CAN YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST TIME?

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In a sweaty dark room? In the middle of a muddy field? Watching your mates butcher Smells Like Teen Spirit?

One way or another, we all remember our first gig, the first time we saw our favourtie band live, or the first time we played on stage.

Now those venues are responsible for making the first Fear of Fiction possible, Bristol’s monthly listings and new music magazine:

02 Academy / Colston Hall / The Cooler / The Croft / The Fleece /  Fiddlers / The Lanes / The Louisiana / The Mothers Ruin / St George’s / The Stag and Hounds / Thekla / The Thunderbolt

Tears, nervous sweats, all-nighters, coffee lows and several meat highs later, we’ve brought out our first ever issue, you’re going to be holding it, and we have plenty of plans for the future.

Check out the digital preview issue here: http://issuu.com/lokilillistone/docs/001

LEND ME YOUR EARS #1 Beyond

Tracks we’re listening to this month (February)

Im Not Human At All
[Sleep Party People]
Haunting and emotive, recently
Confirmed to bring their unique Danish soundscapes to Bristol for the first time this April. Continue reading

TOWERS / Ugly Meanings, Beautiful Things EP

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Since ITV destroyed pop in 2001 (RIP), many guitar bands have tried their utmost to distance themselves from the concept of hooks, or else receive the kind of relentless hate Coldplay and Snow Patrol are on the (constant) receiving end of. In the eyes of the elitist music lover, guitar bands only add hooks once their label demands sales, and every Noel Fielding wannabe on Dalston high street would agree.

But fuck off Dalston, you’re so 2011.

With surprising integrity, Towers ha Continue reading

HOWLING OWL RECORDS

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“We’re actually putting a couple of Brokencyde songs on their vinyl to bring them down a few pegs.”

1) So a record label eh? How did Howling Owl start?
Howling Owl started when Adrian and I moved up to Bristol January 2011. We’d always promoted gigs and released zines etc in our previous hometown of Barnstaple (North Devon), but there’s only so far you can go in a town like that. The original dream was to put on a gig, one gig and then we’d be happy, but after seeing the amount of ridiculously ace bands that were bubbling around underground, we thought it would be great to start giving these people some exposure. In terms of bands, it was Holy Stain (RIP) and Towns that made us really want to do it, as they were too good to stay hidden. It was a shot in the dark. Continue reading

COVER STORY: TOWNS

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“Britain has always produced great bands and we want to continue that heritage”

1) For most people Towns seemed to have come kicking and screaming into 2011 out of nowhere, what’s it taken to get the band to this point ?
We’ve been friends for so long with the same interests that forming a band happened naturally. We uploaded two demos to the internet and to our surprise, people liked them. When NME named us a band of 2011 we got all this attention that we didn’t know how to handle. In fact we were the only band in that NME list without any industry backing. People would have been working really hard to get their bands on that list and we were there by accident really. I guess people got excited because it was the strength of the songs that got us noticed. Since then we’ve built an exciting young team around us, written loads of songs and played some awesome shows with our Bristol friends. We’re currently on our first tour and we’re absolutely loving it. It’s amazing that people across the country have heard of our little band. And to be sharing these new experiences with close friends make it even better. Continue reading

DEAD WOLF CLUB / SELF TITLED ALBUM

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So, tomorrow your task is to start a band. Please come up with the trendiest, most vogue-for-vogue name you can. The word ‘wolf’ has to be in there, and yeah ‘dead’ is cool? And definitely has to end with ‘club’. Yes definitely.

It’s for these reasons that I was apprehensive about Dead Wolf Club, sneering reluctantly (I do this well) at the pre-release that sat on my desk. However, like some kind of post-punk piñata, what laid within was a tasty surprise. Continue reading

CAMDEN CRAWL PREVIEW

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4TH – 6TH MAY BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND LIVE MUSIC * COMEDY * PERFORMING ARTS * INTERACTIVE 3 DAYS * 300 ARTISTS & EVENTS * 1 TICKET * CAMDEN TOWN * 12PM – 4AM • DEATH IN VEGAS HEADLINE OPENING NIGHT PARTY – A LONDON EXCLUSIVE SHOW • DAYTIME FESTIVAL LINE UP & CURATORS ANNOUNCED • WEEKEND & OPENING NIGHT TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Continue reading

MEET: Damages.

Damages

I first saw DAMAGES in a tiny little pub in Taunton a few weeks ago, as part of a amazingly ear-destroying line up of local punk/thrash/ska bands. DAMAGES stood out due to their almost poppy take on the alt-punk genre they play. Like Test Icicles belting out Smashing Pumkin covers over a broken PA system; it’s this combination which got me so entranced. Alice ‘Jelly Pegs’, the bassist, plays it like she’s breaking someone’s neck. Scott, meanwhile, flicks between thrashing his guitar to pummeling his synth/drum/noise pad effortlessly and Dan gets pretty sweaty – he’s one of the most energetic drummers I’ve seen in ages. All this together also makes DAMAGES one of the most authentic new punk bands I’ve seen in a while too. Continue reading

TALK/TALK/TALK: Why band competitions don’t work. Part 1

Everything Everything

When hiring builders to build a house, you wouldn’t expect to vote on which builder should lay the bricks; you’d expect the brick layers to be trained, professional, and to be able to lay bricks to a quality suitable for which a house should be built in. The same goes for politics, the politicians who run countries should not be the most popular or the most camera friendly, they should be the ones who would be best at the job. And the same I feel goes with bands. Continue reading

TALK/TALK/TALK: Why Music Doesn’t Stick It To The Man Anymore.

Everything Everything

Once upon a time, musicians used to bring people together to protest, to take a socially conscious stance and ultimately try and change the world. Now, music brings people together in the attempt of making some vacuous fashion statement, or merely because it’s being performed by someone from the telly. Continue reading