HAPPY NE….oh forget it….

Is it too late to wish you all a happy new year..?? It is isn’t it?

 

Well – time flies when you’re opening an Icelandic inspired kaffibar (as you do…) – that’s the main reason there’s been no news here for some time (it’s over at www.101reykjavik.co.uk if you’re interested but there’ll be no more plugging of that here! I promise.)

 

The other reason is (and I’ve touched upon this in the past) I feel that – as a band/artist/clown/whatever – social media and the like has fully and completely jumped the shark. Yes, yes, yes it’s ‘a good way of letting people know what you’re up to, what you’re having for dinner, what’s happening in Eastenders….(is Lucy Beale really dead???) etc etc…blah blah blah’ BUT do you know a better way….? 

 

PLAYING GIGS AND BEING GOOD. 

 

Our Facebook updates get viewed by about 2 people these days due to a complex algorithm directly attached to ol’ Zuckerburg’s schlong so unless you’re willing to pay THE MAN (he’s evil don’cha know)…well….that’s that down the pan. I’m also beyond fed up with all these shitty ‘How to Be a Success in Music’ type things saying you have to ENGAGE ON LINE and EXPLOIT YOUR CONTENT to be a band dun good nowadays. 

 

Do we fuck. 

 

I’ll tell you what I have to do as a songwriter. Write songs. THAT’S IT. So – there will be the very occasional tweet or update if we have something going on (for all 2 of you) but in the future….to paraphrase Dizzee Rascal….we’re going OLD SCHOOL BLUD. I’ll send up smoke signals or something.

 

Anyway. Enough of all that (Ed) Balls. Some good news. We’re very happy to say that we’re playing Blissfields this year after winning the Road to Blissfields thang a couple weeks back – it was a funny feeling as we haven’t entered a ‘Battle of the Bands’ type affair for a long, long time as generally I don’t really agree with them. But we did and we won. That’s that. I don’t feel too bad as the acts we played with were all ace too – Sabre and Popobawa deffo ones to watch. Some great bands from round our way on the Blissfields line up already n’all so have a gander at these guys: The Boy I Used to Be, BellyEyeSmile, Matt Jarvis & New Desert Blues to name a few…

 

OK…enough rambling and ranting – I’ll sign off now having brightened your day immensely. We have 5 new songs in the can. Another 5 to get down pat and then we’ll record ’em. The opposite of last time. Not dragging it out for over a year. In the studio for a week. Bosh. Release. We’re also sorting a few other gigs n bits and bobs. More of which soon. My bullshit tolerance level has hit 0% this year and I’m fucked if I’m playing the game anymore. I remember why I formed a band with my best mate David Rhodes around the age of 13. To play music. That’s all. We’re still playing together. Whether there’s ten of you listening or ten thousand. (It’s nearer to ten.)

 

Did I mention I’ve opened an Icleandic Cafe?

 

🙂

 

Wit

xxx

One week today….

The countdown begins…..

We’re on at 6.15pm on the P&V stage @ The Wine Vaults

Southsea Fest (http://southseafest.com) is always an excellent day for us Portsmouthians and it’s a really strong line-up this year.

My (Wit. Hello.) recommendations would include:

The Boy I Used to Be, New Desert Blues, BellyEyeSmile, Veronica Falls, Joe Black, Is Bliss, Curxes, Splashh, The Day of the Rabblement, Cosmo Sheldrake and probably a few more I’m forgetting.

Our Elliott and Ox will be playing with The Retrospective Soundtrack Players (http://retrospectivesoundtrackplayers.blogspot.co.uk) at the Kings Theatre too and I’ll also be doing a solo set on the Xtra Mile Stage at The Atrium. Fun times all round.

Speaking of band members doing other stuff, I know this is the TBOTB blog but just wanted to point you towards a couple of those extra-curricular activities briefly (the rest of the band all do other stuff too, just this is mainly what’s going on at the moment…):

Elliott Gregg’s DISC JOCKEYING:

http://soundcloud.com/elliottgregg

My (Wit. Hello.) SOLO STUFF:

http://soundcloud.com/christophergeorgewhitear

Anyhoo…..back to le bang. Here’s a vid of me (Wit. Hello.) and Jack talking absolute balls post-gig from Victorious Festival t’other week:

…and another vid of our bestest buddies and occasional lovers, the Pie & Vinyl boys plying their wares. With some idiot cropping up shamelessly. Me (Wit. Hello.)

I feel I’ve mentioned myself too much in this blog. Me. Wit. Hello.

To end, here’s a nice blog what someone done about us:

http://musicalnourishment.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/song-of-the-day-desire-lines-by-the-b-of-the-bang/

SEE YOU AT SAAFSEA FEST GEEZAS.

xxxx

Now the dust has settled….

Well….what a couple of weeks it’s been….I’d use the term ’emotional rollercoaster’ but I’m not really a fan of that particular theme park ride so I’m going to go for….er…..what else has twists and turns? Perhaps a Paul Hollywood plaited loaf? Emotional loaf. That’s how I feel.

So. Against all odds (more of which in a mo…) our second album is finally out. To buy. On vinyl. Doesn’t it look purdy?

Tremors & Nosebleeds: The Melodies of a Malady

It’s £9.99 and comes with a free download code – you can purchase it here: http://thebofthebang.bigcartel.com/ (you can get it from iTunes, Amazon and all that too but it doesn’t look as nice as this does…)

Basically (and to cut a very long story short) we were originally promised the album was going to be baked (like Hollywood’s loaves again…), pressed and delivered the week before Record Store Day and in more than enough time for our album launch.

How wrong we were.

On the delivery date we were suddenly informed by the European pressing plant (I shan’t mention any names…) that we wouldn’t be receiving the records for another month! This pretty much rendered the whole shebang a wee bit pointless and, as might be expected, many swears were flung into the surrounding silence….

BUT

Up stepped a hero of a man, who did an absolutely Herculean job at wrenching us – battered, bruised and weeping – up from the gutter. Tim at Sound Performace. What an absolute legend. He worked tirelessly non-stop for us and pretty much cut, pressed and manufactured a record in a week. Outstanding. Our gratitude to him is endless. Many, many phone calls, emails, favours, handshakes, winks and secret nods were deployed and….Friday night (the night before Record Store Day) the band were in production plant mode gluing labels on, popping inlays in and printing off download codes left right and centre at our Pie & Vinyl Headquarters. DIY til we die. I want to thank all the P&V staff there for their help in the matter too…we couldn’t have done it without you. Steve, Rob, Rob, Roberta, Lydia & Kirsty. Thankyou.

No sleep and plenty of worried hours meant that things were pretty fraught in the camp for a while….a happy ending was much needed and by jingo we got it. First with the success of RSD at P&V where we played an instore acoustic set alongside Band of Skulls…(followed by an ace evening at The Registry where the documentary Last Shop Standing was shown featuring our own Pie & Vinyl peeps…)

The queue outside Pie & Vinyl whilst we played…

then….at our album launch at The Wedgewood Rooms on the Sunday night. It couldn’t have gone any better. I won’t forget that gig for a long time. We’ve played that particular venue a fair few times over the years in various bands but we’ve never actually headlined our own night there so it was a definite tick off the list. Cheers to Geoff at The Wedge for his help. The support bands were all absolutely incredible too. Revere, Hall of Mirrors, Billy Vincent, The Boy I Used to Be and Rich Keam. All of them friends from the last few years of touring around the UK. Everyone mucked in to help us make the place look nice and turn it into a bit of a different event than your normal, everyday gig too…

Amongst good company…

My incredible wife and her incredible cakes…

Roberta (of the ace band Curxes and P&V fame…) sold some of her excellent prints – she did the RSD and launch poster designs n’all…

TBOTB & TBIUTB. Some Bangers chat to Ed of The Boy I Used To Be…

Nothing like last minute preparation…the band & chums assembling our vinyl…

The marvellous Rich Keam and his self assembled ‘glimmer curtain’…

The aforementioned TBIUTB bringing the magic…

Lovely London folksters Billy Vincent…

If you haven’t seen Hall of Mirrors, I suggest you do. Soon.

Sorry Revere – I didn’t get a photo of you in action as I realised I’d left a lead we needed for our visuals at home! Here’s one of my wife’s cakes instead. (Rest assured Revere were amazing)

We played the new album in it’s entirity plus a few choice cuts from our first album and EP’s. Including a ridiculous, comedy Jools Holland-style ‘introductions segment’ where we all played the worst possible thing we could. Not entirely on purpose. Keef’s Jurassic Park solo was a highlight.

Here’s one of our new album tracks ‘Something is Holding Me Down’, filmed by the splendid Ryan (Revere’s visual fella and helper of me-not-knowing-what-I-was doing-with-a-laptop)

A massive thank you to everyone involved once again. Friends, family, staff and random strangers who all assisted us in creating what we hope was a unique and special night. It was to us anyway. HERE’S TO THE NEXT ALBUM EH???? (Hopefully it will be easier than this one…)

Wit & The B of the Bang

xxxxx

ps – as an aside, Mr Rich Keam who opened our show, has made it through to the final 25 applicants out of 600,000 in ‘The Best Jobs in the World’ competition. As part of this, we became his backing band ‘The Tastebuds’ for one night only last week…please have a look at his blog here and give him your support. He deserves it. http://richkeam.wordpress.com/

G-G-G-G-G-G-G-GO!

It’s all go-go-go here in BangLand at the mo so not many words today but some pretty pictures and audio for you….

Firstly – we’re playing an acoustic instore set at our lovely headquarters http://www.pieandvinyl.co.uk this Saturday 20th April for http://www.recordstoreday.co.uk  – Band of Skulls will be making an appearance too…

Secondly, the day after (Sunday 21st April) we will be having our big album 2 launch gig/mini-festival at The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth with support from some of our very favourite bands…it’s going to be a truly special day and we’d love to see you all there….tickets and details available here: http://tinyurl.com/BangWedge

Thirdly, we’ve been announced to play at the splendid looking Victorious Festival http://victoriousfestival.co.uk in August alongside The Cribs, Maximo Park, Nine Black Alps, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Mike Skinner, Katy B…..and more excitingly….LEVEL 42! Yes indeed.

Fourthly (I know…!), our new album will be out Monday 22nd April (although we will have vinyl on us for Record Store Day and the album launch) and it has had a couple of lovely early reviews here:

http://recordoverplayed.co.uk/cdreviews/botb_tremors13.html

http://www.mrteethreviews.com/the-b-of-the-bang-tremors-and-nosebleeds-melodies-of-a-malady/

AND FINALLY…..our very own Wit appeared on BBC6 Music’s Radcliffe and Maconie Show yesterday cramming in as much info about all the stuff above as possible whilst fulfilling a lifetime ambition appearing on their ace feature ‘The Chain’. His song choice? John Grant’s ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ (from The Walker Brothers ‘Make it Easy on Yourself’ – Ivor Raymonde arranged the strings for it and his son is Simon Raymonde who runs the Bella Union label…which John Grant is on). Listen again here (2 hours 14 minutes in):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rsz1y

PHEW!!!

xxxx

PIE AND VINYL RECORDS/THE B OF THE BANG ALBUM LAUNCH EXTRAVAGANZA!

We are proud to announce our brand new album ‘Tremors and Nosebleeds: The Melodies of a Malady’ will be released on Pie & Vinyl Records on Monday 22nd April.

To celebrate this we’ll be having a humdinger of a launch show at The Wedgewood Rooms on Sunday 21st April (vinyl copies of the album will be for sale too…)

We have gathered together the finest menu of our favourite bands from around the UK to hopefully concoct the most satisfying aural-meal you will ever indulge in.

RICH KEAM: A delightful entree. Delicately balanced folk-flecked acoustic flavours served with a robust bluesy sauce. Will certainly get your tastebuds excited.

THE BOY I USED TO BE: A smattering of lo-fi, two scoops of sweet melody and a hearty side helping of ace. You’ll definitely be asking for seconds.

BILLY VINCENT: Lashings of full on creamy folk rock, this is much more than your standard amuse bouche. Spicy vocal harmonies blend with rich velvety song-smithery. Pairs well with a fine Merlot.

THE HALL OF MIRRORS: Bold, ear-caressing flavours and subtle, left-field textures combine together beautifully for a full on wow factor with this course. Modern haute cuisine fused with classic cordon bleu piano-led wonder.

REVERE: The chefs have really pulled it out of the bag here. Every mouthful is full of satisfaction….depth, sweetness, spice and a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ mean that your palate really is in for a post-rock soundtrack treat of epic proportions. You might want to loosen your belt a little…

THE B OF THE BANG: Rich, meaty, avant-garde gravy smothering a moreish, sinful pop-pastry-cased surprise. The sound of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory if you poured it into your ear-pipes. Avoid if on a diet as TBOTB pack a weeks worth of aural calories into one song.

There will also be stalls selling bric-a-brac, nik-naks and other such trinkets and curio in a setting that will hopefully inspire and enhance your evenings specially selected 6 course sonic-dinner.

DOORS AT 5pm

TICKETS: £4 in advance / £5 on the door

Available from:

Pie & Vinyl Record Cafe
http://www.pieandvinyl.co.uk/

Wedgewood Rooms Box Office
http://tinyurl.com/BangWedge

We cannot wait to see you all around the table…tuck in.