2010 tour

I think it's only fair that after the previous two blog entries, I dedicate a bit of time to the last early-days satan tour: 2010's jaunt around the UK and Europe. It was with Her name is Calla, a band who Sophie was playing violin for at the time, so we decided to join forces and hit the roads of Europe for 3 weeks. It was pretty tough, but we got to see so many nice places, and meet so many good people.

We also toured to promote the release of Heart Monitor, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this March. I think it was kicking around the same time as Arrivals, but we didn't finish it quite in time, so it had to make do with its own non-album single release later. The CDs were great, and we put a lot of effort into those, so if you have one: well done. Keep it safe!

Sophie during soundcheck in Manchester.

Life inside a tin can: the van en route to Glasgow.

Getting the projector sorted in Glasgow. Both bands had visuals I seem to remember.

Holy Trinity Church, Leeds. Used to play here loads.

Setting up at the Church.

Loading into the Lexington, London.

Calla soundchecking, no doubt mid-equipment failure.

The best view of England: leaving it.

Stuk in Leuven, Belgium. A great venue, but as we were late, we never got asked back to play.

Alright Belgium, what you sayin?

Sadly, I don't think this was anything to do with the Irish boyband.

A stop-off in rural France so Calla could play to a competition winner.

That morning's journey after about 2 hours sleep.

The original Heart Monitor CDs.

Setting up in Berlin.

A quick walk in Berlin.

A street with a nice name.

Why yes, this was our accomodation in Berlin, why do you ask?

On the road somewhere in Germany I think.

Loading out into Berlin's venue-du-jour, Schokoladen.

Ah yes, seems like a cracking venue for some emotive electronica. Welcome to Rostock.

Without doubt, Rostock was the scariest venue I've ever played in.

We left Rostock as quick as we could, and went back to Berlin to stay in the Rock n Roll hostel.

And so we had a day off, so we drank and ate.

...then we went to Leipzig, which was beautiful.

The venue changes name every year, apparently. Was 'Paris Syndrom' when we arrived.

Guess what happened to the van on the way to Frankfurt?

Bored, stuck in a field waiting for a mechanic to change the tyre.

Frankfurt was an experience. Got drunk on a boat after this.

A Denovali label showcase in a big power station somewhere. We weren't on the label at that point, so sat this one out.

The power plant was fun though.

Very eerie.

(the next gig was in Duisburg, of which I have no photos, but wasn't the best. We stayed in someone's house who someone else we were supposed to be staying with found online that day. Yeah, wasn't the best)

Back in the UK, the van broke down near Leicester, so we spent the night eating this, and getting a coach home in the morning.

Spokes tour

Following on from that previous blog entry about the MSW tour (who, incidentally, look like they're coming back - or at least doing something, if their Twitter is anything to go by...), I thought I'd do another one for the next big tour we did. This one was about a year or so later, in 2009, to promote Arrivals. It was our first album, so we were quite keen to get out and play as much as possible. We knew Spokes after playing a couple of gigs with them in the past, so were delighted when they asked us to join them on a little jaunt around England again.

Musically we were pretty different, but we got on with them and had a very smashing time. We're still friends now, and although Spokes isn't going anymore, the rhythm section (Matt and Johnny) went on to form Pigs x7, and guitarist Liam went onto form Rainer Veil, so they've done pretty well in the end!

Getting everything ready in the satan front room.

Setting up in Sheffield.

Spent the night here, which was quite nice.

Newcastle. Think we weren't supposed to play here, but did anyway.

What 99% of a tour looks like.

Matt & Johnny are big Toon fans, so we slept under Alan's watchful eye.

Night off, so me and Sophie got hammered and went to party.

Matt (now vocalist for Pigs x7) enjoys a breakfast.

Preston.

Setting up in Preston.

Matt (of Pigs x7 fame) in a fridge, in Leicester.

Newly minted Arrivals promo CDs on a table next to Ricardo Villalobos in Fabric, London.

Last night of the tour in Leeds. Nice mood lighting.

MSW tour

Back in May 2008, we did a tour with fellow post-rockers Maybeshewill. It was only five dates, around some particularly random English towns, but it was good fun anyway. It was our first ever tour, even though we'd been playing pretty regularly up until that point, but we'd never managed to stray too far from Leeds.

Anyway, here's a dive back into the vault for some satan memories:

The satan live setup in Newcastle

The perils of having to park vans in the UK

The Vic Inn, Derby. That's the toilet there on the right, just next to the stage.

 

Jim from MSW discovers Drum n Bass after a gig in Sheffield

Loading in, probably in Leicester

Still getting the hang of this 'violin bow' thing in Leeds.

Me, most probably forgetting to switch a pedal on or something.

John MSW's makeshift pedal board.

Andy (L) and Robin (R) during soundcheck in Leeds.

What backstage actually looks like, Birmingham.

Merch on the table, probably in Sheffield?

The customary end-of-tour picture, Newcastle.

artwork

Just wanted to mention the artwork to Crystalline a little bit.

It's by a friend of mine called Ali Safavi, who I met whilst on tour with Maybeshewill all the way back in 2008. We'd set off on a little 5 date tour around England, and by the time we reached Derby (which had a toilet directly next to the stage, so you had to watch people on the way for a piss whilst playing), the MSW guys had a plan to crash at Ali's house.

So we did, and he was a very lovely chap, and as you do with lovely chaps- we stayed in touch. Years went by, and we'd see him now and again popping up at a gig, or just chatting online, and then he went and moved all the way to South Korea.

We stayed in touch via Instagram, which is where I saw his pictures, and thought how amazing they'd be as an album cover. I spied one of a neon sign, which he took in Tokyo, which was the original cover to the album. The label though, thought that if we didn't know what the sign said, we might be inadvertantly advertising something, or pushing something sinister... but by the time I'd found out that the sign was nothing more than a big billboard saying 'Play Pachinko here!', the label and I got a bit mixed up, and ended up using another one of Ali's shots, of the Tokyo subway train. Not a bad thing though, as that's an awesome photo too.

But anyway, I digress: he's a great guy, and his photos are all absolutely wonderful. Go follow Ali on Insta here: https://www.instagram.com/safvli

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A post shared by Ali (@safvli) on Nov 8, 2019 at 6:03am PST

crystalline

Am not usually one for surprise releases (who am I kidding, I love them), but today sees the release of album number six: Crystalline.

Thought I should write a little bit about it, as it sounds quite different from the usual satan stuff. It started more as a solo record for me, which is why there's quite a lot of guitar on it. The band was actually still a duo when it was finished, and I had no intention of making it anything to do with satan, but when the band became just me, I had to have a re-think about a lot of stuff. It's weird, because it just kind of slowly slipped into being a satan record, as my solo stuff was going more in a solo guitar direction, and this little album didn't really fit that mould anymore. I listened back a few times and figured it sounded a lot like the old satan, ironically when it was just me starting out making EP1 - so I switched it out and decided to call it a worriedaboutsatan album.

Anyway, it's out now on the excellent Greek label Sound In Silence. Just want to say thank you to George at the label for agreeing to release it, to Ali Safavi for the excellent photos for the artwork, and to Sophie Green for the vocals. Oh, fun fact about that - I recorded her singing different notes onto my phone, then took an aux cord out and straight into an Echorec pedal and messed around with the settings in real time as her voice was coming out of the phone. Good, eh?

Anyway (x2), the album's out now and it's here:

Now Playing Jan '20

Every month I pick 15 songs that I really like and compile them into an office stereo type playlist on Spotify. It's been going for a while now, and I rotate it every month, so you don't end up with a billion song playlist. Anyway, January's is up now and contains quite a nice mix of stuff: Icelandic folk, Scottish indie, American Football, a few classics, Tim from Tim & Eric, and loads more. It's here if you'd like a listen, and if you want to follow it/ like it/ heart it, or whatever, that'd be grand.

satan live(s)

As it’s a brand new year (hope you all had a good one btw), I decided it’s about time I got my arse in gear and tried out this whole 'playing live by yourself' thing. It’s been a tough 6 months since the band became just myself, I’m not gonna lie, and at the heart of that was the realisation that the satan live set would never see the light of day again. We prided ourselves on offering something that a lot of live electronica didn’t do much of: energy, volume, atmosphere. We never wanted it to be just 2 dudes hunched over laptops, pressing buttons, so we spent a good 13 years wilding out on stage and trying to make it as interesting as humanely possible. 

Now the band is just me, I’ve obviously had to think again about how to present satan music live - I can’t wild out much, as I’ll have to do both aspects of the band now: the guitar and the electronics. But, over the past few months I’ve been working on a new set, and it’s something that I hope will continue to grow into something a lot bigger and better, but for the moment I’m really happy with where it all is. So, with that in mind, when my buddy Tom from Good Weather For An Airstrike asked where’s best to play in Bradford, I immediately told him to come to Fuse Art Space. So he did, and what’s more, I agreed to come try out this new live set thing to support him. It’ll be a little warm up show, hopefully in preparation for a full UK tour later this year, so if you like seeing me very gingerly push buttons and hit bum notes, please grab a ticket and show some love.

The gig is happening on April 4th (that’s a Saturday, so no excuse!) and it’s at Fuse in Bradford - it’s at the top of town, near North Parade and literally a 5 minute walk from Forster Square station. 

Tickets are available here: https://goodweatherforanairstrike.bandcamp.com/merch/fuse-arts-space-bradford-signal-hill-good-weather-for-an-airstrike-4th-april-2020

See you all there :)