Latest Scoundrels News
- TueDec 20th
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Check this y’all…
We’re hugely flattered and impressed by this awesome cover version of our tune “Gulf Of Mexico”, thankyou Sam for performing such a great version!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75NKikGwHd8
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What better way to bring in the Christmas cheer than to head back on tour with The Kooks for their last remaining UK dates. Thankyou Birmingham, Leeds, Portsmouth and London for being so awesome to four scruffy, young lads from the south. We had a blast and are now fully prepped for a hit of mince pies, mulled wine and drunken renditions of “Silent Night”.
We already can’t wait for what the New Year will bring too. We’ve just finished the final tweaks to our EP which’ll be released early next year (March) and it’s already sounding a notch above what we’ve already released. The track listing is below (in no particular order);
Sexy Weekend
Beijing Honey
Brothers
Bon Temps Rouler
London
We’re also gonna embark on some pretty intensive touring, so we expect/hope to see loads of you at venues all over the world.
Bring on the New Year!
Happy Christmas y’all…
Ned/Billy/Genie/G x
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- ThuDec 1st
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Qlove your music guys! seen you advertised on facebook and now i cant get enough! keep up the great work!A
Thanks so much - we love you too!
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Qhey there guys, just got hold of a copy of the album sampler cd..... bloomin' love it!
will the " sniff it up " ep be available on cd?AHi there - so pleased you like the Sniff It Up EP - the tracks on it are available on our album which is called ‘Scoundrels’. You should be able to get it on amazon and all the usual places.
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- FriNov 11th
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QI'd consider myself very well schooled in quality music. I heard you guys through Kerrang Radio (Loud n Proud) and thought i need to check you out. I did & discovered various works of yours on tinternet. First i actually listened to was 'Dirty Weekend' and thought now that guy can sing and I loved the drummer showing skills from a different perspective. NOW I've got you album and am trying like hell to get as many people I know to listen to you're s@#t, you guys absof@#king lutely rock!A
You’re too f@*#king kind!
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Scoundrels take on New York (and win).
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- ThuNov 3rd
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We’ve got some great gigs lined up for December that we’d love to see you all at…
Friday, 9th December
Green Door Store, Brighton (CHRISTMAS PARTY PART 1)
Tickets - http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/alttickets/event_ate_13750a.html
Saturday, 10th December
The Borderline, London (CHRISTMAS PARTY PART 2)
Tickets - http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/alttickets/event_ate_13739a.html
Saturday, 17th December
THE KOOKS Tour
Birmingham Academy, Birmingham
Sunday, 18th December
THE KOOKS Tour
Leeds Academy, Leeds
Hope to see y’all there, it’s gonna be a good Christmas…
X Ned/Genie/Billy/G
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- MonOct 31st
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Yesterday we Scoundrels arrived back from a two week trip to the states, and my word what a trip it was. We had an incredible time, spent time recording our EP, played a few gigs and performed a live radio session for CBS in Howard Stern’s old studio.
The CMJ Festival gigs were amazing, two showcases, one at the incredible Brooklyn Bowl for The Orchard and the other at Santos Party House for SESAC. Both were great venues, and we played to great, energetic crowds who seemed really up for it. Our other gig was in Washington at DC9, which is a great, vibey venue in an amazing city. Post gig we ventured out to check out some of the sights. The Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument have to be seen to be believed, nothing prepares you for the sheer size and presence of both.
We were lucky enough to be asked to perform a live CBS Radio session which went really well. We performed “Arrogance Blues”, “Hangman’s Lament”, “Sexy Weekend” and “Beijing Honey” live in a skyscraper overlooking Manhattan. We were told that the studio had been home to shock jock Howard Stern’s famous show back when he used to work for CBS.
As for the recording of the EP things couldn’t have gone better. We literally can’t wait to show y’all the results. We recorded 5 tunes, “London”, “Sexy Weekend”, “Bon Temps Rouler”, “Beijing Honey” and “Brothers”, all of which were sounding great. On “Brothers” we were lucky enough to be assisted by American Idol finalist Jermaine Sellers, whose soulful Gospel added some great depth to the tune. The studio itself was brilliant, and was owned by James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins fame. Our engineer Alonzo Vargas (50 Cent, P Diddy, Swizz Beats etc etc) was a maestro behind the desk, and our producer/label boss Richard Gottherer (Sire Records founder, The Orchard founder, ex Strangeloves frontman etc) was great at getting the best out of us and our tunes.
We left New York full o’ beans, and just as it started to snow heavily. We had an amazing time and can’t wait to show you all the results. We expect the EP to be released early next year, around the same time we expect to cross the pond again for some more US touring.
Can’t blimmin’ wait…
x Ned/Genie/Billy/G
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- FriOct 14th
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- WedOct 12th
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- ThuOct 6th
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Scoundrels in Heat Magazine, South Africa, who’d have thought it…
http://heat.co.za/music/music-review-scoundrels-scoundrels/7159/
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Loud n Proud is single of the week on Kerrang Radio, people. Tune in to Danielle Perry (Weekdays 11:00 – 15:00) and let her know how much you love Scoundrels!
http://www.kerrangradio.co.uk/
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- TueSep 13th
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We are delighted to announce that Scoundrels will be supporting The Kooks on the following UK dates:
7th October – Portsmouth Guildhall http://bit.ly/ov0pRv
8th October – Birmingham Academy http://bit.ly/nBPfEE
9th October – Leeds Academy http://bit.ly/oz1El4
11th October – Brixton Academy http://bit.ly/osomp8Click the links for tickets to see Scoundrels at their biggest shows to date!
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- FriSep 9th
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Hello all,
Just a reminder that next weekend, we Scoundrels will be performing on the main stage @ Hemstock Festival. It’s a great line up and I recommend highly getting a ticket to see us, and acts like The Correspondents, The Nextmen, Zion Train and Leah Mason amongst others!
Tickets are still available to buy at WWW.HEMSTOCKFESTIVAL.CO.UK so go for it…
x Ned/Billy/Josh/George
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I was born in the city,
I sported teeth that never fit my mouth,
Havin’ warts n’ titties meant my confidence was headed south.
And you start at the bottom when your heart is in the sound,
‘Cos noone ever listens,
They’re just following the crowd.
So you play it loud,
Play it loud and then you play it proud,
‘Cos when you play it loud you push the scenesters from the crowd.
Cleanse me of their misdirection,
Call me on j-i-v-e-a-s-s pretension,
‘Cos I’d love to be part of their fickle, fake scene,
I’d love to be part of the ticker tape dream,
I’d love to make you my African Queen,
I’m in this shit to make the bitches love me.
So now go, go,
Go sell your soul,
Go, go,
Go sell your soul.
So play it loud,
Play it loud and then play it proud,
‘Cos when you play it loud you push the scenesters from the crowd.
So now go, go,
Go sell your soul,
Go, go,
Go sell your soul x2…Loading...
- TueSep 6th
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- MonAug 1st
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When your confidence falters and you resort to the wrap,
Would you share with other fools your confident chat?
So sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good, sniff it up good…
When your confidence falters, you should resort to the rock,
You’re in need of other tools to get that confidence unlocked,
So sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good…
Danielle with the robot eyes, her nostrils they melted and it made me cry,
She went sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good…
So Jenny don’t you do it, you’re a good girl but you blew it,
And when your confidence gets stronger, your anecdotes get longer,
Jenny you should know it, you sniff when you should blow it,
Listening to your stories…my girl you’re getting boring…
So sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good,
I must say you’re slippin up, slippin’ up,
Slippin’ up and that’s no good…
The honest answer, this stuffs an ego enhancer,
But it makes me such a cool dancer and a five star romancer…
So sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good…
There you go again, claimin’ one and all as friends,
And it’s only cos I care, that I don’t want to see you there.
So Jenny don’t you do it, you’re a good girl but you blew it,
And as your confidence gets stronger, your anecdotes get longer,
Jenny you should know it, you sniff when you should slow it,
Listening to your stories, my girl you’re getting boring…
So sniff it up, sniff it up, sniff it up,
Sniff it up good,
I must say you’re slippin’ up, slippin’ up,
Slippin’ up and that’s no good…
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- TueJun 14th
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Exclusive Preview of Scoundrels debut single Gulf of Mexico.
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- MonJun 13th
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On the 27th June our debut album will finally be released worldwide on the legendary Blue Horizon label. A week earlier, on the 20th June our debut single “Gulf Of Mexico” will also be available across the globe. It’s already started doing the rounds over the airwaves and on the net ahead of it’s release and has gained some great reactions.
It’s been an amazing few years to get to this point, and a real testament to that old wisdom that persistence and hard work really does pay off.
From our days starting out, running nights at the Nottinghill Arts Club and playing at venues to only the soundman we’ve always had a great time. We owe Adam Callan and his dad Alan (Swansong Records boss back in the day) a great deal. Ads was our first lead guitarist and a fine one at that, but after successful stints running nights and DJing swapped his guitar for the much vaunted job of A & R impresario for Virgin and Relentless and now heads up a management company in spite of his youthful years.
When Ads left we really were in a quandry but Billy, Genie and I never once thought about packing it in and instantly set about putting into place a new axeman. We had a record deal brewing in the pipeline and to have dropped the ball at that point would’ve been pure madness.
I’d heard about George from various people, and he’d come with the reputation of being one of the best young blues players in London. It was pretty obvious how good he was from our first audition with him and there seemed to exist a great chemistry between all of us. We asked him to come and sit in at a gig with us (at Monto Water Rats) and we’ve never looked back since.
Label legend Seymour Stein had shown interest in us right from our college years when a cruddy demo we’d made found it’s way onto his stereo. I remember recieving a call from him and being completely shocked that he seemed so interested. It’s not everyday that you recieve a phone call from the man that signed Madonna, The Ramones, The Smiths, Talking Heads etc etc (the list goes on and on) and to have someone of his calibre show faith and enthusiasm for what we were doing was an incredible compliment.
Seymour’s vision was to send us out to Louisiana to live in the swamps and soak up the Cajun atmosphere, and the “real deal” blues, soul, rock n’ roll and zydeco of Lafayette and it’s environs under the watchful gaze of Swamp Pop legend CC Adcock.
Our time out there was incredible and we even managed a brief, two week sojourn to Chicago to record with Alt Rock legend Steve Albini (he of Nirvana, Pixies fame).
I cannot ever begin to overestimate what our time living and breathing music in that environment for 3 months did for us as a band. It transformed us completely and we will forever be indebted to the people we met along the way whilst out there.
On returning to the UK we set about touring, finishing off our record and eventually becoming the first European signings to Blue Horizon, run by legends Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer.
The past year really has indeed been a whirlwind and our album launch party on 30th June @ Ginglik is akin to us placing a marker down in the road to show us how far we’ve come since tunes like “Batman”, “Hello Everybody” and “The Weasel Is Out On The Town Tonight” once graced our sets.
It’s also a marker that indicates how much much much much further we still have to go. We will never ever rest on our laurels and assume that success will come to us. Similarly, we will never ever cease to aspire to write the best tunes humanly possible. We want each album we release to constantly see us evolving as better musicians, better performers and better writers. We want to gain new fans every time we play live, have a song played on the radio or are promoted on the net.
After this album’s release party we embark on a summer of festivals and touring, heading out to Italy to play at the Formula 1 and an east coast tour of the states in October. We hope also to get a chance to record our second album this summer as we’ve got a plethora of tunes ready that we’re all itching to get down.
We’d hope to release our second album early next year and move the whirlwind we’ve been experiencing this past year up a few notches on the Beaufort scale, with new places toured and many new fans gained.
A huge thankyou for all of you who have supported us these past few years. A huge thankyou too to all those that have worked with us, the soundmen, engineers, musicians, producers, pluggers, label bosses, DJ’s, all who have helped us a little along the way. The journey has only just begun with this release and long may it continue.
X Ned/Genie/Billy/George
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Meet the band
Lead Vocals, Guitar
Lead Guitar,
Vocals
Bass
Drums,
Vocals
The band: Ned, Josh, Billy, George
The suburbs of London are a long way from the swamps of Louisiana, and crossing the musical space between is the stuff that dreams are made of. But sometimes, when you concoct the right potion of talent, work, and magical circumstance, you will find that those dreams can come true. This is the story of Scoundrels, and how they got there.
For Ned Wyndham (25, vocals/guitar), Alex ‘Billy’ Hill (24, bass) and Josh Martens (25, drums) the journey had inauspicious beginnings. Being friends since their schooldays, they already shared the first magic ingredient to band chemistry, and a shared a love of 50s soul, roots, doo wop and classic rock led them all to London’s LCCM music college where they were able to hone their skills, putting on rootsy nights at Notting Hill Arts Club and The Troubadour and recruiting the final piece of their band jigsaw George Elliot (20, guitar) along the way. “College equipped us and it helped with our confidence,” admits Ned today, but they will admit that then, only two years ago, they had tendencies to play hour-long single-song jams peppered with renditions of the Batman theme. They picked their name simply “because it was better than Carpet Lickers.” Nothing wrong with that of course, but the real dream at play was to find and authentic British version of the kind of the kind of blues that existed in their record collections and their imaginations. And when they managed to do that, they would find things moving faster than they could ever have imagined.
Being enterprising types, the band had compiled a list of industry figures to which to send their demo. And in a moment of brilliant serendipity one of the first (in all likelihood one of the only) people to take the time to listen to it was the A&R legend of Sire Records, Seymour Stein, the man responsible for the careers of no smaller names than Madonna and The Ramones. The dreams of these four English boys then became the business of this American heavyweight who had a plan for them, as Ned explains:
“Within Seymour’s mind he came up with this idea, because he heard Cajun-ny vibes in there, and he waxed lyrical about South Louisiana, the scene and the music there, how it was this melting pot of blues, gospel and soul. He goes down there every year to get his musical hit. He said ‘you guys have got to go soak up the music and work in some of the fantastic studios they have down there.”
A few weeks and feats of management money-making magic later, and the band were on their way to their Beatles-In-Hamburg moment. They flew to the town of Lafayette (population 60,000) and were collected by a long-haired roadie with one tooth called Hart, who drove a 22-foot Lincoln Continental called the Cream Puff, accompanied at every stage by “a slightly bedraggled old stripper.”
There, they slept on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamps, lived on a diet of Crawfish and Gumbo, watched two or three bands every night, most of which invited them up onstage with them and gorged themselves on a diet of zydeco jazz, blues and modern rock. And by day they laid down the songs that were growing and evolving with every minute, growing rich in the Louisiana spirit. Some tracks, most obviously ‘Louisiana Song’ were written out there, but as Ned remembers “all the songs were played a certain way at home and every single one of them, when we got out there, was played a different way. One of the things was laying back on the groove. Everyone was so laid back, it was infectious the way they played beats out there.”
The sessions at Studio in the Country and La Louisianne might have opened out their music, but the warmth and hospitality of the people there had an effect on a band raised on the uptight London music scene that will stay with them forever. And this was not even to be the end of the Scoundrels American adventures. After six weeks in Louisiana they headed to Chicago to work with Steve Albini, whose organic approach of letting bands do things for themselves gave the record another flavour again.
The cat-loving lo fi impresario and cult rock Godhead left another indelible impression on the foursome. “He’s a really clever guy who knows so much about so many different subjects,” offers Ned, “he was a proper eccentric but really friendly. He wears a boiler suit to the studio with pens in his top pocket, round glasses and spiky hair. He’s very clever and quietly dry. After all the recordings he’d come and hang out and watch TV.”
Taking songs born from a British sensibility and stirring in two distinctly American approaches, Scoundrels’ debut mines a virgin sound. And saying a lot for the band’s unique identity, it is not immediately apparent which songs came from which sessions. The songs speak of youth and love and hope and hopelessness, putting an arched spin on the myth of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll.
‘Red Riding Hood’ puts a sexy, swampy spin on the predatory subtext of one of our most popular fairytales. ‘All On My Own’ channels the most legendary of bluesmen in a timeless tale of lost love, while the louche ‘Sexy Weekend’ is as satirical as it might sound self-indulgent. “I suppose a lot of the lyrics are a bit tongue in check. Some of them are ideas, some of them are true, some of the have bits of truth in them. I guess they are naturally quite English.”
So would the band really class themselves as Scoundrels? “It’s nice to have a certain amount of ambiguity about stuff like that,” laughs Ned. Without being purposefully offensive, we’re just a little bit cheeky maybe. We’re well-meaning scoundrels perhaps. We always have the best of intentions.”
A film documenting the making of the album by director Wyatt Garfield may be able to answer that one a little more accurately. But that the band have come up with a record that lives up to all of the classic rock rebellion they set out to encapsulate is undeniable.
Scoundrels Gig Dates
Past Gigs
2011
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Sun Dec 18
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Sat Dec 17
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Sat Dec 10
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Fri Dec 9
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Mon Oct 24
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Wed Oct 19
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Wed Oct 19
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Tue Oct 11
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Sun Oct 9
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Sat Oct 8
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Fri Oct 7
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Sat Sep 17
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Sun Sep 4
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Fri Sep 2
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Thu Sep 1
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Sun Aug 21
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Tue Aug 16
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Wed Aug 10
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Fri Aug 5
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Tue Jul 19
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Sat Jul 16
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Wed Jul 13
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Sat Jul 2
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Fri Jul 1
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Thu Jun 30
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Sun May 22
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Tue May 17
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Thu Apr 28
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Thu Apr 7
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Tue Apr 5
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Thu Mar 17
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Sat Mar 12
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Sun Mar 6
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Fri Mar 4
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Mon Feb 28
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Sun Feb 27
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Wed Feb 23
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Tue Feb 22
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Mon Feb 21
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Sun Feb 20
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Sat Feb 19
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Fri Feb 18
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Thu Feb 17
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Wed Feb 16
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Mon Feb 14
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Wed Jan 26
2010
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Sat Dec 11
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Tue Dec 7
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Mon Nov 1
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Thu Oct 21
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Thu Sep 2
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Fri Jul 30
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Thu Jul 29
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Wed Jul 28
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Sun Jul 25
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Sat Jul 24
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Fri Jul 23
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Thu Jul 22
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Wed Jul 21
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Sat Jun 12
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Fri Jun 11
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Thu Jun 10
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Wed Jun 9
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Tue Jun 8
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Mon Jun 7
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Sun Jun 6
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Sat Jun 5
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Fri Jun 4
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Wed Apr 7
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Tue Mar 16
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Sat Mar 13
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Sat Mar 6
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Sat Mar 6
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Wed Feb 17
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Wed Jan 27
2009
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Sat Dec 12
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Thu Dec 3
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Wed Nov 11
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Thu Oct 29
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Wed Oct 14
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Wed Sep 23The Fly
The Fly Bar, 36-38 New Oxford Street, London -
Fri Sep 11
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Tue Sep 1
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Sat Aug 15
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Fri Aug 7
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Wed Jul 15
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Thu Jul 2
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Sat May 16
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Tue May 5
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Sat Jan 3
2008
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Wed Dec 31
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Fri Apr 25
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Mon Apr 7
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Fri Mar 28
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Wed Mar 26
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Thu Feb 28
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Sun Feb 17
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Sun Jan 27
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Sat Jan 26
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Fri Jan 25Scoundrels Present..... & Hoodoo Hop with Kingsize & Morrisson Steam Fayre
The Troubadour, Old Brompton Road, London 2007
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Mon Dec 31
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Sun Dec 9
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Tue Dec 4
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Wed Oct 24
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Thu Oct 11
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Tue Oct 2
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Sun Sep 30
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Sun Aug 26
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Fri Aug 24
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Thu Aug 9The Fly Bar
The Fly Bar, 36-38 New Oxford Street, London -
Thu Aug 2
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Sat Jul 7
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Tue Jul 3
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Sat Jun 30
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Fri Jun 29
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Fri May 18
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Fri May 11
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Tue May 1
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Sat Mar 31
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Tue Mar 6
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Sat Feb 17
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Thu Feb 8
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Fri Feb 2
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Thu Jan 25
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Thu Jan 18
2006
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Tue Dec 5
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Thu Nov 16
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Fri Nov 10
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Sun Nov 5
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Fri Nov 3