It was meant to be at The Westgarth Social Club in Middlesbrough, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve had to move the gig over to The Georgian Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees. All original tickets are still valid, and there’s still tickets left – priced at just £6.50 in advance – from WeGotTickets and Seetickets etc if you want to get involved!

I will be doing a little talk/Q & A up in Newcastle at Dance City this Wednesday on behalf of the fine folks at Generator.

If you’re interested in becoming a music promoter, then it could be a good opportunity for you to pick up some top tips! Full info can be found here:

http://www.generator.org.uk/event/compact-starting-live-music-business

The single was played at half time during Middlesbrough’s thrilling 0-0 draw with Ipswich at The Riverside Stadium on Saturday too – it sounded splendid through those big speakers!

The single is released on Monday 24th October through Pay For The Piano Recordings.

And by worse bands, I mean pretty much every band that has ever existed bar maybe The Dismemberment Plan, Stapleton, Field Music, M83 and Phoenix.

If you’re not familiar with Dugong, shame on you. They split up a fair few years ago, but you should go and buy their back catalogue (or at least stream the tracks) from the Bombed Out Records website:

http://www.bombedout.com/bands/dugong

They’re touring to coincide with the release, if you’re a promoter – contact lifelessboro@gmail.com to get them booked. Confirmed dates at the moment are as follows:

24th Sept - Whitmore, Manchester
29th Sept - Head of Steam, Durham
1st Oct - Duke of Wellington, Lincoln
23rd Oct - Fish Tank, Durham
26th Oct - Riverside, Selby
29th Oct - Venue tbc, Newcastle
30th Oct - Venue tbc, Huddersfield
31st Oct - Atik, Middlesbrough - RECORD RELEASE PARTY!!!
14th Nov - The Empire, Middlesbrough
2nd Dec - House Show, Sheffield
17th Dec - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Photograph by Robin Chamberlain - 83 Photography

Anyway, the wonderful Cattle & Cane have previewed a new track from their forthcoming EP and do you know what? It sounds like it’d fit perfectly with an episode of One Tree Hill:

Helen’s voice is amazing in this song, isn’t it?

I put on the first ever Cattle & Cane gig, so I always feel a little bit proud when they do something good. Like this song. Or like T In The Park. Or like sold out gigs across the region.

Lovely people and a lovely band. Lovely.

http://www.worldofshit.co.uk/?p=192

You can pre-order the album directly from Lifeless: http://www.lifeless.bandcamp.com and be sure to check out their new video if you haven’t already done so… and see if you can spot a little cameo from yours truly:

It’s the last song that DARTZ!/Dartz recorded. Probably worth a listen if you like that sort of thing!

In other news, I’m having a jam with a couple of mates tomorrow with the intention of doing some kind of melodic punk-rock thing in the vein of Leatherface/Hot Water Music/Samiam/Gaslight Anthem/Milloy/Polar Bear Club et al. The last two jams I’ve had, I’ve hated and never wanted to play music with anybody else ever again… hopefully that won’t happen again!

When I was 13 years old, I set up a hotmail address using this song title as the username. The song is The Right Escape and the band is Idaho. All these years later, I still think it’s bloody lovely. Enjoy.

Pylon played their last ever gig on the Sunday night and to say they’ll be sorely missed is a massive understatement. I’ve got to know them quite well as people over the past few years and was fortunate enough to share a stage with them on a few occasions back in the DARTZ! days so it’s hard to articulate how I genuinely feel about their music without coming across as a bit creepy… I’ll just keep it simple and say that they’ve been a pretty important band in my musical upbringing!

Thankfully Chris Pylon’s new band Protectors are pretty nifty too, eh? Cheers to everybody who picked up one of the Protectors Party Bags at OOS – fair to say that they were probably the fastest selling Pay For The Piano Recordings release to date! Get me on the Apprentice. I’ve saved the music industry. Who’d have thought that putting a CD, a bottle opener, a t-shirt and a few stickers inside a tote bag would prove so popular… tote-ally brilliant.