THAT WAS THE TOUR THAT WAS

Phew! Wow, what a European tour we had. Thanks to everyone who put us on, put us up, fed us, drank with us and generally put up with us. The highlights are too numerous to mention, but suffice to say that we made a lot of new friends and loved catching up with some old ones too. The photo above is of us in a fridge in Bosch Bar, Zurich, trying to cool down after a riotous party at 1am on a Monday night. Those crazy, crazy Swiss.

You can find more photos courtesy of our wonderful roadie, driver, spiritual advisor and Thing One, subsequently rechristened as THE ROAD, Jim Alexander - here and here.

So what now? Well, our new 12" will be in record shops from Monday, or you can buy it from here NOW. And we're playing some shows this summer - check out our SHOWS page! Isn't that enough?

ON TOUR

Aye up,

Thanks to everyone who came out for the launch of the Splish/Wet Dog 12"; we managed to sell Chameleon out (apologies ot anyone who couldn't get in!) and had an absolutely brilliant time. Extra special love goes out to I AM LONO, The Cusp and The Kneel Before Zod Video Club of Nottingham Club for their sterling, stellar work on the night. Left Lion also furnished us with a lovely glowing review of the night.

If you missed out on the gig, Splish/Wet Dog will be available in all remaining half-decent actual record shops from Monday 17th June.

If you're too excited, you  can pre-order it here from Hello Thor and get yer download codes in advance of the vinyl platter in June.

If you're in the Nottingham way, I'm sure we'll bring some copies to the Fists album launch all-dayer on Saturday 8th June too... assuming we have any left from our impending exploits abroad:

Oof! We can't wait.

YOORUP

 

 Oh yes!

THE CONTINENT BECKONS...

Aye up,

We finished the Splish/Wet Dog 12" the other day. Ultimate satisfaction was achieved and the audio is currently being pressed to hot dripping black wax as we type. Wait 'til you hear the Wax Stag remix, it's a scorcher. We'll get some things online for your streaming pleasure a little closer to the launch date; until then you'll just have to wait...

IN THE MEANTIME, we have been busily pulling together plans to hire ourselves a van and undertake our first ever European Tour in May! Yus, that's right: what better thing to do than to pile yourself into a small vehicle with your closest friends and far too much heavy equipment and proceed to drive 4,000 miles across six countries in ten days? Odds are that we will lose our minds somewhere around the halfway mark and inexplicably kill each other, but we intend to counter the effects of BEING ON THE ROAD by investing in high-quality BOOZE, which will be used to numb our senses, fill up any remaining space in the van and inevitably guarantee a strip-search at the Swiss border. That's just how we roll.

These are the dates to commit to memory. There will be a test (and probably more detail about venues, promoters and door tax) in April:

CANTALOUPE INAUGURAL EUROPEAN BOOZE JAUNT:
24.05.13 | Brussels, Belgium
25.05.13 | Luxembourg
26.05.13 | Offenbach, Germany
27.05.13 | Zurich, Switzerland
28.05.13 | Orléans, France
29.05.13 | Montpellier, France 
30.05.13 | Bordeaux, France
31.05.13 | Nantes, France
01.06.13 | Rouen, France

Excited? You bet we are!
 

THIS IS THE NEWS: Splish/Wet Dog 12" on its way!

Bosh!

Christ, it's been quiet since a fantastic gig at the Sebright Arms in London, courtesy of those wonderful Burn The Jukebox fellas. Cheers lads, etc.

It's been so quiet because we've been locked away in the studio, putting the finishing touches to our next release... which will be a fancy black floor-filling disco-tastic 12" which will be HT016 on Hello Thor, to be released this summer, probably in early June.

Featuring two tracks produced by Fletcher & Wells (Nottingham's answer to Stock, Aitken and Waterman) and a remix by Wax Stag, this sensual slab of vinyl is krautrock taken to its illogical boogie conclusion. Ridiculous, but totally bangin'. Splish has been our set-closer for every gig we've played since we wrote it and is everyone's favourite song. Wet Dog is a jazz/dub/acid mongrel that confuses everyone but inspires love in that strange way that only slightly misshapen and quirky crossbreeds can. Both have received the magic Fletcher/Wells treatment, with Wax Stag weighing in his own version of Splish to up the stardust-sprinkled feeling. Needless to say, we're immensely proud of this one.

So we're going to have a party to celebrate it, joined by our good friends I Am Lono and The Cusp. Full details to be posted ASAP, but live! updates! for the event at the inimitable Chameleon Arts Cafe in Nottingham on Saturday 11th May can be found on ye Facebook...

And what after that? Well, we thought we might as well go and CONQUER EUROPE while we're at it. So look out for some TOUR DATES soon, yeah?

WELCOME TO 2013

Lads and ladies,

We're back, and it's 2013: what the fuck is going on? We have plans a-plenty, ranging from finishing some tracks for a new 12" that we started recording with Mr Pete Fletcher before Christmas, due out on Hello Thor in early summer, to our first! ever! European Tour! at the end of May. We're planning on visiting Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and France, so get in touch if you want us to play near you - we're particularly keen to stop in at Luxembourg and Lichtenstein if we're given half a chance. And anywhere selling half-decent booze for cheap, no doubt. Other grand plans will be unveiled as the year progresses.

But what about UK gigs? Oh yes, we have some grand plans there too. First up, we're reconnecting with old friends Burn The Jukebox to play this gig in the capital city next Saturday:

We have also been promised the following fine things:

+ CAKES!
+ BURGERS! (upstairs!)
+ PINTS!

@ THE SEBRIGHT ARMS (closest tube – Bethnal Green, or BR Bethnal Green/Cambridge Heath, or buses up BG or Hackney Road)

8pm start, £3 o.t.d

R.S.V.P on facebook here.

See you there, yeah?

POTENT ALPACA TOUPEE

Greetings dear friends and acquaintances,

Did you come to our tour with the incredible Galaxians?  If not, you missed out on 5 nights of ENDLESS BOOGIE and BUSINESS FUNK. Seriously, they were mind-blowing every night and it was probably our favourite run of shows OF ALL TIME. Matt and Jed are fantastic folk and we enjoyed their company as much as their unbelievable chops and jaw-dropping songs. Huge thanks too to everyone who put us on, put us up and generally ate and got drunk with us - you are too numerous to mention by name, but you are extremely dear to our hearts. We all had an awful lot of fun and are now paying for too many consecutive nights of fun by being generally knackered, ill and run down.

BUT NO MATTER! For here is an exclusive set of FREE remixes of tracks from this summer's Teapot EP. And these aren't just any old remixes knocked out by hacks in exchange for grimy money; these are by some extremely talented and special friends; Apalusa, Forever Sound and Moscow Youth Cult. Check 'em out and download to your heart's content:

IMMINENT UK TOUR

Did you know that we're about to embark on a short UK tour with our good buddies Galaxians later this week? There's a Facebook event page here, or check out details of individual gigs below:

Wednesday 24th - THE GREEN ROOM, SHEFFIELD
http://www.facebook.com/events/370736003004312/

Thursday 25th - WHARF CHAMBERS, LEEDS

http://www.facebook.com/events/150596828412569/

Friday 26th - FUEL, MANCHESTER
http://www.facebook.com/events/454034644627605/

Saturday 27th - ONE THORESBY STREET, NOTTINGHAM
http://www.facebook.com/events/434925956544250/

Sunday 28th - OLD BLUE LAST, LONDON
http://www.facebook.com/events/225684324227749/

 

These will be our last live dates for a short while as we finish up on recording and mixing a bunch of new songs that we've been prepping this year. But have no fear! We have grand plans afoot for a handful of live dates in a couple of months and then MOAR TOURING ACKSHUN next year!

UK TOUR WITH GALAXIANS

 In October we will head out on a brief tour with our favourite band. Life is sweet:

 
The schedule:
24.10.12 | The Green Room, Sheffield | w/ Galaxians
25.10.12 | Wharf Chambers, Leeds | w/ Galaxians & Chrononautz
26.10.12 | Fuel, Manchester | w/ Galaxians
27.10.12 | Game City Closing Party @ One Thoresby Street, Nottingham | w/ Galaxians
28.10.12 | Old Blue Last, London | w/ Galaxians

Facebook event page

TEAPOT EP LAUNCH PARTY & UK TOUR

Right you rotten lot,

Gideon Coe was good enough to play Scuttle on his show again tonight - cheers fella!

But this is the news we want to tell you about:

 

That's right, we're gonna have a good time. We're gonna have a party. In Nottingham And you're invited. You'll be able to buy a copy of the EP a good 3 weeks before its official release date and we have a couple of surprises up our sleeves. Come! It'll be awesome!

Oh, and after that we'll be heading out on the road around the UK with copies of the EP (and hopefully some super-snazzy t-shirts) in tow:

01.06.12 | Spanky Van Dykes, Nottingham | EP Launch Party with Azores, Nordenfelt & Forever Sound
02.06.12 | UK Tour darn sarf - get in touch!
03.06.12 | Power Lunches Arts Café, London | w/ Verity Susman (Electrelane), Sacred Paws & Flamingods
04.06.12 | The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds | w/ Runners & Galaxians

05.06.12 | UK Tour oop noorf - get in touch!

06.06.12 | Bloc Bar, Glasgow
07.06.12 | The Puzzle Hall Inn, Sowerby Bridge

08.06.12 | KRAAK, Manchester | w/ The FTSE 100, New Hips, Pooch & Arts and Craftwerk

As you can see, we've got a couple of gaps that we're trying to fill... we have things in the works, but if you're interested in helping us out, get in touch - we'd love to hear from you. You may have noticed from the videos of our performances at the Music Exchange and Holy Smokes! that we don't even need a PA!

Oh, and we'll be doing a couple of fantastic shows later in the month:

20.06.12 | The Green Room, Sheffield |  People are Strange
22.06.12 | The Kazimier, Liverpool | w/ Damo Suzuki & Mugstar, Mind Mountain

Excitement overload! Of course, if you can't make a show, you can always pre-order a copy of the EP from Hello Thor RIGHT NOW, by following this link and clicking on 'Records' under SHOP on the left-hand side.

CHEERS GIDEON!

Aye up,

We woke up this morning to discover that the wonderful Gideon Coe played "Scuttle" from our forthcoming TEAPOT EP (Hello Thor) on his BBC 6Music show last night. Cheers fella! You can listen back to his show for another few days (and fast-forward onto 1hr 56mins) by digging it out of iPlayer.

We were going to announce this as a world premiere, but then we remembered that Anders had snuck a little something into the background of an interview in this... busted!

We've had a few enquiries since the radio play about accessing Scuttle online... so far we're holding back on putting it and the title track of the EP up until we're a little closer to the launch date of Monday 25th June, but as soon as we've got everything sorted out we'll put it all up for pre-order.

In the meantime, follow us on Facebook or subscribe to this here blog and we'll guarantee you get the latest news on new tracks... and of both a super-special LAUNCH PARTY and UK tour at the start of June - more of which very soon, but check our shows page for a quick preview!

MINIATOUR

Dave finally snaps after Simmo smuggles battery-powered keyboard in to tour van

A MINIATOUR (mini-uh-tawr) (n.) (not to be confused with a minotaur, as pictured above) is the kind of tour that is undertaken a band featuring three overworked 30-something office functionaries with limited holiday entitlement . It lasts for four! whole! dates! and isn't even sequential any more.

Yet despite its diminutive stature, it's still a bloody good thing, and we are tickled pink to be engaging in such a venture - especially in such stellar company. We'll be playing four shows with our esteemed comrades and highly regarded members of the IAOWB (International Association of One-Off Wedding Bands) PAPIER TIGRE, all the way from Nantes, France. And a further three with Scotch guitar thaumaturge RM HUBBERT.

Dates are as follows - if you are one of the approximately 17% of the population that live either in London, Nottingham, Manchester or Derby you've really no excuse not to be there.

03 May | The Old Blue Last | London (w/ Papier Tigre)
04 May | Chameleon | Nottingham (w/ Papier Tigre and RM Hubbert)
05 May | Night & Day Café | Manchester (w/ Papier Tigre and RM Hubbert)
12 May | Holy Smokes Festival | The Salt Mill, Derby (w/ Papier Tigre and RM Hubbert)

To get you all aquiver with excitation, here are some fine videos or our touring partners:






See you there!

CUTTING DEALS

We are delighted to announce that Hello Thor will be releasing our debut EP this June.

We like the cut of Hello Thor's jib. They are fine, upstanding gentlemen; the kind of men you'd happily take home to meet your mothers. But they are not mere men of moral fibre, nor just pretty faces. No! They are also upholders of a grand Nottingham tradition, bringing yet another marvellous DIY record label to this fine city. We're delighted to be working with them, and strongly recommend you investigate some of the other winsome bands on their roster:

Anxieteam
Fists
We Show Up On Radar
Dan  Toporowski

The EP is as yet untitled, and shall probably contain four tracks. Our somewhat rudderless ship shall be receiving some welcome steering from the capable hands of Pete Fletcher at First Love Studio. There are lots of exciting plans afoot for promo videos, launch parties, tours, remixes, etc - we'll keep you abreast of all developments as details come in!