Ice

A funny thing happened in York yesterday, they got the gritter out to the footpath by the side of the river. This is probably the most heavily used footpath in the city but for the last fortnight has remained resolutely ungritted. I can only assume the conversation in the council offices went something like this:
"hey Ted! I've had a thought."
"What's that then?"
"Do you suppose that there might be some kind of correlation between the fact that every night for the last two weeks the temperature has been below freezing, and the fact that the ice isn't going away?"
"Bejesus Ted you might be right! To the Gritters!"
Seriously though, i can just about buy the fact that the first really cold night may have taken them by surprise (if they'd been cut off from any form of media for a week!) but really, putting the grit down after two-weeks of sub-zero temperatures?
Maybe the conversation went more like this:
"Hey Ted! I've had a thought."
"What's that then?"
"You know how we've been saying that you can never believe what the weathermen say?"
"Yes Ted, that's true, can't believe a word of it."
"Well, you know how they've been saying that it'll be below freezing every night for the last two weeks?"
"that's true Ted, haven't shut up about it mow have they?"
"Well, you know, it has actually been below freezing every night for the last two weeks."
"Bejesus Ted you're right! To the Gritters!"
I don't know why everyone who works for the council is called Ted or why half of them are irish but i'm willing to wager that that's exactly how the conversation went.
Well, one of those options is. probably.
Have a nice winter picture to go with it so you feel nice and christmassy...

Gig and stuff!

ok, sorry about the delay from the last blog. The day job has been silly and things have had to take a bit of a back seat. But not all of it, no sir!
So tomorrow Dr Jones and I go into the Studio (here's a picture of her in the studio doing the pre-production session last month - i think she thought it was cold. I think i might be in trouble for this photo...) and then, once we've come out of the studio (otherwise it would be ridiculous) we're playing at the Junction in York.
It's friday the 21st so no work the day after for most of us (get them beers in!) and we'll be supporting local singer/songwriter Thom Piddock and also the eclectic and very interesting Katie and the Questions - they raise, stangely enough, more questions than answers...
But it's getting late and tomorrow i have to be up bright and early to go to the studio (WOOHOO! as homer simpson would no-doubt say). Well, not that bright and not that early, but the principle still holds dammit!
So if i don't see you before then, hopefully see you on the 21st.
stay well
Drew

Se-se-se-Studio

As opposed to sesudio or whatever the hell that Phil Collins track was called.
But i digress. Already. Which is pretty good work by anybody's standards. But i'm digressing again...

So you won't be seeing Hilary and I playing live much in October I'm afraid (unless you want to book us for a house party!) but fear not, we are not, unlike the economy, in a state of terminal decline. No. We have just spent a day in the studio doing a bit of pre-production work for the album we will shortly be working on!
Oh yes, you read it right. Dr Jones and I will be going into the studio to record a full length album. But i probably have to write a couple more songs first. So i'll get on with that rather than blogging here shall i?
Probably for the best...
stay well all

P.S. I should be getting a few of the whitby photos up soon, here's a teaser for the business card

York Friday, Wakefield Sunday

Friday evening we're playing the York Food Festival. Yep, you read that right.

Well be playing two sets at the Fountain Cafe right in the middle of parliament street. First set at 5:30, second at 7. Come along and grab some post work nosh, then head next door to the beer tent. It'll be good.


Sunday evening we're back at WFOne on the Bullring in Wakefield.
Supporting us will be our stable mates, the excellent TWO and we'll be kicking off at about 8:30ish.

Come along and buy a cd!

stay well all
Drew

Lance Armstrong’s cycling team

Bit of a venture off-topic for me this one, but it's one that's doing the rounds of the blogosphere in the sporting circles.
So if you're expecting another tirade about the industry majors or the EC or a recommendation of another bedroom musician then you'd probably best keep clicking. Any cyclists out there might want to continue reading...

Lance Armstrong is returning to cycling, but for whom will he ride? Some say he will go straight back to Astana and the welcoming (?) arms of Johan Brunyeel, others (and this is where this blog comes in) that he will start his own team, based on the anti-cancer work of his foundation, called team LiveSTRONG.
The fat cyclist may not be directly responsible for this second rumour but he's rightly doing his best to promote it :¬)
But i propose the following twist:

Team Astana-LiveSTRONG.
The team and manager is in place, the legalities and licenses are there as are the mechanisms for promotion and operation.
This, i accept, has been mentioned before, so here comes the twist:
Lance (or Mr Armstrong as i prefer to think of him) will actually ride as a chief domestique to Contador.
Wait, wait! it's not that crazy! Listen…
Mr A is doing this for the foundation, it's about getting that jersey on the podium and the name in the papers as often as possible. That's his motivation, his true motivation. What better way to do this than by supporting probably the best GC rider around at the moment. Those who think he couldn't be this selfless need just look at what he's done since retiring.
Think also of how this would mitigate any rumours around drugs etc - he's just the domestique, he's not the challenger, why focus on bad press for a dom? It sidelines all that built-up vitriol.
Ultimately consider two possibilities: Contador on the winners podium wearing his dual-branded astana LiveSTRONG top saying his team and Mr A helped get him there,
or,
Mr A, as his team's highest finisher, languishing down in 18th spot on the GC and getting just a couple of lines mention in the more dedicated of the sporting papers.
I'm going with my theory and hoping that by posting it on Fatty's site, this site and my blog i will piggy-back on his rumour mill!

Thursday night in Leeds and now on i-tunes!

Guess, what? yep we're playing in leeds on thursday night and i-tunes is now selling our stuff.
Who would have guessed?
Thursday night, from about 8:30 at Verve bar in Leeds (16 merrion street)

and we're on i-tunes for those of you who are slave to the cult of mac and want to spend an extra 5p to get a drm'd version of something you can get here for 74p in wonderful drm-free mp3.

apparently it's all about advertising...

do you know i can see my house from this soapbox?

stay well all
Drew

P.S. just tried to find the stuff on i-tunes and couldn't get to the server. typical "it just works" my arse...

Bleak epiphany

by which i mean the moment of realisation that it's too late. In the words of R. Scott Bakker, "We understand not simply when it is too late but precisely because it is too late."
So what brings this sudden elucidation? I've just realised an omission in the EP artwork, one that really should be there and i'm gutted that i forgot.
So here is is: the opening line of Stressed is from a Rudyard Kipling poem, The Light that Failed, and i have failed to credit this accordingly on the CD.
Arse and embuggerence.
Basically i've been playing the song for so long now that i've stopped mentioning it at live gigs and i subsequently forgot to put it in the sleeve notes.
So let this brief note set the record straight.

On an unrelated note, Hils and I are playing at the open mic night in Verve Bar in Leeds on the 18th, come down if you can.
stay well
Drew

3 things!

Firstly, gig on saturday for TWO's album launch is at St Michael Le Belfrey Hall in York, it's down one of the little alleys on Stonegate. It's also a BYOB affair and free to get in. Dr Jones and I will be supporting and we'll be on around 8:30ish

Secondly, we went to Whitby at the weekend and my good friend Jo took some pictures of us playing on the end of the pier, they'll be up on the site soon, and it was a good laugh (with the exception of the surly bugger who asked if we had an entertainment license). Check out more of Jo's work at Pixeen

Advance warning, there are naughty words in the next paragraph...

Thirdly, the bastard EU are at it again. This time they're proposing to regulate blogs. No seriously, that's what they're proposing. What a bunch of colossal fuckwits. Details are available here. I mean really? Not only is it totally fucking draconian but it's also completely fucking impossible. fucking idiots.

Gig updates

just a quick reminder before i head out to the see the Dark Knight (given all the hype i'm expecting to be disappointed - but i digress)...
We're playing quite a bit over the next week or so:
Sunday 31st at Stone Roses, supporting Pete Briley and kicking off at about 8:30ish
Wednesday 3rd at Melton's Too, looking for another top night in the loft, we'll be doing a completely acoustic session from 9-11. just £1 to get in, how good are we to you? If you've got any favourites, let us know and we'll work them into the set list.
Saturday 6th at St Michael Le Belfrey (down one of those alleys off Stonegate) for TWO's album launch, we'll be providing support for what promises to be a very special little gig.
Hope to see you at some of the above, if you have to chose one, go for wednesday because it's the one in the middle!
stay well all

Drew
www.drewstephenson.co.uk
EP "Digging for Bones" out now from
www.souprecords.com

If you want off this newsletter just let me know!

Lochcarron and points east

It's been a busy few days, weeks even. lots of gigs and lots of travelling. The week before last we were in Lochcarron for a gig. Beautiful place, lovely people and about 4 - 5 hours north of glasgow. In fact i was surprised to find that it was, in fact, north of Riga, where i've just come back from. Hmm, that's bad english, one should never end a sentence with a preposition; i suppose that should have read "from where i have just come back". Or maybe "back from where i have just come". Maybe i'll let it drop...
Anyway, in the meantime we've had a couple of gigs and, disappointingly, one cancelled. Boo! But we've got another booked to replace it. Hooray! So keep an eye on the myspace or the gigs page and make it down when you can.
I've posted a load of pictures on the myspace but for those of you who can't be arsed to sell your personal details to rupert murdoch you can find them here too. And here for the Riga ones. There's a bit of rambling bloggage going on as well. All one page so it might take a while to load but there are limits to how long i'm going to sit here...
So that's about it for now, i'm going away for a bit but will be back in York for our gig on sunday night (31st) with Pete Briley at the Stone Roses Bar.
Stay well

I’d just like to start off by asking, “where the bloody hell did the year go?”
I’d like to follow that up by asking, “What the fuck happened to summer?”
But moving on from that…
I have finally got the gigs page up to date, well, up to date-ish. There are a number of dates that are distinctly lacking in details, but pop ‘em in your diaries anyway – if only so you have a handy excuse the next time you’re asked to out with your “mates” from work…
Still waiting to hear what’s happening with the CD print problem – in the meantime we have sample checked a number of boxes and fished out a bunch of ones that we think are ok and I will have them available at the upcoming gigs.
And returning to the gigs topic, if you can’t make any others, make it to the Junction on the 11th, we’re headlining and it should be a cracking night.
Stay well

Music updates and a couple of other things

'ow do (as they say down in naaaarfick),
couple of updates for you, firstly, gig next week in the Chemic Tavern in Leeds. It's an open-mic type affair with a proper set from the headline act - that's us - and has a pretty good reputation as a night out. It's next thursday (31st) so pretty much everyone should have been paid and it's free to get in; if that isn't a recipe for a night on the beers then i don't know what is. Well, actually, going across to Belfast at the weekend for a stag do is probably an even better recipe. ;¬)
But i digress...
The Chemic is in Wodehouse and you can find all kinds of details about it here: http://www.myspace.com/chemictavern

Secondly, CD news. The CDs have arrived, but... (you knew there was going to be a "but" otherwise i would have spammed you to death by now)
... we've had some issues with the print quality. We've sent some samples back to the production place and they're investigating. At the moment we do have CDs for sale (quite a few of them are fine) but we're not yet in a position to go heavy on the advertising because we can't guarantee the quality.
But they are available, come see me after a gig (or pretty much anytime really, i'll probably have some with me) and for just four of your english pounds i will sell you one of my 5 Track EPs.
Printing aside, i'm really happy with them.

Lastly i just thought i'd stick a couple of links up showing a couple of things have brought me up and down over the last fortnight.
This really depressed me, what are we coming to?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7513416.stm
This really cheered me up!
Where the hell is Matt?

That's about it for now, if you can make it i'll see you in Leeds, and hopefully we'll have some good news on the CDs soon.
thanks again for all your support
Stay well
Drew

P.S. i had a little off when mountain biking on sunday - the picture is a bit disappointing because it did sting quite a bit at the time!

Well, here we are in the second half of the year. I think it might be time for me to review some of the predictions i so foolishly made at the beginning of the year. Here they are with some updates:
The turmoil in the record industry will escalate at a frightening pace resulting in:
The end of DRM
The creation of some kind of musical collective distribution mechanism
The demise of one of the big 4 record companies.
A slew of litigation and pathetic prosecutions from the big 4 record companies.
Gig prices will go up.
Well, i'm doing reasonably well so far on this one - we'll keep an eye on it through the next 6 months and the critical build up to the christmas sales.

Outside the music business
I would expect similar changes to start to permeate into all areas of commerce
We appear to be getting this a bit but not as fast as i was expecting (ever the optimist me).

Arsenal will win the football premiership
Hmm, wasn't exactly on the nail with this one...

Glouscester will win the rugby premiership
Well, i made a good stab at this one, they won more games in the actual league than anyone else, it was just the bloody play-offs that did for them. I'm claiming a degree of accuracy on this!

No-one will actually read this blog all the way through
Surprisingly i was wrong on this too

The best selling record of 2008 will be Drew Stephenson's first EP (hell it's my dream alright!)
Well now, this would have been helped on its way if we'd got our arses in gear and actually got the damn CDs available before July. But they should be hear any... day... now...

So that was the half year, mostly wrong but with occasional flashes of brilliance.

For what it's worth, Nadal to win this afternoon and Valverde to win the Tour De France.

Oh yes, and at the moment i'm listening to FDR and they're bloody good. Check 'em out here:

http://www.myspace.com/fdrtheband

Leeds and Scotland gigs

Quick update today, two more gigs lined up, one in Leeds on the 31st of July, but i can't remember where! I will update the page as soon as my memory (i.e. Dr Jones) reminds me where we'll be.
The other one i want to get some early advertising in for is at the Rockvilla hotel in Lochcarron, it's a pretty special place and i think it's going to be a pretty special gig.
More details on the gigs page of the website.

oh yes, and the confirmation for the CD artwork went off at the beginning of the week, and the master disc is at the pressing plant. How much longer can it take?

Oh yes, and one other apology, the website is all looking a bit funny at the moment if you use firefox; obviously i'm blaming this on the new version of firefox and it's nothing to do with my terrible html skills...

A dilemma resolved

Well, i've been umming and ahhing about going back on facebook. It's been a bit of a dilemma because it's hugely popular and would be a really good marketing tool, but their privacy policy sucks, their user content sucks and the fact that you can't completely close your account sucks. I don't hold with that.
So i went back on and checked whether they'd updated their policies after the fiasco they had a christmas. But they haven't. They're still shit.
So i won't use. Dilemma resolved and, amazingly for me, it turns out i still have the moral high-ground.
I predict it will be another 33 years before it happens again...

June,
So it's been a bit of an eventful week. On wednesday Dr Jones and I did our first full length set. I was a bit nervous about whether we could actually keep people interested for 2 hours with just the two of us and playing mostly original material. But it worked and a goodly number of people came down and most of them didn't sneak out at half time.
It was down at Melton's Too on Walmgate in York, first and third wednedays of each month they have completely acoustic music on up in the loft. It's a really nice little venue and they have some good acts on.
So that was the good bit of the week.
The not so good bit was being knocked off my motorbike on tuesday night. This hurt a bit, and continues to do so. And the doctor has said i can't drink as well, the bastard. Oh yeah, and the bike has been written off as well. arse arse arse arse.
In a strange twist of fate, the example tags on the blog entry screen suggest "scooters, vacation, fall" which seems to be worryingly accurate...
Anyway, next gig is down at the Stone Roses Bar in York on sunday 22nd. More details as they come though.