Matinée Club

Matinée Club are a British Electropop band. The group were formerly called Dirty Blonde and The Modern. They are currently signed to Ninth Wave Records in the USA.

The band consists of vocalist Emma Cooke, and Nathan Cooper and Chi Tudor-Hart on vocals and synth. The band changed their name from Dirty Blonde to The Modern in 2003, and then on to Matinee Club in September 2006.

Dirty Blonde Era 2001-2003

The band first began to form in 2001. Fronted by Nathan Cooper and Chi Tudor-Hart, the group were then known as Dirty Blonde. In 2003, vocalist Emma Cooke joined the band, and they changed their name to The Modern.

The Modern Era 2003-2006

Following Emma's induction to the group, guitarist Telee and drummer Rees joined. Rees then left the band to tour with Dirty Vegas and was replaced by Bob Malkowski shortly afterwards. It was not long after this that Telee left to concentrate on his own band. Bob had worked with guitarist Robert previously, and introduced him to Emma, Nathan and Chi. The Modern line up was completed and the group started to write and perform together. They finally got a record deal in 2005, when they were signed to Mercury Records. The band recorded several songs with popular producer Stephen Hague, with a view towards preparing for their debut album, which was tentatively going to be called "Life In The Modern World". The first of these songs was released as a single, entitled "Jane Falls Down", although it received little airplay on commercial radio stations. Despite this, following on from its release on November 14th 2005, the track entered the Official UK Singles Chart at number 35, a huge success considering the notable lack of airplay.

The group followed this success with the release of the second single, "Industry" on March 6th the following year. The song received lots of airplay on the music video channels. Unfortunately, due to sales irregularities, the single was disqualified from the Official UK Singles Chart. However, it was confirmed that the band would have reached number 13 that week, and would still have gone top 30 if the sales from the bulk buys had been discounted. Apparently, hundreds of copies had been bought on the same credit card, in different stores. Matinee Club urged fans to only buy one or two copies if they wanted to support the band, but many ridiculed them for their attempt to hype themselves into the charts.

The band conducted UK-wide tours supporting these singles. They have also played the August 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals and the October 2005 Whitby Gothic Weekend, as well as the 2006 Elektrofest. On Saturday 1st July, 2006, they performed at Pride Rally's 'Prides Against Prejudice' at Pride London in Trafalgar Square.

In September 2006, it was announced on the group's forum that they had parted company with Mercury Records and that drummer Bob Malkowski and guitarist Robert James had left the band. The trio were going to carry on under the new name, Matinee Club

Matinee Club Era 2006-Present Day

As Matinee Club, the group signed to new independent label, Planet Clique. It wasn't until March 2007 that any new material surfaced on this label. The song "Discotheque Francais" was issued in a CD, DVD and 12" package available through the record company's website.

In the summer that year, it was announced that the band had changed record labels once again, this time moving onto the major label, Universal Music under Europa Recordings. This was shortlived as Europa Recordings was closed down due to record company cutbacks.

In October the group transferred back to Planet Clique for the digital release of "Discotheque Francais". The debut album, now entitled Modern Industry, was made available to download on 17th December. 'Modern Industry' contains all favourite Matinee Club tracks and Modern ones such as 'Industry' and 'Jane Falls Down'. It also has a cover of David Bowie's popular song 'Modern Love', alongside the next single to be released 'Sometimes'.

Although not entirely confirmed, a CD release of the album was said to be coming out in March 2008 with the digital release of 'Sometimes', but because of problems with the label this did not happen.

In January 2008 the group released a CD album called The Modern LP through Ninth Wave Records in the USA only. It is slightly different from the UK release, containing remixes and B-Side not available in the UK 'Closing Door'.

Matinee Club recently recorded a short video for the American global warming awareness show, Earth Hour. Earth Hour is on Saturday the 29th March 2008 between 8pm and 9pm and the video is available to watch on YouTube. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ca0Mom82OCI&feature=user]

Discography

Albums

*Modern Industry (Jan 2008) UK (Download only)
*Matinee Club Present The Modern LP (Jan 22nd 2008) USA

ingles

*Industry (Download Only) DNC UK
*Jane Falls Down "Mercury 9874798" (Nov 2005) #35 UK
*Industry "Mercury 9877068" (Mar 2006) #13 UK (Disqualified)
*Discotheque Francais "Planet Clique SSMCD004" (Mar 2007) DNC UK
*Discotheque Francais (TBA 2007 in Europe & October 22 2007 in the UK) DNC UK

EPs

*Eastern Bloc (Download Only)
*The Dirty Blonde "Ninth Wave" (American EP Dec 2007) [This release changed to "The Modern LP" listed above]

Compilations

*"Robopop 'The Return"' (December 2006/Lucy Pierre/Planet Clique Records)

References

*http://www.ilikemusic.com/features/The_Modern-1252
*http://www.holytoilet.com/blam/blam_feb2006.asp

External links

* [http://www.matineeclub.co.uk/ Matinee Club official site]
* [http://www.myspace.com/matineeclub Matinee Club MySpace profile]