While in the process of packing his house into lots of boxes so he can take it to London, Gavin discovered a long buried pile of our EP Fighting Room in his crypt/basement. Every copy of Vice of the People bought between now and Christmas will come with a free copy of Fighting Room, and you can also buy them from our shop page. Get one while you can, there won’t be any more when they’re gone!*

The first 25 orders of VotP will also come with a bonus free gift which may or may not have been found in Gavin’s basement!**

* Unless we find some more.

** It was.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed ourselves over the last month -  we’ve had great support acts and some very special guests at our shows. Big thanks go to the rest of the team – our tour manager & soundman Pete Ord, agent Hannah Bright and manager Simon Care – and of course to all of you who came to see us on tour!

Check out our remaining tour blog videos here , keep your eyes peeled for updates to our dates page – and remember, our albums are perfectly shaped to fit most stockings….see you next year!

We’ve been making video blogs for Spiral Earth!

http://www.spiralearth.co.uk/attitude/AlbionBlogAutumn2012.asp

Episode one is already up, Episode two is on it’s way!

Tom x

We are touring in November (and into December)  – please see the dates page for information on venues and links to booking. If you are thinking of coming please book in advance – in the current climate venues are quite risk averse and chances are that if too many people wait until the night of a show and just turn up, you may find the show has already been cancelled. Poor advance ticket sales caused a couple of shows on the march tour to be moved or cancelled. You’ll also save yourself a bit of cash by booking in advance!

More news to come – we are excited about having some great support acts lined up on this tour. Keep an eye out for further info!

Whilst we’re all buzzing off festival season – and still basking in the critical success of ‘Vice of the People’ – we’re putting the final touches on our winter tour. We’ve already put a few fresh tunes together and it’s all sounding rather #rags (that’s a very good thing). Before too long we may even be thinking about laying them down in the studio… Well watch this space!

I’m supporting Jools Holland tomorrow so I’m off to pack! I might just sack the guitar off and do set on a MIDI keyboard… Would be amusing if nothing else.

Have a top summer peeps, Blair

I’ve not posted since mid way through our March tour so I figured it was about time I pulled my finger out and got everyone up to date!

We all had such a great time on the March tour. Thanks so much to all of you who came to the shows and bought records. We met some great people who said some really lovely things. It’s such a strange thing when people come up to us and regale us with stories of the previous incarnations of the band. It’s great to hear stories that maybe some of the previous guys wouldn’t have told us! Keep them coming

After spending April regrouping and getting back in touch with reality a bit, it was time to head down to sunny Norfolk for Cromer Folk on The Pier. We had a really great time with our pals in Little Johnny England, Edward II, Home Service and all the other people we bumped into. Word on the grapevine is there might be some interesting stuff brewing for next year at Cromer so keep an eye here, on Facebook, and on Cromer’s Website.

Straight from Cromer we were back up to Sheffield to deposit Blair off on the Sandy Denny tour before we arrived at our “home from home” of Shepley Spring festival. I had a strange phone call on the thursday afternoon from Matt Crum (of The QP and Sciorr Staged) asking me if I could “come to Shepley early as Elkie Brooks has cancelled”. I was slightly perturbed by this as I have little knowledge of Elikie’s Music and, even though I ‘ll try my best after a beer or two, I can’t sing like a girl. Turned out they just wanted some people to play tunes to entertain the slightly disgruntled villagers so we hopped in the car and obliged. Gavin performed with His family, The Davenports, Tim and Ben performed with their Sciorr Staged show (as well as having a good go at running the bar on the last night!!) and Katriona managed to wake us up nearly every morning with the cow-costumed Frumptarn Guggenband. Nikki and Mac put on such a great weekend and we had such a great time playing on the same bill as The Shee, Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin and The Treacherous Orchestra.Strangely, the last time I played at Shepley was with Innes from Treacherous Orchestra when we were in the Park Bench Social Club together. Some very odd clothes swapping occurred later after out gig. This mainly involved playing “How many jackets can we fit on a Banjo player”.

After Shepley came Gate to Southwell. Katriona was off playing with Jamie but the rest of us were there in our various guises. Gav, Ashley, Simon Care, Guy Fletcher and I had a great time playing the Morris On Show with Stefan Care, Witchmen and Pecsaetan Morris dancing. Blair played a great Solo set before us and Tim’s band, The QP, opened the concert. Gav jumped in the car and shot off to Chippenham (Tim went to Chester then Chippenham then back to Southwell I think?!?) and I rushed over to the Ceilidh venue to play with Glorystrokes. The QP played a Ceilidh on the last day followed by The Sciorr Show that I engineered. It was fun to watch and hear Tim and Ben playing from behind the Mixer instead of the Drums for a change!

The weekend after Southwell was supposed to be our gig at Hever Castle in Kent but, for reasons unknown to us, it was cancelled by the promoter. Sorry to anyone that bought tickets and were let down. We’re hoping to come back to the area later in the year.

We didn’t let the Hever Castle gig get us down as we had a great show to play at The Half Moon Putney that we were really excited about! Great venue with lovely staff and a great crowd. We had a brilliant (if a little hot) night there. Our first “Rock pub” gig with this lineup and I think we really settled into that vibe. Just the kind of shows we want to play in the future!

After staying the night at Katriona’s parents’ house (complete with obligatory trip to Coda Music!) we headed home but not before depositing Ben at BeachBreak festival to play Ceilidhs for excitable students with the Ship Band.

So now here we are, up to date. Dates are creeping in for our November Tour. We’re hoping to announce the majority of them next week. Keep an eye out here and on Facebook for updates!

The sun has been shining for most of the time so it’s been thoroughly pleasant. The audiences and staff at Worthing, Harpenden, Wellingborough and Stevenage have all been wonderful. Off we trot to Tunbridge Wells now. Looking forward to it!

T xxx

Van games so far have included:

“Local Tribute Acts” Ipswich Engage, Sonic Louth, Kings of Lynn, etc…

“Fish Metal Bands” Cannibal Carps, Shrimp Bizkit, Seplatuna, etc…

“Food Films” Lamb Shank Redemption, The Good Kebab and The Ugly Fruit, Educating Fajita, etc…

follow us on Twitter or Facebook and suggest new themes for our van games!

But, instead, we have the whole of the 29th of February to limber up for what will be a really entertaining few weeks for us.
The Vice of The People album material is sounding really great in the rehearsals as are the back catalogue tracks that we’ll be playing. It’s so great having such a wealth of material to choose from! There’s just not enough hours in the show to play everything We’d like to.
Which show(s) are you coming to then?

T x