Fandango Birthday - New Stage Times
2nd March 2007
Hello Fandango chummos. There have been some last-minute changes to our birthday party gig on Tuesday. SixNationState now switch to first position at 8.30pm, Hush The Many move from first to second and Kicks move from second to last. Make sense? No? Read the sodding press release below then. Thnx, love you, bye!
CLUB FANDANGO SAYS 'NOW WE ARE SIX - TIME FOR A PARTY'
The Thing: Club Fandango & wire-less presents: Now We Are Six
The Bands: SIX NATION STATE + KICKS + HUSH THE MANY
The Date: TUESDAY MARCH 6TH 2007
The Place: LONDON CAMDEN DUBLIN CASTLE
The Doors: 8.15pm - 1.00am.
The Damage: ¬¨£6.00 or ¬¨£5.00 with flyer from www.clubfandango.co.uk
The Birthday Bill:
** Onstage at 8.30pm SIX NATION STATE are agitated skapop types with a prediliction for Iberian culture. They don't have any plans to release any singles on Label Fandango and seeing as how they are signed to Jeepster nor do they need to. But they do have 'six' in their name, and it is a 'Now We Are Six' party on March 6th. So that's enough for us.
** Onstage at 9.10pm HUSH THE MANY deliver lovely radiant heartfelt indiefolk music with crushed silences and rapturous sonic peaks. Their first single proper, 'Song Of A Page' comes out on Label Fandango on April 9th 2007.
** Onstage at 9.55pm KICKS are five men from London who make rowdy, soaring sounds which make a wee bit like Oasis playing twister with U2. They don't have a Label Fandango release lined up but they are a.n.other much talked about new combo who in the true spirit of Club Fandango over the years will be bringing indierock suss and a good few shadowy industry figures along to the party.
The Story: Once upon a time a couple of weeks back in January 2007 one of the Team Fandango members was chatting to Nick from Kaiser Chiefs, as you do. He (Nick) was down at the Dublin Castle to check out fellow Leeds popsters Voltage Union as they opened another Tuesday evening Club Fandango spectacular. "You played here once didn't you?" asked our Team Fandango man, "Wasn't it on some crazy bill with Bloc Party and Razorlight?". "No, no," replied Nick, who thought for a moment and then said, very decisively, "It was The Souls, then it was Bloc Party, then us, and then Dogs - Razorlight were here but only to see Dogs."
If it hadn't come straight from the drummer's mouth you'd scarcely have believed your ears, but there it is. Evidence of yet another another wild night of indie sights and strobelights - this time from the 2004 era - at Club Fandango, stalwart of the London promoter scene which is preparing for its sixth anniversary on March 6th at the esteemed Dublin Castle venue in Camden Town. Back when it started in the year 2001 the capital's nightlife was an extremely different beast. Indeed, the mystery figures behind Club Fandango (namely the bloke from the efferevescent fierce panda label and the chap behind the heartily esoteric Pointy Recordings) chose to launch their weekly indie night simply because there was bugger all else decent to go to on a Tuesday night.
Since then of course the guitar generation has struck gold and The View and The Klaxons - who were still studying at the school of rock when Club Fandango launched - are household names, like Bloo Loo. On Tuesday nights alone both Artrocker and White Heat have carved their name into the London chalkstone, and cheeky promoters and fizzy venues and splendidly impertinent indie discos are seemingly appearing out of the bloo on a weekly basis. Club Fandango has been in the midst of this chaos throughout the new century, promoting at a slew of venues and parading literally hundreds of freshfaced new bands for the public's delectation. As they roar into 2007 you will find Club Fandango (still) at the Dublin Castle on every Tuesday, at the Fly on virtually every Wednesday (as of April) and at the Borderline every Thursday. Throw in annual jaunts to the Camden Crawl, In The City and The Great Escape and Regional Fandango gigs in Manchester, Barnsley, Eastbourne, Glasgow, Southampton and beyond, plus the 2005 inception of a spin-off 7" record company called Label Fandango and it is obvious that life with Brand Fandango must be one splashed with Cristal and dashed with conversations with Kaisers and more.
The truth, predictably, is rather more mundane: crucially those six years have found them constantly at the indie coalface, chipping away in the cold, naked darkness at demos and tip-offs, piling together the stacks of unsigned bands, throwing names back and forth between A&R troops and lawyers and managers, chewing the fat with live agents and PR people and pluggers and, of course, the kids, and hoping that everything will be alright on the night. God knows it's been hard - there have been the bands who haven't pulled, the soundmen (and women) standing appalled at what is playing before their very ears; there have been nights which haven't worked at venues which shouldn't have been allowed to open, let alone let us hire a night. Yet lurking in that rubble from the coalface are the sonic sparklers, the indie diamonds that make the whole grubby process worthwhile for promoter and punter alike.
And in February 2007 as Team Fandango finally becomes a full-time operation with a booker and an office with, y'know, desks and post-it notes and rubber grip Bics and stuff like that so we recall those precious nights with Keane at the Bull & Gate, Guillemots at the Borderline, Arctic Monkeys at the Dublin Castle, Maximo Park at the Archway Tavern, We Are Scientists at the Metro, The Automatic at the Water Rats, even The Subways and The Kooks together on the same bill at the Caernarvon Castle for Camden Crawl '05.
Because they were Club Fandango nights, one and all. And you can tell people what really, really happened. But they would not listen, they're not listening still. And perhaps they never will.
