We got a special treat for you this November!  Little fact you might not have known, but Fur And Gold is named after Bat for Lashes debut album!  We loved her so much, and loved the play on words for both the type of music, and the type of men we love at F&G!  With this great love and dedication, we are giving away the new Bat for Lashes to celebrate the release of the Haunted Man!  We also have this summers biggest hit at F&G, Icona Pop, with their debut EP Iconic.  Wait!  That’s not it, we also got the great British artist Mika with hit new album The Origin of Love!  Three great bands, and three different sounds for our fans of F&G!  come get your photo taken in front of our new backdrop!  Talk to host Sean about the albums and dance and celebrate the awesomeness that is F&G!  See you there!

Bringing together Queers, Music, and Art together for everyone
…
Host Sean Johnson invites you to dance, drink, and have a great time with DJ Brent Covington & DJ Taffy spinning Indie Rock/…
Pop/Dance, Post-Punk, ’80s, Britpop, Underground, New Wave, Electro, & Euro Hits.

A night at the Alley for Art Fags, Hipsters, Geeks, the Music Obsessed and all. Exploring the alternative side of the Boston Gay Nightlife scene with a new twist for a new generation. Enjoy Visual Entertainment (Music videos, Artist Works), Snacks and Cheap Drinks.

Bring your friends and spread the word.

21+
10pm – 2am
$$No Cover$$

Website: Bat for Lashes

Credit: Billboard magazine by Lisa Binkert and Jessica Letkemann, N.Y.

Bat for Lashes, aka English singer/songwriter Natasha Khan, says she “went through a lot of changes” making new album “The Haunted Man,” out this week. The dramatic, occasionally orchestral 11-song follow up to 2009′s “Two Suns,” she tells Billboard in a video track-by-track interview (watch in the video player above), was ironically born of creative efforts Khan took to overcome writer’s block. “I felt quite blocked musically,” Bat For Lashes says, adding that it was drawing, painting, and watching films that started the inspiration flowing. “In the end I think that nourishment led to start to write the songs on the album. But [it] took two-and-a-half-years of quite grueling work.”

The results of that grueling work, however, are anything but. Bat For Lashes found the “vision of this album having much stronger vocal presence” while doing early demos in her home studio. That vocal presence soars through all of the songs on “The Haunted Man,” particularly the title track (which incorporates a men’s choir) and the “heady, sensual” song “Oh Yeah,” which she debuted live in Sydney before the vocals were even finished.

A number of other elements came in to play for rounding out “The Haunted Man”‘s sound, which ranges from brooding (“Deep Sea Diver” to pop-friendly (“All Your Gold,” “Rest Your Head.”). Beck contributed guitar work (“Marilyn”). A songwriting collaboration with Justin Parker, who has worked with Lana del Rey, Khan says was “a really good risk taking experience” that resulted in the single “Laura,” which also features a full orchestra. She cites cinematic inspirations for a number of songs including “Lillies,” and “Marilyn,” the later of which was written after she saw the film “Drive,” and the former of which, based on a scene in the 1970 David Lean movie “Ryan’s Daughter,” opened the creative floodgates. “I felt like I was never going to be able to write a song again,” she says, and once saw “Ryan’s Daughter,” “All of the sudden I felt this rush of inspiration.”

Website: Icona Pop

Swedish electro-pop duo Icona Pop feature best friends Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt. The group first came to notice with the 2010 Kitsuné single “Manners,” which was sampled on Chiddy Bang‘s 2011 song “Mind Your Manners”; the song reached number 19 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and appeared on the hip-hop duo’s debut album, Breakfast. That year, Icona Pop also released the Nights Like This EP, which included “Manners” and “Sun Goes Down,” a collaboration with the production team the Knocks, along with the title track. After performing on the European festival circuit and making their live U.S. debut in 2012, Icona Pop released their second EP, The Iconic, which featured the hit single “I Love It,” that September. The duo’s first full-length was scheduled for 2013.

Credit: AllMusic.com

Website: Mika

Multi-platinum pop-star MIKA returns with his brand new album ‘The Origin of Love’, released on Island Records on September 16th 2012.

Following up his multi-million selling worldwide smash ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’ (which debuted in every single i-Tunes top ten around the world), ‘The Origin of Love’ is Mika’s third album and will be preceded by an anthemic brand new single ‘Celebrate’, an epic slice of cool modern pop destined to be a global summer soundtrack, written by Mika and Pharrell Williams, produced by Nick Littlemore from Empire of the Sun and also featuring Pharrell on vocals.

Completely self-created and self-imagined, ‘The Origin of Love’ has been a two-year DIY labour of love for Mika who has put together everything on the record himself, flying around the world under his own steam personally assembling an incredible roll call of collaborators – in addition to Nick Littlemore and Pharrell Williams Mika has also worked with William Orbit, Benny Benassi, FrYars, Greg Wells (Katy Perry, Adele), Klas Ahlund (Robyn’s Body Talk) as well as working with some brand new unsigned musicians he found himself online.

“This single is what happens when you combine a 22 year old you find online, Fryars, with an extra-planetary Nick Littlemore and Pharrell Williams!” says Mika of ‘Celebrate’. “Written by me, Pharrell and Fryars and produced by Nick, this kind of collaboration is only possible when everyone throws themselves into it wanting to have fun and without any ego. This collective and open attitude was at the heart of ‘The Origin Of Love’. It’s an album about crazy love songs and tolerance. It was recorded in Miami and London but mostly in Fryars’ north London bedroom studio!”

A further Mika composition from the album writing sessions ‘Gang Bang’ features exclusively on Madonna’s new ‘MNDA’ album, a track which she has widely praised as her favourite song on the record.

Mika spent most of 2010 and 2011 on a massive Global tour playing over hundreds of shows to sell-out audiences across Europe, Asia and North America. He returns with a brand new live show, performing at Heaven in London on 26th July.

Mika has now sold over 8 million records and Gold or Platinum awards in 32 countries worldwide across his previous two albums ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ and ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’, winning Brit and MTV Awards in the process.

Credit: Contact Music

This fall CDs seem to be bursting out of our Ears! We have FOUR, read it FOUR albums that we are promoting for YOU! Check out our NEW merch table that Host Sean Johnson will be by most of the night to fill you in on these artists, and also to take photos behind our new fabulous backdrop.

First is the amazing British artist, Ellie Goulding, who’s second album Halcyon has been rated as this fall’s most anticipated album. We will have the album to give away for YOU! We also have the amazing Canadian artist, Diamond Rings, who blends the roles of gender identity, sexuality, and plays a mean synth and beat!

Rounding out the albums we have the new Pet Shop Boys album, which came out a few weeks ago, but we still have it for you. Last but not least is the New Vaccines album.

So, we got 4 different artists, from all over the globe, and of course, plenty of goodies to give away. Please stop by and chat it up with Sean to get a great CD and get your Photo taken!

Our cover model Marcelo will be entertaining people with his adorable smile and huggable qualities! Bring your friends and others who want to dance, enjoy great music, and most of all spreading the love of F&G. We’ll also be celebrating Halloween early with some candy too! Just so much to give away!

Bringing together Queers, Music, and Art together for everyone
…
Host Sean Johnson invites you to dance, drink, and have a great time with DJ Brent Covington & DJ Taffy spinning Indie Rock/…
Pop/Dance, Post-Punk, ’80s, Britpop, Underground, New Wave, Electro, & Euro Hits.

A night at the Alley for Art Fags, Hipsters, Geeks, the Music Obsessed and all. Exploring the alternative side of the Boston Gay Nightlife scene with a new twist for a new generation. Enjoy Visual Entertainment (Music videos, Artist Works), Snacks and Cheap Drinks.

Bring your friends and spread the word.

21+
10pm – 2am
$$No Cover$$

Never likely to be one of those singers who is content just to turn up, lay down a main vocal part and leave, Ellie’s approach to writing and recording is, she admits, borderline obsessive – but then, anything less, she says, would be a waste of time.

As her debut album, Lights, made so thrillingly clear, Ellie Goulding uses her voice as a texture in much the same way that a skilled instrumentalist would. It is a sound – in Ellie’s case, an utterly distinctive and unforgettable one – that can play as important a role in her songs as any other musical detail.

The new record Halcyon describes a journey out of heartache and towards hope. It is almost as if you can hear Ellie’s psyche shrinking and then renewing, rebooting itself after two-and-a-half tumultuous years in her life: a Brit award, the release of Lights, love, loss, writer’s block, a new relationship, singing at the White House and at a certain spring wedding, a number one pop record that has done over 3m in America, confronting her doubts and fears, digging deep and locating her artistry again, returning to the countryside she grew up in and, in a converted barn, making a record that confirms her as one of this country’s most singular and compelling songwriters.

Two such fans are a young couple who, 17 months ago, were married in London and, for one of the few private moments the world allowed them on the day, approached Ellie and asked her to sing at the party they were holding following the wedding reception. It isn’t every day, of course, that a musician will stand on a stage as a pair of giant doors open, and watch pretty much the entire Royal Family advance into the room, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at their head, ready to be entertained.

But that is exactly what happened to Ellie and her band at Buckingham Palace in April 2011 when, after months of secret negotiations during which Ellie was sworn to – and maintained – her silence, she sang a selection of her own songs and cover versions (including tracks by Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and, inevitably, Elton John’s Your Song) for the newly-wed royals, and afterwards mingled with their guests.

Ellie’s success in America – her single, Lights, is still an immovable fixture in the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, after 35 weeks – has been another experience she finds it hard to describe. America has clearly got under her skin. “They embrace everything,” Ellie says. “They’ll take your biggest fault and turn it into something positive. And the work ethic in music over there isn’t like anything I’ve ever known. You get back to your hotel at one in the morning and someone will contact you and go, ‘Do you want to come over to the studio?’. So over you go, and there’s Swedish House Mafia and Skrillex there, and will.I.am in the next-door studio. Everyone’s just hanging out, making music.”

Capturing a period of profound change and transition in Ellie’s life, Halcyon is, despite the mournful nature of much of its inspiration, ultimately a redemptive album. Above all, it communicates the sense of a young musician poised on the cusp of new adventures, the war won (although, this being Ellie, it may turn out to be only a temporary truce), and lessons learnt.

When she says, “Loneliness has been the biggest influence on this record; I feel like what I do is lonely”, you want to give her a reassuring hug. But then Ellie will follow this with: “I still feel like there’s this force, pushing me to do this.” And you are reminded of precisely what it is that makes her so special: honest and self-aware enough to endure and acknowledge her propensity for what she herself calls “over-thinking”; brave enough to confront this and go into battle again; and possessed of a talent, and a voice, of such extraordinary power that, for all her vulnerability, you sense that, deep down, Ellie Goulding knows she is impregnable. (Taken from Ellie Goulding)

Diamond Rings is proud to announce an extensive headlining U.S. tour in October and November of this year as well as fall tour dates supporting Stars. As evidenced by the reviews of the recent live showcases in NYC, LA, San Francisco and Seattle, this tour will not disappoint. For a sneak peek of some of the new tracks, including fan favorite Runaway Love, view a recent KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic session here.

The forthcoming tour dates will coincide with the release of Diamond Rings’ sophomore effort, Free Dimensional, to be released on October 22nd, of which the album cover has just been revealed. This will be followed by Diamond Rings network TV debut on the Late Show With David Letterman on October 26th.

While he will always “stay fierce,” Diamond Rings is now tweeting from @DiamondRings.  (Taken from Astralwerks)

Will someone please give Justin Young a hug, immediately followed by a ride to see a therapist? The frontman for UK hype magnetsThe Vaccines knows how to pack a song with enough shameless self-loathing and petty insecurities to make Morrissey blush. To put it gently, the dude’s got some issues. On his band’s sophomore LP, The Vaccines Come of Age, the band does nothing of the sort. The result is a quarter-life crisis set to music, one you won’t mind experiencing over and over again.

While the album keeps their Ramones-on-depressants brand of post-punk mostly intact, the band has come to understand their misery much better. Hearing Young sing “There’s definitely no hope. There’s desperately no hope” during the chorus of aptly titled single “No Hope” is equal parts rock song and high school therapy session. There’s a certainty in his voice that wasn’t present on the group’s 2011 debutWhat Did You Expect From The Vaccines? . Yet there’s also a hint of snark to all of Young’s grievances, allowing him to avoid sounding like your typical sappy singer-songwriter.

Young shrugs off death itself on “All In Vein” when he sings, “You can’t hold a gun to my head, because baby I would just refuse,” behind a mid-tempo country-tinged rhythm. It’s not a drunken late night confessional, but a well-prepared statement. Young uses a muted croon to accompany the razor sharp riffs during “Bad Mood”, almost as if he’s too angry to shout. And like a car crash, or that one friend who can’t seem to get their life straight, you can’t look away.

The group finally finds someone to sing to on closer, “Lonely World”. The ballad adds a glimmer of hope to the album’s tail end as the two protagonists cry themselves to sleep, clutching each other close. Now two albums in, it seems as if Young is destined to be perpetually heartbroken. It’d be easier to feel bad for him if his group didn’t make complete and utter misery sound fun as hell. (Taken from the Consequence of Sound)

Astralwerks are proud to announce the highly-anticipated release of the brand new Pet Shop Boys album entitled Elysium on September 18^th.   Recorded in Los Angeles, the album was co-produced by Pet Shop Boys and engineer/producer, Andrew Dawson, who has won three Grammy awards for his work with Kanye West.

A sneak peek of the album track “Invisible” may be viewed as a short film by renowned artist/filmmaker Brian Bress at www.petshopboys.co.uk or below. Elysium was recorded earlier this year during the three months Neil Tennantand Chris Lowe spent in Los Angeles.

Producer Andrew Dawson recently said:  “It was really exciting for me to work with Pet Shop Boys – the breadth of their career has been phenomenal. They both have incredible ideas and I’ve definitely learned a few tricks from them on making records”.

The Pet Shop Boys added “we wanted to make this album in a different environment. Despite frequent visits there we have never made an album in Los Angeles. Working there with Andrew Dawson has enabled us to make a very fresh-sounding album.”

Like several tracks on Elysium, “Invisible” features backing vocals by veteran singers Oren, Maxine and Julie Waters whose long career spans sessions with The Jackson Five to Adele, and singer/songwriter James Fauntleroy.  (Taken from Astralwerks)