November 10th, 2009

Bands like Tahiti 80, who craft beautiful pop gems, are rare to find everywhere else but France. There’s something about the weather, the culture, or the wine that provides fertile ground for well-crafted music. Having met at the University of Rouen in the mid 1990’s, the band started out as a duo that soon evolved into a four piece, releasing their first album, Puzzle, in 1999. The band has continued on touring and making music. Their latest, Activity Center, is set to be released on November 24.

Kasabian + Reverend and The Makers – Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, (10/11/09)

I arrived after the Reverend And The Makers had finished as… well he was an exceptionally poor choice of support act. I first noticed that Kasabian’s stage was a big spectacle for them, they had the theme of the Lunatic Asylum so had sound members dressed in lab coats with ‘sane’ on the back, during the build up before Kasabian and they had screens with passages from Jack Kerouac and also extracts from a mental institution patients book.

This years Shockwaves NME Awards tour will feature 3 British and one Brooklyn based US indie band. Hitting the road for the 2010 UK tour  will be The Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink and The Drums.

US website Bluebeat.com is currently streaming and selling the complete Beatles’ catalogue online, but for just how long one has yet to see.

The site is offering the recently digitally remastered Beatles albums as free streams for the sites’ users and is charging 25 cents (15p) for individual tracks each.