them had to take off. Stars And Sons are Mike Lord, once of the aforementioned 4 Or 5 Magicians and now making delicious hand-crafted optimistic indiepop nuggets. In The Ocean is one of those songs that’s at once naggingly familiar and freshly minted. Good work all round.”

Dirty Sexy Music too seem to love ‘em, stating “Their lyrics are both sweet and tremendously humorous. After a few listens you begin to feel you’ve known these songs your entire life, so quickly and insidiously they permeate your consciousness. Touches of Belle and Sebastian, The Beach Boys and The Beatles lace their music. The sound is multilayered, to the point that each song at some point could be described as a cacophony, yet it works perfectly.”

Puregroove Records have got involved too, saying “This sounds like a band that are shaping up to become pop stars in 2009. Not the cool kind that appear in fashionable mags and get blogged but sell seven records. The proper kind, that write songs that thousands celebrate life and love with at huge events in the country. We love em.” And if anyone’s gonna’ know what’s hot… They should!

… We’ll leave the final word to Music under Fire though… “Pop this rock ’til your limbs fall off. Enjoy.”