SUMMER EURO TOUR 2010!
Current mood: evil
So the ferry is booked and we are getting back in the van on Sunday to tour in Germany and Belgium. We have even managed to lure Jarrod Robinson out of the Tourdates office to tour manage. Together with Russ Tarbox from Southgate - 2nd driver, roadie, merch - he has thrown caution to the wind and is joining us for the craic. Can Tourdates survive without him we wonder!
Thanks to Jutta from Mary Rockins Booking for booking the German dates and Fabris Lemant in Belgium for all their help. We are rehearsing a great, long set with the singles, songs from the album and new songs as last time we weren`t allowed off the stage in Germany until we played everything we possibly could and then some!
Monday 19th JULY, MS TREUE, BREMEN
Tuesday 20th JULY, CONSORTIUM, HAMBURG
Wednesday 21st JULY, THE BIG BUTTINSKY, OSNABRUCK
Thursday 22nd JULY, DUNCKER CLUB, BERLIN
Friday 23rd JULY, SOUNDS MUSIC HALL,ESSEN
Saturday 24th JULY, ROCK WAUBERG FESTIVAL, PEER
Sunday 25th JULY, CHARLATAN CLUB, GENT
Wednesday 11th AUGUST, PAULUSFEESTEN, OOOSTEND
Sunday 15th AUGUST, `t SJAMPETTERKE, ROESALARE
"..der neueste heiße Scheiss aus England!" SCENE2ACT.DE
See you soon!
Ros and Vas xx
Unwrapped: We Rock Like Girls Don’t / Welcome To My World
WRLGD `un-wrap` the story behind their recent single `Welcome To My World`... We Rock Like Girls Don`t released `Welcome To My World` a few weeks ago, and it was so pulse-quickening that Artrocker magazine was moved to describe it as being "like Hole gone down Rodney`s English Disco".
Technically speaking, the song was the result of the group signing to Domino Publishing and working with Gossip producer John Goodmanson. But what`s the real story behind it? We dispatched an Artrocker.TV reporter to find out...
"Welcome To My World was written in response to a gig we played in Chelmsford where we felt alienated from the whole thing. We were having to smile along through gritted teeth at this Japanese girl band who were pulling out tampons and couldn`t play to save their rock`n`roll souls. It is quite disdainful to the audience who seemed indulgent of this. "This is where you clap, This is where you smile.." etc.
Surely you pay your money and you want your heart stopped, your pulse racing and a sense as you leave the gig that you can do whatever it takes to stand up to the forces keeping you down and to change your life! Music has this energising, invigorating effect on us and it`s what we always try for. The lyric "Welcome to my war" in the last verse is about this and it goes beyond the gender thing.
We flew to Seattle in January and recorded the drum and guitars in Death Cab For Cutie`s drum temple of a studio and then did the vocals and mix in John Goodmanson`s Bog Roll Studios where we were sleeping on an airbed which kept deflating in the night!
The other side "Feeling Lonely Now" was written about the two of us touring in Europe in Vas`s car in 2009. It was fun to record with the vocals going through a Leslie Cabinet, twelve string guitars and as many Big Muff overdubs as possible on the heavy section until we were satisfied!
The single artwork is the vocal booth in Bog Roll Studios which is basically a cupboard John converted into a padded cell for vocalists complete with airholes which we thought looked like bullet holes. It was literally "my world" for the session. Vas took a photo of me taking a photo of it and the date captured on her video camera is when we were there."
ROS AND VAS
Listen to the track on Sound Cloud at http://www.artrocker.tv/features/article/unwrapped-we-rock-like-girls-dont-welcome-to-my-world
We Rock Like Girls Don`t are playing The Best Of New Heavy Sounds All Dayer @ The Gaff , Holloway Road on Monday 31st May, come along!
>>> NEW HEAVY SOUNDS CLUB presents
12 solid hours of the newest heavy scene in the UK
MAY 31st Bank Holiday All-Dayer
TURBOWOLF + CASTROVALVA + THESE MONSTERS + BLACKLISTERS + BAD FOR LAZARUS + STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR + WE ROCK LIKE GIRLS DON`T + BUFFALO + RUN WALK + GODZILLA BLACK + XM-3a
With spinning from DJs VOLK and PLIMSOLES and vision wrangling from VJ the k e r n s.
The Gaff
Holloway, London
Adm £6 / £5 with flyer
Doors 12 midday - 12 midnight
Line up/ stage times
2.45 - 3.15pm - Strange News From Another Star
3.30 - 4pm - Buffalo
4.15 - 4.45pm - Run Walk
5 - 5.30pm - Blacklisters
5.45 - 6.15pm XM-3a (aka fraff)
6.30 - 7pm - We Rock Like Girls Don`t
7.15 - 7.45pm - Godzilla Black
8pm - 8.30pm - Bad For Lazarus
8.50pm - 9.20pm - Castrovalva
9.40 - 10.10pm - Turbowolf
10.30 - 11.00pm - These Monsters
Message us for cheap list £5
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123568241001220&ref=mf
"Next up was We Rock Like Girls Don`t and, quite bloody frankly, a reason to petition against the BBC`s arse-hole decision to shut the station. Two people making such a glorious noise should be standing for parliament, but they`re not, they`re standing and grinding and riffing for you, dear listeners. Go and see them. Really."
Various Artists - Save 6 Music Awareness Live Review @ 93 Feet East (London) - 04 May 2010
Live Review
Choosing a venue for such an important event such as a `Save 6 Music` gig must have been a hard task - do you pick a flashy West End venue and dress it with busty tarts and muscle-bound Macs, replete with 6 Music lederhosen and grins broader than Jodie Marsh`s lipstick budget? Or do you host your shindig in a converted waste-disposal site with no roof, no bogs, no bar (bring your own) and a stage made from pallets and MDF, situated somewhere ironic - like Dagenham. Or Cleethorpes. Or, god forbid, London.....oh......bugger....
On the night, a better choice was the seemingly `buzzing` Shoreditch - Brick Lane to be exact and it was the honour bestowed upon the, frankly, ramshackle and hapless 93 Feet East club, a place that looked like it hadn`t actually been redecorated since the Blitz, nor its toilets re-stocked with anything to wipe your arse with since Churchill first started smoking, unless you count the walls of course. They`d run out of the best beer by, ooh, 6.30pm which is like Pizza Express running out of pizzas. Not an impressive start.
No matter, I didn`t need alcohol to absorb the opening set of high-energy and hip-swivelling by Alexander Price, a pair of sunglasses with a leather-vest adorned chap attached - I was already drunk from the smell of sweat. He bounced and wiggled his way through half a dozen Pet Shop Boys/Erasure/New Order clone-tunes before stripping the heart and soul out of PSB`s glorious "Rent". I feel there is some potential with young Mr Price but I`m not sure what it is. TV-presenting, maybe? Modelling? Driving a bus? You decide.
Isa and the Filthy Tongues kind-of blustered their way through some potty-mouthed swamp-thrash, the first tune of which reminded me of PJ Harvey for some reason. They were OK. Ian McNabb was more than OK, simply because the man writes (ahem) `songs`, things comprised of `melodies`, `lyrics` and a modicum of `rhythm`. Even strummed on an acoustic guitar, Icicle Works classics such as "Hollow Horse", "Love Is A Wonderful Colour" and "Evangeline" shimmer like flying fish in a rainstorm and Brian Nash from Frankie Goes To Hollywood adds a spot of humour and lyrical insight with his song, "Acute Anorexia". Pink Floyd and Beatles covers followed, as did some serious 6 Music sloganeering - indeed, the reason why we were all here tonight.
Shabby Rogue started late and finished early - but they proved to be a half-decent distraction from needing the loo. Next up was We Rock Like Girls Don`t and, quite bloody frankly, a reason to petition against the BBC`s arse-hole decision to shut the station. Two people making such a glorious noise should be standing for parliament, but they`re not, they`re standing and grinding and riffing for you, dear listeners. Go and see them. Really.
I like I Like Trains (ho hum, bet loads of people have said that) - they chime their guitars earnestly, they drum and thrash in a brooding manner and they reach their peak like dogs rutting on heat - post-rock that sits within the Bella Union roster, rather than Beggars. They could have played all night, to be honest but I didn`t like RedTrack I`m afraid, indie-by-numbers a-go-go - and Goldheart Assembly were not reason enough to miss the last train home - the three songs I did hear were rather lovely, however.
The whole evening was spattered with Andrew Harrison (The Word) bigging up the cause and all 8 bands were a credit for doing this, even if I didn`t like them all. The spirit of the evening was lost on a few performers but, hey, we live in an age of self-promotion and overall this was a resoundingly good evening.
Paul Pledger
Double A single WELCOME TO MY WORLD/ FEELING LONELY NOW is out today on all major download services!
"Cut`n`paste rock`n`roll, cackling like a freak and spurting flames from its ass" AAAA ARTROCKER
"Rock goddesses" Rated12/13 ROOM THIRTEEN
"We Rock Like Girls Don`t will definitely surprise anyone who settles down to listen to this double A single expecting your standard female-fronted rock music" THE MUSIC FIX
Live on Total Rock Radio!
Listen to Ros and Vas talk about recording new single in Seattle with US producer John Goodmanson live on Helldrive with Alli Cat at Total Rock Radio on Tuesday 27th April 4pm.
http://www.totalrock.com
WRLGD play Save 6 Music free protest gig at 93Feet East, London on Tuesday 4th May on stage 9pm
ARTROCKER MAGAZINE April 2010, 100th Issue
Welcome To My World/ Feeling Lonely Now
Distort Records
****
Come in, come in. Close the door and lie down. Now prepare yourself...for the leatherman! Yes, like a date with a gimp, "Welcome To My World is the sound of a slightly mental sexual encounter - singer Ros creeps up your leg with a demented smile and a twinkel in her eye. `Wanna play along?` she asks while drums and guitars cut`n`paste like rock`n`roll all around her..More interesting perhaps is Feeling Lonely Now which wafts around the room like a vaguely concerning but ultimately polite ghost..then suddenly starts cackling like a freak and spurting flames out of its ass. It is, in short, not very predictable."
Ric Rawlins
Out 26th April on all major download services.
Great time in Belgium at the weekend, got locked out of posh hotel room dripping wet from jacuzzi in mini towels cos we should`ve checked out by then..took boat trip of Brugges..Vas got mistaken for lorry driver on the ferry..avoided being taken home by drunken old guy in Maldegem who was supposed to be putting us up as found much nicer younger guy..oh yeah and did some rock`n`roll!
True Seattle Spirit is "having a stupid idea and sticking with it far too long" so we have adopted the place as the spiritual home of We Rock Like Girls Don`t!
Named after Indian Chief Seattle we loved it for its history, its rock`n`roll pedigree, the friendly people we met, the water and mountains surrounding it.
Fuelled by coffee, waffles and maple syrup we went up the Seattle Space Needle the morning after we arrived and saw where we had just flown to.
We went to the Experience Music Project where, like kids in a sweet shop, we played all the interactive guitars, pedals, synths and drums before discovering the museum studio. You get one minute to plug in, select sounds and start recording when the red light goes on..got very excited and recorded Violence!
Loved the North West room with its history of The Kingsmen, Jimi Hendrix, The Sonics, Nirvana, Sleater- Kinney etc. Felt honoured to be recording our music in this city and decided we had better make it worthy of what was fast becoming a rock`n`roll pilgrimage!
Then onto the single recording. Gossip, Sleater-Kinney, Sky Larkin producer John Goodmanson took us to Death Cab For Cutie`s Two Sticks studio. Drums galore to choose from! Great time with studio assistans Jackson from the band Boat and Michael from Telekinesis, who played us The Beatles mono mixes. Everything was "totally awesome" and definitely the most creative time we have ever had in a studio. Can`t wait to return to do the whole album!
Shopping and sight-seeing downtown, took the underground Seattle tour - the city`s old buildings` ground floors were buried when they filled the streets with dirt and built the streets on top at the first floor because of sanitation problems.
At Tacoma airport on way home a security guy asked if the Sluts Of Trust T shirt one of us had on was our band (its a great male Glasgow drums/guit duo) and then told us he was in a band in the 90`s called The Straight Lesbians! You don`t get that at Heathrow!!
Ros and Vas, January 2010 xx
Vote HOW DID IT GET TO THIS from the contenders list to the short list in XFM`s NEW MUSIC AWARDS 2010 by naming We Rock Like Girls Don`t in your top three!
"How Did It Get To This is the kind of awesome rock record we don`t hear often enough" 8/10 NME
http://www.xfm.co.uk/news/2010/vote-here-for-the-xfm-new-music-award-2010
Thanks!
Ros and Vas xx
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We are very excited to be going to Seattle next week to record a new single with John Goodmanson who produced one of our favorite albums "All Hands On The Bad One" by Sleater-Kinney as well as The Gossip, Sky Larkin and loads of great bands.
Unfortunately Vas is afraid of flying but thats a minor problem which we hope to solve with alcohol. We also fear the cold despite being half Scottish!
Let you know how we get on!
New single out March, here`s to more adventures, girls in big boots and making it happen for yourself in 2010!
WRLGD xx
2009 has been a great year for WRLGD!
Becoming a duo seemed to be the turning point. We finally got our debut album HOW DID IT GET TO THIS out to underground critical acclaim. Thanks to everyone who has helped us by buying it, offering us gigs, spreading the music online and driving/roadying/taking photos for free!
After headling the first TOURDATES SESSION at The Enterprise, Camden promoted by Turning Worm, we were asked to play showcase gig Discovery at The Tabernacle in June.
This resulted in an onstage battle with the sound engineer who turned the PA off before the end of our set! Pissed off at his rudeness we kept playing and kicked the mike stand off stage on the last beat of our last song! We were then offered a publishing deal by Ruth Rothwell.
Over the summer we met with Ruth and signed a long term publishing deal with Domino Publishing Company in August. Great to have Ruth Rothwell and Domino`s support in what we are doing.
We toured the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium including the Leffingeleuren Festival in September where people were actually singing along to songs from the album!
Special thanks to Jarrod from Tourdates for all he`s done in helping to move things on for the band.
2009 has been a great year for WRLGD!
Becoming a duo seemed to be the turning point. We finally got our debut album HOW DID IT GET TO THIS out to underground critical acclaim. Thanks to everyone who has helped us by buying it, offering us gigs, spreading the music online and driving/roadying/taking photos for free!
After headling the first TOURDATES SESSION at The Enterprise, Camden promoted by Turning Worm, we were asked to play showcase gig Discovery at The Tabernacle in June.
This resulted in an onstage battle with the sound engineer who turned the PA off before the end of our set! Pissed off at his rudeness we kept playing and kicked the mike stand off stage on the last beat of our last song! We were then offered a publishing deal by Ruth Rothwell.
Over the summer we met with Ruth and signed a long term publishing deal with Domino Publishing Company in August. Great to have Ruth Rothwell and Domino`s support in what we are doing.
We toured the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium including the Leffingeleuren Festival in September where people were actually singing along to songs from the album!
Special thanks to Jarrod from Tourdates for all he`s done in helping to move things on for the band.
Artist
We Rock Like Girls Don`t
Venue
The Enterprise, Camden
Date
16th March, 2009
Standing in a small room above the Enterprise in Camden may not be the place you would expect to see a band that have been drawing rave reviews from the mainstream press of late, but then, they wouldn`t have been drawing the rave reviews if they were doing things any different. We Rock Like Girls Don`t aren`t pretending to do things by anyone`s rules apart from their own, and as the duo take to the stage of Turning Worm Presents it`s easy to see why.
With just a set of drums, a guitar and two microphones the right hand stage almost seems to have a space set aside for their now departed bassist - there`s one more band to come on this night - but from the second that drummer Vas kicks things off with a drum beat that resonates through out the room, and in all honesty shapes the bands sound you can tell that this is a band that are doing this because they can, because they want to, and because they want you to want them to.
We Rock Like Girls Don`t are passionate on stage, and once you get used to to what`s missing you start to hear what is here, and there`s a lot to hear. Vas` drums are central to everything, and the power and aggression in her playing brings the entire vision crashing into life, while the chugging guitars provided by Ros seem almost to compliment the drums rather than the other way around. Feet are tapping, heads are nodding, and halfway through the set, I wanted there to be more people... how could there not be I asked myself?
Truth be told, I don`t think it will be long before the aggression, passion and damn right rock n roll credentials of these two girls sees them playing to much bigger crowds, but those here tonight will be happy in the knowledge that they saw them in a cramped room in Camden, sweating for the sheer joy of just playing music live.
If you like your rock stripped down, if you like your live music with passion and belief, then We Rock Like Girls Don`t are a band you simply can`t avoid seeing live. Seriously, I`m not even joking, miss these girls and you`ll wish you hadn`t when you crammed shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people watching them ruing the day you didn`t see them with just a handful of your friends!
Editor review Mike Elliott
We Rock Like Girls Don’t, then, came as a welcome wall of angry noise, their defiance and posturing a perfect example of how Ladyfesters should act in situation just like this one. Screaming feedback, buzzing guitars and crashing drums from an accomplished drummer demonstrated a demand to be taken seriously. It certainly made the two burly gents who had come in to the bar minutes before put their beers down and take notice.
There was no messing about with WRLGD, they simply rattled through their set. They knew to leave out pauses between songs in order to minimise that awful sound of only a handful of claps from a sparse audience. However, it has to be said that when they did pause for breath the small audience showed their appreciation with loud whoops and cheers. When one of the guitar pedals broke, the band just went right ahead and fixed it and carried on. See how much we need you now, sound guy!
Thank goodness for WRLGD. They brilliantly blew out my eardrums, made my Ladyfest and when they were done simply stepped back down into the bar’s silence with a ‘thankyou’ and left. That’s the way to do it. Even the miserable sound guy had to concede and put his Queens Of The Stone Age record back on.
SARAH BARNES UPLIFT MAGAZINE
The M4 Tour - an offshoot of the Exposure Music Awards and an event modestly sponsored by us here at Tourdates Towers - landed at the Purple Turtle last week as a necessary corrective to Keane who were playing across the road at Koko.
Of the bands on show, most un-Keane-like (and, consequently, best) were the mighty We Rock Like Girls Don’t, who tourdates first encountered as a three-piece some years ago. They have since slimmed-down to a duo without losing an ounce of the visceral ferocity that always made them such a compelling live act.
Comparisons with PJ Harvey are justified, though WRLGD prefer to leave all the rough edges on show and refuse to indulge in shoe-gazy self-analysis - their songs are raw, cathartic and to-the-point, brilliant live material, in other words. ‘Violence’ and ‘I Just Want To Stick My Head In The Bass Drum’ were highlights, but a punchy set never sagged for a moment. Check them out on our website and catch them live. Terrific.
Richard Hodkinson TOURDATES
is this music? Magazine
AN INDEPENDENT MUSIC MAGAZINE FROM SCOTLAND
Vas Antoniadou, drummer with We Rock Like Girls Don`t, is a rock behemoth. An open handed demi-godess of the skins. Seriously, she picks up her sticks and Thor slopes off. Yet, with an astounding subtlty. She adds more flourish and flair to one roll than most thumpers manage in a lifetimes work. Frankly breathtaking. And worth the price of entry alone.
And brilliantly, that’s not even the half of it. Up front we have Roz Cairney. Yeah. In the beginning there was the riff; then there was Roz. I have no idea hat the hell she’s playing through, but the guitar is like a wall. You know when scientists do that stuff where you can listen to glaziers or mountains. This is what you expect to be the results. If the soundman’s been slacking tonight, he can’t help but wake up now. And, with a voice like a not-annoying PJ, she can be both terrifying and deeply vulnerable. And, even, at the same time.
There’s the rumbling groove of Queen Of Heavy Metal. The careering don’t try-this-at-home holler of I Just Wanna Stick My Head In The Bass Drum. The exhilarating pogo like a loon ramalama of Rock ‘n Roll Freak. It’s irresistible. As in ‘resistance is futile’. Over the next few weeks people will be paying stupid money to see anemic boy bands (like Metallica and AC/DC) peddle their watery brand of (guaranteed over-extended) rock. These people are idiots.
Tonight is the launch of stunning debut album How Did It Get To This. There’s party poppers, treats, drinks laid on and a raffle. Puny bands of Glasgow take note! And quake.
//Tony Kiernan
http://www.isthismusic.com/we-rock-like-girls-dontruth-martinmiss-the-..occupierscragfight
ALBUM INTERVIEW in CMU - on the inside
WE ROCK LIKE GIRLS DON`T
Female duo We Rock Like Girls Don`t have quite a self explanatory name, which is handy. Glaswegian guitarist/vocalist Ros Cairney recruited Greek drummer Vas Antoniadou through Loot, and after a period of what one might call `musical differences`, the pair are firmly together in their current incarnation, wowing all the right people.
The girls are now ready to unleash their debut album `How Did It Get To This` - available to download right now, and physically released on 6 Apr - on their own label, Distort. Here are Ros Cairney`s answers to our Same Six Questions.
....
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started piano lessons at six years old and violin lessons at school when I was seven years old. Unfortunately, the violin teacher seemed very old with a red face, and he had hair coming out his nostrils and told me I had lovely eyelashes. I first played live in the school orchestra and remember turning the violin on its side like a guitar and playing riffs. After I heard The Beatles I knew I had to have a guitar. My parents bought a Spanish guitar to share with my brother who was having guitar lessons (to my great annoyance) and we both immediately started writing songs and playing them to each other. I saved up my school dinner money and bought a white Les Paul copy for 75. We discovered Boss Metalizer pedals, The Pixies and a love affair with distortion began. I formed a band with my brother and his school friends. Vas wasn`t allowed to play guitar by her Greek dad but rebelled and bought a drum kit with her grant money when she went to Uni and promptly joined about five bands to make up for lost time.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Our debut album is inspired by each other and our desire to leave a record of our songs and the great energy we always generate when we play music. It says "We Was Here!" It is also very much a reflection of our frustration, our fights as we turned on each other and our determination not to be defeated by circumstances. Our bassist left to reform a band with her brother, our original sessions were deleted by the first studio we recorded in, my JCM 800 Marshall Head amp was stolen from my flat. We traced it through eBay to a music shop in Islington, staked out the shop then grabbed it as the owner screamed he was getting the police and we screamed that we needed it to finish the album! Some bastard had nicked it and sold it cheap to get money for drugs. We have financed everything by credit cards, jobseekers allowance, private guitar tuition, and family donations. The album will be released on our own label. This is our resistance, our "little bit of creation" to quote the last song `Violence Is In The Air`. In a wider context it is how it felt to be living in London in 2007.
Q3 How do you go about creating a track?
I write songs at home on guitar and work on them further with Vas, we gig them and then four track our ideas in her attic. This album was recorded over the last two years as money allowed in Glasgow, London and Devon. We were keen to get live, raw recordings and the last sessions we did at the end of 2007 with Mark Freegard in his Glasgow studio were very organic. He is very quick to capture our drum, guitar and vocal sounds and that meant we didn`t overwork anything in the studio. Vas and I recorded the bass on much of the album ourselves after we had played live guitar and drum takes. We have half of our second album written and hope someone will give us a publishing deal to help us.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
PJ Harvey`s early albums, The Breeders` `Pod` album, The Pixies` `Surfer Rosa` album, Elastica live when they were a sleazy rock n roll band, John Lennon Plastic Ono Band. John Lennon`s direct words, grinding rhythm guitar playing and minimal melody with riff type songs (eg `Cold Turkey`, `I Found Out`) are a big influence.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Thanks for listening to us, hope the music makes you feel alive and powerful. That`s how it makes us feel.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Our ambition, now that we are finally releasing our debut album, is to play live every night for weeks like a mean rock n roll machine, to give up jobs which waste our time and to improve with the next album!