(via benigoat)

So we’re back to recording tomorrow. We’re only recording the one song so it shouldn’t be too taxing on poor Vinny. It’s a bit of a departure from the other songs we’ve written, sure we’ll see how it goes.

We recorded the drums in RTE’ big live room the last time and honestly, it was a bit of a rushed job. We’re recording them in Dave’s studio Clique so we’ll have more time to make them sound nice before we track them. Hopefully the extra time will pay off.

Ben is off to Australia for a month next month to work so we’re going to spend that time getting some new music written. We have a lot to do between now and February. I guess I better explain.

Our friend James is producing a documentary about Motor Neuron Disease and attempts to raise funds for it. He has kindly asked us to write the score, something we’re chuffed about so we’re all hoping that everything falls into place so the documentary can happen. All going well, it’ll be done by February.

‘Girls, or whatever’ or ‘Girls’ or *Weird Hand Gesture* are the working titles of the song we’re recording. It’s going to be put up on our Bandcamp and we’re going to charge for it, the proceeds going directly to the Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association. 

Read up on it if you have the time, we think it’s a really great cause. Hopefully we can raise a few quid for them, there are some causes in the world that you’d never think about unless they directly affected you or yours. This was one for me until James told us about it and I’m glad we can do something for them.

I guess how it’ll work is we’ll put it up for a minimum donation of €1 so people can donate upwardly from there. I hope people dig the track and the cause enough to help out.

I guess we better dig in for the winter and get some work done.

Since releasing Mr. Dog, we’ve been doing a few bits and pieces around the city. Last weekend we played our first all ages at Demented Fest. It’s always nice to play to a relatively new crowd. We shared the stage with some of my favourite local bands, namely The Blind and Chewing On Tinfoil. Diverse lineups are always fun.

We played The Workman’s Club’s 1st Birthday gig. Again, a pretty diverse lineup. I think we all really enjoyed House Of Dolls set in particular. The Workman’s is fast becoming one of our favourite places to play, I know some people would disagree but we’ve always had a great time there. It’s a nice enough stage, the sound is always bang on, John and Stef are both a pleasure to work with and the rest of the crew are nothing but nice to us. 

Just last night we played a big Eleven Eleven bash in the Twisted Pepper. Look at this lineup, it’s most of the roster of Eleven Eleven at the moment plus some other friends, Ang Kor Wat and Spies.

The visuals from Le Tissier and Slipdraft were among the best I’ve seen at any show. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to incorporate them into our set in the near future.

We only have two more Dublin gigs to play between now and New Year’s Eve. The second will be announced very soon and we’re very excited about it. The first is our first time to play the Hard Working Class Heroes festival. We’re playing on the 6th of October in the Mercantile. Look, it seems like a lot of money for a gig but the sheer volume of great acts playing justifies it as value for money in my eyes.

Go see what talent there is playing in the city, week in, week out.

I think I’ve saved the best for last here, it’s certainly what I’m looking forward to most. We’ve been invited by our good friends in Croupier to play a showcase of their new material in the Roisín Dubh, Galway. It’s both ours and their first time playing Galway and we’re ridiculously excited about it. Check our the Facebook event page here.

That’s all folks!

So this is our new release. We recorded two songs over the last couple of months in Clique. Vinny tracked, mixed and mastered everything in between working a full time job and eating chicken rolls.

http://overheadthealbatross.bandcamp.com/

A lot of work went into these recordings and we think they are a progression from ‘Lads With Sticks’. They’re free to download so feel free to spread the word.

The artwork was done by our friend Stacey Power (http://stacersart.tumblr.com/)

This is very important. We are being very grown up and mature.

So here we are again, it’s time for our second annual bash at The Workman’s Club. Last year was a huge success for all involved. None of us had ever anticipated that sort of audience standing in front of us. This is why we’re doing it again. We’ve made a few changes to the lineup this time around though, we’re giving you loads more to play with.

Lorem Ipsum will be our headliner of a new sort. He’s playing after the bands all finish and we’re dying to see him live. His music on Bandcamp is blowing me away and we’re hoping to provide him with a whole load of new people to blast his stuff at.

We will be following up last years E.P. ‘Lads With Sticks’ with something we hope is entirely different. We’re releasing two songs digitally for free at some point this month, and we hope to have some form of physical pressing too. The release is called ‘Mr. Dog’ and it contains two songs.

1. Pig Trigonometry

2. Flubirds

(Both names subject to change)

As you can see, it’s not an E.P. It’s sort of a single and a B-Side, only, we’re fairly sure neither are a single. Anyway. You can have them and decide what you want to call them.

The ultimate in lad technology (plus Rachel technology), friendquestionmark (the artistés formerly known as Friend?) shall, of course, be joining us on the night.

They will be fresh from their debut at Electric Picnic, the Body & Soul stage if I’m not mistaken and will be undoubtedly on top form. I’ve heard some of their new material live and it’s bound to induce salivation on a grand scale.

LotusEater are another new act for the bill. This night will also be their album launch. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never seen this band live before but I’ve already been scolded for that. Check out their demo on Bandcamp.

After Lorem Ipsum is done with your ears, it’s time to get your asses down on the dance floor. We’ve booked the very highly regarded DJs supreme, Colin & Merro for your legs delight.

Admission for entire night is free. You can bring whoever you like and you should kiss whoever you feel like kissing.

I also completely forgot to mention that we are commandeering Dee from the Button Factory for an incredibly over the top light show and possibly some Aerosmith style theatrics. I’m worried, which means you should definitely be worried.

We’ve been getting our act together these last few weeks. The songs we’re releasing in August are coming together now. We’ve moved operations from Clique near Straffan to the lad’s house in Moone, Co. Kildare. It’s nice working outside the studio. We can all do different things and still be contributing to the overall outcome. It’s no longer a case of sitting around shouting at each other from couch to couch and burning the back of Vinny’s head off with our anxiety fire laser vision.

The lack of internet and television is also a bonus, we only have each other for entertainment and I’m fairly sure we’re the most boring bunch of people on the planet, so it means we can only write and record music.

Today we popped down to our new home, Muzzle Music in Chapelizod. It’s a lovely rehearsal room compared to what we’re used to. We got most of a new song written today which sounds different to what we’ve done so far. We hope to play it on the Workman’s on the 26th of August.

I would love to announce who we’re playing with alongside Friend? that night but I can’t, suffice to say you’re going to want to get down to it. We’ll be selling pre sale tickets for €4, only 100 of them though. We’re going to make them ourselves so they’ll be somewhat personalised.

Oh yes, I knew there was something else. We simply can’t afford to put the new songs out on vinyl, none of us can deal with that sort of financial strain at the moment. I think CD’s will have to do. Of course, the two songs on the release will be up for free dowload before the gig.

Save the date. August 26th. We’re going to have a DJ on the night too. Watch this space. Get interested.

squishystacey:

My Baby of a Print! <3

elevenelevenlabel:

Go on, go. 

Look! Gary set up a Tumblr for Eleven Eleven. Follow up! I just remembered that I forgot to thank Gary for helping us get to England. Sorry Gary, we love you. GARY! GARY! GARY!

Also, go to this show.

What a month!

I think we played 7 gigs in May, including our first overseas shows in England. It only occurred to me as we were on our way to Derby that we haven’t toured Ireland yet. We jumped the gun a little bit and had a deadly week in the UK.

We had a bit of a false start on the 16th. Jay (Red Enemy) arrived with the van and before we got into it at 6am, it broke down. Spirits remained pretty high, we knew we’d make it over. The most pressing issue at the time was the matter of when we’d arrive. We really wanted to make the 2pm ferry so we could make the first Derby show. Unfortunately we had to let Marty and the other bands down.

We made it over at about midnight and drove to Chester before crashing out in the carpark of a Travelodge. You can sleep 7 people in a transit full of gear pretty comfortably. I say comfortably, it was fairly torturous. Jay Boland (We’re Wolves) will sleep anywhere once he’s still for long enough. He literally slept sitting at the steering wheel that night.

Our first gig was in an Irish bar in Derby called Ryan’s. It was small and there was just a floor space to play on, my favourite. The bands we played with were really good, Dweller in particular.

I better add at this point that Jay Boland came to do sound for us and I’m pretty sure that’s the best decision we’ve made yet. He is so good at his job, it’s like having another person in the band.

On the 18th, we played in The Bodega Social in Nottingham with Kids, Jogging and Shapes. If you’re from Dublin and you don’t know Jogging, be better at being from Dublin. We were definitely the least heavy band on that lineup. Mixed lineups are great. Shapes are a phenomenally good band.

That night we stayed in a place called Hill Holt Wood. Unbeknownst to us, we were staying in a pretty special place of very high repute. I’m not going to do the place the justice it deserves by trying to describe it in woods. The work that Karen, her husband and all of their crew do is as invaluable to the local community as the setting that surrounds them. I’m dying to go back at some point. We were shown the utmost in hospitality and friendliness. That’s what a real social enterprise looks like.

Next stop was Brighton. I was really looking forward to it, I had never been there before and, like everywhere else we went, I wanted to stay there and never leave. The weather was lovely so we chilled out on the beach before the gig. The Druid’s Arms was host to the fabulous Nice Weather For Airstrikes Festival that I want to make it to next year. We played with Colonics, Up C Down C and Angles. Here’s a video that was put together afterwards, I loved that venue.

We drove to London straight after the gig. Most people seemed tired and Dee was cranky because she fell over. Dee basically drives whatever we need to play music to wherever it needs to go, unpacks it all with us and hands it to us before we go on and packs it all up and puts it away when we’re done. She’s basically like a mother to children who can’t look after their toys properly.

We got to London and slept in Luke’s brother Fintan’s flat below the main house. The bed was much appreciated. Being fed and watered was just as well received. There were 9 of us in total, that’s no mean feat!

I was looking forward to London a lot because of almost constant back and forth Twitter activity between myself and the lads from Orders Of The British Empire and Rumor Cubes. I hadn’t heard of One Unique Signal before but they were rad and have quite the following. I think that gig was the most fun but it certainly wasn’t where we played our best, technical difficulties all over the place.

We split up and went our separate ways after that. That’s all you need to know. London is a big place.

I’m not going to go on about our day off, there were beers, a barbeque and boxing.

The tour was a success by most accounts. We want to go do it again. We owe some people big time. First and foremost, the main man, Marty Toner from the exquisite Alright The Captain and Button Pusher Bookings. If it wasn’t for him we probably wouldn’t have made it over. Soundest badger that side of the water. Oh and thanks a million to Glen and his girlfriend (sorry), for putting some of us up in Derby.

Karen from Hill Holt Wood deserves a heroes worship for all her kindness, as does the entire Daly household in London (not Luke).

Pete & Tim from NWFA were gentlemen and we’re hoping to see them again whenever possible. The same goes for Boston Tea Party and One Beat.

Dan and Dave from End Of Radio are amongst the nicest blokes in the entire universe too. The Unicorn was the most almighty craic.

Thanks of course to all the people who came out and watched us and to all the bands for being so welcoming. If I was any use at organising this, I’d have you all over here in a heartbeat.

Most of all, we’re grateful to dogs.