It’s the longest day of the year and, as such, we have enough time to drop a wee update. Having a busy few months over here in Disso Street so sorry about the lack of missals. After an amazing session and storming set at Wychwood Festival we dropped into festival radio and headlined at Water Rats on Friday, which was jammed and killer banter. Almost made up for the shocking England v Algeria mess.

Now work starts in earnest on the Summer EP. It’s gonna be hot….quite literally. Stay tuned. Goof off. Keep happy and believe in yourself. You are pretty brilliant you know.

Water Rats, 18th June 10.

BUY CITY LIGHTS ON iTUNES HERE!

As if you needed a reason to do this, the coolest music blog in France just voted ROB COWEN & THE DISSIDENTS ‘artist of the day’. If you like French cheese, wine, pastries, landscapes, cities, people…it’s your duty to support this brilliant affirmation of taste and buy City Lights as a big thank you.

Artist of the day on this amazing French Music Blog

Our mates up at BBC Introducing Yorkshire have also been keeping the home fires burning and just bust out ‘Heartache’, which you can catch on replay by clicking the image below…

Sorry about being quiet. It’s been a crazy few weeks, but we are now starting the single push for ‘City Lights’ in earnest. And what a great start. No sooner is it out of our hands than it’s picking up plays on BBC Introducing Yorkshire, BBC Introducing Kent and appearing as the soundtrack to Sky Sports 1′s Super Sunday derby between Rangers and Celtic. Check it here…

We also have a live session lined up at BBC Introducing Yorkshire next week and a host of exciting things on the horizon.

This week saw us acting the idiots at a photo shoot in an RAF base, until a security alarm was raised and men with guns got serious on us. If we looked a bit tense in the resulting shots, you understand why. We have also finalised the video concept for the single and will be shooting soon…so keep em peeled.

LIVE we are playing a Self-Raising Showcase in Hackney on the 16th March with the delectable Bright Light Bright Light, but there are extremely limited FREE tickets so get your requests in early by clicking the poster below…

After that, it is the brilliant WATER RATS on the 25th March for our pre-release single PARTY. Come down. See you there…

 

“Like The Boss circa Born To Run. Stadium-sized, intoxicatingly engaging sing-a-long anthems.” – Q

Stunning second single “City Lights” from rising epic-folk five piece, ROB COWEN & THE DISSIDENTS available to download from the 14^th April 2010.

Mixed by legendary producer Dave Bascombe (Depeche Mode, The Doves, The Verve, Jesse Malin/Bruce Springsteen) and mastered by Frank Arkwright (Arcade Fire, Killers, BRMC), City Lights is the hotly anticipated follow up to debut single Heartache, which broke on BBC Radio 1 (Kissy Sell Out, Huw Stephens, Bethan Elfyn), Xfm, BBC Introducing (Tom Robinson, RAW Talent) and was voted Q’s ‘Track of the Day’.

From the first snare hit, City Lights is more of the passionate, poetic epic folk that has put Yorkshire-born singer and songwriter ROB COWEN and his band THE DISSIDENTS on the map since forming in early 2009.

Masters of carving out powerful tunes with intelligence and integrity, this impassioned and infectious tale of survival and social observation comes straight from this country’s heartlands, effortlessly mixing energetic hooks, killer riffs and emotional honesty: ‘Drinking all night on the side streets, we move like machines to the drumbeats, and you run through my mind like an athlete with your Mediterranean eyes.’ Small wonder Q Magazine compared Rob’s lyrics to John Betjeman and DJs across radio are hailing this band as one to watch.

With sessions already secured for BBC Introducing, London showcases galore (Barfly, Proud, Water Rats) and a host of festivals being lined up for summer, City Lights looks set to become one of the standout anthems of the year for anyone with their ear to the ground and deserves to launch the band into the realm they belong.

The single will be released though flourishing indie label, Self-Raising Records, and features an exclusive remix by Moshi Moshi’s James Yuill.

ROB COWEN & THE DISSIDENTS are: Rob Cowen (vocals/guitar), Charlie Westropp (guitars), John Stevens (bass/vocals), Danny Williams (synths/piano/glockenspiel), Olly Samuel (drums).

www.myspace.com/robcowen

Luckily the artists at Self Raising Records have clubbed together to make a free 4-track EP for you; a cover of a song of their choice, or in the case of Glorious Estefan, an original.

Silver lining to every cloud.

All you have to do is send an email to selfraisingrecords@googlemail.com
and later this week, the link to download it, for free, will be sent straight to your inbox.

And on it you’ll find:

Martipants – Love In This Club
Bright Light Bright Light – Landslide
Rob Cowen & The Dissidents – Sally Wheatley
Glorious Estefan – Second Date

This time last year, I was working on location in a haunted house in Sydenham - where, incidentally, The Beatles once held a party – grabbing a few minutes to write down some words for a tune in my head. These eventually became ‘Heartache‘, our debut single, released through the wonderful Rod Thomas’ label ‘Self-Raising Records’ in September. It did amazingly well, thanks for asking (Radio 1, XFM, 6 MUSIC, lots of Introducing plays and track of the day for Q’s website www.qthemusic.com). I wrote the riff in about 10 minutes and it all fell into place perfectly when I took it to the band. It hardly changed from the first time we went through it. The Dissidents are that good.

We are all pretty stoked about a new song we’ve been working on over the last week – ‘Sleeping In The Woods’, which came to me in my sleep. I have heard that songwriters sometimes get these breaks (famously Macca claimed ‘Yesterday’ came to him fully formed one morning), but I’d never had it so clear as this. It’s weird. The chorus was in my head when I woke and taking a shower, I just repeated it out loud until I recorded the melody on my phone.

The strange thing about this happening is that you feel more like you tuned into something that was already out in the ether somewhere, as opposed to sweating over a notebook and guitar, trying to write a song. Anyway, I’m not complaining and can’t wait to bust it out on Monday.

The big push at the moment is our next single ‘City Lights’. Anyone who came to our last few shows in 09 will have caught it and we are looking forward to getting it out there proper. It is currently being mixed by Dave Bascombe; a man who was at the controls for seminal track’s like Verve’s ‘History’, not to mention mixing the likes of Depeche Mode, Suede, Springsteen, Ladyhawke and The Doves. Soon as that is in the bag, we will be setting a release date on iTunes (probably late March) so please make a date in your diaries.

Anyway. Stay frosty and keep them peckers up. Hope to catch you on the road somewhere soon.

Bobby and The Boys.

ROB COWEN & THE DISSIDENTS are also lined up to do a session with BBC Introducing (Yorkshire) in March. Keep checking back for details.

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