Tuesday 10 May 2016

THIS SATURDAY - PLANK LIVE AT MANCHESTER PSYCH FEST IV | NIGHT & DAY & AATMA


PLANK make their live return at Manchester Psych Fest, this Saturday. Taking place at Night & Day and the former-Kraak-now-Aatma there's loads on across the day.
We're not sure of set times at yet but keep an eye on @MancPsychFest for updates.
Info on the Facebook page here too.

Tickets available from here.








Wednesday 20 January 2016

THIS FRIDAY : SONGS FOR WALTER ALBUM LAUNCH AT SOUP KITCHEN | MANCHESTER


This Friday - Songs For Walter celebrate the launch of their eponymous debut album on Akoustik Anarkhy at one of favourite haunts, Soup Kitchen.

Early show this one with super strict stage times

Doors 7.30pm
Fully Mared on stage 8.00pm
Songs For Walter on stage 9.00pm

We'll have copies of the album on CD and LP for sale on the night.

Tickets £5 from here 
Facebook event page here

Album available now via Bandcamp:

 
  




Tuesday 15 December 2015

SONGS FOR WALTER | DEBUT ALBUM OUT ON aA | JANUARY 2016


They say youth is wasted on the young. It’s something Walter, the late grandfather of guitar-wielding and song- writing troubadour of Manchester based Laurie Hulme, would probably have agreed with. As nom-de-plume Songs For Walter, Laurie’s eponymous debut album is a record that’s as much a brutally honest tribute to the legacy of Walter, as it is a stirring portrayal of Songs For Walter himself.


The album is an astute melodic recounting of his grandfather’s wildly curious tales. Whether telling of Walter’s dabbling with communism in the 1930s on first single ‘Useless’, his hatred of space travel (‘Moon/Two Out Of Ten’) or his love story from first date (‘Meet Me At The Empire’) to being painted head to toe in iodine on his wedding day (‘Purple Blue’), brought together through Songs For Walter’s divergent take on alternative folk through placing dreamy lo-fi meanderings and indie rock punch.



Songs For Walter will be available on gatefold 12" clear vinyl, CD and Digital Download; each version with a slightly different tracklisting, but all lovingly created with artwork featuring photographs from Laurie’s family album.


You can pre-order the album via here.

There's also a launch party on January 22nd at Manchester's Soup Kitchen - you can book tickets here & we'll be posting more details very soon...


 

 

It's good to be back - we'll have details of further releases in 2016 very soon...

Thursday 24 September 2015

THIS WEEKEND >>> #PZYK #PZYK #PZYK #PZYK #PZYK #PZYK #PZYK @LPOOLPSYCHFEST


So it's that time of the year again, the annual Liverpool Psych Fest returns to Camp and Furnace for it's fourth congregation of all things #PZYK. A hugely exciting collection of ground breaking modern psychedelic music in all it's forms, it easily ranks as one of the best festivals out there.  We've been every year & it just gets better & better....

The line up for this year is as follows:



 Too, too much good stuff all weekend.
If you've not got a ticket yet then we're not really sure what to say other get yourself sorted now & head down...

We're hyped to be asked to DJ outside on the Friday - keep an eye on Twitter for full details. 

Full DJ line up below...


& to get you in the mood, here's a nice PZYKMIX from Black Devil Disco Club...


 
A visual guide...






Tuesday 8 September 2015

STEPHEN STEINBRINK & JULIE BYRNE co-headline tour, play The Eagle Inn on Friday 11th September


 Two of America's great young wanderers and a couple of real aA faves STEPHEN STEINBRINK and JULIE BYRNE will fly the Atlantic this September and embark on a co-headline tour around the UK next week following appearances at the End Of The Road festival.

Stephen's latest single:



Here's the video for Julie Byrne's current single populating the airwaves 'Prism Song':


 
The tour runs...

Weds 9th Sept: Brighton - The Arts Club
Thurs 10th Sept: London - St Pancras Old Church
Fri 11th Sept: Manchester / Salford - The Eagle Inn
Sat 12th Sept: Liverpool - Studio 2, Parr Street Studios
Sun 13th Sept: Hebden Bridge - Trades Club


STEPHEN STEINBRINK is a 27 year old songwriter and recording engineer born and raised in the arid desert of Arizona and currently floating around the western USA, dividing his time between the green spaces around Olympia, Washington and the concrete flats of Oakland, California. Having spent the better part of a decade touring North America and Europe in buses, vans, and trains, his wanderlust travels shaped his stunning breakthrough album 'Arranged Waves', released last year on Melodic. 

Truly engaged with the unintelligible and absurd, Steinbrink is more cultural observer than 21st century busker with his intelligently cool left-of-centre approach to a sincere melody, using pop tropes to convey something deeper. At the same time, it’s his lyrics that mark Steinbrink out as a true punk troubadour trying to how to figure out how to be a person in the world.



24 year old JULIE BYRNE has counted Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Northampton, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, New Orleans and New York as her home in recent years and spent the majority of the last two years on the road. It's these travels and new places that inspire and influence her most, giving us a glimpse inside her own quietly mystical world and her unique slant on the one the rest of us happen to inhabit. 

Her debut long player 'Rooms With Walls and Windows', released last year on Orindal is a true modern-day word of mouth success and was voted number 7 in Mojo's best albums of the year and Huffington Post called it "2014's Great American Album". It's a stunning set of front porch psych-folk that unknowingly recalled the greats - Vasthi Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Karen Dalton - but very much for our time. For all her otherworldliness, there is a realism too to Byrne, she is street smart and more punk in spirit than searching for the hippie ideal.

Friday 6 March 2015

NOT aA BUT TONIGHT @KRAAKSPACE it's @_NIGHTFANTASY W/ @MELODICRECORDS @LOULOUPEMBERS & @VISUALS0UND


We're getting involved with Night Fantasy this evening...here's what they say..

Busting out of Kosmonaut to a back-alley near you, Night Fantasy bring their plates of peak time biker disco, tripped out electronics and throbbing analogue grooves to KRAAK for a night of certified dancefloor destruction.

Joining us for this evening of high-class entertainment will be a selection of some of Manchester's finest sleaze-bags who will be mounting the decks at various points during the night in a display of intensely erotic sonic behaviour.

So buckle-up, this ain't gonna be pretty.

Lou Lou (Dance Lady Dance)
Lego (aA / Loffel / VisualS0und)
Josh (Thinking Out Loud)
+ Night Fantasy Residents

  FREE ENTRY ALL NIGHT.

Friday 6th March
Kraak, 11 Stevenson Sq, Manchester
11pm until 4am

Facebook event here
RA listing here 

@_nightfantasy / @kraakspace
Night Fantasy Spundcloud

 For a sense of music to be played, hear this...

 
 

Wednesday 18 February 2015

NOT aA BUT STEPHEN STEINBRINK | FRIDAY FEB 20TH | THE ROADHOUSE


This Friday Stephen Steinbrink touches down at The Roadhouse in Manchester, then at The 3 Wise Monkeys in Todmorden on Saturday...

Stephen Steinbrink fled the confines of the church, joined a travelling quiz team (really!) and toured the length and breadth of the United States collecting field recordings, forming bands and releasing many a fine record. His latest of which 'Arranged Waves' came out on our friends at Melodic last year...


A left of the center pop album sounding like a mix of Neil Young, Paul Simon, Steely Dan and even R. Steve Moore a bit - he plays the UK this week, playing The Roadhouse on Friday and solo in Todmorden on the Saturday. If you're around we recommend you get yourself down to them..

Facebook Manchester gig
Facebook Todmorden gig

UPDATE: We'll be playing some records at The Roadhouse show- say hello!



20/02: UK, Manchester, The Roadhouse
21/02: UK, Todmorden, The 3 Wise Monkeys (Stephen Solo Show)
22/02: London, Waiting Room
23/02: UK, Bristol, The Lantern

Friday 16 January 2015

RIP KIM FOWLEY | 1939 - 2015



We were sad to hear this morning that Kim Fowley, the Sunset Strip scenester, maverick genius & world class raconteur, had died at his Los Angeles home. He was 75. 
'Fowley was born in 1939 to Singin' in the Rain actor Douglas Fowley and actress Shelby Payne and grew up in Los Angeles and around southern California. After a bout with polio in 1957, he began a career in the music industry, producing his first single – the Renegades' "Charge" – in 1959. In the Sixties, worked with Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Seeds and Gene Vincent, among others, as well as launching his own solo career; his 1968 LP Outrageous, Fowley's third, was the only one to chart in the U.S. Fowley closed out the Sixties by MCing John Lennon's performance at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, where he asked the audience to hold up its cigarette lighters, arguably starting the concert fad.

The Seventies found Fowley working with the Modern Lovers, Blue Cheer and Helen Reddy. He also co-wrote songs on Kiss' hit Destroyer and a "Escape" on Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare. Fowley and the Runaways severed their ties in 1977, after which he set out to find another group he could market as a novelty. Although he worked with a few groups over the ensuing decades and continued to put out his own solo LPs, none reached the success or notoriety of the Runaways.

In the 2000s, he tried his hands at experimental film, and in 2012, he won a special jury prize for innovation and audaciousness at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival for his films Golden Road to Nowhere and BlackRoomDoom. In 2014, Fowley made an appearance in Beyoncé's "Haunted" video.'


We did a show with Kim at In The City 2003, 'Rocket To Stardom'. We said at the time:  "legendary singer, songwriter, producer, blagger & all round music genius is coming to town, to show us how to put on a real show"


As he himself described it over many early morning LA to Manchester phone calls, "Rocket To Stardom will feature the return of the American Syd Barrett STEVEN T & I'm also promising drag queens, midgets, dancing girls, dwarfs, very special guests & famous friends..."

  We'll post some photos and, if we can find them, reviews from the night later on. Click here for an interview with Kim on Spectropop that was done that weekend.

SoftPreist was a big Kim Fowley fan & often played his tracks, especially this one: 



UPDATE: Just found this page on Kim Fowley's own website that documents his trip to Europe in 2003 - visiting Manchester, In The City & of course aA...photos below:
  
The Bodyguard & Stevie T
Kim at aA
Kim's In The City pass




Kim and Charlie outside aA @ Gardens Hotel 2003 
RIP Kim

Tuesday 25 November 2014

PLANK | LIVE AT DRILL FESTIVAL BRIGHTON | SATURDAY DEC 06TH


PLANK are gearing up their last show of 2014 and it's looking a good one - playing at DRILL, Brighton on the Saturday of the festival. 

The full schedule has now been released, click here for details. PLANK are on at 7:00pm at Audio on Saturday 6th December. 

The line up is super impressive - also performing over the weekend are Wire, Savages, British Sea Power, The Wedding Present, TOY, Courtney Barnett and over 100 other bands. 

Tickets can be purchased from here.



 

Tuesday 28 October 2014

PLANK | LAST SHOWS OF 2014 | MANCHESTER & BRIGHTON


2014 has been one hell of a year for PLANK following the release of Hivemind (we're down to the last handful of copies btw - vinyl and CD) but it's not quite over yet....

They've a couple more gigs to go - one more in Manchester booked in on November 10th at Ruby Lounge with one of their favourite bands Trans-Am. A double header well worth getting out on a Monday night for and be warned it could be PLANK's last hometown show for a good while as they hibernate for the winter to start mulling over album three.


10th November at Ruby Lounge, 
Trans Am + Plank, Doors 7:30pm
£10 advance

PLANK are then off to Brighton for DRILL Festival in December..


DRILL, which is curated by Wire and One Inch Badge and will take place 4th - 7th December at various venues across Brighton, has also announced individual line ups for each day with day tickets going onsale at Midday Monday 27th October 2014.

The four-day event will see a multitude of incredible artists performing, including Wire, SWANS, Savages, Toy, Courtney Barnett, Gold Panda, The Wytches, Claudio Simonetti’s GOBLIN performing SUSPIRIA, MONO (JPN), East India Youth, Telegram, and a one-off world exclusive collaboration between Wire & SWANS. Highlights added today include a special performance from British Sea Power with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet at All Saints Church, the Mercury Prize nominated Young Fathers, These New Puritans, Cassetteboy Vs DJ Rubbish, Three Trapped Tigers, Esben & the Witch, Fujiya & Miyagi, Zu, PLANK, LoneLady & Many more. There will also be a host of artists, talks, & films being showcased and many more bands to be announced over the coming weeks.

Having previously created DRILL : FESTIVAL events in both London and Seattle, this is the biggest & most ambitious to date. It’s a way of exploring the impact Wire have had on groups from younger generations & also to give them the opportunity for the band to connect with both new & established artists whose work they find inspiring.


PLANK play the Saturday - day tickets available here, weekend ones here.



Links & such:

LATE aA COVERAGE | LIVERPOOL PSYCH FEST | PHOTOS & VIDEO | SEPT 2014

Bit late on this....


 Now in it's third year, Liverpool Psych Fest is firmly established itself as Europe's best showcase of new music that roughly falls under the description of 'modern psychedelia'. Or to be briefer, it's very ace. 

Clash Music and Drowned In Sound, amongst others, have already written pretty comprehensive reviews of the 2014 event so give them a read, this is more just a few photos & video taken across the weekend. 

aA DJ'd in The Camp on the Friday evening (video below) after PLANK opened things up.

PLANK live in The Camp on the Friday

 Dan Tombs TV installation artwork


Limited run #PZYK vinylfrom the Piccadilly Records pop up shop

 #PZYKLHOPS festival ale - brew footage here


 aA DJ-ing in The Camp on the Friday evening


&; in the Moroccan tent on the Saturday...


As ever the visuals across the festival were amazing - by Sam Wiehl - check out the video below too.