Tough Love Podcast No. 1

Boredom can be a dangerous thing. Once I was so bored I ate two dinners and would've gone for a third if stomach and fridge capacity allowed. So last Sunday we found ourselves in a similar situation, deciding instead to turn our attentions away from potential obesity and towards Garageband and the dreamwish of our very own Podcast. And you may decide that's what it remains. We're hardly au fait with the process of 'producing' media content of this kind, but everyone has to start somewhere and growing up in public is a common practice now. Whether this exercise has been successful or not is for you to judge, but it was certainly a lot of fun to make. Hopefully we'll become more slick as we gain experience. But there's also a very real possibility that we wont. Lo-fi, DIY; it's all kudos, right?

So here it is, the first Tough Love podcast: one take, unedited, ramshackle and unshackled.



Tracklisting:

1. Situationists - "Onwards and Upwards"
2. Aspirins - "Hollow Out"
3. Crystal Stilts - "Converging In The Quiet"
4. Scott Walker - "Plastic Palace People"
5. Honeytrap - "Little Blue Holes"
6. Favours For Sailors - "Erode My Empire"

Sunday 9th November - in photos

FAVOURS FOR SAILORS

world in motion

all sweaty and thoughtful

posed to death

CALORIES

adventuring can be dangerous

"off we go into the sunset"

SITUATIONISTS

all-boy gang choir

jouissance

"we stood in silence..."

Let's Talk About Love

Tough Love is an appropriate name for this pirate endeavour we have here. When I think of love - and I mean love in its nascent stages - it's not the swinging round the lamp post exhaulted joyful type, or a cartoon like quivering of the legs swooning just the other side of lust. It's something that little darker. It's a slight sickness. That's a well known characteristic and let's not trot out those 'love sick' cliches. But it's also anxiety and possibility as one: exciting of course, but charged with fear, doubt and that crushing feeling that at some point soon you're going to fuck it all right up hard, fast and embarrassingly forever. Love is hard.

And so that's how i feel about this here record label. It's inconsistent short bursts of elation, constantly punctuated by a subtle frustration and worry. But it's worth it. Last Sunday night showed that, as we held the London launch for Situationists new EP at the Old Blue Last. It was an epically dismal Sunday. Rain lashed at an expectant but hungover body and I don't think i was the only one feeling that way. But despite the nightmare billing of Sunday evening malaise, post-alcohol come-down blues and the bleak insistent force of nature, people came. Quite a lot of them. And they cheered and smiled and generally weren't awful. It was a bloody revelation. Situationists were supremely confident, buoyened no doubt by the reception the new EP has received (and is still receiving). They even played a new song; all elegiac guitar lines intersecting like the cartographic wonderlands they've often romanticised about, alongside some fine American Football-esque melancholy. It's a perfect counterpoint to the indiepop precision of their more well-known songs. Exciting and excited in equal measure, i was spilling over.

Unfortunately, the EPs hadn't arrived in time from the Czech Republic, which was potentially embarrassing. However, Ralph's (Situationists drummer) spark of ingenuity and creative abilities saved face admirably and it was beautiful to see people still paying for music despite all that media scare mongering that seems to find residence in the less considered press on a weekly basis. And very good music, of course. There's a lot to be said for good taste and then knowing what to do with it.

And of course the night wouldn't have been what it was if not for the might and drive of Calories and the ramshackle powerpop charm of Favours For Sailors. And they're all, in one form or another, Tough Love bands. It's an exciting time, but one I'm fully prepared to see collapse into a mess of my own making. But that's the nature of this particular beast.

So, you can also purchase the new EP from our site here: www.toughloverecords.com/product.htm. We'll even send you free MP3s of the songs while you wait for the record to be delivered.

On a related note, Puregroove Records - that exceptional independent London record store (amongst many other things) - have included a free Situationists song as a free download on their site. Go to this link and download it now: http://www.puregroove.co.uk/itemview.aspx?item=674

So much more news to come in the next few weeks and i'll endeavour to document it here properly. Promise.

Don't Go Home With Your Hard On

Sunday 9th November @ The Old Blue Last, Shoreditch

Following 3 years successfully promoting the club night Don't Go Home... in Coventry we can now finally present Don't Go Home With Your Hard On in London. Having played host to Dananananaykroyd, Johnny Foreigner, Rolo Tomassi, The Wave Pictures and Youth Movies in the last year, it's a club night with a proven track record at hosting the best new bands in the country.

Rather fortuitously, the launch night just so happens to be the date before Situationists release the aforementioned pretty bloody amazing second EP. It's almost like we planned it that way. And it's free too. So, details:

Situationists (EP launch) www.myspace.com/situationists

Calories www.myspace.com/caloriesband

Favours For Sailors www.myspace.com/favours4sailors

The Aspirins For My Children DJs www.myspace.com/aspirins
Tough Love DJs

8:30pm - 12:30am
FREE ENTRY