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Recent updates: News (20/11/11), Gigs (06/10/11), Shop (24/09/11), Music (13/09/11), Band member bios (09/06/11) 20/11/2011
It's that time again... voting has begun for the Pure Rawk Awards 2012. We were lucky enough to take Best Video last year (along with our pals at AshTV), and Best Band and Best Frontperson the year before. So it'd be nice to add 'Album Of The Year' to that too... just sayin'.... Either way, a vote in the Pure Rawk Awards is a vote for independence, a vote for the underdog, a vote for fun. So whoever you vote for... just make sure you vote. The link is here: See you next year. 24/09/2011
We've thrashed out a deal with our arch-nemeses at Wrath Records allowing you to buy our albums in a joint purchase for just £13. That's the DO OR DIE album ("silly, shrill rock" - 5/10 - Rock Sound magazine) and of course the CHAMPION THE UNDERDOG ("the best thing about them is their names" - Planet Sound, Teletext) album for a snip at £13 INCLUDING P&P. We've also got some badges left over which we'll throw in too. Perfect for Christmas, kidz. So that's DO OR DIE and CHAMPION THE UNDERDOG and an ENVELOPE and a SECOND-CLASS STAMP for £13. Still cheaper than iTunes. Go have a look at the SHOP page for details. 13/09/2011
Chris now has one of those Formspring things, which basically work as a Q&A which is anonymous, if you want it to be. So if you've any trivial questions regarding Eureka Machines, the Sisters, Andrew Eldritch's shoe size etc then give him a shout. He says he'll answer anything, so long as it's not compromising or weird. 31/08/2011
We're pleased to tell you we've been announced to support legendary US garage punksters D-Generation at one of our favourite venues, The Borderline, on Monday 5 September. Led by Jesse Malin, for fans of his. Tickets are very scarce but there are a few left. Snap 'em up - it will be the last time we play London this year, unless something weird happens, which it probably won't. We're doing a warm-up for it at Esquires in Bedford the night before. Please come down if you're in the area, we'll be doing a nice long set and we'd like to show them that we can bring a few people, as they've helped us out by giving us the extra gig. It's a long way from Leeds to London and it's always nice to break up the journey - so get down if you can. There's a few more dates up for October on the gigs page. Go have a look, especially if you live in Bradford, Hull, Darlington or any of those vibrant places. Before you think we are taking the piss, three of the four of us are originally from those cities (Darlington almost) so we love 'em really. We're running low on merch - specifically hoodies - so get your orders in this month if you want to be sexy in Autumn. Finally, the song Zero Hero is on the Classic Rock covermount CD this month. They originally asked us to be on their 'Best Of The First Half Of 2011' CD the previous month, but Chris was moving house and couldn't get the internet to work. Consequently we're on September's. If you find the time to visit their forums and say what a lovely surprise it was to find us on there, that would be a nice thing and might encourage them to write nice things about us. Cheers all. 07/08/2011
We hear that Lovely Mark Radcliffe is playing that song These Are The People Who Live In My House on TUESDAY NIGHT. Feel free to email him (probably best if you do it after the show, which is 2300-0000, UK time) on radcliffe@bbc.co.uk to tell him how much you enjoyed it. If you heard us for the first time on the show, please have a look round the site. We've got a couple of albums out which you can hear on Spotify, some videos you can see on YouTube, and you can buy it all on our nice Shop page. Hello. We've got some new gigs lined up in October. A few more to come. Go have a look on the Gigs page. Chris is off doing an acoustic tour with Ginger out of The Wildhearts this month. Go see the dates on their website. Jackdaw4 are supporting, and they're very very very very very good. Get down early. That's about it for now. Sithee. 03/07/2011
Our good friends at AshTV have been at work again, this time making a sting for E4 starring our very own Wayne Insane. Please go have a look at it here. There's a votey thing, we hate doing this, but if you could see fit to hit 'Yay!' then that'd be nice. No bother if not. Hope you're enjoying your Summer. Any Sonisphereans can catch the singer with his other group The Sisters Of Mercy, and with Ginger a couple of hours before. Groovy train. EM X 20/06/2011
Bit of a quiet Summer really. All those festivals that we'd hoped to do went away, but were replaced by equally fun-sounding ones. Have a look on the Gigs page for more. In other news, we're booking some dates for October. That's it, really. Hope you're having a nice Summer. Wear your EM shirt with pride at any of the upcoming festivals, and watch as people stare blankly at it. (Picture: Trudi Knight) 03/06/2011
So the tour is all but over. It's been a right laugh and it's been nice to play some of the new songs and get to meet some of you lovely people. We'll be doing some more gigs in October by the looks of it. Hope to see you then. We're doing a live session for BBC Introducing Raw Talent on Sunday 5th June, in the evening. Tune in on local BBC stations across the Mighty North, or on the 'net at this address: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gz1bs You can text in questions and nonsense, it'd be good to have a few of you get in touch. 
We've also made our own copy of the new Kaiser Chiefs' album 'The Future Is Medieval'. You can read about the brilliantly executed concept here, and you can buy our version here. We get a pound for every person who buys it, and that pound will go to The Alzheimer's Society. The Chiefs lads are good mates of mine, and this charity is especially dear to them, so it's our honour and privilege to do this. The album is also great. Please download it and support a great cause and a brilliant idea. Cheers for all the support this past month. It's been great. Now it's diet time. 02/05/2011The new album is out. Hooray. As you're probably sick of hearing by now, it's called Champion The Underdog, and it's available from all the usual spots - iTunes, Spotify, record shops and of course this here website. If you buy it directly from us, then we get most of the cash, and boy do we need it. We're also doing some gigs. This week, it's Preston, Manchester, Blackpool and Doncaster. Yeah, we hang out in some pretty salubrious spots. Please come and see us and say hello. Of course, the new album will be on sale at the gigs, along with the first one and some shirts etc. Come see us, we're doing a load of the new stuff, it'll be ace. To celebrate the tour and the album, we're putting a new single out. It's called Beginning Of The End Of The World, and we need YOU to spread it around on Facebook and Twitter and all that. Maybe even tell your real-life friends too. The video is another magical production from the boys and girl at AshTV. Thanks again you lot, we love you. You can see it HERE:
Finally, we've been told that the album has made it onto some nefarious download sites. The main thing we want to do with our tunes is get them out so that the world hears them, but please bear in mind that we are skint and it has cost us money to make this record. Do what you do, but please support underground music and spread the word about us. Without you lot, we have no-one on our side at all. Festivals won't book us because we don't have an agent, magazines won't write about us because we don't have a press dude (... who spends money on advertising with them), radio won't play us as we're 'too rock for the daytime and too pop for the nighttime'... as ever, we need your help to try and infiltrate the mainstream. To our ears, we sit up there with the Foo Fighters or Kaiser Chiefs or even the more recent Green Day stuff. This probably sounds conceited, but sod it, we are our favourite band too and the time for platitudes is over. Please tell your friends about this album, get them listening, get them involved and get them along to a gig. This might not be how we make a living, but we genuinely can't afford to be a band any more if we can't at least make it pay for itself. Thank you for the continuing support. We hope you enjoy the album. EM 27/04/2011
Hello all, We are very excited to be going on tour for the first time in ages next week. Please make sure you get to the venues early as each night has super special wonderful support bands. Also to avoid disappointment, as some of the gigs are shifting tickets faster than we expected. So go get yourself some tickets. The album has had some nice press so far. Like The Sun review which you can see here. And the stuff you can see on the front page. There's some new gigs. Mainly Croydon on Friday May 13. Sorry to anyone who wanted to come and see us at the Isle Of Wight gig - the venue cancelled the gig last week. Sorry about that - we hope to be back later in the year. Manchester is definitely happening. Look out for some new bits on the site over the next couple of weeks, to go along with the new album. Starting with the song explanations for the Champion The Underdog. If you've got one of the advance copies, then go and have a look at what it's about. In the meantime, please carry on telling your pals about the album and upcoming gigs. Of course, there will be CDs and shirts on sale at the gigs, so if that kind of thing floats your boat, make sure you bring some cash. We are, as ever, running on a shoestring, and we are ever-reliant on your purchases to put a roof over our heads for the evening and get us to the next gig. The cost of diesel alone means that we are only breaking even on this tour. It'd be nice to come back with a bit to pay off album debts and put into the next one. Thank you. 11/04/2011
Thanks to all who ordered the Super Special Early Bird Orders. We were slightly overwhelmed by the response. The first batch of orders went last week, the second batch will go tomorrow, and the final batch will go as soon as we receive the new t-shirt order (yes, we were pretty overwhelmed). You can order the new album from us NOW. To celebrate, we've bunged another track up on the front page, which you've probably seen by now. The album is the fruition of 15 months of very hard work by our band and the wonderful Jason Edwards, who produced it with Chris. Thanks Jase. We like it, and we hope you do. As ever, we are very reliant on word of mouth and YOU LOT to tell your friends all about our existance. We really think that these tunes deserve to get heard by as many people as possible, and we are hopeful that you feel the same way. So spread the word on your Facebooks and your Twitters and so on, if you feel that way inclined. Thank you, as ever. Official release date: May The Third Be With You. Hope to see you at one of the gigs in May. Of course, the album will be on sale at the gigs, along with shirts and so on. Cheers. EM 25/03/2011
We're trying to offload the last of our original merch stuff to make way for the motherload of new stuff that arrived today for the new album. We've got a few odds and sods left, so we've decided to do a bargain sale of the few old shirts we've got left. They're only a fiver each, plus postage (UK = £2, Europe = £3.50, Rest Of The World = £5). So please buy them, so we can eat. (Update: sorry, all gone... thanks very much for the amazing response!) There's only sizes L, XL and XXL, and there's very few of each I'm afraid. But we've got plenty of the new ones in all sizes, as well as some hoodies, so keep checking back for when they go on sale. 27/02/2011We are delighted to let you know that on Friday we won the Best Video Of The Year gong at the Pure Rawk Awards in London. It was for the promo vid These Are The People Who Live In My House, which was produced and directed by our marvellous friends Ash and Richy at AshTV. Thanks to YOU if you voted for us! Here's the video again if anyone missed it: And to celebrate winning this, Ash has put together an amusing series of behind-the-scenes antics, outtakes and cock-ups from the shoot, which took place over a couple of days at, erm, Chris's house, and at a big mansion in Sowerby Bridge. You can see this here: Thanks to Nix at Pure Rawk, Ash, Richy and Lydia at AshTV, Polly for helping with make-up and the lads at Chris's house for clearing out for the day. More to come soon. X
(Picture by fellow Pure Rawk Award winner Trudi Knight) 24/02/2011
Well, it's about time we told you our plans for the rest of the year. We're putting out our new album, which we call Champion The Underdog, on May 2nd. It will be out through Wrath Records again, and it is the best thing that any of us have ever done. It will be preceded by a new single, another snappily monikered tune called (I'm) Wasting My Time (Yet Again). You may recognise it from the gigs as The One With The Uptown Girl Bit. We're filming a video for it at the moment and it's suitably amusing. The tracklisting for the record is thus:
It was produced by Jase Edwards and Chris Catalyst and made across about six different studios at various times across the land. The cover artwork was shot by evil genius Tom Martin. Please, if it's the last thing you ever do for us, tell your friends, get people excited, spread the word, it would be a terrible shame if the past eighteen months of our hard labour was to disappear unnoticed. We're doing some gigs so you can come and see us and maybe buy it and all that. Of course, it'll be available online before that, so keep checking back. The dates confirmed so far are: Champion The Underdog tour:
Already announced:
There's more to be added, so keep your peepers open. Also in the pipeline, more gigs, new shirts, stickers, badges, stuff. Keep checking back and let your pals know! 21/02/2011
We're delighted to tell you we're doing some gigs with Gogol Bordello. Chris met them when he supported them in his stint with Mariachi El Bronx, and was pleased to report they are gentlemen/women to a man/woman. They're also brilliant live, which is nice. We like playing with bands who are brilliant live. Gigs are as follows:
We're also pleased to say that we'll be supporting Wolfsbane at their one-off London comeback gig in April (Saturday 9th). Unfortunately/fortunately this gig sold out a long time ago, but for the lucky few hundred who have tickets, let it be known that we have been studying at the Bible Of Rock, and we'll be turning in the metal set that night. Expect wigs, expect horns and expect a skull motif on the gearstick. There's also a couple of other gigs turning up on the horizon, including a festival in Whitby, and a lot more to be announced in the near future. In other news, the album is done, and is currently being mastered. It is, in our humble consideration, the best thing that any of us have ever done. Watch out for its release and our tour in May. That's all for now... more very soon. X 11/01/2011
Happy new year! We've been nominated for another couple of Pure Rawk Awards, taking place in February. Last year we waltzed off with Best Band and Best Frontman and played a triumphant set to celebrate, before our van broke down for an hour outside the venue bringing us right back down to Earth. This year we're nominated in the categories Best Video (for the These Are The People Who Live In My House flick) and Best Drummer (for Wayne Insane... obviously). Please go and vote if you get chance. In other news, our friends and lovers The Pretty Machine have recently released their album Unexpected Delight and you can download the mp3s from their website for absolutely nothing. Go have a look, because it's great. A bunch of upbeat rocky punk tunes dribbling with attitude and groove. These are the sexpots who did the videos for Everyone Loves You and These Are The People Who Give Themselves Song Titles That Are Too Long, as well as the Cribs vid. Also on a giveaway tip are our old muckers The Scaramanga Six, who are streaming their entire back catalogue for 0p here. Go get it while it's hot. In other other news, we're putting the final touches to the album and booking a tour for May/June now. Hot. X 02/12/2010
We've put the new video up. It's for the song These Are The People Who Live In My House. As ever, we are (too) reliant on YOU, dear reader, to pass it around your friends. Feel free to stick it on your Facebook, or on your Twitter thing, or just show it to your mates. We did it to try and remind people that we exist, so please help us on our quest. We are giving you a free download of the single, in different qualities, because we're nice like that. The b-side for this wondrous slab of pop-rockery is our cover of Arnald by the best band in the world, Cardiacs. It's taken from the bonus disc to the forthcoming Tim Smith tribute album Leader Of The Starry Skies, which you can read all about and order here. It also features contributions from The Magic Numbers, Andy Partridge (XTC), Oceansize, Sidi Bou Said, Ultrasound, Julianne Regan and our besties The Scaramanga Six. The only thing we ask of you is that if you like these two tunes, you buy the Tim Smith album. All proceeds go to getting this wonderful man home. The video was made by our friends and lovers AshTV, who made the Everyone Loves You vid and the family favourite Chris Catalyst Cribs vid. We love them - or as the kool kids might say, we 'heart' them. It's off the new album, which we can tell you is called Champion The Underdog, and we are expecting to drop it in 2011. Hopefully sooner rather than later. On top of this, we've just added a load of tour dates (with some more possibly to be confirmed) for December - click here for the full list. As ever, your humble servants, |
