If I could sing the sweetest love song...

Brand-new video for the Smitten's "100 roses".
Woahhh... this video puts a smile on my face anyday!

You can't force a dance party, but for you I'll try!

Eek, it's been quite some time since i last wrote anything in here. There's been lots of things i meant to write about, but there's also been lots of other things going on, that I never got 'round to it. I'll try and make up for it, post more regularly, and get a couple of popcasts together soon.

But for today, I'm just smiling too much after having seen Dent May play a very small (and very awesome) show at the Betsy Trotwood, and I had to write about it.

I first heard about Dent May and his magnificent ukulele a couple of months ago (thank you, Mark!!!), i fell in love, ordered the 7" single straight away, and then pre-ordered his album. They are both great and well recommended.

Live, it was just him, his magnificent ukulele, and this guy (without which the performance wouldn't have been half as much fun) doing backing vocals and percursion. They pretty much played all the songs from the album, in a different order. But, man, weren't they good? It was one of those shows you can't stop dancing, nor smiling until they stop playing.

They are touring Europe now, and will be back in London for two more gigs next weekend. Tour details are available on his myspace page.

POPCAST # 8 - Covering the sixties

Time for another popcast, and this one is made up of (somewhat) recent covers of songs from the 60s:

Milky Wimpshake - This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)
The smittens - My boyfriend's back
Windy & Carl - The end of the world
A fine day for sailing - Be My Baby
Ricky and Dave (Galactic heroes and Boat) - With a girl like you
Bidston Moss - All i have to do is dream
Colin clary - Donna
Math and physics club - You're So Good To Me
International house of Karen - Tell me momma
All girl summer fun band - Look of love
The icicles - Seven day wonder
All of my brother’s girlfriends - Give Him a Great Big Kiss
The Beautys - A girl is a girl
Nat Johnson - Teenager in love (liver cover)
Dear Nora - This Will Be Our Year
Bunnygrunt - I Am Gonna Be Warm This Winter
The diskettes - Abc's of love
Ramones - Baby I Love You
Gaze - Whenever she holds you
The diskettes - Mr lee
Dennis Driscoll - Everyday
Rose Melberg - I love how you love me

I try not to have more than a song by the same band in each popcast, but I really had to keep both those Diskettes songs in there. They are way too good! I almost had the same song twice on this one as well, it took me forever to decide whether to keep the ramones or the cat’s miaow’s version of “baby, I love you”, but the ramones ended up winning.

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it!

xx

Aren't 223 songs enough?

Just back from a very nice afternoon at The hangover lounge, with a set of acoustic shows by The Vatican cellars, Amor de dias and Darren hayman. The whole things was great, the small, quiet room suited the first two bands really well and their performances were pretty striking.

And then it was Darren Hayman's turn. I remember being totally thrilled when i went to see him play for the first time, being a long time hefner fan and never having got to see them back in the day. But I have seen him plenty of times since then, and even though i was looking forward to it this afternoon, i wasn't making such a big deal out of it. But then, having him play to such a small group of people, while comfortably sitting on the couch, with the right of a sing-along to the "greedy ugly people"? That was really something.

Now, I have (what should be) more than enough Darren Hayman songs in my record collection. Apart from Pavement, Hefner's the only band who I ever bought album re-issues just because of all the extra stuff, even though I already owened a copy of the standar edition. In fact, I just had a look at my itunes library, and if I take all of Darren's projects into account, i have over 220 songs by him!!! But still, when he announced there's a new darren hayman and the secondary album out tomorrow, and that he had copies on him, I had to buy one.

I'm just having my very first listen now, and yeah, I guess 223 songs were still not enough!

You can find more info on the album (Pram Town) on hefnet.com and watch a video for the tittle track here.

POPCAST # 7 - A brand new year!

It's funny how much a new year gives people that feeling that it is time to re-start, it's a new chance to make things right, to go back to all the last year's resolutions that were never accomplished... Maybe it's just me, but yeah, I like the idea that the start of a new year will, somehow, make everything better.

Popcast # 7 is for that- for a new start.

The tracklist is:

Let's whisper - A wonderful year
Acid house kings - Start anew
Love dance - Start of something
Daniel Johnston - My Life Is Starting Over Again
Camera obscura - Happy new year
Math The Band - A Spirited Beginning
Kickstand - New Year's Day
My Darling You! - New Year's Eve
Clag - Fresh
The ladybug transistor - Splendor in the grass
The Big picture - A good start
The Pooh Sticks - Let the Good Times Roll
Urusei Yatsura - First Day On A New Planet

You can download the file here.

Happy new year! x

Indiepop news blog

How brilliant would it be to have the newsletters from most labels you buy records from, bands you listen to and gigs you want to know about to all in one blog?

Trev (Lostmusic/ Indiemp3) had this simple, but pretty ingenious idea, and created a blog that is there for all indiepop/DIY labels/clubs/fanzines to use as a daily/weekly news resource to keep people abreast of what is going on in the indiepop world.

It's only been live for a week, but there's already a long list of labels and clubs on the contributors list and quite a few posts.

This is going to be amazing! Check it out on indiepopnews.com.

Santa is coming to town!

Christmas is just a few days away, there's been christmas parties, christmas gigs, and there is certainly a lot of christmas songs out there now.

Allo, darlin' has put out the most lovely christmas ep ever. It has 4 songs Elizabeth recorded during her trip to Australia a couple of months back and if you had the chance to see her play live in the past month or so, you know how good they are. You can stream a couple of them, and get a copy of the ep on her myspace.

The Mexican kids at home got a bunch of friends and bands they like to put some christmas songs together and the result is an excellent little compilation. It starts with their own track, which is probably my favourite of the bunch and goes on to lots of other good bands, including the Just Joans, One happy island, Allo darlin and David Gibb. You can get hold of a copy by contacting the mexican kids on myspace.

Eux Autres has an excellent animation for their single "Another christmas at home". Gotta love a banjo playing snowman!

If you're still hungry for more christmas pop, Marianthi posted an ace mix over at Hey hey honeypop!. I have already made some room in my ipod so i can have it with me for going away next week.

Hope you all have a nice time and happy holidays!!
x