Eight questions with George Holroyd

(c) Jack Margerison Photography

First up, who is George Holroyd?!

I'm a 23 year old acoustic singer/songwriter originally from Suffolk and now residing in London, with a love for energetic live performances.

How long have you been making music… any special influences?

I've been playing guitar for over 10 years but didn't really start singing or writing songs until about 4 years ago, while at university in Nottingham. In terms of influences, I'd say Paul Simon, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan for the storytelling aspect of their songs and Ben Howard/The Tallest Man on Earth for their guitar/live style.

Your new Demons & Dust EP is due out very soon (9th) - how does that feel to almost have it out in the world?!

I'm absolutely psyched to finally have it out there, it's been over 2 years since I released my last EP (Peru). I tried to give this one more of a cohesive feel as the Peru EP was more of a collection of the songs that I'd written to date, I wanted more of a common theme and I think I've achieved that with Demons & Dust. While we're on this actually I'd also like to say a massive thank you to Sam Winfield for producing the record and to Cailean Couldridge for shooting the cover art, two massively talented guys who are a pleasure to work with.

You’re celebrating the EP with a launch show at one of Tigmus’ favourite London venues The George Tavern - what should fans expect from the set?

Yes I'm very excited to be playing there! I still play a solo set, fairly stripped back in terms of effects (just me and the guitar throughout). It'll be a nice intimate atmosphere in the early parts of the set with some of the quieter songs that I've written before opening up into some rowdier tracks towards the end as everyone's working their way through the contents of the bar, expect some crowd participation by the end of the evening and one or two well known covers thrown in!

Have you played alongside Felix M-B and Daisy Chute before?

I first saw Felix play about 3 years ago at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham and was instantly taken by his style, he has so much presence on stage and his songwriting is next level. Since then we've played a couple of gigs together and it's always an absolute pleasure, can't wait to see him play some of his new songs on Friday. I experienced a very similar reaction when I first saw Daisy play at a Tigmus gig in Hampton a couple of months ago; her songwriting is fantastic and the harmonies that she created with her band were breathtaking. I can't wait to see them both perform again and I'm honoured to have them supporting for the launch.

Who is your audience and how do you connect with your fans?

My audience is anyone who'll listen! I've met people of all ages after shows who've said they enjoyed what I've done and I like to think that my songs don't necessarily fall into one particular "bucket" or style. I think that the best way to connect with people that listen to the music is meeting them after shows and trying to foist my CDs on them/having a drink and a conversation.

What would your dream gig entail? Any particular venues you’re desperate to play or artists you’d love to play alongside?

I would love to play both Union Chapel because it's a beautiful venue and Brixton Academy because of the history and the amount of amazing shows I've seen there over the years, I feel one is currently more attainable than the other though! When I think of gigs I would personally love to have played (i.e. live albums that I played to death growing up), the ones that really stick in my head are Simon and Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park and the Red Hot Chili Peppers gig in Hyde Park (which I was at aged 11) back in 2004 - they had James Brown supporting them! Final one - as already mentioned, I would love to play alongside The Tallest Man on Earth.

What does the rest of 2017 hold for you after the EP launch?

Playing more shows to promote the D&D EP and getting to work on some new songs! I pretty much took 2016 off in terms of music so I'll be looking to not do that again, I've got a few ideas for the next steps I want to take songwriting-wise and I'm hoping to experiment with expanding the live sound a little too.

George Holroyd launches his Demons & Dust EP at The George Tavern in London tomorrow evening (9th June) with support from Daisy Chute and Felix M-B - tickets available here. 

Track of the week: Catgod - 'Someone Love'

Our track of the week this week comes from one of our favourite Oxford bands, Catgod. After launching their debut record Ready When You Are with a busy launch show in Oxford back in December, they've been busy in 2017 working on a new EP and playing lots of shows, including supporting on our sold out Holly Redford Jones gig and opening up our stage at The Great Escape. The EP is set to be released in July (21st) and the title track Someone Love is out now - check out the premiere on Gigslutz here!

If you're in Oxford, Catgod have just announced that they'll be playing Truck Festival on the EP release weekend (21-23 July) as well as Happy Valley Festival and Tandem Festival in June - lots of other brilliant local Oxford acts at all three, so be sure to head along if you can, this summery tune is bound to go down extremely well at the festivals!

(c) Milly Cope

Follow Catgod online - Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Soundcloud.

Tig Digs: Mt Doubt - 'The Loneliness of the TV Watchers'

Edinburgh's Mt Doubt have recently released their new EP The Loneliness of the TV Watchers - they're launching it with a show at Servant Jazz Quarters tomorrow night (7th June) with support from Duke Bradley and Oggy Why. The EP reflects on "the everyday sense of disillusionment and fear that affects all of us [and gives] an insight into the banality of everyday life" and features the track Reference Books, the video for which was premiered by The List a few weeks ago, who called the track "a blend of jangly guitars and stark lyrics, creating dark, pure indie". Take a listen to the track below!

The full EP is available through the band's page on Bandcamp and you can grab tickets for the show tomorrow night here to hear it live! 

Tig Digs: Dazy Crown - 'Multi Vitamin'

Norwich band Dazy Crown, who organised a mini tour through Tigmus last Summer, have released the first track from their upcoming debut EP. It's the follow up to their last single Peanut Butter Dreaming (which is a total tune), get listening to Multi Vitamin below:

The EP is set to be released on 16th June and launched at The Birdcage in Norwich on 14th June with support from Treacle People, Ellie Bleach and Peach Club - tickets just a couple of pounds through the FB event here!

Tigmus at The Great Escape Festival (May 2017)

A couple of weekends ago Team Tigmus headed down to not so sunny Brighton for The Great Escape, a 3-day festival with live music, conferences and all the free brunches and drinks parties our hearts could desire. As well as all this, we were there to run our own stage as part of the Alternative Escape at the wonderful North Laines Brewhouse on the Saturday, but first here's a little rundown of what we got up to on Thursday and Friday!

After kicking off the first day of the festival, a dreary rain-filled Thursday, with brunch at Dead Wax Social which had been taken over by the lovely folks at Music Glue, we caught a couple of panels at Duke's at Komedia for the drugs conference, including 'Music Making & Drug Taking'. A couple of us braved the rain and headed over to the Vevo stage at Wagner Hall to catch the end of Will Joseph Cook's stripped back set, which we followed up by a walk to Queen's Hotel on the seafront, where we dried off and caught one of my favourite sets of the weekend from Fil Bo Riva - check out his track Like Eye Did here. After fuelling up with burgers and catching up with the lovely Low Island chaps we caught some more live music from OUTLYA, The Amazons and another stand out act from the weekend - Leo Stannard, whose performance has already developed so much in the year since I last caught him playing.

Leo Stannard at Harbour Hotel

After drying out in our Airbnbs the sun came out (slightly) on Friday, and a couple of us headed to The Old Courtroom with Dazy Crown's Thomas for a really interesting talk hosted by PRS entitled 'Evolving as an artist with Marika Hackman' where Marika, her producer Charlie Andrew (Alt-J, Sivu), radio plugger Claire Collins and Tim Dellow from Transgressive were chaired by Radio 6 Music's Tom Ravenscroft, discussing her career as a musician and the work behind her second record, which is set to be released this Friday. It was really interesting getting an insight into just a small part of the team behind a musician and the different responsibilities that they all have!

Evolving as an artist with Marika Hackman panel at The Old Courtroom

This talk was followed by some great parties hosted by French organisation Oui Love (by bureau export), PRS for Music and Music Glue (with a Bear's Den DJ set, no less!) Once we'd taken a trip to the beach to make the most of the weekend's sun we headed to Komedia to catch MarthaGunn on my recommendation - thankfully the rest of the team enjoyed their set! They were opening up the Communion showcase and have since announced that they've signed to the label, so big congrats are in order! A perfect pairing if ever there was one. Once they'd finished, all our energies went into catching what we anticipated (rightly so) would be the stand out set of the weekend from our pals Low Island. It was a short walk away at Patterns and on the way we bumped into last year's Tigmus stage headliners Strong Asian Mothers who performed a card trick for us on the street... it was my first TGE personally, and a big highlight was all the friends and Tigmus alumni we bumped into across the weekend, walking with The Travelling Band's Jo to the venue and seeing Willie J Healey once we were there.

As we thought, Oxford's Low Island were pretty incredible and seem destined for great things... they've just spent the weekend playing at Dot To Dot Festival in Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham as well as stopping off at Oxford's Common People, and after a successful London show a couple of weeks back they're heading back for back-to-back shows at Corsica Studios in November, finishing up a UK tour, with lots of dates to be announced (tickets for those shows here.) Their latest release is the total tune That Kind of Love which you can check out on Soundcloud here! Once their set had finished we rushed back across town to see if we could get in to Komedia again to catch the Communion headliner, Dan Croll, and we got in just in time to catch his last track, From Nowhere - the perfect party tune. Look out for his new record Emerging Adulthood in July!

Low Island at Patterns

Suddenly Saturday had arrived and we fixed our lack of sleep with a delicious veggie breakfast from Wai Kika Moo Kau (if in Brighton we hugely recommend it) before heading to North Laines Brewhouse to kick off the afternoon session of our stage. From 12-4 we had the wonderful Catgod, Holly Redford Jones, Brudini, Neonomora, Hazey Jane and Valaire, and after a little break Pace, JYLDA, Bare Traps, The Fin., Gutxi Bibang and Little Brother Eli played us through til 11pm! After months of planning it was great to see the stage come together and to see lots of our favourite artists all in one day. The venue was really busy all day so huge thanks if you popped along for a set or two and helped to make it a great day - check out the Tigmus Instagram for photos from each set.

Be sure to also check out our album on Facebook for photos from across the weekend! After another brilliant and sold out show last week at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and The Fusion Project we're going full steam ahead to Wesley Memorial Church (just round the corner in Oxford) for Sam Lee and Duotone today, 1st June (tickets). Keep an eye on the Tigmus site for full upcoming listings for the Summer!

Track of the week: Low Island - 'That Kind of Love'

A collective favourite for Team Tigmus, Oxfordshire's Low Island have recently released their new single That Kind of Love which was premiered by Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1 last week. We absolutely adored their set at The Great Escape (more about that in our TGE write-up which we'll be posting soon) and heartily recommend you catch them live soon - they're off on a mini tour at the start of June kicking off with a BBC Introducing show at London's The Lexington tomorrow night (1st), before Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol. After wowing the crowds at this weekend's Oxford Common People Festival they'll be back on 21st October for the newly announced Future Perfect all-dayer Ritual Union on Cowley Road.

Follow Low Island online - Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud.

Eight questions with Too Tangled

Who are Too Tangled and where did the name come from? (a short introduction)

Too Tangled is a Belgian Indie-wave-electro duo. They use sounds of the 80s wave and punk, and mix them together with the sounds of now. They get praised by the European press for their refreshing, absorbing, sexy, and mysterious universe. Their sound is being compared with bands as The Knife, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Raveonettes, Depeche Mode...

How long have you been making music together, and what have the highlights been as a band?!

We've been making music together as for many years, but we started from scratch as a duo somewhat 7 years ago as 'Too Tangled'. Every concert is a highlight for us... that moment where we can connect with an audience and exchange energy... that's what it's about for us...

You released your new record ‘Revel Revel’ earlier this year - how has the response been so far and how has it been to take the record on the road around Europe?

The release has been going lovely... many of the interesting radios and blogs have spotted the album, and we're receiving lovely reviews on it... also live it's great to play the new tracks, and the set is a good mix of the new tracks together with the older, and every time we play, people are dancing and tripping, so that's a good place to be :-)

You’re coming over to the UK and playing Oxford and London dates for Tigmus...  how do you usually prepare for a live show, any unique pre-show warm-ups? And what should fans expect from your live shows?

We usually do some extra rehearsals before we leave on tour, to get some new things in it, and find some new ways to play... as a pre-show warm up we (Roeland, Eva, Machine (light), and Pedro (sound) always take 5 minutes alone in the backstage to greet the sun and have a gin tonic. What people should expect from the show? It's a trippy set, it starts with a lot of fog, and strobe... extended versions with wicked synths and freaky guitars, trippy beats, some punk-poetry à la John Cooper Clarck (whom we love btw), and some trancy Berlin-style tracks to finish it off.

Any sightseeing planned while you’re over here? Oxford is particularly beautiful in the sun!

We've been to Oxford many times... every time we come back to Courtyard studio (Sutton Courtenay/Oxfordshire) to finish an album, we take some time to visit... but it mostly rains doesn't it :-)

Who is your audience and how do you connect with your fans? Any crazy, fun, exciting stories are very welcome.

Our audience are crazy people between 16 and 60... we connect mostly after shows at the merch stand, and via Facebook obviously also... the craziest fan we had so far? was a woman who came to see us 6 times in a row (on average distances of 400 miles) she was completely crazy so that's why we like her so much :-) also one time our Roadie got lost in the first day of a Swiss/German tour, and he ended up at the bar with 6 beautiful Swiss women drinking way too much gin (without tonic)... we nearly had to send him home with an ambulance... Swiss women can be dangerous, especially if they're fans!

What would your dream gig entail? Any particular venues you’re desperate to play or artists you’d love to play alongside, in the UK or back home?

We haven't got a particular venue or festival we'd love to play... we love to play in the big venues obviously, but we love to play the small scruffy venues also... as long as we can play it's all good! We've got a bunch of artists that we adore and love to play alongside, we've had the chance of playing alongside Gaz Coombes and Band of Skulls, which was wicked... crazy good bands!

After a busy Summer tour, what does the rest of 2017 hold for Too Tangled?

Autumn-tours in Germany, Austria, Switserland, Belgium, and Italy (although Italy might be January) and in the meantime we're already writing some new stuff of which we're gonna try one or two out during the UK tour... be aware :-)

Too Tangled play at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford on 14th June and The Islington in London on 16th June - tickets here!