Hello!
A belated Happy New Year to you all! Just a some good and bad news for you. The gig we had lined up for March has unfortunately been postponed however hopefully it’ll be rescheduled for soon after.
The good news is that I’m playing a solo acoustic set THIS SATURDAY (29th) at Oxford Cycle Workshop. Go here for the Facebook event and more details.
The blog posts have been relatively quiet (although the twitter posts haven’t) but that’s because there’s been a lot of stuff happening in the background so here’s a bit of a summary.
New Music:
We are working on a new 11 track album called ‘Aim For The Head’. The backing tracks are almost completed and we’ll be doing the vocals over the next couple of weeks. There’s also the possibility of putting out a little ep type thing with some semi acoustic stuff and a new song (which Dan came up with the music for) which doesn’t quite fit on the album. We’re hoping to complete it all in time for some gigs we’ve lined up which leads me nicely on to…
Gigs:
We’re very excited to say we’ve got the following gigs lined up:
10th December – The Jericho, Oxford
17th December – The Wheatsheaf, Oxford
This will be the first time that all 4 of us have played live together in front of people (and may well be the last time we get to play together for a while) so we’re really looking forward to it. Full lineups and ticket prices for both nights are still tbc but we’ll let you know more as soon as we do. We’re still keeping an eye out for other gigs though so get in contact if you would like us to come to a venue near you.
Site updates:
I’ve been tweaking and rearranging stuff on the site for a little while so hopefully things should be a bit easier to find and bit to manage from this end. In particular, have a look at the new look gigs and music pages and the brand new about and video pages and let me know what you think via comment, contact or twitter.
Other:
The brilliant Lee from Prohibition Smokers’ Club has let me loose on a remix of one of their new tracks which should be out fairly soon. There may well be a couple of other things coming up as well but their not quite ready to tell you about yet. Should be able to soon though.
So as you can see quite a a lot has been happening which has been keeping us busy but definitely in a good way. We’re really looking forward to putting the new stuff out for people to listen to and to playing live so exciting times ahead. In the mean time, have a listen to this.
It’s safe to say that the gig was a genuine success which to be honest I’m still a bit amazed about. All of the feedback so far has been incredibly positive and there was really a great atmosphere. In total the gig raised £416.57 for Oxfam which is just brilliant and Dan and I are just amazed with everyone’s generosity. I’ve been told that I’ve been saying thank you a little bit too much but we wanted to put together one last post to say Thank You to everyone that helped us out:
The Bands:
The Half Rabbits, Phantom Theory, The Prohibition Smokers Club, Helena, Swindlestock and Kt and Ky,
Sarah Mayhew (from The Oxford Castle for letting us do the gig at the castle in the first place) and Helen Statham (for letting us move the gig to The O3 Gallery with one day to go), and The Real China.
Mel Skinner, Sarah Kenway, Ashleigh Toll, Mez Flint for minding the bar and helping us tidy up afterwards (+ the rest of the Oxjam crew!)
Stu Smith, Mark Wilden, Neil Smith, for loaning us the audio equipment
And everyone that braved the rain to come along, listen to some great music and donate!
There are some pictures up on the pictures page and Dan Paxton has some up on his Flickr profile. There may even be some video soon too. Dan and I have already started talking about whether or not we’ll do it again. We shall see….
Please keep supporting Oxfam and Oxjam and good luck to anyone else that’s organising an Oxjam gig this year!
Ian and Dan
[Updated 02/09/10] Now with Video!
This is very exciting. Dan and I have been thinking about putting on an Oxjam gig somewhere in Oxford and the lovely people at The Oxford Castle have said that we can put on there as part of their summer acoustic nights on Wednesday 25th August from 7pm to 10pm. Win!
Lined up to play are:
‘How much will this wondrous event cost?’ you ask. Well, nothing. That’s right entry will be FREE. But we will collecting money for Oxfam and our fund raising target is £100 so any and all donations will be very much appreciated. We’re also hoping to arrange some food and drink promos but that’s still tbc. We’ve just had confirmation that The Real China will be offering discounts on cocktails and food for everyone that donates. Isn’t that nice of them?
Here’s the Oxjam event page. See you there.
A couple of new TM remixes for you:
Stately Homes Of England – 1000 Blinking Lights (Tiger Mendoza remix)
The Half Rabbits – When The Rain Stops (Tiger Mendoza remix)
Downloads available from The Half Rabbits’ website.
In other exciting remix related news, Stately Homes of England have also done a great remix of Hope Sick:
Also a reminder that Helena, Sally and I are doing a ‘semi-acoustic’ live set at Café Tarifa on Cowley Road, Oxford on Tuesday 9th February. Also on the bill are Kat Gadsden and Nigel Brown & Friends. Doors are at 9pm and it’s free entry so come down, drink booze and watch the first PROPER TM gig. Info and stuff can be found here.
Yesterday was the first OX4 event in Oxford which, by all accounts, was an attempt by Truck (formerly Records, now Festival) and You, Me, Dancing to create an SXSW style combination of music and community events. Here are my thoughts on the the bands that I managed to catch:
Susanna Starling, Bar Tarifa: Only caught the end of this set, but would have liked to have seen more. Very cool vocals / double bass + live beatboxing.
Richard Walters, Bullingdon Arms: To be honest I felt a bit sorry for Richard. He is a great acoustic balladeer, and I definitely preferred this set to the last time I saw him when he supported Imogen Heap but as the day was only really starting up, I think he found it difficult to compete with the people talking. He did battle on valiantly though and it was a good start to the sets at the Bully.
UTE, O2 Academy: My fiancée, who was with me throughout the day, asked me how I would describe the acoustic 3 piece while we were watching them and I said ‘Wonky Emo-ish Folk’. Kinda sums them up I guess. Very enjoyable though, shame their set was cut short.
Charly Coombes & The New Breed, O2 Academy: The last time I saw Charly, he was playing with The brilliant 22-20s, so compared to that to be honest this set was a bit of a let down. The words Top and Loader spring to mind…
Action Beat, Bullingdon Arms: 4 drummers! 4 DRUMMERS!!! + Guitar and Bass! THAT’S INSANE!!!! A HUGE wall of noise, unfortunately only caught the end of this set (which included a heroic dive on to drummer 4 (from left to right) by the guitarist), would definitely like to see more.
This Town Needs Guns, Bullingdon Arms: I don’t really want to describe another band as wonky pop but, well, it fits. Math rock maybe? Always hated that genre name. Great seeing them again though, a good set, although the lady harassing Stu (the singer) didn’t really help things. Funniest moment of the day though was seeing Stu run and hide in corner at the end of the set to get away from the ‘new number 1 fan’… 🙂
Dälek, Bullingdon Arms: To be honest, the reason I bought tickets for the day was to see these guys. I’ve wanted to for years so to be within feet of them was just AWESOME. An over used word these days but that really was the only way to describe the heart-stopping (almost literally) wall of beats and bass that these guys imported from NY. Make no mistake, this was Hip-hop, almost old school Hip-hop even, but PROPER underground Hop-Hop (not like 80% of the crap you get in the charts these days) with huge distorted beats, bowel shaking basslines and screaming samples. The only downside to this was that the huge wall of noise did over shadow the vocals a lot of the time but I suppose that’s all the more reason to buy the albums.
Mr. Shaodow, Baby Simple: To be honest I was still on a come down from seeing Dälek but flying the flag for UK Hip Hop was Mr. Shaodow. A very different kettle of fish though. Good Lyrics, good beats, and a feel good atmosphere. Well played sir!
Didn’t get to see: The Big Pink (although apparently they were crap), Jonquil (too knackered after Dälek), Danny + The Champions of The World (the upstairs of Baby Simple was RAMMED!!!, looked like fun though) and The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band (too late, too tired, gone home by then). Roll on the next OX4 I say!
