Keeping track of new music, media and industry news.

This weeks entry has written this post himself. A fantastic songwriter and singer, Im really excited about this guy!

“My real name is Ben. I play under the title of ‘Loud Like A Lion’. I live in east London. I write songs about many different things including fire engines, pine trees and buffalos. I also spend a lot of my time painting pictures, making pieces of art and inventing things.
I play on my own though it would be cool to add some other people to the mix. All these songs apart from ‘River in a Storm’ were recorded live in a 3-hour stint a couple of weeks ago in my kitchen. I use a £20 kids nylon string guitar i bought from Argos. It’s held together with tape because its falling to pieces which distorts the sound a little. I really like this. I’m really drawn to quick, rough recordings.

I’m in love with a band called ‘the woods’ from New York and their label ‘woodist’ and all the bands on it including the ‘ganglians’ who are quite punky. When I was younger I always enjoyed the b-sides of records more and when bands did stripped down performances of their tracks. I think this comes through in my song writing. Even though they are folky, I think a lot more could be done with them. I’m really drawn to the feeling of the songs being stripped down, of their being the possibility to expand them, but just leaving them quite bare. Like singing over just one note in fire engine.

I’ve not really played many gigs…I think 2 this year so this little bit of attention my music has started to generate is exiting as I’m starting to get lots of gig offers. I just played on a rooftop as part of the hackney wicked festival on Sunday, an in store gig at a fashion store opening on oxford street on the 8th September and then its up to Manchester for 2 gigs in October. The first of these on the 22nd is at the night and day cafe, and the next day I’m playing at the Oxjam Festival somewhere in the city. Hopefully more will follow so I can really progress my live performances and maybe even get some kind folk to play their instruments with me.”