In pictures - Thought Forms + SJ Esau + WEM - Birthdays - 27/03/14

Our last night was pretty special: the bands were kick-ass and we tried out Birthdays for the first time - which turned out the be a good decision: sound was great, staff were great. Everything was just GREAT- ok?! And you know what else is great? These:

Photos by Rebecca Hughes: http://hughesthatgirl.tumblr.com

Thursday Top 3 @ 3:33

Yes! 4 days off! Thank yoouuu Jesus! Here are some songs that remind us of Easter, enjoy!

Patti Smith - Gloria

The Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection

Ghengis Khan Vs the Easter Bunny - Epic rap battles of History #8 

Nice one! Marika Hackman

Move over Laura Marling and Olof Arnalds, there's a new kid in town - Suf-folk artist Marika Hackman.

 'Bath Is Black' has nestled nicely in my chest this morning, released from her 7 track album 'That Iron Taste' (available on CD, vinyl and  iTunes, and you can here a good chunk of it here: https://soundcloud.com/marika-hackman)

Saccharine vocals and harp-like guitar take you through metaphor and mysticism of lyrics, and a playful, beat intricate accompanying soundscape. Marika's got this whole modern folk thing in the bag.

New Band of The Week - 26/03/13 - Oliver Tank

Shared record label bro of SNH's other favourite Sydney electro duo Fishing - Oliver Tank's echoed electronica on his debut EP 'Dreams' have been a hill top tryst of mine for awhile now... In fact, we may have posted a song of his up on one of our Top 3 @ 3:33 posts.

With his serine, harrowing electro chill-wave, and solemn vocals, Google search has likened him to James Blake, which I would loosely tend to agree with. He even makes Snoop Dogg sound pretty.
Chest-punch respect, Oliver.

SNH Interviews...DIVORCE

Ahead of their European Tour which starts today, and in particular, their London date which we host tomorrow, we caught up with the crazy antics of Glaswegian noiseniks Divorce. Prepare yourself...

Photo by Stella Wan -http://www.stella-wan.com/

You guys are on tour again! Excited? Nervous?

Both!

Three weeks is a bit of a slog, and you guys are getting around a bit. Any particular coping strategies to yourselves from cabin fever and killing each other?

Lots of books about serial killers, so we can get tips on how to kill each other. 

Who officially has the worst tour habits? I’ve seen the odd poop pics floating about but don’t want to point the finger.

That picture was photoshopped... aye! We're all exceptionally clean and hygenic, regardless of what you've been told!

You’re releasing a re-packaged version of your debut album via Night School Recs, and brand new tracks on there we can look forward to?

They're not brand new, they're all the songs we released on 7"s and EPs in 2011 and 2012. Neither the album nor those tracks had been released on CD before so we thought it'd get that dealt with in one go. We were initially reticent about releasing anything on CD but after a while we felt we were being a bit sniffy... not everybody has a record player and we were getting requests for the music to come out on that format, which is nice. It also kinda nicely documents everything we've done in the last couple of years.

Any particular place from the last tour you guys dying to play again on this tour?

There's very few places we're returning to, at least to the specific venues, but Kafe Kult in Munich is a fantastic place, it's on the grounds of an ex-WWII army hospital I believe, has a pretty spooky atmosphere... we'll be staying there overnight again too, so that should be entertaining! Wharf Chambers in Leeds is a fantastic co-operative-run space... playing in Berlin again will be great too. I'm mostly excited about the cities we've never played in yet like Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam, on my birthday... oh dear!

Promoter wise, mainland Europe vs UK, who comes out on top? Are there any significant differences?

To have asked the question I think you know the answer already...! Europe trumps the UK in every way; you get well fed, accommodated really well, lots of booze and you get paid..! But there's many reasons why promoters in Europe are able to fulfill this criteria, be it government funding, more understanding venues or whatever. I've found that in the main DIY promoters in the UK do the absolute best they can possibly do under the circumstances, and besides you still get shitty promoters on each side of the channel. We're an understanding band and appreciate all the effort any promoter makes when they put us on, we're just happy they want to book us at all!

Glasgow by far and away has my favourite music scene. Any new Glasgow based bands we need to know about?

Aye, there's a handful of good bands that have appeared recently, one is RUNGS (http://rungs.bandcamp.com), formed by 3/4s of the late, great Take A Worm For A Walk Week (http://takeawormforawalkweek.bandcamp.com/), excellent unhinged noisy stuff with some pretty manky lyrics! Hillary and Joan from Aggi Doom (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aggi-Doom/214199281971011) have started another great band called Seconds (https://www.facebook.com/secondsglasgow) and Sinead from Palms (https://www.facebook.com/palmstopalm) has another awesome band called World Peace (https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Peace/486389594728564). Also Laurie and Ollie from our bros Ultimate Thrush (http://ultimatethrush.wordpress.com/) have teamed up with electronic duo Silk Cut and formed Golden Teacher and just released a stunning 12" on Optimo Music (http://www.optimomusic.com/releases/golden-teacher-dante-and-pilgrim).

So, with the re-release of the debut and this massive tour, does this mean you guys will be working on a new album when you come back off tour?

I hope so. We've been writing pretty solidly since we released the last one, so we've built up a handful of new tracks. We intend to play a few of them on this tour to get them as tight as possible, then get to the studio and blast them out, no messin.

What can Londoners expect on the 19th March?

Tinnitus!

So there it is folks, we'll see you tomorrow at the show. Divorce's debut album is out now on Night School Recs, buy it from the following links!  VINYL: http://bit.ly/NcHGuT // DIGITAL: http://bit.ly/xLdqQW

#ff w/ 4AD, Dead Wolf Club, Scene Not Herd, Team Ghost, Bluth Quotes

It's our first #ff Twitter feature, so we've picked some our favourite things. Just click through on the image to follow...

Scene Not Herd

No explanation needed...

4AD

Mega label that have peeps like Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, tUnE-yArDs, Scott Walker, Twin Shadow, The National on their books. Nuff said.

Dead Wolf Club

Everyone's favourite 'dark punk geek rage' guitar smashing act.

Team Ghost

Former 50% of M83, 100% excellent electro, shoegaze, avant garde sounds.

Bluth Quotes

Arrested Developement, still my favourite show ever made. Every line is a classic, hence, it's great to relive these moments over and over and over and over, but on Twitter.

Thursday Top 3 at 3:33

Before winter's wrecking ball oppressed us all into a dungeon-dank prison, there was this magical fable called summer; where friends once frolicked wild and free in far away lands laden with music festivals and fish-bowl tumblers of gin. During this whimsical season somebody (lovely) allowed THIS SNH member, to procreate. Thankfully the result was a beautiful baby girl born in January, which has been a much welcome distraction from said wrecking ball.

From all the team, Congrats man! Here's some songs of support to guide you into this dauntingly new and exciting universe. May the stars shine even brighter now than they did in the ol' milky way you just twirled out of (sorry this is so late X).

Explosions In The Sky  - Day 1



Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock (acoustic)

Neil Young - I Am A Child

Dead Wolf Club to release second album on 11th February

We're happy to announce that Dead Wolf Club will be releasing their second record 'RAR' on February 11th via Scene Not Herd Recordings. The record is already doing the rounds in the blog world and the first single, double A-side 'Strange Letters/A Versus E' has already garnered plays on XfM and BBC Introducing.

Check out both the tracks below via the Soundcloud Player or YouTube vids. The album can be pre-ordered HERE

They'll also be supporting the release with a UK tour as follows - 

8 Isle of Man Douglas Villa Marina
10 Liverpool Shipping Forecast
11 Leicester Scholar Bar
12 Manchester Sound Control
13 Glasgow Bar Bloc
14 Bolton Railway Venue
15 London Sebright Arms 


16 Guilford Boileroom

  Dead Wolf Club - Strange Letters - A Versus E by scenenotherd

Dead Wolf Club announce new single, album, UK tour and video!

Our very own Dead Wolf Club have announced the release of their brand new single "Strange Letters" today, taken from the forthcoming second album “RAR” which will be out via SNH in February.

We're releasing the single on a very limited vinyl run and it can be pre-ordered here. The single will be released 14 January. Meanwhile, you can download it free here or via the below SoundCloud player. Free download is only available until Christmas Day, so be quick!

To accompany it they've made the below video!

They've also announced a UK Tour to support their second album release which will be out in February -

FEB 2013 “RAR” TOUR

8 Isle of Man Douglas Villa Marina

9 Liverpool Shipping Forecast

11 Leicester Scholar Bar

12 Manchester Live Lounge

13 Glasgow Bar Bloc

14 Chester Compass

15 London Sebright Arms 



16 Guilford Boiler Rooms

Seasons Greetings from team Scene Not Herd

We love Christmas. It’s literally our favourite thing ever.  It has everything you could possibly want: Reindeer; tacky lighting; whacky knits; warm booze; jolly bearded old men; and most importantly cheesy festive tunes.

2012 has been BIG. So we’re going to use the last month of what has turned out to be a mental year, to look back on some of our top 2012 highlights (we promise not to bang on about the Olympics and Jubilee) and look forward to 2013. 

We’ve asked some of our favorite bands, labels, magazines and promoters to help us out with this – so we’ll be bringing you one post a day from them – sort of like a musical advent calendar.

You can also look forward to our festive podcast – which will be up on the site by this weekend – or there abouts.

Anyway – thanks for sticking with us.  Have a great festive period and we hope to catch you at one of our shows next year! (yes there are some in the pipeline…watch this space.)

SNH Podcast Jan/Feb '12

I trust you'll be pleased to learn we have belatedly whipped out another podcast, full of post-rum musings and musics. No Alwin this time - fear not - we found a more eloquent (and arguably better looking) replacement in the form of a delightful jar of Polish pickles. Check it it aaaawwwwt!

SNH 001 - Dead Wolf Club - Dead Wolf Club - released TODAY

This is a pretty big moment for us at SNH HQ - today we release our first record! It's available on vinyl, CD and as a digital download and you can get your hands on a copy here.

Dead Wolf Club video teaser

Happy New Year! This is the first post from us lot this year - so I guess we'd better make it a gooden! If you're a fan of spiders, you'll definitely appreciate what our very own Duncan (D-money, D-dog, Big-D) has come up with. Behold a treat for your eyes and ears, for he's only bloody gone and done us a promo video for our first release. Have a watch - get involved people!

Interview: Keeping Warm with the Digits

Fresh from releasing their debut last month, Keep Warm...With the Warm Digits, and receiving rave reviews  (as well as quite a bit of attention from those BBC Radio people), we caught up with the lovely lads from Warm Digits ahead of their SNH London show this week.  Prepare for tales of Pacman and boyband fame...well almost...

SNH: How did Warm Digits come together? Was there an idea of the sound you wanted?

Warm Digits : We had known each other for ages in Newcastle – both playing on each other’s projects (Cathode and The Matinee Orchestra). As Warm Digits, we were originally a laptop duo, making dubbed-out techno, heavily influenced by Basic Channel. After a few gigs, we were asked to do a live score for a work by (Canadian film maker) Norman McLaren. In rehearsals for this, it became clear that the dual laptop didn’t really work for the scoring project, and we decided to try using instruments that we both played – drums and guitar – and we soon realised that it worked better than the dual laptop, and we have developed Warm Digits in that format since then.

How did you come to call yourself Warm Digits?

Steve’s partner said to him that she had cold digits – Steve thought this would be a good name for our band. However, we thought it was to Northern European, and so changed cold for warm.

How would you guys describe your sound? Is krautadelic a fair description?

Blizzardwave, Trans-Pennine, Krautaphonic duo.

I can hear splashes of Trans Am & Neu! as well as a plethora of other musical greats. Who are your personal biggest influences in music?

Yes – Neu! and Trans AM. Bands that we have talked about around this project have a wide range of connections – My Bloody Valentine, Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, Chris Corsano, Kraftwerk, Can, Harmonia, Michael Rother, Bob Moog, Emeralds, Drexciya…

What’s your plans for the upcoming year?

We are releasing a 7” on Signals record label. Another tour. Another album…

You guys have played the odd show, any stand out gigs you’ve played? Any particular shows you looking forward to?

We enjoyed supporting Goblin at The Sage in Gateshead. Our album launch at the Star and Shadow in Newcastle was pretty cool. It was fun to go Berlin and play earlier this year. It is always great to support Field Music (which we did at The Deaf Institute in Manchester). We love playing live – and it’s nice to play outside of Newcastle – we’ve done about 30 shows there, and have a great following, so we are looking forward to taking our show to other cities.

With names like Weapons Destruction and Grapefruit, what are your songs titles about?


Weapons Destruction is an anti-nuclear weapons track. Often song titles come out of research – it’s great to read around things we are interested in and find titles there. Also some of our song titles come from experiences we have. For example, Trans-Pennine Express is the train line that we use to visit each other (Newcastle-Manchester), and, of course, it is also homage to Kraftwerk.
Weapons Destruction by Warm Digits

Can you give us a heads up on some of the lesser known bands in the Tyneside/Mancunian area?


Quack Quack are amazing. Silver Fox are great. Rachel Lancaster is amazing.

Beards from Leeds are brill. Razmataz Lorry Excitement played a blinder at a club gig we did recently.

Sometimes your music sounds like being trapped in a computer game. What computer
game are you (?), and what is the best video game EVER?!

We are a BBC programme-it-yourself computer manual. (Andy likes Pacman).
PLAY PACMAN HERE 

And lastly, an odd Warm Digits fact please?

One member of Warm Digits was in the original line-up of the 90s pop band Orlando (he left before the time of this video, due to musical differences) 

Catch the marvellous Warm Digits, along with Gum Takes Tooth and Pseudo Nippon on Tuesday 25th October for Free at The Old Blue Last. Details on our events page or Facebook here

SNH in Photos

We had a great show last night; with awesome sets from Fever Dream, Flamingods and Hot Panda. A few poleroids of the night are below, there are more pictures to follow...

Fever Dream

Flamingods

Hot Panda

Soph

Too many drinks...

The third podcast....FINALLY!!!!

The music we play on this August/September edition makes this worth the long wait. Enjoy :)

SNH Podcast #3 August September by scenenotherd
Featured tracks -
Ponytail - Easy Peasy
Bilge Pump - Thank You Very Much
Yellow Ostrich - Blue
Warm Digits - Weapons Destruction
True Widow - Jackyl
Collarbones - Don Juan

Flamingods + Fever Dream for 29/09/11 at The Stag's Head

We are excited to announce Flamingods and Fever Dream have been added to our night with Hot Panda on 29^th September at the Stag’s Head, Dalston.

Flamingods are Kamal Rasool, Charles Prest (of Cabaret Scene), Sam Rowe, Karthik Poduval and Craig Doporto; their music sounds like a tropical sun beatings down on an exotic jungle island.

Similar to Tune-Yards’ noisy, tribal weirdness, Flamingods make original freaky, folk/ psych music that combines an array of world music influences and a general disregard for musical form or structure. They just play what they want and somehow manage to push boundaries to the outer limits without sounding in any way ridiculous, pretentions or just, well, shit.

Evoking images of tribal revellers whooping, wailing and droning as they dance round a campfire making ready their next human sacrifice, this band really is a step in the right direction of originality and deserving of a listen.

Fever Dream are dark; they play fuzzy, brooding music that shakes your soul and warms your blood. Taking their inspiration from Sonic Youth, Times New Viking  and the like, these post-punk, new wave revellers will have you up and dancing on your feet, if not somewhat moodily. Be sure to get down early and check them out.

 This Waste by Fever Dream 

Trogons / Fishing / Guerre at Old Blue Last, 14 July 2011

 A few photos from last week's show:

Trogons

Trogons 

 Fishing

Fishing

Fishing - Doug

Fishing Freakout

Fishing - Russell

Fishing

Guerre

Guerre

Guerre