THE FLY 2011

READ ABOUT NIMMO AND THE GAUNTLETTS HERE: THE FLY APRIL 2011

THE BADGER 2011: NEWS/ARTS/MUSIC

NIMMO AND THE GAUNTLETTS THE BADGER WEEK 3 ISSUE 2

Caption: Nimmo and the Gauntletts Credits: Taylor Taylor London

SUSSEX LIVE THE BADGER WEEK 4 ISSUE 3

THE BADGER WEEK 5 ISSUE 4

THE BADGER WEEK 6 ISSUE 5

MAN LIKE ME THE BADGER WEEK 7 ISSUE 6

THE BADGER WEEK 8 ISSUE 7

Caption: Jamie Woon Credits: Guardian.co.uk

JAMIE WOON THE BADGER WEEK 9 ISSUE 8

THE BADGER WEEK 10 ISSUE 9

SUMMER

BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2011 THE BADGER WEEK 2 ISSUE 1 SUMMER

THE BADGER WEEK 3 ISSUE 2 SUMMER

THE BADGER WEEK 4 ISSUE 3 SUMMER

THE BADGER WEEK 5 ISSUE 4 SUMMER

WEBSITE:www.thebadgeronline.co.uk

ISSUU:issuu.com/the_badger

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PROMENADE MAGAZINE LAUNCH 2011

YOU CAN READ PROMENADE LAUNCH ISSUE HERE

EMMY THE GREAT

NIMMO AND THE GAUNTLETTS

THE PROMENADE

DOYLE AND THE FOURFATHERS

AND MUCH MORE…

www.sussexstudent.com/fashion

https://www.facebook.com/PromenadeMag

Nimmo and the Gauntletts ‘Young Light’

Tags

Arcade Fire, Fleetwood Mac, Ian Grimble, Marc Sethi, Neil Young, Nimmo and the Gauntletts, The Strokes, Town House Records

Caption: Nimmo and the Gauntletts Photo Credits: Marc Sethi

NIMMO AND THE GAUNTLETTS was formed by childhood friends Sarah Nimmo and Reva Gauntlett at Hampstead School in Kilburn, North London.

Originally an acoustic 2 piece, Sarah Nimmo and Reva Gauntlett with the addition of Josh Faull, Hannah Rose and Jack Williams – are now a fully fledged line up based between Brighton and London. They share a diverse range of influences particularly The Strokes, Arcade Fire, Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The debut EP ‘Young Light’ [TOWN HOUSE RECORDS] is an energetic, diverse and honest record.

Caption: Sarah Nimmo Studio 2011 Photo Credits: Marc Sethi

Sarah Nimmo: “I hope that ‘Young Light’ is not only a statement of where ‘we are now’ but also an indication of where we could go. We learnt a lot from the recording process and working with Ian Grimble. Working with Ian helped discipline our writing process as a band. Making your first record changes your perspective on writing and constructing songs. We are a very creative band and sometimes need reigning in when writing new material. I guess Ian helped guide us this way”.

Published in Promenade Magazine, December 2011

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Interview: The Promenade

Tags

Bruce Springsteen, Hoxton Pony, Promenade Magazine, The Promenade, Winterwell Festival

Caption: The Promenade Photo Credits: Liberty Fennell

HI GUYS, IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU EXPLORE THE UNIVERSAL BEAUTY AND DARKNESS OF YOUTH? That’s a big one.  Well, I don’t know if we can speak universally, but it’s a real compliment to have it written about us.

I guess being young is all we really know, there is beauty and darkness in any age I’m sure, but a lot of our lyrical content is about things we have been through. Getting old scares me; I’ve always felt much younger than I am, probably due to a quarter life crisis.

TELL US ABOUT ’STERLING SWELLS’. ’Sterling Swells’ was written over quite a long time so the two verses were written in very different states sort of like a beginning an end. It was one where the lyrics came in little drips, mainly inspired by very specific moments of imagery. It’s about how a place can bring two people together, or the promise of a place, and then tear them apart. As it was written over a long time it shifts from fondness and sadness with and it feels quite detached now.

I like to think of it as our ‘Sandy’ by Bruce Springsteen, using the romantic imagery of a classic seaside town as the backdrop. If I ever write a song half as good as ‘Sandy’ I will be a happy man.

…AND ’LADY HOLLYWOOD’? ’Lady Hollywood’ is about a Very close friend and her two young children, everyone called her Hollywood, it suited her perfectly.

BEST GIG SO FAR? I don’t think we have a best, they are always really different and we have been lucky enough to play some great places in the last few months. Main stage at Winterwell festival was a great experience, but we didn’t have Remi on drums because he had an exam so it definitely wasn’t our best.

Hoxton Pony was really great, just a great buzz to it, the basement was completely packed. It was also the 2nd Anniversary of Lady Hollywood’s death, so it always sticks out.

BAND MOTTO? Ha, we have a lot of motto’s, which will have to stay a secret, I don’t think you would want to know! Id say our main one is singing ‘We’re the three best friends that anyone could have’ from the Hangover. Usually when we are driving to play a show, or after there is some sort of bickering. Alan is an inspiration to us all.

2012 MUSIC PLANS? Plans for 2012, we are recording an E.P in January, which will come with a full length film for the five tracks, so that is our main focus at the moment. We will be doing a tour after that and hope to have our new beautiful website with all our music, videos, merchandise, blog etc. up and going very soon.

The rest we’ll take as it comes, We are drafting some very interesting plans for autumn but nothings confirmed, you will have to wait and see. We are all really excited about the whole thing.

Published in Promenade Magazine, December 2011

Interview: Emmy the Great (Promenade)

Tags

Emmy the Great, Florence and the Machine, Nimmo and the Gauntletts, Promenade Magazine, Stealing Sheep, The Duke of Yorks Picturehouse

Caption: Emmy the Great Photo Credits: Salabelcool.com

Promenade‘s Louise Ronnestad interviewed Emmy The Great in conjunction with a sold out gig in Brighton at The Duke of Yorks Picturehouse with support from Stealing Sheep (a multi-national alternative folk pop with delicate harmonies) and Nimmo and the Gauntletts.

How does your second album (Virtue) compare to the first (First Love)?

It’s a fuller sound, with more personal subject matter masquerading as less personal subject matter.

What are the benefits as a solo artist?

No need to compromise! But then that becomes a problem eventually, when you realise that other people’s opinions are often better than yours.

Tell me some more about working with Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine) in Lightspeed Champion.

We were both backing singers in Lightspeed at the same time but as I’m sure you can imagine I was better at staying in the background, so I tended to do more gigs!

How do you always manage to balance vulnerability and sass in equal measures?

Aw that’s my favourite thing anyone’s ever said to me, thank you. My parents raised me to be confident, but the situation I grew up in in Hong Kong made me sort of electric with insecurity. Might be something to do with that?

Did you enjoy the sold out gig at The Duke of Yorks in Brighton?

It was brilliant! What a fabulous venue that was. I left my laptop behind though, on a seat. One of the miseries of touring.

Published in Promenade Magazine, December 2011

Interview: Emmy the Great (The Badger)

Tags

Emmy the Great, Nimmo and the Gauntletts, Patti Smith, The Badger, Tim Wheeler, Virtue

Her new album Virtue is currently picking up more and more outstanding reviews (MOJO, VICE, UNCUT, BBC) and Emma-Lee Moss, known as Emmy the Great proclaims the start of an extensive UK tour late 2011 with the release of a new single ‘Paper Forest’ (In the Afterglow of Rapture) on September 19th.

The track ‘Paper Forest’ (In the Afterglow of Rapture) Emmy explains, was inspired by a Patti Smith song, being ‘blessed amongst all women’, and a classical Sylvia Plath quote, that ’character is fate’. These two phrases encapsulated her situation and the heart of the song.

The follow up to her equally critically acclaimed debut First Love, Virtue began as a series of stories Moss embarked on after the breakup with her fiancée. Drawing on symbols borrowed from fairy tales and mythology, she added modern icons like dinosaurs etc. to create a record that made her feel like a person and that she hopes will speak to many others.

Moss got hold of the Badger during the summer for an insightful interview about fairy tales, fate and fearlessness.

Caption: Emmy the Great Photo Credits: Alex Lake

”Out of chaos comes order” – is that how you would describe your work of art? I haven’t in the past, but I do like that. The period before making the album was one of tumultuous feelings and complicated unknowns, and now all that’s left of it is ten songs. So I suppose that’s exactly what it is.

Do you consider yourself blessed to be able to make music for a living or were you just born that way (fate)? Yes I do. I consider myself lucky being born into the situation I was born into, with a loving family and the opportunities of Hong Kong and the UK, and to be able to also do a job which I find interesting, and which changes and evolves, is more luck than I deserve.

A good fairy tale – what would you say it stands for? I like the fairy tales with young women cast out of their comfortable situations who have to navigate their way back by their wits. I think these are women of the past sending messages to future generations in code. When a lot of these stories were originated, women didn’t have a lot of power and didn’t have much of a voice. They kept their lessons hidden in folk tales that they told to children, or while doing domestic chores, and it was effective, because they’re still remembered and passed on today.

What things make you feel, for real? I think I get most excited when I read a book, see a film, or have a conversation where I think that the other person feels the same way as I do, or has the same experience as me. Bit narcissistic really.

Would you like to comment on words like virtue and rapture, what they do and what they mean? I think the former has a prim, ladylike feel to it, which is open to subversion, and the second one feels terrible and dangerous. 

I hear you mentor Nimmo and the Gauntletts, how is that working out? I love them! They’re doing really well. Just recorded their first EP and getting a lot of great support slots. They’re one of these bands that will last a long time, not just some buzz act that comes and then disappears.

What’s your next project? A Christmas album with Tim Wheeler, out this Christmas.

Published in The Badger, October 2011

Interview: Jamie Woon

Tags

Amy Winehouse, BBC Sound of 2011 Acts, Ghostpoet, Glastonbury, Jamie Woon, Mirrorwriting, Reso, Secret Garden Party, The Badger

Jamie Woon has got a new sound: he carries intimate emotions of his early sound into a whole new sublime dimension if you wish: a bigger, badder and heavier room.

You might not be familiar with him yet, but be sure that you will be this year. In the past he has supported Amy Winehouse, played in a full band with dubstep DJ and producer Reso on drums and taken stage at Sonar. Woon is ‘one of the BBC Sound of 2011 acts’, with the anticipated album Mirrorwriting available from 4th April.

Caption: Jamie Woon Photo Credits: Anna Evans

You have been able to see Jamie perform at One Taste, an acoustic night that took over festival stages at Secret Garden and Glastonbury in the late 2000s. The guitar wielding, singer/songwriter and self-taught producer Jamie’s aim is to make good songs, even if that takes a long time, effort and perseverance. He performs with a tranquillity that moves you and leaves you with that somewhat mysterious velvet feeling, especially the track ‘Night Air’. Jamie Woon is currently touring the UK and supported Ghostpoet at Audio, Brighton in February where The Badger met him after sound check.

How was it supporting Amy Winehouse? That was cool, just one show, yeah. I did that in 2007, in New York. It was one of the writers for British Music that needed one man to open up the show. So, I think they’ve heard of me: I was quite cheap…hahaha.

What do you prefer, intimate gigs or bigger stages? I can see elements of both that I really like, you know. I feel more comfortable in intimate stages because you can get something going with the crowd, get some interaction which is really nice. And usually, I like the sound. The bigger the venue, the more challenging the sound would be. But it’s also an area to move around in.

Would you like to comment on ‘the real hybrid’: blues and bass? You know – the blues is the root of pop music and I’m quite interested in the bass at the moment. I’ve played some bass lines, programmed on the record.

Is music in your blood? Certainly, in my family: I was exposed to it at a young age. On my mum’s (Mae McKenna’s) side, she’s a singer and both her parents sang to the truce in the war and her brothers were in quite a big rock band in the 70’s. I’ve definitely been around it: encouraged to do music, since I was a kid.

How do you always manage to do things your way? I just don’t want to do anything that could be crap, you know. So I don’t put pressure on myself to do things that I feel that I don’t like. The aim is to make good songs. I have had offers in the past which would have meant a lot of money and fame, when I didn’t have enough good songs or didn’t have my sound locked down. So I have just kind of, sat my time. There’s nothing worse than to probably end up hate your records.

Published in The Badger, March 2011

Interview: I Blame Coco

Tags

Fyfe Dangerfiled, I Blame Coco, La Roux, Neil Young, Robyn, The Badger, The Constant

To say that starlet Sumner has risen and shines ever so bright is certainly not an understatement. More appropriately though she grooves, reggae style. Eliot ‘Coco’ Sumner of I Blame Coco has just finished her first ever UK headline tour. The gig schedule is continuing all over Europe: Paris, Sweden, Belgium, Romania, Amsterdam and so on, to make sure, it would seem, that the music gets out there and that no one is missing out.

Sumner’s debut is now official with the album ‘The Constant’ released in early November 2010. Up until now, she has toured with La Roux, collaborated with Fyfe Dangerfield, Robyn and Subfocus. On ‘The Constant’ you can find an upbeat cover of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’. The Badger caught Eliot at the Brighton Ballroom on 3 November on their last gig of the tour. We sat down with Sumner for a casual and to the point interview before the gig. And took note of an unshakable passion for music.

Caption: Eliot Sumner Photo Credits: iblamecoco.com

What’s your next project? To release the next record.

Best gig so far on this headlining tour? Manchester and New Castle.

Tell me about ‘Self Machine’. It’s about a robot that is programmed to be ego and can’t help himself. Everybody is programmed to be in a certain way, people are different. It’s a metaphor really.

How did you end up doing the cover of  The Special’s ‘A Message To You, Rudy’ with Natty? Me and Natty have known each other for eight years now. So it just happened naturally.

What is your relation to reggae music? I’ve been in plenty of reggae bands before so I have a good understanding of it.

Why do you make music? Music makes me happy.

Another new artist in the loop, Kyla La Grange, played beforehand and Coco was stood amongst the crowd to listen to the support act. The crowd were shouting her name by the time Sumner conquered the stage and her response was, “Brighton, how you feeling tonight?” I Blame Coco played the hits ‘Selfmachine’, ‘Caesar’, ‘In Spirit Golden’ and ‘Quicker’ which you can also hear on the album. Sumner rather surprised but not disturbed said, “It is very quite in here, very intimate” which shows that she knows how to handle smaller stages such as the one in Brighton Ballroom. Before she performed ‘No Smile’ she confessed: “this is an old song, much older than my heart”. When the band played ‘Quicker’ Eliot in an excited state said “Now it gets even better”.

It’s a joy to see Coco Sumner perform because you never know what the next step is going to be and she moves randomly on stage. She also rhymes like any pissed off dude (“Please don’t distract my lyrical flow, I’m only rhyming the things I know. What I catch is what I throw, so fuck off and leave me”). This does not take away Coco’s humble attitude and frankly has got nothing to do with it; there is space in her music for such rudeness, which is spot on and amusing. Coco Sumner seemed happy, relieved and to have enjoyed finishing her first headline tour in such a small venue. “I’ll see you again soon” was her last words. I responded with a quiet “yes” to myself.

Published in The Badger, November 2010