proper video posting

life on the road. it's not all its cracked up to be... for a start you can't do the online thing as easily as you'd like. still, we've been having all the usual fun, and finally, here's our single for those of you who haven't found it elsewhere already. you can listen to both tracks and download them right here from the magic box below.



here's the video, too - we hope you enjoy it.



we hope you're having fun, by the way. if you've been at any of our recent uk shows, we'd like to say thanks in particular. they've been just fab.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

new single and video

our new single, "wife / alligator teeth" comes out today, for free download from the hoboshop, alongside the usual digital outlets.

released in collaboration with our good friends the brute chorus, we are presenting two recordings, each one a cover version of the other's song. we have recorded "wife", a song from the brutes' last album "how the caged bird sings", and they have recorded the previously unreleased kirsty mcgee song "alligator teeth".

what's more, we have a video to offer you for our half if the collaboration. you can see it at http://vimeo.com/16582621

(blogging on the move... we'll embed it properly up here as soon as we can)

please take a moment to download the two songs and check out the other band involved, who we're honoured to be working with.


http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

a plague

HoboPod-Cast #7 - A Plague by hobopop

a quick blog post - here's the first in a bunch of new songs we'll be demoing as and when we find the time to work on arrangements. it features mat's new cigar box guitar - a 5-string eccentricity from quebec, received last week and already christened 'the l'il heartbreaker'...

hope you enjoy the song. let us know what you think, why don't you?

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

poster

we just made a poster for the launch of our new single at manchester's landmark band on the wall venue. we're very happy with it, so we thought we'd share it with you.

it's going to be a great night, and as always with the hobopop collective shows, we're working on a great roster of special guests to help us in our noise-making. we can already confirm that k. c. mckanzie will be opening up the evening's festivities, and that once again we will be joined by all but full-time hobopoper james steel of the brute chorus, who has performed with us so many times before. all the more fitting this time since he wrote the new single himself. he'll also be DJing between the bands.

we'd like to make a point of thanking the lovely folks at contact, too, who hosted the recording and launch of the last album so graciously, and have agreed to co-promote this one with the band on the wall folks.

we've opted for a small capacity arrangement at band on the wall, because these shows work so well when they're intimate and comfortable, so it's worth getting your tickets well in advance if you'd like to come. they're available already from the website and on 0161 834 1786, and it won't be long before we start really shouting about them, so now's your chance to get in quick.

we're recording on monday - doubtless we'll tweet or blog about that while it's going on.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video request

we are recording a new single. it's a song called 'wife' and it's by the brute chorus, who we love very dearly. they will be recording one of our songs, too, to release at the same time.

we'll also be shooting a video - nothing fancy, of course, but we need some volunteers to be in it. without wanting to say too much, we're looking for women of all types to come and be filmed in front of a blank wall, spinning slowly on a chair or something like that. we'll set everything up, all we need is for you to show up and let us film you.

here's a page from mat's notebook, to give you a rough idea:

the provisional date for shooting is saturday, september 25th, 2010, during the daytime. this will be at a central manchester location and we would need you for no longer than 30mn to 1 hour. i bet there'll be tea, too.

if you'd like to take part and you can make it on that day (anytime from around 10am to 4pm) then please drop an email to info@hobopop.com with your name and things so we can keep you up to date  on exactly when and where we need you to be. there are no criteria (except that you need to be a woman, over 18), we don't need to see a picture of you or anything like that - we're just looking for people to take part.

if you really want to be involved in this but you don't live near manchester or you can't make that date please get in touch anyway, and if we have enough enquiries from outside our area we'll try and think of something to do about it.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video blog #5 - prison

here is the last of the current crop of video blogs from our european tour this summer. we've actually been back a few days already but we're now feeling good about being up to date. well done us.

here you'll find excitement surrounding some of the great jazz musicians who have visited the german town of burghausen, an alp, some rowing, bavarian costume, a goat, and behind the scenes footage of the 'sweet prison tales' show we did in the veenhuizen prison/museum on august 07th with otto groote and linde nijland. also an interview with kirsty about what being in prison is really like.

we've enjoyed doing this. now that we're back we'll go back to blogging the usual way, but next time we go on tour we'll try and take this up again. sorry about that.



http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video blog #4 - bavaria, including how to make soup and crash a car

we are way behind with this now, as well as out of order. the footage from the 3rd video blog comes from about a week after this, but we're doing our best so please be nice to us.

here is a selection of highlights from our trip through bavaria, which included a visit to a perfect bamboo forest, the chance to get into a kitchen for the first time in weeks and a show at one of the best inner city festivals we've ever played. they really have festivals nailed on the continent. more like this please.



the final eurohobo video blog will follow shortly, with footage from our dutch adventures, during which we went to prison for a bit.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video blog #3 - veenhuizen, veenhuizen, veenhuizen (paradise).

this is footage from today. the sound is awful. sorry.

because we got so excited about seeing where we will be playing tomorrow (it really is wonderful) we made this little blog up even though there is plenty of footage from the last week that we haven't made into a video blog yet. we will do it soon, promise, and we will have to live with being out of order. worse things happen at sea all the time.

we are back in holland, as you will see, and this means two things:

1. our car is now packed to the rafters with the best peanut butter you can get anywhere in the world, and

2. we have resumed our search for an old-fashioned dutch style metal bread bin. if anyone knows where we can get one of these beautiful things please let us know. it's very important.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video blog #2 - pieter & the wolf [banes]

we love to visit our friends in brussels, and this time one of them had a show to play, too. kirsty intervews pieter here on the subects of pinball, rehearsal, multi-tasking and drummers.



http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

video blog #1 - lenscap

we have been busy making a video blog. we're not very good at it. hope you enjoy this - we promise to improve...



http://www.kirstymcgee.com

http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic

http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com

http://www.hobopop.com

chart storming

here's a word from the great john hartford...

...and through all this fiddling it starts to be clear 

why we'll never be top of the charts.

but it's all just as well that it all stays just so

or we might have to share it with folks we don't know

from places we know we would not want to go

and in ways that would just break our hearts.

a while ago we put a song forward for what looked like a really interetsing project. some guys on facebook had decided that they would pick 40 artists making music of merit and orgainse an all-at-once co-ordinated song buying week which would result in said artists standing a good chance of charting in the UK top 40. they called it 'storm the charts'.

it was very well organised. they did their research. they took their time and waited until enough people had registered interest for the project to stand a chance of working. they divided up the people into smaller, more manageable groups and gave them artists to vote on. they probably did loads of other clever stuff after that, too, but that will remain a mystery to me.

in fact, it got so complicated that i forgot to pay attention ("oh, this requires some real attention from me - i'll do it later") and solicit votes for our song at the crucial moment, so you'll not be seeing us in charts any time soon.

do not dismay though. our good friend steven finn, who you may remember opened up the launch show for 'no.5' back in february, wasn't so distrait. you can buy his song - 'hail to the theif' - any time between july 01st and july 03rd and leave your mark on the UK top 40.

i must say it's very encouraging that so many people (over 31,000 at the time of writing) seem to care enough to sign up for this, an attempt to prove to the big machine that we still care about real music. hurray for all of those people, and hurray for the people who organised this project.

and boooo to us for not being organised enough to get involved properly.

here's steve - have a listen. buy his song. thanks.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

do we really love indie music?

a few people have been speaking out recently in blogs and the like on the current position of the working artist. here's a considered response, with appropriate links...

we don't like to complain. we have a great life. we get to play the music we write to people who like to listen (most of the time), travel all over the place, meet great folk who become good friends and generally do what we love. we're lucky. it would be a mistake though to think that for that reason we don't have a hell of a time making it happen. it's hard work doing this.

not that it isn't worth it - and, for that matter, not that it shouldn't be hard work. it makes sense that you should have to earn the priviledge. except that sometimes it's hard to work out what you're supposed to do to keep your way of life sustainable. talking to a few people about what we do always throws up some interesting contradictions that continue to puzzle a lot of musicians.

the argument that i often raise - that doing this is 'self-indulgent' and that we musicians shouldn't expect to be supported to do what we want to do - is invariably dismissed by people who argue that providing music is an important job, that people require it, and that it is important to make sure it continues. that's an encouraging thing to hear, but these same people will easily agree that there is too much music out there, and will happily admit to acquiring their music without parting with any cash, be it legally or illegally. 

the democratisation of musicianship can only be a good thing. the fact that now anyone who wants to can record and disseminate their work is a great thing, at least on paper. most are agreed that we don't want to return to a world of music that is dominated by the major labels' ditcatorship, but somehow the genuine differences between this model and the support of independents at the point of delivery haven't become clear yet. indie really is a healthy place for a band to be and it certainly has helped us and made us happy to be at the helm of our own ship, but it changes some things quite radically.

wasn't interesting independent music exactly what we all wanted when we said we were tired of the major labels? what we haven't yet realised is that these musicians who have been 'freed from the tyranny of EMI' (or whatever) can't do what they're doing without our engagement. the irony of it is that while people are delighted to see their money go directly to artists instead of to steve jobs or a major label, they are more reluctant to spend it in those circumstances.

i just read an excellent blog post written by a friend of mine. it ends with a simple sentence:

"there’s some fantastic folk music out there; it just needs your support."

because, amazingly, we seem still to be behaving as if the old model was current. my friend's blog expresses frustration at the fact that people are still only aware of the bands with the commercial support and the big publicity machines. with fewer people paying for recorded music in the first place, and concert attendances down (recent tweets and news stories from imogen heap make for a sobering read), there is no way that artists can pay for the cynical publicity machine that still seems to be required. the capital simply isn't there.


here's a tweet that was posted recently by another excellent blogger:

"shall we all chip in and pay for a national marketing campaign for a band who really deserves it? seems to be all it takes for chart success." 

it's sad to think that these guys might be right - that you can pretty much buy record sales. that seems to defeat the object a little though... and it doesn't fix a problem that runs much deeper than that.

we are so used to buying into certainties that investing in a band you like just because you like them is hard to come to terms with now. what if they aren't cool? what if the zeitgeist disagrees with you? we end up then with the problem outlined in the blog i linked to above - that only those bands with the big PR budgets can galvanise the support they need. sadly, what those PR budgets generally mean for the artists is a choice between huge debt or major label involvement. this results not so much in us supporting indie music and turning our backs on the big machine, as buying into the impression that that's what we're doing without taking on the 'danger' of actually making an individual statement of taste. i suspect that even the bands who are managing to maintain a solvent profile would appreciate not having to, so they could actually have a go at living off the resulting sales.


we really do love what we do - we, and countless others like us, will surely always find a way of carrying on with it and avoiding the world of the 'proper job'. it's therefore surely dangerous and unhealthy to see these complications as anything more than a small part of our situation. i do think it's our own responsibility as artists to create a sustainable model and keep it going. my friend is right about one thing though, and that is that if people want the results of the indie scene to still be available to them we will have to find some way of supporting the musicians (who often engage and inspire those who then go on to channel the mainstream) - and it would be nice to do that before they died, for a change...

finally, we coudn't recommend more highly this article, which adds to this debate in a much more concise and literate manner.  please have a read... 



http://www.kirstymcgee.com
 
http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic
 
http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com
 
http://www.hobopop.com

a new song and the hobopod-cast

the hobopodcast by hobopop

here is a link to the hobopod-cast, which we've been running since last autumn through the itunes store. we started posting things like rough recordings of new songs and copies of radio sessions we had permissions for during the run-up to the 'no.5' recording, and we've been enjoying getting email feedback on the new material from our subscribers.

we've had a few technical issues - you can still see the podcast at the itunes store but you can't subscribe to it. all the episodes appear to have gone. we're working on that in the hope that we can restore it, but in the meantime we've uploaded the podcast to soundcloud and to our hoboshop. we'll carry on doing that in future, too, so that you can get it from your preferred source. the hoboshop offers an RSS feed that will tell you every time we upload a new track, too.

if you haven't already heard the podcasts we've put up over the last six months then please have a flick through - you'll find early versions of songs like 'omaha', 'stonefruit' (this latter has a whole verse that was cut later on), and 'the last to understand' with gabe minnikin on mandolin, from the rehearsals for 'No.5'. the recordings (at least the ones we didn't make in the RTE studios in dublin) are pretty raw - you can hear the traffic outside and the magpies lauging at us through the window - but the songs are all there...

this sudden activity on the podcasting front is due to a new episode finally being ready. we tried to upload it recently and that was when we discovered that the itunes thing had stopped working. the new song is called 'hummingbird', and it's at the top of the list above. It's a very rough recording but the performance seems right to us. please tell us what you think.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

welcome to the hoboblog

we've changed the name and address of this blog. it was a tough call. if you were following in an RSS reader you may be somewhat annoyed with us right now, and we are sorry. in fact, our heads are hung already, so don't shout. we hope you'll have found us again from all those links on our website and on the social media bits (in fact if you're reading this that's a pretty safe bet), and you'll consider asking your google reader or whatever to subscribe to this one instead.

the reason for moving on (apart from it being the hobo way, naturally)?

well, things are moving on. you know how it is. until now we've been blogging news of the last album and how wonderful it is, blah, blah, but it's been out for a while now - we're still touring it and selling it and all the rest of it but we're also getting down to some new things and even thinking about the next project already, albeit in an 'early stages' sort of way.

we wanted to be able to blog about that kind of thing, too, and generally talk about whatever we felt like talking about, so the 'no.5' blog was beginning to feel a bit limited. welcome, therefore, to the hoboblog, which we hope will be more entertaining, informative and representative of day-to-day hoboland. tell us what you want to see here, why don't you...

we'll start soon. promise. we leave for the continent in a few weeks, where we'll be playing a handful of festival dates and a few indoor shows, too, in advance of our tour in october. the summer dates, and those of our scottish tour are up online already by the way - come and see us if you can. in the meantime we'll try and think of clever things to say here, and keep you posted about what we're up to.

did you know, by the way, that kirsty keeps a photo diary? there's interesting fact number one for the new blog. she's got a great eye for portraits and details - she posts one photo a day, often with commenatry, which you can subscribe to in a reader if you're so inclined. we often post extra shots to our twitter account, too. we're actually playing with the idea of expanding the flickr account we set up to host our web gallery to incorporate these pictures, too. if you're a flickr user and you know how we might do that well, why don't you give us a shout?

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

being on the road...

our tour is over. we've made noises in over 30 different places since the album launch at the end of february, and driven more miles than all seven readers of this blog could shake sticks at. the early shows now already seem a long way off. 

it's the nature of tours that you end up driving the same roads over and over again. we have got to know the M62 very well this time round. we have mixed feelings about the M62. it's quite a scary road. there's a whole house in the middle of it. it's full of trucks going all over it in every direction. but it has some great scenery. it's a feat of moorland engineering, apparently. and there's a really good lord of the rings bit between huddersfield and manchester (westbound), when the spiky tower thing comes out of the water.

(you also have a lot of time to think about these things when driving all day). our car is dirtier than is strictly decent, too, and it smells almost exactly as if two people had been living in it for weeks. a family of mice could live on the crumbs under the seats for months. we also have sunburn down one arm each now, one of the surest signs of having been sat alongside a car window for way too long.

a lot of sensible people wouldn't enjoy this sort of thing - we're actually a little sorry to be wrapping it up already. no more late night curries, no more cold hotel showers, no more traffic jams, no more afternoon radio documentaries about niche (to say the least) subjects such as traffic islands and roundabouts... at least not for a little while.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

special offers

do you fancy a free copy of our new album? you mean you don't already have one? well, the lovely folks at kirk originals, who ran a feature on us on their blog last year, as we were preparing to record the album, are offering 5 copies in a competition on their website. you have until may 31st to get over there and take part, and while you're there have a nose around their site and blog - there's loads of groovy animations and features on some great musicians.

as if that wasn't enough we're also going to share a magic word with you. if you live in manchester you'll be interested to know that we're using the space we made 'no.5' in to occasionally showcase musicians we really like, and that the first of these events is happening on june 5th, with kreg viesselman (who's song share croppers we covered on our hobopop e.p. - the only cover we have ever released) and james apollo.


tickets are officially £10 and £6, but if you book before may 31st and quote 'hobo' on the phone you'll be given a magic 20% off. sweet.

we can't rate these guys highly enough. do check them out. you can download james apollo's new single for free from his website. you can see more about the show at the facebook and last.fm pages, and if you aren't local then both of them are on tour around that time.


finally, if you missed the no.5 tour, you have two chances to see us this week, if you live in dorset, that is.
20.05.10 - centre stage, bournemouth - 01202 707498
21.05.10 - square & compass, worth matravers - 01929 439229

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

homogeny is elusive

i'd just like to assure you all that the formatting of this blog is not an indication of our preferred visual style, but rather an indication of my inability to make any two posts look alike.


it is driving me insane. i am concerned for my safety andthe safety of those around me. i also suspect we'd gladly offer concert tickets or downloads or something to any good people who could explain this nonsense to us before someone has to lock us up.

thanks...

p.S. for anyone reading this as an RSS feed, you should be told that the true nature of this message of depth can only be seen at the blog itself...

from the ether

this from the good people at the dyverse music blog...

Kirsty McGee: No.5 (Hobopop Recordings) 

The case for Kirsty McGee as the best artist to come out of Manchester's neo-folk scene is strengthened by this live album, which manages the leap from orthodox acoustica to garage orchestra, with twisted electric guitar, malformed banjo, junkyard percussion and plangent reeds. Some of the songs are familiar from her other records, but the assured delivery shows how she now wears them like a second skin. McGee has a genius for removing the soft centre out of love songs and replacing with the hard nut of real feeling - Bliss and Dust Devils are skewed yet achingly vulnerable songs. Yet shape-shifting is no problem: she writes credibly as a scared soldier in Last Orders or as an unashamed Social Darwinist in Bonecrusher (bonus song, with cartoon animation). Her voice, with its crystalline diction and adventurous phrasing, is closer to jazz than folk.

we're having a lot of fun on tour right now... we're playing in durham next, on thursday. we heard a great singer at the open mic that opened our penrith show, and asked him to open up for us at the next show. we're delighted that he agreed - so watch out for a set from the astonishing rob heron at gala theatre on thursday.

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

our best review ever?

we've had some great reviews already for 'no.5'. we mentioned some of them on this blog already. not that we're up for blowing the trumpet too much, of course, but we did just get this on a wonderful little website called a negative narrative, and it could be the best summation of what we do at the moment we've seen in a long time.

we thought we'd share it with you:

"maybe tomorrow i’ll want to settle down. maybe tomorrow i’ll just keep moving on. actually, maybe tomorrow i’ll just form a jazz collective, eat out of bins, ride trolley-cars and folk reality off for an altogether happier existence of artisanity, yoghurt and blissed-out tunes. what do you mean someone got there first. oh - do you mean the rogueish hipsters that I saw hanging out by the bottle bank? well, not only are they good recyclers, top people and virtuoso musicians, they've also just raised the negative narrative bar again.

the hobopop collective are (at the core) kirsty mcgee and mat martin, with notable contributions from such revered illuminati as james steel (the brute chorus), christopher cundy (guillemots) and clive mellor (richard hawley). they crank like a banged-out mustang ’57 pissing petrol the length of a winding scottish B-road. think corinne bailey-rae arm-wrestling sinead o’connor for a dram of whiskey at a disturbed banjo buskathon for burglars, blind folk and beatniks, then drop a few of those variables and cram in some of the bluest blues, the greenest greens, and the wobbliest wobbles. this is more sonic scurvy than calenture, in the best possible way. download this if you don’t believe us."

the site interviews bands by asking them 10 questions. they're only allowed to answer in photos they've taken themselves. if you ever wondered what we find sexy, what's in our pockets, or what we're prepared to smash up then this interview might be for you...

if you ever asked yourself similar questions about our friends and colleagues, such as the brute chorus or curtis eller, you might find your curiosity sated there too, by the way.

we've had fun popping up in the pages of clash, Q and rock n' reel lately too. the album comes out tomorrow morning (as does the re-release of 'honeysuckle') and we're pretty darned excited. we've managed to gether a fair few hobopoppers who were involved in either the recording or launch shows for 'no.5' for a little party tomorrow night, to mark the occasion.

then it's back to rehearsing as we await getting back on the road in a week or so...

http://www.kirstymcgee.com


http://www.facebook.com/kirstymcgeemusic


http://kirstymcgee.bandcamp.com


http://www.hobopop.com

other happenings around our release

we have plenty going on right now. you'd expect us to, i guess, what with a new album coming out. we thought it'd be a good idea to let you know about it all.

plus we have some more great pictures from our album launch that we didn't put up last time.

(that's steven finn rocking the blues, for example).

firstly, there's the re-release of 'honeysuckle' to consider. this this the album that was nominated for a BBC radio 2 folk award in 2002, and that we have re-packaged and are about to offer for free download alongside the rest of the catalogue in the hoboshop. this is, in part, to mark the re-recording of 'bliss' on no.5 and celebrate the way the listeners and reviewers have all enjoyed discovering or re-discovering this older material. the two recordings are quite different, the new (live) version featuring the wonderful christopher cundy on saxello.

for the launch we were lucky enough to have mr will lenton of the caulbearers to provide some velvety tenor sax.

the album is a little shorter than its first release, but does feature a bonus track that's not on the original version. this is a recently 'discovered' rendition of the title track from the lost album 'little things', recorded for ugly man records in 2000 and never released. it makes for surprisingly good listening, we think.

the new artwork is related to this track. we went back to our good friend peter seal, who designed the original cover for 'little things', and he showed us some of his early sketches for the project, which we thought were just fabulous. a quick bit of editing on his part (he's a biro wizard) and we had the new 'honeysuckle' cover to sit in the window of your chosen media player.

our other activity of interest around release-time is the fact that we have been invited to edit the spiral earth music website for a week starting on march 15th. this is a site we've contributed blogs and articles to before, and who have run some great features, interviews and profiles on us and on other hobopop bands, so we're really excited about the project.

we don't want to say too much right now, but we can guarantee that there will be plenty of varied, interesting and eccentric things to wrap your eyes and brains around. the other thing we promise right away is that the guding principle of our editorship is that all content will be artist-generated, so expect articles from us, from k c mckanzie, myshkin, kreg viesselman, caulbearers, the little red rabbit collective, quiet loner etc, etc... all artists with an interesting and thought provoking take on their worlds, a sense of humour and a connection to what we do at hobopop.

if you don't already subscribe to the spiral earth RSS feed we'd recommend it, and not just for what we'll be putting up there in a week or so. theirs is a site with many hidden treasures.

will and rob turner (a drummer shared by the hobopop collective and caulbearers these days) having some down-time during the no.5 album launch soundchecks.

so as usual we're very busy, but of course that's a good thing to be. we're just getting into the first shows of the tour, too, and really enjoying ourselves. the sets and songs are feeling great right now.

we'll leave you with the final installment of our 'wall of 5' competiton. we're quite pleased with the way it turned out in the end, and by the sheer number of 5s in the world... we've got a modest 120 here. note that that's number divisible by 5, seems a good place to stop.

so the winners of the 'best 5' competition? they are hilly of hebden bridge for her scarf 5 in the snow, and susan esway, the dutch cat for her hand-painted effort. they each receive a copy of the new album.

  

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