Hello folks!
Today sees the release of a new digital single from Cowbell, the second taken from the critically acclaimed Haunted Heart LP. 'What Am I Supposed To Do?' features an exclusive B-side ' Good Times'.
Also we're taking pre-orders for the new single by Duncan Reid & The Big Heads. 'C'mon Josephine' is out on June 30th. It's on lovely 7" purple vinyl, limited to 500 copies only. Full details below!
Cowbell - What Am I Supposed To Do? (DIGI ONLY SINGLE)
Haunted Heart is out now as a standalone digital single. It features an exclusive B-side 'Good Times'.
Check out the video for 'What Am I Supposed To Do?' below.
Cowbell - Haunted Heart (LP/CD/DIGI)
London Garage Soul duo return with 3rd album HAUNTED HEART released on Damaged Goods Records
More Memphis, more Fuzz, more greasy foot-beating, party-greeting, soul-treating maximum RnB. And yes, more Cowbell.
Jack Sandham (Guitar/Keys/Vox) and Wednesday Lyle (Drums/Vox) have straddled the Atlantic with the beat stampede of their songbook so far, but Haunted Heart sees them walk down the dark end of the street, drawing on Atlantic-era Ray Charles and Dusty, while still keeping on creeping on with the sweaty-hand shaky-knee Garage rock ear-worms.
From the Sun Studio, Cramps-like swagger of the title track, to the paranoid Coasters swing and Doors-keys of None Of Your Business, Jack’s urgent vocals yelp out from the first needle drop, stepping aside for Wednesday’s wink of the eye on the Holly Golighty/Black Lips femme-fatale fury of Downlow, which sounds like it’s been ripped straight from the beating heart of the Fillmore during the Summer Of Love.
Produced by the band themselves at Soup studios in Limehouse, London, their early raw bare-bones sound has now been fully expanded with Jack’s sandpaper grit guitars and Wednesday’s freight train rhythms chased down with some glitchy synths and vintage organs (Doom train/Neon Blue) as well as a drop of Delta gospel Blues on Nothing But Trouble (also incidentally the first Cowbell song ever to actually feature a Cowbell).
Otis and Pickett-era horns breathe seductively into the swampy-stomp of What Am I Supposed To Do, while New Kind Of Love tiptoes onstage with its alluring smoky jazz piano as Wednesday brings a beautifully casual Peggy Lee type Fever to the microphone.
But it’s with the curtain-closers on both sides of wax that Cowbell have really rung in the new, Something’s Gotta Give swaps in gently plucked Laurel Canyon vibes, teardrop-stained and tie-dyed into a soul-stirring torch song. And just as we’re ready to step off this train, the last stop of No Wrong drops us off in the sherbet-sweet swell of a Cowbell classic. A toast to Percy Sledge and Van Morrison, with a giddy gospel reprise that has Jack and Wednesday promise that they “won’t do you no wrong”. And they’re damn right. Haunted by name, haunting by nature. Flip it up and start again. More Cowbell.
Cowbell are Jack Sandham and Wednesday Lyle.
They live in London, England.
Haunted Heart is their 3rd album on Damaged Goods, following their debut Beat Stampede and the follow-up Skeleton Soul.
They have been playlisted on BBC 6Music and toured extensively in the USA and Europe.
“Cowbell .... excel at writing superior party tunes” -Uncut
‘Tracks....ooze vigour and vitality, they’re feel good songs” - Artrocker
“Sweet Shimmying '60s R&B” - Classic Rock Magazine
Duncan Reid & The Big Heads - C'Mon Josephine (Ltd. 7")
There are only two people in the entire world who can claim to have played with the Ramones while not actually being tagged with the ‘Ramone’ nom-de-plume. Duncan Reid is one of those people. As singer and bass player of Joey Ramone’s favourite band, The Boys, Duncan rode on the crest of a wave during punk’s original late-1970s heyday as part of a wider collective of friends and peers that included Sex Pistols, The Clash, Generation X and a host of other power-chord pioneers. The Boys remain one of the best-loved and influential bands of their generation.
Montevideo, from the Big Heads’ debut album Little Big Head, earned Duncan the keys to the Uruguayan capital (the only other musicians to achieve this being Elton John and Paul McCartney). Following a cornucopia of stellar reviews for first album Little Big Head, The Big Heads developed their unique, effortlessly entertaining, melodic brand of harmony laden pop punk with: The Difficult Second Album.
Their third album Bombs Away is just out. Fourteen catchy little ditties about life, death, paranoia and Viagra.
2017 sees the Big Heads touring eternally in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and Germany including festival dates at Rebellion, and Undercover.
Happy weekend!
Ian & Duncan