Ok, so they’ve announced the shortlist for this years Mercury Music Prize.
I’m never sure what sort of credence this prize has, but it does tend to showcase some more independent music interspersed with the usual big names. And this year, its not different:

Anthony & the Johnsons
Bloc Party
Coldplay
Hard-Fi
Kaiser Chiefs
KT Tunstall
Maximo Park
MIA
Polar Bear
Seth Lakeman
The Go! Team
The Magic Numbers

There’s some very good albums on that list - The Bloc Party and Maximo Park albums are 2 of my favourites of the year, plus the KT Tunstall and Coldplay albums are good too. Of the others, Magic Numbers has some nice tracks on it, but Hard-Fi, The Go! Team and Anthony & the Johnsons are over-rated, the Kaiser Chiefs disappointing and the others I’ve not heard!

Morning all

So, just to start booking up dates in your diaries already, here’s a list of a couple of interesting gigs coming up in Cambridge in a couple of months…

Editors 5 oct (wed)
Magic numbers 12 oct (wed)
Brendan Benson 13 oct (thur)
Martha Wainwright 1 Nov (tue)
Hard Fi 2 Nov (wed)

These are all up at The Junction and you can book tickets through them (cheaper than using the other online agents).

A couple of interesting dates are also happening elsewhere in Cambridge:

21st July (Thur) The Boxer Rebellion - Club Goo
16th August (Tues) The Chalets - Portland Arms
17th August (Wed) We are scientists - Portland Arms

And you can get tickets for these through We Got Tickets which give you a very peculiar email ticket!

Also, Paul Weller is playing the Corn Exchange on Sat 19th November, tickets are an impressive £28.50 including booking fee - so probably one for fans only! I caught him playing in Brixton Academy about 18 months ago and it was very good, covering all aspects of his career from Jam and early solo stuff to even a few Style Council tunes.

Ok… so first of all I need to apologise. I didn’t get round to going to Club Goo last night - I’ve managed to come down with some terrible cold/sore throat thing which has completely wrecked my weekend (I was supposed to be going to Brighton for a friends Stag Do).

So… Club Goo next week it is then.

The Boxer Rebellion are playing in fact, whom I have seen a couple of times in Cambridge and have been impressed with. Think early Verve with Echo and the Bunnymen. Their debut album wasn’t too bad either, even if it failed to capture their live appeal.

A new Indie night has started in Cambridge, UK at what was once the Coco’s nightclub…

“Club Goo is Cambridge’s newest indie night. There’ll be a selection of the best up and coming, along with more established bands, for the first half of the night followed by some of the best local and national DJs until 02:00.
Don’t expect the bands to be hidden away, expect to find them getting sweaty on the dance floor with the punters after their gigs, as well as taking to the decks themselves.
Currently housed at The Soul Tree, Cambridge’s newest venue, easy to get to right in the centre of town, coupled with a great PA, bars and look.”

There’s a link to the website here

I shall be there tomorrow night watching The Kooks supported by Dive Dive who are supposed to be an awesome live band to see… Think early Idlewild before they listened to too many REM records…

Perhaps Cambridge won’t suck so much in the summer now!

Afternoon all

So… I’m going to join the publishing masses.

I did steal this idea from someone else, but I like it!
I’m going to use this as a document of the gigs I’ve been to as well as some info about live events / dates in and around the Cambridge area.

There will also probably been some inane ramblings about life, the universe and rugby…