Archive for May, 2008

We’re back in the studio this weekend

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Headin back to Northampton and The Lodge to finish mixing the new record. We started mixing last Monday and it sounds soooo good. All our fears over how everything was going to sound were laid to rest once we began mixing. I think that those of you particularly enamoured with Tim’s guitar work will be really pleased.

Just received a ‘friend add’ from a band called Teejay Sundance. Give it a listen I think you’ll like it.

Jonquil and Maps & Atlases both have new songs on their respective myspace pages. They’re both absolute honey’s so if you haven’t heard them, what are you waiting for?

x

Studio Diary part 2.2

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Hello,

Day 2 and we’ve got loads of things done. All the drums, guitars, bass, trumpets, hand claps and tambourines are now done. Just a few more vocally things to do tomorrow :-)

After yesterday it’s a significant step up in the right direction and I think we’re all pretty chuffed. Not feeling so great after today though as I’ve been doing a lot more and this Labrynthitis is a bit of a killer. Still “it’s all been worth it”……I think.

Might redo Aardvark vocals tomorrow. None of us are really sure what to do with it anymore. Think the songs will be keeping their animal names as well. Don’t know for definite, but I can’t imagine any of us wanting to change them now. They’re just names after all. At least they’re all just one word and not some ridiculously long sentence.

Stu x

P.S. Superbad is ace. Watching “Walk the Line” now. Johnny Cash wasn’t very nice to his first wife was he?

Studio Diary part 2.1

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

So this morning Dan and I set off to Northampton nice and early. I unfortunately am currently suffering from Labyrinthitis which isn’t exactly fun, but it does mean that so long as I don’t move around too much I’m not too bad.

Anyway, Tim and Chris were at a party last night in Stratford-upon-avon and rather predictably turned up an hour after we arrived :-( Bummer. Oh well, after a fair bit of fafing around we’ve got things going. We’ve now got the drums down for Crocodile, Panda and Elk. Most of the guitar bits are done and we’ve even managed to do a few vocals :-)

Dinner time soon. Robert is cooking us some kind of rice and spiced meat thing. Smells amazing! Tim has bought Superbad, so we’ll no doubt be watching that later on if I’m not too much of a wreck by this evening. I’m just about the only person I know who hasn’t seen it and I’m starting to feel left out with all the various in-jokes and quotes that are doing the rounds amongst all our friends :-(

Anyway, I’ll try and write something more interesting tomorrow (but it probably won’t be) :-P

Stu x

Newsy type stuff

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

So we’re back in the studio this weekend. We’re going to be working on 4 more songs as well as polishing off the first 9 from the previous session. We’re all pretty excited especially now as we have somehow managed to find enough money to pay for the recording, without bankrupting ourselves.

The weekend after we’ll be returning to the studio to start mixing. I really can’t wait to hear everything mixed properly. We’ve spent so much time and energy working on these songs now. I really hope it all comes good in the end.

We’ve got a bunch of gigs happening once recording is complete. We’ll be playing with some sweet sweet bands in places like Oxford, London, Brighton and er…….Trowbridge :-P It’d be great if some of you could make it out to see us. We’ll no doubt be trying a few new songs out as well as busting out a couple of classics. We really need to start saving again so we can buy a van. At the minute we’re back to 2 cars and considering we’re in the midst of a fuel crisis of sorts it’s getting a bit ridiculous.

Big thank you to everyone who has got in touch about the bass player position. We’re obviously a bit busy at the moment, but we’ll start playing with new people in June. We’ve had a lot of interest from some pretty excellent musicians so competition is fierce(ish). If you’ve ‘applied’ we’ll be in touch soon.

Anywho. See you soon I hope. More news as and when we decide what the hell we’re doing.

Stu x

Interview on gigwise.com

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

So we played a gig the other week in Oxford and between soundcheck and first band on, we slipped away to a quiet little pub called the Three Goats Heads in town, with a lovely young lady by the name of Luisa Mateus. She asked us a bunch of questions and recorded the answers. She has since been busy trying to make sense of our witerings and putting them into a readable form. If you’d like to read what she has written, you need only click here.

x

Do you like good music?

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

If so, why don’t you try listening to the new ‘jams’ from Hreda over at their myspace page.

Enjoy :-)

x

Some new ‘one off’ gigs planned

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Hello,

We’ve managed to find a bunch of gigs that we can actually play before the summer. We’ve been lucky and offered some pretty sweet shows with ace bands. They’ll be our only gigs until September at the earliest, so please do make the effort if we’re coming to a town near you.

June 2008

FRI 6th - Bar Academy @ The Zodiac, Oxford
Hot Club de Paris + Pennines
tickets £8. 14+ (with adult). Doors at 7pm

SAT 7th - DiScover @ NOTTING HILL ARTS CLUB
An Emergency + Jonquil
4pm. 18+ Free Entry

FRI 20th - The Hope, Brighton
w/ tbc
18+. £5. Doors at 9pm.

July 2008

SAT 12th - ZAPFEST, SOUTH PARK, OXFORD
Youthmovies + Jonquil
afternoon sometime

FRI 18th - THE SWAN, TROWBRIDGE
w/ tbc
7:30pm. 18+. £3.

SAT 19th - BARN STAGE @ TRUCK FESTIVAL, STEVENTON
Lovvers + These New Puritans + more tbc
afternoon sometime

Want to read a nice review of our Australian / Japanese release?

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Well you’re in luck, cos a very nice person going by the name of Blake Solomon was kind enough to write some lovely words at AbsolutePunk.net.

Some of the details are wrong, like the Australian and Japanese releases both have the same tracklisting, but hey no-one is perfect. I think he does a pretty damn good job.

x

LES SAVY FAV IS OFF!

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

…well postponed really. We don’t know when the new date will be but other shows they had booked seem to have been resheduled to August some time, so I would imagine it will be around then.

I hope we can still play the rescheduled gig. I will be totally gutted if not :-(

x

We’re playing with Les Savy Fav on Friday

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

We’re playing with one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen on Friday. Les Savy Fav are coming to Oxford and we’re playing before them at the Zodiac. Good times. Click on the lovely picture of them to get tickets:

LSF tickets

x