Highway to the dangerzone

useless at keeping these blogs up to date are we. whats been happening? well we returned to Athens in January for what proved to be a great time - great show, amazing people. they made me drink too much and i was a little ill up at the acropolis (shhh) following greece, i have been spending time in the studio with Mat (producer of Repetitions).  we've been working together on some soundtrack music and i felt it would make for an interesting blueneck record.  ie an album inspired by some of the great movie soundtracks that i love (apart from the top gun soundtrack - i love that..but fortunately/unfortunately havent been influenced by it!) - so an instrumental album.....its coming on nicely i think - Rich has recently started adding some ideas which have been really interesting..you should hopefully get to hear it this year i'd think. a 'proper' follow up to repetitions is also well under way. we have demo's of what will make up the entire album and have made a start on the recording process aswell ie guide tracks and inital basic instruments recorded etc. so... 2 very different recordings on the horizon. we'll not be playing live that much this year...but we have started booking a 7 date tour for the beginning of october - we'll be concentrating on france, germany areas -Apologies to those that we'll miss out! we'll concentrate on a much larger area in 2013. 2012 was meant to be a quiet year but for music and non music reasons it looks like that's not the case! Dunk

buzzy eagle

Happy New Year, Christmas, etc etc..basically anything i've missed...
Well...2011 was fun...it also dissapeared before we knew it. We finished and released Repetitions and also embarked on our longest tour to date yet. Once again we met and made new friends, but were also lucky enough to catch up. and hang out with old friends too...its a very privileged position we are in.
Highlights of 2011? Theres too many to mention really - It was great revisiting places such as Dresden, Leipzig and Freising where we met up with old friends, visiting Ukraine was also an amazing expeerience. The people there were so kind and wonderful to us (except the slightly corrupt policeman that wanted to take all of Rich's money for smoking outside - maybe a lesson that smoking truly is bad for you!?). Interesting and beautiful country that i'm sure we'll re-visit at some point.
We also embarked on a short UK tour supporting The Pineapple Thief in December (great band, coming out with a new album in 2012). We dont often play many shows in the Uk, so this was a nice change. Playing as the support band doesnt always mean that many people listen to you, but I must say that the fans of TPT were an amazing bunch of people that gave us a lot of time and respect...we made a lot of new friends on that short tour. good times.
So whats in store for 2012? Well at the moment i'd have to be honest and say that from a blueneck perspective it looks quiet. We have a show in Athens at the end of January...and thats it! We're currently having talks about possible tourdates, but nothing is confirmed as yet...so it could be a REALLY quiet year...coming after a busy year it will seem a little strange i guess. Obviosuly we'll keep you updated on developments if they happen.
On a personal level, i'll be back in the studio from next month onwards working on some new songs which maybe arent destined for blueneck. i'll initially be working with just Mat Sampson which means its going to be a fun time at the very least. This new 'project' will get some kind of release later in the year (album/ep/who knows). We'll set up a new webpage/facebook page to give you updates on the project as soon as theres a name for it (theres currently a stupidly long list of name ideas but feel free to post any ideas on the blueneck facebook page!)
so thats about it for now....really looking forward to seeing some of you in Athens...and MAYBE we'll see some more of you at some point in 2012...otherwise theres always 2013..or 14... :)
laters
dunk

brown bears

hello again campers.
its been a while...or at least it SEEMS that way...a lot has gone on since i last wrote...we were about to embark on what was our longest tour yet...and it already feels like it was an age ago that we came back.the days have tended to blur into one massive crazy memory for me.
First off it was a great tour, full of some amazing experiences...we are so lucky to get to do what we do...thankyou to EVERYONE that came along, helped out, shouted drunken abuse at us (yes...thats you, drunken man in Cadca!!). Theres so many memories that we've come back with from this tour it would be impossible to list them all without boring you. we revisited some amazing places and discovered some equally amazing new places.
Paris was wonderful, Leipzig now feels like a second home, Dresden was as welcoming as ever, Cadca was ...well..cadca ;-) , Kiev was an amazing experience where we made some amazing new friends (and also appeared on morning TV there!! weird), Magdeburg was surreal but ridiculously enjoyable...man...the list goes on...we finished the mainland european tour in a church in bochum which was great and then the whole tour finished off with a hometown show in bristol with our friends Deafhorse and The Pirate Ship Quintet. This was the only show we played with Sandy guest appearing on cello...was a great way to end it all.
Like i said...i could go into depth about each and every show...but i wont...just ask me if you want to know my views on a specific show...i remember them ALL!
Its hard coming home and not playing anymore...but luckily we have some UK dates in December supporting the wonderful Pineapple Thief - these shows should be great...so hopefully we'll see a few of you along at one of those.
We've also now started planning for next year...it looks like late Spring we'll be visiting France, Portugal and Spain...the latter two countries are places we've never been before...so this will be cool...we'll be doing this with another Denovali band alongside us for the whole of the tour... ;-)
Theres also lots of other stuff going on in the pipeline... This week ive been in the studio working with Mat again - we're working on a couple of different projects and its so nice to be back recording again (even though this is NOT blueneck stuff)...the temptation is to just stay there, carry on recording....ive never been one to resist temptation that well...
christmas is nearly here again!!..so i guess we'll be dusting off those old christmas tracks that we've recorded over the previous years and once again offering them to you all as a free download....who knows, if theres time we may well add another this year...i REALLY enjoyed doing white christmas last year, so it would be nice to do another...i already have a couple of ideas on what to do.
like i said...this post/update could go on forever...so im trying to keep it as short as possible....so i'll leave now....oh...you may have noticed a link we put up ...it was for an HBO show promoting an upcoming big boxing match in the USA..it features Pneumothorax towards the end of the show....pretty surreal seeing your music alongside 2 guys beating the shit out of eachother...but it was nonetheless very flattering to be asked for permission to use the music...i have no idea who the boxers are...im told theyre pretty handy....so, er, good luck to you both!
theres probably other stuff i should be writing about...but it doesnt spring to mind just yet....like i said earlier...if you have any specific questions just ask....best place is tfacebook i suppose.
till later
much love
dunk

Tour Update

Hi
So we're less than a week away from starting the European tour on 11th October in Paris. Its been a hard couple of weeks - i'll explain why...
we got a call from the company that we are hiring our van from to say that we were not allowed to take the van into the Ukraine or Romania....basically the insurers would not allow it for whatever reasons they have....so we had to quickly find another company that would let us drive into these countries....most of the companies all said they couldnt do it either , but then one company said they could....all seemed fine....but then we had a call on Monday to say thatthey could not in fact do it after all...so it not only left us with no way to drive into Ukraine and Romania...but also left us with no van at all for the whole tour! stressful times.
To cut a long long LONG story short we have had to cancel 2 of our shows in Ukraine and the show in Romania....we're REALLY gutted that we have had to do this, but honestly there is no other way.....we have cancelled the shows in Lviv and Chernivitsi...but we are still able to play in Kiev as we will be taking a 15 hour train journey to get there...hopefully some of you that were coming to the other Ukraine shows might be able to make it to Kiev.
We are REALLY sorry that this has happened....we will loook into a way of playing Romania soon...I promise.
So its not pleasant news im afraid....we've really tried out bet to make everything work out as best as we can.

We play our first show for nearly a year tomorrow night in Southampton. Its going to be a new experience playing with Chris on drums instead of Johnny...but he has put so much hard work into learning the songs.

We look forward to meeting you all on this tour.....a lot!

We'll also be announcing a few more dates for 2011 very soon...keep an eye of facebook etc....

Thanks for all the support guys...xxx

dunk

update

bonjour etc

just a quick update...

firstly we're aware that blueneck.com is currently being given the tag of being 'potentially dangerous' by google....we've now had the problem fixed, but we're now just waiting for google to unflag us as dangerous criminals that are out to get you all...shouldnt be long.
Theres also a problem with the site in taht we cannot update the store...meaning we cant add the new album or t-shirts in there....we have someone looking into the problem and as soon as its done, the new album and tees will be available to you all. excitement. perhaps.

the other thing is the tour...we've had a frustrating few weeks because a lot of the promoters that have said they will book shows for us are now not replying anymore...so it looks like we're now going to have to cancel those shows and start the tour a bit later as obviosuly there is no time to book a replacement show (unless you'd like blueneck to play in your living room?) - maybe the promoters heard that blueneck are 'potentially dangerous' and got scared? maybe.

so unfortunately the following shows are now no longer on...sorry to those people that had planned in coming along...its REALLY not anything to do with us...its just as sad and frustrating for us ...:(

10/10/11 - Belgium
11/10/11 - Germany
12/10/11 - Germany
29/10/11 - Paris

not the most joyous of updates...but it matches the downright miserable english weather today at least.

laters
dunk

from a great height...

Hey all, Rich here. Thought I'd drop by and say hi...

Thanks to everyone who has spent their hard-earned cash on our new album 'Repetitions'. We're very, very proud of it and we hope you feel like you've got your money's worth. We're getting a lot of positive feedback which we appreciate. Any one of you that creates music will know how much it means to us when we hear that one of you has taken a particular song to heart.

We've been living with some of these songs for over 2 years now (some of you may have heard one or two of them when we were touring The Fallen Host) so it's great to be able to share them with you. One or two of them have been recorded in totally different styles to how we arranged them to begin with, so it's interesting that we now have 'definitive' versions down on record. Only a couple of months ago 'Sawbones' sounded completely different. Only a few months ago we were arguing over tiny details, tracklistings etc etc. It's so nice to be finished and be looking forward to playing live.

Repetitions was always intended to be a very different album to The Fallen Host. Warmer, more tender and less agressive. But it's interesting that when rehearsing, many of the Repetitions songs instantly get harder-edged. The guitar volumes get dialed up in volume, as do the drums. Sawbones, again, is a lot of fun - tribal beats... It even gets Dunk doing an odd dance. Surely that in itself is worth a ticket to one of our shows? :)

With 3 albums worth of material, picking setlists for our October tour is difficult but we're now at the position where we know the songs we're planning to play on most nights. I hope that if you've seen us before then you'll get a few surprises this time round. We've deliberately tried to dust off those songs that, at the end of a show, people have come up to us and give us a friendly telling off for not playing. I'll let you guess what they might be.

One last thing - I'm always interested to hear what fans of the band are listening to. So let us know on our Facebook page. We have a lot of miles to cover in the European tour so we'll try and listen to everything you tell us about.

Here's what I'm loving at the moment... Crosses EP, King Creosote and Jon Hopkins' "Diamond Mine", Jon Hopkins' "Insides", the last Bon Iver album, Bohren & Der Club of Gore's "Black Earth" (everyone knows this is a classic now, right?), the soundtrack to John Carpenter's movie "The Fog" and The Best of Lightnin' Hopkins. Every one a gem.

See you on the road....
Rich x

NAWTY!

So the last time the blog was updated we were still mixing the album....seems like an age ago now...but i guess it was only like 4 weeks ago or something like that.
So where are we now? Well Denovali have started the pre-order prior to it hitting stores on September 23rd, and theyve also made the MP3 version available as of now....
im also aware of a fair few sites that have made it available as a 'naughty' download...
Ive been asked a few times what I think about this....My opinion might be a little different to some others...and thats that I'm not really against these sites sharing the album...it CAN actually help a band out from time to time...a number of people have come up to me at various shows and whilst buying an album from us, they tell me that they indeed have had the album a long time after downloading it for free but are finally getting around to buying the album...i beleive if you fall in love with an album, you eventually want a physical copy of it...and you'll buy it one day or another...possibly....even if you dont, youre likely to go see that band live if they happen to roll into town to play a show. That in itself helps a band to survive...

So whats the band doing now? Well we're now currently rehearsing for the next tour in October. Its tricky as we're having to learn how to best play some of the new tracks live...we're needng to stretch ourselves a bit more this time...which isnt such a bad thing - For instance we've got Oli playing violin aswell as guitar (not at same time mind!), myself whacking additional drums, Ben and Rich swapping instruments and also Oli playing organ too (not at the same time as the violin or guitar)...its a challenge....but actually quite enjoyable i have to say.
The other major thing for rehearsing for this tour is the fact that we no longer have Johnny on drums...he had to unfortunately bow out and take a step back from the commitment of touring with blueneck - it must have been a really hard decision, but he has a young family and his priorities lie there - we miss him a lot - you have to remember that he's been a part of blueneck since the beginning...but I guess these things happen. good luck jonky!
So we now have a new drummer called Chris Copsey who has been working tirelessly to learn a bunch of blueneck songs - things have finally started to gel over the last couple of weeks and we've been able to start adding in more and more songs to the setlist. so welcome aboard chris!
So what can you expect on tour this fall? well we'll be playing a mix of old and new as im sure you'd expect...we've also been working on one older track in particular that we've not played live ;-) - i also see that we're playing with some other great bands aswell along the way...which is always a bonus.
hopefully we'll see some of you along the way...

cheers
dunk