It's My Birthday!

Yep, today is my birthday. I'm turning 30. Overall I feel a bit weird about it. I think turning 30 means I have to become a grown-up, right? I have to be sensible and save money and think about having babies and a five year plan. Scary.

So, to rebel against the big Three-Oh I shall be celebrating at Jumpers For Goalposts, my favourite night of playing "arts and crafts" and listening to goofy music. If anyone would like to come and join me and help me celebrate then here are the details:

THURSDAY 18^TH AUGUST

JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS

The Alley Café

8pm to latePM

Nottingham’s craftiest craft night returns on 18^th August to bring some calm to our riot-torn city and make everything all music and google-eyes again.

There will, however, be a riot of colour and creative ideas, with arresting creations but NO CHARGES FOR ADMISSION!

We’ll have live music from ‘Santo and Claus’ and you can dance the night away (in your seats while making craft items) to the sonic collages made by DJ's from the fantastic film society Kneel Before Zod... we're expecting amazing soundtracks all round!

And don’t forget, the Alley Café serves excellent vegetarian and vegan food until 9.00pm if you fancy Dinner and Craft and Music.

****

If you're wondering what to get me as a brilliant 30th birthday present, I like cake... and diamonds.

Bex

xxx

Blimey

It has been a busy time for us lately. Anders is working hard on finishing off a marketing course and has been locked away in our little office writing a big assignment for weeks now. Soon it will be finished and he will be free! Free at last! He'll be able to emerge from his cocoon and get some sun on his pale skin. OK, it's not quite that bad, but it's pretty close. Plus he starts his new job today! Good luck Anders!

In the meantime I've been standing in for Anders @ Hello Thor, working hard to help get the Anxieteam record made and launched and up online. It's been really fun and the two launch parties were ace.

Nick & I drove down to London for the first gig last Friday and thoroughly enjoyed our first live experience of the band. It was a little bit nervewracking holding 100 copies of a picture disc for a band on your label who you've never seen live, but they did us proud. I love their onstage relationship. It's a lot like their off-stage relationship, but we get to be a little part of it. Favourite moments... pacman & ghost chase during "Lonely in the Digital World", the Anxieteam song, enjoying DJ miniBurgers' set loads (including a remix of an old Prince Paul track), seeing Nick & Anders appear on the projection screen during the "commercial break" to advertise the new single and texting people I love to tell them I missed them during the "Miss You" track, as instructed by Jon & Jim.

It was a late night drive back for me and Nick, fuelled only by Jelly Tots, Haribo and what Nick calls "Frooty Tooties". I remember demanding that Nick gave me the Haribo in a certain order to eat, an order which only I know, asking difficult questions about his life and loves and lots of "I just want to be at home now" comments. I'm a fun road trip buddy.

The Nottingham gig at the Contemporary was also super fun. Jim & Jon did an interview with LeftLion while we drank tea and watched the Contemporary guys set up the stage and projector etc. That was the relaxed part. After that it was busybusybusy. We were so pleased that loads of people came down for the party, old friends, kind supporters of Hello Thor and new faces. It felt like there was a lot of good hearts in that room and we all really appreciated that. I was in charge of the HT shop, so, tucked away in a corner, I didn't get to see so much of the gig, although I did make a break for it to see the pacman chase scene:

Big thanks to everyone who made me busy by buying the cakes / records / hello thor tees and giving out badges, stickers and Kate's cool Hello Thorzine. It really made my night! By the way, if you loved those cakes check out Star Bakery. It's run by a friend of mine and she makes AMAZING cupcakes (and wedding/birthday cakes too). I follow her on twitter (@starbakery) just to see pictures of them and make myself hungry! Cakes here:

mmmmmmmmmmmmm
Favourite bits:
When I managed to find a yellow HT t-shirt for the nice girl who very patiently tried on lots of sizes & colours til I managed to find the right thing, selling lots of records to nice smiley people, seeing Nick drop a classic Wu-Tang tune on the decks and that propelling Ned onto the dancefloor, the "Donut Batter" song by Anxieteam, wobbling dangerously on a chair to try and see the set from the back of the room and taking lots of "Hello!" pics:

My favourite. See the rest on Flickr.

Unfortunately during all the fun I had randomly developed myself a bad back, so I spent the rest of the bank Holiday sitting oddly upright on the sofa with a hot water bottle, cups of tea, Ugly Betty, a good book and Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. Ok, not so unfortunate, lovely in fact.

I also became addicted to The Great British Bake Off. Firstly, why are so many shows now the Great British this or that? What suggestions would you have for other great titles along those lines? Secondly, how did this show come about, and why are those people SO into baking?? Surely there's only so much drama and emotion you can squeeze out of a macaroon.... apparently not.

Thanks for reading, hope you had a lovely Bank Holiday.

Bex
x

p.s. if you didn't get to come/ have any cash on you to buy the "Let's Eat Soya" record you can pre-order it here and we'll send you a lovely picture disc and the digital files too!

Hello Thor presents... ANXIETEAM!

Look what I helped to do this weekend! Muchos Fun-os.


Puppet Jon & Puppet Jim popped round to help us spread the word about the Anxieteam single launch parties happening this weekend.

Come along to The Lexington, London on Friday, or Nottingham Contemporary on Saturday and experience the (largely) food-based delights of Anxieteam. There will be masks, music, a dance routine, fortune cookies, a ukelele and a chance to get your digital portrait drawn by these two world-famous artists, Jon Burgerman & Jim Avignon, for free!

Support in London comes from caketronica purveyors Yunioshi and in Nottingham from Matthew Stephen Cooper, who sings songs about monsters and murderous birds.

More info on www.hellothor.com or on facebook, search "Anxieteam" or "Hello Thor".

See you at the weekend!

bex
x

Diane Arbus @ Nottingham Contemporary

Hello!

Last Friday Anders & I popped down to the exhibition opening for the new show at Nottingham Contemporary. I still really like that building, for me it has a slightly communist feel about the design and I really love the lace panels, such a neat idea to tie it in to the area and give some decoration to what is quite a harsh facade. Anyway, we went to see the new exhibition which is work by Gert and Uwe Tobias (Transylvanian twins - not to be confused with the Cheeky Girls) and photography by Diane Arbus.

I had mixed feelings about the Gert and Uwe stuff. I liked their colour palette and the graphic/illustration style feel of their work, but I really didn't like the figurative pieces. Here's how the Contemporary describes them:
Gert and Uwe Tobias’ large woodcuts, gouache paintings, typewriter drawings and ceramic sculptures combine influences from traditional folk art and abstract art from the early 20th century. Their vividly coloured images, objects and environments evoke a world that is hallucinatory and strange.
 I think maybe it's the "hallucinatory and strange" part that doesn't really appeal to me. I tend to dislike whimsy and surrealism and particularly find it difficult to respond to art which combines that with "a sense of humour". On the whole I love humour in art, but probably more when it relates to concepts, rather than funny pictures of funny looking people. It somehow feels linked with that sort of venetian carnival mask look and I'm not keen on that either. Anyway, here are a couple of examples:

(Thumbs down from me)

(images just seen - thumbs up from me!)

It's so hard to try and encapsulate your reaction to a piece of art, isn't it? I will definitely go and look at their work more and see if I feel differently. One thing I particularly liked was the hanging of their work and the transfer of small design elements from their pieces onto the walls of the gallery itself. It was only a small detail, but I think it really adds something interesting to the exhibition.

Anyway, the main reason I'm writing is to say that the Diane Arbus work was really inspiring and fascinating and enjoyable - I'd recommend a visit to see it. I love photography and it's not often you get an exhibition of this size and quality in Nottingham, so I hope it brings lots of people in. The Contemporary say:
Diane Arbus is one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century, an influential figure whose compellingly honest style of photography paved the way for the work of contemporary photographers and artists.
They are wonderful images from a specific period of history and a specific place. They have a distinctly Amercian feel and really capture some of the subcultures around at that time, as well as more general images of children, people in the park etc. This image is one you'll see a lot:

It really captures the humour and humanity of all of Arbus' work. We saw only half of her part of the exhibition and I can't wait to go back and see the rest. It feels like I have a real treat saved up.

Check this out! I just found it online! Me and Anders were wondering at the show whether anyone had done this exact thing:

Brilliant!

Her photographs have an amazing mood and quality to them, the tone of the black and white is beautifully dark and distinct. I'd love to know enough about photography to be able to use black & white like that. 

She works often with people on the fringes of society and her aim was to "photograph everyone". I really like that idea.

Here's one more image which I thought was really powerful and beautiful:

Hope you get to go see the show, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Becky

x

Quizzezzezzezzes

Hello,

I'm planning a super cool fun music quiz night to raise money for charity and I was wondering whether anyone had any good suggestions for:  Rounds to include?  What types of questions people like?  How long it should be? AND, most importantly... a super cool name???

Please leave a comment with any thoughts, your help would be much appreciated!

I'm doing it to raise money for Bluebell Wood, a children's hospice in Nottinghamshire which does lots of very good work for sick children & their families.

Thanks for your help!

Bex
x

Play-doh-ground event TONIGHT!

There's an awesome event on in Nottingham tonight.  Famous gaming designer Keita Takahashi has been involved with planning the re-development of a children's playground in Woodthorpe for a while now.  The latest stage of this process involves an evening of "fun, games and whimsy" as part of GameCityNights at Antenna.

This includes a competition for teams to take inspiration from Keita's work and basically have a giggle with Playdoh to create something that you'd like to see in the park.  Whether you want to create an inspired object of absolute silliness or a feat of skilled engineering is up to you!

For more details on this unique event check out the Game City website or the Facebook event.

Go West!

Yesterday after a slightly disappointing trip into Sherwood me and Anders ventured into Nottingham to find various birthday & Father's Day presents. Turns out WH Smith is pretty much on the money with books for Father's Day and Fopp furnished us with some good CD based treats for our respective Dads (Seasick Steve & that ole Piano Man Billy Joel). A bit more looking for birthday presents and we were ready for a bite to eat (Anders) and a sit down (me), so we made our way up to the West End Arcade, and this is the reason I'm writing this post. I just wanted to say that if anyone hasn't been up there for a while then go now!

Here are the reasons why:

- It's got really cool old 70's signage:

 - There are 2 record shops. Yes, two! One's alright (The Heavy Sounds), but doesn't tally exactly with our tastes. The second is awesome, because not only does it stock really good stuff (including local labels like Gringo & our very own Hello Thor), but it also raises money for charity - The Music Exchange should be your new favourite shop. Read more about it here.

- There's an awesome-ly bad new gallery shop. Sorry if you own it and you're reading this, but it really is awesome-ly bad. Sorry too if you're one of the artists featured. It's a really nice place for a gallery, lots of light, big square windows, a lovely little shop, but the stuff in there is random and incredible. I won't describe particularly bad bits, because I just won't be able to help being really rude, but you definitely need to check it out. Me and Anders wanted to buy a whole wall's worth, just because it's so amazing.

- Al's shop Recreation is great. This is it a little while ago, and yes there you can spot Nick, Tom & Anders goofing around.  

The shop stocks a brilliant mix of really desirable vintage pieces of furniture, ceramics, stereos etc alongside stuff made by designer-maker-craft people in Nottingham. I've bought a beautiful ceramic necklace in there before shaped like a moustache with a lovely blue floral print. It gets very positive reviews every time I wear it. I've also bought a couple of prints and some really nice T-shirts by I Dress Myself. I'd really recommend it if you want to buy yourself or a stylish friend a present.

- Finally, last but not least, there is the magical, magnificent creperie, Aubrey's. I can't say this strongly enough, GO! We've been for lunch a few times on a Saturday and it makes you feel like you're on holiday. It has only a few small tables, so you have to be lucky to get one, and serves delicious savoury galettes (with lovely garlic mushroom, olive tapenade, raclette etc flavours) and amazing sweet sweet crepes (with ricotta & berries, orange & cardamom and more). Plus the hot chocolate is the best in Nottingham, the crockery is vintage and makes you want to sneak it in your bag when no-one's looking AND they have the papers on a Saturday. What more could you want? It's well worth the walk up from Market Square and away from costa, nero, starbucks & the rest.

One more pic:

Hope you go soon!

bex

x

Yunioshi @ Nottingham Contemporary

Saw Yunioshi play the Nottingham Contemporary bar over the Bank Holiday weekend. We very nearly didn't make it and were gutted to miss Japanese Sleepers & Spaceships Are Cool, but were delighted that we made it in time to hear Team Yunioshi launch their new EP.

What a fun gig! We missed the craft section but luckily there were still a man hanging around with foil wrapped round his head, and one man totally dressed as a robot. The sound was awesome as we came down through the building and didn't disappoint when we got into the bar. I had suspected it may feel a bit cold and sterile for performances, but the atmosphere was fantastic and the bar looked really cool. It was a bit like walking into a super cool party in a film.

Yunioshi sounded better than I've ever heard them sound live before, big props to the sound man for that. The new songs sounded ace, the old songs sounded fresh & everything was perfectly in proportion. Here's some pics:

Bye! Love Bex

The Election: Who Wins? You Decide!

Just read an incredible article on the election on the Guardian's website. I've been a bit wavering, still undecided one day before the election whether to vote Liberal or Labour, whether I know enough about either to make an informed choice is debatable. I feel a lot more involved and aware in this election thanks to the TV debates, but I haven't read any manifestos and still feel I have only a scant knowledge of each party's policies. Anyway, this made for fascinating, horrifying reading. I'll copy a bit in, but I urge you to read the article in full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/05/1983-cameron-victory-kinnocks-words

On the eve of the 1983 election – which, until this year, seemed destined to represent for ever the low watermark of Labour performances – a young member of the party's shadow cabinet delivered what was to be one of his most compelling speeches. Neil Kinnock knew a landslide defeat was imminent so, speaking in Bridgend, he sketched the world to come. "I warn you," he began, addressing a nation about to descend into the bitterest stretch of the Thatcher era. "I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old."

and

I warn you that the economy could slide back into despair. Maybe people have not paid attention to this argument because Gordon Brown has been making it, but the danger is real. A sudden shut-off of the public spending tap could well send a frail recovery staggering back into recession: the dreaded double-dip. It's happened elsewhere and could happen here. The US and other economies are seeing the tide turn, but that's because they've kept the public cash coming. Cameron's aim, played down in the rhetoric because it polled so badly, is to cut spending immediately, ushering in what he once proudly trumpeted as an "age of austerity".


I kind of wanted to copy and paste the whole article then. Anyway, hope you're going to vote tomorrow, however you're going to vote.

Becky
x

General Ramblings

Hi,

Thought I'd pop a few thoughts up while I'm finishing off my lunch on this sunny Friday.

Firstly, who watched MasterChef this season? How great was it?! I was totally hooked. I haven't been that into it for a couple of years, but I really enjoyed this one. Particularly how John had gotten all slim and cool in his cardigans, instead of his 80's blazers. Did anyone else spot the winner really early on? I thought I was a genius, but it appears lots of people knew, so maybe I'm only half a genius.

Secondly, who watched the new Dr Who? LOVED IT. Can't wait for the next one tomorrow!

We saw Kick Ass the other day at the cinema. Have you seen it? It's a strange film, enjoyable but kind of like it's two films squashed together. There's a super-violent/bloody Tarantino/Japanese style super hero revenge flick combined with a 'nerds at school get cool' film. It was good, but I expected something very different. By the way, if you have seen it, the guy who plays the main character is British, weird right?!

Popped to a little art auction at BackLit studios on Wednesday and accidentally bought two pieces. Well, I say accidentally, it's not like I sneezed and he counted it as a bid or anything, but I wasn't really planning to go hog-wild and buy two things. I love them both though, will try to pop up pictures of them another time. Really i just wanted to mention the studios as I haven't been before but they have lots of exhibitions and happenings, well worth checking out. Apparently there's a facebook group for those of you on there. They are in Sneinton somewhere, just off Carlton Road.

If you're free next Thursday we're doing Jumpers for Goalposts at the Alley Cafe, as we do every 3rd Thursday of the month. If you haven't been before, it's billed as Nottingham's finest, funnest, free-est felt-tips n folk night and basically involves the following elements:

• a live act (usually one person and a guitar, but in the past it's hosted keyboards, synths, washboards, melodicas and even a double bass)
• DJs (not making you dance or anything, it's a bit small for that, but offering a fabulous soundtrack to your evening)
• a craft competition (there are rules and craft materials provided for you to explore your creativity and use your nimble fingers to invent a beautiful miniature artwork. Or you can just put glitter and googly eyes on some bits of old cardboard... it's up to you)
• "mega prizes" TM. (I'll let you decide if they're mega or not when you win one)

In general it's one of the nicest, friendliest, happiest evenings of the month. You can have a lovely organic cider, drink a cup of tea, hear some wonderful music and make a magical/shit creation. All for free too.

This weekend we're at the big Hello Thor / Fists EP Launch Party at the Rescue Rooms tonight (incidentally I dreamed about this last night and Barack Obama turned up. He's so cool.) and then just doing general hanging out and relaxing over the weekend. I'm hoping to see Whip It (Drew Barrymore's film), because I HEART Drew.

Right, better go crack on with some work now. Lunch technically finished ten minutes ago.

Love
Bex
x

Fists EP Launch plus "Boy Meets Gay Swan"

Hi Everyone!

How was your Easter? Mine involved doing 2 hours of gardening and needing 4 hours to recover (#whenyouknowyou'reold). We also went to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake which is just incredible. It's also awesome seeing it in the heart of Yorkshire with my dad, who said afterwards: "It's just the age old tale of boy meets girl, boy's mum won't let him see girl so boy meets gay swan". Of course.

I hope you'll all have heard by now about the big party on at the Rescue Rooms this weekend. Hope to see you there, come say hi, I'll be manning the stall giving away free EPs! In case you needed more info, all the stuff's below. PLUS there's exciting news about who the special guests at the after party are! Oooh!

love Bex
x

FISTS ‘Olympic Hits EP’ Launch Party! @ The Rescue Rooms 9th April 2010

FISTS are a 5-piece whose sound shifts and sprawls from skiffle-punk ('6 5 Special') to country-inflected indie pop '(Cockatoo') to the Stereolab/Velvets drone of ‘Skit’. Live, Fists are a woozy, kaleidoscopic and riotously fun affair. http://www.myspace.com/fistsmusic

SWIMMING manage to combine an avant-garde approach to making music (incorporating experimental field recordings, binaural art, electronica and post-rock) with a knack of writing anthemic, euphoric and righteously poppy music. http://www.myspace.com/swimmingband

PILGRIM FATHERS play awesome slabs of mind melting psychedelic post-rock. Expect inter-galactic riffs and songs that make you think of lazers, monsters and just how incredible this spinning ball of rock we inhabit is. http://www.myspace.com/thepilgrimfathers

ESCAPOLOGISTS have recently regrouped and morphed into the kind of band that makes synth-heavy, drum machine backed, dark pop that bring together psychedelia, hip-hop and electro together in all the best ways! http://www.myspace.com/escapologists

INCREDIBLE AFTER-PARTY IN THE RED ROOM featuring special guests, playing live, the “North west musical cataclysm” that is Apes Fight Back (www.myspace.com/apesfightback) & Frank's Vintage Metal Disco (featuring the likes of early ZZ-Top, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Led Zep, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest).

PLUS there's still time to snap up an advance ticket for £5 (from Rock City box office / www.alt-tickets.co.uk) and you’ll get a FREE copy of the brand new ‘Olympic Hits EP’ by FISTS - just swap your ticket stub at the merch stand on the night.

http://www.hellothor.com/

Over The Wall, LIVE, tomorrow night

Hi Everyone!

Just a quickie to let you know that Hello Thor are putting on a gig tomorrow night at The Chameleon with Over The Wall, Three Blind Wolves & We Show Up On Radar all playing LIVE for just £3. Plus there will be HT DJs and lots of pre-friday-off-work fun to be had!

See you there!

Bex

p.s. Over The Wall are a great Glaswegian band. Have a look at http://www.hellothor.com/ for more info

p.p.s. Here's a fun game: 3D Pong: http://www.newsandentertainment.com/zFcurveball.html

HOLES - Prussian Projekte

Hello

I've been super busy lately (studying, sorting out the next Hello Thor releases and snowed under at work) and so haven't had chance to post about this great looking event...

Prussian Projekte have been doing lots of great stuff - just round the corner from us in Sherwood too! - and this promises to be no exception.

To coincide with the exhibition launch at Broadway there's a free showing of Holes, a great film based on a cracking kids book.  It's very charming and stars Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voigt, Henry Winkler (the Fonz!) and Eartha Kitt!  As well as Shia LaBeouf before everyone started hating him.

To find out more you can check out the Facebook event or contact Broadway or email info@prussianprojekte.com

x Anders 

Stuff we've been up to

Isn't it nice when people visit and you have a special reason to do fun things at the weekend instead of boring chores? We had friends up from London this weekend and we:

... cooked goats cheese and onion tarts and drank wine on Friday night.

... slept late and then wandered round town drinking "the best hot chocolate in the world" (TM) from Aubreys (the crepe place), before heading up to Nottingham Contemporary for the Star City exhibition. I made a "hilarious" joke about the big wheel in the city centre and how our visitors would never have seen anything like it. I'm funny. Anyway, the exhibition, firstly, don't see the exhibition backwards, we did and I regretted it afterwards. Secondly, it's pretty big/long, so don't linger too long over stuff you're not bothered about. Highlights for me included:
- the machine making noises as water droplets fell - it was like a dystopian sci-fi scene, a bit menacing, like it should be in the basement of a multi-storey car park in a horror film.
- the old Russian posters promoting space travel, really made you imagine how people must've felt about space in the old days. It was such a magical, almost spiritual place then.
- the collages of religious icons & rockets - I love icons stylistically and I really like space imagery, so this just really worked for me!
- the 'doctor's surgery' bit made by a husband/wife team who were some of the first installation artists
- And finally, the quote from Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, near the giant spacesuit in the bottom of the building:

"Those who have already been in space yearn with all their heart and soul to return there again and again. With every single day passing, time leaves my flight in the past. Occasionally the wind will whisper something from the tops of tall pine trees and then everything becomes silent. In such minutes I remember the most bright and wonderful experience in my life: the flight into space."

I can't get over how beautiful that is, and how well she captures a moment and a feeling that pretty much no-one else has experienced.

... saw the most random performance I've seen in ages at Nottingham Playhouse. It was called Pregnant?! and involved a PowerPoint animation with a live performance from a Japanese artist which was about being impregnated by rabbits. I can't really explain any further than that to be honest, as that's pretty much the extent to which it made any sense. Despite that, it was brilliant, really funny, the interaction between the animations and the artist was great, surreal and confusing but great. Plus we learned that bunnies ovulate even when pregnant, so that's a new fact for us all there. It was insane, like someone saying "I had this really weird dream, right", only without it being the most painfully boring conversation in the world, because it actually recreated that dream world for you. Ace.

... ate breakfast late, enjoying John's discovery of bacon and eggs on crumpets instead of toast. Super nice, especially when you get lovely local bacon from JT Beedham's instead of horrible, watery, over-salted bacon from Tesco. Then we wandered round the cemetery next to the forest in the snow. It was lovely. I took some photos and me and Anna Ray made this tree:

... Finally, on Monday night we saw Hot Horizons at the Social. They're really good, strong vocals, interesting guitars and some really good tunes. I'm looking forward to hearing the recorded stuff later in the year. Then we popped over to say a quick Happy Birthday to Andy from We Show Up On Radar who was celebrating with an apple juice at the Orange Tree. We heard about his visit to Maida Vale at the weekend to record tracks for the BBC, it's really exciting! Don't know when they will be on the radio yet, but we've heard that they sound really good.

Anyway, enough rambling from me, hope you have a nice week!

Bex
x

Hello Thor Library Gig on Saturday!

Afternoon All,

Just taking a quick mini-break from working hard to mention the Hello Thor Library Gig this weekend. I have been coerced into producing cakes for the occasion. I'm thinking Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes. They went down really well at the Chrismoustache party and I really don't mind eating up any leftovers, so I reckon they're a good bet. Any other requests?

Anyway, here's all the info for Sat from Hello Thor:

We Show Up On RadaR
@ Nottingham Central Library
Saturday 6th February (4pm - 6pm) FREE ENTRY

We had such a great time when we launched We Show Up On RadaR’s single at Nottingham Central Library last year (if you don’t believe us have a look at this little film) that when they asked us back we couldn’t refuse. Heck, we even booked a tour of other libraries to follow.

That’s right, this Saturday (6th February) at 4pm we’ll be introducing the world to We Show Up On RadaR’s beautiful brand new EP - A Loaf Of Bread, A Container Of Milk & A Stick Of Butter - in the company of a whole load of books, a heap of cake, a box or two of wine, and, of course, plenty of amazing live music:

We Show Up On RadaR is Andy Wright. Andy makes melancholic, mischievous acoustic pop to dream to. It’s full of contradictions - childlike and sweet, but a bit wrong; terribly sad, but hopelessly uplifting - and is, in our opinion, blimin’ marvellous. Check him out in a recent BBC session here.
www.myspace.com/wsuor

Escapologists are three very talented gentlemen who produce gently reflective post-rock, informed by the likes of Pavement, The Cure and Stereolab. We last saw them tearing it up at the Christmas Covers Party, and can’t wait to see them again.
www.myspace.com/escapologists

Henry Parkinson makes lovely introspective folk pop, kind of like Nick Drake...from Nottingham.
www.myspace.com/makeahalo

It’s all totally FREE to get in and you can read as many books as you like between bands. It’s going to be loads of fun!

We Show Up On RadaR’s 6-track A Loaf Of Bread, A Container Of Milk & A Stick Of Butter EP is released digitally through iTunes, Amazon etc. on Monday 15th February. It will also be available as a strictly limited handmade CD at the library gigs and from www.hellothor.com.

We Show Up On RadaR is also playing gigs at Leicester Central Lending Library (8th February, 6pm), Leeds Central Library (9th February, 6pm) and Norwich & Norfolk Millennium Library (11th February, 6pm).


Sounds great! See you there!

Becky
x

Good gig tonight

I've been so busy I've not had time to think about what gigs are coming up. Or to shout about them. I'm definitely going to this though. SHOULD BE A BELTER!



It's tonight @ The Chameleon and will feature dreamy anthemic indie-pop, synth fun n' games and tweecore treats

x Anders

nottdance

It's nottdance time again!

nottdance is my favourite arts festival of the whole year. If you think you're not into dance, just ignore that small voice and book to see some stuff anyway. Some of the best cultural moments of my whole life have been part of the nottdance festival and I would urge everyone to see at least one thing.

nottdance09 from Dance4 on Vimeo.

Bex x

p.s. we saw the New Art Club last Thursday... amazing, check them out!

Goose Fair

A few pics from last year's Goose Fair:





Just realised that Goose Fair is back in town.

Me and Anders went with our nephew Luke and Anders' Mum last year.

(By the way, don't you think there's something creepy about the dodgems?)

I do like going to the fair, but you really can't get a better metaphor for capitalism being empty than candyfloss and garish temporary amusements. Maybe that's why there's always a slight sadness to it?

That is very definitely an adult's point of view however, as while we were wandering around choosing our next ride Luke declared "it's right you know, there ARE no limits to FUN!!". So sweet.

B
x

Jean Gene-y and Electro Pop-corn

Hello

There's (at least) 2 brilliant things happening this weekend...

1. There's a big charity fundraising party thing (or Arts and Fashion exhibition as I believe the organisers are referring to it!) happening at Lizard Lounge this Friday. For more info check out Leftlion and/or Facebook

2. Me and Tom and Nick are putting on a free gig at Broadway on Saturday.
It's going to be full of 303-busting beats and electronic mayhem. Line, Battlecat! and Yunioshi are playing and there's going to tons of free popcorn for everyone.



Both should be ace.
Hope you can make it
x Anders

Fists single launch - THIS SATURDAY!

Come down to the Art Organisation for the Fists single launch this Saturday!

Not only is this the first release on the new Hello Thor record label it is also Fists' first single - Cockatoo b/w Skit. It looks set to be an amazing gig with Mexican Kids at Home, Rory McCarthy &, of course, Fists themselves all playing live. There might also be a secret special guest (!) and Daddy Bones will be DJing.

The single has already been getting attention & airplay from XFM, Artrocker & the BBC. It will be available to download from www.hellothor.com after the launch and is actually really brilliant. On the night you will be able to pre-order / buy vinyl 7" singles with a great cover designed by Fists' own Angi Fletcher using an photograph taken by Steve Mays - www.smays.com - at a Halloween party in the 70's. Brilliant!

I can't wait!

Bex x