Hands up!

Who wants to see a really, really stupid picture of Anil and I in a field?!

Well, there you have it...that was probably the most unproductive, spur-of-the-moment photo session that has ever occured. This photo reminds me of the sort of promo shots you used to see in those American, So-Cal pop punk band albums about ten years ago. You know the stuff, the silly stuff we always used to listen to like Blink 182 (that's pronounced one eighty two, true fans ;-) ) and pre-Idiot Green Day.

ANYWAY this post is not really up just to show you an embarrassing, yet somewhat amusing, photograph. Anil and I are pleased to announce a new permanent addition to the Arcady Bliss line-up in the form of one bassist, a bassist to rule them all, Pete Snowdon. He's what David Cameron would probably call a "bloody nice bloke".


We're really happy to have Pete on board and look forward to all of the gigs and festivals we'll be doing with him this summer. Check out the Arcady Bliss Myspace page now for details of all our upcoming shows. The first show will be this Friday the 14th of May at The Great Escape festival in Brighton. We're playing early at half past midday in The Basement on Kensington Street. So, if you're around, come down and kick out the jams with us and welcome Pete into the Arcady fold!

Until then, you stay classy, San Diego.

Charlie
xxx

P.S. It's not my hat in case you were wondering.

Hands up!

Films Of Colour

I went to go and see our friends, Films Of Colour play at The Stoke in Guildford last night along with our other mates, the utterly exuberant Free Peace.

Both bands were incredible and I had a lovely time - it was a last minute decision to go because I'd completely forgotten the gig was on until a couple of hours before. Anyway, it reminded me that I'd done a cover of the Films Of Colour (then known as Spires) song "Circles"at the back end of 2008. It was really hastily put together, but I think it's got a nice feel so I thought I'd share it with you again. Let me know what you think :-)



Also, we're having a bit of a chat with the FOC boys to see about doing a wee northern tour later this year. Stay tuned for developments!

Lots of love,
Charlie
xxx

Films Of Colour

An Open Letter

Dear Blog Reader,
Now then, how do, whassup? I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for my lack of regular blogging and just general info regarding the goings-on of the seemingly erratic band that is Arcady Bliss. In short, I found the tail end of last year quite difficult because we just couldn't seem to get our proper momentum back after Jake left, despite doing some other cool things that I've mentioned on the blog before e.g. playing at the Indig02, doing the Yamaha podcast, recording Surround and other such tomfoolery. I think it was mostly because we had to turn down lots of gig offers because we simply couldn't do them - we didn't have a full band. We still don't, which brings me to my next bit of news...

Ben, our original bassist and my best friend, is leaving the Arcady fold in order to pursue his other musical and creative projects. It's an amicable and not unforeseen turn of events and, of course, we wish him all the best with his future endeavours. He will, I hope, still be involved in some Arcady things in the future, most likely using his video-graphic skills to get Arcady TV finally up and running.

Thankfully, we are remarkably fortunate to have great friends at hand who have come to our aid in our hour of need. The diligent talent that is Adam Millest has taken up stick duties for the forseeable future and so far we're having a blast playing with him. In addition to this, he's slowly but surely confirming our long-held suspicions that he might just be The Nicest Guy In The World™. We've got some ideas in the pipeline for a possible full-time bassist replacement but if you think you can help or would like to try out, please contact me here: chelwess@gmail.com

We're doing a gig in Guildford tomorrow (14/01/2010) at The Star, just at the bottom end of the high street. So please come along and support us. All being well we'll have our great mate Naz Adamson (check out his re-arrangements on his website by the way because they're superlative) holding up the bottom end of the sonic spectrum for this gig so you can rest assured it's gonna be a blinder.

That's great, I hear you say, but what's going on with that EP of yours? Well, I'm glad you asked. We've decided after much dillying, and indeed dallying, that we're gonna try and do it ourselves. We'll be laying the drums down in the next couple of weeks and then the rest of the tracking and mixing will be done at my house. We then plan to get it all mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. As for a release date, well, we'll keep you posted.

More gigs coming your way soon and later this year - we're in the process of confirming a really good slot at the small but perfectly formed Aeon Festival this summer and we've got another gig at The Hobgoblin in Staines in the works for Valentines day. There's more to come as well, trust me :-)

I hope that's cleared a few things up and whetted your appetite for an Arcady Bliss shaped 2010.

To end, as ever, I've got a little video for you. It's of me old mate George Craig from One Night Only strutting his stuff for Burberry last year in Milan of all places! Now I confess I haven't seen him in a bloody long time, but it's weird to think that just a few years ago he was lying on the floor of the stage at The Junction pub in York keeping my old band's bass drum from sliding along the floor because we'd forgotten our drum mat - silly old times! As you can see he's gone a long way since those halcyon days in York and Helmsley and it's always a pleasure to see people you know doing well. Hurrah for commerce!

It's just crazy, innit?! :-)

Yours, til next time,

Charlie
xxx

An Open Letter

HAPPY NEW YEAR

To see in 2010 we thought we'd let you have this new track Surround exclusively (for now) on Arcady Blog.

Also don't forget to come and see us at our next gig at The Hobgoblin in Staines on Sunday, January 10th!

Surround by ArcadyBliss

Give it listen, download, share it and let us know your thoughts.

Here's to a mesmerising 2010 :-)

Lots of love,

Charlie, Anil and Ben.
Arcady Bliss xxx

HAPPY NEW YEAR

After the freshness...

Well Well! Last night was an amazing one, full of good times and Kopparberg! The cider was my fault, but the Boileroom gig was fantastic, and quite a good turn out as well for a tuesday night! 'Fear the Silence' the newest one, was well received, finishing off the set with Charlie now attacking his Telecaster a little more often! Loud, very loud.

Thanks to all that came to see us last night, especially as we were first on it was nice to see such a big friendly crowd smiling back at us from beyond the ridiculously hot lights. The people lucky enough to sign the mailing list should be enjoying our little 3 track right about now, so if you unfortunately missed it you can sign up on our widget and we'll see the tracks are mailed to you sharpish

Have fun!

Ben

After the freshness...

Tomorrow sees

the first Arcady band practice in what seems an infeasibly long time. We're going to be working on a couple of new songs that I hope we'll play at the Freshers gig at The Boileroom, Guildford on Tuesday the 15th of September. I can reveal that the current titles for these are "A Moment In Love" and "Fear The Silence". I'm not sure about the title for the second, I think we may change it to something a little prettier :-) Anyway, I hope lots of you readers can make it down to that gig. There will definitely be a little more electricity.

Arcady aside, some of you may have noticed on Twitter and Facebook that I'm becoming increasingly obsessed with John Martyn's album, "Solid Air". Like Mary Poppins it's practically perfect in every way. So please find below a live performance of one of my favourite tracks from the album along with the beautiful, understated lyrics.





John Martyn - May You Never

And may you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold
May you never make your bed out in the cold.

You're just like a great strong brother of mine
You know that I love you true
And you never talk dirty behind my back
And I know that there's those that do.

Oh please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind
Love is a lesson to learn in our time
Now please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind for me.

And may you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold
May you never make your bed out in the cold.

Well you're just like a good close sister to me
You know that I love you true
And you hold no blade to stab me in the back
And I know that there's some that do.

Oh please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind
Love is a lesson to learn in our time
And please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind for me.

May you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold
May you never make your bed out in the cold.

You're just like a great strong brother of mine
And you know that I love you true
And you never talk dirty behind my back
And I know that there's those that do.

Oh please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind
Love is a lesson to learn in our time
And please won't you, please won't you
Bear it in mind for me.

May you never lose your temper
If you get in a bar room fight
May you never lose your woman overnight
May you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold
May you never make your bed out in the cold.

May you never lose your temper
If you get in a bar room fight
May you never lose your woman over night
May you never lose your woman over night
May you never lose your woman over night.



Love to you all,
Charlie.

Tomorrow sees

Loads and loads...

...and loads of stuff. Well, ok maybe not LOADS but I'm doing my absolute best to put off doing boring, pointless coursework for as long as possible so I'm gonna write about a few things. Here goes...

1.) Arcady Stuff

We did a couple of full band gigs last week and one solo show which was really cool, plus we met and hung out with some nice people which was even better. Neither were particularly well attended, but folks at each gig who'd never heard us before had wee natters with us about how much they dug our set so it was totally worth it. I don't care if we ever do gigs to two people in the future, so long as at least one of them leaves a bit better off for the experience then that's our job done...and if they end up coming to another gig and buying some of our future wares then so much the better!lol

So yeah, those were the last gigs for a while as we're taking some time out to finish up some new songs and make some of the old ones a little bit better...cutting off the fat as it were. I also plan to steal my telecaster back from Anil and start playing it live. This, Bliss fans, means that I plan for our sound to get a little heftier and I'll be able to fully rock out the way I want to.

Here's a picture of me playing solo at Field Recordings night at The Enterprise in Chalk Farm last Tuesday, kindly taken by Brad @ UBPICS

We're going to record our first EP in September, that's the main reason we're taking some time off. As well as this Jake is really busy with his dissertation and other commitments and Ben is keeping occupied with his other band, but more of them later. I want to concentrate on doing some other songwriting too for non-Arcady projects which I may tell you about in the future, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes ey?

If you, or anyone you know puts on gigs in London and the South please get in touch with us as we want to start booking a load for early next year when we'll be releasing the EP and also for this Autumn and Winter. Just as importantly we're also looking for a hip young artist to collaborate with us on our visuals, primarily on artwork for the EP, our MySpace and website. Sort of like a 5th member I guess...the Stanley Donwood to our Radiohead. Please get in touch with me at chelwess@gmail.com if you can help.

Thanks again to everyone who's supported us so far this year. Please keep spreading the word, keeping in touch and being as lovely as you all invariably are. We couldn't keep doing this all without you, and your continued support means more to us than we could ever put into words. You know who you are :-)

2) Other Bands I Want To Plug

Those of you who know me, know I'm a total music obsessive and I love nothing more than discovering bands old and new and shouting about them. So here are a few I'd like to share with you:

Cubrik
Shouty, frenetic God-damn-fucking-amazing live band from round our way. Tom, the lead singer/guitarist is not only ridiculously talented but also a very nice fella.

Deadlight
Ben's other band (we saw him first though!) who are rising so fast they're almost a blur. The songs are epic Rage-y, Linkin Park-y, Incubus-with-a-sprinkle-of-je-ne-sais-quoi-y goodness. They may be our mates, but I wouldn't put them up here unless I thought they really were the dogs bollocks. They are.

Los
These lot played with Deadlight last Saturday in Epsom and absolutely blew me away. Effortlessly cool indie/grunge (though don't let that put you off)/bluesy alt. rock. I can't really describe the adequately enough in words or how much I dig them. Put it this way - I'll be out and about wearing their t-shirt as soon as it arrives through my door. Oh and I got a setlist off of Chris their guitarist after they finished. Fanboy? Pffft...well, yeah, actually.

8Fold
Funky, crazily fun "Gyp-hop" straight outta London. I saw these guys live at Beach Break Live and they were just one of the tightest, most entertaining bands we've seen in a long time. Their debut album, "Poet's Cottage" is out now on iTunes and it's just great. Do yourself a lemon and get it, yeah?

Checking Pulse
Another set of my mates, but again, I wouldn't post them if they weren't worthy. They make un-ashamedly catchy, commercial electro punk-pop and once they really get out there on tour the kids are gonna freakin' love it. Ooh, I'm a sucker for disco high-hats!


Johnny Foreigner
I realise they're already fairly well known and whatnot but I have to plug them just because their music make me feel that good. Also, they've just released a free (well, for the price of an email address) EP entitled "Feels Like Summer" from their website. Go get it now and worship at the altar of JoFo. It's here that I'd also like to declare my undying lust for their bassist, Kelly...I doubt she'll ever read this so I guess it's all good :-s

Right, procrastination and vomit-inducing gushing over. I'm hitting the sack.

Love and that.
Charlie.

Loads and loads...