So Tough! So Cute! Best Of 2009

2009 was rather lovely wasn't it? We bought loads of records, got to meet Stephen Pastel, put on fourteen So Tough! So Cute! nights. We drank and danced and made out under the stairs, we had tears in our eyes and fists in the sky. We had friends come visit us to play records and we visited them and played Crass for the weak hearted twee pop fans. We saw great bands and put on nine of them ourselves and we had a song written about our wee club. We said goodbye to friends in Malmö and hello to new friends in London. So thank you everyone who guest-dj'd and played live this year but most of all thank you for making So Tough! So Cute! a fantastic night out. See you in 2010

These are our favourite songs. Songs we could listen to time and time again.
 

Best album of 2009

PENS - Hey Friend! What You Doing?
(De Stijl)
We're making this our album of the year because in the first draft of this list we had included not less than 6 songs from the record and just couldn't pick one track. We simply can't stop listening to songs like Freddie, 1-2, Hide The Kids, Yeah Baby! I'll Take You to Bagel Town, Networking and High In The Cinema. In the twenty-nine minutes the album lasts, it is as if PENS manage to capture all the films of Larry Clark and Harmony Korine and distill them into insanely perfect pop songs. And while every other band this year seemed to take great effort in trying to sound unconsciously noisy, DIY and lo-fi the PENS just did. And they did it brilliantly.

Best Songs Of 2009

(in order of length for some reason)

Graffiti Island - Moon Tan

Crocodiles, Graffiti Island, Dum Dum Girls & Pens split 7" (Art Fag)

Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin - Pop Song

Pop Song 7" (Goodbye Boozy)

Sea Lions - Beautiful Day

Let's Groove 7", (Yay!)

First Base - I Got A Girl
I Got A Girl 7" (Pizza Party)

 

Knight School - Pregnant Again

The Poor And Needy Need To Party LP (Lostmusic)

 

Crystal Stilts - Love Is A Wave

Love Is A Wave 7" (Slumberland)

 

Fresh & Onlys - Grey-Eyed Girl

Grey-Eyed Girls LP (Woodsist)

Pheromoans - Revamper

Revamper 7" (Convulsive)

Cave Weddings - Bring Your Love

Bring Your Love 7" (Hozac)

 

Magic Kids - Hey Boy

Hey Boy 7" (Goner)

 

Frankie Rose - Thee Only One

Thee Only One 7" (Slumberland)

 

Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)

Sun Was High (So Was I) 7" (Art Fag)

Veronica Falls - Beachy Head

Rough Trade Shops Indiepop '09 (Cooperative Music)

 

Home Blitz - Is Anybody There?

Out of Phase LP (Ritchie)

Sic Alps - L. Mansion

L. Mansion 7" (Slumberland)

Blanche Hudson Weekend - Noise And Fury

Letter To Daddy EP (Squirrel)

Times New Viking - Move To California

Move To California 7" (Matador)

 

Yo la Tengo - If It's True

Popular Songs LP (Matador)

Drums - Let's Go Surfing (Knight School Version)

Let's Go Surfing EP (Download)

Plug - Nonchalant Love

Fresh Pleasures 7" (Parlour)

Chain and the Gang - Interview With The Chain Gang

Down With Liberty... Up With Chains LP (K)

 

Tyvek - Summer Things

Blessed 7" (Les Disques Steak)

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Can't Hear My Eyes

Can't Hear My Eyes 7" (Mexican Summer)

 

Girls At Dawn - Every Night

The Girls At Dawn 7" (Hozac)

Brown Recluse - Contour and Context

The Soft Skin EP (Slumberland)

 

Feeling of Love - Waiting for the Cheerleaders to Get Drunk

Waiting for the Cheerleaders to Get Drunk 7'' (Avant!)

 

Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction

Young Adult Friction 7" (Slumberland/Fortuna Pop)

Real Estate - Beach Comber

Real Estate LP (Woodsist)

Dinosaur Jr. - Pieces

Pieces 7" (Jagjaguwar)

Crocodiles - I Wanna Kill

I Wanna Kill 7" (Sexbeat)

Wavves - Mickey Mouse

Demos (Download)

And just outside the list we have the Just Joans, Pastels/Tenniscoats, Fergus & Geronimo, Help Stamp Out Loneliness, Summer Cats, Jim O'Rourke, Cathode Ray, Girl Alliance, Transmittens, Standard Fare, Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs, King Creosote, Parallelograms, Let's Wrestle...

Download So Tough! So Cute! - Best Songs of 2009 

EDIT: Alternative download

Trembling Blue Stars - Live at UCLA.

Somebody was kind enough to upload these four videos of Trembling Blue Stars playing at the UCLA November 14 in 2002. It's a shame that they don't play live anymore but hopefully that will change when the new record Fast Trains And Telegraph Wires comes out in 2010. The three new songs they played; Frosting, The Imperfection Of Memory and Tropic Of Capricorn, on Mark Witbys' John Peel Day tribute show earlier this year were lovely in their acoustic versions.

Upset The Rhythm playlist

Here's what we played at Upset the Rhythm last friday and a sneak peek at some of the songs that'll be on our best of 2009 list which will be posted Jan. 1, 2010. We had a smashing time playing and seeing Veronica Falls and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, each putting on great sets. We were also a little bit jealous of the lucky winner of the £100 voucher for future Upset The Rhythm nights.

Hooterville Trolley - No Silver Bird
Palms - Leather Daddies
Grass Widow - LuLu's Lips
Phil Wilson - It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
Estrogen Highs - She Don't Bother

Real Estate - Beach Comber
Ty Segall - Pop Song
Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire - Christmas 1979
David Peel & Lover East Side - The Lower East Side
Ty Segall - Pop Song

Marine Girls - Love You More
Feeling of Love - Waiting for the Cheerleaders to Get Drunk
Television Personalities - Part Time Punks (Live At The Clarendon 22 May 80)
Fergus & Geronimo - Powerful Lovin'
Sic Alps - Gelly Roll Gum Drop

Half Japanese - Firecracker Firecracker
Daniel Johnston - Rock Around The Christmas Tree
Beat Happening - Teenage Caveman
Plug - Nonchalant Love
Legend! - The King Of Hobart

Chain and the Gang - Interview With The Chain Gang
The Pheromoans - Revamper
Mattias Alkberg Tre - Sundbyberg
The Fall - No Xmas For John Quays
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Can't Hear My Eyes

Urinals - Surfin' with the Shah
Lil' Fighters - The Recoys
Ronettes - Sleigh Ride
Essential Logic - Fanfare In The Garden
The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
Josef K - The Angle
Tyvek - Summer Things

Upset The Rhythm

Ever since we discovered an orange flyer blue-tacked on the walls of the Rough Trade East* shop, listing almost all the bands we have had a crush on this year, Upset The Rhythm has been one of our favourite clubs. Time after time they've put on amazing gigs and always with a strong sense of DIY hanging in the air. Quite a few of our top live gigs of the year have been at Upset The Rhythm nights and we're very happy to say that we'll be playing records at their xmas party on friday. See you there.

CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE
HIS CLANCYNESS
VERONICA FALLS
Friday 18 December
The Lexington

96-98 Pentonville Road Road, Angel, N1 9JB | Map
7:30 | £10 | Buy tickets

*To anyone working at Rough Trade: Please give me a job.

Standard Fare

Important announcement: We are deeply and madly in love with Standard Fare from Sheffield and especially the tracks Philadelphia and A Night With A Friend. Emmas voice totally blows our minds while Danny has this weightless voice we absolutely adore and the songs are made for mad pogoing on the dance floor (Yes, you can bet your arse that we'll be playing this at the next So Tough! So Cute! and Baby Honey nights).

The A Layer Of Chips blog has written a nice write-up of the coming album The Noyelle Beat where you can download A Night With A Friend which has apparently been retitled Nuit Avec Une Amie. It's not out until march 2010 but you can order their singles and the split with Slow Down Tallahassee from Thee SPC and also download their christmas song Tinsel Politics for free.

The last ever Twee As Fuck

Last night we said goodbye to Twee As Fuck. We got there just in time for another amazing set by Veronica Falls, who we've seen 5 times since our move to London. They keep getting better and more intense every time we see them. Now if only they would release something. Preferably this year so we can put them on top our or best of 2009 list



The Comet Gain sadly didn't have Rachel with them and didn't play You Can Hide Your Love Forever, which has been an anthem for our nights in Malmö. But they did a fantastic version of My Defiance which we managed to capture on video

So Tough! So Cute! resident DJ at new London club Baby Honey

We're really happy to announce the first night of the new club Baby Honey we'll be doing with Rory and Anastasia of Twee As Fuck.

The first night is on Jan 8th and we have 3 great bands playing live for us:
Would-Be-Goods
Tender Trap
Bobby McGees 

After that there will be indiepop dancing till late so please come and make this first night a fantastic beginning!
Tickets are here

Baby Honey #001
Friday 8 January 2010 at 9:00pm
Buffalo Bar
259 Upper Street, Highbury Corner
London N1 1RU
United Kingdom
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