Sometimes, I like nothing more than to stand around in a church looking moody/tired.

The other week nice songsmith Chris Selman asked if I would do that in the background of his video, so I was happy to oblige!

And so here I am. There’s a bit of a cameo from something from the Season’s Change video (apart from me, obviously) too!

Can you honestly say your weekend was better than… THIS?

From the Hope and Social Snowball

Hello,

Those lovely people at Yorkshire Telly are holding a vote for the favourite videos on the site right now… They’ve got so much on the go, but it would be splendid if you could pop a vote our way, for this video we did in Ripon:

You can vote for whichever you want using the #favouriteyorkshiretelly hashtag on twitter, or posting to Yorkshire Telly’s facebook wall.

If you’re on Twitter and want to vote for us, just click here! And please tell your chums!

Terms like “Feel-good event of the year!” get littered around far too liberally. However, last week at the Brudenell one of the most heartwarming gigs I’ve seen this year took place.

After winning the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition this year, and being picked for the Leeds and Reading BBC Introducing stages in 2009, their EP release is long over due – but worth the wait. This is proper, great songwriting, and the four tracks are packed with emotion and respectfully produced.

The EP “Launch” – despite the EP having been available for a fair few months – was a really wonderful affair.

First up, Sam Airey. I listened to his Whiska’s-produced Season’s Change EP, and was very impressed, but that wasn’t a patch on his live set – looking totally natural and at ease with guitars on who-knows-what tunings, his voice was reminicent of a young Nick Drake.

I was wondering for a while why The Travelling Band sounded so familiar, putting it down to the catchyness of their tunes, which along with their spot-on harmonies and assured musicality made for a great set. It turns out that we (March of Dimes) supported them last year in Manchester. Oops. That said, it was a tremendous set and they’re clearly getting better and better.

A slightly weather-worn troupe of Escapades came on stage, with Ellen fighting that nasty throat infection that’s going round, and bassist Andy just about recovered from some ghastly sounding thing that took him out of action for the first half of the tour. Andy was, I am reliably informed, admirably replaced by Gary Stewart, despite not being tall enough to reach the tuning keys at the end.

As soon as the music started though, you’d never know. The stage at the brudenell – which generally looks like some of the places I woke up in during my student days after particularly hefty houseparties – was made all the more cozy with lamps, rugs and fairy lights.

I had only heard four or five tracks by Ellen and the Escapades through the EP and an online vid, but every song sounded both fresh and like an old favourite. An hour of great tracks flew by, showing that not only is the EP well worth getting and listening to over and over, but there’s plenty more great material to come too.

It was great to see so many faces from the Leeds music “scene” there too – Adam and a couple of the girls from LeedsIndieRadio, Gary Stewart (who’s album I finally bought, and sounds brilliant too – but more about that later), Charlie Barnes (who, as always, is working on some really interesting and exciting stuff), Chris Selman (almost unrecognisable in his day-guise as Teacher rather than Popstar… I mean how cool a teacher is THAT to have?) and a whole bunch of other people besides.

It’s clear there’s a lot of love for Ellen and the Escapades right now, it’s rightly deserved, and I do think we will see plenty more of her before long.

www.ellenandtheescapades.com

All photos ©2010 JoMurricane

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Hello all,

It’s all about the cuts today. Just in case you’re wondering about the lineup for this months Foxes, well, it’s been cut. We’re having a month off to get ourselves sorted out for the next, frankly wonderful, set of gigs.

If you’re heading to Milo anyway tonight, they’ll still have some bands on – always good value from them!

Next month we’ll have a bumper Foxes of exceptional quality, and you’ll get a nice invite about it very soon. I’m TRES excited about it. And you should be too.

Much love,
Sean & Jon
x

Last night at Foxes and Convicts we hosted the amazing Water Tower Bucket Boys! Thanks for the video, @Vahva!

I’ve got lots of music goings on this week… The big things are:

Water Tower Bucket Boys @ Milo, Wed 18th

We’re putting on this amazing ol’ time band at Milo as part of Foxes and Convicts tomorrow night in Leeds – it’s free in, at Milo (opposite Blue Rinse next to the Corn Exchange) and going to be a really busy one, so get down early! The fun starts at 8!

March of Dimes @ Elbow Rooms & Nation of Shopkeepers

Tom’s off on holiday this month, so we’ve rearranged the songs into a good ol’ bit of footstompin’ fun. We’ll be playing them at Elbow Rooms on Friday night, then over in York on Saturday, then back to play Nation of Shopkeepers on Sunday night.

If you’re around, pop down. If only to see me sweat through trying to play 4am:division and Cracks in the Floor and a kick drum at the same time.

Hannah Trigwell playing "Give it Up"

When I started running the monthly Milo night with Jon from the Dimes, we started recording a monthly podcast with some live sessions from the people playing at the night.

The first run was brilliant fun, and we had some amazing sets – so great, in fact, that I’m going to put together a pay-what-you-want compliation album of the tracks in aid of Cancer Research UK.

Not only that, but we’ve recorded another one! We’ve got three acts in we’ve wanted to record with for ages, so that’s very exciting, and they are:

Silky

Hannah Trigwell

and

Jack, and Gill’s Daughter

Fluffy Cyberman

There’s been a bit of a buzz around the Leeds cultural scene over the past few months, and a lot of it has been down to one page on a website.

“Yorkshire telly is coming soon”

After keeping us waiting and building up quite the interest, Yorkshire Telly has finally launched, and has already uploaded four great videos – a taste of things to come from this pioneering internet broadcast team.

Watching these videos made me think the following:

1) I want a double bass
2) How lovely is Yorkshire in the summertime?
3) I really want a double bass
4) There’s so much talent in Yorkshire, it’s fantastic to have a place to show it all off.

It’s worth mentioning the video technology too – loaded really quickly at a very high quality for me… I hope we can get a mobile version sometime, I’d love to see these videos on the go!

So pop on over to Yorkshire Telly and see what they’re up to. For a taster, here’s one of the first videos they’ve uploaded, I’ll let Albert Ross introduce it…

Yet more good local new music for your eardrums – This week it’s Secret Sirens.

Secret Sirens are Narelle Frances and Andrew Siron. They both appear to have been knocking about in various different projects for a while, but this latest collaboration seems to have something a bit special about it.

Through the seemingly never-ending stream of guitar-guitar-guitar-boring-boring-boring acts that are always on the bubble, it’s nice to hear someone doing something a bit different… They’ve clearly spent some time building a nice atmospheric, layered sound.

New bands need to be told there’s no shame in sounding poppy!

Their new single, Black Heart, is out next month, so have a listen to a sample here:

And if you’re in Leeds, they’re playing Elbow Rooms tonight at 8:30!

Friday bonus: Here’s a clip from the remix of the single, also available next month:

http://www.secretsirensmusic.com

Secret Sirens on Facebook & Twitter