The New Cue #494 May 23: Oasis Quiz, Pan Amsterdam, U.S. Girls, Sports Team, Paul Weller, These New Puritans, Alison Goldfrapp, White Lies, Natalie Bergman, Barry Can’t Swim

"Even if she had a favourite she ain't telling you that shit"

Good morning, or afternoon, wherever and whenever you are reading this, you are most welcome.

Before we get started, an announcement from Ted about two forthcoming events that are happening to promote the July 3 book that he’s written with Hamish MacBain called A Sound So Very Loud: The Inside Story of Every Song Oasis Recorded. There’s some info about the book, a link to order and some ridiculously over-the-top quotes for it at this link.

Normally when authors publish books, they do some events where they sit on stools in book shops and social clubs wanging on into microphones about their work for an hour, everyone has a nice pint of mild and toodles off home by 9:00. We thought that was an inappropriate way to promote a book about the music of Oasis, so alongside the genius duo behind the rip-roaring Sounds Familiar Music Quiz, we’ve concocted an Oasis music quiz that we’re taking around the country (well, London, Manchester and Liverpool for now) in June and July. It’s very loud, quite funny and we hope extreme joy will be had by all.

These are the two dates we are announcing today: a debut at The Boogaloo in Highgate, London on June 11 and at Diego’s in Liverpool on July 9. Attendance is mandatory, though if for some reason you can’t make these, more dates will be announced throughout late June and July soon. Ticket information here. More info and some extracts from the book will follow on The New Cue in the weeks to come.

On with the edition. Today, we’ve got a packed-to-the-digital-rafters Recommender for you, with the usual buffet of new music selections from your hosts Ted and Niall and two quickfire Release Valve Q&As, one with indie-rock troupe Sports Team and another with US rapper and multi-instrumentalist Pan Amsterdam. Whoop!

That should be enough to get you through the bank holiday. We won’t be with you on Monday because it’s a bank holiday, which I just said, but we do have a special Tuesday edition coming your way as Jack Barnett of Essex dynamos These New Puritans takes on our Life & Times interview. That edition is free, but the majority of this one lives behind a paywall. That’s because we would like doing this little thing we’ve got going on and we would also like it to continue and for it to continue, we rely on paying subscribers. Our heroes. It costs £5 a month to subscribe and you’ll get full access to every edition to our absolutely fucking massive archive. Go on:

Here's today’s playlist:

And here it is for the Apple Music crew. See you next week, enjoy the edition

Ted and Niall

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Release Valve #1: Sports Team’s Alex Rice

Sports Team release their third album today, a snazzy indie-pop affair called Boys These Days that sounds a little bit like Supergrass walking Elton John’s Kiss The Bride down the aisle. It also has a song that samples the Coronation Street theme, a first for a British guitar band. It’s quite a lot of fun. But it can’t all be fun, sometimes you have to work too, and so earlier this week we made frontman Alex Rice sit down and take on our RV queries over a Zoom chat with Niall.

The first record I loved was: AC/DC’s High Voltage, when I was 13.

The last record I loved: The Last Dinner Party’s album, I think that’s brilliant.

The musician I grew up most wanting to be is: I didn’t really want to be a musician. I'm not sure I do now. A county cricketer is probably what I'd like to be now, a 30-year-old county journeyman who’s paid his dues, doing his benefit year, just settling down, I think that would have been a nicer life for me. But musicians that I admire… Tina Turner?

My fantasy band would feature: Tina Turner, she’s the best rock voice out there. I don’t know any musician’s names. Mmm… the bassist from Shame, the guy who can do the flips. He's really good on bass. Umm… Jools Holland on keys. St Vincent on lead guitar, she's amazing. I'm not sure I can name you a drummer. I generally don't think I can name you a drummer in the world.