MUDKISS FANZINE

DUM DUM GIRLS

CONFIRM UK DATES FOR JULY

‘I Will Be’ is out now via Sub Pop

Dum Dum Girls  (aka Dee Dee) have, with their debut album, ‘I Will Be’ (Sub Pop) produced a short tribute to love, fun and the classic pop form of ’60’s girl groups and early punk rockers.

 The band (completed by Jules, Bambie and Sandy Vu) follow up their successes of their recent UK tour with UK dates in July including a performance at this year’s 1234 festival.

UPCOMING UK DATES

THE LIKE

‘RELEASE ME’

NEW album RELEASED AUG 30TH on POLYDOR

UK HEADLINE TOUR, shows with THE STROKES PLUS READING & LEEDS appearances

www.myspace.com/thelike ● www.twitter.com/ilovethelike

‘Pick Of The Week’ – Guardian Guide

‘UK fans will get a tasty teaser of The Like’s retro-neuvo sound (imagine The Shangri-Las meet Girls Aloud) on the Mark Ronson-produced single He’s Not A Boy’ – Daily Mirror

‘Wearing heavy eyeliner and tiny miniskirts, Californian quartet the Like are 1960s perfection: Wishing He Was Dead is wrapped in Motown- and Shadow Morton-inspired teen angst.' Guardian

The Like release their Mark Ronson produced addictive new album ‘Release Me’ on August 30^th through Polydor. In addition to their UK headline tour dates in September, they have also just been confirmed to appear at Reading and Leeds Festivals as well as international dates on tour with The Strokes.

 The album tracklisting for ‘Release Me’ has been confirmed as:

 Finding an exquisite balance between the 60’s girl group and British Invasion sounds they adore, and a lyrical point of view that can only be described as impossibly modern, LA based quartet The Like have come into their own.

Their long awaited new album Release Me is the product of hard work, fortuitous new partnerships and great songs that reflect a long and winding period where the band has collectively been through it all and come out on the other side far stronger for the experience.

Produced by Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Robbie Williams) with additional production by Thomas Brenneck and Homer Steinweiss (of The Dap Kings), and Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), Release Me crackles and pops with girlgroup sass. Tracks like He’s Not A Boy – released as the first single on 31^st May - and Don't Make a Sound somehow find the place where the edge of the Animals and the heartbreak of the Shangri-Las meet and are infused with an edgy, clear-eyed romanticism that are irresistible.

 At the band’s core is the partnership between founding members Z Berg (lead vocals, guitar and main songwriting duties) and Tennessee Thomas (drums) who formed the all-girl band when they were 15. While Z and Tennessee are understandably thrilled with Release Me, they’re also ecstatic about the two newest members of the band, Laena Geronimo (bass) and Annie Monroe (organ).  “We never intended to be a girl band,” says Tennessee. “But we became rather pleased about it eventually,” she says with a laugh.

Releasing three EP’s, which they sold at shows and on their website, the band quickly formed a rabid fan base and garnered immediate media coverage, which got them a record deal at Geffen Records. In 2006, they released their debut album Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking to critical acclaim, and toured worldwide, playing Coachella, the Wireless Festival, and opening for bands such as Muse and Kings of Leon.

Following up their debut album is where things got a bit mad. The band recorded a follow up in 2007, but it was clear that something wasn’t working, and shelved it. It was in that space of uncertainty that the band found some much needed good fortune. Tennessee recalls, “When things were crazy with the band, I ran away to England for a week, and the first night I was there I ran into (producer) Mark Ronson.” This run in led to Mark offering to record The Like’s album, which transformed the band. Z explains, “What Mark did was systematically take the songs right back to their original form. We spent almost 48 hours straight with Mark arranging the songs properly before we went into the studio, and then we recorded them live to half-inch tape with one mic on the drums - which is terrifying, but after recording that way, I truly believe there’s no other way to record.” Tennessee adds, “Before Mark, we recorded everything nitpicky and perfect, track by track. But on those great 60’s records, the mistakes were some of the best parts of it. It was chaos most of the time - but it absolutely brought us together as a band. We recorded for six days with Mark - and we got nine songs. Then we did four days with Alex Greenwald and the Dap-Kings. It was miraculous and we became far more confident as a band.”

You can hear that confidence in seemingly every note of Release Me. The album’s title track, Release Me, shimmers with a melody that’s like a glorious summer day, but the yearning of the lyric and the minor chords in the bridge create a mood of frustrated romanticism that, well, can’t help but remind one of the way John Lennon’s edge curbed Paul McCartney’s sunniness to make both far more resonant. Narcissus In A Red Dress throbs with a sense of warning and betrayal in the arena of love, a topic that Release Me deals with in full. “We all had our hearts broken while we were making this record,” says Tennessee, but somehow that heartbreak shimmers, as in the gorgeous In The End, where Tennessee’ s driving and propulsive beat and Z’s commanding yet elegant lead vocals (and gorgeous “oohs” and background vocals) create a three-minute slice of pop nirvana.

 Fresh off their US tour with the Arctic Monkeys the band returned to the UK in May for a storming string of London dates and will return to the UK in September for a full UK tour. “We were home a lot the past few years,” says Z, “and I’m excited to get out there.” She continues with a grin, “We’re a very different kind of band now, and it’s a very different kind of show. One with infinitely more energy!” Indeed, Release Me heralds the arrival of a stronger, tighter, and more enthused band, one with a stronger and deeper sense of who they are, all of which comes out in their undeniable new music.

The Like are: Z Berg (lead vocals, guitar), Tennessee Thomas (drums), Laena Geronimo (bass) and Annie Monroe (organ).

 MALE BONDING

 Debut Album, Nothing Hurts on 10^th May via Sub Pop

Confirmed as Main Support To Blood Red Shoes in October

Nothing Hurts is the Sub Pop debut and first full-length for London-based trio Male Bonding. Scheduled for release on 10^th May 2010, the album was recorded in the fall of 2009 in New York and was mixed and mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound.  e

 If you’re going to call your house party “RAGE,” you’d better deliver. In May 2008, at a shindig by that bold name, littered with disposable cameras and drenched in beer, the London noise-pop trio Male Bonding played its first gig. Although singer and bassist Kevin Hendrick concedes that a giant trampoline stole the show (“I did trampolining at school. I’m really good at it. Really can get some serious air”), Male Bonding, in a scant two years, has built up some major momentum.

 The formula: “Tinnitus. And a hook.” And a speedometer pinned deep in the red.

Male Bonding - Robin Silas Christian—drums, Kevin Hendrick—bass and vocals, John Arthur Webb—guitar and vocals - plays fast. Nothing Hurts, the band’s first full-length, gets it done in half an hour, and most songs clock in at around two minutes. “I don’t like long songs,” says guitarist and singer John Arthur Webb. “I lose interest when listening to them, and I lose interest when writing them. We always end up speeding things up without meaning to. Too much coffee.”

 Indeed, there’s much more to Male Bonding than high-speed, high-impact punk. “We love the slower, hazier stuff as well as the punkish stuff,” says Webb. Hendrick’s favorite bands include “shoegaze” forerunners My Bloody Valentine and Ride, and he loves Teenage Fanclub’s A Catholic Education. “All my favorite pop songs,” Hendrick says, “are ballads. There’s a hippie in me and it’s fighting with the inner punk.”

 To date, Male Bonding has dispatched twelve releases including a Flipper tribute 7" (Domino Records) alongside PPM Allstars, Lovvers and Ponytail. The band has toured the UK with Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls (who are featured on “Worse to Come”) and gigged with Health, Fucked Up, No Age, The Soft Pack, Dum Dum Girls, Smith Westerns, Best Coast, Strange Boys, Metronomy, Crystal Castles, Mika Miko, and other loud-and-proud notables.

 CONFIRMED UK DATES REMAINING:

ZOLA JESUS

NEW SINGLE ‘NIGHT’  OUT JUNE 21ST - PLUS UK HEADLINE TOUR DATES
(SOUTERRAIN TRANSMISSIONS)

www.myspace.com/zolajesus  www.souterraintransmissions.com

‘Night’ is Zola Jesus’ first ever UK single release and comes out on June 21st through Berlin-based label Souterrain Transmissions. Described by Pitchfork as a “gorgeously creepy track”, the single is taken from the forthcoming album ‘Stridulum II’ due out in August (also on Souterrain Transmissions).

Zola Jesus - Night from Souterrain Transmissions on Vimeo.

Aug 31 Brighton Freebutt  
Sept 1 London Camp Basement  
Sept 2 Manchester Deaf Institute  
Sept 3 Leeds Nation Of Shopkeepers  
Sept 4 Glasgow Indian summer  
Sept 5 Edinburgh Wolf Party presents @ Electric Cabaret  
Sept 6 Glasgow ABC1  w/ Fever Ray
Sept 8 London Brixton Academy   w/ Fever Ray

Born and raised in the countryside of mid-western USA (Wisconsin), Nika Roza was literally raised by wolves (well proximally anyways). Beginning her musical output at the age of 16, she released: two 7"s, an EP, a live recording from WNYU, and a split with neighbouring Madison head-trip, Burial Hex, on Sacred Bones, Troubleman, Die Stasi, and Aurora Borealis respectively. It was her debut full length for Sacred Bones last summer, however, that suddenly grew Zola Jesus’ profile exponentially.

Her video for “Clay Bodies” directed by Jacqueline Castel, debuted on Pitchfork and The Spoils made dozens of year-end lists including: The Wire, Pitchfork, and The Fader. Her latest EP Stridulum is a huge leap forward in terms of fidelity and accessibility. Recording her vocals for the first time with professional equipment, Nika's voice is brought to the powerful forefront of the mix unleashing the full range of emotions that had only been hinted at in her previous work. No longer just the doomsday soothsayer, Nika refines her soulful psalms creating pop songs that are as equally nurturing as they are foreboding.

Ellie Goulding will take to the road in October/November for a 21-date headline tour of the UK, her biggest to date. All her UK shows this year have completely sold out so the tour offers an opportunity for fans that may have missed out earlier in the year to catch her superb live show.

www.myspace.com/elliegoulding

Tickets are available on pre-sale on Wednesday 19th May at 9:00am from www.crowdsurge.com/elliegoulding  and on general sale on Friday 21st May at 9:00am.
All tickets cost £15 apart from London is £16.50