Jade's Music Blog

Justin Nozuka at Barfly, March 16

Canadian teen superstar Justin Nozuka is being widely touted as the next Damien Rice and has already been playlisted by Radio 2. Not bad for a lad of 18, who doesn’t finish school until June.
He’s on his way to Liverpool to play at the Barfly next week, and if his last few UK shows are anything to go by, it promises to be something special.
His debut album, Holly, has been topped as one of the best debuts of the year and his first single, After Tonight, which is out this week, has marked him out as one to watch.
The rest are about love, loss, hope, despair, life and death, delivered with vocals which weave in and around the melody.
Nozuka is taking a ‘have guitar, will travel' attitude to his new career, and is part-way through an exhausting UK tour, before heading back to Canada to graduate in the summer.
“It's happening very quickly for me, but it doesn't feel crazy,” he says. “In Toronto I've been playing lots of shows and the following does seem to be building. It feels like the right steps, and it feels like the right time to be working a lot.”
Born to a Japanese father and American mother in New York, and the sixth of seven children, Justin moved from New York at eight years old to Toronto. “There are lots of cool places to play, it's a good scene, especially for singer-songwriters. It's a very musical family, I have four brothers and two sisters. All the brothers play music, so there was always music around the house.”
Justin Nozuka will be at Barfly on March 16. For more information see www.myspace.com/justinnozuka

The Twang at Barfly, Tuesday March 20

Widely touted as the next big thing, Brummie five-piece The Twang thus far seem to be justifying the hype. They sound a bit like Oasis, a bit like U2, mixed with Streets-esque observational lyrics and streetwise attitude to spare.
Unheard of until October, Birmingham five-piece The Twang were suddenly the subject of discussion in the pages of the NME, the message boards of a hundred band sites, the A & R departments of every big UK record label and their demos were being played on Radio 1 by December.
Now signed on B-Unique (the same label as the Kaiser Chiefs) the band have just finished recording their already hugely anticipated debut album, The Twang are taking to the road for their first full UK tour.
Next week sees the release of first single Wide Awake, a barrage of chiming guitars, infectious, early Madchester grooves and a hook which stubbornly refuses to get out of your head all day.
“I know Liverpool very well, so we said it had to be one of the venues for the tour,” says charismatic motormouth frontman Phil Etheridge. “My girlfriend was at university here, so I used to go out here all the time. We’re going to make time to go and see some of the city.”
Their pre-Christmas London gigs were packed to the rafters with a mix of record companies and musicians, who hailed them one of the most exciting bands to appear in the UK for a long time
They are playing the Barfly date as part of the Levi’s Ones To Watch tour, which has already featured The Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks, The Fratellis and Liverpool favourites The Wombats.
Check the reaction to the band on their MySpace page - www.myspace.com/thetwang; as the band themselves say, “Everybody's 'avin it”.

Little Flames, Liverpool Barfly, March 30.

With fans across the music industry and The Arctic Monkeys covering their songs, Liverpool quintet The Little Flames are being tipped as the nest big thing.
Now, the guys and girl are getting ready to release their new single Isobella and are playing a hotly anticipated date at the Barfly later this month.
It’s early days, but they are already building up a considerable fan base, including Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. The Sheffield lads have already covered Put Your Dukes Up John and invited the Little Flames to support them at their run of secret gigs over the last few weeks.
The Little Flames are singer Eva Petersen, guitarist Mat Gregory, Miles Kane (guitar and vocals), Joe Edwards (bass and vocals) and drummer Greg Mighall drums. They were brought together by mutual friends and hit it off immediately.
“One night, we ended up back at this dingy basement flat by the park, we just stayed up all night, trying to keep warm, playing as fast as we could,” says Mat. “We had this seventies Casio keyboard with a drum machine and some horrible, cheap rusty stringed guitars. The flat above was abandoned, so we cranked everything up and it began kicking off. We’d only been together about eighteen hours. It was proper chaos. After listening back to the end of the recording, we put together an early version of Goodbye Little Rose, which went on to be our first single”
The band soon came to the attention of Deltasonic boss, Alan Wills, who immediately found them room at his stable alongside The Coral, The Zutons and The Dead 60s. The Little Flames have spent the last few months recording their debut album The Day Is Not Today, working alongside Dead 60s producers Central Nervous System and Franz Ferdinand and The Cardigans producer Tore Johannsen. The result promises to be one of the best albums of the summer.