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!

Indietracks Festival

Our show last Thursday at Jamm was pretty hard to top - we played with the excellent Northern Portrait, Standard Fare and Moustache of Insanity and had the most fun doing so, but as ever the Indietracks Festival was the most well spent weekend any pop group could ever dream of. There's plenty of photos and video on the internet already, but we've picked out a nice one of us doing 'Fleeting Moments' to show you:



And there's two more videos here:
Falling Leaves at Indietracks
Cross The Line at Indietracks

We've got a few more shows coming up, then we're having a bit of a rest, so catch us while you can!

Friday 14th August

Twee As F**k @ tbc, London

With Half Sisters, Noughts and Crosses Band, and Scraps

Friday 21st August

P!O!P Kombinat Berlin @ NBI, Berlin

With The Gresham Flyers

Saturday 26th September

A Fog Of Ideas @ Hand and Heart Gallery, Nottingham

With Horowitz, Of Mice And Mental Arithmetic and Half My Heart Beats DJs

We're also going into the studio next week to record a very special song for an exciting covers project - more of which at a later date!

See you soon!

Flight Paths - out now!

Hi everyone,

It seems like ages ago when we were in a studio below a ukelele shop in Brick Lane spending a couple of weekends recording our first album. So we're now very excited to say the album is now in the shops. Here's a picture!



It's available on CD from all the best record shops, and you can also pick up the CD or MP3s from a host of online distributors, including iTunes, Amazon, HMV, Play.com etc. And it's also available on Universal Records in the Philippines.

However, by far the coolest way to buy the CD is directly from How Does It Feel To Be Loved?, which would mean less of your money goes to The Man!

Thanks so much to everyone who picked up an advance copy of the album. We've had some lovely responses, some airplay on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and Xfm, and also some really nice reviews. I hope it's okay to post a few of the reviews here, partly because some of our parents read this blog, and also because some of the reviews made us really happy!


"All at once demurring, flighty and flirty, bright eyed and bushy tailed, still calls to our minds the chirpy cosiness of Heavenly and the willowy hushed innocence and romance of Belle and Sebastian’s ‘Tigermilk’ whilst simultaneously found on this occasion nodding ever so slightly to Martha and the Vandellas and the Supremes ‘You can’t hurry love’"
Losing Today magazine

"This is Bacharach, and this is Bob Stanley. This is all those 60s pop groups who never aspired to be as cocky or salacious as The Shangri-La’s. This is 6pm practice for choral song after school. This is The Pale Fountains. This is Dickon Edwards. This is Sarah Records without any delusions of inadequacy. None of these might seem to be recommendations to you.... I know what I like, and I like this."
Everett True (founder of Plan B and Careless Talk Costs Lives magazines)

"With better tunes than the over-hyped Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, they know whether it's little boy lost Andy Hudson or Emma Hall's summery delights that are required to sing each line.Sounding like a lost Sarah Records gem, it's endlessly cute and beguiling, not sickly like their peers." 8/10
Planet Sound, Channel 4 TV teletext

"Their girl group-inspired pop nuggets glisten at every turn, laden with harmonies and a keen melodic nous which hints at a fast-approaching songwriting maturity.... Plenty here to thrill and invigorate fans of earnest indie-pop. At times Flight Paths is wonderfully enchanting, and with songs like this it’s hard to resist Pocketbooks’ charms"
Bearded

"A stream of hummable, always likeable stories, bubbling with lyrical imagination, rippling with a determination to encompass all of London life into a series of vignettes"
In Love With These Times, In Spite Of These Times

And our favourite, from a south coast town...

"Perfectly sweet indie pop that makes young boys and girls in hooded windcheaters skip along merrily in time to their own racing jingle jangle heartbeats. It's Belle & Sebastian without the undertone." 4/5
Bournemouth Echo

Ahem, that's probably enough reviews, sorry. There's a full set of reviews on the following thread if you want to see any more(!): Pocketbooks - Flight Paths reviews

Hope to see you at the Indietracks festival later this month!

Andy, Daniel, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

Footsteps now released!

Our new single, 'Footsteps' has now been released! It's available on iTunes, or to download for free from here.

The single is taken from our forthcoming album 'Flight Paths' which is released in July, but advance copies are available now from How Does It Feel To Be Loved?

Enjoy!

Pocketbooks in San Francisco!

Dan and Emma recently went all the way to San Francisco Popfest and played a short acoustic set. Here's a video of them doing a cover of Strawberry Switchblade's 'Since Yesterday' at the Dolores Park picnic on 24th May, shortly after Jonathan Richman had walked past with his dog and stopped for a look!

May/June gigs and Indietracks festival

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update to let you know a couple of shows over the next couple of months, and to let you know about this year’s Indietracks festival in July.

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Saturday 30 May
Pocketbooks + The Good Gods! + The Noughts and Crosses Band
The Wilmington Arms, 69 Rosebery Avenue , London EC1R 4RL
Nearest tube: Angel or Farringdon
Doors 8pm - Tickets £6
www.myspace.com/gooniteclub

We think this will be the 50th Pocketbooks show, so we hope you’ll join us to celebrate the occasion. It will also be a kind-of launch for our single and album, and it will be a ‘welcome home’ gig for Dan and Emma , who will be arriving straight off the plane from their holiday in the States.

If you’d like to come along for a cheaper price of £5, please email your name (or as many names as you like!) to pocketbooks@gmail.com

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Tuesday 9 June
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart + Trailer Trash Tracys + Pocketbooks
Madame Jo Jo’s, 8-10 Brewer Street , London W1F 0SE
Tickets are sold out, but a limited number will be available on the night.
www.myspace.com/whiteheatmayfair

We’re very excited to be playing with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart again. The atmosphere at their Lexington gig last week was electric and they sounded amazing.

------------------------------
Friday 24 July to Sunday 26 July
Indietracks Festival

This year’s Indietracks festival will be headlined by Camera Obscura, Emmy The reat, Au Revoir Simone and another headliner to be announced shortly.. The festival tkes place on a 1950s steam railway in the Derbyshire countryside, and festival-goer can ride the steam trains, visit the farm and watch bands playing on the outdoor stage, in a locomotive shed, in a church and on the trains themselves!

Elefant Records are curating one of the stages this year to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Other bands playing include Lucky Soul, La Casa Azul, BMX Bandits, Butcher Boy, The School, The Frank and Walters , The Smittens, Cats on Fire, Rose Elinor Dougall and ourselves!

Last year’s festival was a wonderful experience and we’re really excited about this year’s line-up. There’s more information at www.indietracks.co.uk

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Thanks very much to everyone who’s picked up our album so far and also to everyone who’s come to see us play recently.

Hope to see you at one of the shows!
Andy, Dan, Emma, Ian and Jonny x

Footsteps: the video!