The Lovely Eggs, The School, MJ Hibbett set to play London’s Buffalo Bar on October 30

Pic 'n' Mixx

Confession, confession: this night is something of a Muso’s Guide offshoot. But hey ho, what better excuse than that to shout about it and tell you a little bit more?

Pic ‘n’ Mixx is launching at the Buffalo Bar on Upper Street, London (nearest tube: Highbury and Islington) on Friday 30 October at 8pm. There’re five bands playing and there’s DJing after all that’s done ’til 4am. There’ll be stuff like Heavenly, Pavement, The Smiths, Los Campesinos! to keep you on your toes.

And what’s more, you can win CDs made by Frightened Rabbit, Internet Forever, Lucky Soul, Amelia Fletcher, The Clientele, Pocketbooks, Xfm’s John Kennedy, Everett True, Luis from Elefant Records and a selection of other taste-making know-it-alls if you contribute one of your own on the way in. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide presents… Canadian Blast with Spiral Beach, Hey Rosetta! and special guests

Spiral Beach

Hot off the press is the news that we’re announcing yet another Muso’s Guide sponsored show, this time with a Canadian twist at the Queen of Hoxton on Tuesday 24 November.

We’re honoured to be working with Canadian Blast on this show – they’ve been doing a fantastic job on showing off Canada’s hottest properties at places like SXSW, CMJ, Popkomm and London Calling over the past few years.

Toronto’s Spiral Beach head up the bill, and support is provided by St. John’s, NFLD’s Hey Rosetta!, Londoners The Argument And How It Started and very special guests TBA. … Continue Reading

Reviewface #1… with teenagersintokyo

teenagersintokyo

In the first of a new hopefully-more-than-sporadic feature, we got one of our favourite new bands to review the week’s singles on camera in a pub. Sydney-birthed teenagersintokyo were our guinea pigs in deepest darkest Shoreditch, and with the help of our fair photo-hand Tim Boddy, they were only too pleased to stick our iPod in their ears and react Live On Camera.

We’ve got some very interesting guests lined up over the next few weeks for Reviewface, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.

They’re currently recording their debut album with Bat for Lashes producer David Kosten, and if the samples on the MySpace are anything to go by, it’ll be a synthy punchy treat.

… Continue Reading

Extradition Order/Arrows Of Love/Bethia Beadman, London Camden Head

October 13, 2009

Not just any gig, but the first Muso’s Guide Presents… show ever EVER! And it went down an absolute storm, with three excellent acts who you should all check out. Thanks for coming down if you were there, and if you weren’t, what were you thinking?! … Continue Reading

Efterklang talk to Arctic Circle radio about Performing Parades

Efterklang

Efterklang are playing the Barbican with the Britten Sinfonia on October 28, with support from Jaga Jazzist. It’s going to be simply wonderful, and we’ll bet our left shoe on that.

Arctic Circle radio recently talked to Denmark’s finest imports Efterklang about it all, and recorded it in a handy podcast which you can download from here.

And there’s more about the night at the Barbican’s website. … Continue Reading

Simpsons creator Matt Groening announced as curator for first May ATP

Matt Groening

Yes it’s true. After last week’s announcement that one of ATP‘s May weekends would be curated by Pavement, they’ve announced the second curator as Simpsons and Futurama henchman Matt Groening.

Not so much of a curveball for those in the know, as Groening has previously curated an “amazing 2003 festival” at The Queen Mary, Long Beach, California.

No artists have been announced yet but tickets go on sale this Friday October 16 at ATP’s website. … Continue Reading

Casiokids, London Camden Proud

Casiokids

October 10, 2009

The name Casiokids is fun, isn’t it? It gives me an image of hyperactive children running around with 32-key, feather-light keyboards in a field. Carefree youthful exuberance, if you will. And by Jove, is their moniker apt! I never use exclamation marks either, please note this.

At Camden’s former horse stables Proud, Casiokids are megafun. They’re constantly swapping instruments, they’ve brought some toy farmyard animals with to make the stage look as megafun as them, and hell they out-perform even the most idiotic of drunk idiots who comprise tonight’s crowd.

These Norwegian scamps aren’t annoyingly quirky either, and their tunes mean business. ‘Finn Bikkjen‘ isn’t so much cheeky as a massive stormer, and as for eventual set-closer ‘Fot I Hose’… well, just well. The milieu needs to be pitch-black-and-in-a-forest to meet the boundless excitement of the song. The beats are pretty drum ‘n’ bass on ‘Fot I Hose’, and the synth line at the front is deep and dirty – imagine if The Rapture got silly, essentially. It’s a party-compeller with devastating changes in texture to set up each climax. … Continue Reading

We’re putting on a gig TOMORROW!

Muso’s Guide‘s first foray into events is happening in approximately 34 hours now and we’re all so very excited that we thought it necessary to give you lucky readers a quick recap. Be at The Camden Head tomorrow (Tuesday October 13) night at 8pm sharpish, hell buy your tickets in advance from WeGotTickets to avoid disappointment.

And we can exclusively reveal an oh-so-very special offer: if you buy tickets in advance from that above link, you’ll get free entry to the Stylish Riots night at the Barfly this coming Friday (October 16). It’s a bargain at only £4!

It features Bethia Beadman, who reminds me of Chan Marshall and used to play in Courtney Love’s band nonetheless.

It also features Arrows Of Love, who are well primal. Also they’re great and in some sort of weird full-circle contrast, used to be kind of semi known as Hush The Many (Heed The Few), who released an amazing folky single called ‘Revolve’ that was one of my tracks of the year back in 2008 under another guise. This is not a lie.

The headliners are the amazing Extradition Order, who courted a spot of controversy on this very site when they reviewed our reviewist’s review, only for me to review the review of the review. Meta! Click here and then work backwards and then forwards.

Can you sense that I’m about to wet myself here, hmm? I hope so. Now for the FAQ:

When is this wondrous event taking place, remind me? October 13. At 8pm.

Where? The Camden Head, conveniently situated on Camden High Street and was formerly known as Liberties.

And back to the chit-chat: … Continue Reading

We just spoke to Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys

My dad just ran into Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and put me on the phone to him.

From what I can remember apart from “hi”, “hello”, “my site’s called this” and “you’re really great”, I found out that he’s not working on Neon Neon at the minute due to being very busy. He was on his way to The Forum for tonight’s gig.

I also asked him if he’d be interested in reviewing the singles one time for us but he said he didn’t like doing reviews as he’d been mean about Fun Lovin’ Criminals one time and then encountered them later. He’s way too nice for that. … Continue Reading

Adam Green announces new album Minor Love – and writes his own press release

Adam Green

You heard.

Adam Green‘s Minor Love will be released in January 2010 through Rough Trade Records. And he wrote the press release himself! Oh how we heart him. It goes like this:

“Adam Green is a famous American celebrity… from New York City. At the beginning of his career he moved to Germany to seek political asylum, from the persecution of his talents. He was greeted with open arms and formed a theatre company, which produced a ballet concert. While living in East Germany, he was offered a co-starring role in the movie Juno, which won the grammy and went platinum.

The inspiration for this album lies in Green’s fatalism, despite a fairly normal upbringing, and a generally optimistic world view. He often contends that nothing lasts…that there is nothing to look forward to…and that “we are all living in a butcher shop” which Leonard Cohen told him while at a Bar-B-Que at Lou Reed’s house. … Continue Reading