THE GIG LIST – NUMBER 35

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For those long term Recommender followers, you will have seen how this blog has improved and grown, step by step, into the beautiful monster it is today.  Well, to all of you, here’s our biggest leap of evolution yet!

The Recommender will now be throwing monthly blog parties at a venue in the centre of the city in which this blog was born, Brighton, UK.  As one of England’s youngest and most forward thinking cities, it seems the perfect home.  We will be showcasing the excellent music that we’ve been critiquing on the blog over recent years, so expect cutting edge cool, each and every month.

RECOMMENDER MIXTAPE # 1

Alongside the two live performances from our hand-picked bands, we will have a few additional, unique, regular features.  As Seth Godin once proclaimed, “be remarkable”, “be that purple cow”, so we are taking a fresh approach, throwing proper parties, with ingredients that people have never experienced before…

How will we do this?  Well, these extra features include one of our cities rising stars in the world of fashion photography, Eleni Mettyear, who will be setting up her monthly ‘Photoboosh‘.  An area all her own where she will be capturing portraits of all you beautiful people, so bring your best face.  All subsequent shots will appear for your review on it’s own section on The Recommender.

Additionally, we’ve recruited Brighton’s talented designers of couture lingerie, the Ophelia Fancy girls.  They will be joining us, dressed, (or should that be undressed), in their unbelievably gorgeous outfits handing out goodies to all who attend.

The items being given out at the end of each and every party will include The Recommender’s Gift Bags.  Among lots of other exciting bits, these will always include Recommender badges, stickers and the soon to be legendary Recommender Mixtapes, (see above), which will be a mix of the music we have blogged.  Each one will be unique to that night’s party.

As for our launch event, we will have Woo!worths hitting the stage first, an amazing local band, who blast out hook-filled electro pop.  It will be the ideal party-starter and we couldn’t be more pleased to be a part of their rapid ascendancy.

Headlining the night will be Plugs, one of the most upbeat and enjoyable indie dance acts of recent years.  This is the new project from Morgan Quaintance, formerly with Does It Offend You, Yeah?.  If anyone knows how to whip the crowd into a creamy froth then it’s this masterful group of performers.

Every night we will also have the magical Battery Powered DJs, a pair of proper Brighton scenesters.  There’s a reason they appear at every cool event in town, because they know how to own the dancefloor.  They’ve agreed to play selections that are purely from The Recommender’s awesome archives.

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Tickets are available from Ape, Resident and Rounder Records.  If you can’t get to the shops in person, simply phone them and ask them to put a ticket on the door for you and they’ve agreed to help.  It’s only £3 advance and £4 on the door, as we seriously don’t want anyone missing out on the action.

This is the future of partying.  Welcome to the purple cow evolution…
(MB)

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THE RECOMMENDER – NUMBER 42

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The below artists are precisely why we do this blog. A wide collection of sounds and fresh invention, brilliantly mixing up genres and continuing to slowly push music in the right direction – forwards.

MPHO

Brixton has always been a mixed up place on London’s map. Although often mired in it’s working class roots, variety of sub-cultures and a chequered history involving riots and crime, it’s also produced some of the best musicians we’ve ever known. This has continued with the recent arrival of La Roux, but now it’s given us this new talent by the name of MPHO. Refreshingly she takes her influences from a very wide range of genres, clashing against the  typical black music casts of Hip Hop and R&B. More in the mould of Santigold, or Outkast, with her bag full of samples, (listen to the excellent lick that’s plucked from Martha & The Muffins 80′s hit, ‘Echo Beach‘, for example). It’s packed full of grit and humour in equal measure, but alongside her killer looks, smiling confidence and giant backing in the form of the Wall Of Sound/Parlophone labels, she will be pushing forwards onto everyone’s radar before long. Her debut album, Pop Art, is due for a release this autumn. As The Recommender predicted, 2009 is rammed with very strong female characters, (Marina Diamondis, La Roux, V V Brown, Lady Gaga), fighting against the world of pigeon holes and typecasting, so this positive burst of originality and mixture of cultures continues to help carve out precisely the refreshing change that the Pop world continues to feed on.

Find her here:       Myspace

Hear her here:      MPHO – BOX N LOCKS (ysi)

VOLUNTARY BUTLER SCHEME

We’ve blogged a fair bit about Midlands artists of recent and here we go once again with a man by the name of Rob Jones who hails from Stourbridge, with a delightful show for you today. He single-handedly produces tunes tailor-made for your summertime, with influences that range from the kind of retro basslines that The Jackson 5 used to create, alongside Noah And The Whale’s style of breezy Pop hooks and melodic cheer. It’s the sort of hot sunshine that the Kinks’ Ray Davies used to happily bask in. He’s positively British and a guaranteed smile-making song machine. These Pop gems have a classic and timeless build quality, whilst being packed with imagination and creativity. The debut album is due out in late August, with the single officially released July 20th on Split Records. Whether the UK gets the predicted heatwave and sunny summer that we all long for, grabbing a slice of Rob’s productions will no doubt provide you the sunshine you’ve been missing.

Find them here:        Myspace

Here them here:       VOLUNTARY BUTLER SCHEME – TOBASCO SOLE (ysi)

PLUGS

The Recommender went to see these guys at the recent Scandalism launch party at Scala, London. Having witnessed a pair of awesome sets earlier in the evening from both Yes Giantess and Marina & The Diamonds it was always going to be tough for Plugs to stand out, but stand out they did. They started their set with their trademark ‘Opening Theme‘, designed to lure the listener into a false sense of security, with it’s Prog Rock size and building doom-laden acoustic guitar and keys that are straight out of a strange Air tune, circa ‘Takie Walkie‘. At it’s peak they burst into their more familiar and brilliant mix of grooved Indie-Pop. Up tempo and chopping basslines bounce over the beat and the flow is in full motion. Fronted by Does It Offend You Yeah singer, Morgan Quaintance, they prove to be a well polished act. It’s lively and the crowd duly respond. It’s a comforting site, watching a newly formed band that are so assured of a label signature, (if indeed this new project wants one?), that there must be an orderly queue of A&Rs outside their door. It’s Afro-Beat-Indie played and received with a broad smile. Always enjoyable, it’s intelligent and rammed with melodies and layered vocals. Get ready to catch them like a bout of Indie-Pop flu at any of their upcoming London gigs, as well as a V Festival appearance.

Find them here:        Myspace

Hear them here:       PLUGS – IMAGINARY FRIEND (ysi)

We just want to end by saying thanks to all The Recommender’s readers as the thousands and thousands of people that read this blog week on week continue to pass through in greater numbers. It only serves to give us more weight and respect in the music world. Each time we meet with a new band, promoter or label they seem to know the blog, which is a good sign that conditions here are healthy and expanding in the right direction – outwards.

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