The Great Escape, the UK's own version of SXSW, is growing in prominence across the industry, with bands and delegates coming from far and wide to showcase their work in the lovely seaside town of Brighton. This year, we hosted a showcase at the event for the first time ever ...
Put your party pants on people. We're going to Brighton. Yes, you guessed it – to The Great Escape Festival. TGE runs UK's leading music business conference (programmed by CMU) alongside the Brighton venue-hosted music festival that showcases 300+ new bands from around the globe. Of course we had to ...

The bullshit about guitar music being dead is getting pretty tiring. While it may have ceased to be a mainstream concern (and no wonder; I look back on the days of so-called 'landfill indie' and tremble fitfully), it is still very much alive. In fact, it is in rude health. One just needs to know where to look for it. This is all a very roundabout way of saying that The Big Sleep's [ Twitter / Facebook ] new album is excellent. It would seem that the band themselves are a touch too modest for their own good, however: the [...]
Not to be confused with the chain of hotels, the 1946 Howard Hawks film staring Humphrey Bogart, nor any other act of the same name past or present (yeah, there's plenty of confusion to be had), the Big Sleep are one of New York's latest exports and they're of the dark indie rock variety. Their third album launched in America at the end of January and will be out in Europe at the end of the month, but with a huge UK and European tour coming up to promote it, it seems that the [...]

Na mijn enthousiasme over Big Sleep, die later als The Slowdown door het leven gingen en inmiddels The 1975 heten, werd ik gewezen op nog zo'n Brits poprockbandje in de categorie Arctic Monkeys: General Fiasco . Ze komen uit Noord-Ierland en bestaan inmiddels al zes jaar. In korte tijd hebben ze een goede live-reputatie opgebouwd en hebben ze op SXSW en Glastonbury en Pinkpop gestaan. Ik kende ze in elk geval nog niet, maar ben behoorlijk enthousiast geworden. Ze brengen veel muziek uit (bijna elk jaar wel een EP of album) en de energie die in hun [...]

Frank Yang Despite only seeing four bands, I like to think that I covered a fair bit of ground - stylistically, geographically, exploratorily (?), what have you - on the first night of Canadian Musicfest . The Friday night stuck slightly closer to home on all fronts but yielded much better and consistent results. The evening kicked off at Rancho Relaxo with Neufovin in all the way from Finland (I mistakenly called them Norwegian in my festival preview and apologize profusely). Besides having an affinity for anything [...]
True fans of music spend countless hours searching for that next great song, album or artist, whether it be online or in a local record shop. The beautiful thing about music in today's age is that technology has created an infinite supply of great music that is available to us at the click of a mouse. How perfect is that? We can discover a brand new artist on the opposite side of the globe in seconds without a radio or a music television channel. It only makes sense that a website so dedicated to this gorgeous universe of music would [...]

Orlando is a city in a constant artistic struggle. Nestled in between the Touristopia of Disney/Universal and dense suburban sprawl, is the real Orlando: Audubon Park, Mills 50, The Milk District, Little Saigon – older buildings, posh intermingling with grunge, eclectic food, and a clutch of authentic venues and businesses devoted to being purveyors of local culture. In the past, art and music movements have flared up in this town and then just as rapidly dispersed, but now things are changing. Something has stuck. The culture scene in Orlando is flourishing. With the Festival Republic's recently-launched Orlando Calling [...]

All the artists in this week's mixtape will be here at SXSW . Enjoy! If you're here say hi to me: @thelastminute or @fridaymixtape ! Play Friday Mixtape 136: Download Friday Mixtape 136 Tracklist: St. Croix - Family of the Year Sunsick' - Fort Lean Stuck in my ID' - Reptar Do It Again' - Guards No Romance' [...]

It is time for the first volume of the Best Downloadables of 2012 . You can stream (and scrobble ) all the songs in this mix using the ex.fm player at the bottom of the page OR you can download any or all of the tracks at your leisure (with the usual right-click or control-click) and play them using a digital media player of your choice. Listen. Downloadables: Old Nirvana (mp3) by Stickers [d/l the Brother Keith EP [...]

It is time for the first volume of the Best Downloadables of 2012 . You can stream (and scrobble ) all the songs in this mix using the ex.fm player at the bottom of the page OR you can download any or all of the tracks at your leisure (with the usual right-click or control-click) and play them using a digital media player of your choice. Listen. Downloadables: Old Nirvana (mp3) by Stickers [d/l the Brother Keith EP [...]
It doesn't roll off the tongue with quite the same alliterative ease but let's call this Freeloader Monday. If you're heading down to Austin next week, it's a good bet that you have started to assemble an elaborate SXSW itinerary that will take you all over the city to see ...

I should probably just mention up front that I already had a ticket to see Archers of Loaf before I got assigned to cover it for The Bay Bridged and hence had a press badge to get me in. So if you've come here for an impartial review, you're shit out of luck. Seriously though, there are few joys in life that compare to an Archers of Loaf show. I saw them last September when they played the Great American Music Hall, and was blown away. They played more of the old-school [...]

Ultra Music Festival isn't the only fiesta heating up Florida next month. A couple of weeks beforehand, Orlando's Orange You Glad Festival will takeover the downtown area from March 8-11th, with headliners Cults, Grimes, and Tennis, along with Everything is Terrible, Born Gold, Fake Problems, Zambri, Mr. Gnome, Grandchildren, Deleted Scenes, and more. As previously announced , Consequence of Sound will be hosting a stage during the weekend, and now we have full details. On Saturday, March 10th, Brooklyn's Caveman will headline our stage, supported by The Big Sleep (Brooklyn, NY), Hundred Waters (Gainesville, [...]
Here's the playlist from today's edition of My Old Kentucky Blog Radio on SIRIUS XMU , Channel 35! You can also stay up late and catch the show again at midnight ET. Turn your dial to channel 35 on either SIRIUS or XM. Listen online with a free trial here . Check out this week's playlist below! KNOX - Long Long The Hood Internet - C.R.E.A.M. Theme [...]
In honor of SXSW 2012, we'll be doing our own SXSW Advent calendar, of sorts.
Unlike Hallmark's approach, The Big Sleep present us with a much darker interpretation of this idea we call a "Valentine". Their video for "Valentine", while a bit dramatic, is opened for interpretation and is without question refreshing, in comparison to all the lovey dovey-ness the holiday is known to ensue upon us. Don't get us wrong, love can be a beautiful thing, but there's a bit more to it than boxes of chocolates and teddy bears, and The Big Sleep have something to say about the ladder. The chorus of this song is upbeat and hard [...]
Had enough of the VALENTINES videos ? One more before I go for the BIG SLEEP ..
Watch 'Valentine' below. Enjoy 'Ace' here. Nature Experiments is out now. Click here to view the embedded video. MP3: The Big Sleep - Valentine