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January - what no more turkey? boo!

2010-01-29T16:39:47Z

A new year greets us with the blooming and sad decay of January. Snows, sleets and slush have been our bed follows this month but has it dampened our British weather hardened spirits - well to be honest it has a bit. Traumatic hailing from headlines almost everyday might have suggested that the UK was a goner this time for sure. Thankfully, other than occasionally damp socks and the cats down at 'E.ON' getting fatter we've just about pulled through.

The Monsters kicked the year off resolutely practicing hard and gigging. Perhaps the most fun we've had was trekking down to Moira to play at the National Forest Folk Club. We almost didn't make it down because of the weather and Kieran's car angrily throwing one of its wipers onto the motorway in protest. Kieran affectionately calls his car Roxanne or 'Roxy' for short - it seems like it was a bad time of the month for Roxy but she survived delivering us unharmed to Moira. We played to a smallish weather beaten crowd who where really supportive, wildly cheering after each set. We played two sets premiering two new songs written recently - Amy's Gastown and a Finish tune called 'Vralkada'. The show went fantastically well warming the audience up for their journeys homeward in the snow.

Unbeknownst to us Dick Dixon was at the National Forest Folk Club , appearing at the end with a big grin he wanted to congratulate us. For those not in the know - Dick Dixon runs a number of folk enterprises but is best known for being the man behind Warwick Folk Festival. Dick enjoyed the night so much that he asked us to come along to Warwick and play a few concert spots in 2010 immediately after we'd played! We were delighted with the offer and accepted, if you're at Warwick this year come and say hello. We'll be doing concert performances and we'll also be doing workshops. We have yet to confirm the particulars of said workshops but suggestion range from clogs, fiddle, bass, tune accompaniment etc. Kieran has been muttering threatingly about doing a workshop called 'ComMandoCello' or possibly 'Going ComMandoCello - no capos, no pants ' if he can get away with it.

On that note festivals have been approaching the Monsters with increasing regularity. The word is out - who left the bloody door open, it's going take ages to find the bugger. ...Er, onwards I guess....The Monsters have been planning different shows and ideas have been plentiful, favourites currently include - Acoustic performance with extra special tandem jumping, elctro-dance performance featuring Producer 'the touch' and Beatboxer Ashely Hobbins and the original Pans People and one of our favourites the UV ceilidh (lit entirely by Ultra Violet lights). The possibilities are our oysters....or something like that.

New ideas have been pulsing through the frighteningly net savvy David this month as the internets course through him making monsterceilidhband.co.uk more and more high tech like the Lawnmower man at a sÃÂÃÂ©ance. Please stop by and check it out - David hasn't come out of his room and has been insisting on people referring to him as 'the Webmaster Dave'. He has created new forms and built a database driven website Steve Jobs would be proud of (would have said Bill Gates but we Monsters are Macs now!). If you understand what all that means please leave us a comment on myspace or facebook explaining it in as small detail as possible. In fact don't bother we won't understand....except for David who will probably quite like the company of another person who only speaks in hexadecimal right now...

Reverbnation is our new vice at the mo and you may well get this little blog posted to you if Kieran manages it. Check us out on it - do whatever it is you do with it, then get yourself a can of stella and go down the quayside, pet.

Exciting news about Amy - she will be available on iPlayer for the second time since her fantastic performance at the end of the Sting's Winter song book. Amy will be on Scotland's BBC TV Alba with the fantastic Shee. We'll update you with more news when we get it. Coincidentally the Shee have been booked at this years National Forest Folk Festival along with the Monsters. Other artists include Ade Edmonson and the Bad Shepherds and The Peatbog Faeries.

From that plug we claim the bath chain of loneliness, turn the tap of completion off because we've finished running the blog. We hope you've enjoyed a good soak in the murky waters of the Monsters.

Taraa for now,

Monsters

Tidings of comfort and joy!

2009-12-19T12:59:30Z

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 ÃÂÃÂ£5 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 ;)

To Russia with love...

2009-12-04T11:41:30Z

As Jack Frost plays merrily outside, the cold blooded monsters retreat back to the dim light of the laptop screen clutching fiercely to their bottle of whiskey to write the blog. Grrrrr *sniff*

This will warm you up - The Monsters have been invited to tour Russia for a week in March! Thanks to Red Orange the Monsters have been given a great opportunity to experience this incredible country in a flurry of gigs. We'll be playing for world ceilidh dancing champions the 'Moscow School of Ceilidh Dances'. Have a look here www.ceilidh.ru - but make sure you Russian is up to scratch. We can't wait...

Last week the Monsters were a part of the absolutely fantastic 'Bring the Noise' event in Washington Arts Centre. The idea was to get local folk bands who feature heavily on the Newcastle scene to recreate Hip-hop songs in a folk style. The results were amazing everyone who took part in the show did a great job - people like Emily Portman with Rubus, Christi Andropolis and David Newey, The Fire Maidens from Outer space and Dirty Diamonds. The Monsters didn't take any chances - playing a 15 minute long set without pause. It featured Rapper's Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang, Hits from the Bong by Cypress Hill, Let me Clear My Throat by DJ Kool and (not strictly Hip-hop but one of Kieran's Favorites) Super Sharp Shooter by DJ Hype and the Ganja Crew. We used The Touch (our favorite Drum and Bass Producer who has worked with us on different projects) for his laptop ingenuity and an awesome Beat boxer called Ash. We will be getting a video of us on the night put up on YouTube - it's getting edited together by some of the Minions as we speak. Will Scrimshaw also took some beautiful photo's we'll stick up on our FB and MySpace pages.

Kieran and Craig Wilson at Urban and Eastern are putting their heads together to see if they can bring this great event to Newcastle. More news on this when it happens...

Following the success of our performance at the London International Festival for Exploratory Music we've been invited back for another concert in Kings Place at the end of next year. We'll tell you about that later on in the year so you can get your tickets!

Merry Christmas everyone and have a happy New Year

Love,

The Monsters

Washington, London, Birmingham, Newcastle

2009-11-23T15:56:37Z

That's absolutely right! The Monsters have their first gig in Washington, and we'll be featured alongside a host of stars - premier our first attempts a HipHop (or possibly "hifolkop" suggestions welcome). Yes, the Monsters will be featured at the 'Bring the Noise' event on the 27th November (this friday) at Washington Arts Centre, Tyne and Wear NE38 8AB. A second event maybe held in the Star and Shadow the following day - we will confirm this. The idea is that a bunch of the local scenes best known folk acts such as Emily Portman and the Monsters will be taking inspiration from the Hip Hop cannon and performing the results in a live show. The Monsters will be working once again with our very own electronic producer the Touch. Tickets are ÃÂÃÂ£7.50/ÃÂÃÂ£5 conc the evening will kick off at 7.30pm and tickets are still available. Here's a link to the Washington Art Centre's site - http://www.artscentrewashington.co.uk/events/event3.html

Moving to our next large city(!) : London.

Due to a last minute change in the London International Festival for Eploratory Music's line up (hosted at Londons prestigious Kings Place) the Monsters where asked to step up to the mark and deliver our London Premier! What a day it was we tore down the M1 at break neck speeds (actually a cautious 70mph) then crawled through London almost missing the venue by inches. We spoke to a bemused but jolly guard about parking, something awesome then unfolded - we where guided in to the building through a large set of double doors into what seemed like the worlds smallest car park. We then realized we where in a CAR LIFT! They day simply got cooler and cooler. We were guided through a labyrinthine series of corridors to a dressing room - more of a green room we found out as we where changing! Joe Truswell aka The Touch was in for the show laptop in hand. We also had to use the awesome fiddle skills of Mr Ross Couper as Carly couldn't make it. We played a storm - Kieran and Jon played back to back precariously balanced for some sets, Amy whipped out her new rock stance and the crowd went wild! We finished the set with our live remixed version of stomach steinway man. The crowd loved it so much that their stamping feet forced us back on for a second bow! Ross quickly explained the he "didn't know anymore sets" so we couldn't do an encore. Hee hee..

We also received a wonderful accolade in Time Outs 'Critic's Choice' for the event. We couldn't have been more honored - we're constantly surprised at the acheivements of a our little Ceilidh Band from the Toon ;)

Duration : 1 weekend, Location : Birmingham, conditions : awesome.

The second appearance at the sage for the Monsters was accompanied by a sprint to get to Birmingham for a lovely Party in Mosely. Accompanying this was another sprint up to newcastle the following morning (feeling rather groggy I must say - thanks go to the Szifris families huge stock of Frexinet). We had a great time playing at the Sage and I think we are all agreed that the Sage really does an excellent carrot cake mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh, and the gigs were fab!

Future plans involve working with the Touch on our new electronic set. The second set of which is near completion and a number of others are on their way. We will preview remixes on the site and then we are thinking of presenting a a fully remixed CD which will be available as a digital download.

Further news is that Newcastle Ceilidh which is run by the Monsters will be restarting this January (there have been murmurings of a chrimbo party but we'll see!). Nights that are being planned are the UV ceilidh 2, Monsters fancy dress Ceilidh, Sgt Pepper ceilidh and the premier of our Techno Ceilidh! 2010 promises to be a cracking year.

S'enough for now but don't worry we'll get back to you soon,

tra for now,

MCB xxx

Red Orange at night, shepherds delight?

2009-10-12T14:58:22Z

Its been another great couple of weeks here at Monster HQ. We've got lots to tell you, so go and get a hot chocolate and pop M.M.A.D. (Make Me A Dancer) on the stereo!

Recently, we were approached by the Red Orange Arts Agency and are now very proud to be represented by this fantastic company which is run by Miguel Santos. We are excited to be involved with an agency which is clearly brimming with talent, diversity and creativity. There are some very, very exciting things in the pipeline which I can't possible tell you now, but needless to say, keep reading this little blog and all will be revealed. Go and have a look at the Red Orange website here www.RedOrange.co.uk. There is some stunning music on there, plus a great radio station for picking up all the latest in world flavours.

The Monsters are romping in America. We were featured in a number of broadcasts by the legendary American web-based radio station Folk Alley last week. Our American fans will be please to hear we know there are a few out there!

Pictures have come back from our album launch gig, taken by photographer Joe Steele. There are some lovely shots of what turned out to be a great night! For those that came, our grand finale, featuring Joe Truswell AKA the Touch on laptop, will be part of the new festival sound which we'll be taking on tour with us.

What's more, we've finally got a copy of the iHerd game in which our music is featured and we are completely addicted. Herding sheep in the 2000's has never been so much fun! Thanks to Gavin Ward for letting us be a part of this unique project. It only costs about 50p, so get downloading from the iPhone App Store.

Finally we've been having loads of requests from people who want to try remixing some of the tracks. Have a look at our remix section of the website to listen to two remixes by our very own Touch and one sinister remix by Anomaly.

Until next time!

The Monsters

Monster Night for The Monsters!

2009-09-24T19:28:00Z

It was our big album launch party yestarday and what a night!

After we played Insomnia, our trademark opener, the roar from the crowd was incredible. The Monsters had pulled it all off again. Resplendant in our special outfits - Amy wore a vintage blue and red jumpsuit, Kieran sported a blue and red conductors jacket trimmed with gold and a pair of aviation googles, Dave spent the evening tied up in his huge zebra print dressing gown and Carly looked stunning in a black and pink dress (photo's by Joe Steele to come soon). We played our hearts out, being reunited with David for the first time in a long while! The Monsters were back and on terrific form. We introduced two new sets in the first half - The Witches and Red Monster , you'll be able to hear them soon at one of our gigs. The first slot came to a close amid a throng of steaming dancers and we took a leisurely interval (it was our party and we'll chat if we want to, right?). During the interval we scoffed on monster munch, a monstrous amount of cheese and a monster cake made by carlys mum with an actual monster on it! Thanks Sheila!

We cracked open our second set with some more album tracks from 'Make Me A Dancer'. Including Lamb Biscuit which has been released on the iphone with the iherd application (more on that later). After stomping through some more sets it was time for the big finale - we started Stomach Steinway (the last track on M.M.A.D.) and through a live laptop collaboration with The Touch finished the set with a huge backdrop of pounding beats, the Star and Shadow erupted! Cries of 'more', shouting and screaming at the end of the set were cut off when The Touch Kicked in the full high octane remix of the Stomach Steinway. We jumped off stage and get down with the rest of the crowd.

Thanks go to all our friends and family who came (some all the way from Birmingham! Thanks Nina and Kirstine Shiffrondo) to see us. It meant all to us that you could make it and we were so happy to see you there.

The special remix of 'Stomach Steinway' by The Touch (which we performed live on Wednesday) can now be freely downloaded from our website. You can also listen to a remix by glitch producer Anomaly of the monaghan jig set. We have confirmation that the awesome avant-garde 'Guessmen' are remixing some of the album as we speak. We are open to anyone who would like to remix our tracks, please contact us and we can have a chat about it.

As we mentioned earlier you can now purchase the iherd application from the iphone store which features lamb biscuit from M.M.A.D. We were thrilled to finally meet Gavin Ward last night. We also found out that (get ready for this...) Gavin's girlfriends dad is taught Accordion by our very own Amy Thatcher! What a small world...

In other Monster related news we are happy to announce that we are very much looking forward to working with Miguel Santos of the Red Orange Arts and Music Agency. Through his work we are promptly to be displayed to the world at WOMEX and feature on the CD sampler for Great Britain, no mean feat!

Well, that seems like enough for the moment, suffice to say we are currently looking at - the next few Newcastle Ceilidhs(beware Pirates!), non-ceilidh Monster nights for, unsupervised, and unspecific dancing!, and festivals for next year...

As allways ta ra for now,

Lots of Love,

The Monster's xxxx

Leading to the LAUNCH!

2009-09-14T17:44:57Z

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 ÃÂ£4 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

A brand new blogging space!

2009-09-01T15:21:41Z

Well We've just got back on the ball with updating this place! It's a bit dusty around here but we'll soon have it ship shape...

Here in a nut shell is a few things that have been happening to us -

We have made our debut CD complete with some fantastic illustrations by Lucy Farfort of Doris Illustrated. check her out on Google.

We have organised a party for our new album 'Make Me a Dancer' this is going to take place in the Star and Shadow in Byker on the 23rd of September. The Touch will be Featuring a special remix of Stomach Steinway Set.

We played a storming sets supporting Seth Lakeman and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the National Forest folk festival. Find the videos on YouTube!

Our New website is under construction by Dave! It will feature some great new artwork by Lucy and downloadable versions of the remixes done by the Touch and the Guessmen.