Gossamer Albatross

Saturday night at Jamboree in LDN

2009-05-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

On saturday we played with our Italian label mates A Classic Education at Jamboree, probably my favourite venue as of yet! The night was in honour of Bailiwick releasing a new 7" - best regards/rest - which you can buy from rough trade!!!!! We had the lushest time, although we didn't get home until 5am! And we all bought a bit of vinyl which has some really cool artwork. Basically an ace night, you don't see Jeremy Warmsley singing ABBA that often. haha

We like Bayonets!

2009-04-18T05:41:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone!

2009-04-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

We played a really nice gig in Hereford on wednesday with our friends Talons, Bayonets and don't look know!

You should also go and check out our label mates A classic education they have a new 7"

http://www.myspace.com/aclassiceducation

We have a bassist and drummer!

2009-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

After an epic search of months and months, we have finally started working with 2 great guys! Chris on bass and Greg on drums. We have had 3 practices with them now and its going Shweeeeet. Our debut show with them will be on the 13th April supporting Peggy Sue at Hoxton bar and Kitchen in London! Hope to see everyone there!

We are also booking for a tour around 5th-15th July, so get in touch!

Reuben xxx

New Song on myspaaazzzee

2009-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

New version of Butcher Boy is up with full band! chek chek!

I think everyone should go listen to Wolf Parade!!!

Welcome to Our TV Show!

2009-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

Part 1.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...ideoid=49234999

Part 2.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...ideoid=49109474

x

Yo yo

2009-01-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

We have a new song on myspace called 'little bird' We recorded this song with full band in september with Jeremy Warmsley and we're stoked! Please have a listen :)

We were on Channel M last Week. It was radical!

2008-10-22T06:26:00.001-07:00

tour etc

2008-10-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone.

2008-10-04T16:45:00.001-07:00

I bought The Glow Part 2 and It Hugs Back's new single both on vinyl today. I urge you to do the same.

Also, if you're so inclined pre-order our new single.
RAD!

http://www. puregroove. co. uk/itemview. aspx?item=561

Lewis

ps.
Jeremy's (www. myspace. com/jeremywarmsley) new album is out on Monday. Go buy it, I imagine it'll be crackers good. He's produced our new tracks which we get back soon.
All very exciting!

Recording is over!

2008-09-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Right then. Recording is over. I'm sat at Ash's, the guys who's house and studio we've been working at waiting for my bus and doing this blog. We've just had a takeaway (Indian), discussed top trumps and I want to go home :( I'm tired and miss my band (the rest are getting an earlier train back).

As for recording, it was awesome! We laid down four tracks, three full band and one with just the regular four. The songs full band sound immense and I can't wait for everybody to hear it and tell us what they think. Honestly, it's the most amazing thing and I'm so stoked with everyone. All the guys, Geena, Sam, Reuben, Ben and Alex played and sung out of their skin and I just wanna get it out there. We've got gang vocals, glock, bass, drums and piano as well as all the usual Gossamer stuff and it sounds massive. We also reworked The Ground Will Take Us Down to just strings and vocals so we'll see what everyone makes of that when we do it live.

A massive thankyou to Ash who recorded us most excellently, Jeremy for his input and getting the best out of us and all of the lovely people who looked after us and chilled, chatted and played Mario Kart with us. It has been the most fun weekend and fingers crossed we'll be back soon to get some more stuff down ( and maybe even enough for an album!)

I'm done rambling, I'll get the others to write something. I'm tired and miss my family and friends.

Lewis

ps. thankyou to my lot. You made this weekend wicked!!!!!!!

Recording this weekend.

2008-09-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's all very exciting.
You're gonna have to wait absolutely ages to hear it but fingers crossed it'll be worth it.

:D

August Tour part 1

2008-08-11T03:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning came and we all piled into Lewis's family Renault Kangoo, kind of uncool but really practical, it has somehow become our band car.

Actually it was more like Saturday afternoon by the time we set off, but we still made it there in plenty of time. Arriving at the town hall of malmesbury it became rather evident that not much really happens here, and found ourselves surrounded by scene kids with broad accents. But this worked to our advantage, we were looked after brilliantly and the show kicked off well with us afterwards getting rather drunk and pissing about in the band room with Youthmovies after the show, Lewis giving a loving rendition of Factory Walls to everyone present on a forlorn-looking piano in the corner of the room.
Morning came and off to London we went, getting a taxi to Swindon to catch our National Express. Reubens hopes of busking were quashed as soon as we entered Swindon, or more like Swindon't, bus station which was over populated with what can only be described as drunks and chavs. We felt quite out of place with our violins and cellos and were pleased when the bus arrived for London. Arriving in London we had a Sunday lunch of Maccy D's before hopping onto the train for Teddington, where we were to stay with Sam's nan (rock n roll eh) and her partner. She'd left us a lovely cake and we all sat and played cards at the dining room table and read our paperback novels until she and Jeff arrived. For the second night in a row we had pizza for dinner,then went and watched The Dark Night, the truly wicked new batman film, and then soon after crashed into bed with bellies full of 7up and popcorn.
The next day we split up and Lewis and I ran off to Brick Lane for record purchasing and a bit of shopping in beyond retro etc, whilst Sam and Reuben spent the day busking around Teddington and lugging around everything we needed for the show that night at the Macbeth. We all met up later in the day and hauled all our stuff on and off the tube, at rush hour. At our change on the way to Hoxton the train was actually so rammed that we couldn't possibly fit on there, especially with the cello. As we were discussing this on the platform the train left, we turned around to include Lewis in the conversation and to our surprise and amusement saw the hilarious sight of half of my cello stuck between the tube doors, with Lewis's terrified face staring through the window. Seconds later the doors were forced open, train in motion, by two pairs of strong hands and a couple of men inside the carriage hauled Lewis and the cello fully into the train. Luckily, no damage was caused! From this moment Lewis appears to be on a string of shame...
We played the show, having pizza for dinner for the third night in a row, at The Macbeth, upon being greeted by Alex our lovely promoter we were informed that "you're all 21 from now on" because it seemed he would be getting a good bollocking for booking a group of "tweenagers" as he has dubbed us! The lovely Jeremy Warmsley came down to the show to watch us, and everything seemed to go quite well despite a few hiccups. However the battery went in Lewis's guitar at the end of the set, just before our last song, and the monitors were going crazy with the feedback, so we resorted to playing The Ground Will Take Us Down minus guitar, which apparently sounded better! Something I'm not sure Lewis was too pleased to hear, but the rest of us found rather amusing. The rest of the evening was spent getting increasingly drunk, watchingn the wonderful Jonquil who we all adore more every time we see them, and selling no merchandise. After the show finished and the venue closed, we all departed with Alex and Lewis was drunkenly proclaiming something about being a "pope fock hero" (folk pop hero?).

Third night in London, it's now the 5th and we are all a bit bored and keen to move on to Cambridge. All I have listened to for the past three days is Xiu Xiu and despite being really keen to buy Fabulous Muscles Lewis has forbidden me to own anything until he does, which i fear may be a long time. Whilst having this debate in Rough Trade East we notice that Eugene McGuinness and Noah and the Whale are doing an in store this evening. So we are quite relieved to have something to do than sit in and watch TV with Sams granny, as lovely as she is, and decide that's what we'll do this evening. Lewis spends the day recording demos in Jeremys bathroom, and Sam and I drag Reuben around Brick Lane to get him some much needed new clothes, then the boys head off to the Imperial War Museum and I meet Lewis for dinner at MacDonalds. Yummy! Despite good intentions none of us catch Eugene, Lewis and I wasted a lot of time in a cafe round the corner drinking and I think the boys were just engrossed at the museum. But we all made it down for Noah and the Whale, who I'm rather keen on, and their set was quite pleasant, found a few of their lyrics rather hammy but definitely of the feel-good stuff which is easy to enjoyably tap your foot to.

If anyone actually reads this and stumbles upon it.

2008-07-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

We are now booking a short tour for the end of october/first day of november.

The dates are
26th oct.
27th
28th
29th
30th
31st
1st nov

It's in support of our debut 7". Promoters. Get replying!

Black Kids were gaaaaaaaaaaaash live.

2008-07-08T09:01:00.001-07:00

Foals were pretty good. The Koko is full of wankers.

JoeyMahone is awesome.

I am done in.

Flight of the Conchords this evening.

Hello everyone.

2008-07-07T04:23:00.000-07:00

I'm about to leave to go to London to watch Foals & Black Kids. I like Balloons and that Black Kids single so it should be fun. Staying with our good friend Joey who kindly put the band up when we watched Final Fantasy *drools*.

Promoters: We're touring 26th Oct-1st Nov for out debut 7" single. RAD!

I think the 26th is gonna be our Hereford partay show but none of the other dates are taken yet. Get in quick!

In other news I am listening to Dananananananananananananakroyd. The new This Town Needs Guns song is rad ("chinchilla").
Listen to Pengilly's. www.myspace.com/thisispengillys
I am a coffee fiend.
I borrow my sisters boyfriends clothes and I make a mean tiger bread sandwich.
I have two new songs and I have recently gone slightly insane.

London calls!

We've just been confirmed for This Aint No Picnic 2008

2008-07-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

Radical!
There's some amazing bands playing like Copy Haho, Future of the Left, This Town Needs Guns, Cats In Paris etc etc and then us weirdly enough.
Fingers crossed 7"'s should have arrived by the time we play this so it could be the first show we have nice shiny vinyl's to sell.

In other news I'm massively into Tv On The Radio at the moment. And I'm having a big emo spree on the internet, Mewithoutyou, Brand New, Bayonets. It's all good!

Tomorrow we go to London.

2008-06-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

We're performing on Jeremy Warmsley's television program along with Adem, Jeremy and Elysian Quartet.
That'll be online at some point very soon in the future.
Exciting!

We're playing End Of The Road.

2008-06-25T09:07:00.001-07:00

Huzzah!

Underground Festival.

2008-05-27T04:23:00.000-07:00

So we just played at the Underground Festival, it was awesome! We saw loads of amazing bands like Grammatics, The Sugars, Johnny Foreigner, Pencil Toes, Wave Machines, Bayonets, IWACS, iForward Russia! and Kites (awesome band who Sam and Reuben play with). It was great seeing our friends on stage playing some fantastic music. Our set went really really well and it was lovely playing to our friends and family in Hereford again.

playing upstairs at the jailhouse

kites!

and here's some awful gossamer-style dancing!!!

Sorry. Geena x

A brief summary of the last few days.

2008-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Alright everyone.
We played up in Manchester the other night. It was ace, matthew the promoter was exceptionally lovely and has asked us back for our august tour and he treated us in a most caring manner.

Here's what we've been listening to the last few days.

Death Cab For Cutie- Narrow Stairs
The Books- Lost and Safe
Cat Power- You Are Free (A Geena favourite)
Beirut- Gulag Orkestar
Hot Hot Heat- Make Up The Breakdown

and we listened to a kick ass mix I made for Geena.

We've also got a few more dates booked for August which is ace. I'll post who they're with once we've got more dates sorted. See you all soon.

Lewis

News.

2008-05-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Right then.
We recorded down in Bristol with local metalhead and leader of drum n bass duo Jonquil. It went really well. We recorded it all in his and his housemates bedroom. We have clapping, double bass, accordian, cello, violin, guitar, vocals, SHAKERS!, glock and organ on the new recordings. Hopefully you'll be able to hear it all and it will make you smile. We're looking to relase these songs as a 7" because I'm a music nerd and love 7"'s. LOL.
Anyway I posted this blog on our myspace about it. I'm just gonna copy and paste it cos I'm lazy.

hello everyone.
We've just done some recording down in Bristol with Hugo of doom/noise outfit Jonquil. The recordings sound v v sweet and we're looking for a label to put them out in (fingers crossed) a 7inch format. If you can help with this that would be amazing or if you know anyone that would potentially be interested send em our way and we'll see if we can work something out.

As for touring we gonna do about 10 days at the start of august and then maybe some more in september to coincide hopefully with a new record! and we might do some recording late in the summer with Jeremy Warmsley but that's a long way off being sorted at the moment. So if any promoters are reading this and wanna put us on around that time get in touch and we'll sort details out. We're monstrous live. Scary masks, head banging, profanities, nakedness. It's all there.

Think that's it.
Bye!
lewis

In other news, Reuben passed his grade 8 with a merit (congratulations!), Geena is gonna take her grade 8 (she's already good enough to play it all, she just needs the piece of paper saying she can), Sam is continuing to buy lots of clothes, they're all revising for their as levels, I'm gonna have a job soon and I listen to too much Death Cab For Cutie.

Bye bye!
lewis
x

RECORDING POSTPONED

2008-02-10T01:44:00.000-08:00

This sucks quite a bit obviously as we'd been practicing incessantly in an effort to get up to scratch but not to worry. Hopefully we'll do something soonish with Hugo down in Oxford. This also means that Sam is now ready to play live on 3 songs. The dates we do through March are to break him in so anybody that wants to come and heckle Sam and see if you can put him off, feel free. We'll be playing new stuff and be the tightest and best we've ever been. Dates are below in another post somewhere. VVVVVVVVVVV

Meet Me In St. Louis have split up.

2008-02-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

This makes me sad. I loved Variations On Swing and their EP.

Check out this video. It's immense.

February & March Shows.

2008-02-05T02:58:00.000-08:00

Hello

We're gonna be playing some shows in February & March mainly to break our new violinist into playing live but also because we're playing with some utterly fantastic bands.

The dates are:

February 24th- Hereford @ The Jailhouse w/ Grammatics & Pencil Toes
8th March- London @ Notting Hill Arts Club w/John and Jehn
10th March- Leeds @ Brudenell Social Club w/Casiotone For The Painfully Alone & Held By Hands
20th March- Hereford @ Watercress Harry's w/Brandon Steep
23rd March- Oxford @ TBC w/Jonquil & House of Brothers
26th March- Ashford @ Downtown Diner w/ Jonquil

I think that's it. We're recording very soon. Just getting ready for that at the moment and we're looking at what we're gonna release next, who with and in which format. It's all very exciting.

Also, it's my brothers birthday on the 24th Feb, the Grammatics gig. He's 11 and totally awesome.

He's on the end sat next to me.

Thisisabitlatebut

2008-01-29T01:12:00.000-08:00

we did an interview for thisisfakediy.co.uk

you can read the interview here
http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/8418/Class-Of-2008-Gossamer-Albatross.html

and we're on their podcast here
http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/8140/Download-Class-of-2008-Podcast.html

enjoy! bye now

Recording!

2008-01-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

I spoke with Hugo today, and we're going to be going down to Bristol to record with him in february. We should be recording the boy with the butchers knife and two brand new songs which are yet to be written. I'm not sure in what capacity they will be released but as soon as they are recorded I'll put them up on the internet.
Lewis x

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

2008-01-19T13:50:00.001-08:00

Lewis's favourite film ever. Useless piece of Gossamer information number 1!
Geena likes it too. I presume Sam and Reuben do. Otherwise they're idiots!

Hello, we have a blog now.

2008-01-17T04:28:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna put all our updates on here and tell you semi-interesting things about our days.
We have a new member! His name is Sam, he dresses very well, plays violin and likes Bedouin Soundclash.
Here he is-

Bye!
Lewis