mostly on a music tip

SWN presents DOG IS DEAD

DOG IS DEAD
plus support

Saturday 17th March 2012
Cardiff Arts Institute
8.00pm
18+
*FREE ENTRY* (PLEASE READ BELOW)

There are 50 free entry spaces available now exclusively on a 1-per-person basis via www.swnpresents.com.

These will guarantee entry so long as you arrive between 8.00pm and 9.00pm on 17th March. The remaining free spaces will be available on the door, first come, first served. If any of the 50 free entry spaces are not redeemed by 9.00pm then those will be given to people on the night on a first come, first served basis.

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FREE CHRISTMAS SINGLE DOWNLOAD –  AVAILABLE 13^Th DECEMBER

UK HEADLINE TOUR CONFIRMED – FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012

http://www.dogisdead.co.uk

www.facebook.com/dogisdead

‘This upcoming Nottingham quintet have quite the knack for making bright, breezy and infectious indie pop’ – The Guardian

It’s been a massive year for DOG IS DEAD, having toured with Bombay Bicycle Club, released a compilation EP of their self release singles, started work on their debut album with David Kosten (Everything Everything, Bat For Lashes) and released limited edition ‘Hands Down’ - their debut major label single which gained support from the likes of Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, XFM, Q Radio and even a spot play on Fearne Cotton’s Radio 1 show. Furthermore, they appeared as themselves in hit TV show ‘Skins’ and played an array of festivals across the UK this summer.

DOG IS DEAD will finish off 2011 in style with a massive hometown headline show at 1900 cap Nottingham Rock City on Saturday and will follow with a headline slot at London’s Koko for Club NME’s NYE celebration. In addition to this, to celebrate the festive period, the band have recorded a special version of The Waitresses ‘Christmas Wrapping’ which you can download for free here There’s also a video which you can watch here

As one of 2012’s hottest new bands, they announce their biggest UK tour to date in February/March with a single to coincide (details to follow early next year).

Full dates below:
February 18 – Norwich Arts Centre
February 19 – Oxford Academy 2
February 20 - Birmingham Academy 3
February 21 – Bristol Thekla
February 23 – Leicester Academy 2
February 24 – Stoke Sugarmill
February 25 – Hull Fruit
February 26 – Leeds Cockpit
February 27 – Newcastle Riverside
February 29 – Aberdeen Café Drummonds
March 1 – Inverness Hootenanays
March 2 – Ullapool The Arch
March 3 – Stornoway The Woodlands Centre
March 4 – Aviemore Old Bridge Inn
March 6 – Glasgow King Tuts
March 7 – Edinburgh Electric Circus
March 8 – Belfast McHughs
March 9 - Dublin Academy 2
March 10 - Lancaster Library
March 11 - Sheffield Plug
March 13 – Manchester Deaf Institute
March 14 – Brighton Komedia
March 16 – Southampton Joiners
March 17 – Cardiff Arts Institute

 

SWN presents THOMAS TRAUX

THOMAS TRUAX
plus support

Ten Feet Tall, Cardiff
Wednesday 8th February 2012
8.00pm
£6 adv from
| www.swnpresents.com |
| www.seetickets.com |
| www.wegottickets.com |
| www.ticketlineuk.com |
| Spillers Records |

 

New York City's Thomas Truax (pronounced troo-aks) is a left field troubadour and inventor/player of strange self-made instruments like his now legendary 'Hornicator' and a motorized mechanical drum machine called 'Sister Spinster'. He employs these and other contraptions as well as traditional instruments in exceptionally crafted, witty and often touching songs. Splendid magazine recently called him "one of the five or ten best singer/songwriters in the world that you've never heard of...an exceptional talent, unique and resistant to comparison, yet fairly accessible even to casual listeners."

Thomas has toured nearly constantly for the past seven years, mostly as a headliner but also doing large scale support tours with the Dresden Dolls and Duke Special amongst others. He's played Glastonbury, the Edinburgh Fringe festival, at Lincoln Center in New York and appeared on MTV.

Thomas's 'Hornicator' is constructed on the shell of an old gramophone horn. It resembles something that might have been dreamt up by Dr. Seuss. He taps out rhythm loops recording them live into his looping machine,then adds layers of plucked strings, springs and noisemakers, building a backdrop of hypnotic sounds on top of which he delivers striking stories about clones and prostitutes.

Born an illigitimate son of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, as a young man Thomas attempted to build a synthesizer out of an old radio. He put on magic shows and made stop-motion animated films with a Super 8 camera. He has done mandatory day-job time as an animator on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch and Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken. Time travelling with the Toby Tyler Circus inspired him towards a career in show business. His acclaimed rock noir trio Like Wow toured and released several CDs, but Thomas grew frustrated with a seemingly endless line of drummers with expensive appetites often resulting in stomach aches before gigs, forcing their cancellations. He finally decided to build his own motorized mechanical drummer and 'go solo'.

'Sister Spinster' is a variable speed, proudly pre-digital 'Flintstones-era drum machine' that features spoked wheels and percussive parts which can be readjusted between songs to create different rhythms. Newer instruments include 'The Stringaling' and the 'Backbeater', a rhythm wheel made to be worn on the back, which Thomas promises will eventually also double as a mechanism for flight. He has no engineering background and while constructing these inventions has repeatedly subjected himself to inadvertent electrical shocks which he claims have stimulated his creativity and expanded his vocal range.

A stubborn DIY enthusiast, Truax self-released his debut full-length solo CD 'Full Moon Over Wowtown' on his own label in late 2003. It was quickly snatched up by London-based Breakin' Beats for release in the UK and Europe, who also released his second album 'Audio Addiction' (2005). Truax's third album is 'Why Dogs Howl at the Moon' (SL Records, 2007) and his fourth, 'Songs From The Films Of David Lynch'(SL/Psycho Teddy records 2009), is his first all-covers album. A three-song 'Singles Club' cd has also been released internationally on the Italian label Homesleep, and a 7" vinyl single, 'Have We Been Left Behind'(2006), was released by Akoustik Anarkhy records of Manchester.

Truax has been featured in two feature-length films: 'Instrumental', from director Gabe Shalom (US, 2005) documenting the lives of for artists who make their own instruments, and Adam Clitheroe 'One Man In The Band' (UK, 2008).

Wowtown is a surreal place from which some of the characters and events in Thomas's songs originate. He's been writing The Wowtown News, an email newsletter that he sends to a long list of faithful subscribers, for over five years. His own radio serial version of The Wowtown News, broadcasts on Resonance FM in London, where Thomas is currently residing.

"Inventive and Romantic" -TimeOut

"Beguilingly Bizarre" -Uncut

"Genius." -NME

www.thomastruax.com
www.myspace.com/thomastruax