The demo of As Birds We’d Be Fine was subsequently played across the country and was also aired on BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson new artist introduction slot.

Ice Black Birds are described as an edgy blues influenced outfit from Brighton via London. They draw influence from 60s and 70s rock ‘n’ roll via Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Sabbath but seem set to bring forth a unique and fresh burst of modern indie blues back into the industry not unlike acts White Denim, The Black Keys, Royal Bangs and early Kings of Leon…but different.

Forming from the ashes of old London, Sheffield and Scottish bands, the energy created on stage by this band is second to none. With catchy songs that maintain their own dignity, they are most definitely one to watch for 2010 and beyond.

Ice Black Birds were hand picked by the likes of Golden Slivers, Joe Gideon and The Shark, Wave Machines, Goldhawks, Post War Years and We Have Band to support them on tour and have played at reputable venues across the whole of the UK.

The band played one of the main stages at 2009’s Secret Garden Party and the main stage at Farm Festival and the White Air Festival in the same year.

The Ice Black Birds debut single Ear To The Ground is released on March 29th.

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The band are currently coming to the end of a UK tour, but can be seen at their Single Launch Parties in London and Brighton at the following venues:

29 Mar 2010
SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY @ THE OLD QUEENS HEAD
London
1 Apr 2010
SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY @ THE HOPE
Brighton

For further information visit the Ice Black Birds mySpace page.

Dirty Shirt Rock n’ Roll: The First Ten Years by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion will be released on 24 May on Shove Records. The first seven albums to be reissued throughout 2010.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

In 1990 the blues exploded. Already high on a cocktail of overloaded frequencies, Jon Spencer and his cohorts took the full force. The shards pierced so deep that when the trio finally came to, they exhaled with enough energy and charisma to send the clichés flying. They had become The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Dirty Shirt Rock n’ Roll: The First Ten Years charts the fallout from that first incendiary incident, right up to the band’s 2002 long player Plastic Fang. For those who missed Jon Spencer’s chaotic pyrotechnics first time around, this compilation is a fantastic, brain-melting introduction.

References to the past are never far from the surface, including blues, rock n’ roll, late sixties garage, punk and the sleazy psychedelia of Parliament’s Funkadelic. However, when The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion sold their souls at the crossroad, they must have ripped off the dark prince’s head and ingested the power at source.

At their rawest the band rip into standard progressions with a primordial roar, stretching guitars to their screaming limit. However, it’s not all neck-breaking distortions of the past. Bellbottom funks with a scuzzy slouch of a riff that absconds with the Rotary Connection’s string section before retiring to a lust-lathered Bedouin tent. And Love Ain’t on the Run takes a twin-eyed peek below the surface and unhinges a sun-starved bar, where the ghost of Laura Palmer still struts a strobe-lit groove.

Shards of the past may be lodged deep within the band’s psyche but their songs are visceral, amplified assaults that drag notions of hackneyed rehashes kicking and screaming into the future. Along the way they’ve enlisted the help of contemporary adventurers including Beck, Mike D, UNKLE and Little Barrie. The result is a barrage of electrifying, unadulterated sonic explosions that shock the mind and light up the body.

Dirty Shirt Rock n’ Roll: The First Ten Years is followed by reissues of the band’s first seven albums later in the year, complete with rare and unreleased bonus tracks, copious liner notes and eye-popping photos.

Now I Got Worry and Controversial Negro – out in late June.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (First Year) and Extra Width + Mo Width – out in late August.
Orange + Remixes (2-disc) and Acme + Xtra Acme (2-disc) – out in late October.

Visit The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion website for more information and live dates.

Read Matador Record’s notes on The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Watch the great promo video for Wail from the band’s 1996 album Now I Got Worry.

Davy Knowles

Davy Knowles is an exceptional blues/rock guitarist who brings to mind the heyday of sixties British rythmn ‘n blues and yet this is no retrospective as he makes the sound his own and brings it smack into the twenty first century.

Britain’s most enigmatic roots guitarist since the heyday of the Yardbirds, 22-year-old Isle Of Man-born Davy Knowles returns to the UK  this April with his band Back Door Slam and his brand new album Coming Up For Air,  which was released in November last year by Blixstreet Records.

Knowles will be playing four dates across the UK taking in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London in support of Coming Up For Air. The album has received much critical acclaim in the UK over the last couple of months including articles in The Sunday Times Culture, Classic Rock and appearances on BBC Breakfast TV , BBC London and Kerrang radio.

Knowles last gig in the UK in February this year was to a packed and eager 100 Club that saw Davy perform a truly masterful and mesmerizing set, how I wish I coiuld have experienced that gig in such inviting and intimate surroundings.

The Isle of Man native is proving that blues/rock guitar could very well be the next big thing with a style that unites young and old blues followers. The ever-expanding army of Davy Knowles fans will surely agree! You can catch him at one of the following dates.

Sunday 4th April – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow

Monday 5th April   – Night and Day Café, Manchester

Tuesday 6th – 02 Academy, Birmingham

Wednesday 7th – Bush Hall, London

Check out this great live video of Coming Up For Air;

For more information visit Davy Knowles Back Door Slam MySpace page.

photo credit a.evans

Jack Rose was born in Virginia but since 1998 has lived in Philadelphia, during the early nineties he began his music career with the drone/improv/folk unit Pelt, one of the early influential American underground bands.

While also producing his own solo albums since 2002, Rose continued to work and tour with Pelt up until 2005. His debut album in 2002 was Red Horse, White Mule a collection of tracks of post-Takoma, American primitive guitar.

Rose incorporated North Indian classical, early American blues, bluegrass, minimal and the outside influences of Johna Fahey and Robbie Basho into his own unique style. By 2005 and the release of his fourth album Kensington Blues, now considered a classic of contemporary guitar music, the early influences had blended and bloomed into a style that Rose could call his own.

In 2008 and 2009 Rose released the records, Dr. Ragtime and Pals and Jack Rose and the Black Twig Pickers.  The LP’s heavily featured ensemble recordings with like-minded travelers such as Glenn Jones, Micah Smaldone, Harmonica Dan and the Black Twig Pickers.  The songs contained on the albums draw heavily on pre-war American influences either written by Rose or his own arrangements of early American classics.

Jack Rose will be playing some rare dates in the UK in November. To witness his amazing finger picking styles check out the dates below:

Tue     Nov 3   London, UK Cafe Oto

Wed     Nov 4   Falmouth, UK Miss Peapod’s

Thu     Nov 5   Bristol, UK The Cube

Fri     Nov 6   Gateshead, UK The Sage

Sat     Nov 7   Glasgow, UK Stereo

Sun     Nov 8   London, UK Cecil Sharp House

For more information check the Jack Rose mySpace page, he is remarkably good!

Hey Negrita fourth album, 'Burn The Whole Place Down'

Hey Negrita release unplugged fourth album, Burn The Whole Place Down – A Real Live Acoustic Smoke Out.

Transatlantic country folk band Hey Negrita release their fourth studio album; a stripped-down, unplugged, melody-enriched twelve track acoustic album.

To record Burn The Whole Place Down, Hey Negrita purposely decided to switch off their amps, pair down the drums and step away from their raucous live sound.  The idea behind the album was to see how many songs they could record in one five hour session, without overdubs or edits.  The result is a beautiful country folk album akin to the very best Mtv ‘unplugged’ performances.

Singer-songwriter Felix Bechtolsheimer explains: “We put down our electric guitars, turned off the amps and stripped back the drums.  We just sat, in a circle, and put some microphones up. We didn’t even bother with headphones.  We wanted to capture the raw energy of one of our live performances while preserving the intimacy of how we sound when we’re jamming in the kitchen.”

But anyone who has recently witnessed a Hey Negrita live performance should be aware this album may be their most diverse to date, but it is also sees Hey Negrita in a much more relaxed, quieter mood; a sound that allows the melody and lyrical content to filter through in a stronger way than during their powerful live shows.

The Burn The Whole Place Down album sound is somewhere between the sound of Gaslight Anthem and Bob Dylan and includes the singles One Mississippi and the title track, Burn The Whole Place Down.

Hey Negrita Burn The Whole Place Down – A Real Live Acoustic Smoke Out is now available on Fat Fox Records.

1. Burn The Whole Place Down
2. Room Service
3. One Mississippi
4. Rope
5. Here I Come
6. Cold
7. Nine To Five
8. Can’t Walk Away
9. Devil In My Shoes
10. Kathmandu
11. Lay Me Down
12. Fishin’

For more information visit www.myspace.com/heynegrita

hey Negrita

The new album from hey Negrita is an all acoustic melody rich effort that is perhaps the bands most diverse piece yet. Burn The Whole Place Down was inspired by the success of a series of sessions recorded for the BBC, including the ever popular Bob Harris Show on Radio Two.

The band took time out from their 2008 tour and headed to the Miloko Studio in South London for a spur of the moment session and five hours later had recorded the makings of the album Burn The Whole Place Down.

Felix Bechtolsheimer explains:

“The idea was to cut as many tracks as we could in five hours without any overdubs or edits. So we put down our electric guitars, turned off the amps and stripped back the drums. We just sat, in a circle, and put some microphones up. We didn’t even bother with headphones. We wanted to capture the raw energy of one of our live performances, while preserving the intimacy of how we sound when we’re jamming in the kitchen.”

Burn The House Down is hey Negrita’s fourth album and the content may in some ways come as a surprise to anyone who has witnessed the bands raucous ‘live’ performances in recent years.

This album of acoustic tracks sees hey Negrita shifting down several gears. In many ways the gentler, unplugged approach allows their deft way with melody and lyrics to shine through like never before.

This video clip was shot during the making of the new album and features the title track Burn The Whole Place Down being recorded during the five hour session in South London in 2008.

Hey Negrita: Burn The Whole Place Down
Uploaded by bigbraintv. - See the latest featured music videos.

Check out hey Negrita’s MySpace page.

Seasick Steve UK Tour

Seasick Steve has announced a ten-date UK tour in November.

The tour will take place shortly after the release of Seasick Steve’s upcoming album Man From Another Time, which is due for release on Oct 19th on Atlantic Records.

Prioor to the album, will be the release of the single Diddley-bo on October 12th.

Seasick Steve UK Tour Tickets are on sale now

November
2nd – Newcastle, City Hall
3rd – Edinburgh, Picture House
5th – Leeds, Academy
7th – Liverpool, Olympia
9th – Manchester, Apollo
10th – Birmingham, Academy
12th – Cardiff, Millennium Centre
13th – Warwick, Arts Centre
15th – Cambridge, Corn Exchange
17th – London, Brixton Academy

For more information visit www.seasicksteve.com or www.myspace.com/seasicksteve

Band Of Skulls @ Viper Room, Los Angeles, 2008

I’ve just heard the future of rock n roll…. and it’s called Band Of Skulls!

Band Of Skulls recently received unprecedented attention for a new band when their free mp3 download, I Know What I Am, was featured as the iTunes Single Of The Week.

Band Of Skulls are a tight three-piece from Southampton.  I Know What I Am is a raunchy foot-thumping, bass drum kicking stomp of a rocking garage blues tune. Both musically and vocally this track reminds me of the White Stripes. Yet,on other tracks I feel the power and intensity of Radiohead and The Kills.  Now, I think you’ll agree, as reference points go, that’s not bad.

Band Of Skulls are Russell Marsden (guitar and vocals), Emma Richardson (bass and vocals) & Matt Hayward (drums). The twin vocals work perfectly. Great voices, perfect harmonies.

Band Of Skulls have started to build themselves a live reputation, mainly playing Southampton and London.  Though they have recently spread their wings to play well received shows as far and wide as Moscow, Tokyo and the Viper Room in Los Angeles.  They are already booked to appear at some summer festivals, including Latitude.  I predict this band is going to be big news so don’t miss your chance to see them in a small venue.

I Know What I Am comes from the forthcoming spendidly titled debut album, Baby Darling Doll Faced Honey.

Band Of Skulls UK Tour

May
8th Assembly, Leamington Spa (with Spiritualized)
16th Lennons, Southampton
21st Stag n Dagger Festival, London
22nd Club NME, Koko, London
27th Uncle Albert’s, Middlesbrough
29th The Junction, York
30th Leadmill, Sheffield

For more information visit www.myspace.com/bandofskulls

Cross Road Blues - the legendary of Robert Johnson

A brand new stage show about the legendary blues singer, Robert Johnson will be playing for one night only at the Hackney Empire on 16th July.

Cross Road Blues recreates one of the most compelling myths in American music: Robert Johnson’s alleged Faustian pact with the devil at a crossroads one dark Mississippi midnight.

David Walter directs a new version of his sell-out play Cross Road Blues as part of the Hackney Empire’s Spice Festival this July.  Musicians featured in the performance will include violinist Sophie Solomon (formerly of Oi Va Voi, and now a successful solo artist, film composer and theatrical arranger), bassist Simon Little (The Divine Comedy, Clare Teal, Duke Special), guitarist Chris Allard (Jacqui Dankworth Band, Jamie Cullum) and slide guitarist Adam Morley aka Naughty Jack.  It will also feature a twenty-voice choir, the Elysian Singers.

Jonathan Forbes plays Robert Johnson.

Previously performed as a fringe two-hander, receiving five-star reviews and sell out crowds, the play has now been reinvented on a Wagnerian scale.  The addition of an expansive choral score, performed by a twenty-voice choir accompanied by a six-piece acoustic blues ensemble, promises to make this a unique and truly frightening piece of theatre.

The music for the performance has been composed by pianist Michael McHale, winner of the 2009 Terence Judd/Hallé Award, and a rising star in the classical world.  The score features close interaction between the musicians and the actors, with both improvised and composed sections.  It employs a blend of jazz, blues, African rhythms and classical harmony, in a uniquely symbiotic arrangement with both naturalistic and verse dialogue.

Cross Road Blues is a graphic play, containing potentially offensive language including racist abuse and explicit descriptions of rape and murder.

Cross Road Blues – the legend of Robert Johnson
Script By David Walter Hall / Music By Michael McHale
7:30 pm, 16th July 2009 at the Hackney Empire

View the trailer for Cross Road Blues – the legend of Robert Johnson

For more information, visit www.crossroadblues.net

Wildbirds & Peacedrums....& a horse (Image by Jonathan Leijonhufvud)

Wildbirds & Peacedrums’ first album Heartcore was received with unanimous critical acclaim last year for its extraordinary naturalness and stripped-back instrumentation. The Swedish duo mixed a “heady brew of pagan blues, spiritual pop and ecstatic soul music” (Observer Music Monthly) to astounding results, creating a masterpiece in uninhibited expression.

This was music that came straight from somewhere in the depths of the human subconscious, and it expressed something that was somehow inexpressible by other means. Wildbirds & Peacedrums’ second album The Snake continues this affecting mix of genres to sublime results.

As The Snake progresses, the idea arises that the title may well come from the numerous skins that vocalist Mariam Wallentin and her percussionist husband Andreas Werliin shed in the form of spectacularly raw tracks throughout the course of the album.

These tracks, just like the skin of a snake, are markers of moments in time. Each one is ephemeral and each is unique. As Wallentin explains, “We only work from intuition, on instinct. We’re not looking for perfection in music, rather for life and feeling. We like to be more explosive.”

The Snake opens with ‘Islands’, on which a sort of monastic humming, recurring later on ‘Great Lines’, backs Wallentin’s Kate Bush melodies. The sparseness mixed with the raw, uninhibited nature of the vocals – they are other-worldly in their freedom – is reflected in following song ‘There Is No Light’. On this track it is Andreas Werliin’s breathtaking drumming that supports the vocals, which sound like PJ Harvey in their stripped-back aggression.

There is something spiritual about Wildbirds & Peacedrums. It could just be their dabbling in typically spiritual genres such as soul (‘My Heart’ and ‘Places’), oriental music (‘Chain Of Steel’ and ‘So Soft So Pink’), blues (‘Today/Tomorrow’) and even those incantatory pagan chants, but more likely it is the incredible way they channel expression so plainly into music. On ‘My Heart’ Wallentin sings “I’m lost without your rhythm”. An affecting and direct lyric referring to her own heart and craving for life rather than her percussive husband…

Something special happens on The Snake. It may not always be an immediately striking song like ‘My Heart’ to warm you, but there is a violence of emotion in Wildbirds & Peacedrums that is irrepressible and demands to be heard.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums are on tour at the moment. See them at the following venues:

April 1st – The Albert, Brighton
April 2nd – Arts Centre, Norwich
April 3rd – Arnolfini, Bristol
April 4th – Leadmill, Sheffield
April 5th – Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
April 6th – Dulcimer, Manchester
April 7th – The Luminaire, London