5 posts tagged “channel m”

Yes, its true. We are playing a festival. How very exciting!!

Greenbelt Festival is a Christian music and arts festival - established in 1973 and first held in 1974, now in its 33rd year, and, at the last festival, attracted around 19,000 festival-goers. It starts on Friday 22nd August and goes through to Monday 25th August 2008. It's location - Cheltenham Racecourse, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Hurrah!

Tickets can be found here:

http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/shop/tickets/

We have been booked to play at 19.40pm on the Underground Stage, on Saturday evening. A great slot, I'm sure you'll agree. Headliners include Jose Gonzalez, Seth Lakeman, and Emmanuel Jal, and This Morning Call (in my head, not in reality).

Although I'm mostly excited about seeing my MySpace friends, a band called Elliot Jack, who I really rate, and like me enjoy watching the odd episode of DrWho, so no doubt we'll have a nice chat about that as well.

You can find out more about the festival here: http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/lineup/

You can also check out our new song "The Observatory" at our myspace page here: www.myspace.com/thismorningcall (which our VOX profile refuses to upload for some reason. Those of you with good memories will know I had this problem some months back. But don't let that put you off listening to some new music....just change websites!!)

Here's the press release:

"Following rave reviews from the likes of Channel 4, XFM and Channel M, underground Mancunian pop artists “This Morning Call” bring their melodic yet experimental blend of rock and electronica to Greenbelt 2008. Following on from successful recent one off shows at the London Troubadour, Manchester PRIDE and the Hard Rock café, their off the wall collection of darkly uplifting tunes has been described by some as an experience similar to watching “portishead on anti-depressants”. Ben Heyworth’s soft rock vocals superbly compliment ambient landscapes, the odd glitchy beat and beautiful piano driven ballads, lyrically painting emotional landscapes and giving classic pop sensibilities a kick into the 21^st Century.

Formed in Manchester in 2007, this ongoing studio project turned live band can be compared to the likes of The Postal Service, Elbow, Coldplay and even Goldfrapp with whom they undoubtedly share a maverick streak and capacity to surprise. Indeed, recent recordings have seen them return to their indie roots, producing uptempo guitar driven rock and top ten friendly Mancunian anthems. Undoubtedly ones to watch, catch “This Morning Call” live on the Underground Stage at 19.40pm on Saturday."

Here's a gratuitous picture, I'm doing something strange with my hands again:

Ben Portraits 011

 It was In The City this weekend, and I’ve learnt another valuable lesson about the music industry. It’s very much a people business. It’s all about talking, talking, drinking, and more talking. In fact, people are so desperate to talk that they’ll even hire limos and drive round the city with no particular destination in mind just to have a chat. I was rather surprised to find myself in the back of a limo on Saturday afternoon discussing This Morning Call with some industry folks and a couple of other acts, with the free champagne and the blacked out windows. Just one of the rather bizarre and interesting things to have happened over the weekend.

With the recent death of Tony Wilson, there was a definite sense of a city pulling together this weekend, and it was great to go round and enjoy myself in all the great venues. Not just ITC delegates, but lots of ordinary people and music lovers turned out to support. Also, and quite unusually, there wasn’t any particular act that I thought was grabbing all the attention. It was quite an open playing field, and I think that makes for a much more interesting festival. You don't quite know what's going to happen.

Friday night, I took myself (and my already protesting liver) down to The Enchanted Brave, which takes place upstairs at the Britons Protection pub near the GMEX and is one of my regular haunts. Their ITC showcase did not let me down. Some great music was on offer, all on the acoustic trip, including Gillan Edgar who is a wonderful performer with decent songs, and I also managed to catch a set by Mcr band “The Travelling Band”, who used to be called “The Brothers With Different Mothers”, who play this wonderful mixture of Crosby, Stills and Nash-esq folk tinged pop, stripped down melodic indie and gipsy soul. I liked it. Too many guitars in the band, though. At one point they had three acoustics and one electric and the room only seats 50!

Anyhow, Saturday arrived and involved my inpromptue attendance at an industry seminar that I think was called “Break In The City”. Now I didn’t know until Saturday that this was going on, I literally just turned up, and I must admit to being a bit lax in the demo production department. I arrived with one CD and about 50 flyers in my pocket. Thank God for them. I could have done with about 200 CD’s and 1000 flyers. Next thing I know I’m in the back of this limo with my one CD on the stereo, talking to the fella who books for the secret garden festival and an A+R chappy, who talked a lot, but I’d never heard of the label he apparently works for. The other artist sat next to me said he was a builder from Preston and put his music on and our jaws dropped to the floor, it was that good and so unlikely to have been generated by a builder from Preston. His stuff I could hear on Radio 2 – had a touch of the MOR about it for sure – but I could tell the industry guys were impressed. I gave him a flyer. He gave me his CD. I’ve now got a lot of new CD’s after this weekend. Literally a CD in every pocket. I fell into bed last night and when I woke up this morning, there was a CD right there in bed with me. Ridiculous.

Saturday day flew by. I get some really useful contacts re. synchronisation. Early evening, I hook up with my mate Alex from Gecko and get introduced to some music journos. What a bunch of gobshites. I mean that in a nice way, though. They have to be, its their job. I liked the fact that they had so much to say. I also liked the fact that they put me on the door for stuff. I liked that fact that he seemed interested in This Morning Call. I didn’t like the fact that I’d only brought one CD along and had already given it to the secret garden agent from the limo (…. I really want to play some festivals next year). But hey, I had flyers, so flyers will have to do. We went to the Green Room on Whitworth Street near the Palace Theatre and watched Stuart Avery and his band, who do competent, neat, indie rock, and some fella with an acoustic and a sequencer called Kev. The jurnos immediately took to him, in fact they were raving about him, and I came away thinking that this guy could do very nicely out of this years event. I gave him a flyer. Must remember to look up his surname.

Sunday came along, and it was our gig. Things started to go wrong fairly quickly as I managed to turn up to the wrong rehearsal room for the pre-gig run through and by the time I’d got it all sorted out, we only had about half an hour left. I'm normally so organised. Then the keyboard decided it wasn’t happy and the power kept cutting out. Gaffer tape just about kept it under control. Then we turned up to the venue to discover there was no guitar amp included. Drummer dashes home for gear. Guitar goes through a DI. I get the shakes for 15 mins due to drinking a red bull too quickly. Then we discover that every other band in the building is playing what I call “proper rock”.

Later, we wander onstage in a relaxed fashion doing our downtempo electronics, fat 303 bass drums and singy songs. We just about got through the set unscathed! The band on before us, Parkha, from Glasgow, ripped the place up completely. It was such an inappropriate contrast. My onstage banter included me describing us as "rather Baroque" and having songs "that sound good under duvets". Probably not our finest hour, but hey, happens to the best of them. Having said that, we did an interview for Coke Music and got the film crew down, so if nothing else, that was a success.

Sunday evening arrives. I’d promised to do some reviews for a local e-zine called “Guestlist”, and Sandman Magazine (which publishes out of Sheffield). I go down to see Dodoz, (French punk/new wave/retro thing, very young band, hot female singer who also plays bass, worth checking out) and Swedish for Beginners (leftfield Scandinavian pop, with 2 singers, sounds like The Magic Numbers, rather odd but lovely). Whilst accosting the Dodoz manager for a CD, I meet Saul who says he works in A+R. I say, “oh yes, anybody I might have heard off?” He says, “yes, Nude.” I big up everything under the sun to him, and then another A+R from Chrysalis, who heard me talking to the Nude guy and wanted a piece of the action, came over and wanted a word. I duly gave them both a flyer. I help interview the Dodoz for Coke Music, and then meet the guy who signed Radiohead, who also appears to be involved with Coke although I’m not sure in what capacity. I'd known him from a while back when he came to see one of my old bands in a rehearsal room in London. He’s the sort of guy who just needs to turn up to lend and event an air of credibility. He didn't remember me but told me I was a very nice man, which was lovely, and we had a proper chat. I gave him a flyer too. God damn not having any CDs!! Next thing, Channel M turn up, and say hello. I’ve started accosting people now, because I’m tipsy. So I accost Producer Dan from The City Centre Social, whom I need a DVD of last weeks TV gig. I think to myself, “If there are tumbleweeds blowing through my inbox this week, I may cry.” I resolutely decide to spend at least one evening this week actually making music.

And today I’m so croaky and husky in the voice department that I think I may need to have words with Stephan Hawkins.

Ben

In the city

This Morning Call - Live @ In The City - Manchester's premiere music festival

Date:           21st October 2007

Venue:        Jabez Clegg (Room 2)

On stage:    18:30pm

The Buzz:

"Being inspired by such lovely stuff as Scandinavian pop this Manchester band impressed me with what I would like to call an unique blend of contemporary electronica and just plain old brilliant pop music. A wonderful voice keeps it all together and This Morning Call has already attracted a lot of attention both live and on the internet. Check them out!" Johan Billing, A+R Electric Fantasic Sounds

"always good to see references to the man from a-ha's gonads being crushed and always nice to hear intelligent glitch-laden noises by people who don't want to be the new libertines"

A+R Fierce Panda Records

"my immediate reaction is I do like what you are doing, there is a lot of great detail in the music, Clockworks is obviously a great song and I like Romance ."

A+R Faith and Hope

WINNERS - Channel M/Hard Rock Cafe new bands competition, Sept 2007 - supporting "Ghosts" live on Channel M

The links:

www.myspace.com/thismorningcall

http://thismorningcall.vox.com/profile/

Hope to see you there.

Ben

TMC

Wednesday night - now then, where to start.

Well, we won a competition. Don't worry, I'd be the first person to comment that entering a "battle of the bands" style thing is the short cut to ignomy, and in fact this was rather more than a BotB type affair, as it was launched by local TV channel "Channel M" to find a suitable support band for Atlanta Records new signings "Ghosts" for their Manchester leg of their tour at the Hard Rock Cafe. I didn't do anymore than respond to a link on MySpace with a URL and a comment along the lines of "check this out", and went about my day.

So, I got a call from Channel M fairly soon after, having forgotten all about it, and they informed me that we had been chosen by the band from all the entries and this entitled us to free beer, free food, a big crowd to play to and a lovely evening enjoying the delights of "Ghosts" and the Hard Rock Cafe. All this was to happen on Wednesday just gone. I'm typing this on Friday morning, as I thought a little resume would go down well on here!

Now, I'll point out now that the Hard Rock in my mind is not associated with emerging new talent or supporting the local music scene. To fair play to them, they made us feel very welcome and the beer flowed all night. (Budweiser - not my usual tipple but hey...)

The channel M boys - in particular show anchor Gerry On Yer Telly, and Producer Dan, also made us feel very welcome and filmed a short interview with ourselves, which made us feel rather like popstars, which was strange. The show in question is called "The City Centre Social" and is broadcast three nights a week on Channel M and features local, regional and touring bands that come to Mcr. Basically, its great. And it was particularly great to be included on this occassion. I understand you can watch Channel M via Sky on channel 203 or something.

We decided that, although we only had a few days notice, we'd try and pull out all the stops for the show, and get some dancers and some new songs together, and also put together a 45 min set that showcased all our best songs. I was dressed in my "indie kid" black jeans, skinny black shirt with silver belt and tie, converse trainers of course, and with a couple of beers under my belt, felt ready to take it on - and it was quite an audience - probably between 300 - 400 people were in the venue - not the biggest audience we have played too this year, but a good one and by the end of the set people were dancing and I could see smiles on the faces of regular punters who had enjoyed the tunes. Pleasingly, one of our new tracks "Tides", which we played for the first time, seemed to go down a treat and I think they'll be a real buzz about that track when the recording is finished. We need a slightly tougher, edgier collection and I think this could be the way ahead.

Once all the posturing, meeting, greeting, chatting, and generally getting over excitied had died down, the serious drinking began, and we were lucky enough to spend a bit of time chatting to the boys from "Ghosts" who seemed to really into what we were doing, offered to help as much as they could and were all round generally nice chaps. It was nice to talk to people who were a little further up the industry ladder than us and they told us to be under no illusions about record labels and how tricky it can be if you are not doing the "traditional" indie thing. Come 2am we got kicked out of a very smelly night and day cafe, where we had ended up, and I toddled off to bed, knowing that the next day was going to be hard as I had to be in the office for 9am! Rest assured I soldiered on with the help of Iron Bru and brews!

One thing that I think has come out of Wednesday's efforts is I've been able to measure the general level of excitment about the band in our home town, and I think it's starting to look quite healthy. Obviously, being chosen by Channel M is a great buzz, but over and above that, it great to have so many friends come down to support us, our laywer came down to the gig, our friends from local radio were there, and feel that we can hold the attention of an audience comprised of people who don't know us from adam.

In the space of a week, we've had interest from two labels, done a big gig to loads of people, had a track put on a promotional compilation by a local clubnight for In The City, been asked to provide a tune as part of a film soundtrack, an offer regarding using a tune on a promotional DVD for Trojan condoms (don't ask!), daytime airplay on local radio and requests for demos from an american journalist, sandman magazine and the "we love music" blog (which you can read via our Vox neighbourhood) - basically, it's been a good week. If anybody asks you where the buzz is in Manchester at the moment, well, you can tell them its right here. Get on board.

Links to all this shit will be posted as soon as - watch this space.

best wishes,

Ben

TMC

First TV appearance confirmed! – And here’s the brief press release we’ve sent out….

****Press Release****

New local band “This Morning Call” wins Channel M/City Centre Social/Hard Rock Cafe Competition to support “Ghosts” on UK tour.

Atlanta Records new signings “Ghosts” will be storming the Hard Rock Café as part of their Rocktober month of live music…. supported by new local band “This Morning Call” who beat of serious competition from across the country  to claim the coveted support slot. The gig, and interviews with the both bands, will be broadcast on The City Centre Social on Thursday 11^th October on Channel M (Sky Channel 206)

The gig marks a culmination of a busy year for “This Morning Call” who, despite being together for just over a year, started the year with a low key 12” release on a German independent label, Pearl Diver Records. Subsequently, having set up their own studio in Levenshulme, been remixed by producers based in Toronto, Seattle and Cologne, and enjoyed considerable interest with their strong online presence and current interest from a local indie label. The band have already enjoyed a large amount of support from local community radio with live sets on ALL FM, interviews and guest appearances.

A headlining set for local electronic music festival Futuresonic at the “Audiotorium” event marked a explosive arrival on the live local music scene and the band have played to packed houses across the city, refining their laptop vs. guitar based brand of melodic pop music.

Highlight of the year so far was a performance at Manchester PRIDE in front of an audience in excess of 2000 on the Sackville Park stage, which involved throwing sweats and free CD’s into the crowd. The band found themselves in good company, sharing the stage with the likes of the Whiskey Cats and The Deadbeats.

Ben

TMC