Xmas - final gigs, new announcements for 2009 =0

Well it's just after xmas, a bunch of new shows announced for 2009 and some much needed rest =0

For our last gig of the year, we had the pleasure of having the (international) noise conspiracy rock the kufa before the xmas break. Metro opened the preceedings, I haven't seen them for a while, but their new stuff is 'ganz gudd' , their opening song in particular seems to really stick in my head. They have an EP or something coming out towards the start of next year so can look forward to that.
T(I)NC exploded onto the stage around 21h40 or so, all wearing skinny jeans and purple suits, high octane 70s inspired rock with a massive backdrop of their new album that just got released, I had never gotten to see them before but given the show they put on i was asking myself why, a really solid performance and a great way to finish off 2008.

Despite it being the holiday season I'm really happy to announce some new great shows for 2009, which all got confirmed in the past week or so:

24/02 - My Vitriol (UK) - think shoegazing meets grunge, big soundscapes with great melody, it might be on a wednesday, but they haven't been too active since their amazing record 'finelines' released in 2001 , taking a 4-5year break since, a band well worth seeing in my opinion

http://www.purevolume.com/myvitriol

(** amended date, due to routing issues they will be playing on the 24th of February **)

11/03 - Cult of Luna - absolutely crushing, saw them in London scala earlier this year, very impressive not only to watch but to experience, their sound really hits hard

18/03 - The Ocean, Burst, Bison BC -
Just confirmed, the ocean return to the kufa as part of a very impressive package, Burst will be presenting their new album 'lazarus bird' connaisseurs will probably remember them. Bison BC have been likened to Mastodon, absolutely great reviews from a lot of various press/magazines, insider's tip =0 definately

27/03 - Tomte - hamburgschule, awesome indie with a subtle touch

08/04 - Poison the well - Their first ever visit in Luxembourg, a big name within the hardcore/metalcore scene that they pretty much started off in the late 90's with their first EP and the LP 'opposite of december' , they have evolved into more experimental territory now, but still hit hard

18/04 - Out of the Crowd festival ... No word on the lineup just yet, but It's one of those things that you can just recommend in advance, great way to spend easter ;)

If you're wondering, Benabar has been sold out barely a few weeks after announcing it, which is why I haven't listed it here, it will be a hectic night for sure


Lastly, my band La Fa Connected, has just released a 5 song EP , free to download and stream on myspace

www.myspace.com/lafaconnected

We play indie influenced guitar rock =0 , it's free either way so have a look if you have time.

Anyhow, all the best for the end of the year, and hope to see you all in 2009


take care

best lists of 2008 ...

so they're slowly surfacing ;0

pitchfork have got some up already, and you can download/listen to all the tracks they nominate for this year, pretty cool

have a listen

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

The past week - concerts + more =0

So it's friday already and I haven't had time until now to update this , guilt trip ;0


Let's start off in chronological order which makes a lot more sense.


Last week we had Bang your head on the saturday which basically made for a long day of heavy music and unfortunately in my case a bad case of hiccups which lasted 3-4 hours...not the best of things to have at a concert i can tell you ;0

Following a monstrous sound-check and epic dinner, the doors opened at 19h , I was happy to see a bunch of people show up early enough to see Scarred, a band i'm yet to see live. They played a very tight gojira influenced breed of metal with certain modern influences, tight set , great musicians, be good to see them again at some point.

The concept for the evening was to have a local band on and then an international act, after Miles to perdition finished their set we had Psyke Project play... heavy heavy stuff but they somehow didn't get my memo on 35minute stage time, playing almost 45 instead...ah well, made things get a bit later than expected, but this didn't deter the crowd at all, who after shaped by fate's crushing destruction ;) nearly all stayed until hatesphere finished up at around 1:15am...now that's dedication, ex inferis also had a good sound for once =0 which was a really good thing , hatesphere played this song at 1am...made my night anyhow




was a real busy week, we also had Murder by Death on the tuesday , unfortunately there was bad bad weather on the night which i think deterred some people from showing up, but for the people that were there it was definately worthwhile, after a 40minute set from traumkapitan, Murder By Death reminded me what made them so good, a solid set of americana noir so to speak, numerous people told me they had chills just from the singer's voice...so i'm guessing he was doing something right ;0

whisky not water...maybe we should all take note heh

music for the weekend: - swedish influenced prog melodic metal hardcore ... now that's a long description

http://www.myspace.com/hauntedshores

hope to see you all at noise conspiracy next week =0 ,will be a great way to finish off 2009.

Joe Satriani sues coldplay...

Now i don't know what shocked me more...that joe satriani is sueing coldplay , or that he's actually 52 years old...wowzers

Satch sues coldplay

have a listen, same chord progression and pretty much the same melody in both songs...

seeing as Satriani's song was first...who's right?

//

and the plot thickens...

and again ** sorry about the 239048 invites to bang your head on facebook, for some reason it sent out 10+ invites after i clicked it

band for this weekend...seeing as it's bang your head tomorrow ;)

http://www.myspace.com/bleedthesky

Kanye West - 808s & heartbreak

Just got this album today, quite a departure from his previous albums, really grows on you , and definately worth a listen even if you generally hated his music lol

he called this 'pop art' , heavily using the roland tr-808 for sounds, with nice big production , songs that stick in your head and somehow sound fresh despite using 'dated' technology

considering i've been listening to a lot of pop-punk and melodic hardcore recently, this really hits for some reason

22.11 The Notwist

Quite possibly one of the slickest and best concerts I've seen all year, everything was spot on from start to finish.

Surprising maybe =0 considering the bad weather and delays earlier in the day that meant that the timetable was runnin 3 hours late heh.

We were lucky that we didn't have the same weather conditions that were present the day after, turning most traffic to a halt on the sunday, and our hall was pretty much half full by the time we hit around 21h.

Unfortunately the support act cancelled just two days before the actual concert, and a replacement could not be found in time for the actual gig, which meant that the notwist started a bit earlier. the notwist singer Markus put on some cool sounding records for about 40 minutes or so before the notwist actually hit the stage to an eager crowd, many who had driven quite far to see this.

I was lucky enough to watch some of the gig from the light technician's desk upstairs and was very impressed not only by the songs but the precision of the light show, every small nuance of the songs were reflected somehow with the light show, something very nice to see. The band played a lot of songs off the new album that definately came over better live for me, and some quality picks from their big album 'neon golden' ... it seems almost impossible to talk about the notwist without mentioning this album ;) and look I've just done it heh

They played a good 1hr 15 minutes or so, not missing a beat between songs.

we have also finally got a proper camera today so expect more photos on here and more specifically on our facebook profile =0 for upcoming events

thanks to all those who came up on a cold and icy saturday to witness a truly great concert, and hope to see you for our upcoming events =) have some great shows for december so hope to see you soon

 

 

18/11 - Never say die tour

The longest day I've had to work yet =0 and totally worth it

Their tour bus arrived at 6am! , the fine folk from alphadoubleplus turned up around 9:30am for a long day of metal and hardcore.

I haven't seen so many merch stands for a while, but with 7 bands playing that was to be expected, soundchecks started mid afternoon, a massive backline of crushing peavey amps =0

Having around 50-60 people around the kufa halls was quite a difference from the concerts i've had until now, all the bands were extremely professional, definately made things very very easy, at one point there was around 12 people on laptops in our backstage =0 quite a sight and probably one of the best adverts for apple too hah

considering it was a tuesday we had a good turnout, a lot of kids showed up, (there was even a kid there from around 4 pm or so that was hanging around listening to soundchecks...now that's dedication =0 .

there was circle pits...even a wall of death on stage during unearth which was a little crazy , and kids climbing up on stage and moshing about, awesome to watch either way =0 and the bands were all on the mark

particular highlight for me was protest the hero who technically blew my ears off, and architects . I had been lucky enough to see most of the other bands before but they definately didn't disapoint,

saw the concerts...bought a shirt ;0

I'll really need a proper camera to put up pictures as the phone camera just isn't good enough for some reason (all the pictures seem to come out grainy)

Notwist tomorrow! , should be quite a few people, definately looking forward to it

good times for the weekend:

www.myspace.com/hitthelights

stay out all night :P

Quentin Lagonza - 14/11

A long week so far, we've had France3 television filming the kulturfabrik for a short 'reportage' that should feature in the next few weeks,

also featured in some interviews =0 be funny to see all of it on tv when it appears heh

tonight we have Quentin Lagonza who will release their first CD, just waiting for them to arrive, I still haven't gotten a proper camera, but hopefully I'll have figured my phone camera out a bit better.

Two big concerts next week, Never say die and then the notwist on the weekend, amidst all this I have to stay on the ball and book things for next year, I'm loving the challenge anyhow =0

As always send me suggestions, I'll update with some photos a bit later


Some suggestions for the weekend

www.myspace.com/delphic

www.myspace.com/carrythetorchmusic

www.myspace.com/therefortomorrow

the disliked - 1/11

first time working a saturday , and it was awesome hah

a fair amount of people i know were there, and quite a lot of people showed up for the event,

when i finally closed up and left at 3am i was tired but happy, really glad that so many people turned up, especially just after halloween, will write more later but for now some photos, unfortunately i have to figure out some settings, so there's white grain on some of them due to the lights , these were all taken before people arrived of course ;p , i didn't get round to taking more pics of the backstage, but i'll do that next time...and maybe with a proper camera too ;0

some new links

thx deborah =0

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/newbandoftheday

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music

//

working on february/march bookings at the moment, january is surprisingly...or perhaps not so surprisingly dry in terms of artist avails, picking up

post new year's syndrome? =0

which means a big flux of concerts from late january onwards, 

band for the weekend

four year strong !


http://www.myspace.com/fouryearstrong

put pop punk stylings a bit of synth and occasional hardcore/gang vocals , aweeesome

reading material

my daily visits to the following =0

worth looking at =0


mainly hardcore,'underground' releases
www.lambgoat.com

more of the same ;0
www.decoymusic.com

a big mix of everything indie/punk/underground
www.pitchforkmedia.com

punk and all it's variants
www.absolutepunk.net

keep on trucking

discovered this today, truly inspirational

www.whatiswhat.com

zomg, A.Armada and FMTM were amazing last night, wore the oldschool t-shirt as well heh , good to see bands again after like 4-5 years, thank you schalltot =0

got sent this today...how awesome is this at a festival:

Top 100 need to know bands in 2008...

Nice little list...

http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=300005


considering it was printed at the start of 2008, some pretty good names,

Some personal highlights ;0

The Audition
August Burns Red
Charlotte Sometimes
Jaguar Love
Genghis Tron
Enter Shikari
All Time Low
Bottomless Pit
Baroness
The Forms *ahem ;0
Kate Nash
Foxy Shazam
The Cribs
The Valley Arena
National Product
Forever The Sickest Kids
Attack In Black
Maps & Atlases
Bear Hands
MGMT
Black Kids
Four Year Strong
Oh,Sleeper
Vampire Weekend
Portugal , The Man
Dartz!
Sonny
Crystle Castles
Coliseum

the forms

pinback meets dismemberment plan ?

for some reason i can't stop listening to this, maybe one day they'll play in this country =0

http://www.myspace.com/forms



I strongly suggest going to see From monument to masses with A.Armada, artaban tonight at dqliq, will be a really really good concert

2nd month , a 2nd start

So it begins =0

I've been at this job for almost 2 months now, still getting to grips with the other side of the music industry.

After 5-6 years playing in local bands playing shows of various sizes and experiencing what it is to try and get stuff moving as a band, I'm now on the other side of the coin as it were.
Instead of sending off band information and asking for shows and or information i'm receiving it, it's strange but also probably a good thing for being able to relate to most of the bands/bookers that contact me for shows.

As for the job i couldn't be happier, it's flexible and above all i get to book and thereafter see concerts of some of my favourite bands =0

The point of this blog is to show the other side of shows/concerts that people might not always get to see, setting up/backstage/sound checks , all the things that go on silently in the background the foundations for what you end up seeing in the evening during one or two hours, as well as my thoughts which will be unavoidable ;0

I'll be trying to take as many photos as possible and hopefully video at some point of concerts/events that I put on here which will hopefully not only interest me, but others as well.

I will try and update this as much as possible with not only the events I'll be organising but also in a typical blog way, thoughts and input on the local scene and the music industry in general.

Here are the upcoming events for 2008 so far:

1/11 - CD release - the disliked (ska punk) + support
14/11 - CD release - quentin lagonza (garage rock) +support

18/11 - Never say die tour . Parkway drive, unearth, architects .. (metal)
22/11 - The Notwist (electro pop rock)

6/12 - bang your head festival , hatesphere,psyke project,exinferis,shaped by fate (metal)

9/12 - Murder by death - (americana / post punk)

19/12 - The (international) noise conspiracy (rock)


//

next update soon =0