Kasabian Announce Reading and Leeds Warm-Up Gig

Kasabian announced today they will play London's excellent Brixton Academy on the 20th of August, as a warm-up for the Reading and Leeds festival 5 days later. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 9am. No word on the support band yet but sounds like a great night regardless.

Tune Of The Day #5: The Attack - Neville Thumbcatch

The Attack were a fairly short lived Freakbeat band formed in London in 1966, however they recorded enough to put together the an excellent 19-track compilation called 'About Time!'. This is an excellent, often hilarious and evidently English psychedelic track that is one of their strongest efforts for me. A guy called Peter Wyngarde recorded a pretty weird cover in 1970 which is also worth checking out if you like this. About Time! is very much worth a download, one of the most underrated bands of the 60s in my opinion.

For Fans Of: Freakbeat, Mod, The Creation
Available On: About Time (compilation)

Tune Of The Day #4: Detroit Social Club - Northern Man

Detroit Social Club were a band from the Newcastle area who split up last year. They released one album, Existence, which came out in 2009 and is for my money one of the best albums of the last 10 years. Hoping one day they'll reform as not sure I can get through the rest of my life with just 15-odd songs by them on my iPod! This is a great Verve-esque song and is my favourite of theirs, with Sunshine People a close second. I recommend you all listen to their album ASAP if you haven't already.

For Fans Of: The Verve, Embrace, Oasis
Available On: Existence (album)

Noel Gallagher Announces Acoustic Gig with Jake Bugg

From Noel's website:

"Xfm and War Child are proud to announce that Noel Gallagher will be playing an intimate and exclusive acoustic show at Camden's Dingwalls on Tuesday August 14th.

Part of the Xfm Legends series to celebrate 20 years of Xfm, the show is in aid of War Child and the only way to gain access to this special one-off event is via Xfm, xfm.co.uk and noelgallagher.com

Support on the night will come from Jake Bugg.

Listen to Xfm and check xfm.co.uk and noelgallagher.com for further details on how to win tickets for this unmissable acoustic performance from a true Xfm Legend"

Sound like it'll be a great night! On a side note I saw Jake Bugg live at T in the Park last weekend, young kid with some great tunes. Latest single "Taste It" came out on Monday I believe, with an album and UK tour to follow in October. Check him out if you haven't already!

Beady Eye In Warrington

Not exactly news this but came across this video of Beady Eye in Warrington on the 28th of June. Makes me shiver thinking about how long it must've taken Noasabian to put this together, however lucky for us he did as this is a very watchable document of Beady Eye's first gig this year and the first time they've done Oasis songs live. Will be more than adequate until we (hopefully) get some pro footage of Beady Eye at Fuji Rocks. The audio can be downloaded here , many thanks to stzeross for posting. Not sure if the files are split or named as not downloaded myself.

Tune of the Day #3: Crashland - New Perfume

Don't know an awful lot about this band at all or how I first came across them, in fact I found out most of what I know from the description on this video! From what I gather they were from Bristol and were around from the late 90s to the early 00s. They released only one (very decent) album, Glued, which I own. The band play a more punky kind Britpop (surprise surprise) that is probably best compared to Supergrass, although there is a bit of variety in their songs. New Perfume is probably my favourite song of theirs, if you like it you'd do well to check out the album.

For Fans Of: Supergrass
Available On: Glued (album)

Tune Of The Day #2: The Dandys - You Make Me Wanna Scream

York's The Dandys were unfortunately caught in the herd of post-Oasis Britpop bands that exploded onto the scene in the late 90's, which I reckon is pretty unlucky as they were one of the better bands of the 90s, for me anyway. Although not really heard in this song, the band's lyrics are often quite funny in the vein of Blur (Dirty Weekend is a good example) although the singer's voice can probably best be compared to Tim Burgess of The Charlatans. Anyway, great anthemic and cruelly overlooked song that deserves a listen. The band recorded one album, Symphonic Screams, which is pretty hard to track down, but if you do manage it I would highly recommend a download.

For Fans Of: Oasis-y Britpop, The Charlatans, Blur
Available On: Symphonic Screams (album)

Tune of the Day #1 : The Mock Turtles - And Then She Smiles

Great single from Manchester's Mock Turtles, these days best (in fact almost exclusively) remembered for the excellent 'Can You Dig It?'. However I reckon this is equally as good, lovely little baggy-era song. I also want to get the fact that singer Martin Coogan is the brother of comedian Steve in here somewhere, so here will have to do!

For fans of: The Madchester/Baggy scene, The Lightning Seeds
Available On: Both the band's studio albums (Turtle Soup and Two Sides) as well as the band's Best Of

Hello, Hello, Said It's Good To Be Back...

As you may have gathered, I'm back (what from, I'm not entirely sure) and will be attempting to continue running the blog. However as some of you may have noticed by now, I'm not the best at sticking with things! Gonna try and keep up the news coverage as well as putting more emphasis on myself and my tastes; think I'll start a "Tune of the Day" and "Album of the Week" series which should be fun, at least for myself if no one else. So yeah, enjoy...