Born out of Birmingham’s original punk group The Prefects, the Nightingales have stubbornly ploughed their own furrow in the field of alternative rock n roll for three decades.

Described in John Robb’s definitive post punk biography ‘Death To Trad Rock’ as “the misfits’ misfits”, the band has constantly garnered praise and respect from other artists and received endless glowing press reports, particularly for their live shows.

To coincide with the album’s release the Nightingales will be touring the UK and mainland Europe. The UK shows follow their May 2011 tour which culminated in a headline performance at the Southbank Centre in London as part of Stewart Lee’s Austerity Binge and the Festival Of Britain, which Mojo magazine called “Astonishing” and “Gig of the year”.

In addition to the group’s own activity there is a Nightingales ‘tribute’ album planned featuring ‘Gales covers by punk and post punk legends (Raincoats, Mekons, Subway Sect, others), young contemporary bands (Art Brut, Lovely Eggs, others), stand up comedians (Stewart Lee, Phill Jupitus) and academic/author Greil Marcus.

“No Love Lost” the new Nightingales album – their finest yet and first for Cooking Vinyl – was recorded at Faust Studio in Germany and will be released in April 2012.

SOME REVIEWS ON THE LAST ALBUM
Lloyd is the most underestimated songwriter of his generation – THE
INDEPENDENT, UK
The new album from the ‘Gales is their finest for 27 years. Start here and work backwards – SUNDAY TIMES, UK
Unlovable as ever. The Nightingales remain hard work for precious little gain – MOJO, UK
This is a living, breathing beast of an album – ARTROCKER MAGAZINE, UK
The Nightingales revisited their past and offered up the future. Still stunningly relevant – LONDON EVENING STANDARD, UK
The Nightingales – they’re back and they’re marvellous – MARC RILEY/BBC 6 MUSIC, UK

On September 8 & 9, the band played two sold out shows at Boston’s Fenway Park. “Going Out In Style–Live at Fenway Edition” captures the energy of the band playing on the hallowed ground of Fenway Park, to their home-town fans. It’s now available for everyone to enjoy.

Dropkick Murphys are not your typical punk band, they’re Boston’s biggest rock band, a band that plays Irish music with punk roots. A band with enormous families and armies of friends. DKM’s music is so ¬erce and furious, their stage presence so explosive, and their commitment to their fans so ironclad,one can’t help but be moved.

Now in their 15th year with a Scorsese soundtrack hit, a US top 20 album, a lifetime membership to every Boston sports team and a sound owing as much to Springsteen and The Pogues as to the Clash, DM have come a long way from the days of Boston’s Rathskeller.

“They’re also songwriters and good ones too, preserving their party-boy reputation while turning out giant soulful choruses on songs both manicured and memorable.” – Rolling Stone

“These Boston punk-folksters owe a large musical debt to Irish punk-folksters the Pogues (probably payable in Guinness).Gloriously raucous & hook-heavy.” – Entertainment Weekly

Says Graham, “It had been my desire to revive Pop Will Eat Itself for a number of years but there came a point when it was clear the original band members wouldn’t be committing to any future project in the band’s name. I saw this as a sad waste, as I felt I had armed myself with the best batch of songs I’ve ever written, and felt I still had a lot to prove. I would like nothing better than to elevate PWEI to a higher level than before. That might be ambitious but that’s the way I am.”

The new album ‘New Noise Designed By A Sadist’ is set for release on October 3rd on Cooking Vinyl , totally finished & mastered, having been mixed by Sulpher duo Monti & Rob Holliday (also guitarist with Prodigy, Marilyn Manson) . Adds Graham, “I don’t want to make a big issue of the 25 years thing, but I think it’s funny, I was chaos & mayhem personified then, so I didn’t expect to be alive now, let alone writing my best PWEI songs to date.”

Part of Graham’s burning drive is the belief that Pop Will Eat Itself were, in the recent words of DJ Tiga ‘chronically underrated’ and also a desire to emerge from the shadows of former PWEI buddy and now soundtrack maestro Clint Mansell. And with a full UK tour in July this year, he will achieve just that. “We’ll be performing some of Clint’s best songs with his blessing. The likes of Ich Bin Ein Auslander and Wise Up Sucker are awesome tunes that still stand proud and fit the PWEI blueprint of sonic assaults built on relentless grooves.”

With a string of Top 40 UK and US hits, Pop Will Eat Itself rose to prominence fuelled by Crabb-penned tunes such as ‘There Is No Love Between Us Anymore’, ‘Bulletproof’, ‘RSVP’, ‘Get The Girl, Kill The Baddies’ and many, many others. With Graham being the only original remaining member, and for the UK dates this October, he has pulled together a live band for the tour. Currently rehearsing together, the line up is as follows;

Lead Vocals- Graham Crabb

Co-Vocalist- Mary Byker- “I have known Mary since his days with Gaye Bykers On Acid, fellow Midlanders who started out around the same time as PWEI. He always was a likeable fella and charmed his way into Pigface in the US, before co-fronting UK electronic band Apollo 440. Now living in Brazil where he has opened a bar, and still writes & records as Magnetic Empire with DJ Harry K. He was an automatic first choice.”

Drummer- Jason Bowld- “I always admired Jason’s drumming in Pitchshifter and jumped at the chance of using him on the new PWEI record. He’s now an in-demand session drummer and recently stood in for Bullet For My Valentine on their most recent tour. Live, he’s going to be awesome.”

Bassist /Guitarist- Tim Muddiman- “Tim is a very busy musician who was recommended by a mutual friend. He plays in Gary Numan’s band, is part of Sulpher with The Prodigy’s live guitarist and also works as an up and coming producer, credited on an Ade Fenton Remix for Slash and Fergie.”

Intimate, romantic yet shrewdly reflective, Adam’s songs on ‘Like A Man’ evoke something of his father just as in any child you can discern the echo of the parent. But there is Adam’s own unique and distinct voice and perspective too — a plain-speaking style freighted with disarming candour.

“‘Like A Man’ is steeped in my recognizing that I am in the family business. Despite my efforts to carve out a different identity, really I belong to a long line of people who have embraced their father’s business. And to have my father pronounce that I have world-class love songs on my record — ‘Like A Man’ and ‘What Other Guy’ — is a deeply gratifying compliment.”

Born in Montreal, Canada in 1972 to Leonard Cohen and his then-wife Suzanne Elrod, Adam has been a musician ever since he could walk, “always banging on teacups and the backs of chairs, stomping my foot and trying to whistle”. A home full of instruments encouraged Adam’s “unabashed musical fearlessness” and, though only formally tutored on violin, he taught himself to play “drums, piano and guitar ‘moderately well”. Adam grew up immersed in Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Bob Marley albums, “unless I was hanging out with my dad when the turntable skewed more to Hank Williams, or, with my mother, to Marvin Gaye”.

Adam is not alone as a musician both helped and burdened by the legacy of legendary parents.

“I’ve spent time with Jakob Dylan and Sean Lennon. Chris Stills and I have long been close friends, and Rufus Wainwright is now part of my family — he fathered my sister’s child. I can assure you there is no secret handshake in the “sons of” club. Yes, we all inherited good names, and possibly even some talent. But when you’re in a room alone, your last name is not writing songs for you or making good decisions for you. Stronger than your last name is your personal ability and strength to forge your own voice. Rufus, for example, really found his voice early. I came to mine embarrassingly late.”

In 1998 Adam released his self-titled debut album on Columbia/Sony — a record that sounded determined to make a splash on mainstream radio and MTV.

“Although I’m not embarrassed by the songwriting on my first record, I do believe the production choices were poor; I was chasing a sound that were not entirely my own. I was enamoured with very accomplished sounding records by seasoned veterans, and didn’t understand how much my youth and lack of polish would’ve been great to capture honestly.”

Six years later, Adam reappeared, as the singer, guitarist and front man of four-piece California rock band Low Millions, whose album Ex-Girlfriends referenced some real life former squeezes among its songs.

“‘Low Millions’ was not a misstep but a delay to me getting down to uncovering my true and unique voice. When you’re on the road in a rock band, sharing confined space, drinking and frolicking and piquing the interest of the opposite sex, there is a cameradie like no other. We toured the world for two years, had hits and made tons of money. It was wonderful, a rite of passage and the final phase in my true education in music.”

One more diversionary project followed, the French-language album Mélancolista featuring the occasional vocal assistance of the actress Virginie Ledoyen. And then, in the loving tongue that is Spanish, occurred those few minutes

Over the years on tour in Germany, Jackie and Michael have noticed that in most German hotels, in reception and other public rooms, there are displays of flowers and art that you just don’t see anywhere else in the world. When they have asked hotel staff what these displays are all about the staff always say that they do not know, and that these displays were here before they came to work at the hotel.

“It is our feeling” says Jackie “that these displays are shrines, and in fact are pagan shrines, where pagan Germany can be seen in a small but very powerful way.”

These are the Wayside Shrines of the title…

The songs, although not about shrines, were nearly all written in German hotel rooms on tour over the last two years.

Wayside Shrines is also the world’s first homeopathic record. Jackie explains: “In the true homeopathic way, we have taken a sound – in this case a sound which represents grief – grieving is something we are not so good at in the West, and we have diluted that sound in the songs so much that you can no longer hear it, but the ‘memory’ of the sound is still there. For this reason, the more you listen to the record, the better you will feel about the real sadness in your life”.

The songs on Wayside Shrines show master craftsman Jackie at his most confident, from the hallucinations in Swine Flu Fever Blues to the ode for his brother who died earlier this year Beware Soul Brother.

We wrote the music for the songs in Paley’s apartment in Brooklyn over three afternoons when Francis was in New York for a three day run at Joe’s Pub. After which we each took half of the songs to finish off with lyrics, and Francis went off to meet what he sometimes likes to call “the old band” for another tour.

A few days later, we were recording at Jon Tiven’s studio in Nashville. We each sang lead on the songs we wrote lyrics for and sang backup on the others. We worked fast. Francis had Pixies shows each evening, so we had a curfew. Paley recalls finishing the lyrics to one tune literally a minute before cutting the vocal. The two of us on guitars with legendary Muscle Shoals players David Hood on bass and Spooner Oldham on piano. Damn, those guys are good.

Hope you like it. Hope you dig the vibe.”

Paley & Francis

The Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan, Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan, and Fergal Lawler, began their career in their native Limerick, Ireland in 1989 and sold more than thirty million albums worldwide in the nineteen nineties. Roses was produced by the band’s longtime friend and collaborator Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur) and harkens back to the freshness and originality of the band’s first two albums, 1993’s ‘Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?’ and the 1994 follow up, ‘No Need To Argue’.

In 2003, The Cranberries announced their break up, but they briefly reunited for an acoustic performance when Dolores O’Riordan received an honoree degree at Trinity College in 2009. “The minute we started playing, it felt like we’d never stopped,” Dolores recalls. “There’s something about playing with The Cranberries. It’s like putting on a perfect pair of shoes. It just fits”. In 2010, they commenced a reunion tour of 107 concerts that took the band all over Europe as well as to North and South America and Asia, culminating in the band’s first ever shows in China in 2011.

Dolores stated, “Having recorded two albums with various different musicians during our hiatus, I could clearly see that Noel and Mike have a unique way of creating chords and Ferg keeps it together in a subtle way. We had a blast in the studio, Stephen was in his zone and it came together rather quickly. There is a sense of rejuvenation in the group, a freshness”. Guitarist Noel Hogan added, “I always had the attitude that there would be another album. Over the last six years, Dolores and I were sending each other ideas on and off”. During the reunion tour, the band began working on new music during sound-checks. “The icing on the cake was to work with Stephen Street again who helped us re-discover our sound”.

The songs on Roses come from a band with a renewed hunger and in every corner you’ll find the extraordinary sound of Dolores O’Riordan’s voice, the pivotal instrument which transformed the band from a group of young Irish hopefuls at the edge of the 80s into an MTV sensation and worldwide super group within just a few short years.

‘A Collection’ features edited highlights for those who prefer things short, sweet and to the point. ‘A Collection’ features many of the band’s biggest tracks alongside recent collaborations with High Contrast & Tiesto (The First Note is Silent), Mark Knight & D. Ramirez (Downpipe) and Brian Eno (Beebop Hurry)

Since releasing ‘Barking’ late in 2010, Rick Smith and Karl Hyde have toured extensively across the globe. Their last UK show was a sold out headline gig on Clapham Common. They have also sound-tracked Danny Boyle’s hugely acclaimed award-winning production of Nick Dear’s Frankenstein at the National Theatre.

Firstly, the band have revisited the 1992-2002 anthology and refreshed it with more material to go some way to complete the picture of the first two decades of Underworld in a 3-disc set.

Since releasing ‘Barking’ late in 2010, Rick Smith and Karl Hyde have toured extensively across the globe. Their last UK show was a sold out headline gig on Clapham Common. They have also sound-tracked Danny Boyle’s hugely acclaimed award-winning production of Nick Dear’s Frankenstein at the National Theatre.