Phoenix - Entertainment (Official Video)

Simply Brilliant ! Video of the Year ?

Phoenix are back !

Phoenix have been working on the new record "Bankrupt" since 2011 and recently revealed that it was recorded on the same console as 1982 album, 'Thriller'. Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz bought the Harrison 4032 console on eBay for $17,000 (£10,826). Singer Thomas Mars said the band purchased the console because they "liked the idea of working with a consecrated artefact, as well as having something strange upon which to fixate between albums".

Singer Thomas Mars said: "The most mysterious part to me was that no one else - no nerd or music engineer or memorabilia freak - seemed to want it," he added. The console was shipped to Paris for the recording sessions for 'Bankrupt!', and the group originally toyed with naming the record 'Alternative Thriller'.

Listen here to Entertainment
https://soundcloud.com/phoenix/entertainment?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_content=http://soundcloud.com/phoenix/entertainment

Wave Machines - Ill Fit

From the groove-induced bassline to the brooding Prince inspired vocal delivery, Ill Fit is the sign of a band on the path to an incredibly exciting second album. A great start to an album campaign for Wave Machines with forthcoming album - Pollen - released February 21 and a Scala show confirmed for February 6 together with a nationwide tour. In the last couple of weeks the Liverpudlian band have sold out shows in London, Paris and Nantes 

Spotify - Starting 11 (Sept 2012)

Yeasayer - Henrietta

There can’t be many songs these days written from the perspective of a tumour that’s outlived its human host. ‘Henrietta’, the most beautiful moment on Brooklyn trio Yeasayer’s third album, though, is a bubbling electro-rollock that tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Baltimore woman whose cancer cells were preserved for research purposes after she died in 1951. Halfway through the trapdoor opens, and things swirl in slow-mo as a incredible hypnotic chant of “oh Henrietta, we can live on forever” echoes out. 

August Starting 11 Spotify Playlist

You Wait Ages ...

...for a decent Spanish football magazine to come along, and three come along at once !

 

"Se Vende", "Liquidacion", "Se Aquila" (For Sale, Closing Down, For Let), three signs far too common on any Spanish high street in recent times. Businesses closing, massive job losses, record unemployment figures of 5.6 million and the new government struggling to get to grips with an economy spiralling out of control.

Recession has hit Spain hard. In the newspaper-magazine sector, dailies such as Publico, La Voz de Asturias and ADN have gone to the wall over the past year.

Even in the football magazine market, Don Balon, the only alternative to the daily mass-market sports press closed its doors after 36 years last September.

Hardly the climate for one, let alone three new Spanish publications to launch into the new football magazine market.

The average football fan in Spain has traditionally been spoilt for choice, 4 national daily sports papers, two Madrid based (AS & Marca) and two based in the Catalan capital (El Mundo Deportivo & Sport). This is generally good news if you´re appetite for football news is an average daily 25 pages dedicated to Real Madrid or Barcelona (depending on your choice of publication) and are interested in Cristiano Ronaldos new hairstyle or what brand of boot Messi will be wearing next season. Whilst all these publications are adequate in providing the reader with transfer news, decent results service and big match previews there is very little to the cater to that "other" breed of football fan in Spain.

That Spanish football fan who wants to know about teams outside the big two, the fan who sees the sport he loves spiralling out of control into a international macro business where only the privileged few participate, who wants to read about other teams in other countries, who is interested in reading about football from the past, who wants a cultural perspective of the game, who wants to read the views of journalists who are free to write without any editorial constraints or pressure from certain clubs media officers.

Panenka:

Rewind back to the Summer of 2011 and enter one Panenka magazine. Named after mythical Czech international Antonin Panenka and with a bold 11 point mission plan that included points such as "We want to feature non-mainstream  articles on players who win and lose, with special emphasis on the losers",  "football stories from other countries, from other times.... history, culture & politics with football as the background".

A monthly magazine clearly influenced by the classic football fan European mainstays (When Saturday Comes - UK, So Foot - FR & 11 Freunde - GER), Panenka has been a breath of fresh air. Over the year the magazine has published excellent articles on subjects ranging from the Tibetan national team, 20 years of Russian football post CCCP, the phenomenon on Flamengo in Brazil, long overlooked features of Spanish 2B teams (Spanish cup semi finalists Mirandes and Atletico Baleares), the Jorge Mendes empire as well interviews with figures from the modern game.
The new Issue No. 10 of Panenka has a special focus on the English game with interviews with Gus Poyet, Matt Le Tissier and an article on the rise of Swansea City amongst others.

For more info ; http://www.panenka.org/inicio

 (cover of Panenka #10)

Kubus:

Kubus magazine, emerged earlier this year. Its unique angle is that its written exclusively in Gallego (the language of the Galicia region in North-West Spain, home to Deportivo la Coruña and Celta Vigo). Available in down-loadable PDF format, issue 3 has just been published and contains a diverse range of features including a report on the famous Peru national team of the 70's, the antics of Nacho Novo and an article on UC Ceares, Spains pioneering club run by supporters. 

Whilst Kubus has more of a fanzine feel about it, the range of articles are staggering and the reader can clearly feel the affection for the subject matter by the Kubus team.

Issue 3 of Kubus can be read in PDF format via the link below.

For more info : http://revistakubus.com/

 (cover of Kubus #1)

Libero:
Founded by members of the now defunct daily newspaper Publico, Libero, unlike the above mentioned publications was launched with national distribution and an initial print run of 10,000 copies. "To culturise football or to football-ise culture" is their objective in the opening editorial of the debut which hit the magazine stands a month ago. Issue 1 of this tri-monthly publication again features a wide ranging of football related issues and whilst its impossible to escape certain over-laps with Panenka, Libero features a higher percentage of interviews with media personalities (singers, writers, politicians) who are also passionate about the game along with a fashion piece and even some Euro 2012 economic football related news ! 

         (cover of Libero #1)           

For more info : http://revistalibero.com/

All three magazines are hugely accomplished publications, stylish, excellently presented with good writing and would hold their own comfortably against other established titles in other markets. Lets hope that there is a market for decent football publications and that the Spanish football fan indeed has an appetite for other news and not just the latest Real & Barça tattle or what Sergio Ramos has been wearing in Ibiza during his Summer holidays.   

Van She - Jamaica [Modular Studio Sessions]

New album is imminent. 2nd single is Jamaica . Heres the studio version.

Lo-fi animated match reports - Spain v France, Euro 2012

How illustrator and When Saturday Comes contributor, Tim Bradford saw last Saturdays Spain v France game at Euro 2012.

Euro 2012 - The Battle of the Brands

With Euro 2012 imminent the battle amongst the major sports brands commences.

Here’s a look at what those 16 teams’ Euro 2012 shirts look like. This list of Euro 2012 kits is listed group wise, and covers both home and away Euro 2012 shirts for all 16 participating nations. All sixteen nations’ Euro 2012 shirts are split between Adidas, Nike, Umbro and Puma.

Group A
Poland — Nike
Poland
Greece — Adidas (home blue, away white, goalkeeper black)
Greece
Russia — Adidas
Russia
Czech Republic - Puma
Czech Republic
Group B
Holland — Nike
Netherlands
Denmark — Adidas
Denmark
Germany — Adidas
Germany
Portugal — Nike
Portugal
Group C
Spain — Adidas
Spain
Italy — Puma
Italy
Ireland — Umbro
Ireland
Croatia — Nike
Croatia
Group D
Ukraine — Adidas
Ukraine
Sweden — Umbro
Sweden
England - Umbro
England
France — Nike
France

Panorama Documentary (BBC) - Stadiums of Hate

As depressing as it was, did the BBC´s Panorama documentary really tell us anything we didn't know? The key point being made was...There are extreme right wing minded individuals attending football in matches in Poland and Ukraine. 

Sadly, there are like minded individuals attending football matches all over Europe. 

Some countries and federations have made concerted efforts to tackle this problem but too many times clubs, law enforcement bodies and even federations deny that the problem exists (as both Polish and Ukrainian FA´s have done since the documentary aired on Monday 28th).

In the mid-nineties, Ross Kemp visited Poland as part of his Ross Kemp on Gangs series.

He attended the Krakow derby (between Wisla and KS Cracovia) deemed to be the most hostile of Polish league fixtures. The scenes from Kemps documentary and from the BBC documentary were a disturbing carbon copy.

7 years later and nothing has changed, the same gratuitous violence amongst rival fans, police attacks, anti-Semitic chanting, neo-nazi salutes and paraphernalia clearly displayed and black players being verbally abused.

Uefa and Fifa need to act and respond adequately, for too long they too have put their heads in the sand and looked the other way.
What the BBC documentary has succeeded in doing is putting the subject matter on the table again and the reaction globally from the programme means that Uefa cannot continue to ignore scenes as we witnessed in the Metallist Stadium in Kharkiv.  

Documentary in full here (link working as of 30.05.12)
*** New Link, working as of 11.06 ***

Andy Burrows - Keep On Moving On

Keep On Moving On is a superb piece of classic songwriting which, along with "If I had a Heart", offers a tantalising taster of Andy Burrows' solo album. Since leaving Razorlight in 2009, Andy has been writing prolifically; he became a part, and then full time member of We Are Scientists, released an album under the moniker I Am Arrows, received further critical acclaim with an album co-fronted by Editors frontman Tom Smith as Smith & Burrows, and all of this whilst working on his own album (due later this year).

UC Ceares - Searching for the Soul of Football

I park the car by a block of flats in front of "La Cruz".  As I make my way up to the main road, I  can just make out the sound of pre-match music, late 70´s UK punk, (The Buzzcocks I think), wafting through the air via possibly the  tinniest speakers in Spain.

This is Ceares, a suburb of Gijon (Asturias), its 1130 in the morning and I´ve left my travelling companions behind in their respective beds in Oviedo, each one a casualty of the excesses of the local cider and tacky disco bars. 
We´re in Asturias for a football weekend principally to see our beloved Rayo Vallecano take on Sporting Gijon in the Spanish Primera division.

However, in the past few months since UC Ceares came onto my footballing radar, there's another fixture this same weekend that  has been highlighted in the diary.

I cant remember of how I stumbled across Ceares , their media profile this season has certainly been impressive. Possibly via the new and highly recommended Spanish football magazine Panenka or one of the many articles that appear on the web about football teams across Europe being taken over by the fans and being run in a more "human" capacity.

The club motto "Primeros en Corazón, Últimos en Dinero" / which roughly translates as "Emotional Winners, Financial Losers", the painted club wall with the "Against Modern Football" proudly daubed, the club flags and scarves with the  Northern Soul clenched fist and slogan in English "Keeping the Faith Since 1948", were sufficient to hook me in and make me want to see what exactly was happening at the club.

Today Ceares are at home to league leaders, Caudal de Mieres and nobody expects to get anything  from the game. In the forthcoming weeks the team will play 3 "finals" against direct rivals for survival in the Asturian zone of the Spanish 3rd division.
Ceares start the game brightly and are duly rewarded after 25 minutes with a goal from an excellent diving header.  The fans with a degree of incredulity of being one up against the league leaders become more vociferous with their support and start up relentless chanting that doesn't subside during the remainder of the match.

During the game I talk with Miguel Lozano, the clubs publicist and one of the board members. He tells me how Ceares were in danger of disappearing the previous year and with home gates averaging just 50 fans, they were in danger of having to join with another local team or even worse go out of business. Miguel details how, with some friends they came to take over the club and relates the story of the clubs ambitions with a balanced measure of realism and romanticism.

At half time I pop into the "Cantina" where the bar is decorated with scarves of many other local Asturian teams for the same division. Pride of place though is a Stockport County scarf ! Apparently the bounty of a failed attempt by some Ceares fans to attend a FC United of Manchester match abandoned due snow in November. FCUM are certainly an influence and inspiration to Ceares with more than one spectator sporting a scarf and FC United patch on his parka.

Leaving the Cantina I meet three English Ceares fans, residents of Gijon for some time they talk about their connection with the club and how they were drawn to the club and its philosophy.

On the pitch, things have taken a turn for the worse. A Caudal goal just before the break has given the visitors the initiative and sure enough with 15 minutes remaining, they score again to secure the three points. Despite the adverse result there is no let-up from the Ceares fans as they persist with their repeated chant of "Vamos Ceares, somos el orgullo de Xixon" (Come on Ceares, We´re the pride of Gijon), trust me it works better in Spanish.

I´ve been to many lower league grounds in the UK & Ireland but never have I felt such a buzz at football at this level. The fans here are not only cheering on the local team but at the same celebrating the clubs stance against modern football. A sport that sadly in its transition into a macro world business has lost some of it´s core values along the way.

Before I go I take some snaps for the collection and  leave Ceares with an incredible sensation of having taken part in something special, something almost intimate and since then the "spell" from that Sunday morning has certainly converted me into an "adopted Cearista".

For more on UC Ceares, visit the website (in Spanish) www.ucceares.com or follow them on twitter twitter.com/#!/UCCeares

Season Ticket Poster for the current season

Goal scored by Jimmy in the Ceares 3-0 home win against Real Ovideo "B" (06.05.12)

Let the Muisc Play ...talks To Danny Last (European Football Weekends)

For all football fans, watching a game abroad is a great occasion ... the colour and noise of the Ultras, different tactics and styles of play, the often exotic half time local delicacies and of course, post match local refreshments and analysis.

Enter one Danny Last and European Football Weekends  www.europeanfootballweekends.co.uk a site he created to share the experiences from watching major and not so major leagues from Amsterdam to Zurich, from teams such as Alcorcon to  VVV Venlo. 

With his unique, personal, friendly style of writing about his adventures, Last and his team of collaborators created a unique portal for football fans over the world to gauge an insight to European football at all levels. 


6 am flights, language barrier obstacles, local tipple, crazed taxi drivers, bizarre items in club shops, dodgy right wing ultras, all this and more feature in the various travels and all invariably accompanied with a some fantasticly well taken photos. Top this off with the odd Morrissey inspired musical references and you soon begin that you too have shared the experience at first hand. 


Over the years the site has received almost 700,000 visitors and has interviewed the likes of former Beautiful South and Housemartin, Paul Heaton, football pundits such as James Richardson, Clive Tyldesely and comedian Kevin Day. It picked up the "bronze medal" in the 2009 When Saturday Comes Worth Websites and has been called "a perennial source of pleasure" by The Guardian newspaper.

EFW is currently taking a well earned break and Danny is busy following the fortunes of Brighton and Hove Albion's and Lewes FC. He took some time out to talk to us about his travels and some of the musical highlights from travelling Europe's footballing hotbeds and backwaters.

1 - What was the first record that you bought, and can you remember the motivation behind it. 

"People Are People" 7" single from Depeche Mode in 1984 from a record shop - no longer there, obviously - in Lancing, West Sussex. I'd been to see them in concert at the Brighton Centre the previous evening. That was my first ever gig, one I only attended because my mum (I know) was ill and couldn't go so she gave me her ticket. My overriding memory of the gig was a huge punch up in the crowd as a direct result of David Gahan throwing his sweaty shirt into the heaving masses. 

2 - What was the last album, CD, download you purchased and why.

The début album from Welsh outfit Y Niwi. I read an article recently about Spillers Records in Cardiff - the world's oldest record shop - and they were waxing lyrical about the band. You can't beat a bit of "Snowdonian instrumentalist surf-guitar" can you? Also, can you wax lyrical about an instrumental band? Probably not, shall we move on .... 

3 - As a man who has travelled Europe in the quest of fine football, which city / club has the dodgiest pre match music, name a few of the musical offenders too.

I did once go and see HSV Hamburg which involved a bizarre pre-match ritual which I'm not sure they still do. A chap dressed in double denim - a bit of a no-no, no? - was hoist aloft on a cherry picker in front of the home fans (that's pretty much guaranteed to bring a smile to my face, let me tell you). Anyway, Ol' Denim Den belted out a few dodgy songs which, with this being Germany, the fans lapped up in their thousands and sang along to as if their lives depended on it. It was so bad that I didn't even tap a foot to the rhythm of the beat (I did).

I'm also led to believe that Crystal Palace play Friggin' In The Riggin' which is fairly apt because their team *sounds cheap and immature pop at hated rivals klaxon* are not fit to shovel shit from one place to another.

4 - Which are the most musical and raucous of the European Ultra groups you came across.

Definitely, Rayo Vallecano in Spain. There's a slightly anarchic feel to that club which is a million miles away from their near neighbours, Real Madrid. The fans take hold of the PA before the games and rather brilliantly you get treated to classic stuff from The Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols and all sorts at full volume before the game. Actually, staying in Madrid, the ultras in the 'Fondo Sur' behind the goal at Atletico Madrid are quite partial to a burst of Mike Oldfield's 'Moonlight Shadow'. Make of that what you will.

5 - What's the most bizarre item you´ve come across in the numerous club shops you´ve visited.  

FC Union Berlin do a neat set of spanners for a couple of quid, but my very favourite item is a wooden Dukla Prague yo-yo. Who needs their away kit when you can impress your mates with a couple of barrel rolls on that little beauty down the pub? Germany, of course Germany, was the first place I saw club toasters that print the club logo on the bread too. Tasty.

6 - If you were enlisted by Lewes FC board to programme the pre match music at the Dripping Pan, what 3 tracks do you play to get the Rooks fans rocking. 

Rooking all over the world, anything off The Great Rook 'n' Roll Swindle or AC/DC's Let There Be Rooks.


Follow Danny on Twitter -@DannyLast 
and check out EFW at - http://www.europeanfootballweekends.co.uk/

Van She - Idea of Happiness (Video)

... and hot of the press, the boys from Oz, Van She with their wonderfully bizarre video for the new single "Idea of Happiness"

Ronika - Automatic (video)

Here´s the just completed video for the new Ronika single.

Van She - Idea Of Happiness

The return of Australia's finest. Van She, one of the best musical secrets from "down under" return with their new single "Idea of Happiness".

New album due out in July on the Modular label.

click here to listen

Van She - Idea Of Happiness

Vice - Rivals - Rangers & Celtic - Full Length

At times funny and at times depressing. A well put and objective documentary from Vice on the Glasgow "Old Firm".  

Is this the most intense and charged derby in the world?

click this link to view
http://www.vice.com/rivals/rangers-celtic-full-length#ooid=B5aTQ4NDphZaI5g0uciG8eJL9ZJqRSAG

Plan B - ill Manors (with lyrics)

Plan B returns with a track that is being hailed as the most important British protest song in decades. Heres the video and lyrics. 

lyrics
http://www.metrolyrics.com/ill-manors-lyrics-plan-b.html

Ronika - Automatic

She´s gone and done it again. 

One of Let the Music Play on the Wing´s favourites, Ronika releases her new single "Automatic" on April 9th.

Another fine slice of 80´s inspired pop with a distinctive Summer groove.

Think Teena Marie, think Nile Rogers on guitar, think Jellybean production, think Rick James, think sunshine.... 

 

Click  to listen to "Automatic" here via Soundcloud