Boards
7 Mar Fortuna POP! Alldayer @ The Shacklewell Arms w/ Comet Gain Withered Hand (solo) Tigercats Simon Love & A Little Orchestra Evans The Death Darren Hayman Pete Astor Bill Botting (of Allo Darlin’) + DJs
Fortuna POP! Alldayer
(Part of Bad Vibrations’ Label Mates III festival)
Comet Gain
Withered Hand (solo)
Tigercats
Simon Love & A Little Orchestra
Evans The Death
Darren Hayman
Pete Astor
Bill Botting (of Allo Darlin’)
+ DJs
Saturday 7th March, Doors 2:30pm
The Shacklewell Arms
71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8 2EB
Transport: Dalston Kingsland Overground Station / Rectory Road Train / Buses 488, 236, 149, 76
Tel : 0207 249 0810
Web: www.shacklewellarms.com
Advance: £11.50 from We Got Tickets / £13 Door
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/308518
Fortuna POP! are absolutely ecstatic to be hosting an alldayer as part of Bad Vibrations’ Label Mates III festival - ten consecutive days of music, beer, and vinyl at London’s coolest venue The Shacklewell Arms. Taking place on March 7th, it features eight of Fortuna POP!’s finest acts.
Headlining are the legendary indie-psych band Comet Gain, with critically-acclaimed Edinburgh folk-rocker Withered Hand playing solo, and the kings (and queen) of indie-dance Tigercats in close support. Ex-The Loves main man Simon Love re-invents himself with the backing of A Little Orchestra, young whippersnappers Evans The Death bring their scuzzy pop to proceedings, and the inimitable and ever-evolving Darren Hayman does whatever the hell he likes. The venerable Pete Astor of The Loft and The Weather Prophets continues his recent live resurgence, while Bill Botting of Allo Darlin’ opens up proceedings.
Truly then an alldayer of epic proportions to fit in with ten days of amazing music in from some of the World's best independent record labels. Come along, grab yourself a pint of great beer and a burger or a hot dog and watch some seriously great bands.
COMET GAIN
Led by songwriter David Feck, Comet Gain have released a string of critically acclaimed records on Fortuna POP!, Kill Rock Stars, Track & Field and What’s Your Rupture? - albums such as Réalistes, City Fallen Leaves, 2008’s singles collection Broken Record Prayers and 2011’s Howl Of The Lonely Crowd establishing the band as one of the most fearlessly passionate and fiercely intelligent British bands around. The current line up comprises David Charlie Feck (vocals, guitar), ex-Clientele bassist James Hornsey (bass), Rachel Evans (vocals), ex-Morrissey/The Meteors drummer Woodie Taylor (percussion), Anne Laure Guillain (keyboards), and Ben Phillipson of The Eighteenth Day Of May (guitar).
Unapologetically literate and emotional, Comet Gain seek out inspiration as much in the music of girl-group era pop, heartfelt Americana, British post-punk, and 60s psychedelia, as in the words and images of the beat poets and in the cinema of both the British and French new-wave of the late 50 and early 60s. The aesthetic they have made their own has chimed with and galvanized a slew of iconic bands and musicians; from artists like The Make-Up, The Yummy Fur, Jens Lekman, and Herman Dune, to a younger generation of DIY musicians like The Cribs, Let’s Wrestle, Male Bonding, Love Is All, Veronica Falls, and Crystal Stilts, Comet Gain’s influence remains a traceable and tangible thing.
Their latest album “Paperback Ghosts”, released last year on Fortuna POP!, has garnered some of the best reviews of the band’s twenty year anti-career.
“Three in the morning in someone's London apartment, unattached men and women not giving up on the night: At first you hear blithering, then the smartest blithering you've ever heard. Then shots in the dark: "There's no security in purity." Then anguish and hope, forgiveness and curses, and a heartbreaker from its title to the last note: "Why I Try to Look So Bad." By this point you're hearing people you'd like to meet.” (Greil Marcus)
https://www.facebook.com/thecometgain?fref=ts
WITHERED HAND (SOLO)
Active in the world of visual art and dabbling in music for many years, Dan Willson aka Withered Hand came late to singing and songwriting at age 30, in a period of reflection between the death of a close friend and the birth of his first child. The resultant material, much of which went on to become the album Good News, was praised for its depth and startling honesty and saw him embraced by Fife-based musical powerhouse the Fence Collective and his songs picked up by MTV and cult series Skins.
Withered Hand's critically acclaimed second album New Gods was released in March of this year. It was nominated for "Best Difficult Second Album" at the AIM Awards, made No. 1 in the Official Chart Independent Album Breakers chart, and was named Album Of The Year by the Herald Scotland, but more than that it was a triumph of songwriting talent and superb musicianship that touched the heart of everyone that heard it.
Five years on from his arrival on the scene with the brilliant but lo-fi “Good News” Dan Willson went for broke, enlisting legendary Scottish producer Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Teenage Fanclub), and a veritable who's who of Scottish music including King Creosote, Eugene Kelly of The Vaselines, and members of Belle & Sebastian and Frightened Rabbit. The result: eleven meditations on love, fidelity and transience that saw Willson’s songwriting hit dizzying heights: by turns confessional and melancholy, raucous and life-affirming; a beautifully executed collection of songs from one of Scotland’s most gifted songwriters.
“Endlessly lovable stuff… zings with Teenage Fanclub-ish exuberance.” (NME)
TIGERCATS
Tigercats are a band from London as ambitious and intelligent as only people who try to shoehorn elements of Prince and the Trojan back-catalogue into a Jonathan Richman song can be. Having honed his songwriting craft in the short-lived but much much-missed Esiotrot, Duncan Barrett recruited sibling/long-time producer Giles (bass), talented songstress Laura (keys) and rhythmic powerhouse Jonny (drums), as well as latest member Paul Rains (guitar, of Allo Darlin' fame). It's a winning combination that has taken them not only across the UK and Europe – including such highlights as End Of The Road, Primavera Festival and Indietracks – but also Stateside, their 2013 tour culminating in a headline performance at the fabled NYC Popfest. After early singles on Haircut Records and WeePop, their debut album Isle of Dogs was released in 2012 on Fika Recordings and Acuarela Discos. Their recently released album Mysteries has received a raft of ecstatic reviews.
“A splendid guitar busyness inherited from Television, a rhythmic restlessness taken from the Violent Femmes and, from Blondie, an understanding that just because you’re a rock band, it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to make people dance.” (The Sunday Times)
SIMON LOVE & A LITTLE ORCHESTRA
Formerly the leader of the legendary Cardiff-based psych-pop collective The Loves, whose fusing of Nuggets-style garage pop, bubblegum fuzz, sugar sweet indiepop, and hand-clapping, hip-shaking rock'n'roll made them firm favourites of Marc Riley and John Peel, Simon Love is helped out here on a pocketful of brilliant new tunes by the wonderful A Little Orchestra.
“A truckload of chugging pop with wistful lyrics. Visually though, imagine the cast of the Big Bang Theory without the eye candy. Entertaining, with a Capital E.” (Louder Than War)
EVANS THE DEATH
Named after the undertaker in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, Evans the Death comprise of Dan Moss (guitar, vocals), Katherine Whitaker (vocals, keys), Olly Moss (guitar) and James Burkitt (drums). The band document and channel the exuberance of youth via the prism of five popmusic obsessives, gleaning inspiration from all of the music with which they grew up. They draw as much from the lyrical dexterity of Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker, as to the scuzzed up melodic exuberance of early My Bloody Valentine and The Pixies. Evans the Death have been given extensive airtime on BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6Music, as well being made John Kennedy’s ‘Xposure Big One’ on XFM, and the release of their album saw the music press sit up and take interest, with great reviews in Q, The Fly and Uncut, plus support from This Is Fake DIY and Drowned In Sound. Their second album “Expect Delays” will be released in March 2015.
"Smart and gutsy to: a clatter and pummel underscoring Katherine Whitaker's sweet, yet punchy vocals… Evans the Death make humdrum everyday existence sound quite magical." Q ****
http://www.evansthedeath.co.uk/
DARREN HAYMAN
Formerly the singer-songwriter of the phenomenally successful and much-loved Hefner, Darren Hayman is now eight or nine albums into an increasingly idiosyncratic career path. Darren is also writing the best tunes of his career; increasingly complex and mature songs. Following his instrumental album devoted to London's lidos and the third release in his Essex Trilogy, The Violence, a double album of strangely beautiful, haunting songs about the Essex Witch Trials of the 17th Century, Darren’s current project sees him set William Morris’ Chants For Socialists to music.
“London's laureate of sexual dysfunction, discomfort, and dog-eared under-achievement... the match of Ray Davies, or any of the quintessentially English masters.” (The Guardian)
PETE ASTOR
Prolific and erudite multi-instrumentalist, ex of The Loft, The Weather Prophets, and numerous other esteemed projects, Pete Astor offers first-rate support with “an abundance of lushly arranged, timeless chamber-rock, brimming with wry lyrical insight and haunting melodic hooks.” His sixth solo album, the literate and melodic Songbox, captured the mood of British folk music in the presence of 60s-influenced pop and was one of Astor’s strongest albums to date.
BILL BOTTING
Bill Botting is the bass player in the much loved Allo Darlin’ and one half of the wonderful Moustache Of Insanity. Renowned for his exuberant and bouncy stage presence, here Bill will be playing his own songs accompanied by some of his friends from London’s best indie bands.