Ivyrise

I'd never heard of Ivyrise a month or two ago, but I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge them as the hardest working band in rock. Pretty much every show I seem to go to at the moment, there they are - working the queue.

They've got a brilliant plan - essentially, find a captive audience, send a couple of band members out and then walk the entire queue with an ipod, playing them songs and trying to sell them a ticket for a gig. Proper grass-roots stuff. I'm not quite sure what the hygiene implications of an iPod earphone that's been in 300 ears is, and I get a little queasy just thinking about it, but fair play to them - if they make it, they've earned it.

I haven't actually heard of their music - they have corectly evalutated that a bloke in his thirties who first owned a Bon Jovi album before they were born might not be their target audience. (Having supported Bon Jovi is one of their conversational gambits. I fear many of the people they're talking to have wouldn't know Bad Medicine from a hole in the ground, though...)

Seriously though, good luck to them. You don't see much of this kind of "You've got to hear our music" grass-roots marketing. They're playing Moho on the 27th of June. You should probably go.