Just a quick post to say I am playing two shows next week in Bristol, one on Sunday will be a short affair, just a few songs at the Harbourside Festival for BBC Bristol, some time between 4pm and 5pm.
The second show is next Monday, 2nd August, opening for the ever excellent Francois & The Atlas Mountains, at the Cube Cinema.
See you then!
Last week I was asked to think of a few songs I’ve been listening to and enjoying recently. This week those thoughts have been published to a new website called ihighlyrecommend.co.uk, made by Alex from Wooden Step Records. It’s a pretty simple and neat idea and they have some great bands up on there already (hello Elf Power!) and some great ones coming up soon (hello Sonic Youth?), I would highly recommend you go have a look see and maybe add it to your blog feed or something. And also go look up the songs I listed.
All the bestest,
M.
Having received a cassette this week of some friends’ recent Daytrotter session, I was recently reminded about my own trip to the Daytrotter studios during a US tour I did in 2007. I had put together a band in Portland, OR three or so weeks beforehand to do the tour with (hi Dana, Ashod!) and in the middle of this trip from one side of America to the other and back we did what hundreds of bands before us and since have undertaken – headed out from Chicago to the aptly named Rock Island, Illinois to play a Daytrotter session.
We had a gig in Chicago the night before, so drove the three or so hours straight after the gig in order to be there in the morning. Ashod was driving and he got pretty mad at Dana and me after we promised to keep him company and not fall asleep, about three minutes before we were nodding our sleepy heads into dreamland. I do remember being introduced to Coast to Coast AM that night before dozing off and wondering why I hadn’t been let in on such a wonderful secret before.
Daytrotter itself was really fun and laid back, an experience I’d recommend to any touring band. Those guys are just super genuine and welcoming. Like I said, we’d only been playing together as a touring band for about three weeks, so the session was possibly not the tightest, but we had a good energy together and it captured a really fun time for me, for us all.
Here’s the Sleeping States Daytrotter session if you haven’t heard it before. Or even if you have.
Hello there. Wow it’s been a while, sorry about that. I’ve been rather busy elsewhere in my life for the past couple of months (moving house, work projects, etc), but Sleeping States continues to assert itself in my thoughts, and in my email inbox.
For instance, here are three videos made when I recorded a few songs at BBC Bristol back in April, with the invaluable musical help of an angelic-voiced Liz Hickson on extra guitar and percussion/loops.
There will be a fair amount more Sleeping States stuff on here over the summer when I start recording again. In the meantime, have a gander at those vids… x
The videos appear after the jump:
Over the weekend I received an email from a snowbound gentleman residing on the US East Coast, called Bilal Salaam. To bide his time until the thaw, he recorded a cover of Memory Games, a song which is originally on the Sleeping States album There The Open Spaces. Rather an honour to receive something like this, so I thought I’d post it here so you can enjoy it as I did:
Memory Games – Bilal Salaam
In other news, pancakes tomorrow anyone?
Hello!
I have a few dates coming up in March in Italy, and one in Switzerland:
- 10/03/10 : Usine (Kab) – Geneva
- 11/03/10 : Spazio 211 – Turin
- 12/03/10 : Init – Rome
- 13/03/10 : Centro Stabile di Cultura – San Vito di Leguzzano
All shows are supporting the great Githead. Speaking of which, here’s a South Bank Show episode on Scanner:
Wrote a song in my head today
Pushed two cars up a hill
Over shopping.
So, as is the current trend, I was asked for my ten favourite records of the decade for raggedwords.com. The link for the list, which includes a few thoughts of mine on each choice, is here.
Also the site has some more top-of-the-decade lists from other great artists like Tune-Yards and A Hawk And A Hacksaw.
In other news, probably a bit more touring come March. Will let you have more details as they come through.
Have a good new year ok?
Marklandx.
Liz and I got back yesterday from a week’s tour with Great Lake Swimmers around the country (and Ireland). It was a lot of fun and somewhat rewarding, especially as we rearranged the songs in a way I hadn’t done before, and did a couple of songs we hadn’t played live before. New experiences all round. Plus Great Lake Swimmers are great folks. If you came and saw, I hope you enjoyed. If you didn’t make it, maybe see you next time?