January Handful of Dates and New Stuff

January 6, 2010

Happy New Year!

We hope you’ve had a great time and a rest over the holidays and that you’re all stoked for a new decade full of Hope and Socialism. We also hope that you’re somewhere nice and warm right now with a cup of tea and not stuck in a snowdrift on your way to whatever you call work…

Thwarted

First things first. Due to the severe weather warnings forecasting snow, we’re sorry to report that our first scheduled gig of the year; a lovely acoustic afair for Ryedale Live (www.ryedalelive.co.uk) has been re-scheduled. It was going to be this Friday in Hovingham Hall, but alas, it’s been pulled. On the positive side it has been rescheduled to the night of January the 29th at Old Malton War Memorial Hall, Malton. It’ll be our last show until April (while Simon takes a wee break and concentrates on the duties of fatherdom) so it’d be lovely to see you. We might even have some new tunes to show off. More details available here and on our hopeandsocial.com gigs pages.

Onwards

We’re really excited to be headlining our Gary Stewart’s first hosted night at The Hop on the 15th of Jan. The Hop is Mike Heaton’s place and as such, we’ll have at least two of our drummers there (Ian, Ash, you coming?). Maybe we’ll have dualing drummers… who knows? Supports come courtesy of The Gary Stewart Band and Wilful Missing. See here for more details. This will be our last full band gig in the Leeds area till spring so come down! It’s a 10 minute train journey from Leeds and the lovely Hop is just 5 mins from Westgate station. Make mine a pint of Silver King….

Our second date of the year is headlining the Angela Thompson Memorial Concert at The Woodcutter in faithful Harlepool. Please note that this is a ticket only doo, but if you want tickets they’re only a quick phone call away. Give Kev a bell on 07502 119173, ask nicely and he’ll sort you out.

Be The Architect

In other news, we’re ecstatic with just how well our Limited Edition box-set “Be The Architect” has been received. Your appreciation and blog comments are very much appreciated. We even made the Bandcamp Blog with our special release. We’ve also just uploaded the ‘prayer’ song which we made from the many many lovely things that everyone wrote on the night. (If you were there and haven’t received a mail explaining how to get it then get in touch!) Many many thanks to all who made this beautiful artifact possible.

New Stuff

We’re writing! Well actually, we’re talking about writing, but we’re in the studio. Today has been our first day back at work in the studio. There’s been some tidying, some mixing of the Crypt Song (part of the Be The Architect release) and some formulation of what we’re going to do with the year including:
– releasing three records
– touring said records
– bringing you into our studio, and taking you to a slightly more famous studio
– a new website
– videos (that you can help us make)

Probably more importantly, we’ve started plotting just what our next record will be, who’ll be on it, and what it’s to sound like. We’ve decided that a song needs quite simply:
A – A vocal
N – Name

A – A sense of chord
R – Rhythm
S – Something Else
E – Extra Stuff

Or if you read top to bottom, AN ARSE

We’ll be saying this a lot over the coming month.