Resources, ideas and advice for independent recording artists hosted by Tom Robinson plus a weekly selection of top tunes handpicked by Team Freshnet and the general public via our Listening Post. To send us a track click here
Musician Thom Donovan and Nashville singer-songwriter Kendall Morgan met over dinner at the home of a mutual friend, who now manages them as Rossi. Allison Nellis knew a good thing when she heard it too then. Kendall has one of those voices, striking, flawed, utterly compelling. The good people who choose the music for CBS drama The Good Wife (a firm fave here at TOW Towers) have featured them in the hit series and we’re really pleased Thom tweeted us with a link to their Soundcloud. Already a favourite of key bloggers, these two are ones to watch. Read More »
Each week Fresh On The Net invites an artist or band to answer a short series of questions in our new feature PRICK & DING: The 2 ½ Minute Interview. It’s convenient and quick – like cooking a microwave meal!
This week: TOODAR
Toodar are a 4 piece Pop band from London,namely Isabel, James, Tom and Oli. They make beautiful technicolor Pop Music.
Their song Ten Paces appears alongside 19 other handpicked tracks on HOME VOLUME 3 – an album curated by Tom Robinson & my bad self which has just been released as a FREE gift by Rash Records. You can download the whole thing for your listening pleasure right now at rashrecords.co.uk
What makes Toodar stand out from the crowd for me is their natural inbuilt ability to hit 9 on the ‘Warm & Melodic’ meter I keep in my head.
This Monday 6 Music went mob-handed to the Sonys. There was Lammo and Lauren with their respective programme teams, station editor Paul Rodgers with Fergus Dudley and Mike Hanson, Adam & Joe with their producer James, Huey with producer Tom Whalley, and at the table next to us Shaun, Jools Holland and Moira Stewart were the guests of our boss Bob Shennan – the head of Radio 2 and 6 Music.
As you may know, NowPlaying is made for 6 Music made by the independent production company Somethin Else – and so many of their programmes were up for Sonys this year that – like Radio 2 and 6 Music – they’d had to book multiple tables to accommodate all their nominees. Read More »
Amazing Radio has been forced to pull out of DAB in the UK as of midnight last night. For a full explanation as to why we’ve been bullied off this platform read our Boss-Man Paul Campbell’s statementhere. In a nutshell it’s all about money, they want more money and we’ve dug our heels in and said No.
Isn’t the point of DAB to have great networks like Amazing Radio on the air? We’re still going strong online and you can listen to us via our free mobile app too, all is NOT lost. In fact onwards and upwards – with groundswell support already from the industry, things can only get better!
This weekend’s live pick from Team Freshnet’s Manchester correspondent
As I said in last week’s recommendation Soup Kitchen seem to have their finger on the pulse of some good stuff at the moment, so once again I find myself choosing a gig they are hosting as my tip for the weekend. And by pure coincidence, which I have only just realised, the chosen act is from Brooklyn, again. I’ve not yet looked at who next week’s choice will be, but I will do my damnedest to ensure another part of the world is represented.
This week I’m putting forward Bear In Heaven who have a much more electronic poppy feel than my previous choice. As I pointed out they are Brooklyn based trio, who have now released their third album I Love You It’s Cool. It was only after the release of their second album Beast Rest Forth Mouth back in 2010 that things started to take shape. Rather than sitting on their backsides and seeing how the album was received they took to the road with some 200 shows around the world.
Now most bands would be quite happy to get home and have a rest, but not Bear In Heaven. They got themselves into a practice room and got cracking on some new tracks. Eventually after months of hard work they produced their third full length offering I Love You It’s Cool.
Guitarist Adam Wills says of their music “You come off of a tour, and you have ideas of what you found yourself enjoy playing over the last years, it felt good when people would dance. We tried to turn that into a record, to emphasize that. But there’s still an absolute need to take the pop song and ruin it.” If you’re in the mood for a last ditch attempt at stretching out your weekend in Manchester – and having a dance to drain away any remaining energy levels – then Sunday night down at Soup Kitchen should do the trick nicely.
Another week, another Monday morning and despite the depressing feeling that the week is stretching far ahead of us, Team Freshnet are here to brighten up your blues with another astonishingly good selection of our, or should I say your, favourite tunes on the net. The ten most popular tracks this week encompass every genre from gritty post-rock to upbeat indie pop and then on to quirky Swedish lo-fi electro. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I sit down to pick my favourite tracks each week only to find it so difficult to choose between a selection of such good music. Despite the slowly building feeling that the summer-proper will never arrive, I’ll content myself for another week by guiding you through the Top Ten tracks of the week, picked by you, loved by us. Enjoy!
ANIMAL NOISE – Baddow
We just can’t stop going on about Animal Noise at the moment. First Johnno invited the band to take part in his first microwave meal interview (the aptly named Prick & Ding) then Tom posted this tune on its own partly to rave about how good it is, partly to wonder aloud why the band wasn’t shouting it from the rooftops and brandishing at people in the streets. It’s nice to know that we’re not alone in our awe then. Four minutes of rough around the edges guitars and raucous vocals picked by you and played with more energy than a toddler after a red bull. Baddow is a stirring anthem perfectly timed for the summer, seemingly hand-crafted to be shouted as you drive along with the windows down on your way to a festival or Underbelly in Hoxton, London where, incidentally, you can catch the band live on the 9th June. In the meantime, wet your appetites with more tunes on their facebook page.
BATTLESHIPS – Turbulence
Now I must declare an interest here. Being from Liverpool (or at least an honourary Scouser) I love Battleships. As energetic and aggressive live as they are on this recording, this band fuse the better bits of Mogwai-esque post-rock and Biffy Clyro before they were famous, Turbulence is awash with soaring guitars and relentless drums. If you’ve had enough of irritating indie bands with guitars so twee they could easily be part of the soundtrack to Last of the Summer Wine, then Battleships will be a welcome return to passion-filled rock with great riffs and a chorus made to be shouted, not sung. Keep up to date with Battleships here.
See the full tracklisting for this week’s Introducing Mixtape on my BBC blog.
After giving a keynote talk at Unconference in Leeds the other week – as part of the Live At Leeds festival – a number of musicians came and said hello to me afterwards. Many of them had demo CDs but almost all were nonplussed by the question “where can I hear your music online and how can I contact you”. Most of them had to borrow a pen and write the information by hand on the back of my lecture notes.
Wilful Missing however handed me a small, attractive card printed with their name, logo, website, email, Twitter and Facebook details. Within minutes I was listening to their music on my iPhone, which proved to be every bit as strong as their marketing skills. They’ve released two EPs (2009‘s Vast Atlantic, and 2010‘s Loose Ends) and I’ve included my favourite song The Waltz from their debut album MOLEHILLS OUT OF MOUNTAINS on this week’s BBC Introducing Mixtape.
Getting these calling cards designed and printed is such a brilliantly obvious idea. You never know when you’re going to meet a useful contact or colleague – or just someone you like and want to impress. Every member of the band can slip a few cards in their wallet and carry them everywhere they go. Why don’t more artists do this?
Hello everyone. Please excuse me, but it’s time for a heartfelt personal moan
Last week 70 people clicked on the Send Us A Track link on this blog and every single one of them, er, sent us a track. Every one of them will also have seen the above link saying: “UK artists: be sure to submit your latest tracks to the BBC Introducing Uploader“
Members of Team Freshnet listened to all 70 of those tracks so that you, our readers, wouldn’t have to. We all picked and approved our favouritemost tracks and posted all 29 of them on this weekend’s Listening Post for your approval. On Monday your most-liked tracks will get permanently embedded on our blog as next week’s Fresh Faves.
Now, here’s the thing. As well hosting this blog, I also host a 60 minute Introducing Mixtape show on BBC Radio 6 Music. Although, as we frequently point out, that mixtape is taken entirely from tracks on the BBC Introducing Uploader, I do tend to hear a good many of them for the first time right here on the Listening Post. Read More »
You don’t need to shout to be heard. I have just heard this song by a singer/songwriter called Tom Rosenthal that is stunningly beautiful in its simplicity.
The tune is called ‘The Depressed Milkman’ and I played it after seeing that a family friend Lewis Greenham had played it on Soundcloud earlier tonight (thanks Lewis). I played it unsure of what I was going to hear and man oh man – this song just reached out to me in all its melancholy bliss. A tale so wonderfully British yet in a language that reaches all shores.
Here’s my first recommendation of where to take a punt on a relatively new act if you’re at a loose end this weekend in Manchester.
It seems lately that new venues are popping up every week in Manchester – and Soup Kitchen seems to be finding some great bands of late. This Sunday will see Brooklyn’s My Best Fiend take to the stage in this tiny basement. As always with new acts there isn’t much information out there, but if you were to choose a day of the week to go and see My Best Fiend, it would be a Sunday.
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