Buzzin Music

2011’s UK breakthrough star Ed Sheeran has announced details of his next UK tour, set to take place in October/November 2012. The run of dates will kick off at London’s Hammersmith Apollo on October 15, followed by shows in Newport, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Doncaster, Hull, Blackpool, Newcastle and Edinburgh, before finishing up at Glasgow’s Barrowlands on November 14.

The Suffolk-raised 20-year-old released his acclaimed debut album ‘+’ in September 2011 and he hasn’t looked back since. The album, which is now triple platinum with over 900,000 sales, debuted at #1 in the official UK charts upon release and reclaimed the #1 title at the turn of the year.

Furthermore, Ed Sheeran has received the most amount of BRIT Awards nominations this year, for ’Best Male’, ‘Best Breakthrough’, ‘Best Single’, and ‘Best Album’ , with the ceremony taking place at London’s O2 Arena on February 21st. In addition to this, Ed received nods from iTunes (‘Best Newcomer 2011’), BT Digital Music Awards (‘Breakthrough Artist of the Year’), BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards (‘Best British Single’) and Q Awards (‘Breakthrough Artist’).

Last year saw the release of the massive UK top 5 singles, ‘The A Team’, ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ and ‘Lego House’. No doubt the “flame-haired guitar genius” will continue this trend when he releases his new single ‘Drunk’ on February 27th.

Ed Sheeran UK Tour Dates 2012

October

Mon 15
London Hammersmith Apollo
Sat 20
Newport Newport Centre
Sun 21
Bournemouth Windsor HALL
Mon 22
Plymouth Pavilion
Sun 28
Birmingham Ballroom
Wed 31
Nottingham Nottingham Arena

November

Thu 1
Manchester Apollo
Mon 5
Doncaster Doncaster Dome
Wed 7
Hull Hull Arena
Thu 8
Blackpool Empress Ballroom
Sat 10
Newcastle City Hall
Mon 12
Edinburgh Usher Hall
Wed 14
Glasgow Barrowlands

Tickets go on sale Wednesday 25th Jan at 9am.

Death In Vegas play Camden Crawl 2012

Death In Vegas are to headline the opening night of the Camden Crawl 2012

The Camden Crawl offers 300 artists & events in & around Camden Town, London for 1 ticket over 3 days between 12pm – 4am between 4th – 6th May Bank Holiday weekend.

Officially the summer’s opening festival, The Camden Crawl is the UK’s definitive urban multi-venue arts showcase. 1 ticket gives you everything you could want from a cultural event, all in the proximity of Camden’s legendary venues. 300 new, established and emerging bands; the best comedy; exclusive, bespoke and pioneering performing arts; a fully interactive experience and loads more.

The Camden Crawl will introduce the Bank Holiday festival for the first time with an opening night marathon at Camden’s historic KOKO venue on Friday 4th May. As an explosive start to what promises to be the best Crawl ever, psychedelic electronic innovators Death In Vegas (aka Richard Fearless) will top the evenings bill which celebrates this landmark occasion.

“We’re really over the moon to be playing the opening night of this brilliant festival. We’re going to bring our full on sonic and visual assault to Koko, our first time playing this amazing venue and first time playing Camden Crawl.” – Richard Fearless

For more information visit www.thecamdencrawl.com.

Blink-182

Blink-182 have been confirmed to headline an Eden Session on Sunday July 8.

The Californian three-piece come to Eden following the release of their acclaimed sixth studio album Neighborhoods last September, their first record since the band split in 2005.

Blink-182, otherwise known as Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker, are probably best known for 1999’s seminal Enema of the State, which went on to sell 15m copies and spawned perhaps the band’s most well-known singles All the Small Things, What’s My Age Again and Adam’s Song.

Enema of the State was Blink-182’s third studio album, following 1994’s Cheshire Cat and 1996’s Dude Ranch. It preceded 2001’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket and their self-titled fifth studio album, released in 2003 and heralding a more mature sound for the trio.

The band split in 2005 but reformed in 2009. New album Neighborhoods continues the band’s progression into more mature themes.

Blink-182 has sold more than 27 million albums in total and has won multiple awards, including Best New Act at the 2000 MTV Europe Music Awards and Best Rock Act at the same ceremony in 2001.

Martin Williams, Eden’s Marketing Director, said:

“Blink-182 are a great coup for the Eden Sessions. The band defined the pop-punk sound of the late nineties and early noughties, mixing catchy guitar hooks with lyrics that tackle serious issues in a humorous way. We’re really excited to be part of Blink’s return to the top and can’t wait to hear them perform songs from their long-awaited new album at Eden.”

Blink-182 are the second announcement for the 2012 Eden Sessions. UK soul and hip-hop star Plan B will headline a show on Friday July 6. More acts will be announced soon.

The Eden Sessions enter their eleventh year in 2012, following an acclaimed series of gigs in 2011, featuring Brandon Flowers and Pendulum among others. Previous years have seen performances from acts including Oasis, Kasabian, Mumford & Sons, Florence and the Machine and Muse.

Eden’s Inside Track scheme returns for the 2012 Eden Sessions. Members get a guaranteed pair of tickets to each show, with seven days to decide whether to buy them before they go on general sale. As well as priority booking and the latest Sessions news, Inside Track also gives members the chance to win exclusive Eden Sessions prizes.

Tickets to the Blink-182 Eden Session cost £35 plus booking fee and go on sale to Inside Track members today (Tuesday January 24) and on general sale at 6pm on Tuesday January 31. To book, contact the Eden Box Office on 01726 811972 or visit www.edensessions.com.

Butcher Boy graced the hushed environs of the English Folk Dance and Song Society for a rare London performance. This was no ordinary gig. For some the smell of beeswax, herringbone wooden floors and serried ranks of plastic chairs would be just too reminiscent of the misery of school……and Butcher Boy have all the stage presence of sixth formers playing to their peers.

But can they play. Third album Helping Hands exceeds even the expectations raised by critical acclaim for their first two albums and they effortlessly, beautifully evoke it, without fanfare. Cello, as a lead instrument is a rarity in indie circles but it just seems right and is beautifully underscored by Viola. A shifting backdrop of understated guitars, bass and keyboards creates mood and variety, whilst the beautiful voice of John Blain Hunt picks out the lyrics.

A more self effacing frontman I struggle to bring to mind. Shyness, painfully observed, for songs which cry out to be played live; on listening to the album again, it does not quite capture the beauty evoked by live performance, carefully orchestrated changes of tempo communicated by soundless counting in or a quiet nod, it all seems meticulously rehearsed. I was captivated but this is plainly not everybody’s cup of tea.

Highlights of the set included “The day our voices broke“- available as a free download at present, and, “I am the butcher”, a skiffle tinged country number , a lush sound created by six string instruments knitted together by deliberate drumming.

An hour or so and it was all over. This was powerful, yet subtle stuff. The sheer craft on display is awe inspiring, wonderful music in an idiosyncratic setting made for a very different live music experience.

Earlier, support was provided by Darren Hayman, playing songs from The Ship’s Piano on a baby grand, accompanied by only spare and plaintive trumpet. Perhaps hampered by my lack of  familiarity with the material this was interesting rather than compelling stuff. but delivered with commitment and wit. A fitting support to what was to come later.

All in all, an evening of intelligent, moving pop.

On 20 February Fire Records will reissue It (1983), Freaks (1987) and Separations (1992).

Picture of Pulp

Britpop has been retired for some 15 summers now. It showered itself in glory for two bright years but the fame became too powerful and Britpop eventually swallowed itself whole, omitting the painful stench of excessive flatulence as it went.

However, sat slippered and bloated in its easy armchair, it can look back with pride on some of the cheeky scamps it spawned; mouthy chancers who could write glorious pop songs with verve and wit. And at the heart of that family is the bastard child called Pulp. The gangly, gawky interloper who finally found a home and friends in the mid 90s. But for Pulp, the story had begun long, long ago.

Three is not the magic number for Pulp. The band’s fourth album, His ‘n Hers, finally propelled them from the wings where they’d waited for 16 years. Most bands would have given up long before. But then most bands don’t have a Jarvis Cocker at their heart. And Jarvis Cocker’s strange and beguiling heart beats throughout the band’s first three albums.

Perhaps in light of Pulp’s recent comeback, Fire Records has decided to reissue the band’s early back catalogue: It (1983), Freaks (1987) and Separations (1992). Some of the tracks previously appeared on Countdown: 1992-1983, which Cocker compared to a “garish old family photo album” on its release and urged fans not to waste their money.

Like the awkward teenager, whose skin is too taunt for misplaced bones, Pulp needed time to grow into themselves. So it’s fair to say that, on their own, neither of these reissues is a pop classic. But then it can be fun flicking through old photo albums.

It is a collection of folky, whimsical portraits, all summer haze in the daisy parks. Cocker’s love of Scott Walker shines through on tracks like My Lighthouse and Wishful Thinking. And there are vocal mirrors reflecting the inflections of Morrissy. The acoustic arrangements are sparse and the lyrical honesty is a world-apart from the word-played wit that became Cocker’s calling card.

Jump forward four years to 1987 and Cocker has collected a new set of musicians, including Russell Senior, who would become an integral part of the band. Senior expanded Pulp’s sonic range, giving Cocker the scope to travel through darker landscapes. On Freaks his voice has changed, from the earnest wonderings on It, to a brooding, half-spoken, half-sung delivery, telling tales on the seedier underbelly of suburbia. The album is a midnight fairground ride, ringing with carnival chords borrowed from The Doors and an art-school ethic straight from the Velvet Underground.

By the time Separations was released in 1992, three years after it was recorded, Pulp already had pop gems including Babies and Lipgloss in their set. The album can’t match the band’s evolving songwriting skills and it never quite reaches the claustrophobic heights of Freaks. However, the first half showcases Cocker’s growing confidence and lyrical mischief: Don’t You Want Me Anymore contains the fantastic line “I’ve never seen you look as ugly as you did that night”. The second side of the album is an experiment with acid house stylings. It never quite works but did spawn the brooding frustrations of My Legendary Girlfriend.

Pulp fans will lap up the reissues. However, the albums are also well worth exploring on their own terms, especially Freaks. They contain all of the pieces that Pulp would eventually meld together; humour, pop-eared radars, delicious hooks and a kitchen sink disposition. Some bands were born and died within the confines of Britpop. Pulp were much too smart to implode. Their roots stretch back to 1978 and the strange teenage visions of Jarvis Cocker. Exploring those visions across a changing landscape is time and money well spent. All three albums have been remastered and repackaged and come complete with bonus tracks and liner notes from Everett True.