Big Pink Cake Weekender

The Big Pink Cake Weekender takes place on the weekend of 5-7 November 2010 and is split between London (Friday 5 Nov) and Bristol (Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 Nov).

Bands playing over the weekend include The School, The Garlands, The Blanche Hudson Weekend, The Sweet Nothings, Standard Fare, Hong Kong In The 60s, The Sunny Street and loads, loads more.

We're delighted to be playing at the London night on Friday 5 November with The Garlands, The Electric Pop Group and The Kick Inside. It's at the Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, London and the last time we checked there were only about a dozen tickets left. Information and tickets are available at: www.wegottickets.com/event/93785

This is the only gig we have in the diary at the moment, although Andy will be playing at MJ Hibbett's Totally Acoustic in London on Tuesday 21 December.

In other news, there's just a few days left of the HDIF label's October sale. This month, all their albums are just £5, including our debut and albums from Butcher Boy, Cats On Fire, Saturday Looks Good To Me and Antarctica Takes It!: www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/hdiflabel.html

Hope to see you at one of the shows.

Andy, Daniel, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

Edinburgh Popfest

We'll be playing our first ever show in Scotland at the inaugural Edinburgh Popfest on Saturday 23 October.

There's some fantastic bands playing over the weekend, including Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Ballboy, Darren Hayman, Bearsuit, The Just Joans and loads more, and we're really looking forward to it!

The full line up for the weekend is as follows:

Friday 22 October @ The Wee Red Bar
Ballboy, Withered Hand, The Leg, Randolph’s Leap

Saturday 23 October @ The GRV
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, The Just Joans, Kid Canaveral, Internet Forever, Pocketbooks, Be Like Pablo, Red Shoe Diaries, Bearsuit

Sunday 24 October @ The Lot
Darren Hayman, The Bobby McGees, Bobby Baby, Eagleowl, Gordon McIntyre

Tickets can be bought for individual days or as a weekend pass (limited number only) and are available now from Avalanche Records in Edinburgh and online from WeGotTickets. You can also follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter.

Hope to see you there!

Berlin festival and summer shows

(The Kreuzberg Wasserturm. Photo: Beschty)

On the weekend of 3-5 September 2010, we'll be playing at the Indie Pop Days festival in Berlin, as organised by the city's fantastic Let's Kiss And Make Up club night. We're playing on Saturday 4 September night in the Kreuzberg Wasserturm, which is a water tower built in the style of a middle ages castle!

The festival's line up includes an ace selection of bands from across Europe including Lucky Soul, The Sunny Street, Labrador, The Felt Tips, Le Man Avec Les Lunettes, Labrador, Still Corners and Leaving Mornington Crescent.

Here's a selection of links if you'd like to find out more:
Let's Kiss And Make Up / Facebook / Last.fm


We'll also be playing and DJing in London and Leicester this summer. Here's the details:

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London - Saturday 26 June 2010
Scared To Dance

With guest DJs Emma and Ian from Pocketbooks
@ Kings Cross Social Club, 2 Britannia Street, London
Last.fm / Facebook

A first birthday party for this fantastic London indie pop club night, with our Emma and Ian DJing and a chance to pick up the Scared To Dance summer 2010 fanzine.

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London - Thursday 22 July 2010

HDIF Presents...

Tender Trap + Shrag + Betty and the Werewolves + Antarctica Takes It! + Pocketbooks

@ Jamm, 261 Brixton Road, London, SW9 2LH
Tickets / Last.fm / Facebook / HDIF Presents

HDIF presents a pre-Indietracks spectacular to help raise money for Antarctica Takes It!, who are travelling from Santa Cruz to play at the Indietracks festival this year. Tickets are just £5.

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London - Tuesday 10 August
Pic'n'mixx

Lucky Soul + The School + The Lodger + Pocketbooks DJ set + How Does It Feel To Be Loved? DJ set
@ Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, 2-4 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NU

Tickets / Last.fm

Our Dan will be stepping up to the DJ decks at this ace Pic'n'mixx night. Don't forget to bring along a compilation CD to swap at the door.

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Leicester - Friday 24 September 2010
Twesta presents...
Pocketbooks + The Gresham Flyers + The Screenbeats

Firebug, 1 Millstone Lane, Leicester LE1 5JN
Twesta / Last.fm

Our very first gig in Leicester, presented by our friends at Twesta.

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Nottingham - Sunday 26 September

Nottingham Indiepop Weekender

Emma and Ian from Pocketbooks (acoustic set) + Scumbag Philosopher + tbc
@ Chameleon, 17 Angel Row, Nottingham, NG1 6HL

Info

Emma and Ian will be playing an acoustic set at the second day of this indiepop spectacular. Bands playing the previous day include Allo Darlin, The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut, Horowitz and Betty and the Werewolves.

Hope to see you at one of the shows!

Andy, Daniel, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

May and June 2010 shows

Sadly we didn’t make it to Copenhagen Popfest because the Iceland volcanic ash meant that our flights were cancelled. This means that our UK shows in May and June will be our first gigs in six months. We’ll definitely be playing some new songs, so please come along if you can.


Thursday 13 May - London
Scarlet's Well + Vatican Cellars + Pocketbooks
@ Bull and Gate, 389 Kentish Town Road, London, NW5 2TJ
Tickets / Last.fm

This will be a first chance to hear lots of our new songs and possibly some neglected songs from our past. We’re dead excited to be playing with Scarlet’s Well, who are fronted by Bid from the legendary Monochrome Set. We actually played with them at our first-ever gig back in 2006 so this will bring back some memories. We’re on first, so please arrive early!


Saturday 29 May - London
Pic'n'mixx presents
Pocketbooks + Cola Jet Set + Foxes! + The Cavalcade
@ Buffalo Bar, 259 Upper Street, London, N1 1RU
Tickets / Facebook / Last.fm

This will be more of a Saturday night kind of set with more of our familiar songs and just a couple of upbeat new ones. The idea behind Pic’n’mixx is that you bring a compilation CD with you and swap it at the door for a different one. It’s an ace line up and their last night was really fun, so please come along and have a dance!


Saturday 19 June - Nottingham
A Layer Of Chips presents
Standard Fare + Allo Darlin’ + Pocketbooks + Mascot Fight
@ Chameleon, 17 Angel Row, Nottingham, NG1 6HL
Info / Facebook / Last.fm

We’re playing with this year’s two new indiepop sensations, Standard Fare and Allo Darlin’, plus the fantastic Mascot Fight. A perfect gig if you can’t wait for the Indietracks festival in July!


Hope to see you at one of the gigs.

Andy, Daniel, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

Roadside Poppies and Pocketbooks in Copenhagen

Sadly, due to pesky volcanoes, a very disappointed Pocketbooks didn't make it to Copenhagen this weekend to play at the Popfest. We'd like to thank the lovely peeps behind it for inviting us, and we hope it was a fantastic weekend despite the disruption!

Special thanks to Roadside Poppies, who covered one of our songs, 'Cross The Line' in homage! Yes, that is our drummer Jonny on drums, who cleverly decided to travel to Denmark a few days ahead of us before the flight ban kicked in. As far as we know, he's still there!

Copenhagen Popfest

Edit (16 April): We're sorry to say that due to the Iceland volcanic ash flight cancellations we are unable to travel to Copenhagen for the popfest. We're really sad to be missing out and hope to make it over to Denmark soon.

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We'll be playing at the first ever Copenhagen Popfest, which takes place from Friday 16 April to Sunday 18 April 2010.

The festival will be three days filled with international and Danish indiepop acts, and we can't tell you how much we are looking forward to it! The line up is as follows:

Friday:
NoMoreHeroes, Labrador, Liechtenstein, The Electric Popgroup, Pocketbooks

Saturday:

Ampel, The Boombox Hearts, Gregory Webster Trio, Leaving Mornington Crescent, Death Valley Sleepers, Compute, Rose Elinor Dougall, Horowitz, Northern Portrait

Sunday:

Roadside Poppies, Tellus About The Moon, Iiris Viljanen, Cats On Fire

The Popfest will take place at Råhuset - right in the heart of Copenhagen. More details will be unveiled shortly, and we'll post all the information up here. You can also keep up to speed with the festival through its various links: official site, facebook, last.fm, myspace, twitter.

Tickets are available from the following link: Copenhagen Popfest tickets

Hope to see some of you there!

(Last edited: 14 March 2010)

Rough Trade Shops Indiepop 09: compilation and launch night

We’re delighted to say that our song Fleeting Moments will appear on the forthcoming Rough Trade Shops Indiepop 09 compilation.

The CD is released on 16 November, and we’re playing a free instore gig at Rough Trade East that evening to celebrate!

About the compilation…

The CD features 25 tracks, with a mix of new and established names and a few familiar faces who we’ve been playing gigs over the last few years. We loved Rough Trade’s Indiepop 01 compilation which came out a few years ago, and we’re really thrilled to be on this new instalment.

You can find out more about the compilation here: Rough Trade Shops Indiepop 09.

The tracklisting for the compilation is:

1. Tullycraft - The punks are writing love songs

2. The Faintest Ideas - Nosebleeders on the track

3. Love Is All - Wishing well

4. Girls - Morning light

5. Vivian Girls - Moped girls

6. The Girls At Dawn - Never enough

7. Veronica Falls - Beachy head

8. Cause Co-motion - You lose

9. Betty and the Werewolves - David Cassidy

10. Pocketbooks - Fleeting moments

11. Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!

12. Shrag - Hpelessly wasted

13. The Boy Least Likely To - The summer of a dormouse

14. The School - And suddenly

15. Play People - Goes out

16. Celestial - Somedays we are

17. Moscow Olympics - No winter, no autumn

18. Liechtenstein - Security by design

19. Minisnap - Leave it to you

20. Sad Day For Puppets - Marble gods

21. Dum Dum Girls - Longhair

22. The Legends - Seconds away

23. The Manhattan Love Suicides - Clusterf__k

24. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart -103

25. The Bobby McGees - l.o.v.e/: a masonic youth


Launch night: Monday 16 November

On 16 November we’re playing at a launch night for the compilation at Rough Trade East in London.

We’ll be playing with Veronica Falls, Betty and The Werewolves and Sad Day For Puppets. Ian Watson (How Does It Feel To Be Loved?) and John Jervis (Where it’s At Is Where You Are) will also be spinning some tunes.

The launch night is completely free to attend. Please check the Rough Trade website nearer the time to see whether you need to collect a wristband or anything. The event starts at 6.30pm and the first band is on around 7pm. We’ll be playing a short set at around 8.15pm.

Hope to see you there!

Andy, Daniel, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

Show with God Help The Girl / Japan album release

We're just writing with a few pieces of news from Pocketbooks HQ...

100 Club show with God Help The Girl

We’re really, really excited to let you know that we’ll be playing a show with God Help The Girl, the musical/film side project of Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian. It will take place at the 100 Club in London on Saturday 21 November and is being presented by How Does It Feel To Be Loved?

Tickets go on sale at 5pm today and we think they might go pretty quickly. They will be available from: www.wegottickets.com/event/62466

Further information is available from How Does It Feel To Be Loved?


Album release in Japan

This Wednesday our album 'Flight Paths' will be released in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau by the Japanese label Happy Prince. The release also includes the songs from our Waking UP EP and our free download track Summertime.

We are their 16th release, and they’ve also released albums by God Is An Astronaut and The Bird Ensemble. There's more information on the Happy Prince website.

The album is also available from Universal Records in the Philippines and from How Does It Feel To Be Loved? everywhere else in the world.


Other bits and pieces

We’ve a song on the upcoming Rough Trade Shops Indiepop 09 compilation, which is coming out next month. More information about that will follow when we have it...

We’ve done interviews for the Stereopathic and ZMEMusic websites.

And finally, the Indietracks festival has been shortlisted in two categories in the UK Festival Awards: best small festival and the critic’s choice award for La Casa Azul. If you get a chance, it would be wonderful if you could please pop over and vote for the festival at www.festivalawards.com before 4 November.

Hope to see you at the 100 Club!

Lost album sleevenotes

Earlier this year, when we were sorting out the artwork for our album, we tried to write some sleevenotes. We tried to write something that would fit nicely alongside this photo of Primrose Hill which Kris took and then adapted for the final album cover.

We then realised that there wasn't actually enough space in the booklet for these sleevenotes, so we sadly had to drop the idea. Here they are now - enjoy!

"Primrose Hill is 256 feet high, 50 acres wide and perhaps offers the best panoramic view of London, from sunrise to sunset. While other views bear down on the city, Primrose Hill is the one place that looks out across the horizon and the highest points of its skyline. From there, almost all of the capital’s landmark buildings – St Paul’s Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster, the London Eye, the British Telecom Tower and Canary Wharf – are clearly visible. If you look closely, you can just about see the British Telecom Tower on the cover of this record.

"The fact that we can see all these landmarks from Primrose Hill is more than just a happy coincidence, of course. Since the 18th century, there’s been a whole network of protected sightlines across the city, designed to make sure we can enjoy the occasional fleeting joy of a striking view on our journeys home.

"These sightlines are almost teasing in their simplicity though. Back down on the pavements, the opportunity to see a straight line between where you are and where you want to be rarely happens. In the daily rush of work or college, evenings out and unopened post, sometimes the books stay on their shelves and Bank Holiday plans pass by unrealised. There aren’t always any clear paths, just a series of steps.

"Last November, Primrose Hill was full of impromptu firework displays, kids playing music on speakers, couples drinking mulled wine and police cars happily keeping a low profile. We hadn’t really planned to be there beforehand, but enjoyed being part of it. The same’s probably true of our involvement in this record. We hope you enjoy it, however you got here."

Pocketbooks take over HDIF this Saturday!

Due to Ian Watson being out of town this weekend, he's asked yours truly to step in en masse and take over DJ duties for the night!

First up will be the guest DJs John & Chris from The Orchids, who will be playing between 10.30 and midnight, then the Pocketbooks gang will take over and play 'til the bitter end.

We're chuffed to be asked, and we're really looking forward to it! Of course, we'll still be taking requests as usual so come and say hello.

It's at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square, from 9.30pm.

Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133686219547&ref=mf

See ya there!