| 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.
**********************************
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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