Limbo 064 - Thursday 19th March 2009
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This week's Limbo sees the launch of our brand new IRREGULAR night (which will happen at Limbo irregularly, of course), in association with Canongate Books, the world-famous Edinburgh independent publishing house behind great works of fiction such as Life Of Pi (Booker Prize Winner) and great works of fact, such as Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father.
Ex Lion Tamer is on first. He last played at the Limbo first birthday in November and has written a few new songs and a few new parts for old songs since then. It's hard not to immediately love tracks such as Life Support Machine, its bitter-sweet melodies and uplifting lyrics loaded with catchy hooks and melancholy emotion. The addition of some simple guitar strokes really brings this song to life, giving its creator the chance to add an extra dynamic to his laptop and vocoder. While his songs are all very danceable, Ex Lion Tamer performs them standing quite still, leaving the music to create all the energy. He looks every bit the superstar with a guitar strapped across his waist and a massive visual backdrop. He chats amiably to the audience and gets a fantastic reception. Expect another appearance before long and buy his Neon Hearts debut single now from itunes.
Sugar Crisis are the most unashamedly pop act on the bill tonight. Coating us in an extremely fluffy blanket of candy-floss, they provide a brightly shining soundtrack with almost any hint of darkness removed - a relentlessly upbeat demeanour. Sugar Crisis are a young girl-boy duo, rocking a keyboard, a synth and a laptop on stage, so again a very simple set-up, but their performance is a bit more kinetic and carefree. We Are Here To Save You is as intense an insulin-rush to the heart in the live arena as on their myspace and, like most of their songs, seems destined to end up on daytime radio play-lists across the nation as synth-pop becomes the musical style du jour this year. The Sunshine Kid is more balanced with its minor keys and descending, twinkling melody and may provide a hint of what's to come as the band develops. Either way, with the right push, Sugar Crisis could well soon be lighting up the sky like a cascade of shooting stars.
As for Unicorn Kid, well, he takes the sugar baton and runs with it all the way to the nearest sweaty, hyperactive all-nighter. He comes on just after ten and gets the biggest reaction of all, as he ploughs through his laptop-enhanced set of high-octane electro-rave, head bowed down to show off his lion hat (he's even named a song after his leonine head gear, so intrinsic is it to his act). 'It's like Tetris-on-acid,' remarks a friend at the bar. Well, quite. Nintendo's 8 bit sound is never far from mind but, as somebody else points out, what sets Unicorn Kid apart from the rash of 8 bit artists currently clogging up 'the space' and the blogosphere, is the substance in his production. He's taken that tinny, 8 bit theme, injected the kind of melodies that would make Mozart marvel and then given it some proper depth and a really crisp finish. Love it or hate it, the effect is utterly infectious and tonight's Limbo crowd is gorging on it like attention deficient kids who have forsaken ritalin and been let loose in a sweetshop. Literally. Zebedee would be proud.
myspace.com/unicornkid
It's Come On Gang!'s homecoming show, fresh back from showcase gigs at industry hoe-down South By Southwest in Austin, right in the heart of the ol' US of A. With word now starting to spread properly about this terrific trio, we're confident 2009 will be a very special year indeed for them and expect them to come off the plane buzzing like the live-wires they all are from the thrill of their Texan adventure. Support comes from Aberdeen's Little Kicks and Glasgow's Endor, both of whom we've been wanting to get on at Limbo since the night began.
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MAILING LIST
MARINA & THE DIAMONDS 
One for the diary. Check her MySpace here FACEBOOK/MYSPACE Come and hang out on Facebook here or say hi to us over here at MySpace CHEAP DRINKS! 
Don't forget you can take advantage of £2 bottles from any of the Voodoo Rooms' three bars by showing your Limbo wrist-band to the bartender.
FOR SALE:
1 Peavey TK0115 bass amp VENUE INFO 
Limbo takes place at The Voodoo Rooms, West Register Street, Edinburgh.
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DAN RHODES is the literary heavyweight with the light touch. Anyone who hasn't read Rhodes's prizewinning debut, Timoleon Vieta Come Home (Canongate), should be immediately granted a sick note and a prescription for this heart-wrenching, crackpot doggy tale. Described by critics as 'bittersweet as a Morrissey couplet' Rhodes's deadpan prose is irresistible, funny and macabre. In his most recent offering, Gold, he created the most entertaining story of pubs and heartbreak ever written, and arguably – in 'The Children From Previous Relationships' - the best-named pub-quiz team. Besides his notorious collaboration with Brian Eno and a can of helium, Rhodes's live sets are also celebrated for his 101 word short stories, taken from Anthropology with which he lurched onto the scene ten years ago. Rhodes can often be spotted at pub quizzes around Edinburgh.
JOE DUNTHORNE is Wales's answer to JD Salinger. Twenty-six years young but with a belly full of talent and a way with words, Joe Dunthorne is no stranger to live events, running his monthly Homework night at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. Currently working in London, he hails from Swansea where his side-splitting debut novel Submarine (Penguin) is set. Dunthorne's joyous talent is a rare, refreshing, revivifying thing.
TIM TURNBULL is a stage-poet, a page-poet and an all-round linguistic marauder. Turnbull's laconic, caustic, hilarious style has won him a big following nationwide, winning him the inaugural Edinburgh Poetry Slam for his poems on stage and more recently earning him a shortlisting for the 2008 Forward Poetry Prize for his work on the page. His three volumes of poetry are published by Donut Press, with his newest, Caligula on Ice, out soon. Hailing from Yorkshire, Tim currently lives in Perthshire and is Writer in Residence at Saughton prison. Heckle at your peril.
COME ON GANG! are destined for great things. A guitarist (Mikey) from Galashiels, a bassist (Trev) from Dublin and a singer/drummer (Sarah) from Brighton, they are guaranteed to get everyone jumping to their high-octane, punky, indie-pop. They launched their debut single, Wheels, at Limbo last July (check the newsletter from that week for the video interview we did back then) and were last seen at Limbo in December, when they launched their second, split 7", single with Kid Canaveral. A little bit Belle And Sebastian, a little bit Yeah Yeah Yeahs and a little bit of something else that's quite simply Come On Gang!, if you're not feeling these tunes, you've either had your soul possessed or you need to see a shrink. Melodic, heartfelt and firing on all cylinders, Come On Gang! are a proverbial rocket-ship shooting for the moon and sure to be on particularly fine form for this, their homecoming show.
Come On Gang! are just getting super good, super quickly. They swoop and soar and rattle and fizz and it's all so exciting and young and bastard brilliant it's like injecting sherbert and vodka into a vein in your eyeball' (www.showburner.com, November 2008)
There are shades of Pulp, The Smiths, Radiohead and a slew of other fine bands in THE LITTLE KICKS' sound and with previous support slots for Foals, Maximo Park, Editors, The Kooks, The Mystery Jets, The Sunshine Underground, Brakes, Maccabees, Errors, Ed Harcourt, Electric Soft Parade, The Rakes, Lightspeed Champion and Jamie T, clearly we're not the only ones who think they're one of the best outfits in the Granite City.
endor are: Mark Church, Richard Ferguson, Calum Johnston & David McGinty