The Draymin have been around since 2005. What’s the reason for such a long time before releasing a debut album?

Fraser: We felt we wanted our first album to be very strong rather than a lot of “album fillers” floating about on it just for the sake of releasing an album. As an unsigned band we also felt if we were releasing a debut album without having a record deal we’d have to have a big enough fan base in order to be more successful. At this point we feel we’ve both – the songs to make it a strong album and the built fan base to make a better go of it.

You’re made up of a sibling pair and three long term mates – how has the dynamic of the band changed over the years given that you started out as quite close anyway?

F: I think it’s remained the same from day 1. We all know our place individually in the band, and who does what and when. There are no big egos with us, so nobody needs knocked down a peg now and again. We are all pretty easy going, level headed who just love having a good laugh writing and playing tunes together. Being mates from the start has only made it easier.

Your sound flings itself past a myriad of references but how would you sum up the band’s influences?

F: We all listen to different styles of music, some more simplistic than others, and some with a more dance electro vibe. We are all generally the same though. Blending it all together I’d sum up our influences to a “dance-indie-disco” sound, which we definitely feel we have put our own stamp on.

As a lyricist, where do you look to for inspiration?

F: I wouldn’t say I look for inspiration, just whatever feels appropriate to write about at that moment to a certain melody. I am probably the more common songwriter – writing about relationships, daily life in general, but while I worked offshore in Angola that gave me some inspiration to writing. It was quite an eye opener and felt strange emotions I’d never experienced. Craig is the more in-depth songwriter; he reads a lot, and is good at disguising his stories within a song.

Sit On Stairs and Don’t Fade Away employ some pretty anthemic synths… has The Draymin always fused dance elements and rock?

F: Yes! Since day one we have all loved the diversity a synth can bring to some simple guitar riffs. Big Cal knows his stuff with his synths, software etc, so it’s always really exciting and inspiring to hear new electro sounds to fuse together with the guitars that can just turn a song from good to excellent.

As a band that have built up a loyal following by gigging hard up and down the country, what’s your opinion on artists who seem to come out of nowhere merely via online hits?

F: It’s the luck of the draw really. I know what we’d rather do…gig up and down the country, meeting great people, showcasing our music, and having a great laugh on the way. Beats sitting in a bedroom posting videos up on YouTube!

What song on the album do you most identify with and why?

F: Heart Attack, without a doubt. This was a positive changing point for the band. The intro synth loop, the highs, the lows, and the overall energy the song carries. For me when playing this live it never lacks effort – every time I sing this I get the same aggressive buzz. Love it.

Tell us about the band’s connection to the Mary Leishman Foundation…

F: Jim Leishman is a former Dunfermline Athletic football manager. Three out of us five lads are Dunfermline fans. We also get on well with The Sun’s Bizarre editor Gordon Smart, who is Jim’s son in-law. They have been great to us, helping with funding our album costs, and supporting us all the way. We owe a lot to them and are extremely appreciative.

Now the album is out what’s the plan for the rest of the year?

F: We plan to enjoy ourselves. The old school desperation of getting a record deal is not our focus. The main objective this year is to let as many people hear our album as we can. We are busy gigging up to July/August. But personally I want to do a 2nd album, so a lot of drinking sessions are needed down our practice area when we can. I feel we may go down a slight different direction with new material, which we are excited about and will be very interesting…

Click here to view the embedded video.

When Chet Faker put his cover of Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’ out into the blogosphere, things got a little bit mental. Every one wanted to know who this bearded Aussie was and what he was peddling. Since then, the air has cleared and he’s returned with EP Thinking In Textures, featuring new single, the delicate and hazy ‘Terms and Conditions’. We catch up with him and chat hype and old fashioned music releases.

1. It feels like a very long time since No Diggity had everyone talking… what have you been doing in the past year?

I spent a lot of time working on my EP ‘Thinking In Textures’ which has just been released. The largest hurdle in the last year for me was getting together my live show. I had to essentially reverse engineer a performance from my recordings. That was a pretty serious challenge for my head, for a while I was chain-smoking and waking up in the middle of the night dreaming of audio set-ups and software techniques!

2. Was all the attention/hype that came off the back of No Diggity ever a problem for you? What was your personal and creative response to it?

I think perhaps for the first few weeks after the Hype Machine#1 I was over-thinking everything, it’s easy to start wondering why people like one song more than another song and to think that it somehow makes that song better or worse than your others. But I just kept talking about it with friends and it soon became clear to me that hype is a very random thing and if things are going well its best not to question it and try and focus on day to day attitudes.

3. Tell us about the new single, Terms and Conditions… it’s a bit of an emotional ride, as is the video for it…

Terms & Conditions is based around a static relationship. It kind of explores the negative thoughts that start to take over you head when you try and ignore something in your life that perhaps you should be attending to. It’s a pretty narcissistic song but I think its self-effacing enough to hopefully balance it out, haha!

4. Songs of the songs on the EP, like Cigarettes and Chocolate, have been in the public arena for some time – why have you included them on it?

I’m a bit old-fashioned when it comes to releases, there is a lot of talk these days analytically breaking down releases and saying thing like “an EP only needs on single, so you should save your good song for you album” but this doesn’t really fly with me. I tried to make ‘Thinking In Textures’ a consistent flowing entity. Something that someone could put on and listen from start to finish. I’d like to look back on my music when im an old fart and feel like I put everything I had into every release.

5. Your music has been called post-dubstep but also throws around genres like electronica, jazz and soul… where do you place your sound and where does inspiration come from?

It’s getting increasingly hazy when it comes to genres for me. I had someone call my music “chilled out dubstep” which was quite funny. I’d like to call it soul as that’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from, but I suppose it’s closer to nu-soul, electronica of some sort, even pop? Which is a scary genre these days.

 6. Which song on ‘Thinking in Textures’ do you most respond to personally and why?

All of the tracks on ‘Thinking In Textures’ have a very specific personal meaning behind them except for ‘No Diggity’ which is really just a tongue in cheek cover. If I had to chose one song from the release it would probably be ‘Solo Sunrise’ it references a particularly hard time in my life and the conflicting thoughts that were basically running around my head.

7. Are you playing the UK any time soon and what can people expect from your live show?

I am confirmed to play The Great Escape festival this year in Brighton which I’m looking forward to. I’ve got two variations on my live show at the moment: solo and with a band. It’s probably likely ill be playing solo in the UK so people can expect a more relaxed intimate vibe.

Your new album ‘Damned Religion’ is out next month, can you tell me a bit about it?

We needed to get a new record recorded and we owed it to our friends, our family and our agent to come back with something world class. We wrote it three times back in our old studio called Superstar Studios and just blasted away at it, writing tunes and throwing it away – we wrote a whole album and threw the album away. It’s a bit more refined but it’s a Dear Superstar record.

It’s your first album in four years, why did it take so long?

The tours kept coming, to be honest. We were screaming out to write a new record, we had this vision of the damned religion and just wanted to get to the studio to find out where it took us. But the tours kept coming, which isn’t a bad thing. We went out with Buckcherry, Papa Roach and did a lot of cool festivals. It just seemed like every time we turned a corner we were like ‘Ok we’re going to record a record now’, but then there was another amazing tour we just couldn’t say no to.

How would you describe a Dear Superstar live show?

We try and hit that stage at 110mph. If we don’t come off battered and bruised then we don’t feel like we’ve done our job properly. We’re not posers, we just get as messed up as best we can and make sure everyone has as good a time as we do.

You had Johnny Rocker on board to produce the album, how did that come about?

We’ve done a whole bunch of touring with Heaven’s Basement in the past, we get along with all those guys, and Johnny especially. We wanted to do a few tunes together so he came up to our studio, spent the weekend, and we played that well we were like ‘You know what dude? Let’s just record the whole album together!’. So we tracked it in that studio with Johnny, and when we got to the end of it that was going to be the demo.

But we slayed it and Johnny made each individual instrument sound amazing so we needed to find a guy who had the same vision we’ve got and some kind of pedigree in production and mixing, then we heard that Bob [Marlette (Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Atreyu)] wanted to work with us. We sent him a couple of tracks, he sent them back, and we were like ‘Oh my god! Is that still the same recording as last time?’. It sounded so different and made the record so huge. It sounds of the same quality as the Atreyu or Airbourne album he’s done.

So is ‘Damned Religion’ the best album you’ve ever made?

Yeah, without a doubt. Our first record, ‘Confessions’, we did that on £1000 shoestring budget, in a studio with a tin roof up in the hills of our home town. It was just a collaboration of tunes we could try to sell on the road. We did ‘Heartless’ and I’m still really proud of that record, I don’t want to take anything away from it, but on ‘Damned Religion’ we had the time and it’s a quantum leap ahead of anything else we’ve done before.

Your band’s from Manchester, which has quite an illustrious musical heritage. How does it feel to be a part of that history?

Obviously it’s a massive honour to be a band from Manchester, but I just feel in many ways that Manchester is stuck in the indie scene and we kind of wanted to break away from that a little bit. It’s not that we don’t love bands like Oasis, Happy Mondays and countless others, and all the punk bands from our city as well, but it’s not our heart and soul – our heart and soul is rock and roll. To think that we can fly the flag for Manchester in our own way, rather than rehashing what another band did back in the 70s, 80s or 90s, that means more than anything.

Rock and roll is where your heart is, do you try and live the rock and roll lifestyle?

We definitely used to, we got a bit of a bad reputation or good reputation depending on which way you want to look at it. When we were on tour with Papa Roach in Europe we actually got told to calm down. In many ways we’re kind of not proud of that, but now touring is getting so serious we’ve got to get the job done first – then party. We can’t let anything get in the way of that stage time we get. We’re so blessed to have played some of the biggest stages in the world that we don’t want to stuff it up when we get there.

So you’ve matured as a band?

I think we’ve matured as people and as musicians to make ‘Damned Religion’ as good as we could make it, obviously. I think touring with bands who have been there and done it kind of showed us the way. It’s not all about how much you can shove up your nose or how much you can drink, it’s about getting the job done and making a career out of it. So if we can make a career out of it these days, there’s no point spunking it all on drugs, women and alcohol. Not that all that isn’t fun of course, but our direction is the music right now.

But what is the most rock and roll thing you’ve ever done?

To me the most rock and roll thing I’ve ever done is putting the devil horns up whilst shouting ‘How’s it going Donington?!’. Getting on that stage at Download festival – we’ve done it twice now – with such a history on that land, and the bands that have played it, having that feeling is the most rock and roll thing I’ve ever done.

Finally, what does 2012 hold for Dear Superstar?

Just touring. The record comes out on 6th February and we’ve got to back that up as best we can, so we’ve got the Kill Hannah tour. Then we’re going round Europe on the Invade The Stage tour for a few weeks then we’re back home before heading straight out on another tour which hasn’t been confirmed yet so I can’t really say. We don’t want to leave any stone unturned, and it’d be nice to get out to Japan and the States this year as well, just spread the word and get into as many people’s faces as possible.

Southampton trio Band Of Skulls are back with their long-awaited follow-up to their debut ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’. ‘Sweet Sour’ is released on 20th Februar, and to give more of a taste of what will feature on the album the band are releasing the single ‘Bruises’, accompanied by a video in which a gang of masked Mexican luchadores take on a group of geeks in an energy fuelled ten pin bowling war. Following the release of ‘Sweet Sour’, the band will embark on a hefty UK tour to showcase their new material to their ever-growing collection of fans.

Disorder got the chance to chat with bassist Emma about their second record, her art exhibition and collaborating with each other.

You’re bringing out a new single ‘Bruises’ on the 12th February, and the video tells an interesting story. Is there any reason for why you decided on this idea?

We had a few suggested to us and that idea made us laugh. I like the way they picked out certain lines and used the slightly euphoric use of the chords because the video and the song kind of builds up. It’s just a really fun video.

Your second album ‘Sweet Sour’ comes out on 20th February, what can everyone expect from it?

We toured quite a lot with the first album; we played live for about a year and a half or two years around and about and we were playing slightly bigger venues than we thought we would. We wanted to make it feel like we had a bigger sound when we next go around so it’s definitely a bigger record. There are still quieter songs on there. We just collaborated a little more, I think. Because the three of us all write, there was a little more trust involved in showing each other our own songs.

You say you’ve done a “collaboration” this time, does that mean you made changes from how you worked on the first album?

It was generally more just the writing of the album that was different. Recording-wise, we worked with Ian Davenport again. The trust level was higher with this record. We had to show each other everything and be prepared to be knocked down at times when it doesn’t work.

How does it feel to be a band that are now influencing a new generation of bands with their music?

Are we? It’d be nice to think that we could influence other people in what they do. There aren’t enough really loud guitar bands around at the moment, so it’s nice to influence new bands.

You’ve got an art exhibition open at the moment, and some of your artwork is going to be featured on Sweet Sour. What’s the story behind those pieces?

I painted four quite large pieces when we took some time out over the summer after we’d finished recording, and they’re all featured throughout the album artwork. I also collaborated with a Canadian artist who created a sculpture based on one of the paintings which is featured on the cover of the record. The exhibition features 8 paintings – four from the first album and four from the second. It’s going really well and it’s just really nice to see them all together up on display for people to see.

You painted these after you recorded the album, would you say that they were inspired by the music you made?

I would say they are slightly inspired. There is definitely some sort of a connection between the paintings and the sounds we created.

What are your opinions on this idea being thrown around that guitar music is “dying”?

I have heard that quite a bit recently but to be honest, I don’t really see much evidence of that to be true. Just because the guitar music scene isn’t necessarily flourishing it doesn’t mean that it’s dying. It’s perhaps not the thing of the moment but every genre has its time; folk, acoustic, electro have all been big but they haven’t died and there is still obviously a big guitar scene.

You’re probably preparing for your tour in February and March now, how are you feeling about playing new material to your fans?

We’re very excited – we’ve not done a lengthy tour like this for a while. I’m looking forward to being able to play longer sets again; we’ve got plenty of material to choose from now. It’ll be great to see how the two albums work together live too. We’ve got a band called Broken Hands supporting our UK dates, and then we’re doing some dates supporting The Black Keys which we’re all excited about. We’re all big fans so it’ll be great to see how they work live and what their fans are like.

Finally, is there anyone you recommend to watch out for in 2012?

I’m looking forward to the new White Denim record. I’m not sure really, I’ll have to have a little listen around for some new stuff.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Can you believe that new album A+E is the eighth solo album from the Blur guitarist.

Graham Coxon returns to Parlophone for his new album, which will be released on 2nd April and is his first release since the acclaimed, acoustic-driven The Spinning Top.

Aptly named not only for the sense of scratchy, frantic urgency that suffuses its 10 songs, A+E finds Graham continuing with his singular vision as a truly eclectic artist. Playing all the instruments and improvising in the studio, Coxon found himself preoccupied with lyrical themes around the effects of weekend hedonism in modern Britain, on which A+E shines an outsider’s light, albeit with a mordant, sharp wit.

Produced by Ben Hillier, A+E features Coxon’s distinctive, visceral garage-punk-pop and is inspired by the experimental genres of Krautrock and the black & white, post-punk era – bringing to mind artists such as Neu!, Can and Kraftwerk), as well as Peter Hamill, Joy Division (‘Knife In The Cast’) and Monochrome Set. This may be the closet Graham has ever come to making, in a skewed sense of the word, ‘dance’ music.

Coxon describes the album as, “Improvisations, experiments in beats, rhythms. A chance to uninhibitedly make some sort of perversely sad, danceable and funny and despondent songs. I didn’t want to get caught up in my usual struggle with trying to make things sound really posh. I didn’t want lovely 60s-sounding drums and valves.”

In keeping with the album’s themes, Graham will curate the bill on a special tour around the UK in April, where he’ll invite his fans to nominate local bands to support him – he will then select his favourite for each venue.

www.grahamcoxon.co.uk

www.facebook.com/grahamcoxonofficial

The full A+E track list is:

1. Advice

2. City Hall

3. What’ll It Take

4. Meet+Drink+Pollinate

5. The Truth

6. Seven Naked Valleys

7. Running For Your Life

8. Bah Singer

9. Knife In The Cast

10. Ohh, Yeh, Yeh

A+E Tour dates, April 2012:

13th: O2 Oxford Academy.

15th: Gateshead Sage.

16th: Edinburgh Liquid Rooms.

17th: Glasgow Garage

19th: Manchester Sound Control.

20th: Sheffield Leadmill.

21st: Nottingham Rescue Rooms.

23rd: Brighton Concorde.

24th: Cambridge Junction.

25th: London Forum.

27th Gloucester Guildhall.

28th: Bristol Trinity.

29th: Exeter Phoenix.

30th:Falmouth Princess Pavilions.

The rest of the band looked like renegade Amish they’d borrowed for the night – all big beards and quirky headwear – but they provided the swirling, swooning strings on their keyboards as well as some taped backing vocals to enhance Serenades’ manner of  complete musical immersion. Live they’re far snappier and more forceful, which makes tracks like ‘Weapons‘ quite the tour de force and allows ‘Come Home’ to build and build in soft waves to a heartfelt plea about seasonal loneliness that makes you feel wrapped up inside of their chiming harmonies. Serenades are the equivalent of warm sheets and duvet being tangled around your legs, a luxurious stretch on a summer morning, a log fire in a remote cabin – enticing, emotive and lovely.

They’ve been compared to 80′s synth bands such as Prefab Sprout and A-Ha but in ‘Oceans’ (and for a more modern reference, if you like) you could liken them to The Drums, only with a better ear for a melody and much more skill in creating a mature yet carefree sound. The sparse clink of the piano intro, the breathy ‘ah a ah’ and haunting backing vocals, the strings… it all adds up to something quite spectacular without needing to stand up and proclaim it loudly. And because of that, it makes you all the more happy to go out and say it for them.

http://theserenades.com/

Click here to view the embedded video.

This beautiful five track EP from Oxford trio, Trophy Wife, is the exploration of sleep and the subconscious, mixing delicate vocals with the catchy, springy synths that they’ve become known for. It’s out now and well worth the listen for these cool Autumnal days and nights.

We gave Jody Prewett (vocals, guitar, and bass), Ben Rimmer (keyboards), and Kit Monteith (drums and percussion) our questions and they very nicely answered them.

Although each member has a sleep disorder, what made you decide that these very personal traits would be the inspiration for the EP?

We weren’t really conscious of a ‘sleep disorders theme’ until one of the first times we listened through some earlier versions of the songs. It was probably something we all had on our minds in some way. Lyrically we’re not adverse to tapping into the slightly more personal side of things, so we can go from subconsciously grinding our teeth to getting stranded in the middle of downtown Colombo.

What elements from the sleeping problems did you use in the EP’s formation and how have they come to life on Bruxism?

It’s all about midnight wanderings, sleepless delirium and subconscious teeth grinding; all of which the three of us partake in from time to time – thankfully not always in each others company. Those themes are present mainly in the lyrics but also in the flow of the record as a whole – much like the E.P. most of my dreams seem to start all upbeat, get a bit grandiose in the middle and end up being really fucking dark. Recently one ended with me giving birth to my cat who was simultaneously giving birth to 6 kittens whist I ran around an abandoned school.

The percussion and synths on Bruxism are beautifully complex and layered and you could really let rip with both music and vocals but you all seem to exercise just the right amount of restraint. Do you have to rein yourselves in or push yourselves out when songwriting?

Working with a new producer on each track did force us to push out at our boundaries a fair amount. It’s safe to say restraint is definitely our flavour of choice overall though.

Track 3 is called Sleepwalks… so the obvious question is who is the sleepwalker and what do they get up to? (*pointless aside, my sister is a sleepwalker and once came into my bedroom and punched me in the face)

I once sleepwalked out into my garden and spat gibberish at my mum after returning from a tiring school trip. None of us suffer very regularly from it though – its more about when you are actually awake but the situation you find yourself in has all the features of a dream.

Given that you have a different producer for each of the five tracks, how did you a/ choose the line up and b/ match the song to the producer?

a/ We really just picked from a selection of people we would love to produce us, and it was great that they all got behind the idea. Ewan Pearson got a sleeper train from Berlin to Paris to meet us at a show once, and Plaid proved to be lovely guys. We’re fans above all, and it’s nice when you’re heroes turn out not to be dickheads from time to time.
b/ We had a batch of songs on the go, but things just happened surprisingly naturally when it came to working out who was going to produce what. The only exception was when we initially started writing ‘Bruxism’ with Dan Lissvik from Studio, but the strain of distance took its toll on the process after a few drafts. Fortunately we were lucky enough to get James Yuill to step in and knock it into some shape. He’s another hero.

What was the thinking behind this decision? Were you concerned that you would get an EP that had no natural flow or were you seeking a challenge for both yourselves and producer?

We certainly wanted a challenge. The idea was for the EP to take us through the extremities of our sound, working with strong producers with varying styles. I think we did have that worry that it might turn out a bit disjointed if we weren’t careful. But we were careful. So it wasn’t.

Since you’ve oft been compared to Foals, was there some perverse thinking when approaching Yannis to man the desk?

Kit grew up with Yannis, and they’ve always wanted to work on something together but have never got around to it. Now Yannis has a studio and we wanted to make a record, so it made a lot of sense.

The track he produced, Wolf, is deliciously contradictory in terms – a dark, primal ethereality – and a step away from your punchy uptempo sound… is this going to be something you further explore?

The writing of that song was all done in his studio and much of the experience was about trying to do things differently. We got a lot out of it, and we’re keen to explore many different approaches when recording our album. I suppose we’ll just see if that produces another peace-weed-induced slow-jam.

Your tracks are consistently being remixed… what’s your ideal Trophy Wife remix and by whom?

I’d like to get Andre 3000 to remix something. Anything, actually.

With 2012 pretty much on the horizon and favourable reviews coming in for Bruxism, do you look forward to perhaps being hailed as one of the next-big-thing-ones-to-watch etc etc

We kind of got exposed to some of that last year, and perhaps it was a bit awkward as we’d only been a band for about a week at the time. Obviously we’re very flattered if people think that of us. We’re just looking forward to getting out and playing these songs to people for the time being.

Questions: Delilah Black

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rihanna on WhoSay
DO NOT WATCH IF a) You haven’t had any in a while, b) You have inappropriate thoughts about Rihanna/ Dudley, c) You are on the righteous path to sobriety – because this is guaranteed to get you on the blower to the seedy bloke you met in the alley of that glitter rave you probably don’t remember attending.

Eagerly anticipated since the peeved farmer headlines earlier in the year, this video has got to be the raunchiest yet. MOVE OVER Lady Gaga we have a new fave. The mini movie might be late on the mark with its likeness to ‘This is England’ but Riri is hot on the money with some 90s styling and super cool creepers – credit goes to the stylist , Mel Ottenberg on this one! To be fair, I thought the whole working class punk trend was over before we even had chance to starch our Fred Perry’s. I’ve got my fingers crossed we can get the clippers back out for some serious LOL hairstyles. Mel is screaming ‘double denim ain’t over’ in this video and thank god I have an added excuse to buy them patent docs I had my eye on.

Rihanna explains “the theme for the video is love and love being a drug”. Grace Jones knew what she was talking about back in the 80s. The beginning of the video starts with a similar setup to the Agy Deyn adverts for Doc Martens. A short account of a break up in her familiar northern accent marks the tone for the British style video, instantly warming me to the character.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The message is clear – love can be so powerful even the worst times are worth it just for the good. With the help of boxer and with-cheek=bones-like-that-of-course-he’s-a-model, Dudley O’Shaughnessy, Rihanna definitely gets this across. The rumours have been flying high about this pair, and judging by the on screen chemistry it is about to get a whole lot worse. The pair tug at the heartstrings (and groin) with scenes of car sex, topless field debauchery and supermarket sweep. Ooooh there’s nothing like narcotic fuelled danger to get you in the mood.
Seriously though I have never seen a pilled up couple look this good!!!

words: SJM Wilson

The event was to show off the new HTC sensation XL phone which had the Beat Audio integration which delivers amazing sound and visuals for a phone.

As guests were ushered in and when I mean guests I mean people such as Lady Gaga yes I said it the woman of many hairdo’s & looks graced us with her presence (who was looking very nice in a black afghan dog style hat that covered most of her face with a matching dress) as well as Dr Dre and our boys Rizzle Kicks, Wretch 32 & of course SBTV’s founder Jamal as well as everyones beloved sacked Xfactor judge Cheryl Cole. They were able to have a play with the new phone and also sip on special cocktails such as watermelon and chilli. Have to say I’m not a fan of chilli so didn’t try that one.

This event was a unique combination of music and technology as you got to play with the new HTC as whilist listening to the likes of Will.iam, Beardyman, Martin Solveig and my personal favorite Nero amongst others.

words by Jade Stavri

This is the record + management company set up by Mairead Nash (Queens of Noize) for some amazing acts including Florence and the Machine, so naturally she was the special “secret” guest of the evening, performing four new songs as well as some of her better known tracks. Showing off a rather severe crop hairstyle (we miss the flinging locks!), she had the audience eating from the palm of her hand with ease. Her new material is beautiful, showing that as an artist she is developing and growing without losing what has made her so beloved to her fans.

Of course, Florence wasn’t the only one warbling through the night. There was also Spector, fronted by the acid-tongued Fred Macpherson replete in spectacles and a suit. Think Maximo Park dating The Killers and smashed up with Buddy Holly and you’ll be kinda close. Hugely entertaining.

http://soundcloud.com/luv-luv-luv/spector-never-fade-away

Theme Park had the crowd bopping but I was bored by it and so found Joe Lean (without his Jing Jang Jong) and chatted movies (he’s in Jane Eyre with the delectable Michael Fassbender) and music (he’s got a new band called The Dip).

Also milling around was Willy Moon, whom we love, adore and cherish. The man is a well dressed fucking genius.

http://soundcloud.com/itswillymoon/willy-moon-i-wanna-be-your-man

There was also my find of the evening – Jamie N Commons – who has a band of fresh faced pretty boys who are talented to the eyeballs and can do mean harmonies. Jamie, tall and lanky with floppy hat, long hair, and jeans that seem to desire the dust of the American heartland, has a voice that doesn’t quite match his skinny, baby faced countenance. Sounding like Joe Cocker and Tom Waits have taken up permanent residence in his soul, the gravel-soaked-in-honey vocals cause much scraping of jaws across the concrete floor. Expect much stalking of Mr N Commons by Disorder. Or just me. Yeah.

http://soundcloud.com/jamie-n-commons/sets/jamie-n-commons/

http://luvluvluvrecords.tumblr.com/

Of course, the night wouldn’t be a massive success without everyone sucking down some amazing complimentary cocktails. Red Stag is a cherry bourbon by Jim Beam (the first flavoured one in the UK) and it was pretty damn tasty. I had a cocktail that looked like True Blood and so I was happy wandering around with cherry stained lips all night.
This is a picture of the bottle. Yum.

http://www.facebook.com/RedStagUK