- Songkick fans go crazy on the streets of London.
More spotted vandalism just off Liverpool Street station in London, courtesy of Anthony from the Hype Machine. I didn’t confirm whether this was his doing or his seeing only, but either way he sent it in. (OK, yes this is close to our office, but no it was not one of us. We haven’t reached that level of pathetic desperation. Yet.)
Come on guys, London and San Francisco? Is that the best you can do? Where’s Tokyo? Where’s Tuvalu? I’d even settle for Atlanta at this point.
Email me (michelle AT songkick DOT com) for stickers and I will mail you a special package, as long as you agree to plaster and document the act. These are limited edition I tell you!
- Interview with PopScene (London blogger)
London blogger: PopScene
This Dutch transplant goes out more than any Londoner I know! Perpetually on the hunt for the perfect party, follow her blog to watch her exploits and find great gigs in London.
Name: Nicole Blommers
Age: 29. A message for my dad: I will be 30 next year!!
Day job: Secretarial music writer and blogger, who sometimes takes photos at random gigs.
How long have you lived in London? Since 25th October 2005.
Favorite London venue? After giving my brain some exercise to think about what my fave venue is, I can only say that I don’t have one. I like going to as many different venues as possible to see bands. I do prefer the venues in East, North, and Central London.
How long have you been blogging?? August 2002.
How did you choose the name of your blog? PopScene is a blur song and a London indie club night that was hip and hot in 1999, around the time that I started my website.
First concert? Must have been Take That. Before you ask, Robbie was my favourite.
Most recent concert? Last night I went to see Untitled Musical Project at Buffalo Bar. It’s perfect music for anger management.
Most memorable concert? Too many to mention. As in this year, I enjoyed seeing Vampire Weekend @ Hoxton Bar, Holy Fuck @ 100 Club, Mystery Jets @ Durrr, and Gonzales @ ICA.
Most disappointing concert? I’d rather forget about the most disappointing concert.
Dream line-up? Lots of bands with men and beat machines (Holy Fuck, Zombie-Zombie, Slagsmalsklubben etc.) + The Faint + Yeah Yeah Yeahs + Sigur Ros, with Erol Alkan + Justice + Tiga doing the after-party. Preferably I want the DJs to do a le grande DJ battle. Exciting!
- Interview with The Culture of Me (New York blogger)
New York Blogger: The Culture of Me
His party photos make me miss New York desperately!
Name? Jeff Meltz
Age? 26 (ugh)
Job? Cultural hero/hack
How long have you lived in New York? All my life.
Favorite New York venue? Silent Barn, because the guys who do the shows are super-nice and the kids who show up always show up to have the best time ever.
How long have you been blogging? A little over 2 years.
How did you choose the name of your blog? “The culture of me” was actually the third title of the blog, but we like it the best. It’s a play on the ’80s theme of “me first” and how that pertains to everything these days. Plus, it lends itself nicely to a discourse of people’s preferences about anything.
First concert? We don’t remember exactly, but it was in a mall. That’s for sure.
Most recent concert? The Cool Kids
Most memorable concert? Bjork at Madison Square Garden for the Volta tour. We had been trying to see her for 10 years without succeeding. It was totally worth it.
Most disappointing? The Stooges at United Palace Theater. Thirty years after their prime, the danger is gone. Plus, seats? Wtf? Even after everyone got on stage with them at the end of the show, it still was less than impressive.
Dream line-up? Death from Above 1979 opens, followed by Pretty Girls Make Graves, followed by At the Drive-In(!), all headlined by Lou Reed, Sterling Morrisson, Mo Tucker and John Cale playing pretty much anything together.
- Interview with Hate Something Beautiful (LA blogger)
LA blogger: Hate Something Beautiful
This blog makes me want to go to LA… and I don’t even like LA. They have great show reviews and stunning concert photos. I just discovered Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson on Hate Something Beautiful… heartbreaking. He’s on tour with White Rabbits! (His MySpace page says he’s from “Brooklyn, Oregon.” Somehow that is so right.)
Name? Paul Tao
Age? 22
Occupation? Co-run an indie record label (IAMSOUND Records) and also do A&R for a producer management company.
How long have you lived in LA? 5 years
Favorite LA venue and why? The Echo. It’s a tiny little venue, but still manages to get some of the coolest acts to stop by on tours. They always have fun secret shows.
How long have you been blogging? 3 1/2 years
How did you choose the name of your blog? I actually didn’t start the blog myself. A friend of mine started it up, and I helped him out with it for a few months. He got tired of it, so he passed it onto me and, by then, the blog was starting to get popular so I stuck with the name.
First concert? Warped Tour, way back when.
Most recent concert? Erol Alkan and Dan Deacon last night
Most memorable concert? Why? Even though by now it’s a bit passe to say so, Daft Punk last year at LA Sports Arena. Mindblowing performance. It wasn’t just the music; it was also the experience of seeing so many people moving to the same beat at the same time. It was kind of like an intergalactic space rave.
Most disappointing? Why? Wolf Parade, I think the show was a year ago. It was my first time seeing them. I loved their first album, but they seemed so nervous and rushed. The entire first half of the performance was a huge disappointment. Every song seemed to be hurried and a little off, although they finally hit their groove by the end the set.
Dream line-up? Some kind of Elephant 6 music festival would be amazing: Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, Essex Green, etc. Basically everyone involved in that collective.
- Interview with Bradley’s Almanac (Boston blogger)
The return of our very popular interview with bloggers! Check out Brad’s Boston concert recommendations on Songkick.
Boston blogger: Bradley’s Almanac
Brad’s one of the original music bloggers, and we’re really honored to have him pick shows for us for May and June. He puts on his own concerts in Boston, featuring indie faves like Film School. Plus he does ticket giveaways and posts awesome live recordings. What more could you ask for from your local blogger?
- Name, age, and occupation: Brad Searles, age twenty-eighteen, dad, blogger, drummer, computer software tester.
- How long have you lived in Boston? Next month will make it a decade since I moved here from my hometown of Burlington, Vermont.
- Favorite Boston venue and why? I like several different ones for different reasons (and for different bands), but I’ll pick two for faves: TT the Bears in Cambridge and Great Scott in Allston. I frequent them most often. Both have friendly staff, generally good sound, and are small enough to really connect with the bands. Great Scott has the location (just a few blocks from my house), but TTs has the pool tables. Too close to call.
- How long have you been blogging? In general, about 8 years. About music specifically, maybe 5 years.
- How did you choose the name of your blog? In the mid-90s, some friends in a band called the Madelines wrote a song called “Bradley’s Almanac” that supposedly used some things I said for lyrics. Lucky for me, it turned out to be a personal fave, and a ready-made theme song for the ‘Nac years in advance.
- First concert? That my parents took me to: The Charlie Daniels Band at the Champlain Valley Fair in, um, 1981? (Hey, I grew up in Vermont).
That I asked my parents take me to: Foreigner and Loverboy, Saratoga, NY in 1984.
- Most recent concert? Film School, the Douglas Fir, and the Broken River Prophet at TT the Bears on April 28th (a show I was very proud to present).
- Most memorable concert? Why? Off the top of my head, Ride and Slowdive at Rockcandy in Seattle, 1992. Perfect pairing: both bands at their peak, a great venue and sound, and in the company of good friends. Bonus points: kicking around a soccer ball with the Ride boys in the parking lot. Runner Up: Arcwelder, Six Finger Satellite, and Jesus Lizard in Burlington, VT, also in 1992. Three amazing bands who pummeled me in their own special ways. So much pure power on stage. Mind = blown.
- Most disappointing? Why? Probably Explosions in the Sky at the Middle East Downstairs last year. An obnoxious, crammed-in crowd, bad sound, and high expectations from previous EitS shows caused me to bail after just a few songs. Unthinkably, I was much happier being at home.
- Dream line-up? An 8-band bill, the Saturday schedule for my impossible dream festival: Elliott Smith, Bedhead, Silkworm, the Housemartins, Unwound, Pond, Ride, and Joy Division.
- New feature! A way for you to add tour dates
When we started Songkick our biggest goal was to create a place where every single concert was listed - from giant arena shows to tiny local in store gigs - a site the most hardcore live music fan could trust to know about everything.
It’s a tough thing to do. As an example Radiohead are one of our favourite bands in the office. We currently list their tour dates for their UK/US tour on their artist page along with links to the different ticket options. To do that we scrape 17 different ticket vendors in the UK and US as well as other websites. It’s a pretty powerful piece of software, but it isn’t enough.
Back in January Radiohead posted this on their site:
So, we’ve got a small gig tonight.
It’s in London at the Rough Trade East shop on Brick Lane, and we’re planning to play a short set of in rainbows material. It’s very limited free entry, first come first served. Also, as it might be a little uncomfortable for anyone queuing early, they’re planning a numbering system so people at the front of any queue can get snacks and toilet breaks in the store. Good bagels round there. But dress warm…doors won’t open until 7, and we’ll play at about 8.
For those who can’t get in - and it’s pretty small in there - we’ll have some screens and speakers outside, if we’re allowed. I think we are. And we’ll also webcast it. I’ll put the link up here, as well as any other info, later today.
I don’t know about you but that’s the sort of thing that sends shivers of anticipation down my spine - a tiny in-store gig by one of my favourite bands. Up till now the only way our scrapers could automatically get that gig up on songkick would be to run natural language algorithms on that chunk of text and figure out that they had a gig tonight at Rough Trade. That’s no mean feat and even Dr Phil our resident machine learning genius starts to frown with discomfort.
But fortunately that’s not the plan. We always hoped that if we started to get a really large percentage of the listings out there on our site using automated techniques then some passionate live music fans would let us fill in the gaps for stuff like that Radiohead gig. This has started to happen a lot recently with awesome users emailing us when we’re missing stuff. Now we’ve created an interface to let you do that whenever you feel like spreading the word about a show.
On every artist, venue and city page there is a little ‘add new concert’ link. For example on the White Rabbits artist page:
Which takes you here:
You can check it out here, we’d love to hear any feedback you’ve got.
We’re keeping track of every show people add and will be sure to shower the most dedicated contributors with free gig tickets from time to time to say thanks!
Hopefully the next time Radiohead announce a secret date it’ll be up on Songkick in minutes…
- Hacker meetup #2 - photos
Every month we host a hacker meetup at our office in London.
Last summer we took part in Y Combinator - an incubator for very early stage start-ups. It was an incredible experience - we moved to Boston for 3 months and spent a summer working crazy hours hacking up our first prototype of Songkick. We were doing this alongside 18 other start-ups and the atmosphere and cameraderie was incredible.
I’d recommend the experience to anyone interested in starting a web based company, do get in touch with me if you’re interested and I’ll tell you more.
One of the best things about Y Combinator were the weekly dinners where all the start-ups would meet up and talk about what they’d been working on that week. It was a very developer focused group (around 95% of the founders were hackers) so it was an ideal environment to get feedback on your new code and ideas.
When we came back to London we missed the atmosphere at those dinners so decided to try to replicate it.
Once a month a group of hackers meet up at our office and then go for dinner somewhere cheap nearby. It’s a great place to get feedback on ideas and meet like-minded people. This month was the second meetup we’ve done and attendance was way higher than we expected - around 45 hackers turned up to watch demos and discuss ideas. This month the demos were really varied with:
- Dennis Furey who presented Ursala, a new functional programming language he is developing
- Mark Kinsey who demoed a cool stealth mobile app for restaurants and bars - and is looking for a technical co-founder
- The brothers Moore who demoed Mibbit their online IRC client (they currenly handle 2.5M lines of chat a day…)
- Daniel Todd who showed off his personal timeline app Timetoast (just launched!)
Here are some photos from the demos:
If any UK based hackers are reading this join the Hacker Meetup Facebook group here and come along to the next one! It’ll be on Friday 23rd May at 7pm.
- Chromatics at Cafe 1001 (London), April 19, 2008 review
Thanks to Slutty Fringe’s great concert pick, I managed to catch The Chromatics‘ first London show at Cafe 1001, right around the corner from us on Brick Lane. I fell in love with the Chromatics’ sound after reading so much about the Italians Do it Better imprint, which released their album, Night Drive.
The place was completely packed and sold out. I heard a rumor that they booked another show for Tuesday night (last night) because there was so much demand. Such is the power of the blogs I tell you! While I was waiting in line to get my wrist band, this girl asked me what they sounded like. It was really tough to describe them (I’m shit at it anyway), but I said something along the lines of really mellow, synthy music with a female vocalist. The fetching singer, Ruth Radalet, reminds me of a modern-day Nico. Maybe it was the heavy bangs framing a beautiful face, but their voices share a flat, removed quality.
After their set, they came to the side of the stage to sell merch. How’s that for DIY?
Here’s their cover version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” paired with the original for comparison. I listened to this song on repeat for much of February. It was the last song of their set, and it didn’t disappoint. (It’s been a while since I posted mp3s, yes?)
Chromatics - Running Up That Hill (cover)
Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (original)
Pretty lights = mood shot
All three boys in the band were wearing the exact same, pristine white Adidas sneakers. (Third boy is the drummer, you can’t see here.) Not sure if that was a nod to boy band outfits or what.
This is the best shot I have of Ruth. Isn’t she a Nico for 2008?
- I’m a lazy blogger. I’m just gonna reblog and hate myself for using that word.
I was really thrilled when Coudal featured Battle of the Bands in their “Fresh Signals” feed a couple of weeks ago. I really love what they do over there, and always find amusing and engaging tidbits. It’s been a while since I indulged in a geeky literary-musical pairing, so I’m now directing you to the brilliant contest they ran, “Booking Bands.” (Oh, the cleverness kills me. And books and covers, &c.) In their own words:
“The idea is to mash up the name of a book with the name of a band. Here’s a few of our examples to get you started:
The Things They Might Be Giants Carried*
The Who Moved My Cheese*
The Old Man and The Sea and Cake*
Charlie Daniels and the Chocolate Factory*
Catch 182*
Horton Hears a Hoobastank*
Of Mice and Men at Work*
Bare Naked Lunch Ladies*
The Agony and the XTC*”Horton Hears a Hoobastank? Eet kills me. They ran a contest for these, which I wish I caught because I bet I could’ve come up with some pretty good ones. Here are some of my favorites:
The Sun Also RZA
Last Yo La Tengo in Paris
Chromeo & Juliet
Megadeth of a SalesmenA problem we come across a lot with machine learning are band names that are also commonly used words, like Justice, Spoon, Pavement, et al. How do you train a robot to know that that’s a band and not just a normal word and vice versa? Anyway, I thought I’d give it a shot. Here are mine:
Interview with the Vampire Weekend
Super Furry Animals Farm (not very good, I admit)
Legends of the Fall(This doesn’t really count as a mash-up.)
Peter and the Wolf Parade
Beach House of Sand and Fog
About a Beastie Boy (Dude, what is it saying about me that I only know about most of these “books” because they were made into movies??!)
Fast Food National
The Sound and We are the Fury
Burial Child
To the Razorlight-house
Sonic Youth without Youth (I’m on a roll!!!)
Lady Chatterley’s Modern Lovers
Okkervil River Runs Through It
God of Small Faces
White Rabbits at Rest
The Optimist’s Sons & Daughters
Middlesex Pistols
The Twilight Sad of the Idols
The Love as Laughter Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Waste Land of Talk
Of Mice and Man ManI have to pry myself away and get back to work! How good am I?!!!
- Patrick Watson at Scala
After my first Songkick-guided gig it’s now time for my first blog! Patrick Watson at the Scala last night was a magical musical treat and I completely fell in love with him, his music and his band for a second time. I was originally exposed to his soft, subtle vocals on Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘To Build A Home’ and I soon after discovered that his album Close to Paradise, most of which he performed last night, is a really apt title. (Ew, cheesy but true!) The Scala is a brilliant venue - I guess I’d describe it as an intimate academy and you can either get close up to the band on the dance floor or chill out with uninterrupted views (and a nice pint) on the balcony. Mostly piano-based, Patrick’s songs were all warm, moving and inspiring. He’s distinctly comparable to Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Coldplay and a gentle Martin Grech, yet Watson’s voice is more ghostlike, soulful (and less whiney?! Sorry!) than these influences. At times I also heard hints of Nick Drake, Manu Chau and Scott Matthews yet as sorrowful as some songs sounded, Watson’s chat to us between songs kept the mood light and informal. Casually intimate! His band were great too and several times swapped instruments; I wasn’t sure about the tea-cosy the guitarist wore though…
Towards the end of his set Watson relocated to the centre of the room to test out the Scala’s acoustics and capacity of his voice for one song - both proved themselves as the music was carried delicately around the room…a special moment which broke up the standard gig format. If you missed out (shame on you for not using songkick!) don’t worry…Songkick recommends six other similar artists currently on tour! Phew!
Instead of posting a shaky, dark clip of the actual gig, check out this video to one of my favourite songs from Close to Paradise:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRLbpy9KDaY&feature=related
And here’s a dark, shaky photo from last night - see teacosy-sporting guitarist in background. Cute!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldton_tim/2382918861/
