NEW RELEASE: The Bluetones Expecting To Fly

“Expecting To Fly (is) the tale of quiet resolve winning out against the clatter of instant acclaim, of the redeeming power of single-mindedness against compromise; the joy in winning the battle bloodlessly, by force of personality alone.”
NME – 8/10, 1996
“This combination of classic pop hooks and emotional intelligence ensures that Expectin To Fly has dated far better than might be expected… well worth revisiting”
Q – 4/5, 2016

Order your copy at the 3 Loop Music shop.

20 years ago, in 1996, The Bluetones released their debut album, Expecting To Fly. It knocked Oasis ‘What’s The Story Morning Glory’ off the top of the charts in the week the Mancunians scooped an armful of BRIT Awards and heralded the start of The Bluetones hugely successful career.

The Number 1, platinum album featuring the hits Bluetonic, Cut Some Rug and Slight Return is now re-issued with a second disc of previously unreleased material including demos, live and session tracks. The demos are from the Proper Demo Thing cassette which got the band signed to A&M Records and taken from a copy recently found in drummer Eds’ archives.

There is a complete concert of the band playing one of their earliest gigs. Supporting Supergrass in March 1995 at the LA2 in London, the small sister venue of the legendary Astoria venue. It captures the vibrant energy and spirit of a band taking their first steps and the 7 track set features the songs that would go on to become some of their most famous hits.

Additionally, each band member has chosen their favourite b-side from the era and along with the stand-alone single Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?, the band’s first hit single, make this a fitting package to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album.

The 2CD comes in a tri-fold sleeve with new artwork, never seen before photographs, sleevenotes from guitarist Adam Devlin, and contributions from the Eds, Scott and Mark.

Order your copy of the 2CD set now from the 3 Loop Music shop and get an exclusive 7″ artprint signed by the boys – it’s perfect for framing!

NEW RELEASE: The Pre New Remix EP

Catalan based Glam Fusion Punk Crossover Disco Pop Explosion Band, THE PRE NEW, release a selection of mixes based around EUROPA SUPERSTAR PT 2 taken from the critically acclaimed album THE MALE EUNUCH.

The digital EP is available to order exclusively at The Pre New shop – click here.
You can get the EP as a single 23 minute mix or as individual tracks.

The collection entitled 2016: La Odissea Català pulls together a varied mix of European influences with three mixes by artists Derealise, Alien and THE PRE NEW themselves.

A bonus track features house singer, Jim Fry’s Karaoke version of the Eddie and The Hot Rods classic, Do Anything You Want To Do… re tilted ‘Fes el Que Vulguis’ and was recorded in a Irish themed pub just of La Ramblas, sung entirely in Catalan.

A spokesman (who learnt Catalan from a Rosetta Stone CD course) for the band said:
‘La disco al cap d’en Jim eracontrat, nomesencanviava la distribcio … Simplement es posa millor … millor I millor’.
Which translates to “The disco Jim carried in his head was constant only his distribution changed…Better and Better Better and Better.”

THE PRE NEW will now be referred to as EL PRE NOU until further notice.

THE PRE NEW ALBUMS

The Pre New - Music For People Who Hate Themselves
The Pre New - Music For Homeowners
The Pre New - The Male Eunuch

SHOP: May The Road Rise With You…

We are very thrilled to bring you something that ties two of our passions together – music and cycling.

We have teamed up with the magnificent Milltag, purveyors of top quality cycling apparel and John Lydon’s band, Public Image Ltd. (PiL), to bring you a limited edition cycling jersey.

According to the Velominati, one of the principal aspects of cycling is that if you look good, you feel good. Or as French poet Paul Fournel put it, to look good is already to go fast.

So, you should pay attention to your public image and with this in mind we have produced a limited edition, performance jersey that will ensure you will look your best every time you pull it on.

The design takes its inspiration from the generic brand artwork of their hit 1986 album, Album, featuring the classic PiL logo along with lyrics from one of their biggest hits, Rise.

The jerseys are available to order now in sizes Small to XXXL at the Milltag shop – click here.
For delivery before Christmas 2016, order by October 17th.
Orders placed after this date and before the end of 2016 will be delivered in February 2017.

About the jersey
The jerseys are hand-made performance jerseys manufactured in Europe using the best materials. Constructed using hi-tech Coolplus fabric throughout they are designed to keep you fresh, cool and comfortable and cut to be aerodynamic yet fit normal cyclists. There’s a full length hidden zip, silicone gripper on the bottom hem to keep it in place and a hidden security pocket in the three rear pockets.

Watch and listen to Public Image Ltd. (PiL) - Rise

Public Image Ltd. (PiL), fronted by John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) were not post-punk, not new wave, they were Public Image Ltd. The band emerged in 1978 after the break-up of the Pistols and have released 10 albums to date including the classic albums such as Metal Box, The Flowers Of Romance, This is PiL and 2015’s What The World Needs Now.

PiL Re-Issued
On 28th October 2016, PiL reissue the seminal albums Metal Box and Album. Metal Box was the band’s second album, originally released on 23rd November 1979 and Album was their 5th studio album and was originally released on 3rd February 1986, marking 2016 as its 30th anniversary.

The albums will both be issued as 4 CD and 4 vinyl LP super-deluxe box sets, as well as digitally. The editions will include rare and previously unreleased material along with a live disc. The CD versions feature additional tracks to the vinyl editions due to running time restrictions, however, the vinyl edition will include a download card for all tracks on the CD versions. Metal Box will be issued in a square metal tin (CD & LP) (the 1979 original was issued in a round metal film canister) with an embossed PiL logo. Album will be issued in a square card box with de-bossed artwork. Both super-deluxe editions will include a 72 page booklet together with an exclusive poster, art-prints (LP version) and postcards (CD version).

Order the new re-issues

Metal Box
4CD set
4LP set

Album
4CD set
4LP set

Public Image Ltd. (PiL) Album

Public Image Ltd. (PiL) Album

INTERVIEW: Earl Brutus vs The Quietus

Read what happened when The Quietus spent a night down the pub with Earl Brutus's Jim and Gordon

The Quietus recently spent a night down the pub with Earl Brutus’s very own Jim and Gordon to discuss the re-issues of their albums and tell the story of Earl Brutus…

Read the article here.

The re-issues of Your Majesty… We Are Here and Tonight You Are The Special One on 2CD and heavyweight LP are available now in all good shops and directly from the 3 Loop Music shop -click here.

NEW RELEASE: Earl Brutus – the re-issues

“Earl Brutus are a legendary band, even though they’ve never had a hit” Select Magazine, 1995.
“Gloriously unfettered… still filthy after all these years” Uncut – 8/10, 2016
“Repackaged with obsessive care… the sound, fury and humour of Earl Brutus is here for all to marvel” Record Collector – 5/5, 2016
“Worship here” Q – 4/5, 2016

Order your copy at the 3 Loop Music shop.

We are thrilled to announce the Earl Brutus re-issues of their two albums, Your Majesty… We Are Here, released on Deceptive in 1996 and Tonight You Are The Special One, originally released on Fruition / Island in 1998.

Both will be available on vinyl and as double CD packages including a disc of rarities and unreleased tracks. Lavishly packaged and featuring extensive sleeve notes, this will also be the first time Tonight You Are The Special One has been available on vinyl.

The packaging of both albums have been art-directed by acclaimed artist Scott King who also designed a poster for the limited edition ‘glitter-dipped’ box set which houses the 2CD editions of both albums. This limited edition box, which brings the Earl Brutus story to an end, is appropriately titled Closed.

Standing outside of their time then and now, Earl Brutus gave no simple answers. Born in the north and west of England in the early 60s, they were old enough to know better – but they did it anyway.

Stuart Boreman, Nick Sanderson, Jim Fry, Gordon King and Rob Marche had variously served time in groups including World Of Twist, Clock DVA, The Gun Club, Subway Sect, JoBoxers, If? and English Boy On The Love Ranch. But when they came together in north west London at the end of 1992, they would achieve a true expression of themselves, and fuse obsessions with Bowie, Kraftwerk and everyman stadium rock of the most extreme pomposity with an absurdist worldview steeped in lager, paradox and an undeniable sense of the mythic.

With synaptic cues including an imaginary greyhound, the unloved jeans brand, a seventies aftershave and “a council estate pub with a flat roof that could get a bit rough on Saturday night but did a nice carvery on Sunday lunchtimes,” the group were named Earl Brutus in a boozer off Kilburn High Road.

Live shows were where the Brutus myth began. At early shows the band wore sweat-soaked nylon safari suits bought from a Nigerian leisurewear outlet in Shepherd’s Bush, they tipped their gear over, let off pyrotechnics and soon got noticed. By 1993 they had put out their first single, Life’s Too Long, on Bob Stanley’s Creation subsidiary, Icerink and a couple of year’s later Stanley released a second single, Bonjour Monsieur, on his new label, Royal Mint.

Signing to Deceptive in 1995 after label boss Steve Lamacq had seen them at a beery, riotous show at The Dublin Castle in Camden which saw them blowing Brut aftershave through a wind machine, Earl Brutus would pick up talismanic member Shin-Ya Hayashida around this time.

“Nick had an idea about me to join the band to shout and scream swear words in Japanese and in English,” confirms Shins, an early twenty-something at the time. Visually and socially strong, the classic Brutus line up was set and it was this team that would record their debut album, Your Majesty…We Are Here, at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire with Happy Mondays engineer John Pennington, which was released in 1996.

A move to Fruition / Island Records in 1997 saw the band begin work on their second album which was again recorded at Chapel Studios. Released in 1997, first single The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It was one of the band’s most transcendent moments: pounding and livid, it was named after a VHS tape of Sanderson’s, where the 1980 storming of the Iranian Embassy sat next to a pro¬gramme about Mick Ronson.

The new year would see gushing press coverage and a further two singles, Come Taste My Mind and Universal Plan before the release of their second album, Tonight You Are The Special One in June 1998, a record that was conclusive proof of the remarkable durability of Earl Brutus’ singular vision.

Former manager Gareth Sweeney named the album Tonight You Are The Special One: to understand it, you must look in a mirror when staying home alone on Saturday night, wearing your best clothes and drinking a can of nice bitter, “trying to tell yourself you’re alright.”

Following its release guitarist Rob Marche would depart, they would be joined by former Intastella guitarist Martin Wright and release one final single, Larky in 1999.

Continuing to play sporadically – highlights being the appearance of their celebrated floral wreaths reading ‘Fuck Off’ at gigs at the Scala and the Embassy club in 1999 and a deranged and legendary ten-minute show at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Knightsbridge in 2001 which saw a return to the pandemonium of their early shows – they would play their last show in 2004, a fundraiser for Ken Livingstone at Hammersmith Working Men’s Club.

Earl Brutus never really ended as such, a track listing for proposed third album ‘Victorian Wanking Machine’ was devised but sadly the death of lead singer Nick Sanderson to cancer in June 2008 meant it was never to be.

“I’m so proud to have been part of that group,” recalls Jim Fry. “I don’t think it ever would have died. We were taking time off when Nick got ill… I think with Nick, we would have been in a group together by now. I think we would have been more riotous. I think it would have been called Earl Brutus.”

By the cold lights of market reach, not much happened for Earl Brutus. But in other ways, it all happened. Their explosive performances and compact, volcanic discography made anything seem possible, and to those who saw them, they’ll always be the greatest unsung band of all. To those who didn’t, their recorded work reveals a singular and uncompromising vision that cannot die. It continues to transmit the most important message to live by: You Are Your Own Reaction.

Order your copy at the 3 Loop Music shop.

THE PACKAGING
The presentation of these re-issues have been directed by acclaimed artist Scott King. Working alongside production guru, Daniel Mason (Something Else) we have a very special set of releases.

THE BOX
The rigid lift of lid box is an offset set printed in 5 colours, silk screen printed with Silver glitter and gloss laminated wrapped over a Black lined board. 2 colour permanent adhesive label applied to lid. Base is printed in 1 colour, silk screen printed with silver glitter and gloss laminated.
It exclusively includes an offset printed poster booklet in 1 colour with detail offset printed in 3 fluorescent colours on a 57gsm Bible paper stock and features an essay by Ian Harrison that complements his sleevenotes for each album.

THE CDs
The CD packaging is offset printed in 4 colours with album artwork and text silk screen printed with a gloss varnish on a 300gsm coated board. Construction follows in standard CD digipack format.
The CD discs are printed in 2 colours plus a Silver glitter ink for a unique audio CD.
The concertina booklet is offset printed in 4 colours on a 120gsm off white uncoated paper stock.


THE VINYLS
The LP outer sleeve is offset printed in 4 colours with album artwork silk screen printed with a gloss varnish on a 320gsm coated board and the inner sleeve
is offset printed in 4 colours on a 240gsm off white uncoated board. Both are die cut and glued.
The LP vinyl record is pressed on 180gsm heavyweight vinyl with all centre labels printed in 1 colour.
The Your Majesty… We Are Here MP3 Download Code Card is offset printed on a 320gsm uncoated board. Download code digitally printed to the reverse.
The Tonight You Are The Special One MP3 Download Code Card is die stamped in 1 colour on a 350gsm high rag content uncoated board. Download code digitally printed to the reverse.

Order your copy at the 3 Loop Music shop.

NEW RELEASE: The Bluetones

“Return To..” is as fresh as your first outdoor breath on a crisp spring day, as adrenalising as a five mile freefall into neat vodka and as heartbreaking as finding an ex’s hair on a long forgotten shirt.”” Melody Maker, 1998

THE BLUETONES – RETURN TO THE LAST CHANCE SALOON


The Bluetones return!
The Bluetones - Return To The Last Chance Saloon - 2CD and LP re-issue on 3 Loop Music

The Bluetones - Return To The Last Chance Saloon - 2CD and LP re-issue

The Bluetones are one of the most important and successful bands from the Britpop era. Clocking up an impressive 17 years together with the same line-up (and managing to get through those 17 years without brothers Mark and Scott Morriss having any Gallagher-esque fall-outs), they finally called it a day in 2011.
They’ve reformed for a UK tour and we are thrilled to announce that we are kicking off a re-issue camapign of their catalogue with the glorious Return To The Last Chance Saloon.

The album was the follow up to their debut Expecting To Fly in which the band explored a more rockier blues-tinged sound. In 1998, Melody Maker described the album as a “17 year old, good looking and popular” teenager. Now 17 years since its release, it is apparent that that teenager has retained its exciting, fresh and joyous (superior) qualities.

Return To The Last Chance Saloon is a hit packed, gold selling, Top 10 album that includes the hit singles Solomon Bites The Worm, If…, and Sleazy Bed Track plus mail order only single 4 Day Weekend.

The re-issue will be available on 2CD set and heavyweight vinyl on 18th September and you can get a signed copy when you pre-order your copy at the 3 Loop Music store.

The bonus material on the expanded 2CD set includes standalone Top 10 single Marblehead Johnson, each band member’s hand-picked, favourite b-side, previously unreleased BBC session tracks from the era and a stunning gig recorded at BBC’s Sound City in Newcastle in 1998. It’s a set packed with all their hits and is the sound of a band at the top of their game playing to a jubilant and adoring audience.

CLASSIC VIDEOS


Here’s the videos for some of the singles from Return To The Last Chance Saloon.

Hold Me Down

Solomon Bites The Worm

4 Day Weekend

TOUR DATES


The Bluetones 20th Anniversary Tour Poster

The Bluetones back on tour


The Bluetones are back on the road to celebrate 20 years since their first single was released. See them in September at:
16th – Leeds O2 Academy
17th – Glasgow ABC
18th – Newcastle O2 Academy
19th – Manchester Ritz
23rd – Portsmouth Pyramids
24th – London Forum
26th – Birmingham O2 Academy
27th – Bristol O2 Academy
Click here for tickets

Sea Of Bees Build A Boat To The Sun – Boxset

Sea Of Bees new album, Build A Boat To The Sun, is available on CD, LP, Download and as a very special, limited edition boxset.

SEA OF BEES – BUILD A BOAT TO THE SUN – THE BOX SET

The box includes:
Build A Boat To The Sun CD
Build A Boat To The Sun LP

Build A Boat To The Sun MP3 album
Exclusive digital EP of unreleased tracks made during the recording of the album

Hand pulled screen print on French brand paper by Laura Maltranga, numbered and signed by Jules and Amber
A special handmade, illustrated lyric book with hand stitched binding revealing the stories behind each track on the album.
An individual, one off photo taken, printed and annotated by Jules – they’re randomly allocated so you may get a picture of Jules, Amber, a pet, some flowers, their favourite view or piece of studio equipment or something else completely different instead!

All of these items are housed in a bespoke 12″ x 12″ lidded box with unique artwork.

Click here to visit the Sea Of Bees shop and order your copy.

For full information on the album and to listen to some tracks from it click here