God Help The Girl

Film producer, Barry Mendel, swapped the warmth of L.A. for freezing Europe to see the three God Help The Girl shows last month. Here is his report:

I was supposed to meet Stuart at 11am sharp next to the statue of the bear at Paddington Station but was running behind. Who knew the bear really existed? The London cabbie, that’s who, and the bell clerk at the hotel and the Train Porter who steered me there. In person, he was bronze and rumpled and surprisingly little, that Paddington, but charming nonetheless. Ten minutes late, we ran to catch the Heathrow train and watched as it pulled away. By seconds, we missed it. ...

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For those in the U.K. at least, there is a chance to hear the concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in full on the iPlayer. It comes at between 1:18 and 1:47 of this broadcast

Stuart talks about the show at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on Sunday (29th) on the BBC website.

The ‘Stills’ EP – which contains five more tracks from the 2007 recording sessions for God Help The Girl is now available digitally from iTunes, Amazon, 7digital, we7 and all the usual online outlets.

The EP was originally available in September on a very limited 10” vinyl release for subscribers to God Help The Girl. Though it will not be released on CD or repressed, the songs are an important part of the God Help The Girl narrative. The 5 songs on the EP are:

I’m In Love With the City (lead vocals: Catherine)
He’s A Loving Kind of Boy (lead vocals: Stuart)
Stills (lead vocals: Alex Klobouk)
Baby’s Just Waiting (lead vocals: Celia)
The Psychiatrist Is In (lead...

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Stuart was interviewed last week by Paul Morley for the Observer Music Monthly for a feature on X-Factor and TV talent searches. The wide ranging interview covers the upcoming God Help The Girl shows, the search for vocalists and the film writing process. Click here to listen

Thanks to everyone who has purchased tickets for the 100 Club on the 21st November – it has now sold out. Tickets still available for the other shows though. . .

God Help The Girl is pleased to announce their first (and last) shows in November, at the Crossing Border festival in The Hague, the 100 Club in London and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.

Each show will be unique – in The Hague, they will be appearing with Tegan and Sara; in London at the legendary 100 Club and in Edinburgh in a special BBC Scotland curated show along with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

The 9 piece band includes three of the vocalists who featured on the album – Catherine Ireton, Celia Garcia and Alex Klobouk – and will be playing songs from the album and its counterpart EP, “Stills.”

Friday 20th November
Nationaal Toneel, The Hague

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This interview with / profile of Catherine was broadcast last week on the Irish radio station, Phantom FM.

The Channel 4 documentary from 22 July, which includes footage from the show at the Landsdowne Church in Glasgow – is now available to watch (in two parts) – in the video section.

Hello guys and gals

Just a quick word about a broadcast I took part in last week. It’s one in a series called ‘A Life in Limbo’ and it will be broadcast on Wednesday 29th July at 1130am on BBC Radio Scotland. (It will be repeated on Sunday 2nd August 1630).

It is also available via the iPlayer online for 7 days here

The reason I’m flagging this one up to you in particular is that I feel a bit guilty. The producer of the show wanted me to talk about the time I was sick, when I was younger, with M.E., (or post viral fatigue, or chronique fatigue syndrome, whatever you want to...

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Just before the album came out last month, we assembled the whole crew for what was the first (and so far, only) God Help The Girl show at the Landsdowne Church in Glasgow. Cakes were consumed and a selection of songs from both the album and the ‘Stills’ EP were performed. Celia’s diary of the week’s activities can also be found here.

The show was filmed by Forest of Black and this has been combined with some of the footage from Marisa’s Girl Singer Needed to form the basis of a short documentary called ‘God Help The Girl: We Play A Show” which airs on Channel 4 in the U.K....

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Vinyl collectors may want to get hold of the second single by God Help the Girl – which is available in the U.K. now as both a 7” and download. ‘Funny Little Frog’ is one of the album tracks, sung by Brittany Stallings, the b-side is ‘Mary’s Market’ (sung by Stuart), which was previewed here a month ago.

You can buy the 7” from the Belle and Sebastian shop here as well as from Rough Trade, HMV and other retailers.

If you want to listen to the tracks first, you can find them here where you can also buy them in digital formats, as well as from iTunes, amazon.co.uk and play.com.

There was a lengthy article about Stuart, Belle and Sebastian and God Help The Girl in this week’s Guardian Review by novelist and Professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago, Liam McIlvanney. Read it here

Paste is running a nice cover story about Stuart and God Help The Girl in the current edition of the magazine. The print edition is in the shops in the USA – for everyone else, the story can be accessed here while the full digital edition of the magazine’s international edition can be found here

Here’s the video for the second single, ‘Funny Little Frog,’ compiled and directed by Marisa Privitera in Glasgow, with some additional filming by Dave Crampton in Olympia. Hope you like it!

Stuart is on the radio tomorrow, talking about ‘God Help The Girl’ and playing a couple of songs from the album on Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie’s Radio Two Show. If you are in the UK, the show is on between 8pm and 10pm, if you want to catch up with it later, you will find links from here

The album is now in the shops worldwide and available digitally via iTunes and other digital retailers.

Vinyl lovers have the option of the tasty gatefold edition, while there are two CD editions in circulation – a standard jewel case and the hardback edition, which is available primarily in the UK and to subscribers. You can also stream the album from Spotify and Spinner

The album has also won further critical plaudits from a range of publications including Pitchfork (“a spirited expansion of some of Murdoch’s best ideas”), Popmatters (“a set of perfect pop songs. It’s almost too lovely, but lovely’s great sometimes too”), The Onion (“literate, wry, autumnal, a little bit twee and whole lot melancholy”)...

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All good things have to come to an end, and this week is the last of Stuart’s four blogs for the Guardian, discussing the marketing of the album. Marisa’s accompanying clip focuses on Catherine . . .Both can be found here

We have some very nice, limited edition ladies’ t-shirts (here) and some tote bags (here) – both using Graham Samuels’ fabulous illustrations which adorn the booklet and gatefold vinyl available for sale from the Belle and Sebastian shop.

‘Funny Little Frog’ has been chosen as one of the tracks on Steve Lamacq’s ‘Rebel Playlist’ – you can listen to it at the top of this page and vote for it here

Stuart’s third blog for The Guardian – on the subject of where songs come from – is now onine. It is accompanied by part 3 of Marisa’s ‘Girl Singer Needed’ which focuses on the songwriting process and both can be found here

There is also a nice review by Alexis Petridis here

An eight piece entourage made its way to Manchester yesterday to record 3 tracks (and some chat) for the Marc Riley Show on BBC Radio 6 Music last night. The 3 songs were ‘God Help The Girl’ and two tracks from the forthcoming ‘Stills’ EP – ‘Baby’s Just Waiting’ and ‘The Psychiatrist Is In.’

Catherine, Celia and Alex were joined by Stuart, Stevie and Bob of Belle and Sebastian, with Brian McNeill, Francis MacDonald and Dave McGowan.

The session is available for a week on the BBC iPlayer – and can be found in the first hour of the show here

The second part of Stuart’s blog – ‘How I Found The Ultimate Girl Group’ – (which wasn’t Stuart’s title, he was never looking for the ultimate girl group!) is now on the Guardian website – here – with an accompanying clip from Marisa’s Girl Singer Needed documentary.

Lots of people in the press are saying nice things about the record! Here’s a selection:

‘God Help The Girl is both incredibly simple and deceptively complex: the end results are surprisingly timeless, bringing to mind Twenties’ musicals, fifties’ jazz, 60s girl groups and shambling eighties’ indie’ Music Week

‘an expansive, eclectic set of classic pop . . .further confirms Murdoch as one of the finest songwriters of his era’ Record Collector

‘fans of chamber pop, Motown, the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Mamas and Papas will find much to cherish’ Mojo

‘a precious antidote to an overdose of earnest, bearded Men in Rock these past few years’ Plan B

‘a spry Bacharach swing encompassing Pearly Spencer style 60s production pop’ The Guardian

‘the...

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Not out ‘til July 20th on 7” and download, Funny Little Frog is a version of the 2006 Belle and Sebastian single, sung by Brittany Stallings. You can listen to and download the track right now….

Click here to listen and download

Enjoy it, it’s the last free thing we’ll be giving away in quite some time!

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Now showing on British newspaper, The Guardian’s website is the first part of a four short clips by Marisa Privitera about the making of God Help The Girl, featuring interviews with Stuart, Catherine, Celia and Alex and rehearsal / studio clips of the band playing songs from the forthcoming album and EP. Alongside the film is the first installment of Stuart’s blog on the making of the album. Both can be found here

Hi folks

We have a new track for you. It’s called ‘Mary’s Market’, and we recorded it last weekend. It’s going to be the B-side to the ‘Funny Little Frog’ single, but we thought we’d let you hear it since the weather’s nice here, and we’re in a good mood, and it seems to match the weather!

The picture to go with the track features the stylish Scottish BBC newsreader, Mary Marquis. When I was writing the song, I wrote the lines

You showed me yesterday’s dress
The one you nicked from Mary’s Market

And it kind of sounded like Mary Marquis, so she…

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Here’s a couple of links to some early interviews with Stuart and Catherine that have coincided with the release of ‘Come Monday Night’ – both are pretty detailed and give a lot more background to both the album and the wider process!

The first appeared in the Saturday edition of The Guardian Guide at the weekend

The second is an interview by Scott Plagenhoef on Pitchfork

‘Come Monday Night’ is single of the week on the Geoff Lloyd’s Hometime Show on Absolute Radio this week. You can hear it every day at around 6.25p.m.