Archives for January 2011

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Your MPfree today comes from Peter, Bjorn And John. It's a taster from their upcoming album Gimme Some. It's short, fast, and a little bit aggressive. Go get it.

The band head out on tour in February

Peter, Bjorn and John - Breaker Breaker

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Your MPFree today comes from Mogwai. Their seventh studio album 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will' is released on Valentine's Day.

The band set out on a UK & Ireland tour at the end of this month, and the free track to whet your appetite is San Pedro.

Mogwai - San Pedro

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

It's been very quiet in the Glasvegas camp lately...that is until today!

By lately, I mean 2008 which saw the release of their eponymous debut and their Christmas EP. But their second album is out in April and will be called EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\.

This is an early taste of the album for you to enjoy...

Glasvegas - The World Is Yours

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

ESG - Dance To The Beat Of Moody

Tom Tom Club - Genius Of Love (Senior Coconut Mix)

Wye Oak - Civilian

Sarabeth Tucek - Get Well Soon

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Weight Of The Sun

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

This week's Memory Tapes is a special one, as it's provided by none other than Andrew Collins who's been filling in for Huey this week. Best let him explain what "The Red Light Bulb Tape" is all about, then...

"I was an art student, living in halls in Battersea, South London, 60 miles from my home town Northampton. Aged 20, I liked to imagine that I was a tortured artist, living in a garrett, eating cheese from mousetraps and nobody understood me, which is why I didn't have a girlfriend, because I was too deep and philosophically impenetrable. In fact, I lived in a subsidised, centrally heated tower block exclusively populated by other art students which provided hot meals twice a day.

"It was - I accept now - the life of Riley, but that didn't really fit with my overwrought, operatic, solipsistic sense of existential gloom, so I fitted a red light bulb to my bedside anglepoise lamp and sat in my study bedroom, alone, and played this cassette over and over again, specifically filled with sad songs that perfectly captured my artificially created mood. Others may have classed it a "seduction tape", but frankly, it suited me better to consider actual contact with the opposite sex a remote and unachievable fantasy."

Here's the full tracklisting:

1. THE SMITHS Meat Is Murder

2. THE CURE Drowning Man

3. KATE BUSH Under Ice (from Hounds Of Love)

4. COCTEAU TWINS Ivo

5. EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL Each And Every One

6. COCTEAU TWINS Wax and Wane

7. THE ROSE OF AVALANCHE LA Rain (12" version)

8. THE CURE A Hundred Years

9. THIS MORTAL COIL Song To The Siren

10. CLOCK DVA Four Hours

Tune in to the show from 10.30am to find out which tracks Andrew plays, and if you want to email Huey your Memory Tape, then do it; don't be shy.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

If you've seen the BrianJones Town Massacre documentary 'Dig', then you may already know today's MPFree artist. Or, you may have her 2007 debut album, in which case you'll be excited about her forthcoming follow up.

Sarabeth Tucek's new album 'Get Well Soon' is due for release via Sonic Cathedral in April. Your MPFree today is the title track from that album. Enjoy:

Sarabeth Tucek - Get Well Soon

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Following on from last week's suggestions on where to go in 2011, here are some more top tips for where to take yourself this year.

2011 is very definitely about being adventurous, exploring places you'd never thought of going before and considering countries and cities that are experiencing a bit of a rebirth after languishing in the doldrums. Here are some ideas...

The Middle East

I talked about Jordan last week and the Middle East definitely seems where it's at for the tourism industry in 2011.

This could be a big year for Tel Aviv - Easyjet started direct flights there from London in 2009 and at the end of last year it was voted Number 3 in Lonely Planet's Top 10 Cities for 2011. TLV, as the in-crowd call it, is the total flipside of Jerusalem - a secular, hedonistic party-loving city by the sea, with a reputation as the 'San Francisco of the Middle East' - it's a really fun, relaxed place with great weather all year round. It's also the home of Israel's art, film and music scenes. You can get there via Easyjet for about £140.

Two Middle Eastern places you might not have thought of visiting are Syria and Libya. Syria is now off the US's Axis of Evil list (the diplomatic equivalent of the naughty step) and with a program of modernisation going on, the country seems to be full of a new optimism. You can stay in lovely Ottoman palaces and drink coffee in souks, meet Bedouin and hang out in their goat-hair tents, and get lost in the maze-like old city of Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world.

Check out the Syrian Tourist Board's great old-school website. If websites had existed in the 70s, this is what they'd have looked like.

Libya has also opened up a bit. The visa process has relaxed and you can now just get a visa when you arrive in the country. The Libyans are actively targeting tourists - If you're a history buff, it's got some of the most impressive archaeological remains in the world, with the remnants of many Greek, Roman and Byzantine cities. For the adventurous traveller, it's got to be fascinating to check out a country run by Colonel Gadaffi.

New Orleans

Treme (pronounced 'Tremay'), the new series from David Simon, creator of The Wire, starts going out in the UK in April. Treme is an area of New Orleans and the drama is set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps partly as a result of the programme, which has already gone out in the States, and certainly the fact that last year marked 5 years since Katrina and the city is much more back on its feet, there's a buzz around the place. The development and regeneration is ongoing but it's definitely back on the map as somewhere to visit.

This is a city that can't fail to please anyone who likes food or music (that's most of us then). The local Creole cooking is famous, particularly the gumbo (a spiced stew with shellfish or meat). A lot of restaurants were closed for a good while after Katrina and their gradual reopening has been an important part of the city reclaiming its identity. One of the great institutions, Dooky Chase - a soul food restaurant where Obama stopped on his 2008 campaign tour - is still opening only irregularly I think, despite a public campaign to help 88 year old owner and chef Leah Chase - but if you can get in there, it's well worth a visit.

For a gumbo recommended by Wendell Pierce, star of Treme (and Bunk from The Wire) try Olivier's just opposite The House of Blues club in the French Quarter. Or try an Osyter Po Boy - fried oysters with tomato lettuce and mayonnaise in a baguette - at Domilises, a seemingly rundown tavern that does some of the tastiest food in New Orleans.

Music is everywhere In New Orleans - in happiness and sadness the city expresses itself though music - funerals processions with bands and dancing are one of those classic New Orleans sights to look out for. Of course there are loads of great jazz clubs and in August there's the Satchmo Festival in honour of local boy Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong. I'm not normally the biggest jazz fan but in New Orleans it feels very right to be sat in a jazz club.

On the Indie front, check out the New Orleans Indie Rock Collective who promote gigs and run festivals. There's the New Orleans Indie Rock Fest in November and March 11th-13th this year there's the Foburg Music Festival on Frenchmen St - the street is normally famous for its jazz bars but for those few days they are filled with local indie and alternative artists, and some better known acts who are on their way to South By South West.

Of course, as well as music and food, New Orleans is famous for its voodoo tradition. If you fancy coming home armed with some authentic voodoo dolls, there are loads of shops you can pop into such as Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo and Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection.

You can get a flight to New Orleans for under £400. Just to show how much the locals love music, you fly into Louis Armstrong Airport.

New Zealand

From New Orleans to New Zealand. This is going to be a big year for the country that often suffers a little bit from being in Australia's shadow. They're hosting the Rugby World Cup in September, the biggest tournament staged in the country's history, and it will be accompanied by a big push from the tourist board. To tie in with the world cup, the Kiwis are hosting lots of events like outdoor concerts and food and wine festivals.

Wellington, the capital of NZ, and birthplace of Flight of the Conchords, is another of Lonely Planet's Top 10 Hot Cities for 2011, it always ranks very highly in those 'quality of living' surveys they do for world cities and is now getting a reputation for being cool too.

It apparently has more bars, restaurants and cafes per capita than New York. There are loads of independent coffee roasteries - Antipodean coffee and cafes are apparently the best in the world these days if you believe some people - for a fine example based here in the UK, check out Kaffeine on London's Great Titchfield St, run by Aussies and Kiwis, it's won lots of awards.

Wellington is also home to 'Wellywood' - the film-making base of Peter Jackson. The Hobbit is being made there this year, which comes as a big relief to the country - there was a lot of uncertainty about it due to MGM's financial situation.

If you're a fanboy/girl nerd-type you can go on a Lord of the Rings Tour around the locations used in the films.

Of course, you don't have to have any interest in hobbits or Gollum to be blown away by the beautiful landscape of New Zealand. It's staggering. The country's divided into 2 landmasses, the South Island and the North Island. The North Island is the more developed. The major cities there are Wellington on the southern tip and Auckland in the North. Only just less than a quarter of the NZ population live on the South island, even though it is bigger. Collectively, the country is a not too different in size to the UK - a bit bigger - but it has a population of 4 million instead of 62 million, so basically there's a lot of space (and a lot of sheep). Because of the distance from the UK, you'd want to be heading there for at least 2 if not 3 weeks to do it justice.

Stockholm

And finally, I realise those suggestions all involve quite long flights (though London to Tel Aviv is only 5 hours), so to redress the balance, my last tip is somewhere a bit nearer. Stockholm was one of the first Indie Travel Guides I did on this show and it's certainly no secret - it's had a hip reputation for a while, but I reckon interest in the Swedish capital is going to grow and grow in the wake of the films of Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc) and the build up to the Hollywood remake which is released at the end of this year.

Like for the Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, you can do a Steig Larsson tour of the locations in Stockholm used in the books and films - either guided and in English on Saturdays at 11.30am, organised by the Stads Museum, or on your own using one of the booklets you can buy from their shop.

There seems to have been a real invasion of Swedish culture the last couple of years, with the massive success of the Larsson books, the BBC adaptations of the Wallander Swedish detective novels starring Kenneth Branagh and a continuing stream of good Swedish bands and singers, including the likes of The Tallest Man on Earth, Lykke Li, Fever Ray and Robyn.

The city is a great place to watch bands, with a lot of good music venues, such as Debaser, with gigs on every night of the week and Fylkingen, a converted brewery that plays home to a lot of experimental music and. There's even a burgeoning stand up scene in Sweden, a lot of it in English, and quite a few Swedish comics played at the Edinburgh Festival last summer.

It's a city of two halves, freezing cold and snowy in the winter, and lovely and sunny in the summer, when you can take boat trips out to the archipelago - one of the nicest things you can do in any European capital.

Perhaps best of all, there's absolutely no language barrier. Almost everybody you meet will speak perfect English. Get over there before it's full of Americans who have seen the Hollywood remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Tweet me www.twitter.com/danny_robins if you have questions on any of the tips I've given.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Luke Haines - Outsider Music

One of my favourite artists Luke Haines, the man behind The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder is doing a one-off gig at The Hoxton Pony in East London next Wednesday, the 19th Jan.

He's showcasing songs from a project he did towards the end of last year called Outsider Music. He recorded 50 unique versions of an album - each one had 10 songs on, taken from a pool of a possible 15. Each one had a different track listing and was recorded in different ways - one apparently even features Haines having to stop to open the door to the postman. Haines sold the albums, each an individual hand-numbered CD to his fans through his website at £75 a pop. Pretty pricey, but he would argue you are getting a unique work of art.

He's playing the songs for what he claims will be the first and last time on Wednesday night. He's an artist who may not have maintained as high a profile as he once had but has kept the quality of his work consistently high. He doesn't perform live that often, but when he does you can be sure of side helpings of black humour and bile to go with his very fine music.

Curling

Have you ever been curling? No, thought not. Remember, it's that sport that we won once at the Winter Olympics that involves stones and brushes. I've played it and you know what, it's a lot of fun. Sort of like bowls meets cleaning, on ice, without skates. And a lot more fun than that sounds.

So, if you fancy an unusual sporting activity to tell your friends about this winter, why not give it a go? It's the sort of thing that could be fun for a birthday party.

Your options are wide open if you live in Scotland - there are over 20 rinks there and loads and loads of clubs. There's Murrayfield Curling in Edinburgh, The Peak in Stirling ('curling in Stirling' has a very satisfying ring to it) and Curl Aberdeen plus loads more. Check out The Royal Caledonian Curling Club website for more details.

In England there is, unbelievably, only one rink. Fentons Rink is near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. This is where I've played. It's great fun. You get given all the equipment and a quick lesson and then you're allowed to play your own games - you pick it up amazingly quickly. There's no need to be able to skate as there aren't any skates involved. You have special shoes and there's no way you'd fall over onto the ice. You have to book in advance. They're open till mid-April, as are most of the Scottish clubs. You can take the train straight from London to Tunbridge Wells and get a taxi to the rink from there.

Unfortunately if you don't live in the South, you're looking at a trip to either Scotland or Wales. In Wales, things are overseen by Welsh Curling who are based at Deeside Ice Rink.

Beatboxing and jokes...

And finally, a couple of tours for you - very different but both with music at their heart.

Shlomo is one of the UK's finest human beatboxers. He's collaborated with an amazing array of people including Jarvis Cocker, Martha Wainwright, Damon Albarn and DJ Yoda. He performed with Björk at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics, for which he was nominated for a Grammy. Chuck in with that the fact that he is a classically trained percussionist and speaks 4 languages. Basically, he's beatbox royalty, and now he's coming to a town near you.

His new tour, Mouthtronica, is billed as a mixture of storytelling and beatboxing. The storytelling should be pretty interesting; Shlomo is of Iraqi, Israeli and German descent and he promises to tell his life story going right back to when he was 3 years old playing Arabic drums and belly dancing at his Iraqi-Jewish grandmother's parties.

He'll also be teaching a beatbox masterclass at each venue before the show. The tour goes all over the UK throughout February and March.

And just a quick mention for Lenny Henry's new tour Cradle to Rave. I have to declare an interest here - I know Lenny well from writing Rudy's Rare Records, the sitcom he stars in on Radio 4 - but I saw a preview of the tour show the other day and thought it was shaping up to be really good.

It's about Lenny's life through music going back to his earliest memories of reggae parties at his parents' house and taking in such things as doing backing vocals for Kate Bush (true). Lenny's having a bit of a renaissance at the moment after having played Othello and this show should continue that. The tour runs right through till May.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Today's MPFree is from a Baltimore boy/girl duo going by the name Wye Oak. They're not a new band, they released an album a couple of years ago but this track is a big step forward for them.

The album 'Civilian' is released in March, and today you can have the title track for free:

Wye Oak - Civilian

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

It's another classic band for the MPFree today.

Tom Tom Club are releasing a double album of live tracks called 'Genius of Live' which was recorded at The Clubhouse in New York City.

The album is out in February on 07/02/11 and to promote it are releasing two remixes from Money Mark and Senior Coconut. We have one of those for your MPFree. Take it; it's yours.

Tom Tom Club - Genius Of Love (Senior Coconut Mix)

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

We're off to 80s New York for the MPFree today. Fire Records are releasing an ESG best of entitled 'Dance To The Best Of ESG'.

I'm sure you already know, but ESG were part of the No Wave scene who inspired the likes of The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem. The track you can get for free is Dance To The Beat Of Moody, which sticks together two of ESG's best tracks: 'The Beat' and 'Moody'. Tidy.

ESG - Dance To The Beat Of Moody

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

It's a slightly shorter MPFree this week thanks to the bank holiday, so we've made it extra good.

Your fourth and final track comes from The Dears' new album. It's called Blood, it rocks, and you'll find the link below...

Jamie Woon - Blue Truth

Talib Kweli - Cold Rain

Pete & The Pirates - Winter 1

The Dears - Blood

Some songs may no longer be available for download.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

This week's Memory Tapes is all about escapism; specifically, escaping London for the country. Thomas Walsh takes up the story...

"I had a tape once ( back in the day ) which I used to play on a friday evening as I left town to head for the sticks and spend the weekend with my then girlfriend in Chichester, down there by the sea.

"The alleviation when I hit those London outskirts and all before me became green was a bit like peeling a banana.... you know, removing that thick, bitter, unbecoming outer layer and suddenly you're this soft, sweet fanciful thing. Well thats my analogy anyway."

How poetic! And here are those banana peelers....

1. Love Jones - Johnny Guitar Watson

2. Skin Deep - Stranglers

3. Frozen Orange Juice - Peter Sarsted

4. Declaration of Dub - King Tubby

5. Love Like Blood (12 inch) - Killing Joke

6. Whisky in the Jar - Lizzy

7. Red House - Hendrixx

8. Lemon Song - Led Zeppelin

9. I believe - Satriani

10. Lookin out for love (acoustic) Fleetwood Mac

Tune in to the show from 10.30am to find out which tracks Huey plays, and if you want to email Huey your Memory Tape, then do it; don't be shy.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Today's MPFree comes from Pete & The Pirates who have a new album out in May. This song features on it so it's an early taste of what's to come.

And if you can't wait until then, the band have a couple of London gigs coming up over the next few months.

Pete & The Pirates - Winter 1

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Happy New Year. Welcome to the big Two Oh Double One. Planning a trip this year? Fancy going somewhere different, somewhere you might not have thought of before? The Indie Travel Guide is here with some block rockin' tips for where to take yourself in 2011.

The big news this year is that the 'staycation' is dead. Whereas loads of us chose to take our holidays here in the UK last year, both to save money and because there was a volcano belching out ash, apparently this year we're going to get a bit more adventurous. Some interesting new routes have opened up with direct and affordable flights to destinations that previously didn't get a look in and travel companies are offering more and more unusual and leftfield trips for people who feel they've been there, done that and bought the souvenir Kim Jong Il T-shirt.

Jordan

Not the orange-faced model/novelist and ex of Peter Andre, but the country. Jordan is going to up its tourism game in 2011 thanks to a new direct route from Easyjet to the capital, Amman.

Jordan, unlike a lot of its Middle-Eastern neighbours is safe to visit and contains some amazing things to see. The ancient city of Petra - 'The Rose Red City' - is one of the new seven wonders of the world and the BBC voted it one of the '40 Places You Have to See Before You Die'. You can float in the Dead Sea and visit the Wadi Rum Desert with its red sands and camp out with Bedouin nomads.

There are loads of Biblical sites including the brook where Jesus is said to have been baptised and the mountain-top where Moses cast eyes on the promised land.

For a slightly alternative spin, you could take a Tintin-themed tour there. I'm a big Tintin fan so I was excited to see that On The Go Tours have teamed up with Moulinsart, the people who own the Tintin brand to run Tintin holidays. They offer an 8 day trip to Jordan, the setting for the Tintin adventure, The Red Sea Sharks. You'll be accompanied by an expert 'Tintinologist'. It's quite pricey, so if you can't afford it, you could always do your own DIY Tintin tour - Tintin's creator Hergé's drawings (all based on photos) are incredibly accurate so you'll be able to recognise the scenes from the book.

On the Go also do Tintin tours to India, Egypt and Brussels, home of Hergé.

Voluntourism

I'm told that 'Voluntourism' is going to be one of the big travel trends in 2011. This is people going to places and volunteering on projects that benefit local communities but for short 'holiday length' periods of time as opposed to the several months or even year long trips traditionally associated with volunteering.

This ties in with the fashion for responsible eco-tourism and the desire to 'give something back' to the place you're visiting.

One of the most interesting projects you can take part in this year is run by a group called TribeWanted. They got quite a lot of publicity for a project they've been doing over the last few years on the Fijian island of Vorovoro. Basically, they built a sustainable eco-community from scratch with the help of people who paid to be a 'tribe member' for a period of time, living on the island and taking part in the building projects.

Their new project for 2011 is in Sierra Leone on John Obey beach, about 20 miles from the capital, Freetown. The aim is to create an eco-village community in the war-ravaged country - the profits of which will go back to local people. You'll pay £295 a week to join the tribe - that covers your accommodation and food whilst you're there. There'll be a maximum of 30 tribe members at any time, all staying for a minimum of a week.

As well as a bit of hard work building mud houses, there will be downtime to explore the local forests and amazing unspoilt beaches - Sierra Leone, because of its war-torn past, is not somewhere a lot of people visit.

The TribeWanted price doesn't include your flight which you can get for about £550.

Chernobyl

Dom Joly was on this show last year talking about his book The Dark Tourist - about holidays in some of the world's most extreme locations. One of the places he visited was Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is of course the site of the worst ever nuclear disaster in history. 2011 will be the 25th anniversary and the Ukrainian government have now officially opened the area to tourists. There have been unofficial trips, like the one Dom went on for a while. To see photos from one have a look here.

This is definitely for people who like their holidays on the adventurous side, preferably accompanied by the clicking of a Geiger-counter. Ukraine, even in the non-radioactive bits, can have a certain 'wild west' quality and by entering the Chernobyl exclusion zone you are heading through probably the most radioactive place in the world.

You can do it as a day trip from Kiev (your lunch is brought in from outside the exclusion zone to avoid contamination!). The site is a couple of hours drive from the Ukrainian capital. The tour has been designed to take you on a safe route, avoiding the bits that are still dangerously radioactive. You'll see the notorious Reactor 4, where the disaster happened, the city of Pripyat, once home to 50,000 people but now evacuated - there are still school books lying on tables in classrooms and May Day decorations hanging in the streets - and stop near the Red Forest - the most contaminated area but now, strangely, proving to be an amazing habitat for plants and animals.

You can get a return flight to Kiev from about £150.

New York

And finally, the Big Apple. This may sound like an obvious one to recommend - New York's always good to visit, right? But 2011 is a special year for the city. It's the 10th anniversary of 9/11and the 'Ground Zero' site where the World Trade Centre stood, which has been closed off for a decade, will reopen as the National September 11th Memorial, a tree-filled plaza with 30ft waterfalls where the twin towers once stood. It's slated to open on the anniversary itself. It will be a pretty amazing and emotional moment for the city.

There are some other interesting things going on in the city this year. The High Line is an urban park in the West Side of Manhattan that's been created on some disused train tracks that run above street level, so you can walk through greenery and look down on the city streets below. It's become one of the must see things in NYC since it opened in 2009 and this spring it's going to extend to include a large lawn space that will be perfect for sunbathing and picnics and play host to various gigs and performances.

Loads of good gigs coming up this year in NYC too - a few that stick out:

For somewhere cheap to stay, look forward to the opening of Yotel this spring - Yotel is the hotel chain from Simon Woodroffe, the creator of Yo Sushi and this New York one, in the prime location of Times Square, will be the first outside of an airport location. Doubles will be from $150 (that's about £96 at the moment) and rooms are pretty stylish with rain showers, mood lighting and free wifi.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Bad Film Club

Here's a head's up for an event to get booking for later this month.

Bad Film Club is celebrating its 5th birthday with a special screening at London's Barbican Cinema on Jan 26th. As the name suggests, Bad Film Club is a club devoted to bad films. It's run by a comic double act called Nicko and Joe, whose philosophy is that, whilst watching a bad film on your own can be soul destroying, watching it in company can be hilarious.

Armed with laser pointers, the duo point out many of the film-maker's errors, ropey dialogue and creaking sets. They are often joined by other comedians, including the likes of Stewart Lee, Robin Ince and Brendon Burns. Audiences are allowed to shout out their own criticisms and generally join in.

The 5th birthday treat they are serving up is the 1997 film Anaconda starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson and Jon Voigt - now there's a mismatched team. Apparently this has been chosen by regular Bad Film Clubbers as their favourite. The plot revolves around a kidnapped National Geographic film crew in the jungle being terrorised by a giant CGI snake. The tag line is "Remember, you can't scream if you can't breathe."

This should be really fun. I'm sure the guys will put on an extra special show with it being their birthday and in the Barbican and there's bound to be some good comedy special guests.

Saturnalia Beer Festival and Mountain Bike Chariot Racing - Fri 14th &Sat 15th

This comes from the people who brought you the World Bog Snorkelling Championships and the Man Versus Horse Marathon, it's a Roman-themed beer festival culminating in the World Championship of Mountain Bike Chariot Racing.

Over the last year of doing this events guide, I've noticed people often stick 'World Championship' onto something to make it sound more exciting and I have to be honest, I'm not sure teams of mountain bike chariot racers are going to be travelling from across the globe for this.

It's in Llanwrtyd Wells in South Wales, which, with a population of 601, claims to be the smallest town in Britain (601! I've got more Facebook friends than that). For some reason, the town has become a bit of a Mecca for these sorts of strange events.

Saturnalia is a Roman-inspired food and drink festival at the town's Neuadd Arms. It's inspired by an original Roman winter festival in honour of the God Saturn, where slaves and their masters would change places for some bacchanalian revelry.

You can sample such delicacies as Lumbuli Assi Ita Fiunt -small roasted lamb's testicles and the locally brewed Absinthium Romanum. Don't worry, there are other less scary things like Pernae Cocturam (Honey Roast Ham) and Pullus Farsilis (stuffed chicken) and, of course, lots of beers.

Togas are optional...

And then, to work all the Roman food and booze off, on Sat 15th, there's the Mountain Bike Chariot Racing, where 3 person teams (2 on bikes and 1in the chariot) will race in true Ben Hur style through the Wales countryside..

To register a team, visit this site.

Greg Davies Stand Up Tour

And finally... Greg Davies

Greg is perhaps best known as Mr Gilbert on The Inbetweeners, but you'll also recognise him as one third of BBC 3 sketch team We Are Klang and from a whole host of panel games like 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Buzzcocks and, of course, Mock the Week (in the same way any actor worth their salt used to have The Bill and Casualty on their CV, 'as seen on Mock the Week' seems to follow almost any comedian's name these days...).

Greg's stand up has been getting rave reviews. His 2010 Edinburgh show, 'Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog' was nominated for the Comedy Award and he's just been nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award at the South Bank Show Awards.

He's touring the show round the country. It was meant to be just in the autumn but it's been extended now right through to June.

He's playing Norwich on 14th Jan, London's Soho Theatre 19th - 29th Jan and then loads of other places around the country.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

We have a corker for you today. Talib Kweli is set to release his first new album in four years on January 25th.

It's called Gutter Rainbows and will be released through Duck Down. This is an early taster from it, and you won't be disappointed.

Talib Kweli - Cold Rain

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Happy New Year all! Your first MPFree of 2011 comes from one of the Sound Of 2011 shortlisters.

This is another example of what to expect from Jamie Woon as the year progresses; get use to the name and his sound.

Jamie Woon - Blue Truth

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?