Europavox , the French music festival and industry convention, has named the first acts set to appear at this year's edition. The line-up so far: The Hives, Dionysos, Shaka Ponk, Amadou & Mariam, Agoria, 1995, Imany, Mirel Wagner, Django Django, Benga, Baloji, Ewert And The Two Dragons, Woodkid. More acts will be announced over the coming weeks, including at least one Irish group. Europavox 2012 takes place from May 25th-27th. There are also rumours that the festival will take to the road later in the year and will include a [...]
Dare I admit it - when the Label Manager first mentioned the name Hollie Cook in one of our weekly New Release calls, I wasn't immediately convinced that this would be an artist with great potential in France. True, I knew that the label, Mr. Bongo, had a great reputation ...

Shaka Ponk , a French electropunk band, get a mention here for their United States debut, "Bad Porn Movie Trax." I mean, how can I avoid writing about a band with song titles like "How We Kill Stars," "French Touch Puta Madre," and "Just a Nerd?" Check out the single: Do (direct download)

Although they are currently residing in Berlin, the Paris based Shaka Ponk are finally getting the opportunity to release some of their music here in the States. To celebrate I have a free copy of their monumental Bad Porn Movie Trax CD and a band T-shirt to give away. They could be yours! Shaka Ponk 's sound is not an easy thing to place. The five band members known as Goz, Frah, Thias, CC, and Bobe-OD combine their [...]
1. Standing Shadows - "Get Together"2. Grovesnor - "Taxi From the Airport"3. Yukon Blonde - "Rather Be With You"4. Skaka Ponk - "Do"5. Slow Six - "The Night You Left New York" (radio edit)6. Echo and the Bunnymen - "Proxy"7. High Places - "On Giving Up"8. Castrovalva - "Donut"9. We Were Promised Jetpacks - "It's Thunder and It's Lightening" (my favorite)10. Fangs - "Cos I Said So" (Kid Gloves

Happy SXSW week to you and yours. Once again I will not be attending, although I recently wondered if I could have gotten a record label or PR firm to cover my airfare and bar tabs while I whore myself for whatever bands they have in attendance. On the other hand, I harbor a dislike for much "indie" music and can see where it may have ended up as a "Fear & Loathing on 6th Street" type of occasion. "We were somewhere over Louisiana when the drugs began to take hold..." Anyway, as you might guess, my [...]

You ever have this feeling when you leave a show and you think to yourself, "that was exactly what I thought it would be." Well that is how I felt leaving The xx's last CMJ show this past Friday. The first band Shaka Ponk I didn't find very good, but the sound seemed off and Mat felt like their recordings are probably pretty good based on their performance. I wasn't inspired to try and find out. Phantogram on the other hand was really good live, and had a great sound and a beautiful lead singer. It inspired me enough to [...]
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