From first
frosty breaths on a winter's morning, to snow laden ice scraper when we're already
late for work, we love Christmas here at Monster HQ. Carly has been listening
to her Christmas compilation CD, Kieran has been learning to 'snow skate', Amy
has been drinking whiskey by the fire and Dave has been singing merry Christmas
songs with Jez Lowe. Here in the snowy northlands the Monsters have been having
great fun. News is as plentiful as good cheer here and we'll tell you why, my
dear, what news draws near. The Monsters have been been nominated, supporting, interviewing,
updating, playing and planning.
First things first - The Monsters 'Make Me A Dancer' (M.M.A.D.) CD has been nominated for best instrumental album of the year by the folks down at spiral earth - we need your support to help us win it. We're up against some stiff competition in Fiddlers Bid so what you have to do is go to http://www.spiralearth.co.uk/spirals2010/instrumental.asp and vote for us. You only get one vote per computer so make sure you cast your vote on a different machine to your friends or partners. Needless to say we are delighted to be nominated for this award - incredible really when you think we were just having fun and making music in Dave's Flat! Excitingly, this is being written we're 1% ahead!
Another big thing to happen to the Monsters was to be asked by one of Newcastle's most notorious bands the Bahgdaddies to support them at their gig at the Cumberland arms. Incidentally, the Cumberland has been the subject of much media hype recently as Sting has been singing there with friend of the Monsters Kathryn and Peter Tickell. Chris Lewis Joined us on Accordion that night and the Monsters pulled off a great performance gaining some new fans along the way. The Bahgdaddies played a fantastic set of new material which knocked everyone's socks off (I should say - again because they'd had to put them back on after the Monsters set!). Ending the night in style was our friend Rob Heron who ripped out some tunes on the wheels of steel which got the dance floor burning up until 1. All in all, a great night out for ÃÂã5 so Keep your ear to the ground for more gigs with the legendary Bahgdaddies...
A few gigs came in this month. The Monsters have been confirmed at - the Acoustic Festival of Britain (Mayfest), The National Forest Folk Festival and the London International Festival of Exploratory Music. We're also arranging the next set of Newcastle Ceilidhs. All our dates will be being updated on the MySpace and website soon.
Which brings us rather cleanly to the next point - Kieran and Jon Proud have been busily beavering away to update the MySpace. It's now the swankiest profile page on MySpace you'll have seen! Well, forgive the overtures of enthusiasm but we like it. Kieran says that it took them a long time so you better like it too! There will be various rough mixes available to listen to via the MySpace player as we try out new sounds on you. So check it out at -
www.myspace.com/monsterceilidhband
Our good friend Emily Portman, after much organizing, reorganizing and devious manipulation managed to get all the Monsters together in one place for long enough to do an interview with the prestigious 'fRoots' Magazine. The Article is called 'Roots Salad'. It will be looking at the region's most successful young bands and sees what they're up to, where they've been and where they're off to next. We had a great laugh telling her about the origins of the band and how it has been evolving into something much bigger than we thought. We told her how we started out at a party at Dave's flat and that now we're breaking all sorts of boundaries by involving new musicians, touring all over, being played across the world and being nominated for an award. The article is due out soon when we know the publishing date we'll tell you.
Well, lovely Monsterettes, that wraps things up for the month. There is one thing left to say.
Have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year,
All our love
The Monsters
P.S. get voting ;)
