New Discovery: Firebug

As much as I love music, lately I haven't felt too excited about what I've been playing on New Music New Talent. I'm still playing unsigned bands I really love like Trash Monroe, Zen Motel, Rounds, Death of the Elephant and Catherine Elms but I've known about all of these artists for quite some time now, I've felt the music I've played from some of the other bands I receive is good, but not original. It seems to be a lot of generic indie bands.

Anyway, it's not too often I get blown away by a band (some examples in the previous paragraph)! I get sent music from promotion companies every week. I don't download everything they send, as some is not my kind of music, and some I just think is rubbish, if it sounds reasonable, I'm likely to download one of the songs but not all of them (there's usually maybe about 5).

However last week while I was prepping for my show and checking out what I had been sent, I was blown away by something straight away. This band is Firebug, female fronted rock/blues fusion, that actually made me want to (and did)! download all about 14 tracks I could get.

I liked them so much I've made them my artist of the month for July.

They're from America but I actually found out they are playing one of the smaller stages at Sonisphere, so if you're going, I suggest you go see them!

This weeks playlists- what you can hear this week

New Music New Talent

Jets Overhead - Seemets Overhead - Seems So Far

Honey Honey - Black Crows

The Subway Strippers - Jimmy Blacksheep

Saint Joan - Satellites

Echo Jet - Wave

YoungHeartsLightsFires - Just So You Know

The Sibleys - Black Kawasaki

Joanna Newsom - Bridges And Balloons

Anxiety - Clubs

In Love and War - With War in Our Hearts

Rattlesnake Remedy - Black Sheep Fiddle

Stained Illusion - Drug

An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump - 100%

Slow Club - Because We're Dead

Ruby Isle - Into the Black

We Were Promised Jetpacks - Quiet Little Voices

Going Home - Act 7, Scene 8

The Ettes - No Home

The Limousines - Very Busy People

Alaska In Winter - Close Your Eyes, We Are Blind

Whiskey Blu - Colour me Blu

Tessmarka - Committed

One EskimO - Hometime

Excuse Me Miss - Dance Like A Monkey

Blackchords - At World’s End

Adrian Orange And Her Band - You're My Homes So Far

Pigtails and Army Boots

Sohodolls - Stripper

LoneLady - Cattletears

Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker

Daisy Chainsaw - The Future Free

Sleater-Kinney - One Beat

Tilly and The Wall - Pictures of Houses

The Suffrajets - Worthy

Joan Jett - Fetish

The Pipettes - Dirty Mind

Paramore - Crushcrushcrush

Dirty Fuzz - Love's A Gun

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Happy House

Metric - Gold Guns Girls

Jane Wiedlin - Rush Hour

Jennifer Paige - Crush

Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Street

Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko

Portishead - Machine Gun

My Brightest Diamond - Nature Boy

Martha & The Muffins - Echo Beach

CRYSTAL CASTLES VS. HEALTH - Crimewave

Echobelly - Great Things

Skunk Anansie - Selling Jesus

Bangles - Manic Monday

Evanescence - Bring Me To Life

The Raveonettes - Beat City

Feist - Sealion

Lily Allen - Oh My God (Kaiser Chief's Cover)

Pigtails and Army Boots - the event!

As you saw from my previous entry, Friday was the very first Pigtails and Army Boots themed night alongside local campaign group Not in Our Town and raising money for charity.

I got to the Railway pretty early for soundcheck, but annoyingly we had a lot of problems during this (the mixer was a problem, no sound coming from the microphones, PMT doublebooking the backline we were meant to be using) so we ended up opening quite a bit later than planned.

I kicked off with a few tunes while Wendy Solomon got ready, and then she played her always great set of ukulele based tunes. Because of opening late we had to cut the gaps between bands quite a bit, but I still got to dj inbetween, so was trying to keep my ears open for when bands were finishing their sets, as well as when they were ready to play.

The second act was Death of the Elephant who blistered through a short set of riot grrl goodness while trying not to be put off by the drunken men dancing at the front who had clearly been watching the England football match that was on.

Third act was The Dirty Fairies who were apparently very drunk but it sounded pretty good from what I could tell, very blues rock.

Last but not least was headliners Trash Monroe who played a smashing rock n roll set including my favourite song "Venus Envy" in fact, they were so good, they were even called out for an encore, I've never ever seen that at a local gig before- awesome!

I djed for about an hour after they finished, people did hang around for a bit, but as I kinda expected people started going so really it was just my lovely friends who danced a bit! It probably didn't help that the pub was shortstaffed so the bar upstairs was closed.

Despite our intial problems, it was an amazing night, we had an excellent turn out making £200 for charity! Hope that I will get another opportunity some time! (but without the problems and losing my keys and headphones preferably- oops)

My dj set list was extremely random, as it was hard to see the cds and it was a case of grab and play a lot of the time- and somehow some cds got muddled up, resulting in slightly different songs than I intended to play but nevertheless it was fun.

Some of the songs I played in no particular order: (from all the various times through the night)

Dresden Dolls- Girl anachronism

The Runaways- Queens of Noise

Kate Bush- Hounds of Love

Soho Dolls- Stripper

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts- Crimson and Clover

Dead Weather- Treat Me Like Your Mother

Amanda Palmer- Guitar Hero

Save Ferris- Under 21

Flyleaf- Fully Alive

Blondie- Atomic

Juliette and the Licks- Hot Kiss

Chicks on Speed feat Peaches- We Don't Play Guitars

Hole- Celebrity Skin

Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Heads Will Roll

L7- Pretend we're Dead

Garbage- I Think I'm Paranoid

X Ray Spex- Oh Bondage up Yours

No Doubt- Just a Girl

Siouxie and The Banshees- Spellbound

Hole- Violet

Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Date With the Night

Gossip- Standing in the way of Control

Cyndi Lauper- She Bop

Letters to Cleo- I Got Time

Imelda May- Johnny got a Boom Boom

CSS- Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above

PJ Harvey- Dress

Robots in Disguise- The Sex has made me stupid

Nancy Sinatra- These Boots are made for walking

Tomorrow Night!

I should have really posted a blog about this ages ago, but oh well!

I've been part organiser of a charity event which is part of Southend Fringe Festival and it takes place tomorrow evening. I've been working with Steve of Not in Our Town on a Pigtails and Army Boots themed night to raise money for Animal Defenders International. The night has 4 bands playing (sadly Candy Panic Attack have had to cancel)- Wendy Solomon, Death of the Elephant, Dirty fairies and Trash Monroe and I will also be djing before and after the bands. It's only £3 to get in and is from 7pm right up till 1am. All I'm worried about is that the early part clashes with an England football match and that people might go after the bands finish and I'll be djing to an empty room- so if you come (and you should) please stay!!

Joan Jett and The Blackhearts at the 100 Club, London

well, well, well, what can I say, if you know me or have read previous entries in my blog you will know that Joan Jett is my ultimate idol. I have only seen her live once before, but that was only as a support act at wembley arena supporting Alice Cooper and Motorhead and that was about 3 years ago.

She hadn't actually toured or done a gig in the UK for 20 years, so as soon as I heard that she was playing an intimate warm up gig at the 100 club in London (she's now on tour with Greenday- sadly couldn't afford tickets- they were £50!) I knew I had to be there, so I just kept gabbering on at Mike so that he would be on the ticket site on time the day they went on sale. I didn't know how small the 100 club was, and really wasn't sure how quick it would sell out, but the 100 club is tiny, and it sold out in 8 minutes so we were extremely lucky to get tickets!

The actual day seemed to come around really quickly, when we got the venue just before the door opened at 7.30, there were already people queuing.

As soon as we got in, I was even more excited as the venue was very small, it was like we were seeing her down a local small club (although obviously not quite local) there was no barrier in front of the stage, there were photos of legends everywhere and the graffiti in the toilets told a lot of interesting stories! (apparently one of the members of Foals is a cheating bastard amongst other things)

We didn't know if there would be a support act as I couldn't find anything online, so we found a space at the front, by the side of the keyboard player as people had already taken centre unfortunely. It turns out there wasn't a support act so we had to guard our spots with our life whilst listening to classic rock and taking photos of the gear, as well as watching the roadie use a little brush on the guitars!

It felt like we were waiting forever, and the band walked on to mass cheers. They couldn't have started it better- "Bad Reputation" followed by "Cherry Bomb"! Joan looked stunning all in black pvc, she even walked right up to us a few times giving us the opportunity to take some awesome photos and apparently she thumbed up my banner (I made one saying Vegans Rock, as Joan is vegan) though I missed that!

They played hit after hit and almost every song got a mass sing along, it was so great to be with other people that are probably as obessed as I am!

At the end I tried to get a setlist and I very almost did, and I've just found out that I spoke with Kenny Laguna, they keyboard player, but not only that he is her producer and helped her get her solo career started after the Runaways- so he is a legend! Anyway, the girl next to me ended up getting his setlist, but she was very nice and tried to help me get one of the others, and let me take a photo of hers. I managed to grab Kenny's towel, it was unused and probably bought new, but it was the nearest thing!

Anyway think it's fair to say it was my best gig ever, and not just because it was Joan Jett! I really hope she will do a full tour later in the year!

This week's playlists

Pigtails


Blondie - One Way Or Another
Alessi's Ark - Over The Hill
Marina and The Diamonds - I Am Not a Robot (radio edit)
The Sounds - Painted By Numbers
Candy Panic Attack - Track 1
Ladytron - I'm Not Scared
Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
Heather Nova - London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do)
Portishead - Glory Box
Lauren Harris - Like It Or Not
McQueen - (Don't Know How To) Break It To You
Death of the Elephant - 2N2222
Wendy Solomon - Happy Hour Final Mix
Janis Joplin - Take Another Piece Of My Heart
Auf Der Maur - My Foggy Notion
Slunt - Not About You
Trash Monroe - Venus Envy
Queen Adreena - Pretty Like Drugs
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
Madonna - Papa Don't Preach
If Not For Dreaming ... - Joyous Rush
Alisha's Attic - White Room
Slow Club - Because We're Dead
New Young Pony Club - Hiding On The Staircase
Polly Scattergood - Please Don't Touch
Dirty Fairies - Get High (TT UAD Mix)
Tori Amos - I'm Not In Love


New Music
Amy Hendrickson and The Prime Directive - Gold Dust Man _
The Postmarks - Go Jetsetter
ForMarla - Ill And Alone
The Shy - Make Believe
Egypt Central - You Make Me Sick
Venom Seeds - Get Out Right Now
Hoodoo Fifties - Just About Pap
The Fancy Dress Party - Lynmouth
Outlet - Modern Decay
586 - Out Of Control
Pete McAllen - Animals In London
The Mohawk Lodge - Wear 'Em Out
Sour Apple - With The Lights Out
Signal To Noise - Weather Machine
The Hard Lessons - Bamboo
Chasing Ora - Penniless
The Bad Rackets - Couple Million Miles
Baby Monster - She Comes Alive
Bodies Of Water - Doves Circled The Sky
The Most Serene Republic - Sherry And Her Butterfly Net
Outsider - Johnny Radar
Tessmarka - Better Than You
Jesca Hoop - Out The Back Door
Apostle Of Hustle - Chances Are
New Device - Make My Day
Out Of Clouds - Like A Lily
Keira May - Pins And Makeup

6/6/10- Rage Against The Machine at Finsbury Park, London

Well I'm sure all readers of this blog will know the whole story behind this gig but for those who lived under a rock over christmas I'll explain. Normally every xmas in the UK, we always have the X Factor single be the Xmas number one. However last year, two people- Jon and Tracey Morter started what at first was a small facebook campaign to get Rage Against The Machine- Killing in The Name to number one instead, as an alternative to all this predictable x factor nonsense. The campaign grew and grew,and even rage against the machine got behind the campaign and made the promise to play a free gig if they actually made it to number one. everyone kept to their word and(well I'm guessing the majority) stuck to their promise of downloading the single, and shock, horror- it actually made it to the number one spot!

Everyone really wondered if RATM would actually keep their promise of a free gig, and sure enough a few months later they made the announcement, the gig would be on 6th June in finsbury Park but to get tickets you needed first to register on a website including uploading a photo, then about a week later you needed to go to the ticket site from about 8am and put in your request to get tickets using your registration number you were given and then tickets were allocated on a lottery basis. As you can imagine, the website was full of people that day, so me and Mike were both on the website on 2 different computers reloading and reloading, and eventually I managed to get through, luckily you could put two registration numbers so I put them both down, and then the website told me I would have to wait up to two hours to know if we had managed to get tickets. Not that much later, I got confirmation, we had in fact got through- yay!

The tickets didn't arrive until just over a week before the event was on with our photos printed on! We had been planning to get the train down to London, but someone we know let us know he was arranging a mini bus down there, only £20 and would take us home as well so we thought it would be betetr especially as it was on a sunday.

We got on the "party bus" about 2pm with a load of other people and got drunk and listened to classic rock all the way there- not sure what the driver made of us!
The park was open when we got there but we decided to have a drink first at the nearby "worlds end" pub before wandering to the entrance.

I thought it was going to be quite strict, (which was why we had all our alcohol on the bus)! but Mike got stopped to check his bag, and as he was doing it, I just walked through! I heard that lots of people managed to climb over the fence without a ticket and some were even just let in when Rage were on!

There were loads of food and drink stalls and a fairground set up in the park but very ricdiclous pricing- a portion of chips was £5! so fair to say, we didn't spend a lot!

It was a fairly mild day apart from the odd spitting shower so we just sat down most of the time while the support acts were on- first was Gallows- who to be honest sounded pretty awful to me, then Roots Manuva- who we skipped most of as we were wandering around, and Gogol Bordello- all though full of energy and I do like listening to their tracks indiviually, I found that live, it all blurred into one big noise. The best thing was at the end during "start wearing purple" when one of the members of the band threw his drum into the crowd and then he stood on it on top of the crowd and "surfed"!

It seemed like forever the wait between them and Rage Against the Machine. But then, the tv screens had a cartoon image of Simon Cowell introducing the band and the first chords of "Testify" came blaring out, like a call to arms, the crowd of course went mental. Then it was hit after hit including my personal highlight "Bullet in the Head" "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Bombtrack".

About halfway through they stopped to inttroduce Jon and Tracey Morter to the stage so the crowd gave them a huge cheer and Rage then handed a gigantic cheque to them to give to Shelter (they were also encouraging people who downloaded the single to donate to shelter- and rage donated 100 per cent of their profits of the single)!
After that they did a pretty awesome version of The Clash's White Riot.

Of course the encore could only really be one thing and they did it in style. Before they came back on stage, a little film showed on the screens telling the story of the whole x factor/xmas thing with the x factors single playing, and then the words- YOU MADE HISTORY- before probably one of my most memorable gig moments - Killing in the Name had never sounded as good!

Left, feeling I had seen one of the best gigs I've ever been to. The only annoyance was whilst trying to get back to the bus, the tube station was on the way, and as you can imagine there was thousands of people trying to get out, so there were police on horses stopping people going through so the tube station wouldn't get overcrowded, it made us a bit panicky as we were worried about getting to the bus but we got there in the end- ah good times!

This week's playlists- what to listen out for!

New Music New Talent

Lost Harbours - Springs Fire
Annabel Durnford - A Lost Sailing Boat
If Not For Dreaming ... - Joyous Rush
The Domes of Silence - Lost Weekend
Greenleaf 56 - Tomorrow's People
femmepop - good
Penny Broadhurst - Chemist Goods
Wired All Wrong - Nothing At All
586 - We Got Bored
Smoke Fairies - Sunshine (Radio Edit)
Smash Fashion - Hello Lovely One
Echo - Bend Your Head
JENNIFER JUSTICE AND THE TRILOGYSUN - RESIDENT FREQUENCY
Tweak Bird - A Sun Ahh Ahh
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - The Sun Ain't Shining No More
Wallis Bird - LaLa Land
The Pink Snowflakes - Like Ice Cream
The Dreaming Tree - Silence Won't Steal
Zen Motel - Real Good Time
Small Sins - Prove Me Wrong
Tessmarka - Miss Imagination
A Brokeheart Pro - Pink Mischief
RedTrack - Inside (Radio Edit)
Weird Old America - Devil In A Dream
The Words - Holding up the Walls
Pink Nasty - BTK Blues

Pigtails and Army Boots

Kelly Osbourne - Coolhead
Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves - Wake Up The Heroes
Nightwish - Amaranth
Within Temptation - The Howling
Bikini Kill - Distinct Complicity
Propaganda - The Murder of Love
Traccia - The Murder Of My Sweet
Le Monnier - Save Yourself
Die So Fluid - Bitterness By Discipline
Robots In Disguise - The Sex Has Made Me Stupid
Garbage - Special
Gabby Young (Dave Howells Remix) - In this..dave wowell mix fi
The Vincent Black Shadow - Fear's In The Water
Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Blood Red Shoes - I Wish I Was Someone Better
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
Alisha's Attic - Wish I Were You
The Raveonettes - Beat City
Natalie Imbruglia - Wishing I Was There
Juliette And The Licks - Shelter Your Needs
Sophe Lux - Target Market
Marnie Stern - Every Single Line Means Something
Rilo Kiley - Give A Little Love
Kristy Kruger - Little Pollyanna
Melissa Etheridge - Come To My Window
Little Boots - Remedy
Save Ferris - Come On Eileen

This week's playlists- what to listen out for!

Pigtails

Blood Red Shoes - I Wish I Was Someone Better
Texas - In Our Lifetime
Le Tigre - TKO
Tegan & Sara - Hop A Plane
My Brightest Diamond - Something Of An End
You Say Party! We Say Die! - Five Year Plan
Salt'n Pepa - Push It
The Runaways - Rock And Roll
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Rockers To Swallow
Pearl - Rock Child
Chicks On Speed Feat. Peaches - We Don't Play Guitars
Paramore - Crushcrushcrush
Eurythmics - There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Playground Twist
Lily Allen - Not Fair (Clean Radio Edit)
Imelda May - Johnny Got a Boom Boom
The Gossip - Listen Up!
The Birthday Massacre - Play Dead
Alanis Morissette - Sister Blister
Cansei De Ser Sexy - Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above
Crystal Castles - Untrust Us
Florence And The Machine - Drumming Song
Jesca Hoop - Out The Back Door
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Me And Jane Doe
Kristin Hersh - In Shock
Ministry Of Love - Life in Song
Mother Mother - Body Of Years (Radio Edit)
Kay Hanley - Lust For Life

New Music

The Blank Tapes - Listen To The One
Hovercraft Pirates - Just Another Rock Song
INGI - Saturday
CB6 - Like a Ship Over Black Seas
The Get - Get Over It!
Alessi's Ark - Over The Hill
Idle Lovers - All Control
Mittens on Strings - The Most Complete Skeleton Ever Found
The Slack Republic - Overcompensating
Shilling Whores - Blue Square
Subliminal Criminal - Chav Town Blues
Kartica - Navigate
The Secret Machines - Lightning Blue Eyes
Headless Heroes - Blues run the game
Leftover Lucy - 02 Drowing Effect
Jetson - Have To Go Home
The Sibleys - Blue-eyed bandit
Bear Colony - Hospital Rooms Aren't For Lovers
Catherine Feeny - Mr. Blue
Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover
Tessmarka - Starting Over
Trip To Dover - Solar System
Taken By Trees - Lost And Found
Trembling Blue Stars - Idyllwild
Mumpsy - Ain't It Hard (When It's Over)
Yes Miss, No Miss - Taking Over
Jets Overhead - Seems So Far