lauren laverne

Lauren Laverne 6 Music Session

Jimi & Martin played a couple of tunes this morning for 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne. Jimi again spoke about the hiatus Doves will be taking after touring the Best Of. Asked of his own plans, Jimi hoped to be able to do some collaborating, naming Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis as the top pick if it was possible! Good luck with that one. :)

They performed acoustic versions of The Cedar Room & Kingdom Of Rust.

To hear the interview/live tunes. It all starts off at 1 hour 25 mins at the BBC iplayer here. Also available to folks outside the UK.
My take on the “hiatus”? Its gotta be good news, if it means Doves do return in a few years down the line sounding better than ever. To put it in context.. it was almost three years between the last Some Cities gig I saw and the Kingdom Of Rust shows last May. Didn’t expect much from them this year, so the tour/summer of festivals has been a Brucey bonus. Fully intend on enjoying the tour in a few weeks. So no tears at the front from this blogger, just a hand of appreciation.

Mayrhofen Review #2 & Best Of Album Sales

Another short review of Doves set at the Snowbombing festival, this time from the Independent.

Crowd size had no bearing on the quality of the acts. Doves’ set, though sparsely attended –perhaps the band’s thoughtful and melancholic indie did not appeal to the ravers’ party vibe –was a highlight. With a “best of” album on the shelves, the trio provided a set spanning their 20-year career, including “Kingdom of Rust”, “There Goes The Fear” and the Motown pounding of “Black and White Town”. Doves are used to playing in the UK to crowds 10 times the size of this one, so perhaps Jimi Goodwin could have been forgiven for thinking they were performing for Austrians who had no idea who they were. “I can sing that in German”, he said, unaware that the majority of Snowbombers are British.

Don’t forget, you can catch Doves live on Lauren Laverne’s 6 Music show later this morning. Doves will be playing a couple tracks acoustic, then will do an interview. Expect to hear Doves around 11am-12 noon.

Finally, some sales stats for the Best Of album..

The Best Of Doves: The Places Between is this week’s highest new entry debuts at number 12 selling 9,714 copies.

Gaga’s album sold a total of 25,211 copies to stay at number one, the lowest sale for a number one artist album since The Last Broadcast by Doves topped the list selling only 22,437 copies eight years ago next month

Quite revealing figures, I’m sure you will agree. Apparently they are blaming the weather for the poor sales… I should point out that those sales figures for the Last Broadcast, was for its second week at number one. It sold over 52,000 copies first week.

6 Music Album Of The Day

The Places Between: The Best Of Doves is 6 Music’s album of the day.

Also on 6 Music: Next Tuesday Doves will be performing a live session on the Lauren Laverne show, which airs from 10am. Cheers to Baldilocks at the forum for the info.

Of course in the future, all this may not be possible…

Sound On Sound: Producing Kingdom Of Rust


Frank Bough Sound III

I don’t recall flagging up this really cool article last year from Sound On Sound, who interviewed Jez & Dan Austin about producing Kingdom Of Rust. A great insight into the recording process.

Williams admits that it wasn’t just this democratic approach, along with an obsessive attention to detail, that created such a long gap between Doves albums. There was a bit of writer’s block involved too, which the guitarist tackled by employing the radical Immersion Music Method, invented in 2001 by a pair of songwriters from Oakland, California.

“I was finding myself getting into bad habits,” he says. “Like music avoidance — instead of knuckling down and getting on with songwriting, you might find an excuse to get your emails or pop out and see your mates. So I read this amazing book [The Frustrated Songwriter’s Handbook, by Karl Coryat and Nicholas Dobson]. I’m simplifying it here, but basically what it boils down to is you have to write a song every half an hour for 12 hours. It’s incredible. I had my Logic all set up as a template, everything plugged in ready to go. Then quite a few songs started to come out of these sessions.”

In the tradition of their previous facilities, their latest studio is — bizarrely — named after former breakfast TV host Frank Bough. “It’s Andy’s perverse sense of humour,” his brother explains. Not that Frank Bough Sound III is likely to last much longer than its predecessors, since Doves are already becoming keen to move on.


“We’re getting a little bit tired of it now, ‘cause it was such an intense, long period to record this fourth album,” Jez laughs. “There’s only so much cowshit you can take.”
To read the full article, click here.

Also some good 6 Music news from Baldilocks at doves board. Doves will soon be doing a live session on the Lauren Laverne show. Will flag up more info when I get it.