A Monday night in the cramped, sweaty upstairs of the Port Mahon pub in Oxford can be a challenge. Windows are firmly sealed shut, there is but one small entrance in and out, no bar, odours abound, personal space is elsewhere, and a chisel is useful to free the soles of your shoes from the floor. In fact, it was like being back at a gig in 1993. But en-masse the Mackerel shoal were there. Mrs M trying to breathe through her mouth, Dr Roddy, Chris T Popper and Banner also valiantly gasping for oxygen and all of [...]
[We are proud to have the nearly award winning Pete Collins on board for this review. His interjections are cleverly formatted in italics for your extra pleasure. Normally, he can be found here . Plus some of the pictures are his] With home printed programmes, highlighted with our preferences for the running order, we discussed our day at Sounds From The Other City with a warm up pint. What we should've done is fashion said printouts into little boats and sent them down the bloody Irwell given the use they were - this turned into [...]
The lovely Lovely Eggs have a new 73 single out next week called Food . We are resisting the urge to call it tasty, and instead here is the suitably unhinged video with suggestive hotdogs, giant burgers and mountains of mash. a See them on tour: WEDS MAY 9TH Nice n Sleazys, GLASGOW THURS MAY 10TH The Third Door, EDINBURGH FRI MAY 11TH The Adelphi, HULL SAT MAY [...]
Here are the videos that caught my eye this week... The Lovely Eggs Food Stop The Blackout Oxygen [...]
The Lovely Eggs have a new 7" coming out on May 14th called Food. If that wasn't tasty enough, there's a huge tour planned: THURS MAY 3RD The central Bar, NEWCASTLE FRI MAY 4TH Fishtank, DURHAM SAT MAY 5TH The Grand, CLITHEROE SUN MAY 6TH Sounds From The Other City Festival @ Salford Arms, SALFORD MON MAY 7TH The Continental PRESTON TUES MAY 8TH Fibbers, YORK WEDS MAY 9TH Nice n Sleazys, GLASGOW THURS MAY 10TH The Third Door, EDINBURGH FRI MAY 11TH The Adelphi, HULL [...]
I think I am getting a Thing for The Lovely Eggs. I cannot stop listening to their music, and worry that I am becoming quietly obsessed. Even when their peculiar style of faux-twee noise pop becomes an earworm, it doesn't get annoying. It's a privilege to have their music stuck in your head. Such is the case with the sublimely dark Fuck It . Many singers, faced with a song about staring into the void and the bleakness of life, would let you know just how they felt by howling with pain and [...]
The Schönbys are fictional, made-up awards for me to let you know what I've enjoyed listening to during 2011. Winners and nominations are drawn from music I have seen, heard or bought during the preceding 12 months. 2011 has been a great year for the single, so great that I came up with 15 songs for my top 5 singles of the year. It really was difficult to choose, my first attempt at picking my favourite 5 resulted in an all-female line-up. However, I don't want to be accused of sexism like the Sports Personality of [...]
Our final Top Ten selection comes courtesy of the lovely, and ever radiant, Mrs Mackerel. Over to you girl! It's been a great musical year. But such a plethora of riches always presents a problem – what's a girl to choose? Fortunately some fine contributions in the preceding week means most bases are covered. Live gigs, although few and far between this year, have been rich in quality, and particularly finger-picking good on the guitar front. A fine ensemble of gig friends too, thank you. Without further ado, here's my humble opinion. And remember [...]
MAD MACKEREL'S TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS For our first ever Festive Feature on Mad Mackerel, we asked twelve of our favourite bands and artists of 2011 to answer twelve questions and we will publish them over the next twelve days taking us up to Christmas Eve. Day 2 sees the lovely, but certifiably unhinged Lovely Eggs taking part. Their surreal indie sing-along anthem Don't Look At Me (I Don't Like It) has been a staple [...]
The Lovely Eggs are as catchy, as irreverent, and as downright loopy as anything we've come across this year. This is the video for newly released (and already sold out on vinyl) single, Allergies - it features a guest appearance from the single's producer Gruff Rhys . You can download it from iTunes here . a Follow @madmackerel
The Lovely Eggs' sleeves always look good but Casey Raymond's cover for the latest Too Pure singles club release is a stunning reimagining of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's first album sleeve and perfectly sums up the charming idiosyncracy of this band – and it's another reason why physical format trumps download, always. And the music more than lives up to its art. Produced by Gruff Rhys, 'Allergies' is full-on punky pop, full of bright-sounding guitars and as far from twee as Morrissey is from McDonalds. 'Slug Graveyard', meanwhile, represents their more experimental side, a [...]
by Steve McGillivray December is traditionally the time of year when bands and artists unleash their horrific Christmas records upon a public that seems only too willing to lap them up. The last time someone did a good Christmas song was when Bruce Springsteen released 'Santa Clause is Coming to Town'. It's true. It was brilliant. You can bet that you won't hear a Christmas song as good as that this year. Anyway, I digress. This weeks singles didn't really contain any Christmas songs, unless you count a reference to a Snowman. Without further ado..... [...]
I adore The Lovely Eggs from the bottom of my black heart, though if you were to ask me what they were singing about I would have to blank you. Politely, of course, with my best attempt at charm, but you'd still notice. Sorry. I think Don't Look At Me (I Don't Like It) might be all about people who appear on Scorn TV and get mocked - him with his wheelchair heart, her with her washing line smile. They amuse us because we are sophisticated enough to feel superior to them. [...]
The Lovely Eggs From: Lancaster, United Kingdom Allergies is yet more perfect pop from the loveliest eggs in the box. These free range Eggs could single handedly rescue the British music industry if only the rest of the country could drag themselves from the factory farmed dross of the Karaoke Factor for a couple of minutes to take [...]
Let's start with flat truths: this post is to be filed under, "What constitutes 'new', anyway?". The fact is that The Lovely Eggs have been lolling around New Band Town for a while - heck, they've even (briefly) been on ANBAD before - so for those of you who like to write furious emails complaining about how ANBAD isn't as good as it used to be , please click "Compose" now. The other fact is, though, that one listen to the excellent [...]
This was a bit of an impromptu excursion, I have to confess, and when I realised I'd forgotten my bank card and turned up at Henry's with no more than a fiver and a handful of coins in my pocket it looked like just a little more planning might have been advisable. But it turned out to be a significant enough handful of coins to pay for a couple of pints, in the end, so disappointment was averted. The gig itself was a Halloween night presented by the relatively new Edinburgh promoter John Truckasaurus, who we [...]
This was a bit of an impromptu excursion, I have to confess, and when I realised I'd forgotten my bank card and turned up at Henry's with no more than a fiver and a handful of coins in my pocket it looked like just a little more planning might have been advisable. But it turned out to be a significant enough handful of coins to pay for a couple of pints, in the end, so disappointment was averted. The gig itself was a Halloween night presented by the relatively new Edinburgh promoter John Truckasaurus, who we [...]
So, this week ends with a massive extravaganza of Toadliness, but it does look like it'll be relatively quiet along the way as there doesn't seem to be that much else around until the weekend. Which is actually alright, sort of, because it gives me a chance to get my shit together in advance of a very busy weekend indeed. Quite how we're going to sort the logistics of getting half the bands in Edinburgh to and from Anstruther on Sunday I don't know, but I am sure we'll manage somehow. Anyhow, in the meantime there [...]
A busking troubadour slumps, crumpled over an acoustic guitar case in a gaudy, cheap remake of Paul's Sgt. Pepper getup; numerous digital camera-toting tourists amble over a specific zebra crossing as if their legs were bursting with excessive amounts of lactic acid; and a wall three feet high is coated in scribbles directed at a band that've been inactive for over half a century. The fabled Abbey Road Studios inhabit a special corner of the surprisingly sedate, leafy outpost that is St. John's Wood, and music is of course ingrained in its very existence, as the voices of [...]
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