Category Archives: Live Music

Ooh the weather outside is frightful but never worry never fear – The BCB Sessions it is here!

The BCB Sessions – 1 Dec 2010

Far be it from me to harp on about the weather (not very showbiz) but we’ve all got giddy with it. Loads of snow = six hours before the show,  stranded in London, scrambling to get on a train, thinking this must have been what Lord of the Flies was like…. Anyway the chance of trudging through the white stuff to get my record bag and meticulously selected songs was a big fat zero. On the upside, three hours on a train gave me plenty of time to find weather related (or tenuously connected) tunes on the ipod…and lovingly put together a show for you.

The cherry on the snowy icing is the session from Les Shelleys (FatCat Records). Thanks to Albert Freeman for pressing the record button and adding some extra sparkle. The result’s gorgeous. Three fab covers…

Miike Snow – Black and blue

Fujiya & Miyagi – 16 Shades of black and blue

Stereolab – Come and play in the milky night

Fists – Finger (from a Tip Toe Records compilation. Leeds based label with lovelies like Fran Rodgers, Buen Chico and Insect Guide)

Les Shelleys – Late John Garfield blues, written by John Prine

Ed Harcourt – In the bleak midwinter

Peppermint Lounge – Snow falls down (session track from the archive. Love these guys, hear more of them at mypsace.com/thepeppermintlounge).

Mercury Rev – Snowflake in a hot world

Les Shelleys (BCB Session) – I’m on fire, written by Bruce Springsteeen, originally on his Born in the USA album.

Belle and Sebastian – Write about love (well..it’s one way to keep warm on a cold night)

Fleet Foxes – White winter hymnal

Northern Introvert – Breakdown (Producer/DJ from Bradford…Secret Symbols EP out on Dec 6th)

Neon Indian – Terminally chill

Les Shelleys (BCB Session) – Deep Purple, written by Peter DeRose (1920s tune)

I’m back on Wednesday night at 9pm – 106.6fm in Bradford / www.bcbradio.co.uk online. Whatever the weather the show must go on (my stiff upper lip is actually frozen) and our session comes from Gregory and the Hawk, who’ve been touring with Les Shelleys.

Don’t forget to keep the postie busy and send in any songs you’d like me to play on the radio: Laura Rawlings, The BCB Sessions, 11 Rawson Road, Bradford BD1 1NE. Or if you’d like to come and do a session, email me: laura.rawlings@bcbradio.co.uk

Until Wednesday.

Lx

Selection Box Show 148

…The catch-up continues, and seen as this particular show was the Leeds Festival review, which has been covered in some extensive detail here, here and here I dare say we can rush this one through fairly quickly without much guilt.

Courtesy of this lovely Soundcloud player you can listen to this show again for a limited period (probably about the length of time it would take to fashion a bust of the head of Skeletor out of mashed up walnut cake). Sadly due to copyright and such blah the show cannot be made available as a downloadable file.

Selection Box Show 148 by PatrickSelection_Box

Us glamourous press types get our own enclave with its own bar and enough room to swing a cat. Oh yes.

Us glamourous press types get our own enclave with its own bar and enough room to swing a cat. Oh yes.

Selection Box Show 148

Transmitted 06/9/2010

1. Jack Montgomery – Dearly Beloved
from: Ultimate Northern Soul (various artists)

Interview with Biz from Kassius

2. Champion Jack Dupree – Shake Baby Shake
from: The Birth of Rock N Roll (various artists)

3. The Walkmen – I’m Never Bored
from: Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone

Interview with Dave & Jaff from The Futureheads

4. The Futureheads – Park Inn
from: Nul Book Standard EP

5. Caribou – Odessa
from: Swim

Interview with Andy & Kelcey from Local Natives

6. Local Natives – Sun Hands
from: Gorilla Manor

7. British Sea Power – Remember Me
from: The Decline of British Sea Power

Patrick Thornton presents Selection Box every Monday at Midnight.

Eclectic Mainline 27th October 2010

Tonight, to mark the fact that The Duke & The King are playing in Leeds at The Wardrobe tomorrow with Wilful Missing I repeated the session of theirs, first broadcast in Laura’s BCB Sessions back on 12th May.  You can also listen to their session again here on Untitled Noise if you so wish.

The Duke And The King at BCB, April 2010

The Duke And The King at BCB, April 2010

Amid all the excitement of the fact that we were running a competition to give away tickets to the above mentioned gig, and the fact that I was looking forward to The Twilight Sad in session in Laura’s show tonight, I forgot to wax lyrical about the fact that Animal Collective have been announced as curators of the ATP Festival next May.  This is absolutely brilliant news.  I had in my head 4 potential candidates for curating it, of which they were one.  The others, if you are interested, would have been Super Furry Animals, Polly Jean Harvey or Dangermouse.

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The BCB Sessions

Well hello there! I know, I’m rubbish. Like some dodgy ex that comes crawling back with a paltry offering…and a feeble apology. So here I am with the latest playlists (worth waiting for I’m sure). And I’m not helped this morning because I’m being distracted by some wierd, slowed down, gentle guitar love-in version of Live and Let Die. OK, so you’ve heard the excuses but where are the goods I hear you cry?

Well this is what we played on Wed 20 Oct:

Sparrow and the Workshop in session! This band are ace – top tunes and lovely, lovely people.

School of Seven Bells – Heart is strange
Still Flyin – Stay wild, tokelau
Magic Kids – Hey boy
PVT – Window
Sparrow & the Workshop (BCB Session) – Devil song
Yann Tiersen – Palestine
Blonde Redhead – Here sometimes
KORT – Picking wild mountain berries
Dirty projectors – As I went out one morning
Sparrow & the workshop (BCB Session) – Just what I needed
SBTRKT – Look at stars
synthetic phonics – got my lovin
Peppermint Lounge – African orange. (Two lads in Leeds who mash it up, playing tunes that cut across genres & make you happy) http://www.myspace.com/thepeppermintlounge
Declining Winter ( Epic 45 Remix) (Pudsey’s Fourth best band – not sure who’s top trumping them but their live performances are intense and brilliant) http://www.myspace.com/thedecliningwinter
Sparrow & the workshop (BCB Session) – Medal around your neck

And on Wed 13 Oct:

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Leeds Festival Review: Day 3

Finally, the review is complete.  And so to bed…

That wind has got up again.  In fact, there would appear to be a tornado whipping up around my tent.  I’m going to take off like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz.  I wonder if I will land on a witch.  It really is causing a racket and there’s no way that I’ll be able to get back off to sleep now with that tent flapping about.  Oh, it’s raining now.  Goodness, it really is raining rather hard.  Perhaps the rhythm of the rain will lull me back to sleep…

Thats a map of Mordor isnt it.

That's a map of Mordor isn't it.

No, that didn’t work.  And anyway I need a wee.  The weather has been very kind to us these last few days, but I suspect that I may finally have to bite the bullet and don the wellies today.  I struggle into these and hope against hope that on this occasion I won’t be wearing them for long enough for them to stink like they did when I wore them at Glastonbury last year.  On that occasion the smell was an odd mix of styles – imagine if you would that someone decided to make a speciality cheese out of cow poo.  It would smell exactly the same as that.

Speaking of cleanliness, I notice on the way to the urine trough that the queue for the showers is not very long.  I know – showers at festival.  We get all the home comforts in the Guest Area you know.  Sadly, there’s all of four showers serving around 400 people, so thus far I’ve not bothered because I didn’t want to miss the entire festival whilst standing in a line to have a wash.  Hmmm, that line hasn’t moved at all.  What to do?  I decide to give it a whirl and see how far the queue moves in ten minutes or so.  After the ten minutes have elapsed I’m no nearer the shower, but I’m too stubborn to give up now I’ve started. Continue reading →

Grinderman, Leeds University Refectory, 27th September 2010

The aural equivalent to being spat on, support act The Hunter Gracchus subject a bemused audience to 15 minutes of improvised white noise. This consists of electric guitar and violin feedback, a dying saxophone and the old cliché, a wailing woman; if you’re planning on butchering your family with a pick axe and want some appropriate music to do it to, this band is for you.

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Leeds Festival Review: Day 2

(Yes, I know, I’m shoving this up on the blog somewhat after the event, but I’m a busy man y’know.  Better late than never…)

Bloody hell, it’s windy.  Either that or someone has got hold of the outside of my tent and is flapping it about like a Killer Whale with a half dead seal.  Maybe it’s them Spam bastards paying me back for nicking their tent pegs.  One thing is certain – the noise it is making has rendered any further sleep impossible without tranquilisers.  I dare say there’s a fair bit of Ketamine washing around the festival site, but personally I’ll give that a miss if it’s all the same to you.

Horse tranquilizers: its a race horse called Horlicks, apparently.

Horse tranquilizers: it's a race horse called Horlicks, apparently.

I am a parent now and hurtling towards middle-age, so 8am is considered an indulgent lie-in anyway, so I get up and go for breakfast – the details of which started the first blog, so we’ll skip over that.  However, before I can go to eat I am refused entry to the festival main area as no one is allowed in until 9am.  Eh, do what?  The festival closes at night?  I thought this was supposed to be a playground of non-stop revelry and no sleep ’til Brooklyn.  Now I find that everyone went to bed before me, tucked up with a cup of Horlicks (other revolting bedtime drinks are available).

It occurs to me that I’ve not really had a proper look around the whole site, so I rectify this.  There’s not a great deal around other than food stands and stalls selling t-shirts with wanky slogans, although I do spot a place which sells ale as opposed to the rather flimsy Tuborg which is the only other beer available onsite.  Sadly, further investigation later in the day reveals the ale to be rather horrid as well. Continue reading →

Sessions news…

Bingley Music Live final

Bingley Music Live final

Hi folks,

On Wednesday night I’ll be playing music from four more bands competing to open Bingley Music Live in September. It’s the big final competition at St George’s Hall on Saturday 24th so if you want to have a say in who goes through, get yourselves to the gig.

These are the runners and riders:

Jasmine Kennedy, Sharp Darts, The Mexanines, Secrets Sirens, Northern Glory, The Beat Marshalls, Black Diamond Bay and The Dawnriders. Good luck one and all! I’ve been at some of the heats and I can promise you these guys are great.

I’m getting ready to go to WOMAD – very excited already. I’m off to see Rolf Harris for goodness sake! Getting giddy about Horace Andy, Nouvelle Vague Club, Soil & Pimp, Ghislain Poirier, DJ Kentaro…so much good stuff. Promise to play some WOMAD treats on the show over the next few weeks.

Don’t forget, get in touch if you’ve got some tunes you’d like me to play, gigs to plug: laura.rawlings@bcbradio.co.uk
OOh and next week’s session (28th July) comes from Leeds lovelies Pifco!

Cope, Arrowsmith & McLaren: Selection Box Shows 128, 129 & 130

After a false start a little while ago, Brigadeer Phillip Agnostin D’Argtanian Tannoy Gargle Pissflap Cope III plonked his posterior into the guest chair for Selection Box 128.  I continually say that I am not going to keep noting the number of the show we’re on, as its something I only mark out for my own probably-autistic filing purposes.  And yet I continue to announce how many of these by-the-seat-of-the-pants produced pillock presented programmes we’re up to now.  Still, worth noting that in around four months we’ll (and that’s very much the royal “we”) be up to 147 shows.  Perhaps I’ll have a snooker-themed special to celebrate.  Chas & Dave have retired now, so that’s them out the window as potential session guests, but no doubt referee Len Ganley knows how to tap a triangle on cue, so that’s a part of the rhythm section sorted.  Actually, he’s probably dead now I think about it.  I do know that Steve Davis is a prog rock aficianado, so perhaps this isn’t as daft an idea as it first seemed.  The only problem I foresee is that personally I find the majority of prog a bit too, well, shit to play on air.

Yours truly (right) and Phil Cope clearly have nothing in common.

Yours truly (right) and Phil Cope clearly have nothing in common.

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Oh so fine acoustic sesh from Yorkshireguese

Hi folks,

Really chuffed to say Yorkshireguese came in for a live acoustic session…& selected some top local folk who play folk for our Northern Glory section. Tune in on Sat 27th at 7pm for a repeat of the show if you missed it. Here’s what I played…

Wed 24th Feb 2010

Chew Lips – Karen
Holly Miranda – No one just is
Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
Yorkshireguese (BCB Session) – Soul for sale
Dans le sac vs scroobius pip – Cauliflower
The Irrepressibles – In This Shirt
Stephanie Hladsowski (Nothern Glory) – Willy O’Winsbury
Motion Picture Soundtrack – Make it through the night
Yorkshireguese (BCB Session) – Right songs right wrongs
The Family Elan (Northern Glory) – Wide eyed fox
Yorkshireguese (BCB Session) – One sweet kiss

Back next week on Wednesday 3rd March with a very lovely acoustic sesh from Lawrence Arabia – huzah!