Virgin

The emotional impact of a certain alleged cardiac arrest takes a fair bit of Friday to sink in, although wellies don’t have anywhere near the same trouble. With groundsheets buried in gloop, Mr. Hudson & his soulful Library are right up against it on The Other Stage. That it’s still sheeting down come eleven raises the question of whether it’s Hudson or his affiliation with Mr. West that’s attracted such a colossal crowd. Kanye doesn’t show, despite lurking about backstage for the most part of the day, although Hudson delivers an awe-inspiring down-tempo set filled to bursting point with soothing steel drums and sublime vocal harmonies. Maybe the self-confessed Champion may have his eggs in the right basket this time, what with Supernova set to explode this summer. Whilst at least in the eyes, if not the hearts of many Jay-Z triumphed over adversity during his headline slot on the Pyramid Stage last year, Pharrell and his geek-chic N*E*R*D team take more like bricks than ducks to water as their vacuous rap’n’roll doesn’t power through technical glitches. From one set of international superstars to a somewhat more subdued bearded bunch, Fleet Foxes couldn’t look more at home if they were holed up in a log cabin down the back end of nowhere. They’re terrified and it shows, yet their superlative harmonic wonderment remains fortified in front of their biggest show to date and quite how White Winter Hymnal is yet to be included in every hymn book is a travesty.

Whilst the yanks provide many of the bricks to Eavis’ Pyramid over the weekend, over on The Other, the fruits of White Lies’ endless labours seem to have finally ripened, as their apocalyptic anthemia blasts out, soaking the throng in washes of majestic grandeur and crashing choruses. Their time is now. With a splattering of special guests smeared all over this year’s bill, they range from practically homecoming heroes Klaxons to the downright disappointment of Supergrass spin-off Hot Rats. However, The Park Stage truly puts the special back, airing a debut festival show from Jack White’s new venture, The Dead Weather. Fronted by sultry Kills woman Alison Mosshart and flanked by Raconteurs bandmates, White installs himself in the background, glaring out from behind a rather modest drum kit. Bashing it half to death, they’ve staked themselves out as quite possibly the coolest collective of all time. Their highly-anticipated dirty blues debut record may leave a fair bit to be desired but in the flesh, Hang You Up From the Heavens is utterly devastating.

From the devastating to the dishevelled, the newly crowned Princess of Red Light Pornographic Dance Fight Pop Lady Gaga looks about as out of place down on the farm as she does fully clothed and with twelve varieties of soft drink on the old rider and almost as many costume changes, she’s eclipsing the diva tendencies of La Roux and her ginger fluming fringe. Cavorting about on motorbikes and a clan of robotically choreographed muscled torsos, she slurs her way through the polished sleaze of Beautiful Dirty Rich and Poker Face as if Michael Eavis is paying special rates. Unquestionably the all-out show of the weekend. And to top it all off, a secret early morning masquerade show down in Shangri-La equipped with firework bras. Ideally imperfect. The Pyramid photo pit’s buzzing with bigger lenses than those aimed up Gaga’s numerous skimpy skirts come Neil Young as his cult Americana blasts out across the main arena bowl, rattling rib cages with giddy guitar solos whilst standing every last hair up on end. But it’s over on the Acoustic Stage that jaws are dropping the mud as Kinks man Ray Davies delivers unsung Glastonbury moment upon moment, firing off the likes of Sunny Afternoon and All Day And All Of The Night at will. Returning for no less than three encores in which Waterloo Sunset and Lola are unleashed on the baying throng, he makes as strong a claim as any to the most gifted songwriter on site all weekend long. A Well Respected Man indeed. And on that triumphant note, it’s off to get down and dirty all over again down in the gender-blurring murky clubs and dingy night boxes of the outer reaches of Shangri-La and Trash City. Lord help us.

The wait is over! Today Canada’s hottest summer music festival announced that legendary alt-rockers Pearl Jam and Juno Award-winning Canadian rockers Billy Talent will headline Virgin Festival Alberta this year.  It will all go down at WinSport Canada’s Canada Olympic Park on August 8 & 9, 2009 to an expected throng of 35,000 hard-core music fans.

Other acts joining Pearl Jam on day one are Canadian hip hop artist K-OS, electronic music duo Thunderheist, Hamilton rockers Arkells, indie rockers Mother Mother, and Toronto trio The Cliks.  Joining Billy Talent on day two are new wave indie rockers Metric, Juno award nominees Tokyo Police Club, Brit rockers White Lies and Edmonton natives Shout Out Out Out Out.  More hot talent will be announced in the coming weeks.

“Calgary, we are back! I’m thrilled to announce that Pearl Jam and Billy Talent will headline the second Virgin Festival Alberta on August 8 & 9 at Canada Olympic Park,” announced Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group. “Last year, Virgin Festival Alberta was the buzz of the town, rocking 35,000 fans, and ever since Calgarians have been crying out for us to come back.  I’m delighted that we’re doing it all over again and promise that Virgin Festival will deliver another unforgettable weekend of music and experiences.”

General ticket sales for two-day and VIP Weekend tickets begin Saturday, July 4th at 10 a.m. in person at all Ticketmaster outlets, select Future Shop locations, online at www.ticketmaster.ca, or www.futureshop.ca and by calling (403) 777-0000. Ticket information is also available at www.virginfestival.ca.  Two-day tickets are $132.00 plus $4 facility fee and a $2 donation to Virgin Unite (includes all sales taxes).

As always, when you’re with Virgin Mobile Canada you move to the front of the line. Virgin Mobile Canada customers can get their hands on Early Bird tickets before anyone else.

Keep an eye on www.virginfestival.ca for more line-up announcements. Fans can also keep up to date with Virgin Festival on Twitter at www.twitter.com/virginmobilecan and on the Virgin Festival Canada Facebook® fan page.

Florence Welch (she who is Florence & The Machine) speaks to Bob from virgin.com/music about her rise to prominence last year as one of the BBC’s Sounds of 2009 and the Brits Critics Choice of the year. She also dishes the gossip about what she got up to backstage at the NME tour earlier this year with White Lies and Glasvegas…

• watch part 2 of this interview where she reveals her plans for the summer of 2009 and who she’d like to collaborate with…

Aren’t blogs great? All the music you could possibly want at the click of a button? And then you don’t even need to stay on t’internet to play them all back, Spotify. Grand. Faced with an Everest of promo singles (and a solitary full record) the merit of dishing out endless plastic discs throughout the UK and even the world is waning.

With the release of Coldplay’s live album ‘Left Right Left Right Left’ recorded God-knows-where, it’s about the last thing we need and the title’s about as original as its conception yet at least its only available as a download for the time being. That is until they thrust a copy into the clasping hands of every Coldplay fan (if such a thing does in fact exist) that attends one of their September enormodome shows.

In the shadow of the mountain at base camp lie the tired, dated releases from The All-American Rejects (‘I Wanna’) and The Rumble Strips (‘Not the Only Person’). The former regurgitate their formulaic repetition over power chords with the added pandemonium induced by arpeggiated synths whilst the ‘Strips’ Charlie Waller’s monotonous baritone howl can’t be grasped from the hands of nothingness even with the orchestration of Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett, the production of (the straight) Ronson and the mixing of Rich Costey. Yet more hours needed on the Tavistock leisure centre climbing wall or we’ll never make mountaineers out of these chancers.

Up next is perhaps the worst sleeve since Hard-Fi decided artwork no longer constituted a fundamental part of musical production and a desecrating Blondie cover to match; In This Moment’s ‘Call Me’ encompasses everything that has been, and still is hideous about glammed-up pop. Promo CDs are often said to function fairly well as coasters. In my youth, I would shoot crap CDs with my brother’s BB-Gun. This would have been time to lock’n’load.

At a somewhat higher altitude half-way up the mountain Mike Snow’s reggae-infused, light-hearted electro soother ‘Animal’. Whilst there’s not a single ferocious edginess to this one future releases may well witness him scaling mountains and charts alike. If anyone’s still bothered in the slightest by singles. One band who certainly seem bothered are those West London toffs, lingering in the shadows posing like Interpol in the early hours in the Old Blue Last, White Lies. Perhaps they’re getting a bonus lolly for every time they release melodramatic juggernaut ‘Death’. Alternatively it’s one of few decent songs they’ve penned within the hurricane of hype they’ve generated.

Following the heady heights scaled by Noisettes and their insistence on not upsetting the rhythm, they return with their polished Motown-esque crooning of ‘Never Forget You’. Certainly a step up from their rough’n’ready debut record, it seems unlikely that this’ll scratch its name into ‘the fabric of this world’ alongside The Temptations and The Supremes. Likely to be forgotten this time in two weeks.

Boy Crisis’ ‘Dressed to Digress’ over-indulges on witticism and cheap blips. Dubious artwork and a free transferable tattoo however may come in handy. Eugene McGuinness has been lurking in the doldrums for far too long. Wendy Wonders is Western enough to soundtrack a bottle brawl in down-the-back-of-the-sofa America and then throws in a gospel choir for good measure. How lovely. ‘Tabasco Sole’ is, by any stretch of the imagination, a ridiculous moniker to crop up even on The Flaming Lips’ proposed double CD currently in production. Yet The Voluntary Butler Scheme’s twee-as-you-like vocal ping pong could play behind CITV and regain the odd shard of dignity. Rationality gets substituted with the surreal yet in an age of feminine electro it’s a welcome break from dubious crew cuts, Princess Roux-Roux.

Fashion faux-pas aside, The Virgins ooze such sleaze and slick in equal measure that while ‘One Week of Danger’ isn’t their most venomous offering, its dwindling falsetto and macho-smeared bolshiness is rather refreshing. Not that Casablancas & co should go abdicating their Brooklyn crown of slur just yet. Whilst Empire of the Sun may have been swept into the shade by the emerging talent of fellow Aussies The Temper Trap, ‘We Are The People’ is a slab of melancholic acoustica glittering enough to ignite eyes, ears and hearts alike.

Remember Silversun Pickups? The Californian quartet who menacingly threatened to pick up Smashing Pumpkins’ mantle of lo-fi, low-slung guitar masterings once Corgan’s toys went out the pram? They’ve returned with anthemic ‘Panic Switch’ with sonic landscapes that roll over crests of crushing bass and androgynous vocals. Sublime. Paris’ adopted Londoner Dan Black shines up the diamond in the rough, buried, evidently, under six feet of glacial ice. ‘Symphonies’ layers sumptuous strings and ambient vocals reminiscent of The Postal Service over the hi-hat tisch of Rihanna’s ‘Unbrella’ and it’s wonderful. We ought claim this one back from les Français.

The artwork to The Mars Volta’s latest, ‘Cotopaxi’, depicting Mount Cotopaxi ought suffice to elevate the chaotically organised duo towards the top of the pile. The trace of a song in their space-funk confirms this concretely. Mind-manglingly maddening.

If Mystery Jets’ ‘Twenty One’ were teleported forward around a decade the result may well sound something akin to Flashguns. Whilst their brand of disjointedly enlightening indie may enchant, they put forward a Vice DON’T on the relationship front in ‘I Don’t Not Love You’. Buy, don’t try this at home. And the single album proper among all that? Marmaduke Duke’s ‘Duke Pandemonium’, which I’ve already given a grilling. In a positive George Forman way though…

So, if you’ve ever considered tackling an assault on Everest perhaps you’ll discard the idea right this second as if trawling through so much new music is that challenging, it’s hopeless. Unlike the mountain however, the CDs have now been flattened and await an undecided fate. If any tickle any fancies, answers on a postcard please.

Photo: John A Ward’s Flickr photostream

Vancouver has just been treated to some great music and no I’m not referring to Britney Spears and the debacle that went down at that concert. I’m talking some good ass jams with UK artists White Lies and Friendly Fires, presented by Sealed with a Kiss.

White Lies took the stage at around 9:50 to a crowd that was amped to hear them rock out. They started their set with Farewell to the Fairground, which is their current single. I was actually a bit confused as to why they started off with this song as you would think this song would be perfect to end their set. That thought soon popped out of my head as they were giving it their all in the song and getting the crowd singing and jumping along. Next up was the third official single To Lose My Life, again the crowd went crazy singing along to the chorus. Throughout the whole set the band would constantly thank the audience for being so great, the venue was definitely intimate, and yes everyone was showing the band a lot of love and they were definitely feeding off of that vibe.

The whole set was nothing short of amazing. They in fact went on to perform their whole album for the audience in attendance and finished the night of with their second official single Death. Audience in attendance were also treated to the song Nothing to Give, which Harry McVeigh said was only the second time this song had been performed live and you can’t help but get chills with the haunting lyrics. On a side note something I noticed that was pretty damn cool was lead singer Harry McVeigh’s sneakers. He was rocking some custom Nikes in black with gold accents, with “White Lies” going across the back portion of the sneaker. You can get something similar on Nike iD’s website, but you can’t get the metallic gold, which was a pretty sick touch to the sneaker. See the pictures below to catch a glimpse of said sneaker. During the show there was a glitch that stalled the performance for a a brief moment as they adjusted the microphones for the drum set on stage, but like I mentioned the White Lies performance was nothing short of amazing. Definitely a must catch show when this hits your city. Full set list below.

Next up on the schedule was Friendly Fires. There was a flurry of activity on the stage as they changed over the stage setup from White Lies to Friendly Fires. Friendly Fires opting to not have their drummer perched up on the stage, but instead having the whole band perform tightly together to feed off of each others energy. The band took the stage shortly after 11pm, as lead singer Ed Macfarlane took the mic and recalled the great time he had in Vancouver back in October 28th when they opened for Lykke Li at the same venue. The band quickly started their set with the upbeat jam Lovesick, as the music was playing away singer Ed Macfarlane went into his signature dancing slash twitching slash gyrating. This is something worth seeing live as its hard to describe, a few notches above Elaine Benes (Seinfeld), it was pure comedy, but hey the man was passionate about the music and why the fuck not, the songs are great. From Lovesick the band went into fan favorite and second official single Jump In The Pool and had everybody wildin’ out, there was not a single body standing still in the venue as music infected everyone’s body to dance as well as singing along the chorus.

The next song is one of my personal favorites with its funk/disco influenced vibe, Skeleton Boy. The band was great at keeping an energetic pace throughout that never slowed down and kept folks in the house partying. To show how much love they had for the crowd, Ed Macfarlane would jump into the crowd and sing from the dance floor with the crowd surrounding him, it was quite simply, EPIC. Not to be out done, guitarist Edd Gibson jumped into the crowd with his guitar and ran up to the balcony and ran back and forth greeting fans and strumming away on the guitar. Keeping the crowd involved. Check. The band played their hearts out as they were drenched in sweat from head to toe, shirts soaked through, beads of sweat dropping on the crowd in the front including yours truly. The set would end the first single that launched the band on the scene, Paris, as the song ended the band left the stage only to return after a brief moment to play Ex Lover as their encore. For the gear heads out there, I noticed Ed Macfarlane playing on the Moog Little Phatty as well as wailing away on the Akai MPC500, personally just thought that was very cool.

The complete bill was fantastic, the performances would make up for any of the glitches and set up delays that happened during the show and I can definitely say fans left amazed and in a euphoric high, this wasn’t just no hunch. Fans tweeted how great the show was, one concert goer, identitykrysis tweeted us “I’m not coming down from that high for at least two days kind of epic!” and friends of mine at the show said the same and were still talking about it the next night. Do yourself a favor, when either one of these acts rolls through, make sure you grab a ticket and get ready to get witness a live performance that you’ll never forget.

We want to thank Sealed with a Kiss for allowing us to attend the show and get photos. Visit their website, www.sealedwithakisspresents.com, often as they are constantly bringing in some great talent.

Check out our photos below from the event and visit our Flickr page to check out photos from past concerts / events. Also if you’re on Twitter, don’t forget to add us, @Killahbeez.

White Lies Set List:

• Farewell To The Fairground
• To Lose My Life
• E.S.T.
• From The Stars
• A Place To Hide
• Unfinished Business
• Fifty On Our Foreheads
• The Price Of Love
• Nothing To Give
• Death

Friendly Fires Set List:

• Lovesick
• Jump In The Pool
• Skeleton Boy
• In The Hospital
• White Diamonds
• Strobe
• Photobooth
• On Board
• Paris
• Encore —> Ex Lover

Check out more photos at www.killahbeez.com

Also check out our interview with White Lies here.

One of the world’s best loved and well known, if not muddy,  festivals sold out this morning, as music lovers snapped up the last few remaining tickets.

Final sales started at 9am, enabled those who had registered in the intial stages with photographic information to deter to touts, to get their musical mitts on the gold dust tickets.

Acts officially confirmed by www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk include Lily Allen, Fleet Foxes, Neil Young, Blur, Bruce Springsteen, Doves and White Lies to name a few. It is anticipated that the remaining headline acts will be announced in the next few weeks.

Radiohead and Kings Of Leon join Arctic Monkeys as headliners of Reading and Leeds Festival 2009. Prodigy, Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party all get second billing across the three days from Friady 28 to Sunday 30 August. Other bands added to the lineup include Placebo, Maximo Park, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fall Out Boy, Vampire Weekend, Ian Brown, Funeral For A Friend, Gossip, Glasvegas, White Lies, Florence & The Machine, Friendly Fires and Gallows. Tickets are on sale at seetickets.com or by calling 0871 231 0821.

Everyone has gone pop this week. The Noisettes, previously average creators of noisy indie, have morphed into Flares-friendly hitmakers, White Lies have taken their doom-mongering to the Brandon Flowers church of chartdom, while even Animal Collective have made a wonderfully accessible contribution. Then there is Metro Station, who couldn’t get more pop if they had a Disney star as a family member. Oh wait… Plenty to jump around to/chunter about regardless, so peruse for your pleasure.

The Noisettes – Don’t Upset The Rhythm
A 9/10 welcomes The Noisettes from Contact Music, which calls this “an upbeat galloping tune with a wonderfully catchy hook”. This lofty praise is continued by Female First, which loves this “sleek pop song, steeped in soul, dizzy on disco”, awarding 10/10.  The Northern Echo agrees that it “makes you definitely want to get up and dance”. The painstaking catchiness alone is worth 7/10. After hearing it once you will have it stuck in your head and may possibly buy a certain brand of car.

• MySpace

White Lies – Farewell To The Fair
After that love-in, hurrah for criticism – God Is In The TV thinks this song’s “cliche ridden lyrics (’Keep on running - there’s no place like home’) eventually drive one to violence” and votes it a 2/10 track. Angry Ape agrees that White Lies’ 1980s aping is “beginning to sound too outdated”. MSN contradicts by describing it as “a rip roaring and atmospheric anthem”. It’s clear to see why it’s been chosen as a single - the chorus goes all Killers – but it is 5/10 standard, simple stuff.

• MySpace

Metro Station – Shake It
They are touring with Fallout Boy, Miley Cyrus’ brother is their singer, need we go on? OK, BBC aptly calls it “like an episode of Skins, or those late-night Hollyoaks they do, in pop song form”. Yes, it’s a bit risqué, for brand Hannah Montana. Digital Spy observes that it is “Passable at best. Except, crucially, for the chorus, which is big” and decides on 6/10. About admits it is “instantly catchy” too. Its repetitive chorus smothers the song in a chart-bothering embrace, nabbing it a 5/10 in the process.

• MySpace

Animal Collective – My Girls
If the start sounded any more like The Shins it would crowbar itself into Garden State, which is no bad thing. Male First “love it”, revelling in a 10/10 “something special”. Alt Sounds comments that it is “an infectious ode to domestic joy delivered over blissed-out synth rhythms, compelling and catchy”. Sub City is another advocate of this “bouncing trip of exceptional psych pop”, which does gradually build into a cocoon of blissful mood music that is worthy of 8/10 and this week’s best single tag.

• MySpace

Two girls, a number one record and enough hype to power Hype Machine (TM) for the next few months, it can only be the arrival of one thing, the NME tour 2009. Another year, another tour, yet where mass hysteria greeted the then track-suited Arctic Monkeys and new rave’s favourite fluorescent adolescents Klaxons in years gone by, it’s a sombre, almost monotonous affair at the frozen heart of February.

White Lies and Glasvegas’ combined wardrobe feels almost dreary enough to induce a solar eclipse. Friendly Fires, sandwiched in between the overlords of quintessential British doom and gloom are left to try their damndest to recall their Notting Hill carnival-inspired festival shows of August and lighten the mood. And at the bottom of the pile, Florence Welch; the gawky, infuriating monster to the ‘Machine squawking over harps in a dingy toilet somewhere nearby soon. But she’s already bagged a Brit award. So the future must be as orange as her flittering fringe.

Inside the Academy, or the O2 Academy as it’s now soul-crushingly known, the walls of White Lies’ shoebox dressing room are quaking. Florence is ‘sound checking’, which loosely translates as bashing a drum in time with the heart rate of Pete Doherty experimenting with a defibrillator. It’s far from the glitz and glamour of the O2 Arena dressing rooms the West London trio shall doubtlessly be gracing this time next year, but bassist (and self-confessed guru pulling the strings and keeping the lies as white as false teeth) Charles Cave is in his element, adorned in black as if condemned to a life of perpetual mourning. He crosses his legs.

Josh Holliday: Three weeks on the famed NME tour. How’s that turned out?

Charles Cave: Only a week left. And then we’re going to… what’s it called again…? Europe.

JH: Right, that unheard of territory. Aside from tour itineraries and introductions let’s delve into sincerity, or lack of. For a band so young, your lyrics perhaps focus on aspects you wouldn’t necessarily expect from them. Do you feel in some respects, it’s difficult to interpret them as a genuine product?

CC: I don’t think so. Even when the lyrics are stories, I think the main focus and emotions of the stories are so obvious you don’t really have to take everything so literally. Loads of people are always saying all our songs revolve around death but that’s not really true. Even when it’s mentioned it’s not meant literally. None of us are really bothered about how we’re going to go or anything like that. It’s to do with the kind of loss that goes with it, how it feels to lose someone; whether it be a parent, a son, a friend. I think anyone can really relate to that.

JH: So is it from personal experience, or just a generic viewpoint?

CC: No, everything has to come from personal experience. I couldn’t write anything that was completely detached from myself. How can you be creative if it doesn’t come from personal life experience? If you were living in a white asylum box, then you’d have nothing to write about.

JH: I think you might have something to put to paper if you spent your life contained in a blank box…

CC: If you were born in there and never learnt to speak then you just… you wouldn’t…

JH: You wouldn’t be able to really write then, would you…?

CC: I don’t think anyone can really write lyrics that are completely irrelevant. Even when they’re fantasy and story, inspiration for that has to come from something they’ve gone through, even if they don’t know it and it’s written subconsciously.

[Florence bursts in, Motel bag in one hand, lemons, honey and lozenges in the other whilst darting across the room screaming]

JH: It’s quite important to gauge exactly how seriously you take yourselves. Perhaps a Dali-esque moustache wasn’t the best way to address that…

CC: No, you’re probably right. I got rid of that. We don’t take ourselves seriously at all, but we take our music ridiculously seriously to the point of dangerous obsession. On tour we’re pretty fun. Florence can vouch for that. We can get down and have a pretty good time.

JH: I suppose you’ve got familiarity on your side this time round, having toured with Glasvegas extensively as well as Friendly Fires on a previous NME jaunt…

CC: It’s odd actually cos we’ve been getting on best with Florence and her band. Not that we don’t like the others but maybe it’s an age thing. Friendly Fires and Glasvegas are lovely people but lovely people that tend to keep themselves to themselves a bit more.

JH: Glasvegas beg to differ; they reckon they’re showing you the ropes on how to rip the UK apart. Having said that, it’s not all spanners in the works. They did say your album would become the best of this year.

CC: They do seem like the wise old trees. And they’re like a proper family unit on tour. They’ve got cousins and brothers managing and tour managing and lighting so they’re all tied in somehow. They have their kind of family and it’s something of a Mafia situation. You don’t want to piss it off. We stay in our box, they stay in their mansion.

JH: What was it that made you decide you didn’t want to make music in the vein of Fear of Flying any more? There’s a stark contrast to the dark tales of doom and gloom of your debut…

CC: It’s hard to explain because we were doing Fear of Flying when we were 15 or 16, which is obviously an intense age bracket. You change as a person and effectively grow up and we were as impressionable as the next teenager with what you wear, what you listen to and for us being in a band, what we wanted to sound like. That’s linked to what we listened to and we had new favourite bands every week so we’d say let’s write a song like that this week.

JH: So you were doing anything but being yourselves effectively?

CC: We almost thought the worst mistake we could make was to be ourselves. Let’s do what people hopefully will want. The significant change with White Lies is that we got so fed up and became quite bitter about our lack of success and maybe recognition. We couldn’t understand why no one was paying attention. So one day we sat down and decided it wasn’t working. We lost a lot of support though; we deleted our MySpace page without any token farewell gigs and sent messages out saying where we could be found. This sounds lame but talking in terms of MySpace as everyone does nowadays we had something like 8000 friends and then said if anyone’s interested in what we’re up to, head over to our new site. We got loads of messages back saying ‘what the hell is this-is this a joke’ but then within a week we had 200 friends. And that’s the state of it. It demonstrates that a site like that is a very bad indication of who’s behind you. If we weren’t confident about White Lies being successful, we were confident about being happy with it.

JH: Finally, if nothing’s set in stone, do you see White Lies as another brick in the wall or is this the final product?

CC: I think as musicians, we’ll always be evolving. But we certainly feel like this is a safe vessel to be in now. We’re very comfortable with the band and the sound that’s coming out of us. But we’ll take every day as it comes. We’re already excited to see what shape the next record will take. We can’t write in the back of a tour bus so nothing’s under way as yet but it can all happen very quickly. We don’t settle for any tracks that we don’t feel are substandard. A producer told us that when David Bowie went in to record Hunky Dory he got told to play every song on a piano only using two fingers and if it still sounded amazing, then it was a brilliant song and that’s really stuck with us.

JH: Have you done that exact thing then and followed the steps of Bowie himself?

CC: Um well I’m so bad at piano that two fingers are about all I can manage. Luckily Harry’s pretty good so he can hack at least four.

Next: Josh gets aboard Glasvegas’ tour bus for a chat with the band…

Photo: Steve Gullick

The music at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas begins on the 13th March and will continue up until the 22nd with bands playing non stop showcases.

SXSW is a perfect stage for acts from the UK and the US to get noticed by major people in the music industry in the States and break the hard market. Past acts include Lily Allen, MGMT, Amy Winhouse, The Cool Kids, The Black Lips, Gallows and Mystery Jets.

This year is no exception, with up and coming and established artists and bands playing side by side across the city at all hours over the ten days. On the list this year you will find such bands as Explosions In The Sky, Ace Enders, The Spinto Band, Primal Scream and Fight Like Apes in the MASSIVE line up of acts playing various shops, hair dressers, bars, restaurants over the festivals many days.

The UK is represented in high numbers again this year at the festival with UK based acts such as White Lies, Esser, Ispo Facto, Future Of The Left and Rolo Tomassi all playing shows.

At the festival this year, the annual speakers spot goes to Quincy Jones. In years past, influential artists such as Pete Townsend of The Who and David Byrne from Talking Heads have spoken at the festival about their knowledge of the industry and careers.

Here are my ‘ones to watch’ at this years SXSW

Beach House
Balitmore’s Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally make up the dream pop indie duo Beach House.  Their two albums, Beach House (2006) and last years Devotion (2008) were praised by critics in both the UK and back home in the States. Already having got themselves a place on the high respected Bella Union record label, Beach House are a band everyone should hear.
MySpace

Mika Miko
Mika Miko are part of the scene in LA which is creating a buzz in the music industry. Along with other LA outfits such as No Age and HEALTH (who are also playing this year’s SXSW. The frantic punk sound of the all girl group create a exciting energy at their live shows and are not to be missed.
MySpace

Dananananaykroyd
Glasgow based dual drumming rock band Dananananaykroyd bring their powerful take on rock n roll to Austin. Already making critics water at the mouths with their lives shows, Dananananaykroyd promise to bring some fun to SXSW. Their debut album Hey Everyone! is released here in the UK in April on Best Before Records.
MySpace

Johnny Foreigner
Label mates of  Dananananaykroyd, Brimingham’s Johnny Foreigner create a sound that would be fit for any house party. Having released their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Waited Up Til It Was Light‘ on Best Before last year the band has gone strength to strength here in the UK.
MySpace

Micachu
Mica Levi, also known as Micachu, has been gracing the stages of London and creating a buzz that has gotten her support slots with bands such as Mystery Jets and Late Of The Pier. Recently she and her band The Shapes have signed to Rough Trade here in the UK and will release their debut titled Jewellery in March.
MySpace

While the industry dinosaurs struggle to adapt in a new age of music consumerism, it warms our cockles when a cheeky band seem to break through and enagage a global audience with complete disgregard for boring old traditions like ‘get signed by a major’ and ’spend big bucks on printing and distributing CDs’. The Boxer Rebellion have made headlines both sides of the Atlantic for climbing atop the download charts without major label backing and funding to produce physical CDs. And the fusty old UK chart system won’t recognise them simply because a CD doesn’t exist.

The ballsy Boxers have mobilized over 10,000 MySpace fans and 17,000 last.fm listeners and, having just released their second album Union exclusively via iTunes, they are now threatening the top 10 of the alternative album charts in both the UK and US. They may not have a label but they definitely have some great PR behind them.

So if you like a big, sweeping guitar landscape of throaty angst rock in the style of the Editors (and it seems to be working quite well for White Lies at the moment) then what have you got to lose in getting on the new Boxer Rebellion fan bandwagon and downloading a free MP3 of single Evacuate from iTunes UK this week? Go on - they’re actually quite good. But be sure to complete the karmic circle and actually spend a bit of dosh downloading their album, apparently they need the money… and wouldn’t it be great if they made it to number 1 on downloads alone and highlighted an outdated chart system?

• download Evacuate - free from iTunes UK

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon

photo: Tessa Angus

If you believe the BBC, then you’d be lead to believe that 2009 is the year of the synth. Their annual Sound of 2009 list is stuffed full to bursting of electro-tinged wonders that’ll no doubt end up going the way of the Joe Lean and his infamous Jing Jang Jong (remember them? Thought not). Their identikit beats and sample infused melodies will surely be no good for more than half a year, tops, whereas the guitar is getting stronger than ever. Don’t believe me? Then feast your eyes on the following five fantastic reasons to get excited in the guitar all over again:

Muse
Top of any guitar aficionado’s list, surely. The stadium-filling trio are currently locked away penning the follow up to 2006’s #1 album Black Holes And Revelations. Noises made by mad, axe-wielding frontman Matt Bellamy suggest that their particular brand of prog-space-rock may be going even more supermassive. Personally I can’t wait.

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon / Spotify

Red Light Company
A band that first appeared on my radar back in 2007. They’ve had a string of good singles, and the six tracks I’ve heard from the album so far are all coming along really well. In particular, Scheme Eugene is a quality track, and just begs to be listened to. These guys are definitely worth getting excited over.

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Spotify

White Lies
These do actually feature on the Beeb’s list, in fairness, and with good reason. Their debut album To Lose My Life comes out today (19th Jan) and I’ve had a copy kicking about for well over a week now. It’s not an immediate hit, and warrants a few listens, but you’ll definitely be well rewarded. The trio are just begging to play stadiums, and their music lends itself to that kind of medium effortlessly.

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon

Green Day
One band you can guarantee on to not electo-tinge their music is Green Day. American Idiot made and lost them a lot of fans, however went on to sell millions of records. If you’ve heard the band members’ new songs under the pseudonym of the Foxboro Hot Tubs then no doubt you’ll already be dusting down the black eye shadow. Gloriously rock’n’roll, the new six track EP reminded everyone just why we fell in love with the band in the first place. An album is on the cards this year, and it’s going to be L-O-U-D.

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon / Spotify

Arctic Monkeys
Rumours are rife that Alex Turner has stopped being all melancholy and melodramatic and a third Arctic Monkeys record may be on the cards. The band’s previous two albums don’t really need hyping up any more, and hopefully the third will prove to be even better. There’s a certain apprehension in the air though, because after two quality albums and an impressive side project, surely there can’t be any more good songs up Turner’s sleeves?

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon / Spotify

Agree? Disagree? Let me know who your money’s on for the next 12 months.

I’ve just decided to download To Lose My Life, the debut album from West London trio White Lies who have been tipped as one of the biggest bands of 2009 (well this is what I’ve been told by many music magazines and other forms of media that create an exaggerated hype around mediocre bands). I try to avoid the hype but there comes a time when a man has to stand up and be counted and actually find out for himself whether a band needs to be given credit. Credit should be given where credit is due of course.

As soon as I played the first track, Death,  I knew that White Lies were not a ‘bad’ band, which was quite pleasing. So already they’re a step ahead of The Hoosiers, actually most bands are several flights of stairs ahead of The Hoosiers so I’ll say they’re probably an escalator better than them.

Editors spring to mind as the album progresses. Although, Editors are a good band they are basically a low-calorie Joy Division, diluted and filtered. So does this mean White Lies are just another band that sound like Joy Division but aren’t just quite as good? It’s so much easier to criticise bands so I try to be objective and give this band a listen to without comparing or labelling them.

First track Death is definitely catchy but not so much that it causes you to be violently ill. After a slow start it doesn’t quite rip through into a big, rewarding chorus but instead it nicely blends into a decent memorable hook. But towards the end the guitars and drums finally spiral out of control as lead singer Harry McVeigh yells ‘This fears got a hold on me’.

So while Death sticks in my mind, the obvious big hitter is To Lose My Life. It could actually be passed as an Editors track (oh dear, I’m comparing again), which isn’t a bad thing of course. After another slow build up ‘let’s grow old together and die at the same time’ is belted out by McVeigh and I begin to realise that this is the song will escalate (not the moving stairs type) this band into stardom as my head and feet begin to move in synchronicity.

The use of synths throughout the album adds an 80s feel to it - somewhat like Depeche Mode. The penultimate track in particular, Nothing to Give, relies heavily on the synths.  McVeigh’s haunting vocals (’I wish that I could say that I have no regrets but saying that would be one more to pile on my desk’) serve to enhance the sombre mood.

With Joy Division-esque drum beats and memorable hooks, listening to White Lies has actually been quite enjoyable and you should probably buy it. There is quite a dark undertone withall those blood and death lyrics. White Lies seem to be following a popular trend of Goth rock in the music industry at present - as indicated by Glasvegas’ rise to stardom. So popular indeed that both of these bands will be travelling the country as part of the annual NME awards tour - of which I shall hopefully tell you many stories of gladness from when I return. 7/10

MySpace / iTunes / last.fm / Amazon

While Christmas is a time of gifts, this is not the case for the singles business. The bleak new year, on the other hand, brings promises of new albums to plug and fresh music to hear. Figures from the BPI have even revealed a 33 per cent rise in singles sales, so forget the cold snap and see if you warm to this week’s selection of songs.

White Lies – To Lose My Life
So much has been written about this bunch in the past few weeks that it is easy to forget they do make their own music, however heavily it borrows from Joy Division and Editors et all. Angry Ape calls it “melancholic indie that will fit snugly between your Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen CDs”. Another 8/10 comes from Digital Spy for its “morbid lyrics” and Joy Division sound. MSN gets 8/10 from me for not mentioning Joy Division, but does call it “splendidly morbid”. Yes, it is a bit Ian Curtis, it is a bit downbeat and it is a worth 8/10.

• download from iTunes
• download from Amazon

Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
Franz are back and, rather disappointingly, Alex Kapranos’ suggestions that they may have gone all Girls Aloud don’t ring true. For a start, Sarah Harding surely hasn’t read her classics. Digital Spy gives this 6/10 for its “mixture of creeping bass and flashy synths”. Buzzinmusicblog applauds it for being a “return to the sort of dirty, scratchy guitar riffs of old” but Zimbio goes overboard with an 8/10 for being “just big venue, loud, brash, fun rock ‘n’ roll”. It is a record of pretend pretence and really just wants to get bodies on dancefloors, which gets it 7/10 from us.

• available from 19 Jan

Travis – Song To Self
It’s far too easy to suggest Travis should have kept Song To Self to themselves, but it’s also all too true. Holy Moly is kind to call it “floppy, soft rock plod”. Female First lays the high heel in, awarding a somewhat kind 2/10. Clickmusic abandons sanity and states it is “clear that Travis are re-invigorated and ready to rock the early part of 2009″, giving it 8/10. Fran and the boys get a 3/10 from us – begrudgingly.

• download from iTunes
• download from Amazon

TV On The Radio – Dancing Choose
The arch art rockers get around to releasing this properly and are rightly lauded for it. City Life gives the band 8/10, citing the “sweet pop chorus” among the twisted lyrics. The Guardian even heralds it as an example of why the band won the newspaper’s album of the year poll. Its “jittery, twinkling, high speed delivery” is aptly noted by Strangeglue and the superior nature of the single is also backed up by a wonderfully weird video. All of that is deserving 7/10 in any format.

• download from iTunes
• download from Amazon

Amongst freshly cut grass, children playing in the snow and the late October appearance of Christmas decorations in my local supermarket here is a list of discernibly nice things that are nice to like ( in no particular order):

Cage The Elephant — My new favourite band. I shall not bore you with blurb, but the boys met via a hippy commune in the deep south of America, stole the show on Never Mind the Buzzcocks a couple weeks back and rocked the chapel at the first gig of the Mencap Little Noise Sessions this week- Think jumping on pews and causing a right ‘ol ruckass. Great gig featuring White Lies, The Killers and Glasvegas — Eleanor Conway Presents: Glasvegas interview — to come shortly.

Stricken City — spangling, jangling pop — perfect for the Crimbo season. You should go see them just on the strength of Rebekah Raa’s (singer) name alone. Quality.

Ladyhawke — She’s a lady, but no hawk—She’s doing wicked things since speaking with us a month ago (check out the interview here) and her new video for Delirium is unleashed on the general public on the 8th of Dec….

Say aha - perhaps in a Alan Partridge or a Morton Harket kind of way but preferably in a Santogold’s latest-single-kind-of way… ‘Aha’ by Santogold. Released soon. The 24th of November to be exact.

Don’t forget to join the Eleanor Conway Presents: facebook page here for your chance to win a signed copy of Goldfrapp’s album ‘Seventh Tree’

And don’t forget to vote for Eleanor Conway to win the the Global VPass competition, closing ends end of November and you could win tickets to your local V Festival as well as a warm fuzzy feeling……… Click here to vote.

The musical bastard sons of stunted band ‘Fear of Flying’ are off to the Iceland Airwaves festival next week with deeply lauded and newly formed band ‘White Lies’. They’ll be playing on the same bill as Vampire Weekend, CSS and Simian Mobile Disco.

Eleanor Conway chats to Harry McVeigh, lead singer of White Lies.

EC: What are you guys up to at the moment?

HM: We’ve just been touring around the UK, finished now a couple days ago.

EC: What was the highlight?

HM: Definitely the London show, we all live in West London so we got all of our friends and family down, it was quite a big deal.

EC: Is it true that it’s more nerve wracking performing to people that you know?

HM: In some ways yeah, the only time my parents had seen me perform was at our first show in February and that was shit scary like terrified, this all paled in comparison.

EC: For people that don’t know too much about White Lies, what should they know do you think?

HM: Our music is very epic, ambitious, we try and incorporate different sounds and take our songs into different directions yet they’re all of a very similar subject matter lyrically and sometimes structurally.

EC: You talk of ambition, what would be your ultimate ambition with White Lies?

HM: We’ve already achieved a lot of ambitions as musicians, we’ve made an album we’re really, really proud of, we’ve just finished our first headline tour, and that was a big ambition of mine. It was an amazing feeling to be able to play to people every night that have paid to see you play. So, I think we’ve realized our ambitions already I hope that we can carry on doing it for a number of years and hopefully get out to a wider audience.

EC: White Lies is the musical bastard son of your previous band ‘Fear of Flying’. What happened, why the change?

HM: We started Fear of Flying when we were very young, we were probably 16 or 17 years old, and obviously we had a lot to learn, and we learnt that in Fear of Flying. If you listen to the songs at the beginning to when we started that band and towards the end, there was a huge learning curve, I think we struck upon something unique in White Lies, and we definitely deserved to change the name.

EC: The sound of White Lies is very grandiose and genuinely very cinematic and you’ve been compared to some really amazing people. Does that scare you in the sense that it’s a lot to live up to or does it spur you on?

HM: No it’s a compliment, bands like Echo and The Bunnymen and Interpol we’ve been compared to a lot, are bands that we listen to a lot. I think it’s a really big compliment I’m glad people are making those comparisons it’s a really good thing.

EC: If you could assemble a fantasy band living or dead, who would you put on vocals, on guitar, on drums, on bass?

HM: Oh god that’s a really tough question. Jimi Hendrix has always been our favourite guitarist although you would never hear that in our music, he’s the person that inspired me to pick up the guitar, he was an incredibly talented musician and well ahead of his time so I’d have him on guitar. On drums I’d have Dave Grohl, because one of my favourite bands growing up was Queens of the Stone Age and he made an album with them called ‘Songs for the Deaf’ and his drumming on that is amazing, obviously his drumming in Nirvana was incredible. So Dave Grohl on drums. On bass I’d have….. god it’s a really hard question actually, erm, the Interpol bassist is absolutely amazing he writes very good basslines, I think his name is Carlos Dengler. And on vocals I’d have someone like Bjork, I think she’s an amazing singer.

EC: Ah I love you, I love Bjork…… That brings us to my next question, you’re playing the Iceland Airwaves festival next week, who are you looking forward to seeing?

HM: Oh I timed that in very well….

EC: Yeah good job.

HM: I haven’t seen the lineup, it’s a very mysterious place and festival for me, I’ve never really heard anything about it, I’m really excited to go over, I’m excited to see the country itself….

EC: Well I’ve got the lineup in front of me, CSS, Vampire Weekend, The Young Knives, Robots in Disguise, Simian Mobile Disco, any of those take your fancy?

HM: I’m a fan of Vampire Weekend, Jack our drummer runs a club night and label and introduced them to me early on, I think they are a great band. I think their album is very interesting, they are very clever people. I’ll definitely try and get out and see them.

EC: I think anyone that can write a song about an element of punctuation is definitely good, I didn’t know what an Oxford Comma was before.

HM: I know!

EC: You’re called ‘White Lies’ but what’s the most saintly thing you have done recently?

HM: Oooh that’s a hard question, I’m sure I have done some nice things in the past, I’m not a complete arsehole.

EC: Perhaps expelling your music upon the ears of the youth that’s the nicest thing you have done recently.

HM: (laughs) Yeah, perhaps.

White Lies appear at the Iceland Airwaves Festival on the 18th October 2008.

http://www.icelandairwaves.com/

White Lies site

http://www.whitelies.com/

Words: Eleanor Conway

http://www.elle-online.com