NoNewWaveNoFun

                                          Something new for you here at NoNewWaveNoFun,  a slight change of medium - it's the message don't you know! Yes, we've decided to host a series of video interviews with some of the bands or artists that we've featured on the blog so far. We get to know them better, what makes them tick and what would light up their Musical Heaven or terrorise them in Musical Hell.                                             Hall of Mirrors by Cross Wires First up is the lead singer of East End Post-Punks Cross Wires - Mr Jono Chapman! Those of you who have been reading the blog for some time will re-collect that one of the first singles I reviewed was their November 2020 single ' Hall of Mirrors' after them being one of the first outside submissions I received. Here's what I made of it at the time:   Cross Wires  have managed to strike a good balance on ' Hall of Mirrors ' - especially considering the time taken to record the

    Campfire Social (Photo by Holly Mason) NoNewWaveNoFun favourites Campfire Social  return with a video for their new single ' It's Not Goodbye (To Those We Left Behind', released today. The single is the bands' first release since August 2020 single ' Awake In The Wake Of A Wave' and will feature on the 6 track ' Everything's Changed'  E.P, scheduled for release in March on Mai 68 Records. You can buy the single at their Bandcamp page below.  2019 saw the band set sail as guests of Belle and Sebastian along with Mogwai, The Buzzcocks, Teenage Fanclub et al on a jaunt round the Med - a true highlight in their blossoming career. 2020 was set to be busy year for them too with a slot confirmed for the SXSW Festival in Austin; before the obvious curtailed their plans. They'll be performing live virtually for the world's largest showcase festival between March 16th-20th.                                                .  It's Not Goodbye (To

                                                                             The word prolific is often overused in the descriptive sense; an average goal-scorer in the Premier League goes on a hot streak and suddenly they're a "prolific marksman". It's also a word that appeals to those tasked with articulating the requisite hyperbole to describe those with a knack for consistency in the creative arts.   Mark.E. Smith  of  The Fall  was often lumped with 'prolific' because he was:  a)  Notoriously vague and hard to pin down.  b) Incredibly difficult in interviews and  c) Producing album after album of cryptic, often flawed but often GENIUS, work that defies conventional categorisation.  Claire Welles is certainly an artist who can could afford a wry smile whilst reading that opening paragraph. Unlike Mark was, Claire is not so hard to track down and is much more accommodating - but what she does share with him is the consistent and challenging body of work th

It's that time of month for Submission Hold - the second in our series of mini reviews of submissions received here at  NoNewWaveNoFun HQ  . Once again, I've spent hours trawling through the seemingly never-ending submissions we get sent through the Contacts section of the blog and on our social media pages ( Facebook here ,  Twitter here ,  Instagram here ) to find 4 of the best that we've received from all over the world. Last month's Submission Hold proved to be incredibly popular - in fact it is the most popular piece on the blog so far, with several hundred views to date. The artists from Vol.1 were   sleeplore from Pennsylvania, ya from Spain (via Russia) and two from the UK - County Durham's Vice Killer and Kent's Uncool Paul.     It's all the more reason to keep sending those new singles and E.Ps to the blog, as we're willing to listen to whatever you have to offer and who knows- it could be your music getting featured next month.

                                                                                                                                                            Pushpin - Folds There's an inherent problem that repeatedly rears it's head with doing this kind of blog. Taking as many open submissions as I do, you do find the same sounds popping up again and again. Now don't get me wrong; I've always been a fan of the Post Punk bands of the late 70s and early 80s - in fact, bands like Gang of Four, Joy Division and The Fall have created some of my favourite songs and albums of the era - but bloody Post Punk is everywhere.   Band becomes successful with single based around a recycled Wire riff and suddenly everyone is in on the act - it's a tale as old as time; cynical? MOI?!?! Some of the bands who are throwing their music in the Post Punk ring have something interesting enough about them to stand out from the rest. East London's Cross Wires  are a good example (see li

       Green Man Festival  Here we go again on our own. The UK has entered it's third national lockdown in under a year to try and contain the new variant of Covid 19 and once again we find ourselves yearning for life to return to some sort of normalcy - it's even got me paraphrasing Whitesnake.  The unwelcome, but absolutely inevitable news got me thinking and dreaming of a return to my happy place. Some of you will find solace in dreaming of golden-sanded beaches with miles of coastline as far as the eye can see, swimming pools with a good book and endless top-ups of cocktails on demand; the sun burning you to a crisp with scantily-clad Europeans giving you the eye. Not for me brother.  Every year since 2015, My partner   and I spend our escapist long weekend at the Green Man Festival in the midst of the Brecon Beacons - a National Park in South Wales . We've both been avid festival goers in our youth with plenty of V, Reading, Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival

                                                                                           Lightning Books - I'm Being Followed  You can never really underestimate the role of fate in life sometimes. Several years back I interviewed Sarah Negahdari from L.A band Happy Hollows,  and her viewpoint on the abstract nature of chance was that there is a mysterious magic  to the world sometimes, that seems to lead people together and ensure a change to people's lives. That always stuck with me and although a pre-ordained fate seems a step too far; certainly that concept of enhancing coincidences seems to hold some philosophical weight.   Read the NNWNF review of Happy Hollows last single here It's a thought that won't be lost on Irish musician Dave O'Riordan. After an old band broke up, O'Riordan  moved from his musically-rich hometown of Bray, Ireland  - also home to Ffion Regan and Hozier - to the culturally liberal climate of Amsterdam  in search of change of i

Submission Hold Vol 1 The building of this blog has been a slow and deliberate process. I'm not the most patient of people, perhaps why I've never been able to train myself to play a musical instrument - I always wanted to be Johnny Marr straight away when I picked up a guitar. So when I decided to take the blog onto Social Media I started with the big boys; Twitter and Facebook seemed the most logical places to start. It was only when I went on Instagram with the blog however that submissions started to go through the roof. They've been coming in from all over the world in the last week or so, which of course, is incredibly gratifying and humbling. The quality of some of the submissions has been incredibly high too, so it felt only right that I should tell you about some of the artists that have been contacting me. Submission Hold is my nod to the tracks that were sent through the contacts section at the home page and I've selected 4 of the best that I've received

' The Avenue' artwork The second new single release from Mai 68 Records in the last week - following The Shipbuilders ' ' Hanging Me At Dawn ' - is the sublime new single from Mondegreen . ' The Avenue' is the band's second single of the year following March's release ' Winter'   and sees a band beginning to reach for the middle of the Venn diagram of their influences and find their own voice. Widnes'  Mondegreen  are a band as inspired by the girl group pop music of their youth as they are the  alt-folk of  Laura Marling  and  First Aid Kit . Comprising of sisters  Laura  and  Leanne Griffiths  and completed by childhood friend  Claire Smith  - the band have been making dreamy and harmonious guitar pop for several years now. Previous E.Ps have been played by BBC Introducing and on BBC 6 Music and it's difficult to envisage a way this won't generate more attention. Starting with the kind of guitar tone that would make