Dirtblonde

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Dirtblonde’s Gig @ The Masque Goes Down A Storm!

Dirtblonde’s Liverpool Music Week gig at The Masque, supporting Bombay Bicycle Club, was a classic for the band.

Dirtblonde at The Masque, Liverpool Music Week 2009

After The Sand Band had the pull out, the organisers moved Dirtblonde up on the bill, as the main support act for the Bombay Bicycle Club boys.

The venue was packed and, perhaps unsurprisingly, nothing could prepare the audience  for the “Dirtblonde experience”!

First song, a new one called White Horses, seemed to leave the audience speechless. Literally – as soon as the song ended, after a barrage of guitars and weird tape echo oscillations, we were met with stunned silence.

Well, what can we do? It’s fashionable to say you are influenced by Jesus And Mary Chain or dance to Sonic Youth’s Kool Thing, or wear a Ramones t-shirt you bought from Topshop…but as soon as a band actually sounds as raw, loud and fucked-up as those bands did at their best, people are just not used to it!

Not to say Dirtblonde’s set didn’t go down well – it went down pretty well…and as usual the band split the audience: a few “boos”, some cheers, some excited teen girls, photographers tapping along to our songs…the whole lot!

“That’s how it works – if you like us, you clap. If you don’t like us – fuck off.”

Some shitty little bands the NME likes are there to entertain the indie audiences…we are here to give you an experience. Like it or not.

Ah! We just found a cool pic of Ivan almost hitting the photographer with his Epiphone Wilshire…check it out!

Dirtblonde Setlist @ The Masque:

• White Horses
• Brooklyn
• The Hangmen
• Superfan
• His Name
• Pretty

If you missed Dirtblonde @ The Masque, check our next gig for Liverpoool Music Week, at MOJO, on Tuesday 10th November – FREE ENTRY!

Dirtblonde gig at MOJO for Liverpoool Music Week...come!

Dirtblonde’s Liverpool Music Week 2009 Gigs & More!

Dirtblonde are returning with a string of gigs in Liverpool – which don’t come too often,  so make sure not to miss us!

This includes 2 dates for Liverpool Music Week 2009: on Wednesday 4th November supporting Bombay Bicycle Club and The Sand Band at The Masque; and on Tuesday 10th November at Mojo. Both gigs are FREE ENTRY!

In addition to this, we’re also headlining at Hannah’s Bar on Thursday 12th November, playing a Liverpool Student Media showcase. Entry only £3. For more info, CLICK HERE

Come to all the gigs if you can! We’ll play different sets for each one…

Dirtblonde live at Liverpool Music Week 2009

Dirtblonde live at Liverpool Music Week 2009, Mojo

Abandon Normal Devices gig! Dirtblonde play The Long Night of the AND Festival @ Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool!

Dirtblonde will be doing a very special set at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool this month, as part of the Long Night of the AND (Abandon Normal Devices) Festival.

The Long Night of the AND festival...

After our ace Andy Warhol’s Factory gig in Manchester last month (considered to have been one of our best!) we’ll tone things down and once again do something quite different than usual gigs.

We’ll be mixing poetry with electric guitars and play some acoustic songs, including ones we’ve never done before.  Influences/ inspiration for this set includes Terrence Malick’s Badlands film, Link Wray, Patti Smith and Joy Division, amongst other things.  

Lula will be reading some extracts from her debut poetry collection, At three o’clock I think of sex and death, recently launched at an event at the Bluecoat gallery (click here for more info about this release) 

Because this gig will be quite different than the usual Dirtblonde set, we decided to call ourselves Malcontents for this event. It’s still Ivan, Lula and a drum-machine…but different. So come and don’t miss this one-off gig!

Ivan and Lula will turn into Malcontents for one night only...

In addition to all this, Ivan will be the DJ for the night, providing some cool, atmospheric sounds (expect stuff like Air, Stereolab, Serge Gainsbourg, Radiohead, etc…)

Details:

The Long Night of the AND Festival, @ Walker Art Gallery, William Brown St. Liverpool. Thursday 24th September, from 5pm.  FREE ENTRY!

Other acts will also be performing, and it’ll be a great opportunity to preview the new Bridget Riley: Flashback exhibition!

Dirtblonde’s “Andy Warhol’s Factory” Gig in Manchester

Here’s some photographs from Dirtblonde’s latest gig, at the awesome ‘Cabinet of Curiosity’ club night in Manchester.

At each event, the participant bands are invited to create their ideal set. We decided our ideal set would be to play at Andy Warhol’s Factory, Velvet Underground-style…so we covered the set with tin foil, had some psychedelic lights and projections in the background and…it was great! One of best gigs!

Lula and her tin foil dress

The set started with a poetry performance by Lula, to the background music of The Gift by Velvet Underground.

Then,  Lula – wearing a tin foil dress – was joined by Ivan, all in black with a leather whip around his neck, on a new song, ‘White Horses’.

Ivan doing his Sterling Morrison/ Lou Reed thing

And while the screen flashed images of faded glamour, gutter and Valerie Solanos, the set continued with the usual tracks such as The Hangmen, Niagara and climaxing with a chaotic Teenage Bride, with Lula onstage singing with a red lamp while Ivan whipped his guitar and the audience.

Ivan, his guitar and his whip

Lula and a red lamp

We wish all gigs were this fun! Alas, it’s quite hard to find cool promoters like the nice fellas at Cabinet Of Curiosity, Manchester!

Dirtblonde doing a VU at Andy Warhol's Factory...kind of!

And this is how Lula’s dress looks like, now:

Lula’s tin foil ex-dress.

…”School Of Rock” for bands who want to go to SXSW? Nah!

According to a Liverpool Daily Post article yesterday, Parr Street studios in Liverpool will host next month a “school of rock” event to help Merseyside musicians to go to South By Southwest (SXSW) festival next year.

I say…silly, billy. Dirtblonde went to SXSW 2009 without any help from Liverpool Sound City, UKTI North West etc.

Not that we didn’t try to get help from them…we sure did, but in the end we were probably deemed not good enough for them, or whatever was their reason.

But did it stop us? No it bloody didn’t. If you believe in your music, you should just go for it, bite the bullet, risk it all. If you have the will to cross an ocean for your music, you can do anything. This is rock’n'roll.

No one really needs the approval of bureaucrats…how rock’n'roll is that?

And in the end, it was totally worth it. We had an amazing time in Austin, we just loved it. 

People loved us too, and proving that money can’t buy everything, Dirtblonde’s one and only official set at SXSW 2009 took place at a better stage than that of ANY of the other Liverpool bands who Sound City took to the festival (Hot Melts, Wave Machines, etc).

AND, on top of it all, we were the only Liverpool band named as a “must-see” highlight of the festival, as the local press listed us alongside names such as Primal Scream! And we achieved this despite the fact we didn’t enjoy the publicity push that all the other Liverpool bands, who played at the Sound City BBQ, enjoyed.

The lesson? If you’re in a band and you want to go to SXSW 2010 and want to attend all that school of rock crap, apply for funding etc etc, ok go for it, you got nothing to lose! But in the end, if you can’t get the support of all those “official” bodies, you should still try to do things by yourself…it can be worth it!

cheers

Ivan

Dirtblonde to play gig with S.C.U.M.

S.C.U.M. singer...

Make sure you come along and check out our next Liverpool gig at Korova (Wood Street) – Saturday 2 May, starts 8pm.

We’ll be supporting cool London band S.C.U.M.  who are mates of The Horrors and who say they are ‘Punk/Visual/Gothic’…

£5 on the door

Dirtblonde Supports The 1990’s This Sunday in Liverpool!

Dirtblonde have just been confirmed to support the acclaimed 1990s, cool band from Glasgow featuring Jackie McKeow (ex-Yummi Fur). 

O2 Academy Liverpool – this Sunday, 26th April, 7pm,  entry £7 (£5 guestlist/ flyer)

They’re good mates with Franz Ferdinand (Alex Kapranos also played in Yummi Fur) and both their albums (‘Cookies’ and this year’s ‘Kicks’) were released by Rough Trade Records and have been produced by ex-Suede genius guitarist Bernard Butler (who also produced…Duffy!)

In other words – 1990s are really cool and this will be a great gig!

Email your name to theband@dirtblonde.co.uk if you want to get in our cheap guestlist…or simply print this flyer:

print this flyer and get discount entry for the 1990s/ dirtblonde gig

More Dirtblonde-ness For You.

Here’s a quick round-up of Dirtblonde-related news that has appeared on the web recently…

Dirtblonde at Emo's Annex, SXSW 2009 (photo: indiecision.com)

A New Band A Day

Refreshingly, it’s always nice to hear from people who  actually “get” Dirtblonde, such as the good folk at  www.anewbandaday.com website, who highlighted Dirtblonde late in March. A good thing to see in the comedown from the South By Southwest high!
“[ dirtblonde] know the truth in unassailable Rock ‘N’ Roll Fact #1: a loud guitar is better than a quiet one.”

Another cool quote:

“Listening to Call It Art, it occurred to me that I could barely remember the last time I heard a song where a chunky guitar and vocals were the only sounds to trouble the listener …in a time when even the newest, greenest bands equate good ‘production values’ with success, this is welcome respite indeed.” read full article here

Ye Wei Blog

“…sad to say, their showcase set of this UK duo with a drum machine was painfully brief (20 minutes??) but the part that I did catch was great, catchy drone rock. Hope they come back soon and do longer sets.”  Ye Wei Blog

Liverpool.com

Dirtblonde did a Q&A with the well-known Liverpool magazine/website, talking about South By Southwest 2009 and other things.

“Not many bands in this city could be described as having true punk energy. Dirtblonde are one. Not falling into any traps of the poseur or pastiche, Ivan and Lula are the real deal: scuzz-loving, gritty noiseniks, with a live show that will floor you. Raw power, if you like…” read feature here

Dirtblonde gig at SXSW 2009: “Awesome” set ends in E.R.

Dirtblonde brought some true punk rock energy to South By Southwest, at a gig that many punters described as “awesome”.

The band played to a really good crowd. The venue helped – the Emo’s Annex tent, where acts such as The Asteroids Galaxy Tour and Little Boots also played, the previous nights.

The sound was really good and loud,  and Dirtblonde’s juggernaut of rock’n'roll noise certainly sounded louder and more radical than most acts at the festival.

Dirtblonde onstage at Emo’s Annex

By the end of the gig, declarations of love for Lula, and the most heard description was “awesome”.

Not that everything  was so swell…Ivan smashed a bottle on his guitar at the end of Dirtblonde’s set, and accidentally slashed his hand. The stage and his gear were splattered with blood, and Dirtblonde’s South By Southwest adventures ended up at the local hospital’s E.R. where Ivan received 6 stitches.

To view more Dirtblonde’s photos at SXSW 2009, go to our Flickr page.