I'm shooting off to Brighton today for a bit of R&R. Gonna be sweet but won't be updating the blog for a while. I'm going to try to do some kind of coverage of The Great Escape on here and on twitter, but I haven't got one of those fancy i android phones so the frequency and quality of my coverage might be, as they say, naff.

My meticulously planned festival schedule is pretty much embedded in my head as I set off on my great adventure. With an ambitious plan to see more than 5 bands over 3 days I wonder if I've set my hopes and expectations way too high. With some overlappings and expected queing, some sacrifices have to be made. The biggest one being who to check out

Kyla La Grange



or

Ghostpoet

These are the tough decisions in life.

Yes I've been away for what seems like forever. Sorry about that.
I can't stay for long though because that essay on cyclodextrins isn't going to write itself. Unfortunately.

"So what are the main developments since we last heard from you T-Bone?" you're all asking.

Here they are:

I downloaded Grimes' Halfaxa album for free from Arbutus Records and it's ace. Like the minimalist "post-dubstep" Lykke Li.

Grimes - Devon by Arbutus Records


Ok so the next major development is that The Dum Dum Girls AND Black Lips are playing in Turku in July. Holy crap! The kind of double bill that's sure to return some happiness that was sucked out of your life by the European Food Chemistry Conference XVI in Gdansk, Poland. That is if any of you "lucky" people are going...
They're playing Helsinki's Nosturi on Tuesday 12.7 and Turun Klubi the day after (13.7)

The next bit of ace news is that Hauschka's (who's playing at Flow this year) new album Salon Des Amateurs is wicked good. Making classical danceable music which is pretty much literally vibe-ing my pants off. "Ya, play ze music Mr. German piano man, ya."



First and foremost however, it's almost Great Escape time. I'm ready to escape great. Let's do this. Brighton town here I come baby (well, soon anyway)

This was almost an entirely pointless post. I just felt like I needed to get back on here and do my thing. I felt as though me and my baby AndygoesdowntoChinatown were growing apart. It's not you baby, it's me. I'm sorry. You need more attention? Ok, I'm gonna try. Sometimes you know it's just so hard. Sometimes it's just so hard to have you, Andy, and at the the same time be a healthy man with social contacts.

Tis The Season To Be Jolly (TGE)

It's that time of year again boys and girls. Yes, time for the first announcement of acts to be playing at the greatest urban, coastal festival England has ever seen. Oh yes, The Great Escape is back with a bang.
"A bang" meaning loads of the newest and most cutting-edge acts out there at the moment will be congregating in Brighton for some of the coolest nights out, some of the most over-the-top queueing systems and some of the most random street gigs. Basically there should be something there for most people who enjoy life through audio.

Great Escape line up

There are some names on that list that are already causing me to wet my pants, and the list is just gonna keep on growing. Maybe I'll be able to fix my mistake of not seeing Warpaint last year, have a massive dance fest with the likes of D/R/U/G/S, Teeth and Seams. Or I could just relax and have an easygoing time with Big Deal and Villagers.

I was nice and thoughtful enough to make myself a Great Escape 2011 Spotify Playlist.
However if you're also interested in listening then click on here.

Off to Brighton

Righty-ho

Today'll be my last post for about a week. The reason for this being that I'm heading to Brighton for the Great Escape festival. With it's fantastic line-up in a about a million different venues located throughout the city, it's said to be like Europe's equivalent of SXSW. Hopefully!

Never been to a festival outside of Finland. Feeling kind of nervous. What if I can't handle the mean streets? What if the queues are so long I don't get to see anyone I want to. What if I have to settle for my kid brother playing the pots and pans in the kitchen? And mainly what if the missus drags me to see someone poo, when I just want to see the awesome Wild Beasts?

Just post a few videos here of stuff I'd like to see. All these questions permitting.
See ya in a week or so for my unexpansive festival report.
Laterzz

Best Coast

So I was meant to do stuff today. But because I'm finally out of the dark abyss of "the lab" I decided to have one of those "entire-day-naps", leaving me with a whole lot of stuff that I meant to do today but didn't.

("The lab" is nay some hip-hop studio, nor is it the place where I make all my meth. It's just a plain old run-of-the-mill lab. How boring...)

What I have done today is check out the line-up to this years Great Escape festival in Brighton. (feels like Brighton's all I ever talk about these days)

The line-ups for past Great Escapes have always been a bit like having the love-child of Mozart and Brian Eno do super-cool glitter-graffiti over your already über-cool favourite cellar door whilst you yourself are bound and gagged in the boot of the local alcoholic's/drug addict's Toyota Corolla. This year however I feel the urge to escape that empty bottle/syringe riddled, shit-stained car boot and spread my wings towards the freedom and musical bliss that this year features the likes of:

Band of Skulls
Cold Cave
Delphic
Ellie Goulding
Ganglians
Hurts
Japandroids
Marina & the Diamonds
Real Estate
Surfer Blood
The Leisure Society
Wild Beasts

Of course that ain't even the half of it. You need to check out the website to fully grasp the entirety of the PRELIMINARY artist line-up.

Basically all the bands there are bands to look out for, but if I was on the lookout for something a bit good and a bit very awesome, I'd go with Californians Best Coast who have that supergood sundrenched fuzzed-out sound to them making them sound like a female-lead scuzzy Beach Boys or more like a female-lead Wavves (with audible lyrics)





So May, Brighton, anyone?

Lets go and have a grand old time, listening to Best Coast and pretending the pebbled sea-front is a primed-for-surfing Californian beach and the ruined west pier could be an epic sized Great White Shark set on destruction. But because we've all drank waaay to much Red Stripe we end up having some sort of larger-than-life drama about "Why your best friend's boyfriend is like so totally a total jerk because he like comes from this like poor part of the city where they don't even have money for like stuff like three cars and a swimming pool filled with like real water." But in the end it turns out that your boyfriend is "like so totally an even bigger jerk because he wants to go like all gay or whatever and sail across the sea/universe in his dumb-ass sailboat that he may or may not have named after you"