The Monsters have been busy little bees over the last couple of weeks. We've been playing a few local gigs, supporting Shooglenifty at Off the Tracks, had our first radio play, some exciting news from WOMEX and finally, a lovely review from Bright Young Folk. So grab yourself a chocolate HobNob, a cuppa tea and we'll tell you all about it!
We had some bad news not so long ago - David our bassist broke his finger. So we have been playing all of our recent gigs with the fantastic Jonathan Proud of the Rachael McShane Band (plus one gig with Paul Susans of The Baghdaddies). If you've seen us live over the past month or so, you'll have seen that for yourself. The good news is that David will be back playing with us for the album party!
We had Jonathan with us at the fantastic 'Durham Streets of Folk' gig we did as well as at Off the Tracks Festival down in Derbyshire. What a gig that turned out to be! For once, we decided to leave TWO HOURS free for our arrival time and what a good idea that was! The A1 is a mischevious mistress and does her best to beat you up for the whole time you are travelling on her and this time was no exception. We spent hours in traffic jams and made it to the gig by the skin of our teeth, straight out of the car, straight in to sound check, the world's quickest string change by Kieran and then on stage and playing. We had a great reception and by the end of the gig we were screaming at the crowd who in turn were screaming back! Plus if you have a look at the picture on Facebook, you'll see we found our spiritual father, Al....
You'll be able to see us playing live in Newcastle soon. The Monsters are hitting the streets to do a bit of busking and promotion towards the end of the week. On Saturda,y we'll be performing on the band stand in Leazes Park with Joe our DJ. Plus on the Following Wednesday we're having our ALBUM PARTY at the Star and Shadow Cinema: tickets are ã4 OTD.
To top it all off, we were listening to BBC Radio Tees on the 10th September and were very pleased to be featured on the introducing section of the programme! Our first play on National Radio!! We where extremely pleased to be played given that we play ceilidh/folk music. Though there seemed to be some issue with whether the Monster Ceilidh Band was really big or just one monsterous giant with a loin cloth. We are honored to be one of the few ceilidh bands to have been played on commercial radio... mobile phones, radio, the internet, what next?
We also noticed that the lovely young folk at www.brightyoungfolk.com reviewed 'Make Me A Dancer'. You can read it here -
http://www.brightyoungfolk.com/gigs/make-me-a-dancer-monster-ceilidh-band/record-detail.aspx
We have some more exciting news in the pipeline and can't wait to tell you, but we're going to save it untill the next blog! Wooooooo!!!
Peas out and lots of love,
The Monsters
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