The Hunters who were regulars at Cleopatras club, the Majestic and the Standard club, shared a billing with no other than the Beatles and supported the likes of; the Hollies, Eden Kane, Billy Fury, Kathy Kirby, Johnny Kid And the Pirates during their career.

The band parted ways, but forty years on are now returning on June 15th at the “Live on the Wye” festival. So if you fancy some old school Rock and or Roll get yourself down the the scenic Wye valley!

For more information click here

Why was Bill Oddie evicted from HSBC’s London HQ? Watch the film to find out. Sign petition for change here: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/…

The UK’s biggest bank has so far made around £100 million by providing loans and services to some of the most destructive logging companies in the world, often in violation of its own policies.

Please sign the public petition to HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver calling for the bank to stop profiting from the disappearing rainforests of Borneo. We can stop this.

With the music industry being radically reshaped by the internet (remember those days), The Crimea were among the first to see the potential and opportunities afforded by this fresh new landscape. Six months before Radiohead and Prince, the band decided to release their second album, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, as a free download in 2007. 100,000 downloads in three days resulted in a huge worldwide news story that included interviews on Channel 4 News, The Wall Street Journal and The Hindu Times. At the end of the year, Q Magazine labelled the move as one of the top 5 moments that changed music history.
Now they’re back, and we think, better than ever.

The band are set to release their new double album 12” Square Moon – 29th July through Alcopop Records and Lazy Acre Records.

You can listen to the band new single here:

The band are set to play 2000 Trees Festival and will make their return with a headline show at The Jazz Cafe in London, Detail will be announced soon!

The Music Industry Entrepreneurship Bootcamp event at the ATRiuM campus in Cardiff will include a creative workshop with Welsh Hip-Hop star and music entrepreneur Mr Phormula, AKA Ed Holden, and a discussion session with a panel of industry experts including the Welsh Music Foundation’s John Rostron, Paul Gray of the Musician’s Union and Lucy Squire from Catapult Records.

The three-hour event will also include a tour of the state-of-the-art campus’ music facilities, which include analogue and digital recording suites, practice spaces and editing suites.

“This event is a great opportunity for anyone interested in a career in the music industry” said course lecturer Danny Hagan. “It’s not just for musicians, but teachers, record label owners, promoters – anyone keen to learn more about translating their love of music into a successful career”.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to find out more about the university’s Foundation Degree in Music Industry Entrepreneurship.

The work-based learning course is now in its third intake, and is the only one of its kind in the UK. It aims to empower students with essential music industry knowledge and a range of important entrepreneurial skills to enable them to position their business competitively within the local and global music industry.

The course has been made possible by the EU’s Convergence European Social Fund (ESF) through the Welsh Assembly Government, and applicants who meet the entry criteria are entitled to a fully or partly-funded place for the first year of the course.

“The music industry is an extremely competitive one, but it’s also big business – in 2011 the UK music industry was valued at just under £4bn” explains Danny. “Our hope is that courses like our Foundation Degree, and to a lesser extent events like our bootcamp, will help to prepare people for a career in what is a major industry.”

The Music Industry Entrepreneurship Bootcamp event takes place at the ATRiuM campus in Adam Street, Cardiff between 1pm and 4pm on Friday 3rd May. Book a place or find out more about the event at www.southwales.ac.uk/musicindustry.

From what we have heard about the Thee Oh Sees live set, they are not to be missed.

They play May 8th – Clwb Ifor Bach get your advance tickets here:

Her Parents play Undertone on May 30th supporting Internet Forever.

To coin Delta Sleep’s sound is a hard task indeed, but has once been described by a wise old man as an “enchanted battle between At The Drive-In and Mogwai for the city of Radiohead in the land of Battles”

And I think this sums them up to the tee, if they keep producing tracks as strong as 16:40 and keep releasing them through Big Scary Monsters I fully expect them to be a band many people are talking about.

Delta Sleep play Undertone on May 23rd.

The band’s obvious love for Mark E. Smith and co peaks with the records second track, ironically named ‘Art Of Falling (Fall Song Rev. 6)’. However, Totem Terrors’ sound seem less like Smith’s snarled analogies and more like an efficient yet effervescent robot. This is most clear in the cries of “Woo hoo” and discordant guitar work of later track ‘Mr. Military’. For the record the band’s previous incarnation was appropriately named The Joy of Sex

This album’s tracks absolutely fly past. Songs like ‘Slovaks Dream’ end just as you realise you are hooked. This continues throughout the album (clocking in at just over 20 minutes) and urges you to, well, Repeat. For a band that seem to value style and a sense of fun over musical depth or substance this proves to be a wise decision.

But don’t be mistaken, Totem Terrors can do substance. ‘Words’ is all intricate guitar work before kicking into life and bringing to mind noise pop bands such as Male Bonding of Cardiff’s Joanna Gruesome.

The record reaches it’s peak at around the halfway mark with three songs that manage to convey every inch of there style succinctly. Single ‘Disco Tryst’ brings all the albums pop elements together providing a breezy and charming centrepiece.

This is Followed by the fantastic ‘I Am Hilary Page’ its lyrics are, out of context, confusing yet digestible in the best indie pop fashion: “Remember my name, I am sunshine biscuits”.

Totem Terrors’ updated take on the most sunny of moments The Fall give their style an enchanting kind of modern minimalism. As for the past itself, it seems that the band couldn’t care less, having a great time in the here and now. As a piano lullaby brings ‘Repeat. . .’ to an end it brings with it the impending sunshine and beckons you to follow its titles instructions and keep this one spinning all summer.

7/10

I don’t usually read press releases to be honest. They’re usually full of hyped-up guff that people want you to read out on the radio or quote in a fanzine, but for the new Doctrines’ ‘ANX LP’ released through Alcopop! Records, I made an exception. This was mainly because after the first listen, I couldn’t be entirely sure which Manchester that the band hailed from. Manchester, Illinois? Manchester, Ohio? Nope, it would appear that Jamie, Robert, Luke & Kyle all reside in the sunny North-West of Manchester, England.

The reason that I had to check out this little nugget of knowledge is because the ‘ANX LP’ sounds very much like something that many US college bands were churning out in the mid-late nineties. I’m not sure of the ages of the boys in the band, but it does sound like they were brought up on the likes of bands that were synonymous with the bands signed up to the excellent Polyvinyl Record Company at the turn of the century.

The fact that Polyvinyl is also home to Japandroids, cited as an influence in the aforementioned press release blurb is therefore less of a surprise. This is by no means a criticism, the fact that they’re keeping this sort of music alive is a great thing; there are plenty of bands around at the moment who are a little too experimental for their own good – the fact is you need to get experimental right unless you’re in danger of it crossing over to ‘unlistenable crap’. This is straight down the middle, balls out of the bath pop-punk – and very good it is too.

The record (released on purple vinyl ‘so it looks like Prince’) kicks off with ‘Daydream’ which could not sound any more like The Ivory Coast or Braid (ask your dad / older brother) if it tried. The vocals burst out of the speakers not unlike a certain alien bursting out of a certain chest in a certain sci-fi film and they continue to do so as the record progresses. The musicianship – although standard fare for a band of this ilk – is pretty good; some super-skilled and powerful drumming keeps the album going and despite the effects on the guitars being minimal, they’re used to great effect on the title track and the standout ‘Perpetual Motion Machine’.

Any criticisms? Only very minor ones. Despite the changes in guitar sounds and levels, there is not a huge amount of change in the tempo of the songs and it is sometimes difficult to ‘drop in’ to the album and figure out where you are. A little variation in the vocal styles over the album’s nine tracks would also be a good thing; I’m not suggesting for a second that the boys should simmer down at any point, but there’s shouting and then there’s shouting almost constantly for 45 minutes – it’s amazing this guy doesn’t run out of lungs when they’re on tour. Speaking of which, there’s a tour coming up in June / July and I for one am going to check out these songs live. I just may have to take earplugs for fear of perforating an eardrum or two.