80s Youth Movies: Stand By Me

Yesterday I was watching Stand By Me, one of the best youth movies from the 80s, for about the nth time and I remembered how kind of brilliant (if immature- the film does centre around a bunch of twelve year olds after all) the cusses and retorts in this movie were.

• "Suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood."
• "Piss up a rope!"
• "Did your mother ever have any kids that lived?"
• Teddy: You morphadite!
  Gordy: Don't call me any of your mother's pet names.
   
• Gordy: Shut up.
  ALL: I don't shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up!
  Gordy: And then your mother comes around and she licks it up.
   
• "I'm gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck."
   
• "Let him do his own fighting!"
  "Sure, you only outweigh him by five hundred pounds, fat ass!"
• Vince: I bet you $1000 they find him before that.
  Other Guy: I bet you $2000 they don't!
  Ace: Would you two just shut the fuck up? If either of you assholes had $2000, I'd kill you both.
   
• "I'll only be young once."
  "Yeah, but you'll be stupid for the rest of your life."

Then of course there are the poignant lines, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?".

And River Phoenix, in general.

I love River Phoenix's character in this movie (Chris Chambers), for saying things like, "It's like God gave you somethings man, all those stories that you can make up...And He said, "This is what we got for you kid, try not to lose it." Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it then maybe I should."

And that beautiful song by Ben E. King, in the video of which, River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton are so cute:

In short. Watch this movie, okay. Just go and watch it, even if you've watched it some time before.

Free (Music) Friday

So… you know how it goes. Free Music Friday ends up happening weeks later than when it was supposed to and on any day other than an actual Friday. And then I give you more than one free (legal) download, just to make up for it. So here it is- a single and whole freaking album, enjoy:


1. Johnny Flynn

Johnny Flynn is a folk musician who writes songs just like poetry, has toured with theatre troupes performing Shakespeare and is all too attached to flannel shirts. His music is wonderful, his voice will break your heart and mend it back together. My sister says that I’m blinded by his looks and in fact his (beautiful) music sounds like he’s banging pots and pans together. I see where she’s coming from, but I still love his songs.



From his new album, Been Listening, he’s released the single Kentucky Pill as a free download and I sincerely advise you get it from his myspace now.


2. Simon Curtis

Through interviewing Shannon and Andrea of Those Girls Are Wild, the best blog on the entire internet, I found out about Simon Curtis (who starred with Andrea Lewis of TGAW in the Nickelodeon film, Spectacular). The boy robot makes AWESOME electropop and for some crazy reason he is giving a whole album of his musical goodness away for free!!!





Get 8Bit Heart from his website now.


Click here for the previous free and legal downloads of (great) music.

Free (Music) Friday - Dukes of Daville

Yes. Yes I know. There was no Free (Music) Friday last week. On the plus side, at least it's more regular than once a month now...
Okay, I admit I need to get my act together with this, but look, I've found a whole mixtape of great music that is being given away for free!

Dukes of Daville are a pop/hip-hop/soul duo from Atlanta, composed of two best friends with beautiful voices to fit their fresh, lyrical music.

Take a listen.




Okay now go to their myspace, where you can download We Are Music, a mixtape of all their songs.

Free (Music) Friday

Hey, remember the whole Free Music Friday idea , where I give you links to amazing songs that are actually being given away free so you can improve your playlists without destroying the music industry and all that? Well I clearly didn't, since today is a Monday and almost a month after the last time I did this.
So to make up for that I have two free downloads today:

1. RAC 

The Remix Artist Collective is a trio of guys who make the most amazing remixes (click on my video playlist in the sidebar- the 1st song is one of their remixes). They are headed by André Anjos, a native of Portugal who now lives in the USA and has worked in TV (HBO's Entourage) in addition to making songs 10 times better than they were before.
Download some remixes on their site here.











2. Performance

The debut album "(we are) Performance" was released in 2007 but since then they've been off doing other things (frontman Joe Stretch went off and became an internationally published novelist, yes, really. And drummer, Joe Cross, has been songwriting and producing, working to develop groups such as Hurts.) The main reason why it's taken them so long to get back to Performance is their refusal to change the band name, which was a dealbreaker for many major record labels.

‘I’m not going to change my name for a man who looks like polished fruit,’ remarked Joe Stretch. ‘They told us that it’s cool to seem new. I’m not sure about that. Aren’t many new bands enchantingly crap? Plus, changing your name makes you a phoney, Rich, perhaps. But a phoney.’

But they're back now. And they're still Performance. And they're still making good music. So download "Reptile" for free at their myspace.

Spark Unscheduled Tour

Behind it all the Chevrolet Spark Unscheduled Tour is simply clever promotion for a car. But who really cares when their launch features:

Mystery Jets,
WAH Nails (see http://www.wah-magazine.com/ for more on the WAH girls),
live graffiti from Lumacoustics,
and more.

"The launch of the brand new Chevrolet Spark also marks the launch of a new kind of live music tour. A tour where each venue is not just different but somewhere that provides a unique live music experience, an unscheduled, 'pop-up' event, somewhere you'll probably not see live music ever again. Where will the tour go? It’s up to you!"

Sounds pretty good.
The launch is at Vinyl Factory in Soho on 8th April.
Register online for tickets.

Everything All The Time

It appears that laziness can be beautiful.
Toronto-based band Everything All The Time delicately capture mornings on weekends when you have nothing or everything to do, and the sun is slipping through your curtains trying to wake you up, but for some reason (laziness really) you just want to stay still...


EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME - Lazy Days from Mitch Fillion on Vimeo.


And then there's "I Get So Hot" which is so unlike "Lazy Days" in that it will make you want to get up and sing even if you don't know the words. Turn it up!:



Apart from having an irresistible voice, the frontwoman Alanna Stuart is so charismatic.
When I grow up I wanna be just like her. Or at least have her fro-hawk.

Play This

Press play on the video playlist in the sidebar (--->) and let it run while you read!
It makes everything even better.

Songs:
1. The Fashion - Solo Impala (RAC Remix)
2. Ty- Emotions feat. Sarina Leah & Shaun Escoffery
3. Clipse vs Led Zeppelin - You Need (Xaphoon Jones Remix)
4. Hoodlums - Ends of the Earth
5. Chiddy Bang & Theodore Grams  - Fresh Like Us (Xaphoon Jones Remix)
6. Red Drapes -  Reflection
7. Natalia Cappucini (aka Natalia Kills) - Body Body Language
8. Mystery Jets - Hideaway
9. Everything All The Time - I Get So Hot
10. Basia Bulat - Snakes and Ladders
11. Natalia Cappucini (aka Natalia Kills) - Plain Jane

It's all different styles, some kind of old, most kind of new. Plain Jane isn't what it seems at first so listen to all the way through. In fact, listen to it all right through.
Hope you like it.

Plugs

PLUGS is a band, hailing from Peckham, that has only one song up on their myspace, that sings about phone numbers and that is not doing much at all in the foreseeable future. I'm not even certain if they are a real band or just a hobby. And still, I've been a little bit in love with them for about 3 years now.
Perhaps it's because their brand of slightly psychedelic, melodic pop with nice male vocals really reminds me of Hot Chip. Or maybe it's because their lead singer, who used to be in Does It Offend You, Yeah?, has a brilliant name: Morgan Quantaince. All I know is, the moment you put on that song on their myspace, "Imaginary Friend", the beat grabs you and drags you down into an excitingly eerie little world...

Here is their song "All Them Witches".


Plugs - All Them Witches

PLUGS | MySpace Music Videos

Zarif

This is Zarif.

She has toured with Alesha Dixon and Beyoncé, as well as having performed with John Legend and the Nextmen. Sometime within the next few weeks I will be interviewing her and putting a video of it up on youtube! So, I won't say much about her right now except that: as well as producing her own funky music (www.myspace.com/zarifmusic) she does beautiful covers and makes funny comics...

Ava Luna

                                                                                                                                                                                      

This Brooklyn-based group mix the kind of uplifting gospel-type singing you might hear spilling out of the jubilee churches with electro and somehow it actually isn't a train wreck. The soulful front man and doo-wop backup singers mesh with incredible bass lines to make this grinding post-punk sound that you won't be able to stop yourself from shaking to even just a little bit. Honestly.

www.myspace.com/avalunaband

Free (Music) Friday -on Monday, I know, whatever.

So, Free (Music) Friday (on Monday) anyone?

The nicest track I've found being given away for free recently is Under Construction by Solange. Do not call her the other knowles. She's brilliant in her own right. Her music is not like Beyoncé's, although her voice kind of is, and she is just fabulous. She also writes her own songs. I love people ten times more when they actually came up with the material they put their name on by themselves. This said, I still love Beyoncé's music, but I'm really in love with Solange right know.

Head over to her "Damn Blog" (http://www.mydamnblog.com/) now to get it!! It's lovely.

Do Something Brilliant, or maybe just so-so (part 1/2)

I suppose you'll have heard about Chile. And before that, Haiti. And many other disasters before that (if not, then stop pissing around and pay attention to the news once in a while, yeah?).
Perhaps like me, it makes you want to do something to help them. Maybe something more than just donating £10 (or less, you cheapskate) online? Well, how about setting up a charity gig?
(Haha, I just read that back and realised how much it rings like a bad advert...)
Anyway, I'm here to help you raise money and enjoy music (and meet bands, the best part of organising this kind of thing, I suspect. Other than the rewarding feeling of doing something good of course). So a while back I was determined to set up a charity gig for the Amnesty International Youth Group I used to run. That dream died fast. Mainly due to my laziness but whatever. Anyway, when I was all about that I got plenty of good advice on how to go about setting up a live musical event from Rob Alderman of the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang nights. The back and forth emails between us are below, no point in letting that all this knowledge go to waste, huh?

Dear Rob,

My name is Zita[....]and I run the Amnesty International Youth Group at [my school]. We want to hold a benefit concert in aid of Amnesty. I love a lot of the amazing bands/artists you've had at your KKBB nights such as:

New Cassettes
Lightspeed Champion
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Johnny Foreigner
Pete and the Pirates
and The Holloways (even though they haven't performed yet)

and I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me some information on how to go about booking these bands and how much it would cost?

Thank you very much for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Hi Zita,

Sounds like a cool idea!
With all of the bands you listed (except New Cassettes), they have an agent which is the person you'll need to contact about gigs. Most agent details (usually an e-mail address) can be found on the myspace or website of the band. There are 3 or 4 main agencies - Primary, WMA, ITB and Coda but there are others out there too.

So, contact the agent who looks after the band. They'll usually want details of the gig (where it is, what date, what capacity the venue is etc etc) so I'd put this in the first e-mail to stop e-mails going back and forth. When you first e-mail them, I wouldn't mention any money, it's best first to see if the band are available. Also, do a bit of research into the band you're booking (i.e. do they already have a gig on the date you want them? Will they suit your target audience?). This all helps when contacting the agent. To warn you, agents can be quite blunt. They obviously get hundereds of e-mails every day asking for bookings so often reply with a quick yes or no and quick explanation (sometimes not even that much). Also, it's probably worth writing out a list of a good 20 bands and split them into first choice bands, 2nd choice etc. I'd e-mail maybe 3 or 4 in the first instance as not all agents will reply...you don't want to throw all your eggs in one basket and wait to hear back when a reply may not be forthcoming.

Once you've e-mailed, if they e-mail back (and the band are available), they'll ask for an offer. As you're not a "regular customer" to them, this may be a slightly higher price than other promoters that often use them to book bands. It's difficult to judge the price of a band these days as cost has gone up. It's difficult for me to say what you could offer without knowing your budget so maybe if you e-mail through your budget and the bands you're thinking about, I can give you an idea of where to aim for.

Once the offer has gone back, if they accept, you'll then go through the stages of having a contract which will need signing and returning. Also, by law, you'll need to fill out a Terms of Business with the company you're booking through as, legally, they must do this to deal with you (this will all be sent to you). They often ask for 50% of the fee to be paid as a deposit also.

When thinking about your budget, don't forget to add everything in. Most bands charge VAT and will want a rider (food and drink), which, on average, can cost about £50-£100, depending what they're asking for. Add sound equipment, sound man, lights, staging etc to that just to make sure you're budget can cover the gig.

Bands also will send through a tech spec with their rider. This details what sound equipment they expect to use when playing. They can be quite particular about what sound equipment they use so, if you plan to book a bigish band, make sure you're not using cheap equipment because otherwise the band can refuse to play or you will have to hire the equipment they request (we learnt this the hard way) and you can lose the deposit as it is your responsibility as a promoter to make sure the venue meets the requirements in the contract.

Sorry for the essay. I don't mean to bombard you! Just a lot more than you realise to think about when you book a band of certain level.
I hope it is of some help.
Feel free to e-mail me on this address again for help. It's good to see people getting up and doing something cool for the music scene around these parts!

Good luck!
Rob

Do Something Brilliant, or maybe just so-so? (part 2/2)

By The Way: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHESIVE GUIDE. But I'm sure you know that already.
(Also, do not take the bands and artists I mention here to be indicative of my music taste. Many I still love, but I have grown and changed.)

Rob,


Thank you so much for the "essay"! It has been very helpful in making me realise what goes into planning a gig. You are right, booking a band takes WAY more than i realise (I admire you greatly).
Its a lot more confusing, complicated and generally difficult and expensive sounding than I realised, but I'm still going to try to do it because it could be great, and its for charity too...

So I hope you don't mind if i ask you a few more questions.
I have a very long list of mostly indie bands and artists who I was planning to ask, and I actually emailed some of them before I received your email back, so I wish I had waited.
Some of them were just "NO"s but some had explanations which was nice.

I am being considered by:
Johnny Flynn
The Metros
Lo-Fi Culture Scene
Athlete

but they all want "more details"!
but I still haven't got emails back from:
Pete and the Pirates
The Holloways
Gold Teeth

and I have yet to contact:
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
TV On the Radio
Laura Marling
The Whip
The Courteeners
Noah and the Whale
Crystal Castles
Golden Silvers
...and some others.

So before I send emails out to any of the other bands on my list please could you help me with these questions:

1. I was going to hold it in the school hall, which is a very nice place for a school but it does only fit about 600 standing. Do you think the bands will refuse to play for only 600 people?
Would it be better to hire a local venue? (like the [...] which can take 1000 people standing. and has had bands like Hadouken and Foals playing there).

2. The Lo-Fi Culture Scene's people said that they would cost "a couple hundred". does that mean just £100-200 for the band, excluding the "rider" and the equipment.

3. Do I have to BUY their equipment? Are you kidding? Can't they just bring it them selves... How much does equipment cost?
4. When you say "sound man" would that be a sound man that they brought with them or one that I would have to hire?

5.Please please please guesstimate what it might cost altogether (excluding food and drinks for the audience).

6...Can I hire a "promoter" or someone to do all this for me? But then again they would probably cost hundreds as well.

7. Will the agents that have replied be a lot less inclined to agree to a gig if I don't reply straightaway giving them these elusive "more details" that they speak of?

I know you are probably extremely busy booking bands for KKBB, so please just reply whenever you can.
Thank you very much

Zita,

I'm happy to help. I'll try and answer all of your questions...

More details will be what I said before. Say what the event is for (charity wise), where it'll be held, the capacity of the place etc. etc.
1. 600 is fine. Our capacity is 250 upstairs and about 400 down so 600 should be plenty for what you're aiming for. But, the Civic probably has a good quality PA in place to use for gigs so may be worth giving them a shout to see if they are open to hiring out the venue and at what price.

2. Sound like £200 flat. They may then ask for rider on top. Not sure if they are a big enough band to be VAT registered so I'd guess at £200 + rider

3. No no! Not buy haha. I'm talking as in the PA system. They will bring their own guitars/amps/drums etc but you'll be providing the PA system for them to play through.

4. Most venues have an "in house sound man" who does the system. Bands the size of Lo-Fi Culture Scene wouldn't have their own sound man so you'd need an experienced sound man to sound check them. Bigger bands (such as The Holloways and Pete and the Pirates) will have their own sound men but this is never confirmed until after the band are booked and a fee agreed.

5. All depends on the band really! Athlete will be very expensive I imagine. Difficult to guess but I'd say close to the £2000 mark (possibly more). It really is difficult to say but I think you have to judge it against your budget. So if Lo-fi Culture Scene are saying £200, Holloways will be more than that...sorry, I know that's vague but it really does vary and also depends on what the agent is holding out for!

6. You could try and involve a local promoter. Find out who promotes the gigs at the [local venue] and see if they'd be interested in helping out. Remember, it'll help their profile as well.

7. Try and reply asap. They tend to lose interest/forget things easily! Just try and keep the replies quick and readable so they're not looking at a massive bunch of text!
Any time, any time. As I say, it's nice to see someone getting involved in promoting. And don't let what I wrote above, put you off. It's tough but it can all come together with hard work and a bit of negotiating!

Keep at it!
Rob.

Hoodlums

Hoodlums = Five Londoners offering a polished and ridiculously infectious melodic pop, the nostalgic "Forget a Friend", will most likely be dancing around your head for a while. And I can't get enough of the hauntingly melancholy strain that lies beneath the upbeat-ness of this particular song. See them at the Lexingotn on the 26th March.

www.myspace.com/hoodlumsband





Check out their cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes for Indie Ghetto (below). It's very nice. Really, it is.

Curly Hair

A trio of English art students who, interestingly enough, seem to only really have wavy hair, at best. What they really do have, however, is an arsenal of sweet lyrics and glockenspiels, adding up to a charming sound that will twirl you right back to girlhood. The funky guitar strumming as well as the soothing and occasionally-Noah-and-the-Whale-esque vocals that sweep around you, taking you for a fantastic little flight, make for lovely pop.

Crystal Fighters

Nu-rave is BACK people, in the form of Latin electro/folktronica (yeah, it’s a real genre) and it is going to make you party. Crystal Fighters are two girls, three guys, all Spanish, all pretty sexy. A big favourite is their fun tune, “I Love London”, where a beautiful, flirty and Spanish-accented voice laughs and sings over beats and basslines that may just run you down. They even manage to make the train station, Watford Junction, sound really exciting. Their music makes use of Basque instruments (think Spanish guitars and drums) that make you feel the heat, as well as ethereal harmonies under building up synthesisers. You are guaranteed to lose yourself in it all. And be sure to check out their Hey You and Black Magic remixes, okay? Time to rave.

Catch them at the Kitsuné x Ponystep event :