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Five Day Forecast – w/c 31 Jan 2011
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 31 January 2011
Blimey, another week. These things seem to come around quicker and quicker. During my weekly two day holiday, I saw a terrible opera and some brilliant stand-up, which balanced things nicely. Then I got up this morning and pretty much straight away I heard that John Barry had died, which is sad. He was responsible for so many iconic pieces of music during his career – not least several Bond themes – but my favourite will always remain the theme tune to ‘The Persuaders’, which is just fantastic. Meanwhile, back to business, here’s this week’s Five Day Forecast.
01: The Great Escape first convention announcement. Well, after last week’s festival announcements, with the likes of Friendly Fires, Warpaint, Katy B, Becoming Real, worriedaboutsatan and Visions Of Trees all lined up to play, this week it’s time to get on to the convention side of things. As you should know by now, this year’s Great Escape convention is being programmed by us at CMU. We’re pretty excited about the people we’ve booked to speak, the first of which we will reveal here in the CMU Daily this week. So, look out for that.
02: The Daily to launch. Yeah, that’s right, The Daily. The Daily is going to launch this week. The. Daily. Where have I heard of an electronically delivered daily news bulletin called The Daily before? God damn you Rupert Murdoch, as if you haven’t done enough already, you go and steal our name for your stupid iPad newspaper. I bet you heard Steve Coogan talking about the CMU Daily on Sienna Miller’s voicemail didn’t you? Already delayed by several weeks, News Corp’s Daily will go live this Wednesday. It’ll be rubbish, don’t buy it.
03: HMV’s Next Big Thing. Expanding out of Soho this year, HMV’s Next Big Thing festival will this year showcase brand new acts like Chilly Gonzales, Funeral For A Friend, The Young Knives and some other bands who have recorded fewer than four albums. It all kicks off on Friday and goes on until 13 Feb, and will genuinely be showcasing some great new artists.
04: New releases. This week’s big release is the new Chase & Status album, ‘No More Idols’, though the three albums I’m most excited about are Seefeel‘s brilliant eponymous new album and ‘Grains’ by Jim Perkins, which blends solo piano with experimental electronica. Also on sale this week are Esben & The Witch‘s debut ‘Violet Cries’, a compilation of love songs byRoberta Flack, the delayed re-issue of ‘Faith’ by George Michael, and Dave ID‘s ‘Gangs EP’.
05: Gigs. Lots of gigs this week. Lots and lots. Two one-offs I’d like to highlight are Jim Perkin‘s album launch at The Vortex in Dalston tonight, which will be brilliant, and The Agitator at The Barfly in Camden on Thursday. Also kicking off this week are this year’s NME Awards shows and Canadian Blast‘s Cape Breton Sound showcases, and on tour in the UK are Hurts,White Lies, Joan As Police Woman, I Like Trains, and Stealing Sheep.
Don’t forget that you can now subscribe to the CMU podcast in iTunes here, or via RSS here. There’ll be another episode winging its way to you this Friday.
Andy Malt
Editor, CMU
