UPDATE: Just got back from seeing the Nightingales second NY show on their limited tour of the states. They are perhaps the greatest live act in existence right now. Throw the Velvets, Captain Beefheart, Faust, Television, Link Wray, The Fall etc in a blender, pulse it on the “punk rock confrontation” and “post-punk angularity and angst” settings and you’re halfway there. They have one more show in Boston, so make the trip.

Believe it or not, when I’m not DJing or making amazing internet radio playlists, I sometimes find the time to work on a record label, and I’ve been meaning to post some sort of update about this so-called “record label” and catch up with some of the artists we’ve worked with.

THE LINES
If you want to know what we’ve been up to for the last few months…or years, the answer probably involves the Lines. We’ve mentioned here and there that this has been coming and now it’s finally happening. The first of our Lines CDs, Memory Span, compiling all of the band’s singles and EPs comes out in the end of May. It will also feature two unreleased tracks and a colorful booklet. If you’re unfamiliar, the Lines were a unique band who released an eclectic and continuously evolving body of work over several years during the late 70s/early 80s post-punk era, played with many of the great bands of the day, but always managed to fall through the cracks. From skeletal and taut post-punk scorchers to atmospherically recorded dubbed-out bliss, their music was consistently wonderful, yet they were criminally ignored during their own time, and outside of a rabid cult following, forgotten since. We hope this will change with our Lines reissues and you’ll be hearing plenty more about them. In the meantime, check out a few of their classic tracks online and be their myspace friend.

THE NIGHTINGALES
No, you didn’t read that wrong, we didn’t release any Nightingales records, but we put out the CD compiling the Prefects, the early UK punk band that would eventually evolve into the Nightingales. It’s a kick-ass CD and I think we still have some copies available.

Faults
[audio:http://acuterecords.com/sounds/ACT7/Faults.mp3]
control-click to download

Anyway, around the time of that CD release, Robert Lloyd hooked up with original Prefects guitarist Alan Apperly to form the latest version of the Nightingales and even brought them to the US for their first ever shows here. A year later they came back with a different drummer, and a new second guitarist, the teenage guitar sensation Matt Wood and they were totally awesome. Now they’re back in the states for a few shows. Anybody who saw them on their last visit, especially the show at Cake Shop, know they completely kill. Robert and Co. teach the kids how it’s done for the very best in post-punk angular skronk honky tonk kraut-rock and roll.

Thursday, March 6th
Club Midway, 25 Avenue B (between 2nd and 3rd), Manhattan
10$, 8$ in advance
Show has been mvoed to The Charleston, Bedford and North 7th, Williamsburg, 9pm, 7$
The Nightingales, Christy & Emily, Hotpants Romance, and Tatters and Rags (live debut!)

Friday, March 7th
Death By Audio, 49 S. 2nd St (between Wythe & Kent), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8pm, $6, ALL AGES
The Nightingales, Hotpants Romance, and The In Out

Saturday, March 8th
Church, 69 Kimarnock Street, Boston
9pm, $8, 21+
The Nightingales, Hotpants Romance, The Konks, Apple Betty

IKE YARD
Another band reissued by Acute that’s back alive and kicking, New York’s Ike Yard, or at least 3/4ths of them, have been playing and recording steadily for the past year. Tons of recordings from recent sessions can be heard on their myspace page. They’ve also done a jam session or two with Sal and Dennis from Liquid Liquid, another great band from that great period in NYC music. They also remain busy with side projects including the continued existence of the Death Comet Crew and Ike Yard’s Stuart has cool events like the Dystopians movie night at Monkeytown, where Stuart will be joined by Bones and Norman Westburg of the Swans to provide a live socre to George Lucas’s THX 118.

FIRE ENGINES
Our most recent release, Hungry Beat by the Fire Engines continues to excite and amaze. After they reunited a few years back we were hoping to get the chance to have them come over to America for the first time and play some shows, maybe even in their spiritual no-wave home of NYC. I even had a pipe dream of setting up a tour of Subway Sect, the Fire Engines and the Nightingales. Alas, it wasn’t to be, but the guys from the Fire Engines have kept themselves busy. Singer Davey Henderson and drummer Russell Burns have recorded 2 fantastic singles as the Sexual Objects. Great, velvets-fueled rock, available from Creeping Bent and Aufgeladen & Bereit. Check out the latter label’s myspace page to hear a sample. Russell has another project called The Bum-Clocks, where he backs up his brother and proto-Fire Engines member Tam Dean Burn who essentially presents a Scottish poetry reciting of the works of Iggy Pop. They are joined by the amazing guitar of Malcolm Ross who previously played in obscure Scottish bands called Josef K, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.