BEEHIVE CANDY

These days they are known as The Unthanks and for good reason as Rachel Unthank explained - It makes me very happy and proud to be changing our name to The Unthanks, and relieved too, as my sister Becky has shared lead vocals with me from the start. Back then when she was just 17, about to start university and unsure about committing indefinitely to our partnership, we chose a name that gave her the freedom that was perhaps key to us still being together now. Back in 2008 they were still Rachel Unthank and The Winterset , and this short session is from December 2008. It makes a fine introduction to the band who are an English folk group from Northumberland. They made their debut performance at Towersey Village Festival in August 2004 and in May 2005, launched their debut album, Cruel Sister at Holmfirth Folk Festival. Cruel Sister received support from a number of DJs on BBC Radio 2 and was subsequently awarded Folk Album of the Year by Mojo magazine. Their 2007 follow-up album, Th...

You may have noticed a considerable amount of excitement in the mainstream media including The Word Magazine, Rolling Stone, NPR (American public radio) and the Los Angeles Times in the latter part of December along with a good number of fellow music fan sites regarding the 'release' of a double album vinyl bootleg called The Smiths - Unreleased Demos and Instrumentals. Indeed such was the quality of this material, my first reaction when listening to it initially, was to check out if this was an official compilation and someone was having me on, regarding the material being a bootleg 'release'. As a result of searching around online I have picked up a fair amount of additional information and my thanks go out to the many fans of The Smiths who have researched this (and whom I am unashamedly copying from in the details section below). The original vinyl rip was in mono and this is a vastly cleaned up version that improves the quality considerably. The 'informed ...

The Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music took place at the Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet, England over the weekend of 27th and 28th June 1970. The line up included a good number of major American acts (inc Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa, Steppenwolf) and from the UK the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. The festival suffered from some appalling weather at times and also from traffic jams getting to the venue which affected some acts. The original schedule of artists times for appearing went disastrously wrong and delays eventually meant acts appeared through both nights and into Monday morning. The Byrds appeared on stage, in the early hours of Monday 29th June and the following from the festival archives site takes up the story - It was really late, something like 2 am . We were down the front, as the hordes of Zep fans had gone home. It was wet windy and cold, the Airplane had left the stage because of shocks from the mic's. But the Byrds were ma...

2011Candy takes up from where 2010FM left off, however this year we hope to expand the feature along with Beehive Candy in general. In the meantime the new music just keeps on coming and we are delighted to start of the new year with some fascinating artists and music from a variety of genres. Background: Michael Lee’s debut EP Hold On Till Heaven is Lee’s first foray into original music, and he has a great supporting cast: John “Rabbit” Bundrick on keyboards (The Who, Pete Townsend, Roger Waters, Mick Jagger, The Rocky Horror Picture Show); Steve Bundrick handled production and added drum tracks and producer/engineer Kirt Shearer (Cake) handled the mastering. Lee plays guitar, bass and sings on the album, while exploring issues such as faith (“Believe”), vampires (“Lost In A Touch”) and the evil stench of Paparazzi (“Mind Your Own Business”) in wonderfully post-pop rock arrangements. Hold On Till Heaven is just an appetizer for what’s to come however, as the project took on a life...

This is The Black Crowes during the making of their second album 'The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion' with some of the tracks close to the final album release versions and a few at an earlier stage. The Black Crowes remain one of my all time favorite live bands and their studio offerings have never disappointed.On three of these songs I had to go back to the official release to check for any differences, there are, but not that much. The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is the second album by the The Black Crowes, released on May 12th, 1992. It was the first record by the band to feature Marc Ford on lead guitar, replacing Jeff Cease, who left the year before. It features four hit singles; "Remedy" ( number 1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart for 11 weeks), "Thorn in My Pride" (number 1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart for four weeks), "Sting Me" (number 1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart for two weeks), and "Hotel Illness...

Lets start 2011 with some Madness , as the reality of the year ahead ain't necessarily gonna be so much fun if the doom and gloom from our illustrious politicians (here in the UK) is anything to go by. This is a wonderful concert recording from the Pinkpop festival held at Landgraaf, The Netherlands, this actual performance was on 31st May 2009, and broadcast on FM. The then new album, entitled The Liberty of Norton Folgate was released just a week or so earlier, on 18th May 2009. It charted at Number 5 in the UK album charts. The band went on to play various festivals, including Pinkpop and Glastonbury. On 27th September 2009, the band also played a free concert on a closed-off Regent Street in association with Absolute Radio. The band have continued to both record new material and tour in recent times, and a new album is due later on this year, which following the critical acclaim of the last one and the sheer pleasure of listening or seeing them live, gives many of us some...

It's the final 2010FM roundup of new and recent music, this December has seen the new music keep on coming without let up and it's been a bit of a struggle to keep on top of sharing the songs that have grabbed out attention. So as always in no particular order here is the last batch we are featuring this year! We are told that for Seafarer , music’s always been an unremitting cycle of altering parts; that is, until most recently. The fact that their self-released EP, Hiding Places, is now being re-released to a larger audience is testament to the band’s hard-working state of mind. A mentality and strategy that has kept them grounded since their inception two years ago, Seafarer have fully embraced the craft of being dissimilar and still, engrossing gripping. As for the album, front man, Patrick Grzelewski, states, “It taught us so much about ourselves and the music we were creating, and allowed us to step outside of it in a way we never had before.” Pieces change and shift wi...

This is one of my favorite female artists of recent years, Kate Nash live in concert back in March of this year (18th March 2010) at the Admiralspalast, Berlin, Germany. Kate Nash started her career in 2005. After several gigs, she uploaded her music to MySpace. She found a manager for herself before seeking producers for her music. Kate Nash's debut was a single, "Caroline's a Victim" / "Birds", produced and recorded in Iceland by Valgeir Sigurðsson and released through Moshi Moshi Records in February 2007. The release was limited to 1000 copies, and was available on only 7" vinyl. Due to demand another 1000 copies were made and sold out. CD-promo copies were produced for distribution to the press and DJs etc, and are occasionally available for sale. Her debut album 'Made Of Bricks' and this years follow up 'My Best Friend Is You' have established her as both an excellent songwriter and musician, and the tours have just added to th...

This is The Beautiful South performing an acoustic concert on the 29th November 2001 at Boeblingen, Munich, Germany. The concert was subsequently broadcast on Bayern 3 (3rd December 2001) and WDR2 (20th January 2002). Paul Heaton, Dave Rotheray and Dave Hemingway are all performing, I am not sure if any other members of the band were involved. The band were supported on the German gigs by a young German band called 'Lost In Venice' from Stuttgart. The Beautiful South formed at the end of the 1980s by two former members of Hull group The Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway. The duo were initially joined by Sean Welch (bass), Dave Stead (drums) and Dave Rotheray (guitar), all of whom stayed with the group throughout their 19-year career. Later additions included female vocalist Briana Corrigan; she was replaced by Jacqui Abbott, who in turn was replaced by Alison Wheeler. The group broke up in January 2007, claiming the split was due to "musical similarities...

We have been swamped again by new music these last couple of weeks, and there are just so many good songs to cover, so we are doing this edition of 2010FM a little differently. Quite a few singer songwriters in this edition however once again we are covering alot of different styles and genres, all in our opinion worthy of a feature to say the least. First up is Tristen from Nashville, who has been compared to Jenny Lewis and has a really nice mix of folk, pop and rock in a distinctive and "wanna hear more" style. Featured Track: Baby Drugs Website : Official . ___________________________________ Billy Schafer 's promo states that he soars into the chorus of "The Dream is Alive" filled with infectious passion and conviction. This song and the others from his debut CD, First to Believe, introduce Billy as a singer-songwriter with an intuitive and confident grasp of song-craft. Fueled by accessible melodies and emotive lyrics of romantic depth, wit, and ...