OX04 Festival

It's a charity festival in Manchester... have a good weekend all, I'm off now!

Just received word of this festival in Manchester, in aid of Oxfam, contact details for more info at the bottom of this message...



Following the success of this year's OX03 festival, (an eight day event
in
Manchester City Centre to highlight and raise funds for Oxfam's
overseas
work), we are planning an even bigger and more prestigious event for
2004.
We are approaching artists and their agents for dates around the end of
March and beginning of April.



We are asking artists to perform at various venues across Manchester.
All
money raised from these events will be placed in a fund to help with
Oxfam's
vital overseas work. Due to the fundraising nature of these events we
are
asking artists to play for free, but we will reimburse any expenses and
provide a reasonable rider for any artists donating their time and
talents.



The array of events we are planning range from, local 'indie' bands,
well
known headline bands, singer songwriters, local and national club DJ's,
Poets, Comedians, Authors and any performers who can use their skills
to
help Oxfam. Last year attracted over 75 artists including Adrian
Luvdup,
Aiden Smith, Luke Bainbridge, Chloe Poems, Andy Woods, Archie Kelly and
Justin Moorhouse.



We will also be producing a mini 'festival' guide to promote the event
featuring biogs. of all the artists playing, which will also contain
contact
numbers for people wishing to book or find out more about the artists.
Also
planned is a CD featuring a selection of the musical acts featured in
the
festival. We also plan to have national and local publicity to
advertise
the festival. This year's festival attracted press interest and
articles
from City Life, Manchester Evening News, Metro News, Alive Listings
Guide,
manchestermusic.co.uk and the Guardian.



We hope to make next year's event an even bigger success than this year
but
can only do so with the help and good will of The UK entertainment
scene.
So please get involved.



Contact Mat Payne,
5 Union Street, Bury, BL9 0NY (0161 763 4964 or 07792 956 163) E-mail shopf1171@btconnect.com

pauly :: 2003 :: Comment / reply

MJ Hibbett Tour

Mark and the Validators hit Nottingham, Hull, Wakefield, Leeds, Leicester, London and Bristol in October.

MJ Hibbett & The Validators are embarking on a national tour this
Autumn to celebrate the huge critical success of their new album "This Is Not A Library".



The album was released in July and received uniformly glowing reviews.
Rolling Stone said "Hilarious, eartbreaking and chock-a-block with
brass, This Is Not a Library is 2003's best State of the Nation album, and as
such is currently climbing towards the top of our Records of the Year list".
Everett True, in Careless Talk Costs Lives, called it "Literate, sassy
human pop music" whilst Logo Magazine, said "this is in a field all its own.
Like it? Love it!". Steve Lamacq loved the album so much he played tracks almost every day on his Radio 6 lunchtime show, and invited MJ in for a live session as the "Grand Finale" to his 2 week residency, whilst Kooba
Radio made the band "Artists Of The Month", and played almost every song from the album before climaxing with another live session and interview.



With the acclaim came demands for a chance to see the band in action,
and so The Validators have put together a tour which will gradually work it's
way around the country this Autumn. Audience members can expect a set of
songs that pack a powerful emotional punch, dealing with the kind of issues
other bands are too unimaginative to talk about, delivered with wit, charm,
and, as L2SB magazine put it, "intelligent lyrics that warm the cockles of your heart and have you thirsting for a pint of mild."



These lyrics cover topics such as rail privatisation, pub regulars, men's health issues, and the joys of ignoring fashion, all discussed against a backdrop of wild musical invention. This is provided by the Validators, a
virtual "super group", featuring members of such indie legends as
Prolapse, White Town, Lazarus Clamp and Frankie Machine. The fun they had making this record is evident throughout, giving it a "charming joyousness that sets it apart from the all-too-earnest singer-songwriters that clutter the field", according to Brighton's Vanity Project magazine.



The CD comes with a mass of multimedia extras, including lyrics, extensive
sleevenotes, over an hour of additional music, photographs, and a map showing where each song was written. Fans can even bypass the shops altogether and buy it direct from www.mjhibbett.com for a knockdown price of £10. Everyone who's heard it will agree with Tennessee's FAC193.com that
it's "a ray of sunshine blasting through overly serious indie pop", and
the band are hoping that the tour will give even more people a chance to
enjoy it for themselves.



Make sure you catch them at:

• Nottingham Social (29th Sept)


• Hull Adelphi (12th Oct)


• Wakefield Escobar (15th)


• The Vine, Leeds (16th)


• Leicester Lamplighters (20th)


• Bar Lorca, Brixton (24th)


• Cube Cinema, Bristol (30th)

pauly :: 2003 :: Comment / reply

I hate myself for loving you

Finding myself heading int Pret every morning now, getting off the bus two stops early just to get my soya capuccino. It's a nice place, looks nice, does nice food, friendly service, I like everything about it. Except, it's owned by McDonalds isn't it? What with me hoovering up a spider, and now this, surely it's only a matter of time until I head out on a fox hunt (while it's still legal)...

Doing some SEO work for one of our companies, Stephen Budd Management, they manage record producers, they came up with the back end skills (ie a record producer, songwriters, recording engineers, and other record production) for artists like Franz Ferdinand, Dido, Jamelia and more... In their words:

What can SBM do for you?
SBM can help you
See some of our projects...
Services for our Clients
SBM coordinates projects, handles finances and negotiates work for Producers, Songwriters, Mixers, Programmers, leaving them free to focus on what they do best.

Also really enjoying some work I'm doing for The Fly, an online ad booking system. Only the system is online, not the ads, it's just for the magazine... Not touching the website yet. And loving this wireless camera, thanks again www.engadget.com...

2004 :: Comment / reply