EAT YOUR OWN EARS

London has no shortage of shows or promoters, and every night of the week you can go out and see great music in interesting, esoteric venues that fire the imagination. Eat Your Own Ears has consistently delivered great acts in great spaces to music lovers across this great city, and that's without mentioning the now much beloved Field Day every summer.

We've listed a whole raft of upcoming gigs below, so you can see what's happening... we're expecting great nights out with Mark Kozelek, whose new album is a firm shop favourite and a beautiful slice of wry melancholia; the usual live brilliance of Adam Green, a must-see-live artist; some high brow pagan folk-pop from the soon to be huge Stealing Sheep; a great US songwriting double bill from Andrew Bird and Micah P Hinson; literate, delicate, artful music courtesy of Shearwater; and three HUGE shows from bands that need no hype-men in Django Django, SAVAGES and Gotye. Get info, tickets and good times HERE.

Andrew Bird + Micah P Hinson

Roundhouse, 8th November

Tickets available here

Clock Opera + Bright Light Bright Light

Heaven, 8th November

Tickets available here

Mark Kozelek St Giles

St Giles, 10th November

Tickets available here

Lotus Plaza + His Clancyness

Electrowerkz, 10th November

Tickets available here

Gotye + Special Guests

Hammersmith Apollo, 12th and 13th November

Tickets available here

Adam Green + Binki Shapiro

Bush Hall, 14th November

Tickets available here

Shearwater + Will Samson

Garage, 24th November

Tickets available here

Stealing Sheep + special guests

Bush Hall, 10th December

Tickets available here

Django Django - late show

Shepherds Bush Empire, 21st December

Tickets available here

SAVAGES

Electric Ballroom, 21st February

Tickets available here

Rough Trade On Tour - Back In Paris!

Rough Trade On Tour's sojourning in Paris is set to continue this Autumn with a stall at the second Pitchfork Festival, due to be held on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of November 2012 at the Grande Halle De La Villette. In keeping with the daring pioneer spirit that has established Pitchfork at the vanguard of the modern music world, this is a revolutionary music festival, with over 40 artists playing over two stages in one room. Acts confirmed for this year include Animal Collective, M83, Grizzly Bear, Robyn and Sebastien Tellier and we will be in attendance with our usual festival edit of classics, compilations and all those albums from the artists bursting your eardrums and pulling your heartstrings over the weekend. We'll also be selling all official Pitchfork merchandise as well as bands on the bill's merch. 

If you're in Paris and can't make it to the Festival itself, we'll also have a small edit of Rough Trade merchandise plus a selection of vinyl by some of the artists playing over the festival weekend at When Nothing Happen: A Nothing Major Pop-Up Store.

This very special event is a preview of Nothing Major - a celebration of visual culture being brought to you by the folks at Pitchfork. With the 2nd Pitchfork Music Festival in Paris happening from 1^st – 3^rd November, Nothing Major has partnered with Sergeant Paper Artstore to mark  the occasion.

With a new focus and launch later in the year, this pop-up shop is a small representation of what Nothing Major aims to offer; collaborations with creative and responsible brands, a carefully curated batch of products and opinions, and a vessel of interesting ideas and progressive art.

Featuring:

- A selection of merchandise and vinyl records celebrating festival artists from Rough Trade Shops

- A limited edition t-shirt celebrating the festival designed by Kitsuné Paris.

- A limited run of pull-over flannel shirts made in collaboration with San Francisco’s Taylor Stitch.

- A limited run of the wonderful and previously out-of-stock knit hats by the Jante Law.

- A very small edition of very large prints of never-before-seen still life

photos from festival photographer David C. Sampson.

- A limited run of Festival Posters designed by Appelle moi Papa.

- A series of t-shirts, caps and tote bags commissioned by Nothing Major. 

When Nothing Happens: A Nothing Major Pop-Up Shop opens on 30th October until 4th October at Sergeant Paper Artstore, 38 Rue Quincampoix, 75004 Paris.

See you there... or à bientôt!

Let Fury Have The Hour

My goodness it has been awhile since we posted anything on here. What can I say apart from... sorry. We have been really busy at various festivals up and down the country as well as loads of instores pretty much everyday in the shops, more of which you can out about here.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know of a screening taking place on 25th October at Riverside Studios...

Your first chance to see new documentary LET FURY HAVE THE HOUR will be the film’s UK Premiere at Riverside Studios on 25^th October. 

“A thrillingly articulate wallop… How refreshing it is to hear musicians and artists eschewing indie softheadedness

and getting to the point.”—Time Out New York

LET FURY HAVE THE HOUR + Q&A, 25^th Oct, Riverside Studios, 7.30pm (£7 / £5 conc)

Acclaimed filmmaker Antonino D'Ambrosio's dynamic social history chronicles a generation of artists & thinkers’ creative-response to the reactionary politics that now defines our culture. An exuberant mixed media collage incorporating art, music, animation, and performance, the film brings together 50 writers, playwrights, painters, poets, skateboarders, dancers, musicians, and rights advocates, each revealing that we can re-imagine the world we live in and take an active role in making that vision a reality.

John Sayles, Chuck D, Shepard Fairey, Lewis Black, Ian MacKaye, Billy Bragg and Tom Morello are among the featured participants in the film and the soundtrack boasts an impressive list of artists, including Public Enemy, Thievery Corporation, MC5, Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Slackers, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, The Clash, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Billy Bragg, Manu Chao, Gogol Bordello, DJ Spooky and more.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Antonino D’Ambrosio via Skype.

More information can be found here and you can watch the trailer below...

Let Fury Have the Hour (Official Trailer) from James Reid on Vimeo.here

Wonderful London

Smoke - a London Peculiar and the BFI present... WONDERFUL LONDON FILM SCREENING LAUNCH at Rough Trade East this Wednesday 18th July at 7pm.


Henry B Parkinson and Frank Miller's breathtaking 1920s travelogues about our capital city. Travelling from Chelsea to Hackney and taking in the familiar landmarks of London town - Buckingham Palace, the River Thames, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral, Wonderful London also reveals the unknown nooks and crannies and parts of London rarely filmed; the poorer, over-populated districts of Clerkenwell and Whitechapel and the original Chinatown of Pennyfields in Limehouse. There are glimpses of buildings we can no longer see on the ground; the long-gone Crystal Palace and the recently vanished gates of White City, where London's first Olympic stadium now lies under the Westfield Shopping Centre; on a boat trip up the Thames we can see Fred Karno's legendary 'Karsino'. We can also take a trip through working-class London on a barge from Limehouse to Paddington Basin, via Camden and King's Cross. By bus or tram or foot, we can observe the thronging Sunday street markets and wander down the little alleyways, past the pubs and law courts - buildings that Dickens knew. And most poignantly, we can see a past generation of Londoners going about their business, complaining about the roadworks or looking with curiosity at us through the camera lens - all gone now - but strangely like the Londoners of today.

A Live soundtrack by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Smoke: A London Peculiar editors Jude Rogers and Matt Haynes, plus BFI speaker Bryony Dixon.


Buy the dvd here. More info here.

Port Eliot 2012

Set in the beautiful grounds of the ancient Port Eliot estate (the oldest continually inhabited dwelling in the UK) in southeast Cornwall with a capacity of only 5000, this festival is a magical combination of books, food, music, art, comedy, fashion, films, flowers, photography, wildlife and water. Always inspiring and always surprising, Port Eliot has established itself as a matchless event on the arts calendar; things happen at Port Eliot you just don't find at other festivals. Last year, Kate Winslet gave an impromptu reading and Hollywood maestro Martin Scorsese curated the outdoor cinema.

Rough Trade Shops will be taking their legendary store to Port Eliot again this year and you'll find us in Caught By The River's area opposite The Boathouse with merchandise, vinyl and cds for sale. Check in with us at the beginning of the weekend to find out what time the signing sessions begin.

A huge hit over the last few years at the festival, Caught By The River returns with another stellar line-up lovingly compiled to evoke this much lauded and greatly loved online 'fishing and culture' magazine's playful spirit and celebrate the best things in life – from idling away an afternoon with nothing but fishing line and thought to great books, music and beer. Expect readings from Chris Yates and Tim Burgess (check out the video link below of his instore here at Rough Trade East), haircuts from Mr Natty, an installation from Andrews Of Arcadia, DJs such as Andrew Weatherall and Jonny Trunk and live music from the likes of Jeb Loy Nichols,Diagrams, The Bees, Robert Ellis,Crybaby, new Heavenly signings Toy and Stealing Sheep plus an exclusive UK festival appearance from Beth Orton.

To see the full line up and to be kept up to date on all things Port Eliot, sign up to their mailing list here…www.porteliotfestival.com

In Conversation... Tim Burgess from theQuietus on Vimeo.

Jason Molina benefit show...

I've written on here and elsewhere about Jason and his medical problems over the last couple of year and so it was with a real warming feeling that I was pointed in the direction of this website a little while ago.

The people behind the show are also putting together a benefit album featuring the likes of Ed Harcourt and Alasdair Roberts, and the whole thing seems worthy of not just a mention here, like that matters, but of a moment of anyone's time who has had a day brightened or a sorrow lessened courtesy of Jason's beautiful art.

Get your tickets here, and we'll see you there.

Holloway Book Launch

The next Caught By The River event here at Rough Trade East will be taking place on Wednesday 11th July at 7pm. It's a book launch for the very limited edition of 'Holloway' by Robert MacFarlane, Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards. The guys will be in for readings and a book signing on the night.

Click on the poster above to find out more information. To pre-order this very limited edition book click here...

South Africa Revisited

PAUL SIMON’S ‘GRACELAND’ AND THE LEGENDARY RODRIGUEZ - UNCOVERED

On Sunday 1^st July, DocHouse are showing a double bill of two of the year’s finest music docs – UNDER AFRICAN SKIES immerses you in the unmistakable sounds and rhythms of Paul Simon’s landmark album ‘Graceland’, and makes a perfect partner to a special preview screening of upcoming release SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, which follows the trail of mysterious, captivating 70s folkster Rodriguez.

5pm: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN is the gripping story of enigmatic American folk singer Rodriguez, who commanded one of the largest fan-bases in 1970s South Africa. With his Dylan-esque, but psychedelic, folk songs he enjoyed overwhelming success overseas but remained utterly unaware of it, and vanished into obscurity. Wild rumours circulated for decades about his fate, until two men set out to reveal the man behind the myth.

8pm: UNDER AFRICAN SKIES charts Paul Simon’s journey to South Africa to record the iconic ‘Graceland’ album at the time of the UN’s anti-apartheid cultural boycott. Now, twenty-five years on, he explores the impact of this choice in an emotionally stirring reunion tour. At once a celebration of one of the greatest and most influential records ever made and a profound questioning of the place where art and politics meet, ‘Under African Skies’ is filled with the music of South Africa, including astonishing archive footage from the Graceland tour featuring Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.

Between films the ‘South African BBQ’ will be firing up a traditional South African braai, replete with boerewors and springboks burgers.

WHO: DocHouse year-round festival of documentary

WHEN: Sunday 1 July, 5pm

WHERE: Tricycle Cinema, Kilburn, NW6 7JR

HOW: Buy tickets here or call 020 7328 1000

TICKETS: £9.50 (single bill) £15 (double bill)

Our Garden Birds FINAL WEEKEND!!

Click on the poster above to find out how to win a Matt Sewell original painting this weekend...

Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Stoke Newington Literary Festival (1st - 3rd June2012) is now in it's third year of existence and has been described as eclectic, inspiring, sometimes audacious and always brilliant. Set up to celebrate the area's radical thinking and literary heritage.

We decided to pick out a few events that are our favorites below but there's plenty more to choose from. The full programme can be seen online here.

A London Obsession with Mark Mason & Craig Taylor

Meet two brilliant writers who are obsessive about London. Mark Mason walked the entire London Underground system above ground – all 403 miles of it – uncovering some astonishing insights and a wealth of fascinating trivia along the way. Craig Taylor spent five years listening to the London residents who make the city such a vibrant place to live.  With a cast featuring undertakers, plumbers, gardeners, rappers, Mark Twain and Karl Marx, this event will amaze, inform, delight and inspire you to look at the city with fresh eyes.

Perfect London Pubs with Pete Brown & Robin Turner

When George Orwell described his perfect pub – the ‘Moon Under Water’ – he wasn’t thinking of a Wetherspoon’s. Last year Robin Turner travelled the UK in search of Orwell’s vision, visiting pubs and talking to people, including a session with N16 beer scribe Pete Brown in The Jolly Butchers.

Pete’s next book – Shakespeare’s Local – tells the 500-year history of the George Inn in Southwark. So we decided to reunite the pair to compare notes and figure out what characterises London’s best pubs.

Beer will be served (Over 18′s only)

Juke Box Fury

Return of the popular music and music-writing panel, hosted by World’s Coolest Librarian(TM) Richard Boon, who invites four renowned writers to each play the track that made them want to write about music, then discuss where serious writing about music is going, or has gone, and whether music and its writing matters in the way it once did. This year, on an NME tip, with its biographer Pat Long and past writers David Quantick, James Brown and Barney Hoskyns. A ‘Hit’ not to ‘Miss.’

Nick Coleman: The Train InThe Night

Nick Coleman was a music journalist whose world changed overnight when he lost his hearing.  His forced rediscovery of sound and the music-scapes that had shaped his identity brought with it some astonishing insight. He discusses ‘taste’ in music, the personal soundtracks to our lives and enormous record collections with fellow music writer Barney Hoskyns.

THE FIRST TO KNOW

Tomorrow evening at 7pm (Tuesday 15th May), Rough Trade East will play host of an event entitled Communist Hipsters Meets Hoxtonites. Lida Hujic, author of The First to Know: How Hipsters and Mavericks Shape the Zeitgeist is known as a 'Hoxtonite' trend-setter. But, few realise that she was part of the radical radio station Omladinski Program (1987 - 1992) that turned communism on its head. When Yugoslavia collapsed, this network became the strongest anti-war movement. 

Chat and Q & A with Lida and friends. Daft psychometric test, pub style quiz, to measure your hipness level. Discover if you're a 'communist/Eastern Bloc' hipster, 'Hoxtonite/East End' hipster or not hip at all, to win an exceptional goodie bag containing original collector clothing accessories from 1984 Sarajevo Olympics (be retro chic this summer!), T-shirt with the iconic 'Sarajevo' Coke ad-busting image and a signed copy of The First to Know. Live set by Bosnian born, hot DJ/Producer Erol Sabadosh (residencies W Hotel, Ponystep; fashion Vivienne Westwood; PPQ; remixes The Strokes, Lady Gaga) plus Erol's remix of Laibach, who were heavily endorsed by Omladinski Program, to celebrate this radio's legacy.

Erol's remix of Laibach's B Mashina can be downloaded here...

More information on Lida's book 'The First To Know' can be found here 

Caught By The River 5th Birthday!

In our East store, in the book section, appropriately nestled between the categories marked Drugs and London, is a small section of titles carefully selected, well-loved and thoroughly recommended by our friends at Caught By The River. But while London, Sex and Rock And Roll all seem self explanatory as category headers, what is this other strange selection that shares its space here? Caught By The River is hard to pin down, I guess. It's a literary website. But it's cooler than just that - it's a literary website with a rural, nature loving bent. But it can be as muscular as it can twee. It features music and art and poetry and essays. It's a publishing house. It's punk and it's libertarian and it's brilliantly, steadfastly democratic.
It's also five years old this year, a wonderful achievement for a thing dedicated to beauty, art and nature as opposed to commerce and cynicism. To celebrate this landmark, as well as the launch of the paper-back of their brilliant first book, A Collection Of Words On Water, the Purcell Room in the South Bank Centre will for one night on the 25th of May become Caught By The River. For one night it will be a physical place, full of words, music, people of a like-mind and probably more than a couple of Barbour jackets... I don't exaggerate when I say that this site, as well as the myriad of books it has both spawned and believed in, is one of the greatest things out there in web-world. But even better, even more exciting than the site, is the prospect of seeing it all unfurl, Chis Yates, John Andrews, Chris Watson, Richard Norris, Robert MacFarlane et al, in the flesh on the 25th.

Get yourself down there.

FAFI'S COMING TO ROUGH TRADE EAST

Acclaimed French artist FAFI is coming in to Rough Trade East for a signing session this Thursday evening at 7pm to celebrate the launch of her new book The Carmine Vault.

Born and raised in Toulouse France, Fafi's strong presence in the graffiti and fine arts scene was first witnessed on her hometown walls in 1994. Back then, as she was painting and hustling, her sexy, funny, and sometimes aggressive girl characters made the whole world look and help kickstart a new graphic language; by exploring femininity through stereotypes, and using it to her advantage, she drew enormous attention and thus started to travel the world with thousands of Fafinettes in her brushes and paint cans. Europe, USA, Japan, Hong-Kong, the planet is a playground. And it's only started.

Soon enough Sony would ask her to design a six character toy set for the Time Capsules collection, an almost natural move for the three-dimensional measures. other successful figurines would follow, as well as numerous expositions and collaborations with Colette, Adidas, LeSportSac, Coca-Cola, M.A.C cosmetics and countless press stories in the mot prestigious magazines (ie. Vogue, Elle, the Face, XLR8R, Yen, etc...).

The animation world started to eyeblink her vision in Mark Ronson video featuring a Fafi-ed Lily Allen. Her multi-faceted work was all documented in her books GIRLS ROCK (2003) and LOVE AND FAFINESS (2006), both being also successful prints in museum libraries and selected shops.

As for 2007, Fafi entered a new phase. Having become mother and moving to Paris made her introduce a new depth to her creations. Now not only the Fafinettes are fly girls, they also run a whole universe of creatures, homes and vehicles. It's called The Carmine Vault. It's a dreamy and peculiar place. She depicts this world in a graphic novel "The Carmine Vault" and gives her characters a whole new dimension, a tone and a place to evaluate.

More information can be found here...

Our Garden Birds - An Exhibition by Matt Sewell

Next up on Rough Trade East's art wall is an exhibition presented by Caught By The River entitled 'Our Garden Birds' by Matt Sewell. Since its first appearance in July 2009, Matt's 'Bird of the Week' feature for the Caught by the River website has quickly become a cult hit. His pop-art watercolours are distinctive and enchanting, as are his innovative descriptions, which see great tits 'bossing the other birds around', the 'playful yet shy buoyancy' of bullfinches and the 'improbable' nature of the waxwing ('like a computer-generated samurai finch').'

Now, for the first time his original drawings and descriptions are compiled in this beautiful volume entitled 'Our Garden Birds'. The perfect read for bird-lovers and art and design fans alike. Rough Trade East will play host to an exhibition for the book displaying framed lifesized giclee prints of the bird watercolours as well as a painted mural. More of the book can be seen in this great little video... Artist Matt Sewell is an avid ornithologist and regular contributor to the Caught by the River website. He has illustrated/designed for the Guardian, Victoria and Albert Museum, Helly Hansen, Levi's, Crown Paint and painted underpasses for the RSPB, and exhibited in London, Manchester, Tokyo and Paris. This exhibition is on display until 3rd June. We also have a very special event in conjunction with the exhibition taking place on Saturday 5th May. Matt will be joining us here at Rough Trade East from 11am for a coffee morning plus live mural painting. He'll also be painting watercolour birds all day so drop in with the kids and paint one with him. At 11.30am Matt will be joined by Cheryl Tipp, the curator of The Wildlife Sound Archive at The British Library, for a 'Wildlife Sound Quiz', a multiple choice quiz with sounds chosen by Cheryl from the archive. A fun morning for the whole family!

West Country Girl...

... we're in Paris for a couple of weeks. There's a pop-up store for Record Store Day, like there was last year, and like there was in December. The December trip was great, not least because we were joined for two or three days by the gentleman genius that is Josh T Pearson. He was great company and we had a blast. But I can't help feeling like Paris is haunted by this beautiful, ephemeral troubadour. Let me tell you why...

A couple of nights ago, we were taken to a small creperie for dinner. It was the kind of place you would walk past, like so many great places in great cities, unless you knew someone to take you there or tell you about it. Anyway, we sat down and ordered cider and ate bread. We got talking about December and Josh and the proprietor of the place, milling about behind the bar, pulling demis and pouring ciders asks if we're talking about Josh. Yes, we say. He lived here for two years, the owner tells us in perfect English, we were fans and we had him stay and try and get his thing together. He ate a lot of crepes. The owners wife walks round to the bar. I make my own caramel and salt butter every day, she said (it's insanely good), and every night Josh would ask if I needed any 'cleaning up'. I had an image of Josh with that beard of his licking a caramel bowl clean.



We hung out talking about music with the owners, who put on little shows - Neal Casal, Micah P Hinson... shows that were started by Josh when he lived there, and they have carried them on. The owner pulled out a record sleeve and handed it to me. It was an album recorded in that very place featuring one night's picking and singing with Josh, Bosque Brown, H Burns and Thousand.

The owner recorded and produced the session and it sounded great when he played us a few songs. They just put mics up in the little bar and hammered it out over homemade apple digestifs and whiskey. The way a record like that should be made in a place like that... if you're going to make records in tiny Parisian creperies.

He played us a couple of tracks off the second record he's got planned and half recorded with She Keeps Bees, which sounded great as well.

If you're in Paris I recommend a crepe with vanilla ice cream and homemade caramel with salt butter at West Country Girl. If you're into good music, I recommend getting hold of their records, too which will soon be available at Rough Trade...

Le Programme Rough Trade On Tour chez agnès b

The programme so far for Rough Trade chez agnés b is as follows...



More guests to confirm soon stay updated via Rough Trade On Tour Twitter. Full details here...

*****OPENING WEDNESDAY 11TH APRIL AT 7PM******

agnès b femme
6 rue du Jour
Paris 75001

SOPHIE LO EXHIBITION AT ROUGH TRADE EAST

Hey folks,

We have a new exhibition adorning the wall in Rough Trade East by poster designer Sophie Lo.

Sophie has a range of posters on sale in the shop all priced at £12.99 each. She has also created a special one-off design for Record Store Day 2012 too, pre-orders are being taken now.



Get 'em whilst you can here...

On display at Rough Trade East until Thursday 3rd May. More information here.