The Magic Gang - The 100 Club - Live Review

This piece originally featured on Little Indie Blogs. Click here to go to the original post.

At London's legendary 100 Club, the NME Awards Shows 2016 tour continues; on this particular Monday night it was the turn of Brighton foursome The Magic Gang to take centre stage as headliners for the sold-out show.

Kicking the night off to a promising start, Tempesst and Willie J Healey took to the stage in their respective support slots. Tempesst, a duo consisting of two brothers from Australia, created a moody and sleazy vibe to the night with their hazy sound, similar to Tame Impala. Willie J Healey and his band instantly engaged the crowd with his established stage presence and his songs creating a vibe not too dissimilar to that of Jamie T’s.

It was then the turn of the night's big draw. With comparisons made to The Beach Boys due to their dreamy, carefree surf-pop sound style, The Magic Gang naturally ratcheted up fan enthusiasm levels, with more than one member of the audience spending more time on stage with the band than on the floor. The excitement was almost too much for the band at times as they genuinely seemed overwhelmed at the reaction they were receiving, leading to bassist Gus Taylor attempting to convince the crowd to settle down, insisting that he was doing his job as the "typical chilled and calm bassist".  Even the famous faces in amongst the crowd, such as Swim Deep frontman Austin Williams, seemed to relishing the band on stage - demonstrating the kind of kudos and following The Magic Gang have accumulated.

Despite the overwhelming atmosphere there was a sense of unity that the band seemed to create. Frontman Jack Kaye also favourably took the time to give a shout-out to Girls Against, the new movement enforcing the safety for people at gigs against sexual harassment.

Their set list consisted of older tunes and new, unheard material. Normally, hearing the words 'we are now going to play some of our new songs' can fill the crowd with dread and instantly kill the enthusiasm. However, when Jack excitedly, but reservedly, made his announcement, it was a completely different story. It was almost as if those very words were the go-ahead for the crowd to resort to even more wild enthusiasm than they had previously shown, and all the new songs subsequently being well-received.

But nothing could quite compare during the evening to those first notes of the pulsing and distinctive bass riff of crowd favourite ‘No Fun’, the build-up of anticipation amongst the crowd being so strong, you could practically smell it. It was difficult to hear the band over the screaming voices of the audience who belted out their undeniably most recognised song with heartfelt passion.

What was unusual, yet refreshing, was to see that the band's live performances appear to be truly a real team effort. Although frontman Jack is primarily the lead vocalist, all members of this very magical gang were involved at different points in the sharing of mic duties.

Going by their show tonight, if you get the chance to see these guys live, then I would highly recommend you do. 

Written by Rosie Mulhern

Telegram Live Review - Hare and Hounds, Birmingham

This piece originally featured on Little Indie Blogs. Click here to go to the original post.

When asked to whizz along to catch the glam-rock stompin' outfit that is London's Telegram, I have to admit going into this not knowing what to expect. However, if I felt like that going in, I left in no doubt about what I had just seen.

Thursday night at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath, saw the rather snug venue begin to fill up quite nicely as the four-piece piled onto its tiny stage. A roar of a riff became present as the band took on their opening song ‘Rule Number One’ with an aura of sheer confidence and presence the like of which one would expect from the likes of Telegram who have been strutting their stuff on stages for almost three years.

The catchy tunes felt well rehearsed and the band sounded tight as they were confidently led by charismatic frontman Matt Saunders. Charging from one psych-rock blinder to the next,  including recent single 'Taffy Come Home', hardly coming up for air. Whilst they definitely produced a unique psychedelic sound with a 70s vibe, there was also a comforting feeling of familiarity about them, perhaps in part due to Saunders' resemblance to a Welsh Brian Ferry.

The thing that caught my attention the most, however, was the way the songs had such a different feel to them, with their sound almost being like a drone with nothing too complex about each one. There's nothing wrong with a bit of simplicity sometimes and this just seemed to add to the appeal.

As they finished their over-too-soon set with an electrifying performance of 'Folly' - which wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Led Zep album - I walked out of the venue gig feeling completely overwhelmed, excited - and with a need to check out more of their music.

With their debut album 'Operator' just released, and US dates - including a showcase slot at SXSW in Texas next month - upcoming, you can only feel that this is a band now gathering momentum. Check them out if you haven't, you may well be - pleasantly - surprised.

Written by Rosie Mulhern

VITAMIN free in-store performance at Cow Birmingham

Photo taken by me

New indie-pop band from Leeds, VITAMIN have been visiting UK Cow Vintage stores within the past week and have been putting on free, intimate in-store performances. Last Wednesday the band made an appearance in the Birmingham Cow store so I decided to come along.

If you're new to this band, their sound consists of summery, up-beat vibes with their songs involving simple yet catchy lines and chirpy, looped synth rhythms. Each track inherits clever tempo changes throughout, creating an optimistic buildup shortly followed by a contagious and harmonious chorus.

Following support slots from bands such as Ratboy and Sundara Karma, the band have evidently established a fan base across the country with the impressive turnouts from their in-store appearances. Their short but energy fueled four track setlist consisted of both new and older releases, each one appreciated by the audience who stood in admiration. However, the stripped back feel of the show didn't seem to hold the band back as they were still able to create an impressive presence and were just as good to watch as they were to listen to. The band's liveliness and enthusiasm could not have been faulted as they managed to make the shop appear more like a music venue and created a unique vibe throughout the store.

Photo credit to Itunes

Once the performance was over, fans swarmed over to the rack of free VITAMIN t-shirts and bags for the band to sign whilst having a chat with the members and have photos taken. The band welcomed their fans with their friendly attitudes and welcomed a few familiar faces from attending their previous gigs.

The band's newest single - This Isn't Love, released earlier this month, cleverly entails their prominent theme of the band's successful delivery of euphoric feelings and colourful sounding riffs with snappy hooks - despite the opposing meaning within the lyrics. You can buy This Isn't Love by clicking HERE on Itunes or you can have a listen HERE first on YouTube.

Written by Rosie Mulhern

An Interview With Get Inuit

Photo cred - www.bittersweetsymphonies.co,uk

Get Inuit, an exciting, new, slightly heavier take on guitar-pop emerging from Kent, UK. The fourpiece are currently on their UK headline tour, have released two EP's and four singles and are already becoming the masters of catchy hooks and unmistakable riffs that will be left bouncing off the walls in your head for ages after listening to them. It's difficult to 'label' these guys or categorise them too much as although they would seem to fall under the dirty-pop genre, nothing compares to the unique and intriguing vocals of front man Jamie; however, if you're into the likes of Vampire Weekend then you're sure to like this band. I stuck around after my interview with these guys to catch their performance at The Sunflower Lounge and I was thoroughly impressed with their set. As each song begun, a feeling of unpredictability became apparent as each song was as refreshing as the other and no two songs could have been mistaken for eachother; the only thing you're sure of when watching these guys is that it's gonna be powerful hit after hit. Although the band have only been together for two years, I was impressed with how refined and tight they sounded on stage. My favourite song played was without a doubt 'Barbiturates' as it entailed a sense of bravery with constant adrenaline fuelled build ups throughout which lead to a powerful note from Jamie and the occasional hearty scream now and then. I would certainly recommend seeing this band live and I'm placing my bets now that they'll be big this year. Read my interview with the band below:


What made you want to start writing music?
Jamie: I wasn't really good at anything else. I didn't want to go to college or uni and this was the only thing I was bothered about. And so, what feels like an eternity later, here we are now.

So I've just seen on twitter today that you've been announced as a support act for Vant, how do you guys feel about that?
Jamie: Brilliant! We've been gunning for some more support tours. The last one we did was with Broken Hands which was such a fun time. We just really want to get our name out there. We really love Vant at the moment and there's a big hype with them and we're all buzzing; like today - we were singing their songs in the van. It's fun to play with bands like them that are on the rise but it's even better to play with bands that you actually really enjoy and we've listened to Vant a lot, way before any talk of touring together came about so it's really cool. We've also been listening to Tigercub, we're playing one show with them but I really like them, too.

Is there anyone who you'd like to support or have as a support for your own shows?
Jamie: The only people who we really wanted to support us are Fish Tank so we asked them and now they're supporting us on this tour. There's also a band called Skies  who are also from Kent, we kind of keep it quite local as it's mainly Kent bands. However, I've seen that Pixies have been announced to play Brixton so I'm gunning for that, I bet every other guitar band in England is probably going to wanna do the same but yeah.

The name - Get Inuit. That's quite an unusual one, where did that come from?
Jamie: Yeah it is quite strange. Oliver came up with it randomly and it made us laugh and I guess that's it really. We knew from the start that it was a bit of a stupid name, no offence Oliver, but if you type it into Google it's the first thing that comes up so that's good.

Photo cred - www.bbc.co.uk

Your newest release - 'My Oh My' follows your up-beat, fast paced style that you're known for. What was the process behind that?
Jamie: That's quite an odd one because it's actually the first ever Get Inuit song. Me and Ollie worked on that about two and a half years ago but we never did anything with it. We just didn't feel like it suited our sound but then we thought - well why don't we make it fit our sound? So we re-recorded it, added a theremin and it fits perfectly now with us.
James: The idea of that song is that we were doing a 60's Beach Boys/ The Beatles thing so we wanted to try and explore that a bit. I mean, we try but me and Rob don't quite have the voice like Jamie does.
Jamie: I have the most feminine, high pitched voice so to try and harmonise with these two is pretty tough. They can do low ones but when I tell Rob that he has to go higher than me you can just hear him sigh. It's quite a good one to play live, too as it gets the people going.

Do you have a favourite song to play live?
Jamie: We have a song called Barbiturates which I wouldn't say was my favourite but it's always the one that seems to be the most well recieved, it always causes a reaction, weather it's good or bad. It's one that I get excited about because when we get to the end of it we know weather we've had a good show or not judging by the audience's reaction because it's either really good or a bit, scared? because it's quite a strange song but it'll most likely be on our album.

Obviously your setlist is changing all the time due to new releases but is there anything that makes a song stand out in particular for you to want to include it on there?
Jamie: I think it'll often jump out at us in the rehearsal room because obviously we rehearse the songs a lot before playing them live and it becomes pretty clear. But sometimes it's hard to say 'that's gonna be brilliant' or 'we need to work on that a lot' like I don't think there's ever a right or wrong answer with that one because a lot of the time, the ones we really struggle with are worth it at the end but some of them you instantly know I think. Don't you think it's weird as well how bands are always the most excited about playing new songs? I mean so am I but the crowds never really seem to. It's almost like a weird juxtaposition by playing a brand new song because you know you'll enjoy it but they won't so it's like - are you doing it for yourself or are you doing it for them?

Is there anything you'd like people to be able to take away with them after listening to your music?
Jamie: Hopefully, guitar music is still alive and we're not playing a retro genre. I think it's coming back though with bands like Vant and Spring King, definitely. But I think for people to realise that you don't have to be loving music from the 90's to love this kind of music. Obviously there's influences there but that we're not old relics I guess - even though we might look like it, but not the lead singer cos he moisturises of course.
(enter random discussion about moisturisers these days and weather or not they protect the bunny rabbits)

So, I heard you briefly mention the album earlier, what can you tell me about that?
Jamie: It's still very early days for us but we were very fortunate enough to recieve a grant from the PRS Foundation which funded us so we could record our album this year. We're taking things very slowly because we don't want to rush into things; which obviously is an important thing cos there's no point in releasing an album if no one's gonna hear it. after this tour we're going to have a couple of days practice to start getting some ideas together and then go into recording. It's very exciting but I'm terrified. I've never done anything like this before in my life. I had to quit my job at Christmas so I could do this so it's like I'm constantly questioning weather or not the songs are good enough - if I'm not talking then that's what I'm doing.

Other than the album, what do you have planned after this?
James: We're going to Texas
Jamie: Oh yeah! We're going to SXSW which we only found out about last week, which is...
James: Pretty exciting
Jamie: ... Terrifying!
James: There's a lot of great new bands doing it so it's gonna be fun cos we've never really been abroad before as a band.
Jamie: I've never been to America before, I've barely been outside of the UK so I'm a bit nervous but James is gonna show me the ropes.
James: Always look the other way when crossing the road

Finally, where would be your dream place to play?
James: I'd love to do a tour of America, that'd be amazing
Jamie: I'd like to tour Japan because that seems huge. It's such a long way away though but I've always wanted to go.

You can purchase Get Inuit's newest single - My Oh My by clicking HERE
Or have a listen to them on Soundcloud by clicking HERE

Written by Rosie Mulhern.