May 2013
3 posts
9 tags
Review 20.05.13
Review for ‘Champagne of the People’. http://asdustdances13.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/duke-and-the-darlings/
Duke and the Darlings are not like every other band that you have come across, they are distinctively different. They realise that music is about giving and enjoying it with others, so as a testament to this, Duke and the Darlings put on regular free gig nights, every month in...
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Review 10.05.13
Review of ‘Champagne of the People’: http://www.altmusicreview.co.uk/review-duke-and-the-darlings-champagne-of-the-people/
The second EP, Champagne Of the People from small-time rock group Duke And The Darlings is one for such a list. The Manchester four piece infuse a delicate indie-rock style and entwine it around upbeat vocal hooks, enthralling solo’s and hard hitting melodies that...
April 2013
2 posts
11 tags
Review 17.04.13
Review of Duke and the Darlings to date: http://ilovemanchester.com/2013/04/17/spotlight-duke-and-the-darlings/
This four-piece not only recorded their début EP, live at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, but they have also subsequently released their second EP, just this year, entitled Champagne of the People. This EP astonishingly, was recorded live, mixed and mastered all in the same...
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March 2013
7 posts
11 tags
Review 27.03.13
Review for ‘Champagne of the People’:
http://itsoundedsweet.com/2013/03/duke-and-the-darlings-champagne-of-the-people-ep-review/ Duke and the Darlings are a four-piece band from Manchester consisting of Alex Reed, Jonny Saatchi, Grant Tildsley and Luke Wilkinson. Their second EP, ‘Champagne of the People’ was released on the 22nd March on Sweet Sweet Records and I’m already a big...
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'Champagne of the People' - iTunes →
This link will transport you to iTunes, where you can buy our new release. Serving suggestion: Stout and wasabi peas.
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'Champagne of the People' - Spotify →
This link will carry you to Spotify, where you can enjoy our new release. Serving suggestion: IPA and mature cheddar.
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Review 21.03.13 (2)
Review for ‘Champagne of the People’: http://softconcretemag.com/2013/03/21/ep-review-champagne-of-the-people-by-duke-and-the-darlings/
This is the second EP from Manchester-based alternative pop band, Duke and the Darlings. Released on Sweet Sweet Records, it is considered to be instantly infectious and have songs written about marriage breakdowns, flirting and drug-induced fits…
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Review 21.03.13 (1)
Review for ‘Champagne of the People’: http://independentmusicnews.co.uk/rreeevviieeewww-duke-and-the-darlings-champagne-of-the-people/
I think we should hire Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and Renée Zellweger for their latest adventure - Champagne of the People. I was rather excited when I received the digital present through the post/email box. I opened it and noted down each emotion, with...
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Interview 19.03.13
‘Champagne of the People’ was reviewed by The Suddenly Kate Show. Below is the interview from this review. For the full review please visit: http://suddenlykateshow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/duke-and-darlings-new-ep-champagne-for_19.html?spref=tw
You mentioned last August that you would be doing free gigs in Manchester, what made you decide to do this? And do you think this has...
February 2013
1 post
14 tags
Ale-ternative at The Castle Hotel, Manchester →
Ale-ternative brings unsigned alternative pop to you and your ears, all for the loving price of £0.00. But you knew that. Our monthly night has now taken residency at the uber-pub The Castle Hotel, in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. These are the dates confirmed so far:
Friday 15th March
Friday 19th April
Friday 17th May
Friday 21st June
Friday 19th July Get in touch if you would like to...
January 2013
2 posts
11 tags
Duke and the Darlings EP →
For those of you with the new year’s resolution to listen to more unsigned bands, here is our first EP for your consumption.
It’s on Spotify and YouTube, too, if you’re other new year’s resolution is to save more money…
December 2012
4 posts
10 tags
The Year Of The Duke?
For ever and ever we will forever endeavour, but it can be quite healthy to decompartmentalise this into targets more tangible every now and again. The imminent prospect of a new year has got Duke and the Darlings all reflective.
What can we achieve in 2013? We don’t know. We cannot predict the unpredictable.
But. However. Despite this. Here is our wish-list for the next 12 months:
1....
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Ale-ternative
Duke and the Darlings are cask-conditioned. We are pop music matured in an oak barrel.
In October, we hosted our first night of live music: Ale-ternative. We wanted to make exceedingly good alternative pop free to those human beings boasting ears. Sunday 23rd December saw Ale-ternative #3 packed to the rafters, with attendees left gasping for more.
And there will be more.
We have never truly...
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Putting The 'Hi' in 'hiatus'
As if subject to the madcap logic of Dorian Gray, whereby one’s image appears much younger and inexperienced than is actually true, we would like make clear that despite this barren blog suggesting a neglect of duty from ourselves, we have in fact been working tirelessly as a band.
The truth is that unsigned bands run their own social media.
The truth is that unsigned bands run themselves...
August 2012
3 posts
6 tags
“I just go where the guitar takes me.”
– Angus Young
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This post was brought to you by everybody but...
Originality is something only claimed to be achieved by an unhealthy handful of liars.
A band can seldom be quoted on saying ‘We are not original’. Instead there is a fashion for fashioning oneself as John Lennon reborn, or an abstract alchemist with byzantine song structures and prophetic lyrics. It is difficult enough to believe a lot of what one reads in interviews with...
“It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation.”
– Herman Melville
July 2012
2 posts
17 tags
You Can Call Us 'Al'
A band can be defined as ‘a group of people formed for a mutual purpose’, but what is more important, the group as a whole or the people of which the group consists?
Blink-182? Teenageism. Rage Against The Machine? Anti-imperialism. The Roots? Cool-as-you-like-clever-as-you-can-get-ism. Intentional or not, a band can come to symbolise a particular notion or movement, with each member...
“If I’m free, it’s because I’m always running.”
– Jimi Hendrix
June 2012
3 posts
11 tags
Artists Anonymous
If you have a friend who is in an unsigned band, then you have probably been asked to attend one of their gigs. And listen to their music. And make other people listen to their music. And maybe even get the T-shirt. Unsigned musicians desperate for their band to achieve something tangible in an increasingly competitive and dilute industry will try any technique conceivable. If you have a friend...
20 tags
The Scene Is Dead But Manchester Is Still Restless
Today is Manchester Day, and was celebrated with a parade through the glorious metropolis, with revellers treated to various festivities throughout a grey, Lowryesque day.
Music included.
The relation between Manchester and music is symbiotic. Oasis. The Stone Roses. Joy Division. The Buzzcocks. The Smiths. The Verve. Elbow. James. Ad infinitum. Moreover, we are now reminded of this...
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Free Gig Announced
It can be argued that the lost art of busking no longer provides an unsigned band with a concrete platform for networking, precious contact with screaming fans, and unprecedented visibility. It can be argued that busking never did any of these things anyway.
But is busking as dead as the dodo? Or as obselete as Dada? Or as irrelevant as Dido? Interestingly, if we bend the truth, commit a few...
May 2012
5 posts
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once...”
– Bertrand Russell
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For Goodness, Saki
A large percentile of the people working in the music industry are trained and paid to primp and present musicians in a marketable fashion. A stronger claim is that the music industry is in fact a sub-sector of the marketing sector.
It is a struggle for an unsigned band to construct an image that simultaneously preserves a respectable modicum of integrity. The fear of ‘selling out’...
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Ubiquity (noun)
The first commandment of being an unsigned band has changed. No longer does it state that ‘An unsigned band must be in the right place, at the right time’, but in fact pluralises the sentiment to read: ‘An unsigned band must be in ALL the right places, at ALL the right times’.
The emergence of social media as a crutch and cane to musicians has coerced the expectations of...
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One day, we will all be MP3s...
As if predicted by a Kilgore Trout novel, Duke and the Darlings have been been compressed and encapsulated into MP3 format. Lost are our excuses, manners and ceremony, as we have been forever preserved in the amber of our live EP.
Fortunately enough, we have been preserved in the finest amber available; we recorded our EP at Abbey Road Studios.
The three-track EP was recorded live in Studio 3,...
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