Smoky Carrot Blog

Smoky Carrot Records are back with another one of our legendary parties, except this time we are going BIG.
After a strong year selling out our regular venues: The Mother Bar, The Macbeth and The Old Queens Head, we are stepping it up a notch and taking over The Borderline in SOHO. Exciting eh!

So come Thursday May 13th there really is nowhere else that you should be than at the Borderline cutting some ridiculous shapes with the SCR family. Advance tickets can be purchased here. Printing off this flyer will get you in for cheaps!

Rodeo Massacre

Rodeo Massacre are becoming somewhat of an unstoppable force around London, if you have not witnessed the majesty that fills the room when this three piece operates, you are in for a special night. The most charismatic of front women meets a brace of multi-instrumentalists who provide a bluesy, psychedelic , greasy-rock soundtrack to spine chillingly sublime vocals. If you are not impressed by the flurries of blonde mane and tambourine, lashing against swirling Wurlitzers and crunching riffs, well you have no soul.
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The Border Surrender

The boys are on a roll, fresh off a successful trio of Camden Crawl performances and their EP launch at a packed out Charlotte Street Blues, Smoky Carrot are proud to welcome back our prodigal sons. Seeing The Border Surrender live is the highlight of any evening, big, loud, brash yet also beautiful, they manage to bring together all things Americana, mix it with a bit of Gaelic folk, yet throw out something distinctly English. Look out for catchy pop moments, driving organs and harmonies in quantity.

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Spindle and Wit

Its foot stomping, Its catchy, its shambolic, and its freaking ace. Here at SCR we have opened up a spot for quite frankly a band that we are soft for, and we lay down the gauntlet to you all, by the end of their fast paced set you will be tapping your foot, if not dancing like a mad man, and you too will be soft for them.

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Fucking Vote!

Here at Smoky Carrot Records we are not the most politically motivated of beasts, we barely have any agenda and we really are not the type to push them upon you beautiful people.

But vote yeah, it seems silly not to.

Election Fact 1: The Queen is allowed to vote, but it is deemed unconstitutional for her to do so. Unlucky Queeny

Election Fact 2: Islington North is the smallest constituency in the UK. 735 hectares, apparently.

Election Fact 3: The last general election not to be held on a Thursday was on Tuesday 27 October 1931.

Lets Get Hung!

SCRxxx

This weekend saw the start of what is becoming an ever-growing festival season with Camden Crawl being the first of many.

At the start of the last decade there was a handful of festivals (Glastonbury, V, Reading & Leeds and a few others), some of these had been around for years and earned their place. Thanks to internet we are now spoilt for choice in music which has lent to an increase in festivals to fill the needs of every kind of person and their tastes.

Festivals now have the power to take a band from obscurity to chart toppers nowadays due to the amount of coverage given to some events. Take Radio 1’s annual One Big Weekend and Channel 4’sT4 On The Beach host chart friendly bands on their heavily marketed and broadcasted event also give an opportunity for lesser-known acts to play in-front of a crowd of potentially hundreds of thousands.

Festival ‘moments’ used to be about standing in a field amongst lots of similarly minded people singing along to the biggest anthems around. Now it’s about who can shout ‘bollocks’ the loudest at the campsite and making sure you see ‘the next big thing’ at the Festival Republic stage just to say ‘I was there’ for some extra scene points whilst some chav is in your tent nicking your phone.

I look forward to my twitter feed over the summer if this weekend is anything to go by, it was full of comments on the weather and queues, not the bands…

Lovely

In the first of a series of regular blogs, SCR’s pet journalist Adam Patrick will be talking some jive.

This blog may contain imaginative swears, tenuous metaphors and irregular mentions of Mars Milk in the hope of securing a sponsorship deal.

Remember when politics was the new rock n’ roll? Me neither. Apparently it was just after cooking, tennis, maths and pens were the new rock n’ roll.

Anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, it is almost time for Britain to choose which pallid, dreary whiteboy gets to be out-cooled by Obama at the next G8 meeting.

Policies aside – mainly because I do not know any of them – Obama is a rock n’ roll politician. He is like Gil Scott Heron with a better tailor. He probably even played bass on the first TV on the Radio record.

Our lot by comparison, look like the sort of dudes who play keyboard – not even guitar or bass, but keyboard - in a Dire Straits cover band (Cameron) or listen to World Music and own a bongo (Clegg).

Even Brown, with his rich Scottish heritage, has admitted his favourite band is the Bee Gees. Apparently he doesn’t even like Errors or Mogwai. Bizarre.

To be honest, this whole election fever is a bit like a Muse song now – an endless loop of uninspired, repetitive noise. Take THAT, Matt Bellamy!

Still, at least since Tony Blair buggered off, there’s no fucking guitar solo to sit through.

Until next time, lotsa love byeeee!

AP

Its the tail end of long weekend and here at Smoky Carrot we feel that its only fair to reward all you lovely people with a new SCR venture.

The Smoky Carrot Blog is going to become your one stop shop for all things music related, starting slowly our aim is to mix ponderings about music, garblings about life and nuggets of lovely words for you to digest.

We are going to feature articles from some of our artists as well as exclusive videos and guest features from lovely and talented people.

First up on the bill is SCR’s journo at large Adam Patrick, who starts his regular brain dump on the Smoky Carrot Blog.

Lovely stuff,

Much love

SCR xxx