Best Albums Of 2011

It’s that time of year again when all the music magazines and online press share their ‘best albums of the year’. Not to be outdone, us BR boys would like to share our favorite albums of 2011. Like in our 2010 list, these albums where not necessarily released in 2011 but are the albums we were listening to throughout 2011.

Jonathan – His Albums of 2011

I’m going to start by saying 2011 was no 2010. Last year saw me falling head over heels for certain albums, however this year has been a little bit of a let-down for finding new musical treats. I have spent many hours trawling through Spotify and checking out recommendations from friends but have not really had a big album(s) that has dominated my year like all the four I listed last year. Still, a few albums have made a dent in my iPod playlists and they are

Beirut – The Rip Tide (Click to Hear on Spotify)

It’s a 9 track album and I like 5 songs on it. Not the best way to start I know however, Beirut is a strange beast for me. When I like one of his songs, I LOVE it, I cant stop playing it and want it on constantly. This is his most commercial sounding album and songs like ‘Candle’s Fire’, ‘East Harlem’ & ‘Port of Call’ have been on repeat for the latter part of 2011 and the few songs that I weren’t to bothered about are slowly going up in my estimations.

The Devil Makes Three – The Devil Makes Three (Click to Hear on Spotify)

I stumbled across the Devil Makes Three whilst surfing through Spotify and fell for their blend of blues/country/bluegrass/ragtime. They are a three piece acoustic band and have a great energetic feel to their songs. I like to think that if BR were based in the Deep South then this is how we would sound. The one song I have written since ‘All I Have Is Here’ was inspired by these guys. They have three studio albums out and they all sound pretty similar (not a bad thing in my book) but I have chosen their self-titled effort as it has a few more sing along choruses.

The Milk Carton Kids – Prologue (Click to Hear on Spotify)

A relatively late in the year album as I only started listening to it around the start of November. The Milk Carton kids sound very much like Simon & Garfunkel and although the album is still growing on me, there are some real great folky choruses and sound impressive guitar work.

Editors – An End Has A Start (Click to Hear on Spotify)

So for the second year running the Editors make my ‘best album of . . .’ list. This time it’s their second album. After falling in love with their third album last year, I went back and tried out their debut. I must admit, it didn’t hit me. I then went to ‘An End Has A Start’ and had it on repeat one day at work and all of a sudden these melodies started jumping out at me and the album just clicked. There are a few songs that are fillers but overall it's pretty damn sweet.

To be honest I’m starting to struggle now. There have been plenty of individual songs from many artists that I have loved and annoyed people with by playing them everyday. Some from folky bands, some rock, some Rap and some mainstream pop. I won’t list them all but a few key tunes are:

The Pierces – Love You More
Dry The River – No Rest & New Ceremony ( Their debut album is out next year which I am very much looking forward to)
Dylan LeBlanc – Low & Emily Hartly
Rihanna – Only Girl In The World & Te Amo
Lonely Island – Mother Lover & Captain Jack Sparrow

Michael - His albums of 2011

I pretty much agree with Jonathan regarding the quality of albums I've heard this year however, there is one that was an absolute gem and by far my album of 2011

City and Colour - Little Hell (Spotify link)

A find on Spotify, the song Grand Optimist blinded me by its simple brilliance. The guys voice is very unique and I can't fault a song on it. It's been on my stereo since it was released in the middle of the year.

The next three albums have not had a massive impact unlike my fave's last year, but I still think they are a good listen

The Head and The Heart - The Head and The Heart (Spotify link)

A spotify find again. I listened to this because I liked the front cover. I'd never heard of them but put it on and soon found its quirky folk quite pleasant. The song Ghosts is a storming tune and the rest isn't half bad either.

Feist - Metals (Spotify link)

Only recently have I listened to this. Previous Feist songs have left me cold so I don't really know why I even gave this a spin, but I'm glad I did. She seems to have forsaken the artsy side that put me off previously, with a host of great melodies in it's place. It's quite dark and morbid in places, but then suddenly it'll spark into life. I could love this album more in time.

The Pierces - You and I (Spotify link)

Thanks to John from London who had this on in the morning after our house gig, eating his food one song cought Jonathans ear and we investigated more. The album is really good. Pop with great harmonies and some standout tunes. A few fillers but mostly a joy.

Over the year I've been making a playlist of every song that I've loved in 2011, be it a new dance song or a 60's folk tune. There are about 40 songs in this playlist and I'll be picking my top 10 fave's of the year in a week, with a few surprises in the mix.
So not a vintage year for albums, but that City and Colour album is the bees knees.

What are your faves? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter

M and J

BR

x

Final Gig of 2011 - House Show

So there you have it, our last performance together until 2012. Last night saw us playing an intimate house show in Michael's living room to end our 2011 gigging life. It's been a great year of gigging and you can read all about our touring life in the post below.


With a spread put on by Michael, my MP3 player providing the background music and an audience of family, friends and local fans it was the setting for a perfect night. People started arriving from 7pm and after an hour or so of mingling we took to the stage around 8:30, played for about 45mins, took a short break and returned to play for another half hour. We felt we played a great set of songs and the audience seemed to agree. The usual Barricades Rise banter was flowing, a string was broke and a few lyrics were forgotten but hey, it wouldn't be a successful night if that didn't happen :)
Here's some raw video footage of our performance



The drink flowed until around 3am and a great evening was had by all. Thanks to everyone that came.

Jonathan

The end of the 'All I Have Is Here Tour'

As I turn on the fire, sit down with a good book (Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, or JK Rowling) slip my beautifully manicured feet into soft as sheepswool slippers, I’d like to reflect on the past few months, or more specifically what has been known as the ‘All I Have Is Here’ tour. *Glares upwards into the air reflectively*

There was no set starting point of the tour looking back as, even though the album was released on June 24th, we’d been gigging for a good few weeks beforehand to get up to scratch with the new songs. After trawling through our blog to see if I could find a starting place, it’s only now that I realise that the whole experience has come full circle as, on 7th May 2011, after a 2 month break from gigging, we hit the Crumblin’ Cookie Café and 27 weeks later, or 189 days, we ended the tour in exactly the same venue.

With that first gig played, we had

28 booked in front of us (but booked more, cancelled some), just a number at that point, and we had a small inkling that if the new songs (and album) went down as well as they did at that first gig, the tour would be a bloody rewarding one. As Jonathan wrote in the review of the first Cookie gig; “full steam ahead.”

The following gig at The Soak had to be cancelled due to my Nan sadly passing (RIP Nan) but we soon got back on the proverbial horse and rode into the West (near Witherly). The weekend of 15th-16th May was the pivotal point of the album and the weekend was handed over to Team Promo, AKA Rob at Redwood Photography and Chris at Wastral productions. Saturday saw us heading into fields, over and under bridges, on fences and generally being one with nature for our photo shoot. The photos that came out were used in our artwork and promotional material. The same night we completed a final, final mix of the album. It was complete.

Sunday appeared with a cautious optimistic view of the world, with Chris riding on its rays to record a few promo videos of us playing (with Dave Sharpe on percussion) in my back garden.

Check the other videos here and here. Rob also returned to show us the shots from the previous day and to shoot us playing. The weekend was a success!

The gigs came thick and fast for the next few days. Northampton had its very first taste of us at the Bat and Wicket on the 22nd May, and the Sunnyside on the 29th. Sandwiched in between these two was a highly successful showing at Millsy’s Bar in Earlsdon on 23rd May. The first disappointing gig of the tour was played at the Dry Docks in Leicester a few days later on June 2nd, mainly due to the crowd being full of students throwing the rest of their loans on the cheap drink and not really paying attention to the music. Not a disaster but a miss rather than a hit. Around this time we had finalised the artwork featuring Rob's and Emily's (Jonathan’s wife) photos and tracklisting and had the album down pat.

Twice along the tour we played 2 gigs in one day and the first was on the 4th June. Our launch venue and local pub, The Crown, had us on their annual beer festival then we moseyed on to the supportive Cross Counties Radio to play their 2nd birthday shindig. It was a glorious day with varying results, the former a mere background noise to the expansive ale choices, the latter a great chance to chat to fans and play live on the radio!

Our rescheduled gig at The Soak on 11th June was a fruitless affair, with the students yet again deciding that alcohol trumps acoustic tunes. We had a 2 week gap of practicing the new tunes, sorting a set and thinking of how to pull off our launch night. The launch came on June 24th and was a huge success with support from Stylusboy. Over 100 people attended, along with radio personnel and local papers.

The success of the launch night continued into our next few gigs as we made debuts at the Somerville Arms in Leamington on 27th and Rowell Charter in Northampton a few days later on 29th followed by the Godiva Festival in Coventry on 1st July. The festival was great but we just wished we went on later as, opening the festival (which was great) just meant that there were still loads of people mulling around the site and still coming in. We did manage to hit the FRONT PAGE of the Coventry Telegraph though! Another festival followed in the shape of Fuse in Lichfield, which was also a great success, we even got asked back for next year as soon as we left the stage.

The next 3 gigs was a bit of a downer in the tour. The Adam and Eve, Birmingham was pretty deserted as was The Corner House in Cambridge on 13th and 17th July respectively. The lowest point came though at Milton Keynes Living Room (not to be mistaken for actual gigs in people’s living rooms, more of that in a moment) on 20th July.

We travelled the hour and a bit to play 3 songs to a full house interested in talk of the FTSE Index and stock shares. We had a turkey of a gig. To rectify this though we did what we do best, we rocked hard. The following gigs were just sublime.

21st, 22nd and 23rd July saw us play our very first online gig, then play our two favourite venues. We had loads of fun at the online gig at my house and will play more next year. We headed to our favourite venue ever, The Maudsley, and rocked to a jam packed house, selling more albums than ever, and finishing off the weekend with The Crumblin Cookie (again) our second fave venue, it was a joy to be back on top.

A dodgy gig in Derby at Bar One on 28th July was quickly forgotten and followed by a surprise great gig at Katie Fitzgerald’s in Stourbridge on 29th. The tour rumbled on into August with good gigs on 1st at the Market Inn in Kettering, our first journey to the town, and 6th on our return to the Jolly Colliers in Coalville, a great drunken sing-a-long gig. With the despicable riots in full flow our gig in Birmingham was cancelled by the promoter, but not to be defeated, Jonathan played a solo online gig on 10th that the Coventry Telegraph picked up on and gave a good bit of promo. I think the most surprising gig of the tour for me though was the Umbrella festival on the 13th. We both were not up for this, expected to play to 10 people then leave. We could not have been more wrong.

The tent we played in got fuller and fuller the more we played and we ended up selling a sack full of albums and getting over 30 email addresses for our world domination plan. We returned to The Maudsley on 21st but not to play our usual Ditch The TV upstairs. We played a good hour and half to a responsive crowd in the bar downstairs.

We ended August with The Musican on 31st, where we played with some truly original and talented artists. August faded into September with our gigging now becoming a little sporadic than previously but with a long weekend away in London. We played two living room gigs over the 3rd and 4th but totally different. The first living room was actually a fans house who’d asked us to play. It was fantastic with loads of new people, great conversation, home made ales and egg and bacon cooked for us for breakfast, the following day was us at the franchise called The Living Room (same one that we played in Milton Keynes). We hung around from 1 till 8 to play this, where really we should have gone home. We did meet some nice generous fans who we keep in contact with via twitter though. The Sunflower Lounge on the 7th was a bit of a lost cause. On 14th I played my very first solo show online and got great response (again, from the Cov Telegraph who seems to really pick up on us!). The following weekend we headed East to our now annual gig in Norwich. On 21st we played a house gig with my brother at his flat, then 22nd at The Arts Centre which went well. It’s really about getting together with family and friends though and having a good time!

We now had about 2 weeks break from gigging until we returned to local venues in Coventry and Kenilworth. With The Phoenix on Oct 3rd I was full of cold and so played a bit sloppy but at Royal Oak on 9th we nailed it.

The second time we headed to Rowell Charter on our tour saw us take many spoils with a rip-roaring set on 19th. At this point we could see the light at the end of the tunnel and only a handful of gigs remained, and again we now had 2 gigs in 1 day.

On 22nd Oct we headed to Lichfield to play the Folk and Roots fest, snapping 2 strings we thought it was rubbish, til we ended the set and people came rushing to buy albums! The evening gig at Ale Wagon in Leicester was for Oxjam and we absolutely slaughtered it. Another 2 strings broken, a crowd screaming for us to continue (we obliged) it was a fantastic response. A Good Day! We now only had 2 gigs left, the first just a few weeks ago on the Nov 1st at my home studio with an online gig. We both played great and got loads of requests, ending up playing over an hour. With this gig over, and no confirmation of our last gig we thought we might have played our last song but a few days before the 12th we were confirmed as support to Ben Marwood at…The Crumblin Cookie.

The last gig went amazing; the place was rammed, so much so that it took 2 minutes to cram through the bodies to get to the stage. We rocked, we sweated, we messed up (of course we did!) but we gave it our all. It was a truly great moment and a fitting way to end the tour.

Over the course of the tour, taking in 40 gigs, we sold well over half the stock we held, gained over 300 emails, found a capo on the floor, drank way too much, spent way too much, had a blast, had a panic attack, broke around 24 strings and drove Miles. We now take a well earned break to look after our wives, regain our voices and read books by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and JK Rowling.

Thanks for the memories. *rides off into the sunset on a stallion of burnt amber*

Michael

Hhhhholidays are coming, Hhhhholidays are coming

It's nigh on impossible to watch the telly today without having some C list celeb push frozen prawns into the lens and shout "ONLY £1 THIS CHRISTMAS!". So it's with these annoying yet unavoidable symptoms that I've come to realise that the festivites are upon us, more or less. That, and we've spent the best part of a month recording Christmas classics!.
In previous years we kind of knew which song to tackle, but with the two best ones already notches on our bedpost, we've struggled to find a classic we can make our own. Even after we mixed down the final version of the song we chose, it didn't seem to have the magic of the previous efforts. After a long thought out process (lasting a fairly heavy 1 minute 4 seconds at least) we added the tried and tested Barricades Rise method: Add more stuff till it sounds better, and low and behold, it worked! Not only that, but the back up tune also sounded a Majestic success. Add to these two the previous years Christmas offerings and we have an EP of yuletide joy. An extra tune or two of our own has made the cut too.

Get your free Christmas EP by sending your postal address (anywhere in the world) to barricadesrise@hotmail.com

In other news, our last gig will be tomorrow at the Crumblin Cookie in Leicester supporting Ben Marlow. We'll not be on the road after that until next June too. See our last blog regarding our plans for 2012.

My next blog will be a biggie, wait for it on Sunday or Monday.

M x

The rest of 2011 and into 2012

With Heart FM telling me this morning that there are only 50 sleeps to go until Christmas (which is strange as I count 48) I thought I would update you on what Barricades Rise have planned for the rest of the year. To be 100% honest, we don’t have too much set in stone due to factors happening in our personal lives. That being said, this is what will happen pre 2012;

Christmas CD – You know the drill, for the last couple of years we have sent a FREE Christmas CD out to anyone that wants one. No matter your worldwide location, we will send our festive treat to your door in December. So far, we have recorded the tracks and just about to do a mix. All that is left is the mammoth task of printing artwork, burning CDs, writing envelopes, packing everything up together and popping to the post office. Depending on your location, expect yours around the first/second week of December.

Final Real Gig - This Saturday (12/11/11) sees us playing a support slot at our favourite Leicester venue, The Crumbling Cookie. It will be our last 'real' gig of the year and probably our final gig until May/June 2012. Come see us if you can, I expect we will be on stage around 7:30pm/8pm ish

Final House Gig – Our actual final live performance of the year will be at Michael's house on the 19th November. We love the intimacy of the house gig and if you are local, drop us an email at band@barricadesrise.co.uk and we will reserve a slot just for you and your king (early Christmas reference).

Final Online Gig – I have a solo online gig scheduled for 1st December. These are fun to play and I hope you will tune in and watch. The shows start at 7:30pm GMT and you can watch them by going to our gig page and clicking on ‘Online Gigs’.

Blogging – We love blogging and whilst we will not be on the road or in the studio for a good while I’m sure we will blog about what is going on in the personal lives of BR along with the usual end of year round ups and start of year predictions. On average we blog a couple of times a week so keep checking the site.

In terms of what WILL happen, that is it. Now a few things I would LIKE to get done either pre Christmas or early 2012

Radio Show – Using Mixcloud we shall be producing some short radio shows that will have a little BR banter and tunes from our favorite artists and a few unsigned bands we have had the pleasure of knowing. These won’t be a regular once a month thing but rather when we feel like it. I aim to produce the first one before Christmas and see how it sounds. You will find them on this site once they have been done.

Remix EP – We recently had a fan do a remix of Roundabouts (listen here) and he has agreed to remix a selection of BR tunes with the intention of putting out a FREE download EP. The chap who is remixing goes by the name of ‘Soundtrack’ and the aim is to get the EP out at the start of the new year. There is no pressure and if he wants to spend more time on the mixes then it will be put back.

More Online Gigs – As stated above, the real gigs wont happen until part way through 2012, therefore we shall be doing more online gigs to keep us from rusting and to give you your BR fix. We shall announce via this site and via our social sites when these will happen. Very often these may be at short notice.

Repertoire Part 2 - No date yet but talks of early 2012 for another slice of our FREE Repertoire pie. Basically, a collection of the covers we have recorded, some demo’s from the AIHIS sessions and some live recordings. You can download part one here

So there you go. 2012 is going to be a very different year for us BR boys due to amazing things happening in both our personal lives. It is an 'unknown' year really as we just don't know what is in store for Barricades Rise and how these changes will affect the day to day running of BR. We will get back to gigging and we will write new stuff but when that will see the light of day I just don't know. We want to do something different than just releasing another CD/Download album but what that will be we haven't decided. I also doubt that a big release will be out in 2012.


Jonathan

Something a Little Scary

I thought I would share with the blog a little something fun we have been doing over at our Facebook page. For the last five days we have been running a competition that we aptly have called

"carve a Pumpkin/Fruit into whatever you want and the winner (picked on Monday) will win a signed album and a T-Shirt, just upload your pic to our facebook page competition"

I think you can guess what it was about and what we wanted you good people to do. Anyway, here are the entrances that we had











It's clear that we have a fine divide of artistic and non-artistic fans (and Band members). After careful consideration, the winner is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Green Carved Swan Apple by Mr Ollie Tooth.

Also, last night saw us perform another online gig together and here is the video from the night



Video streaming by Ustream

Jonathan

Online gig - TONIGHT!! (Tue 1st Nov)

Tonight Jonathan and myself will be putting on an entertaining show for you, broadcast over the wonders of the Internet. Click your curser on http://www.barricadesrise.co.uk/p/online-gigs-live-on-your-screen.html and at 7.30pm (gmt, thats UK time deary) like magic we'll appear in your little square of a monitor (mines more a rectangle, widescreen and all that).
We'll be playing the greats and the not so greats, covers and originals, Ukuleles and Banjos, and maybe a bit of beat-box, but probably not.

A new feature for the online gigs is you can now view directly on the life-sucking Megatran that is Facebook. So expect a few messages from 6 onwards tonight if you follow us.
We've no idea how long we'll play for, until we get tired I guess.

Thanks for listening.

M x