News | The Camden Crawl 2012

  1. You know how Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi weren’t really related? The Barr Brothers are a bit like that, in that there are two brothers in the band but also two other people. That analogy worked when we were starting that sentence.

    Read More

  • We love bands that talk. Faced with our questions, most acts rightly look at us in that way we all reserve for the weirdo on the bus, and give us as little of their personal information as possible. Not so north London’s Arrows of Love, bless them. Their intelligent, kinetic…

    Read More
  • One of the things you should know about Sex Hands is that they’ve abandoned their MySpace. “It makes our blood boil!” they declaim on their poor, abandoned corner of Justin Timberlake’s empire. We sort of like that. MySpace makes our blood boil, too.

    Decamp, then, to Sex…

    Read More
  • You only have to listen to ‘Pony’ by Race Horses to understand them: “I was playing buffoon,” sings Meilyr Jones in its very first bars, “with a bunch of pianos in my boiler room.” Not only does this kind of whimsy feel quintessentially Welsh – Race Horses seem to attract…

    Read More
  • Kwes has already had a career most producers would kill for: having worked with the likes of Zero 7, the xx and Speech Debelle, he carved a niche out for himself as experimental pop’s go-to man at the faders. He has toured with various bands, but it’s only recently that…

    Read More
  • Don’t believe your TV: Greece isn’t finished yet. The glamorous electronica of Keep Shelley In Athens is glorious enough to justify as many German bail-outs as that fine nation could possibly require. No, really: we trust Angela Merkel is listening.

    The slight wrinkle in this fool-proof plan…

    Read More
  • We guess ‘androphobia’ wasn’t a very good name for a band. Counterintuitively, fifty per cent of Fear of Men are made up of males – which we suppose must make for uncomfortable rehearsals. Not that you can hear it in their brightly brilliant songs, all bell-like guitars and beautiful harmonies.…

    Read More
  • The only member of a band who can compete with the drummer for the largest number of jokes made about them is the singer. One solution to this eternal battle of the comedy titans is to do without the vocals – they just get in the way of showing off…

    Read More
  • Say ‘Bastille’, and most people will think of the day on July 14th, 1790, when the Parisian Militia stormed a forbidding symbol of French royal power and set into motion the French Revolution and the birth of the modern nation state. It’s much less effort to bring to mind the…

    Read More
  • Lady Leshurr has a back catalogue of lyrics most writers would kill for: she’s been making them since she was six. She has become one of the UK’s foremost MCs, crossing genres with amazing versatility. Whether it’s house, hip hop, dancehall or pop, bashment or grime, Leshurr can spit on…

    Read More
  • Camden’s very own BIGkids are a duo who specialise in good times. Not for nothing their band name: their first single, ‘Drum In Your Chest’ is so much fun that it is frankly unecessary. Adults simply should not be seen jumping up and down in stacatto excitement like this. It’s…

    Read More
  • Guitar bands have been over since 1962. Fortunately for us, new guitar bands frequently come along to reanimate the corpse. The latest, PEACE, hail from the West Midlands and conjure something unusual: indie rock which you think you have labelled and filed away until the very next verse, which features…

    Read More
  • There are shelves and shelves of brylcreem across the country, and yet have you ever seen a pot in somebody’s else’s basket? The survival into the 21st century of this venerable haircare brand was, then, a puzzle doomed to remain unsolved until we met Willy Moon: with his sharkskin suits…

    Read More
  • If Au Revoir Simone had more synths – and who hasn’t sat back from time o time and thought that would be a good idea? – they would be Boy Friend. The duo from Austin, Texas, have never played the UK before, and we’re as excited as a giddy prom…

    Read More
  • Following on from the initial line up announcement two weeks ago, the Camden Crawl is excited to reveal the next batch of artists that will be appearing at the festival in May.
    Hot new additions include GLASVEGAS, THE FUTUREHEADS, THE RAINCOATS, Supergrass’ GAZ COOMBES, AND SO I WATCH YOU…

  • This introduction was almost written in rhyme. But where Polarbear creates wordpoems of romance and vigour, full of swagger and sensitivity, inspired wordplay and thoughtful truth-seeking, when we tried to do the same it just sounded like Rupert the Bear. We sufficed, then, with workaday prose.

    Read More

  • We all sometimes wonder why Talking Heads don’t send us flowers any more. They don’t call, they don’t write – we thought we had something special. Fortunately, Theme Park are on hand to be our bit on the side. They’ll wind up becoming something much more for you, too: they’ve…

    Read More
  • Let’s get this out of the way right now: yes, Alabama 3 are that band that did The Sopranos theme tune; no, there’s more than three of them; yes, they’re from Brixton. OK, we’re good.

    Alabama…

    Read More
  • Ghetts is one of the UK’s foremost new grime artists and MCs. You’ll have heard his music if you’ve ever listed to Radio 1, 1Xtra, Kiss or a bazillion other stations which regularly blurt his music from your speakers – and he’s also toured with Kano and NASTY Crew (he’s…

    Read More
  • Fanzine named their band for the publication you will feel duty-bound to selflessly and lovingly writer and edit after listening to any of their fuzzy, melodic, laid-back tunes. If the Apples in Stereo were from London, and still making music at the top of their game, they might be Fanzine…

    Read More
  • Formed in 2005 in the musical hothouse of Leeds, Hawk Eyes have a host of CDs, EPs and compilation appearances to their name, and have toured both the UK and Europe supporting the likes of We Are The Ocean and Turbowolf. Their guitars have more chunk than a jumper hand-knitted…

    Read More