Blog: The VPME

The VPME Karen O and PJ Harvey are obvious points of reference on this bluesy stomper of a track from Candice Gordon. She purrs,she snarls, she shrieks and kicks up a mighty storm whilst seeming to exude visceral raw rock n roll energy from every pore. It's backed by 'I Haven't Eaten in Days' which is a much more laid back, jazz infused number with both songs demonstrating Ms Gordon's remarkable versatility as songwriter and performer. 'Smoking Like The Barrel of a Gun' will be released 9/7/2012 via Fauna Records

The VPME As far as great musical cities go Leeds seems to be one which is consistently looked over, but that may be because the days of producing post-punk greats such as Gang of Four and The Wedding present are long gone. These days, most Leeds bands stall soon after a promising new release - that, or they're too busy predicting social unrest (See Kaiser Chiefs). China Rats e are the latest young upstarts to hail from the city, and they've started with a bang. 'To Be Like I' is the eponymous title track from China [...]

The VPME She's So Rad is Jeremy Toy and Anji Sami , from New Zealand, ( or Middle Earth as Tolkien obsessives are wont to call it) who provide a second helping of free shoegazey goodness today. We must admit as band names go "Shes So Rad" may not be the snappiest moniker we've ever heard, sounding a little like a Scouting for Girls song title *shudder*, but when your tunes sound this good you could probably call yourselves " The Exploding Testicles Of Love" and get away with it. We could use all the [...]

The VPME Dystopian doom gaze holds sway as GHOXTS paranoid blissed out buzz saw guitars encircle singer Shelley X's nonchalantly sexy vocals with savage intent to produce an Orwellian pop song influenced by the likes of Curve, Sonic Youth and The JAMC. GHXST is a New York based noise grunge trio composed of Shelley X, Chris Wild and Nathan La Guerra and they are about to f*ck the UK in both ears with a tour in June . They are giving away a free taster of their new material through London's Club The [...]

The VPME There is no rule to our "Track Of The Day" feature, it doesn't have to be so new it's been heard by human ears. We just have to love it a bit, or quite possibly a lot. In this case its a "CAPS LOCK LOT." Today's tune is brought to you by Manchester's Swiss Lips, whom we caught live at Sound City last week and who were mind blowingly great. With "Danz" there's no "fannying" about, it is quite simply a soaring pop blitzkrieg, imbued with style, content and has [...]

The VPME The VPME welcomes aboard a new writer David Cross-Kane, a scouser exiled in London, who lends his ears to Welsh retro popsters The School's latest album. ****************************** ***** The remarkable thing about Cardiff-based band The School is that they signed to Madrid's lauded Elefant Records after just four shows, subsequently releasing their 2010 debut Loveless Believer . Spanish listeners might just have stumbled upon something that UK audiences were missing; joyful retro-pop. The School are a band longing to fill the hearts of those who listen [...]

The VPME If the term"Fearne Cotton Curated" has you running to the hills screaming. STOP, take a deep breath and check out the acts for the Festifeel 2012 ; an all-day show taking place at The Queen Of Hoxton in London on Bank Holiday Monday 4th June . This year's line up is curated by CoppaFeel ! charity patron Fearne Cotton : it's being organised with some help from our blogging bros and sisters over at Killing Moon Limited who will be teaming up with [...]

The VPME Normality returns to Von Pip Towers after last weeks musical mayhem over at Liverpool Sound City (and at which today's artist performed and we missed her - D'oh.) Our "Track Of The Day" is a VPME exclusive, an Admin remix of Mary Epworth's forthcoming singe 'Long Gone', which is out on June 11th on Hand Of Glory as a digital download. Remixes are funny old things, on one hand it's pointless producing one if you're just replicating the original and adding nothing new, on the other hand you can so radically change [...]

The VPME **************** After a young singer based in Australia contacted us with regard to her music, we duly listened and when we'd stop shedding tears of joy and picked our jaw up off the floor, we thought " woaah, this is a young lady who's going to be massive!" Adriana Tegova is only 21 but she's blessed with a stunningly versatile, rich and emotive voice that could make angels weep, rangeing from wistfully seductive to the sort of controlled power that could level sky scrapers. In fact she may have [...]

The VPME Liverpool will be forever associated with The Beatles, which is great, if you like them. However what wasn't so great was the fact that for what seemed to be aeons it appeared that anybody who picked up a guitar seemed intent on replicating the sound of the Fabulised Four. This lack of musical ambition reached a zenith of moth-eaten mundanity with bands we will not name lest they beat us up or "cast" us as pariahs for such heresy. Suffice to say every time we heard a twanging Mereseybeat guitar emanating from one of the [...]

The VPME 'If You Need To Lie' by Broken Hands, has that sort of rockular garage vibe in a Black Lips, Black Keys, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, kind of way. ( Is that enough bands with "Black" in their title?). It's out on 28th May and is rather bloody marvellous. If we were to consider waxing lyrical and getting all wanky we'd say something like" A cascading crescendo of coruscating guitars drive the song forward replete with a fashionably laconic but melodious vocal delivery which proves that guitar music ain't dead, just in need of [...]

The VPME Normality returns to Von Pip Towers after last weeks musical mayhem over at Liverpool Sound City (and at which today's artist performed and we missed her - D'oh.) Our "Track Of The Day" is a VPME exclusive, an Admin remix of Mary Epworth's forthcoming singe 'Long Gone', which is out on June 11th on Hand Of Glory as a digital download. Remixes are funny old things, on one hand it's pointless producing one if you're just replicating the original and adding nothing new, on the other hand you can so radically change [...]

The VPME Day 1 - Thursday Liverpool Sound City returned for its fifth year serving up an eclectic musical programme of up and coming musical movers and shakers, indie buzz bands, John Peel approved legends and rappers who aren't really Professors. One imagines the first five years have been a learning curve, as each year seems to take massive strides forward, both in terms of the artists involved and the event logistics. This year's festival benefited massively from the creation of "pop up" venues , with the majority of them [...]

The VPME Liverpool Sound City Day 3 Day three arrived and despite feeling worse for wear, the music revived us and here are just a few of the bands who gave our heart wings and lifted our spirits once more ! (We'll go into more detail next week when our addled little heads have recovered! ) - (You can click on the pics for large versions if you so wish ) PINS [...]

The VPME A snapshot of day two at Sound City in which we learnt a number of valuable lessons, eg. a / Photos are generally better with the lens cap "off" b/ The porta loos at Sound City are the rather lovely but getting stuck in one for five minutes isn't quite as much fun as it sounds and c/ naked men with rabbits heads are VERY wrong. *********************** Swiss Lips Which is apparently slang for erm, a ladies tuppence, but they really "smashed it" last [...]

The VPME As we are currently at Sound City you'll find a couple of Friday freebies below. This isn't a full blog, we'll leave that until the three days of musical madness that is Liverpool Sound City 2012 has ran its wonderful demented course. After all, it's pretty tricky to write coherently when you're in the eye of the storm, and so as a stop gap we've popped up a couple of photos and tunes that represent our highlights from day one. Rebecca - Slow Club. [...]

The VPME With bitter irony, the day after BBC 6 music became the first digital radio station to win UK station of the year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, and Huey Morgan reminded us all just why copious quantities of booze and twitter are not a good mix, Amazing Radio announced it was no longer able to broadcast on the nations DAB network, following a contractual dispute with the owners of the transmission network, Digital One. It will still continue online, but have you ever tried streaming from the net in your car ? Make [...]

The VPME Not another band from Brighton ? Yup, there's obviously something in the water down there as I think we've probably featured more bands from Brighton outside of London than any other city. Glass Sines started out as the musical project of Tom Payne and Ian Upfold who initially started working together in 2005, producing music via the medium of an acoustic guitar and synthesiser. They then added a violinist and things really started motor off in an interesting direction. Now a four piece, having formalised their musical union by naming themselves Glass [...]

The VPME Liverpool Sound City kicks off this Thursday, May 17th and for three days the city will be playing host to some of the most exciting emerging bands as well as some old favourites from around the globe. We'll be there and below is a 25 track Spotify play-list of some of the artists we'll be hoping to catch... Although we may need some sort of cloning machine/ "Time Turner " Also keep your ears out for PINS [...]

The VPME Friday Freebie London electronic quintet Portasound fuse massive beats, driving guitars and off kilter synth riffs to create an outrageously danceable, genre traversing mash up of styles and influences. 'Messerchmitt' is the aural equivalent of leaping into a vat of a certain blood hued bovine energy drink and is available as a free download. Play this before hitting the town this evening and you'll be dancing like Ian Curtis on roller skates caught in a strobe all night. [...]