| Hoax Funeral (long time time, no Livejournal entry) |
[Jan. 12th, 2006|09:37 pm] |
So, this is basically a copy and paste job from my band's newletter (being lazy). I need to be better at updating this thing. So, so much happening lately it's hard to write about it all.
Just a reminder about the BBC show tonight guys (and some other great news on the Hoax front as well):
***BBC Radio 1 OneMusic show with Rob da Bank
Tonight (Jan. 12th) 11pm-1am GMT timezone.
That would make it 6pm eastern US time and 5 pm central.
If you're not able to listen live either on the radio or on the internet, they're going to archive it for 7 days afterwards, you can stream it there if you'd like:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/
They're also going to be putting up our band info and an MP3 for download on the BBC OneMusic page as well. I believe it'll stay on there for 4-6 weeks:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/rob/unsigned.shtml
They've told us that our song is to be played around 11:30 GMT, and the track in question is "A Prophecy Fulfilled". They called me to record an intro to it too, so you'll hear my "deer frozen in the headlights" voice right before the song comes on. :)
In our previous newsletter I mistakenly called the program the OneMusic "Unsigned" Show. In fact there's only a couple of unsigned bands played per show each week, mostly it's all signed/well known bands. Rob da Bank selected us to be played from hundreds of demos sent in to the show (what a huge honor!).
Just a quick mention of who Rob da Bank is (for all you non-UKers). He's basically the successor to the famous, sadly not with us anymore, legendary DJ John Peel, an extraordinary man who'd championed unknown bands from time out of mind (he was the first to play the Sex Pistols in the UK!). So this is a huge deal for us!
***We've also just been approached by a local East Midlands, UK radio station (Rutland Radio, http://www.rutlandradio.co.uk) to do an interview with them and also get one of our tracks played!! Exciting news all around!
***We've been lucky enough to be featured in a few music blogs on the internet lately. Gorilla Vs. Bear has graciously put up an mp3, write-up and picture on their site. You can check it out here (scroll down the page a bit):
http://gorillavsbear.blogspot.com/2006/01/wall-of-sound.html
A listing with the music blog 'songs:illinois' has just been put up too!:
http://www.songsillinoismp3.blogspot.com/
Eventually all of them will show up on Hype Machine, a wonderful mp3 music blog search engine:
http://hype.non-standard.net/
***Also, we will be adding some new songs that we recorded over the holidays (they're being mixed and produced right now) for free download to our MySpace website in the next couple of weeks, please check back and note...we'll have to take down some of the older tracks to make way for them, so now is your last chance to download our demo for free on there!
Cheers, ~Anjy (and the other Hoaxsters)
www.hoaxfuneral.com
www.myspace.com/hoaxfuneral |
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| Bird is the Word! |
[Oct. 31st, 2005|02:09 pm] |
Andrew Bird was just absolutely phenomenal last night (the only disappointment was that his drummer wasn't with him, but he played "MX Missile Proof" which is my favorite, so I was happy as a clam). I was 6 feet from him the whole show by one of the monitors. We got some pictures and got to record a song. There wasn't a closed mouth or a non-grinning face in the place the whole night.
Pics: http://anjyhall.com/concertpics.html
I think it's in the 5th pic over on the top row where you can see the back of my head. That's how close I was to Andrew!
I didn't bring my good camera because I didn't know if cameras were allowed there or not. So I brought our cheapy one along. Just for the hell of it we filmed a few seconds of him twice. Here's what we captured. Not the best quality obviously, but still it's Andrew!!
http://anjyhall.com/Andrewvideo.AVI
http://anjyhall.com/Andrewvideo2.AVI
Two bands opened for him, one was called Women & Children. Not exactly my cup of tea. The woman singer had this really annoying, monotone, gothy kind of singing style to her, kind of like Nico, but not in a good way. When the guys sang it got a little better, kind of like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, not bad, but still not that great either. Here's their website:
http://www.artdirection.com.au/images/wandc/reviews.html
Next was Absentee, a Brit band whom I really loved. Well, everybody really loved them. The had a poppy/alt-country feel with a guy singer who sounds like Tom Waits! Such a deep voice. Really sweet guys too:
http://www.absenteemusic.co.uk/
Coming home was such a bitch though...first of all the concert was at Kilburn and didn't get over with til' midnight causing us to miss the last train back to King Cross. We looked and looked for a cab and almost didn't find one (plus these effing yobs were fighting and screaming and trying to beat each to a bloody pulp on the street in front of us, so it was time to get the hell out of there). We were worried we'd miss the 12:30 train to Peterborough and have to get the 1:30. So we finally get there in time only to have the train be stuck on the tracks between Huntingdon and Peterborough for the better part of 45 minutes because of a faulty signal. Ughhhhh. We were so tired, we didn't get home until way after 3:00. Darrin just took the kids to the bus stop and came back home and hopped back into bed.
So yeah... I noticed that the venue just put this up on their website this morning:
"Andrew Bird has played The Luminaire. We're not at all sure we can describe the show in words because we lost our camera and weren't able to shoot any films, so we just want to say this;
Since we opened in March this year, at the end of every night we've played Frank Sinatra's 'In The Wee Small Hours' and we always remark that no matter who's been on stage that night, no matter how impressive or beguiling or awesomely talented a violinist, singer, whistler, guitarist or glockenspeil player we've witnessed, Frank Sinatra's 'In The Wee Small Hours' is still the best thing we've heard that night.
But as you headed off home, and the bar staff cleaned up, and Andrew Bird wandered back to his hotel with what looked very much to us like a contented smile on his face, we knew that this night was different. At the end of an eighteen hour day, we didn't feel tired; we felt lucky." |
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| Recording! |
[Oct. 16th, 2005|03:10 pm] |
So our two-day session went extremely well. I can't believe we were able to get the sounds we did in a living room. I know excellent records have been made outside of pro studios, so I know it's possible. But we exceeded, by a longshot, our expectations. We just came into this thinking we were gonna try our hardest and be as organized and as prepared as we could and just hope for the best.
On playback we were just floored. We tried not to get our hopes up too high before we started mixing. Never know what you'll end up when it's all said and done, you know?
But so far it seems as if we're gonna come out of this with some real gems. *fingers crossed* |
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| Down By Okkervil River... |
[Sep. 29th, 2005|02:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Our So-Called Friends" Okkervil River | ] |
These last two nights have been just beyond anything I could have ever hoped for. Okkervil River played what was probably, hands down, the best two gigs I've ever seen, EVER. It was just indiscribable. Both nights we got to hang out with the guys (and fellow OR bbs posters) for a long time just talking and visiting after the shows. I'd baked them chocolate chip cookies and brought them to the London venue during soundcheck, by the time that we got there for the gig that night they'd eaten most of them and were ranting and raving about how good they were.
Those gigs were a life changing experience for me. That sounds melodramatic and weird to say, but everyone I've talked to, even people that weren't familiar with their stuff beforehand were just floored. There's just this magic, pure dynamical magic that went on that just can't be described with mere words.
All I have to say is Europe they got to you today (Paris), go see them NOW, I promise you you won't regret it and you'll actually thank me. Be sure to say 'hi' to them afterwards, you won't meet a humbler bunch of guys (Trav, you know who you are my friend!) and if you bake them cookies you'll have friends for life.
Tour dates for Europe:
http://jound.com/okkervil/
Then they're off for a major North American tour after that.
The gig in London last night was just charged with expectation, lots of journo people were there from various mags. The crowd was so, so into the guys. I don't think I've ever been to a concert before where everyone was just so into that zone, dancing unself-consciously like there was no one around.
People, see em' while you can still see them in small forums and hang out for hours afterwards with them...cuz' they're about to bust wide open. Mark my words.
I wish I could go to every show they have. Seriously. You'll never be the same again.
I'll have pictures up in the next couple of days.
EDIT: Pics are up now!!
http://anjyhall.com/concertpics.html |
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| 'Arry P'otter |
[Sep. 26th, 2005|01:43 pm] |
We went to visit some castles up north near Scotland (one of which parts of the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed at) over the weekend and had a great time. The cottage we stayed at was beautiful, located in the middle of 150 acres on a farm in the owner's family for some 200 years. The owners had a glowing fire built for us when we got there Friday night. Ate in a cool as hell Scottish pub that night called the Pack Horse. Lots of rowdy Scots having fun and getting drunk.
We woke up the next morning to the loveliest views out the picture window in the kitchen. Out front was a stone bridge with a babbling brook running under it. Something straight out of a Grimm Bros. fairy tale, one of the happy ones anyway.
Pictures are up here:
http://anjyhall.com/AlnwickandBamburghCastles.html
In a couple of the pictures you'll notice the courtyard where Harry Potter and Co. first learned to ride their brooms!
Bamburg Castle absolutely floored me. It was located right by the North Sea and was just breathtaking, as you'll see in the pics. |
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| Hello |
[Sep. 22nd, 2005|05:43 pm] |
Haven't updated in forever...
Hmm, well we've had some band line-up changes recently. We no longer have Mark and David with us for various reasons. But we do have Allister Jordan now, excellent finger-picking style guitarist and bouzouki player! He and Chris have been mates for years and years and he's perfect for us. He's just as excited and deicated as we are, which is what we needed.
We've scheduled two full days in October to record our 6 song demo. We've written quite a bit of new material lately and will be glad to get it properly recorded.
I have an insane amount of concerts coming up in these next few months:
Sept. 27 Okkervil River @Nottingham
Sept. 28 Okkervil River @London
Oct. 13 Richmond Fontaine @Leicester
Oct. 17 Sufjan Stevens @London
Oct. 30 Andrew Bird @London
Nov. 11 Ardal O'Hanlon @Peterborough
Dec. 13 Ben Folds @London
Hmm, what else??
Oh yeah, all these hurricanes need to stop right the fuck now!! That is all. |
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| Balloons |
[Aug. 10th, 2005|09:27 am] |
A few weeks ago Cherish and I went out in search of a Roman villa remains site that was somewhere around our village out in the woods. The village was wiped out by the Bubonic Plaque in the 1400s. http://www.themiddleages.net/plague.html and we were keen to have a look around. Shards of medieval pottery can still be found occasionally there from what we'd heard.
It was supposed to be near the great hall that was once owned by Henry VIII, so we head out that way via the paths and woods. We weeded and wound our way through thickets, briers and brambles and a big patch of woods trying to find it. Several scratches and sweat drops later we found ourselves just this side short of a river, (supposedly at the foot of which the village was to have been located at). Trouble was we were, at that point, on private property and had a thick, thick rape (canola) field between us and it.
So, dejected and disappointed we turned to go back the way we'd came. We decided however to go along the edge of the woods instead and find our way out of the maze an easier way, shit we were already trespassing as it was, what could it hurt.
Up ahead on the path we spot something bunched up. Upon further inspection it turned out to be a bunch of balloons tied together with tags on them saying if you found them please return them to, blah, blah, blah. So we gathered up as many as we could that weren't muddied and erroded away and took them home with us. I stuck them in the mail that next day. Turns out they were from a church about 150 miles away. A few days later I get a call from the chairlady. An eccentric old lady who sounded like one of the Fat Ladies of British cooking fame. She was so sweet and talked for FOREVER. The balloons were let off in memorandum for VJ Day. Guess there was a prize involved! Woo Hoo!
This morning we got our prize in the post; two umbrellas, one blue, one yellow. Her note said that hopefully we would think of them when we went out for a walk. |
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| Updates |
[Jul. 13th, 2005|09:21 am] |
We're recording our demo this thursday!! We have some really cool original material in the works. Mark (our newest member) has some pretty awesome production skills, so it should turn out nice. Things are looking bright for us. We'll be ready to gig now in no time. My bandmate Chris and I have been writing up a storm lately.
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We leave for Anacapri, Italy next Friday!! Can't wait for that. Just lazing about, eating seafood, snorkeling and bascially being a vegetable for 8 days by the ocean. Sounds like heaven to me.
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| Bittersweet |
[Jul. 7th, 2005|02:56 pm] |
When all this shit started happening in London I was just in the middle of putting up my band's first ever "official" MP3. It's seems so trivial now, but since it's there I thought I'd tell you guys about it. :(
http://anjyhall.com/MP3s.html
It's in m4a format because the mp3 format made it too large to post. |
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| The Band |
[Jun. 25th, 2005|09:15 am] |
No, not "The Band", but my band anyway... :)
We lost Norman awhile back, unfortuntely, due to some personal issues. We're really gonna miss him.
David came on board though very recently and now we have another guy coming to try out this thursday!! Things are looking up in the Hoax Funeral camp! |
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| My Baby's Growing Up |
[Jun. 25th, 2005|09:14 am] |
I'm having premature "empty nest" syndrome. Well, not actually premature I guess, really...
Cherish is probably going to be going back to the states for college next fall. I'm enormously proud of her for being so serious about her education, thrilled (she just finished up her junior year on the honor roll and she wants to push for valedictorian or salutatorian next year and I know she can do it if she wants it). But also sad too, because I'm gonna miss her like crazy.
I wish there was a way for her to go here without it costing an arm and a leg. She really wants the whole college "experience" too though, which I want for her as well, it's something I never had. Her and a friend are going to roommate and go to school together.
I'm so torn. :( |
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| I'm Still Alive |
[Jun. 7th, 2005|07:37 am] |
Even though it's been a month of sundays since I last made an entry. Damn, so where to start?
I've been as busy as a two-peckered rooster in a room full of hens.
I'm working on getting the pictures on my website organized and under control. They need some serious TLC, as they were getting too convoluted to really wade through them. Plus, I have a ton more that need to be added.
On the personal front...I've been really getting into writing and recording music (major changes afloat with my band, more news about that to come soon), gardening (yes, it seems I have a green thumb!) and generally just enjoying life.
My daughter went to prom (!) and we were busy getting ready for that. Those pictures are among the ones I need to get uploaded so I can share.
Many more entries to come, probably later on today. I'll try not to be so lazy when it comes to this anymore. |
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| I'm a wanderlust sponge... |
[May. 12th, 2005|10:48 am] |
...who's thirsty for the world.
Brussells next month, Scotland, Spain and Italy to follow. Can't wait.
New artists I am digging on:
Andrew Bird
Jesse Sykes
Patrick Wolf
M. Ward
Getting into a bit of the blues with my band, nice stuff. |
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| April in Paris |
[May. 2nd, 2005|02:55 pm] |
Well, Paris was amazing. Truly incredible. Too much to see though. So much opulence and beauty that my brain didn't want to process it anymore. Sensory overload.
The train ride from London on Eurostar seemed to last forever. I had a weird moment of claustrophobia or something when we first went into The Chunnel. I usually don't get that way, but I had to take deep breaths and try not to hyperventilate. Weird.
The France countryside was a little different than I expected. The part that our train went through was mostly farm land, tiny villages or industrial looking. A few cathedrals here and there, but overall, not as pretty a countryside as England.
Got to the Gare Du Nord train station and didn't stop running and gunning until we got home last night. Some asshole cabbie tried to charge us 80 Euros to get from Gare Du Nord to our hotel in the Champs-Elysees area. Good thing we called bullshit to that. We're green behind the ears a bit, but not THAT green.
The hotel was a BIG disappointment. http://www.angleterre-paris-hotel.com/ Don't book a hotel on the internet EVER if you aren't exactly sure of the place (or unless it's a trusted chain or something). The place was kinda ran down looking with tiny rooms. But the worst part was that their elevator was broke and our room was on the 5th floor. They didn't know when they were going to get it fixed. We decided that we'd try to get a different place to stay. Those stairs would absolutely kill us at the end of the day after untold hours of walking non-stop. I have to say that the guys that ran the place were excellent, excellent though. First rate. They not only understood that that was unacceptable, they said they didn't blame us and walked around with Darrin to try and find us a nice room at a decent price elsewhere. We finally booked two suites with the Courtyard By Marriott in Neuilly: http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/parcy
It was a few miles out of the area we wanted to be in, but SO worth it. It was really nice, the area it was in was fancy and beautiful too. Much, much nicer. The guy (who's picture is on the front page of the first hotel's website) was an absolute peach. He bent over backwards making sure we got an honest cabbie to get to the other hotel. Darrin tipped him 20 Euros and he argued to beat the band that he didn't want to take it. Darrin told him to go get some beer or something with it. I'm glad are first contact with a Parisian broke all the stereotypical molds. Really, just about our whole time there everyone was super nice, friendly and helpful.
So yeah, the new hotel was everything we'd hoped for, and more. We took tons of pics of Paris: http://anjyhall.com/Pics.html Didn't know what most of the shit was, I just know that I went around the whole time catching flies with my mouth. We got a two day pass for the double-decker tour bus. I'm so glad we did too, because as it was we walked our feet off. We got turned around one day and walked for probably 10 miles. There was 5 of us and finding cabs for 5 people is a lot harder than you think. We were so ragged out at one point we almost decided to try and take two cabs back to the hotel, but we persevered and found it eventually. We met this old, distinguished looking fellow that we asked directions of and he said to follow him as he was going that way anyway. So we walked the whole way with him, all of us trying to communicate in our pigeon languages with each other. He was adorable.
The Lourve was vast and like a dream. We didn't even get to most of it, far too enormous. Went to the Pere-LaChaise Cemetery and saw the graves of: Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Chopin. Tried to find Edith Piaf, but the graveyard was closing and didn't get to it. Got shit on by a pigeon under a tree there too. Good times.
The pan au chocolat was yummy, yummy. If it weren't for all the walking I might have turned into a pastry while I was there! The foie gras didn't impress me too much though. Of course I'm not really a liver person anyway.
Notre Dame was awesome too. The immensity and ages of these places boggled my mind. Too much to wrap my head around. Really just seeing places I've only read and dreamed about all my life was just a trip and so surreal. Now I'm just trying to recover. |
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| Fly Me To the Moon |
[Apr. 23rd, 2005|06:02 pm] |
Last night's party turned into a total bash. The best (and biggest) party I've ever thrown. We got pics (of the set up) before everyone got there, but got so busy with socializing and playing host/hostess that we forgot (and had no time really) to take any pics of the guests. It was truly incredible though, about 50, or so, people came. Too bad we didn't get any pics though. I'm kinda pissed about that.
We thought we were going to have WAY too much food. But as it turns out, almost the whole lot (and more that was in surplus) got eaten up. I was so glad. I hate wasting food.
Lots of drunks and much merriment was made. I stressed over the music so much, and as it turns out, I might as well have had Gregorian monks chanting in the background for all you could hear it. Oh well. I made a hell of a mix of 100 songs. The best cocktail music EVER. If any of you ever throw that kind of party and want a ready-made, ass-kicking soundtrack...I'm your gal. I'll gladly burn you a copy.
Pics at:
http://anjyhall.com/Pics.html (under Apethorpe Cocktail Party 2005') |
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| Cripple and the Starfish |
[Apr. 17th, 2005|09:16 am] |
So Antony and the Johnsons were really excellent last night. We went through 9 kinds of hell to get there, but it was worth it. The show itself was pretty short, over with at 10:30, but money all the same.
I say hell to get there, nothing horrible, just lots of maneuvering through trains and the Tube in London. That shit can get so twisty. Their escalators are as steep as mountains and looooooog. Crazy. We were next to a wall trying to figure out how in the hell to get to where we needed to be when we heard these high-pitched, blood curdling screams. We looked up a few yards in front of us and saw these two Middle-Eastern ladies and teenage girl falling down head over heals, tumbling, tumbling down the escalator. I think one might have gotten her clothes caught in it or something. After a few seconds I guess this man had hit the emergency stop button or something, it all happened so fast. I think they were okay, just really shaken up. Scary.
Then we got to the tube exit we needed to be at early, so we thought we'd grab a bite to eat. Mom hasn't had an English meal yet so we wanted some steak and ale pie or something quintessentially English...in London and not a fucking pub around. Imagine that. It was the Charing Cross area, which I guess is famous for not having anything more than little sandwich places along the way. (a fact I NOW know). So we end up eating a really crap-tastic pizza and salad type meal for like 6 pounds a piece. Blah.
I was really looking forward to seeing a theatre-packed full of trannies at the concert, but it didn't happen. Major disappointment. Where was Antony's London tranny support?! No representing going on there. Hrmp. The show was sold-out though. As a bonus, Marc Almond came out as a special guest for a song (duet with Antony). I guess he was in a near-fatal bike accident in London last Oct. Got fucked up pretty horribly (head injuries). He said this is the first time he's really tried to sing since. He was a little rusty, but excellent and beautiful nonetheless.
On the train ride back home these two brothers struck up a conversation with my mom and we all bullshitted about music for an hour and 20 minutes. That was fun. They couldn't believe how much we knew about English music. They were showsters too, liked the attention from anyone around them. They'd jokingly ask random English people sitting near us had they heard of "so and so", had they heard "such and such" album and then they'd gloat and jab at them when they said no about us Americans knowing much more than them about their own countrymen's music. They were getting quite obnoxious with it (the people around us really thought so by their haughty stares). But it was funny as hell, I thought. I can always dig talking about music for ions on end. Then we all got into a heavy discussion about which albums would be on a proverbial "Top 100", English vs. Brits list. Good times good times. |
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| Hard Wood |
[Apr. 13th, 2005|09:39 am] |
So we met Cher's boyfriend the other night. Very, very sweet guy. I approve. We sat around the kitchen table at dinner bullshitting. We were talking about the fire for some reason and the type of wood that we used. All was fine until Darrin said that it was hard wood. That started the whole giggling, sophomoric debacle that seemed to never end. We're so retarh'ded. I asked Cher later if we'd embarrassed her, she said no and that her boyfriend had said that she had an awesome family. :)
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In other news...my band recently got some nice press: http://anjyhall.com/Press.html |
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| Narrow Broken Arrow |
[Apr. 10th, 2005|02:31 pm] |
Left the house on thursday morning at 7:30. By the time we got mom from the airport, got Penny (our dog) through DEFRA and customs and drove the 130 miles back home it was 6:00 p.m.
That night at midnight mom got up out of bed to use the toilet, fell down two stairs and broke her arm. Her and Darrin spent all night in the emergency room.
12 hours in the country. Welcome to England. Ugh. |
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