Author Archives: Albert

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About Albert

Presenter of Eclectic Mainline on BCB 106.6FM, bassist in Wilful Missing, solo musician under the name Our Albert, and photographer.

Eclectic Mainline – 9th June 2010

And so it came to pass that it was Hannah Peel who first discovered that a good pop song will also sound good when sung accompanied by a music box.  Her Re-Box EP of covers of Cocteau Twins, New Order, OMD and Gloria Jones (or more likely Soft Cell given the era of her other choices) is well worth getting hold of.  Here’s a full list of what I played tonight:

The Bluetones – “Firefly” (LP – “A New Athens”) (CIA)
Surfer Blood – “Twin Peaks” (LP – “Astro Coast”) (Kanine)
The Acorn – “Crossed Wires” (LP – “No Ghost”) (Bella Union)
Micah P. Hinson – “2’s and 3’s” (single) (Full Time Hobby)
Seahawks – “Fantasy” (free CD with 7″ single – “Astral Winds”/”High Tides”) (Static Caravan)
Roland S. Howard – “(I Know) A Girl Called Jonny” (LP – “Pop Crimes”) (Infectious)
Nina Nastasia – “A Kind Of Courage” (LP – “Outlaster”) (Fat Cat)
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – “Fright Night (Nevermore)” (LP – “Before Today”) (4AD)
2020 Soundsystem – “Dark Matters” (free download from Bleep.com)
Dan Sartain – “Bohemian Grove” (LP – “Dan Sartain Lives”) (One Little Indian)
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – “The Wave” (EP – “Iris”) (Leaf Label)
Bonobo – “Stay The Same” ft. Andreya Triana (single and LP – “Black Sands”) (Ninja Tune)
Faust – “Hit Me” (LP – “Faust Is Last”) (Klangbad)
Hannah Peel – “Blue Monday” (EP – “Re-Box”) (Static Caravan)

Eclectic Mainline – 2nd June 2010

The Love Apple, Bradford.  RIP

The Love Apple, Bradford. RIP

Admittedly the closure of The Love Apple in Bradford isn’t the saddest news I’ve been greated with in the past couple of days. I wish it was, however, and that the shootings in Cumbria hadn’t happened.  However, I’m totally shocked and gutted that The Love Apple had to close, and this is a sad result of what has happened to Bradford in the past few years.  About 5 years ago the place (both Bradford and The Love Apple) was buzzing (quite literally after The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit‘s loud gig there!)  and there was a real vibe around the place.  Now…well, how things have changed.  The Bradford Playhouse is showing promising signs, but if a nice independent bar like The Love Apple can’t make ends meet, well, we’ve got problems.  Other highlights that I’ve seen there include Jeffrey Lewis (at which I was very proud to be part of the support with Wilful Missing), Dufus and The Wave Pictures (a great, yet poorly attended gig, again at which Wilful Missing were lucky enough to be asked to support).  I was also at the Jeremy Warmsley gig at which one Laura Groves made her first appearance, many a moon before blossoming into Blue Roses.  So, thanks must go to Pav and co for giving us The Love Apple, and I wish him and his staff the best of luck for whatever they do next.

Here’s what I played in my show tonight:

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Eclectic Mainline 26th May 2010 – Darren Hayman session

Tonight on BCB we had a special guest in one Darren Hayman. He came into BCB with his band before their gig at Theatre in the Mill on 1st May.

Darren Hayman at BCB

Darren Hayman at BCB

We shared the session between two of this evening’s shows. If you were listening to Too Much Too Young at 6:30pm with Patrick and Keiron, you will have had the delight of hearing Darren Hayman’s BCB session version of “Room To Grow”. I then featured two more tunes by Darren and his band in my show Eclectic Mainline at 8pm:

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Don’t look back, but there’s a band over there playing a whole album

In Phil Cope’s recent review of the ATP Festival we attended, he expressed an aversion to the modern trend of artists performing a seminal album in its entirety at a gig. Phil’s objection was prompted by Spiritualized performing their 1997 album Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space at the festival. I would like to defend this increasingly popular phenomenon.

J Spaceman at ATP: which song shall we do next, band?

J Spaceman at the ATP Festival: "which song shall we do next, band?"

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Moor Music Festival Volunteer call out

Moor Music Festival

The Moor Music Festival is a grass roots festival and has no corporate tie ins with the majority of work being carried out by volunteers. There are a wide variety of positions available and the opportunity for volunteers to gain valuable experience. Based in the North Yorkshire Dales the organisers are keen to initially offer these positions to local organisations and people interested. There are currently positions for Team Leader and Head Steward available for those with experience.

The deadline for signing up as a volunteer is 12th July 2010.

All volunteers are required to send a cheque for a refundable £85 deposit (the price of one weekend ticket) with their application to secure their place.

Download Volunteering at the Moor Music Festival 2010 for full details of the various ways you can be involved as a volunteer.

Once you know how you want to take part, download and complete the Volunteer Application Form and return it to us with your deposit via post.

More general info about the festival can be found here.

Eclectic Mainline 12th May – Fuck Buttons interview

Well, another May, and another life-changing experience at an All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival.  This year, at the Matt Groening event,  it was Boredoms who turned my life upsite down.  They really were phenomenal.   I hope to have some photos to show you soon.  In the meantime, I can show you the back of my head occasionally popping into view during the start of the Spiritualized set.  Several things brought me close to tears, but this song was the one that actually did it.

Fuck Buttons did a couple of DJ sets at the festival, so it was apt that tonight we had an interview with them in my show.  If there is demand for it, I can make the interview available here on the blog as a podcast.  Here’s the tracklist for tonight’s show:

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Eclectic Mainline 5th May 2010 – Rough Beats Festival preview

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”
Plato

With that in mind, if you are reading this before the general election (it’s tomorrow at the time of writing) please do one thing for me …..

VOTE!

If you were thinking of not voting at all in protest, i.e. staying away from the polling station, I would like to urge you to still actually go along, but make your protest by instead spoiling your ballot paper. The reason is this: to those counting the votes, there is no difference between your stay-at-home protest and apathy.


Right, now I’ve got that off my chest, on with the show….

Rough Beats Festival 2010 – 4th-6th June

Rough Beats

Rough Beats

“Yorkshire’s best and most original independent music festival” (in their own words, and who’s to disagree?) is back, and to mark it myself and Laura Rawlings previewed the festival in our shows tonight. Partially because Bradford’s Little Attic Records (home to Wilful Missing) are curating one of the stages, there are quite a number of West Yorkshire artists playing. Laura played previous BCB session tracks by some of the artists playing, and I slotted in a few studio recordings by some of the artists too. Full details of the festival can be found on the Rough Beats website.

Here’s the full list of what I played in my show:

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