29 Sept 2010

So Tough! So Cute! goes monthly in London!


Good news, everyone! We're very happy to announce that So Tough So Cute will become a recurring monthly club night in London!

Before we go into details we want to thank everybody again that came down last Friday and also all of you spreading our mixtapes and tweets and letting us guest-DJ at your clubs. THANK YOU for making this possible!

So here goes. We'll be doing the last Friday of every month at the Drop in Stoke Newington starting November 26th. We'll skip the December holidays and then be back at January 28th and keep it going every month. So excited about the coming year! We will have guest-DJs from both UK and Sweden joining us behind the decks and together with you we'll put on the bestest dance party night. Hope you'll join us on this journey and help us spread the word.

Until we draw the flyers and do proper invites please add us on Facebook - as a friend or join the group, Twitter and most importantly subscribe or bookmark this Blog or our Tumblr as we have a bunch of exciting mixtapes coming up. We also have our continually updated Spotify Playlist.

And what about Sweden? Don't worry, we'll still be doing our regular night there!

(The comic is from the superb One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry)

25 Sept 2010

Thanks, playlists and photos from So Tough So Cute at the Drop




Fuck YES! Now that's how you do it! Thanks a million to everybody who came down and filled the Drop to the brim! Our apologies to those that weren't able to get in but it was absolutely packed. It made us very happy to see so many people smiling and dancing about and our personal highlight was probably getting David Feck of Comet Gain to sing along to the Byrds.

A big thank you to Jon Slade who spun some fantastic records - all on original seven inches bless him. Jon is an amazing DJ and you should go to his night Born Bad in Brighton. Thanks also to the bar staff and everybody who helped out.

We'll be hopefully back at the Drop in November so keep an eye out on out Twitter and Facebook for more info

Here's what we played  (we'll add Jons setlist as soon as we get it)
Camera Obscura - Number One Son
Buzzcocks - What Do I Get?
Nai Bonet - Jelly Belly
The Wedding Present - My Favourite Dress
The Monochrome Set - The Jet Set Junta

Hefner - The Hymn For The Cigarettes
Teenage Fanclub - Sparky’s Dream
The Wave Pictures - Leave The Scene Behind
The Lovin’ Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic?
Garbo’s Daughter - Mascara Stains On My Pillowcase

Tender Trap - Do You Want A Boyfriend?
The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry
Warren Lee - Star Revue
Oxfords - It’s You
Nerves - When You Find Out

Beat Happening - Bewitched
Tullycraft - Twee
Chuck Wood - Seven Days Too Long
Belle & Sebastian - She’s Losing It
Madness - Nightboat To Cairo

Lucksmiths - T-Shirt Weather
The Bob Seger System - Ramblin’ Gamblin Man
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Honey Chile
Magnetic Fields - I Don’t Want To Get Over You
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction

My Favorite - The Happiest Days Of My Life
Camera Obscura - French Navy
Annette Funicello - Pineapple Princess
Would-Be-Goods - The Camera Loves Me
Another Sunny Day - You Should All Be Murdered

Allo Darlin’ - Dreaming
Rolling Stones - The Last Time
The Drums - Don’t Be A Jerk, Jonny
Byrds - I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
Pulp - Babies

Shells - Whiplash
Fall - Totally Wired
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Four Flights Up
Smiths - What Difference Does It Make?
Chain And The Gang - Unpronouceable Name

The Saints - Know Your Product
Håkan Hellström - En Midsommarnattsdröm
Allo, Darlin’ - Henry Rollins Don’t Dance
The BristolS - Who Does She Think She Is?
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Four Flights Up

Kevin Rowland - The Greatest Love Of All
Comet Gain - You Can Hide Your Love Forever
Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
Cinema Red And Blue - Same Mistakes
Teenage Fanclub - Baby Lee

Seapony - Dreaming
Heavenly - C Is The Heavenly Option
Hunx And His Punx - You Don’t Like Rock ‘N’ Roll
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - New England
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

Dum Dum Girls - It Only Takes One Night
Chordettes - Lollipop
Velvet Underground - Rock & Roll
Belle & Sebastian - Legal Man
Canned Heat - Going Up The Country

Big Star - September Gurls
Thee Headcoatees - Teenage Kicks
Homer Simpson - Spider-Pig
Smiths - Jeane
Contours - First I Look At The Purse

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - One Track Mind
Mountain Goats - This Year
Beach Boys - California Girls
Jelly Beans - You Don’t Mean Me No Good
Blendells - La La La La La

Marlene & The Debanettes - Earthquake
Crass - Banned From The Roxy
Fresh & Onlys - Peacock And Wing
The Exciters - Just Not Ready
Kirsty Maccoll - A New England

Field Mice - Emma’s House
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love... (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)
Mean Jeans - Rats Roaches And Jeans
Ramones - We’re A Happy Family
Stevie Wonder - Uptight

Beat Happening - Teenage Caveman
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden
Violent Femmes - Blister In The Sun
Carstairs - It Really Hurts Me Girl
Orange Juice - Blue Boy

Outcasts - Self Conscious Over You
Dyke & The Blazers - We Got More Soul
Vaselines - Son Of A Gun
No Age - Glitter
The Monkees - Mary, Mary
Jilted John - Jilted John

20 Sept 2010

Club night with Jon Slade of Comet Gain at The Drop in Stoke Newington on Friday 24th September

We are tingling with excitement today because we're very happy to welcome you to the So Tough So Cute club night in lovely Stoke Newington in London.

We've had lots of fun with in Sweden during the summer, putting on shows with Jeffrey Lewis, Shrag, Allo' Darlin, The Smittens and many more and also doing crazy club nights with Peggy from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and other great guest-DJs.

Now it's Londons turn though so please come and join us on Friday for a night of mad dancing to stomping soul, tough girl-groups, cutsey pop and punk rock. Along with our guest-DJ Jon Slade of Huggy Bear and Comet Gain fame we'll be keeping you on the dancefloor at the Drop in Stoke Newington.

So Tough! So Cute!
with Jon Slade (Comet Gain and Huggy Bear)

Friday 24 September
The Drop (downstairs of the Three Crowns Pub)
175 Stoke Newington High Street, N16 OLH | Map
10:00-04:00 | £3 | Facebook Event

To get you ready for the night we've put together a mix of some tracks you're likely to hear on the night featuring Bobby Reed, Vaselines, Counters, Seapony, Melba Moore, Exciters, Splinters, Nobunny, Martha & the Vandellas... 30 tracks in all.

Download
Download mirror

10 Sept 2010

Hello, hello, hello, now here's a message from your Queen



Dear readers, let it be known that Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard is an amazing fun band and that they're the nicest guys ever and if they are playing in your town you really need to go see them. Also let it be known that the Sockpuppets are the tightest and noisiest of all noisepop bands and the sweetest danes ever.
Jeffrey Lewis, his brother Jack and drummer David were on fire last night. So fucking good. Highlights of the set were End Result, an amazing punk version of Beat Happening's Teenage Caveman, Don't Be Upset, Creeping Brain, The History of the French Revolution and, as a nod to our wee humble DJ-set before the show, they did our personal favourite The History Of Punk On Lower East Side 1950-1979.

Thank you so much Jeffrey & co, Sockpuppets, Roque and Jennifer (who sadly arrived late and didn't play that much), the lovely staff at Debaser and to everyone that showed up for the show.

Here's two videos from Jeffreys set

9 Sept 2010

Postcard Records 30th Anniversary Special


Thirty years of Postcard Records. Taste that in your mouth as if it were a mouthful of homemade risotto with a big handful of nice aged Parmesan, chanterelles and a few drops of  truffle oil. Mm-mm, awfully nice isn't it? We can't believe that those singles are thirty years old. Every time we put the records on it's like our world is turned upside down, like everything we know about pop music is rewritten, pressed and folded and presented to us in a nice Tartan wrapper. That's how fresh sounding they are. Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera and the Go-Betweens. Four bands that changed at least our world.


On Saturday, sadly our last night in Sweden for a while, we'll celebrate Postcard records and play all the singles and the one LP released as well as the bands influences, bands they influenced and solo projects by the people that stood for the sound of young Scotland and the scene in Edinburgh and Glasgow. So get your dance shoes loads of Byrds, Chic, Fire Engines, Vic Godard, Soul, Velvet Underground, Buzzcocks...

There's a million more bands so it's far from complete. Our friend Fire Escape Talking adds that we missed a few Go-Betweens connections like the Tuff Monks single, the Reason Why (anybody have this?) and the Four Gods.

POSTCARD RECORDS SPECIAL
22-03, Saturday 11 September
Retro, Malmö | Free | 20years (E-mail us if you're at least 18 and we'll put you on a list)
Facebook event


After the break there's a few youtube clips of BBC's Caledonia Dreaming that give a nice introduction of Postcard Records and you can listen to Swedish Radios Postcard Record special and take a look at the extremely complete Postcard Records Discography

8 Sept 2010

last.fm pr0n (or How I Was Wrongly Tagged As Twee)

(click image to embiggen)

last.fm has always been one of our favourite websites. Sure they could integrate it a bit better with Facebook, especially with the artist pages and events but it remains our go to place for music mainly because of the crazy statistics of ones listening habits and mood indicators.

We love it because last.fm never lies. If tweekid_86 twitters "having so much fun on picnic with @Softiesgrrrl at Kensington Gardens" but then his last.fm shows he's been listening to So Said Kay by the Field Mice on repeat for the last day and a half (we call this condition "Field Mice-coma") you know that picnic probably didn't go that well and that he's home sobbing and that somebody probably should go over with some crumpets and tea.

We also love the users arguments over artist bios and the tag wars. Our current favourite is Wrongly Tagged As Twee (which now even has it's page on Facebook). And speaking of Wrongly Tagged As Twee, the reason for this post is that we noticed that we had just listened to our 110000 track and using that gadget thingy we took a look at how our listening habits have changed for these last three years and it shows... ehm, well it shows that these last 12 months Home Blitz and Beat Happening and the current wave of garage punk US bands have pretty much KO'd The Fall, Field Mice and Trembling Blue Stars and the old UK indiepop garde.

We bet that will change with the new Trembling Blue Stars and Comet Gain LPs coming out. Just look how Edwyn Collins fought his way to have his name in bold Arial in that last chart. And oh [insert deity of your choice], the new Orange Juice box is gonna kick this charts arse all over the place isn't it? Until then... Go Home Blitz!

The images above were based on the following stats:

1100000 Tracks
Tracks per hour: 4.37
Tracks per day: 104.84
Tracks per week: 733.87
Tracks per month: 3250.01
Tracks per year: 38266.30

Feel free to add us as friends on www.last.fm/user/myhairlooksflat

5 Sept 2010

Playlist from Tempo Bar & Kök


This was fun! A nice fairly busy night. Lots of Fullers ESB, some yummy cheese, lovely company and best of all, no 30+ males hovering over the decks shouting "Spela Raaajd" ("Play some Ride" in English). Thanks to those that turned up and to Jocke and the rest of the bar staff.

Here's what we played:
Real Estate - Beach Comber
Herman Dune - When The Sun Rose Up This Morning
Spectrals - Leave Me Be
Jacuzzi Boys - Bricks Or Coconuts
Grass Widow - To Where

Yellow Fever - Alice
Sic Alps - L. Mansion
Wetdog - Nancy Riley
Deep Sht - Hector
The Jameses - Rat People

Vic Godard - Blackpool
Christmas Island - Nineteen
Fever B - Pop Punk Love
Josef K - Pictures (Of Cindy)
Comet Gain - I Never Happened

Shark Toys - Stayed Up
Super Wild Horses - How Do You Sleep
Nobunny - (Do The) Fuck Yourself
Harlem - Caroline
Mattias Alkberg Tre - Sundbyberg

Garbo's Daughter - Nice Girls Don't Explode
Markettes - Out of Limits
The Liminanas - I'm Dead
Plug - Nonchalant Love
Pheromoans - Revamper

Veronica Falls - Beachy Head
Nerves - When You Find Out
Apache - Crystal Clear
Jacuzzi Boys - Island Ave.
Nobunny - Motorhead With Me!

Anteenagers M.c - Where Is Billy Idol
Butts - We're Butts
Trash Kit - Cadets
The Slits - So Tough - Rough Mix
Mika Miko - Capricorinations

The Coathangers - Stop Stomp Stompin'
Guinea Worms - Drunk in Yr Uggs
Bundle Of Fags - Art School Asshole
White Wires - That's The Way A Woman Is (The Ohio Express)
The Zoltars - Party At The Batcave

Crass - Darling
Kate Ferencz - Sitting In A Tree Kissing
Dixie Cups - Iko Iko
Explode Into Colors - Sharpen The Knife
Graffiti Island - Head Hunters

Personal and the Pizzas - I Don't Wanna Be No Personal Pizza
Searchers - Murder In My Heart
Jaill - No Mindless Love
Fresh & Onlys - I'm Not Myself Today
Wire - It's So Obvious

Urinals - Surfin' with the Shah
Beat Happening - Bury The Hammer
Crocodiles - Nothing To Be Done
Best Coast - When I'm With You
The Fall - Fit And Working Again

French Kissing - Oh Suzanne
Sindy Arthur - I've Got Something Good
Garbo's Daughter - I Only Have Eyes For You
The Shivvers - Teen Line
Choir - I'd Rather You Leave Me

Home Blitz - Is Anybody There?
The Wicked Awesomes! - Time Shit And Crystal Snot
Wavves - King Of The Beach
The White Wires - Pogo 'til I Puke
Hunx and His Punx - You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll

Bob Seger & The Last Heard - East Side Story
The Vibrarians - Red Light
Davila 666 - Sabes Que Quiero
Little Eva - Let's Start The Party Again
Nai Bonet - Jelly Belly

Andrea Carroll - The Doolang
Puddin Pops - Totally
Thee Headcoatees - Come Into My Mouth
The Pleasure Seekers - What a Way to Die
Whyte Boots - Nightmare

Östen Warnebring - 15 minuter från Eslöv
Fire Engines - Big Gold Dream (Edit)
The Monochrome Set - He's Frank (Slight Return)
The Wave Pictures - Leave The Scene Behind
Nerf Herder - Buffy, The Vampire Slayer

Pere Ubu - Modern Dance
My Bloody Valentine - Map Ref 41°n 93°w
Thurston, Kim & Epic - Black Candy

3 Sept 2010

Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard + Sockpuppets at Debaser on Thursday 9th September

A big thanks to Jonas and Sebban who played at our Belle & Sebastian vs Northern Soul night. Really good fun at the quite marvelous venue Rex. Thanks to everyone who showed up despite the late change of venue.

On Saturday you'll find us behind the decks at our favourite hangout Tempo Bar & Kök where we'll be playing between 22-01. Please come down and chat with us and for the love of [insert deity of your choice] try the Southern Tier Harvest Ale. Soooo good.

Right, now to the fun bit. We're extremely happy to present the amazing Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard at Debaser Malmö. With his witty onstage banter and his heart proudly worn on his sleeve Jeffrey is one of the most fun live acts we've seen on a stage. Their show at the Brixton Windmill a few months back was so much fun. Rooted in folk punk but with a keen eye to Jonathan Richman and the early UK punk scene (which according to his brilliant "The History Of Punk On Lower Eastside 1950-1979" track ripped of the US punk scene) he's been putting out one great record after another.

We also have the lovely Sockpuppets from Copenhagen A band with influences from girlfronted US noisepop bands likely to be found at a slumbering label near you. We really look forward seeing them a big stage.

As if that wasn't enough we have String Bean Jen of Colour Me Pop! from Chicago by way of London and and Roque of Cloudberry Records from Miami as guest DJ's. Bringing these two together is like combining your favourite Transformers into one big Tweebot.
 

As usual the STSC Sound System will be playing lots of obscure and not so obscure indiepop, soul, post-punk, girl-groups, ska and bands with Coast, Beach and lots of 'vv's in their bandnames.

JEFFREY LEWIS & THE JUNKYARDS

SOCKPUPPETS
DJs. String Bean Jen (US)+Roque Cloudberry (US)
Thursday 9 September
Debaser Malmö
21-03 | 90kr (Free after the gigs) | 18yrs (20 after the gigs)
Facebook event