Month: August 2011

Bizarre - 30th August

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The latest showbiz, celebrity and entertainment news and gossip from Aye Tunes!

Well, if The Sun are going to nick my name I’m stealing theirs for News & Bits this week…
New Releases are getting covered in their own individual posts these days, as far as I can. Out this week are the third album from Butcher Boy, and a new single from Skies Fell. The second album by John Knox Sex Club, Raise Ravens, is also available to buy here, and I’ll have more on that album later this week.
Hubby, Wells and Moffat:
RM Hubbert has announced he will be supporting Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat on their upcoming UK and European tour. Sadly Hubby won’t be playing at the Paisley gig, which is the one I’m hoping to go to, but if you are planning to go to any of the other dates on the tour make sure you get along early to catch our favourite post-rock flamenco solo artist. All the dates are here.
Coming Soon:
A quick Twitter discussion with RM Hubbert and some others recently ended up in my listening to all my De Rosa albums instead of sleeping, which wasn’t a bad trade and leads nicely on to the next bit of news. Former De Rosa frontman Martin John Henry releases his first solo album in October. You can pre-order The Other Half of Everything right now at Bandcamp and get a download of three tracks right away. Or, you could order it from ASDA (don’t though, buy it from Gargleblast if you are going to pre-order). There’s an album launch gig at Stereo in Glasgow on October 8th, with support from The Seventeenth Century.

Aye Tunes Elsewhere:
Other than having my name nicked by a tabloid rag which we all hate anyway, I’ve popped up this week over at The Pop Cop. I was asked to write a bit for The Pop Cop’s student guide, which meant trying to find nice things to say about Paisley. Add in that I haven’t been a student in 13 years and my advice might be a bit dodgy, but you can find it here anyway.
Low, Low Prices:
Everyone loves free stuff, and happily bands always seem to oblige us by giving us songs for nothing, something which is of course covered in depth every Friday at Peenko. Here’s a few that I’ve dug up myself recently.
My Tiny Robots are giving away Rock Bossa Nova Four Beat Black’ as a precursor to their release of a series of three singles on digital and as very special limited physical starting in October. You can download the song here, or below.
The Darian Venture have a giveaway of their song Animals here.
Flying Man Shark officially release their debut album on October 1st, but if you swing by their Bandcamp page you can download it for free now.
Monsters On Movie Posters have made their debut album Our Four Left Feet, released earlier this year, available for free too, grab it here.

New Release: Skies Fell - The Kite

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Skies Fell, fresh from headlining King Tut’s on Saturday, release their new single The Kite this week.

Good wee single this. The Kite is a big, sweeping, epic sounding number, with a great we sing along ending. B-side Stolen Lung is a darker, more low key affair, which actually floats my boat a bit more than the A-side does. Both good songs though, and worth a purchase.
The Kite is available to download from iTunes.

New Release: Butcher Boy - Helping Hands

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Following up on the single from last week, Butcher Boy release their third album this week.

I’ve not had a listen to the album yet, so I can’t tell you much about how good it is. Instead I’ll pass you over to JC of The Vinyl Villain, who got me to pick up the first two Butcher Boy albums through his comments on them previously, who has written about Helping Hands here.

JC is calling it his album of the year, and has an interview with Butcher Boy’s Alison Eales, and a competition to win the Imperial single on 7″, over here.

Helping Hands is available to download from iTunes. CD available from HMV.

This Week’s Gigs: 29th August - 4th September

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Looking for something to do this week? Here’s the highlights.

Wednesday:
Redwings, Without Aeroplanes, Thula Bora. Bloc. Free entry.
Three good bands and the most agreeable price of free.
Cults, Kill the Waves. Nice N Sleazy.
Thursday:
Alan Bissett: Pack Men book launch. Waterstones, Sauchiehall St.
Launch event for Alan Bissett’s latest novel, Pack Men. I’ve not read it yet, but on the quality of Alan’s previous work I’m pretty sure it’ll be good. The launch event kicks off at 6:30pm, entry is free.
Friday:
The Moth & The Mirror, Amber Wilson, Blood Blood. Captain’s Rest.
Launch gig for the fab new single from the Moth & The Mirror, which you can download for free here.
A good thing/bad thing gig. The good thing is that the gig launches The Whisky Works’ new EP. The bad thing is that it will also be the band’s final gig. Yay/boo as appropriate.
Pronto Mama. The Common Rooms.
Pronto Mama will be supporting themselves, with a half hour acoustic slot followed by their regular set.
Saturday:
Music is the Music Language. SWG3.
Also taking place on Sunday. For full details and running order see Facebook.
Sunday:
French Wives, Poor Things, Shields. 13th Note.
French Wives emerge blinking from the studio for an intimate gig, before going back into it again to finish off work on their debut album. New songs should be on show, and the support is pretty decent. Here’s your gig of the week then. Might want to get along early though, The 13th Note is wee and it is first come first served. On second thoughts, can you all turn up late please? I want to make sure I can get in.

AVP4 - Done & Dusted

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Excuse me a moment while I get a wee bit self indulgent.

Saturday past was of course the night of Aye Tunes Vs Peenko: The Revenge, and I’ve about just gotten myself back to normal afterwards. People that put gigs on for a living probably have no such issues, but when I put one on the days leading up to it are… interesting. A mixture of excitement, nervous energy and terror all combine to do weird things to me. So far all the gigs I’ve been involved in have been worth the three days without eating or sleeping properly before, and happily Saturday was exception.
A huge thank you to everyone that came along to Stereo on Saturday night, as confident that we were that we had a gig people would want to come to I’ve been to plenty nights with a great line-up and a barely double figures crowd, so it was at first a relief, then massively pleasing to be kept busy on the door dealing with the people coming in. We thank you for choosing to spend your time and money on us, as cheesy as it sounds it is very touching that those that came did.
The reason people came has very little to do with me or Peenko though, they came for the bands, and if everyone enjoyed them half as much as I did they will have gone home happy.
Mondegreen, Miaoux Miaoux and Adam Stafford - who roped in some friends for the occasion - were all brilliant, and we can’t thank them enough for trusting us enough to agree to do the gig.
Anyway, enough of the gushing, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone, and I’m almost done, just a couple left…
Thanks Claire for taking photos. That’s one of her photos up at the top there, and more can be seen on Flickr, just be warned that there’s some of me in there. You can find all Claire’s photos over at her Catthouse website.
Thanks Murray for the review over on his blog, and for the assistance manning the merch desk.
Big love to PAWS, drinks were had in your honour and thanks to Stereo for having us.
Last but not least, ok, last and least, thanks to Lloyd for sharing the stress, sharing the beer, and always knowing when to slag me off to distract me when it looks like my head is going to explode.
Now for the first time since April I find myself with no gig in the pipeline. A wee break is in order I think, but I doubt it’ll be too long before I start shouting at you to come to something again.

New Release: Aidan Moffat - Stolen Songs

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New music from Aidan Moffat is always something to be happy about. Ironic, given his reputation for miserable music I suppose.

Stolen Songs is a mini-album of cover versions, Aidan’s take on songs made famous by Cyndi Lauper, Katie Melua, INXS, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, Doris Duke, Marvin Gaye and The Kids From Fame. It is, of course, pretty bloody ace.
Stolen Songs is available from Bandcamp as either a download or limited edition CD. While stocks last the CD also comes with a copy of the Angry Buddhists album. I have that already, amongst other things it has Aidan doing more covers of Uptown Girl and the Love Theme From Star Wars on it, so that’s worth a punt.



<a href=”http://aidanjohnmoffat.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-songs”>Stolen Songs by Aidan John Moffat</a>

Galleries - New Songs, Free Download and a Situation Vacant

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Galleries have been beavering away of late, working on their debut album. Some new songs have been popping up on Soundcloud, so swing over there to have a wee listen. Oddly enough Galleries have also somehow managed to make their way into my dreams. I woke up on Monday morning having dreamt that the band had announced they were splitting up, and had to go and check they hadn’t.

The band have also made one of those new songs, Young Wounds, available as a free download. That’s good of them, isn’t it?
You can grab the download from their website here, and preview it below.

Young Wounds by Galleries

Galleries also are on the hunt for a new guitar player. Hopefully unrelated to my splitting up dream Paul has left the band, and they are after a replacement. You can find out more about what they are looking for and how to put yourself forward here.

New Release: Prince Edward Island

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Prince Edward Island released a new single earlier this month, but I wasn’t properly paying attention at the time. You Look Like I Need A Drink is out now, and is a good wee teaser for the Prince Edward Island album, This Day Is a Good Enough Day, which is released next week.

I say next week, the labum is already available to purchase on Amazon.
The band are London based, but listen for more than a few seconds and you’ll quickly catch on that they aren’t all from there, with singer Darren’s Fife accent at the forefront of things.
The single is available from iTunes.

New Release: Butcher Boy - Imperial

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Butcher Boy emerge from a quiet period with the release of a new single, Imperial, ahead of the release of their third album next week.

Both songs are pretty much what you’d expect from the band, a bit twee, jangly and poppy. Also, good stuff, as you’d expect from Butcher Boy by now.
Imperial is available on 7″ from Damaged Goods, or to download from iTunes, with both formats including non album track Juicy Fruit.

New Release: MakethisRelate - Sugar Glass

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Glasgow threesome MakethisRelate have a new single out. Titled Sugar Glass, it is a blast of alternative rock that mostly makes me feel quite old and cranky, but I’m not the target market, and I can appreciate the craft.
The single is backed with an acoustic version, and a Bovine remix.
Buy Sugar Glass from iTunes.