Bands... you have a voice; USE IT!

Why are there so many bands out there today who do not get involved with politics or think it’s ‘uncool’ to have a political voice? When you’re in a band you have a great platform to involve the youth of today with the political situation going on around them. Bands have big influence on impressionable youngsters and can use that influence to drive a great feeling that they have a chance to change the world, therefore you’d see a surge of youngsters running to the polls to make a difference.

What this referendum has showed us is that the youngsters that voted, voted remain. We are a generation that lived next door to Polish kids, went to school with Romanians, played footie with Bulgarians, ate in Greek restaurants. We have lived with, laughed with and fallen in love with people from all walks of life. And when we moved to the polls, we rejected fear. We rejected racism. We rejected Xenophobia!

Today, it’s more important than ever to install hope and desire in to youth culture. We have the power to change the world. If you have a voice, bloody well use it!

Here’s a great article from a few years ago, written by Billy Bragg. He talks about the importance of bands being actively engaged with politics:
http://sabotagetimes.com/…/billy-bragg-interviewed-bands-ne…

At this moment in time we are the most divided we have ever been in any of our lifetimes. The vote has split us pretty much down the middle, there was a campaign of hate against the unknown 'foreigner', England voted out, Scotland voted in, Northern Ireland voted in, London voted in, Boris will be forever in the life's debt of Farage, the old has distanced themselves from the young as out of touch and to have decided our future for us. We have to communicate and come together through music and make our voices heard...

Gentrification continued...

Camden Town… our spiritual home and what used to be our physical home; now laid waste to multi-million quid developments which are sure to house the wealthy and the minuscule percentage that fall in to that weirdly obscure-generalisation of ‘affordable homes’. An unfortunate legacy left-behind by floppy haired, charismatic but utter dangerous former-Mayor Boris Johnson. A situation, that due to time spent building new affordable homes, won’t be solved by the current mayor, Sadiq Khan, for at least another two years.

The famous Hawley Arms isn’t just our favourite joint in Camden Town but was the after shenanigans choice for Billy Bragg, Carl Barat and others last Saturday. It was also the late-great Amy Winehouse’s favourite pub in NW1. The Hawley is still the great venue it always was and our set there at Camden Rocks Festival last Saturday was our favourite show to date; an amazing atmosphere filled with crowd surfers galore… it’s a day we will never forget.

But while we were having our pre-gig cigarettes on the balcony, we were looking over a construction site, which used to be home to the Lock Market and Scar Studios. Scar was a special place to us. We’d spend hours upon hours there… 3, 4 sometimes 5 times a week. It’s where we feel in love with being in a band, learned our craft, wrote songs, learned our instruments, bonded as a band. It wasn’t the cleanest place in the world but it had great character, a great vibe and truly represented the spirit of what Camden is all about. Now what’s left? Years of a construction site, a new railway line, probably Shitfucks coffee… Slavemark?

As a young band with a platform we have an obligation to voice what we feel is right… but you have a voice to so don’t let our beautiful city be made in to a UK-version of Dubai; a place for only the rich and fortunate.

Anyways, to leave you on a brighter note… Camden Rocks Festival was out of this world. Much affection to all that bought tickets and came down to see us, it was an unreal experience! Onward and upwards to Isle of Wight Festival this Sunday (This Feeling/Jack Daniel’s stage, 5pm if you’re there)!!

Peace,

Dan xXx

Picture courtesy of The Zine

It's Gentrification!

Hello... Ciao... Hola... Salut

We've kept you waiting a while... we've been a tad busy over the past few months but we've recently seen an article that we've felt warranted a blog post. This could've been the inspiration for one of our more recently tunes but if you've seen us live over the past couple of months, you'd know we've had it in the bag for a little while.

We have a song where we mention that a monstrosity in Shoreditch, overlooking the station and it's actually called Avant-garde Tower - we couldn't resist name checking that one in the lyrics.

Basically the people building and buying these developments do not care about London, whether it's Shoreditch, Walthamstow, Berwick Street, Soho or Manor House.

The real crime is the number of units bought and left empty while local families struggle to afford/find somewhere to live ‪#‎gentrification 

Avant-Garde Tower is not the one specifically mentioned in the article by the way but as you can see below, it is a fine-looking piece of shit.

Peace xXx

London gigs - on a flyer

Sisteray have a big London gig coming up in week or so (as if you didn't know ;-) and one of the agreements we have with the promoters is that we would get out and about and hand flyers out at a few gigs. So the past week, in between rehearsals, we have been doing just that, the fact that we also managed, by fair means and foul, to actually get into some of these gigs is somewhat of a bonus.

The special guests at our gig @ The Black Heart on December 3rd are The Bulletproof Bomb, they are without doubt, one of the most exciting live bands around at the moment and if there's any other band we would like and expect to break through in 2016 other than ourselves it's TBB, and on Tuesday we all found ourselves around Chalk Farm.
Maximo Park were playing @ The Roundhouse , we couldn't afford tickets or find a nice person to put us on the guest list for this one, so we just went along and handed out flyers to people in the queue,  Some Maximo Park people look like our people, though there were a few looking like they had just come from 'the office' (no offence) and some smiled and politely took flyers from us. From the heady heights and size of The Roundhouse (one day friends) we popped over the road to The Monarch where The Bulletproof Bomb were actually playing, supporting The Scruff Club.

It was free to get in The Monarch as it was a launch event and there was a decent sized crowd. Glad we got to catch opener Veronica Bianqui all the way from LA apparently, who certainly knows how to open eyes and ears and has a stand out tune in 'If Love Is A Gun'. It's a fast catchy tune, deserves a listen and sets up things nicely for The Bulletproof Bomb who are next to take the stage. Before they did we managed to step outside for a beer and good to meet the boys from the band Lighthouse, who will be the opening band at our Camden gig. We're just on the first rung of this rock and roll ladder but it became apparent that things don't change and we shared stories of dodgy record labels and unscrupulous promoters.
The boys from The Bulletproof Bomb took the stage and smashed it with their speedy energetic songs and even with instrument swaps and guitar strings breaking, showed what an infectious bunch they are, it was the first time we had all caught them live together and are pleased that the bar is set high in the quality department for The Black Heart on December, with a great lineup of really charming blokes. Can't wait.!

Wednesday night was a good night for gigs in London but the two that really shone out for us was Reverend And The Makers at Koko and Hidden Charms @ The Lexington. We were torn and as only two of us could come out, we were a bit thin on the ground to cover both and The Lexington is a great venue but you really have to get inside to hand out flyers.
There is a new 'Poll' function on Twitter, has anyone discovered it?
Don't quite know how it even actually works but you can set up a poll between two choices (eats into your 140 characters) - Anyway, we did a poll, The Reverend And The Makers or Hidden Charms and The Reverend sneaked it so it was Mornington Crescent rather than Pentonville Road.

Actually, we're learning a bit about this flyering malarkey, one thing is, handing out flyers to crowds coming out of a gig is generally a lot more difficult. People are buzzing about the gig, snogging their partners in the hope they get invited back for a bit of inbetweeners or rushing for transport. However, get to a gig nice and early, where a few tickets have been sold and there's usually a queue of people who are much more amenable to having something to peruse and chat to us about what's on the flyer. This is the bit we like best. This was Wednesday's plan, though to be honest we did get a little bit waylaid in the pub. It was pointed out, that talking to two young ladies in the pub over one flyer and buying them drinks for half an hour, with 250 flyers in your back pocket while the queue quietly sneaks into the venue, is not the most productive way of tackling our task in hand. Eventually we made it with the full intention of heading up to The Lexington where we thought we had a much better chance of actually blagging into the Hidden Charms gig and hearing some music but there was a buzz on the phone and it was news that Koko had put Sisteray on the guest list for the Rev, so thank you Koke, you made our night.. well, you and the #RevArmy

What a gig! But first a bit of a shout for Franko Fraize who was supporting, came on dressed in a bright yellow kagoule and spoke a few words, could have sworn blind it was Danny Dyer but when the band kicked into the first tune, the crowd got into it instantly, infectious chorus paired with rapid fire lyrics and he nailed it, certainly won over the #Revarmy. A nice surprise and we'll definitely keep an eye out for any other gigs coming up.

Grabbed a few beers before the Reverend took the stage and dipped in and out of albums with the set list, particularly enjoyed new songs Black Widow and Mr. Glassalfempty with it's Bruce Foxton bassline and a classic Heavyweight Champion of the World and that was before they were half way through their set.

The Rev is irrepressible live and has the tunes to back it up, they kept on coming and didn't look like stopping. In fact, they didn't, the plug got pulled. That didn't stop The Reverend though and we all piled outside the venue, as he did an alfresco acoustic encore. It was a special moments, not least because we got to meet some lovely members of the #RevArmy and were able to have a chat and hand out a few more flyers.

Thursday, it was to The Black Heart in Camden . The Jacques were playing and we had a great gig playing there with them the other week (which is how we come be headlining there in two weeks time ourselves) .

On Friday, the weather started to turn, winter is coming people, time for wooly hats. Didn't get out until late, so went up to the Forum in Kentish Town where people were coming out of The Enemy gig @ The Forum and then hot foot down to Camden @ Koko again for The Sherlocks at Club NME. The Sherlocks have had a great year and looks even better for them next year - they've just taken a step up with a new booking agent so no surprise they'll be supporting The Libertines on their UK arena shows, can't deny a few pangs of jealousy when we saw that but hey lads we fancy doing a few shows with you too, so we'll try to get in touch. Their recent single 'Heart Of Gold' was certainly a standout live and for the second time in a week spent a lot of time talking about Sisteray at the Koko bar. Wouldn't have it any other way. So that's last week

This week, there's more rehearsals than flyering as the gig is less than two weeks away but we're definitely going to check out The Vaccines at Brixton, if you're there come and say hello. We have also had a long discussion about Courtney Barnett, who is playing two nights at The Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday, some of us really like her tunes, others not so sure but the main crux of the debate is around whether it is worth us going to hand out flyers and if her audience, might or could be our audience, if you know what we mean - what do you think?

Finally, on Friday, 27th Nov, we will definitely be trying to get ourselves along to The Dexters at The Lexington, looks like it is sold out which is great for the lads. We going to do something special for this one, although we'll no doubt have flyers in our pockets, each band member has got 2 Golden VIP / ace face tickets for our gig to give away, criteria for getting one is, well, obviously we've got to be pretty sure you'll come and make use of the ticket, but also a music fan and someone we think might enhance the overall quality of the night or some other such bullshit, we'll see. One way or another we are going to make 3rd December special. Please join us.

SISTERAY - The Big One in London 3rd December

In September Sisteray played one of our best and buzzin London gigs to date, popping up to play an opening set before those scurrilous upstarts The Jacques at The Black Heart in Camden. It was buzzin' a great venue, smart PA, friendly and on the button sound person, but it's a venue more usually frequented by metal bands than the likes of us.
Anyway, you can imagine how over the moon we were when we were asked back to headline our own night, and it's happening - Thursday December 3rd. It's definitely the venue of the moment - Trampolene headline one month before on Tues Nov 3rd and The Jacques are back there on 19th November.

For us, this gig is a challenge because we have been asked to do everything for the night including choosing the other bands and everything that goes with it. So let's get this right Sisteray, headlining a tip top venue and a venue with history - Our Black Heart (to give it it's proper name) stands on a site that used to be overlooked by Charles Dickens when he lived at his house in Bayham Street and in the 1990's was called The Camden Tup and used as a Camden hideaway by the likes of Blur and other britpopish bands when things got too heated in The Good Mixer. It's been a proper venue since 2014 and has loads of Camden craft beers, a streetfood kitchen and is generally a good place to go.

The first thing we wanted to do was give the night a name and we decided on Welcome To The Monkey House, it's the title of one of the new songs we've recorded and is based on a dystopian tale of individual excess, so suits us nicely (and it has a nice ring to it).

The next thing was choosing who would be sharing the stage with us. We gave our management a 'wish list' and right at the top we put our favourite band of the moment around London and who we've had a bit of banter going on with and we gave a little cheer at our rehearsal when we were told that they had agreed to do it - it's great when a plan comes together. So we can announce that our Special Guests for the night are

THE BULLETPROOF BOMB

The Tbbomb boys are five boys from London, Joel, Mike, Thomas, Robbie and George and if you've not seen them live yet, they're going to set the bar high for us to follow as they give it everything in the energy guitar department. You might have heard one of their singles on the radio and they even got a cheeky look-in on the Radio One playlist and have had a good run at the festivals, playing the likes of Bestival and the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds. We also have another connection in that so far all The Bulletproof Bomb recordings have been produced by Rory Attwell (The Vaccines, Yuck and The Palma Violets)  on 'The Lightship 95' and Rory has been producing the new Sisteray stuff there as well, so it's 'All aboard!'

We caught these lads at a This Feeling night a few months back by chance and their energy/catchy tunes really blew us away! Funnily enough we also met footie fella Peter Crouch, The Rifles and Jack from Trampolene for the first time that night.

We love this Bulletproof Bomb track / vid 'Siege':

At the moment as well as this gig, we also have our sights on getting in the frame to support bigger bands - The Libertines, Reverend And The Makers, Wolf Alice you know we're here.. and HINDS, oh Hinds, we REALLY want to be the support on your tour in February ;-)
Anyway we are trying everything we can to get our music to the boys and girls in these bands to put us in with a chance of getting on the road. So we were a little surprised when we knew our headline gig was happening and it got put in the listings before anyone knew what the rest of the line-up would be, that other bands and artists got in touch wanting to support us (of course we were flattered). Our management and promoters were suggesting bands we should have but one band were particularly persistent without being annoying and we gave them a listen and thought, this is exactly what we are doing, so had a vote and decided to give them a chance. So the opening band on 3rd December will be another bunch of London guitar boys

LIGHTHOUSE

Lighthouse are a bunch of upstarts from London barely out of their school shorts, Peter, Josh, Jamie and Matt. They supported The Rifles at The Electric Ballroom earlier in the year (presumably using the same Yoda mind tricks to get that one as they have us) and to date have released one single. We are pleased to have them opening the show and apparently, in their own words "we are all pretty mental" - we'll see about that ;-)




Here's something from Lighthouse on that Youtube:

We are now in the process of finding a good DJ to complete the night and we have also made sure that advance tickets are only a fiver.
So that's it get yours now ;-) Tickets are available for Sisteray, The Bulletproof Bomb and Lighthouse at The Black Heart on December 3rd and you can get them via clicking HERE for £5 (plus a £1 booking fee).

Playing gigs for a cause

Last week we were lucky enough to get invited to the Circa Waves sold out show at The Brixton Academy in London.
It was funny, managed to blag way into backstage VIP bar and bumped into bass player Sam on the stairs, pointed out that it must have been only a year since me and Niall were moshing down the front of their gig at The Lexington and now here they were headlining Brixton Academy. Circa Waves are definitely a band on our 'want to support' list and they also had a great line up with Clean Cut Kid opening and Rat Boy doing a cracking set in the middle. Since then we've been having a bit of banter with Clean Cut Kid on Twitter, very funny in typical scouse fashion.

For us the live shows Sisteray are playing are the best and most important thing at the moment, especially when we see more people at gigs and the same people keep coming back for more. This blog is our Road To Reading (2016) but if don't cut the mustard when we get there then it would all be a waste of time now, wouldn't it?

Away from the heights of The Brixton Academy, I'd like to tell you a story before I get to the point of this post and also to say our last couple of gigs (and next one) have been for charity or good cause events and everyone has been an absolute joy to play and work with and the gigs themselves have been mental. Anyway, back to the story....
A few weeks ago we played a 'named' club in London. The promoter/venue contacted us (not the other way round) - "we'd love Sisteray to play our club night". It fitted into our schedule (we like to keep a bit of space between London gigs) and immediately we checked we were all free and said 'yes'. To be honest, when you're a band in our position, trying to build an audience and get attention, if a gig seems right we'll do it, what we might get paid is down to the nature of the promoter. Anyways, once 'the deal' came through a couple of weeks later, it said we were part of a four band line-up and the financial deal was, it was a fiver to get in and we were informed that for everyone who came in specifically to see us over 30 people (to cover costs) - we would be paid a quid per person.

So we played this thing (quite a good gig from our point of view) and when push came to shove and time to settle at the end of the evening, the person looking after things had it all scribbled down - 44 people who came through the door were sober enough (we were on late) or could be bothered to say they had come to see us, 28 had come to see one of the other bands (so they got nothing for their trouble at the end of the evening) and one of the other bands were having a dispute about whether they had brought in 25 or 34 people (don't know the details). Now what usually happens is, after a gig (if you remember, or if our manager's there) you go and 'settle up' - so on this occasion they had our £14 waiting for us... a tenner and four pound coins for your trouble.
Remember - band one had 28 people - band two (let's go on their minimum = 26) and us 44 - makes a grand total of money taken on door (to cover expenses ) £490 - the fact that there's a BAR there and loads of people are buying drinks seems more often than not, to get lost in these equations. So the band trying to make a case for having brought 34 and get paid £4 against the promoter's rep who was insisting that they weren't due £4 - they made the proposal that as in that particular venue four quid wouldn't buy them a pint - perhaps they could have vouchers or something similar for a pint, or perish the thought two, instead - not going to finish the story you can use your moral compass to work out your own ending - it can't be more ridiculous than the truth!

Dan / Mike @ Hope Fest

Sisteray's main priority at the moment is to secure a good booking agent and promoter who will hopefully make things like this just that little bit easier. Roll on December 3rd @ The Black Heart, Camden. Anyway, you might be surprised to hear the point of this post is a positive one and to say on the other side of the coin, what a pleasure it has been to do the kind of gigs we have been doing recently which have been charity or 'cause' based, including the gig for Oxjam coming up on Saturday. Whereas you sometimes you feel as if you are doing a promoter a favour on normal gigs, some of which are virtually pay to play in disguise, when people are organising a gig for a good cause, they tend to have much more respect for the bands - not sure that we're even looking for respect but it's nice to get it. We played Hope Fest in Liverpool, where the whole event was geared up to helping Liverpool's homeless, Anna and the team running it were amazing, looked after us, gave us something to eat, a few beers, there was an up for it crowd, great reaction and we even got a thank you at the end.

Then a couple of weeks ago, we heard about the We Shall Overcome weekend - a weekend of live music and anti austerity events. We wanted to get involved as anyone knows us it's an issue close to our hearts so we asked the promoter of our gig that weekend and We Shall Overcome if we could be part of it, thank you very much. And you know what, it made the whole thing a much better experience - next year we will definitely be getting behind a planned We Shall Overcome and big shout out to the people behind it, you could feel the strength of feeling and involvement leading up to it.

And Saturday (17th Oct) Sisteray are proud to be part of Oxjam Islington again (we played last year and it was a blast), events going off all over the country for a very good cause indeed. Again, the build up is great, everyone getting along and the only expectations will be, everyone pulling together for a good cause, while we can still create malarky, palaver and mayhem at our gig - it's at The Library Bar on Upper Street in Islington by the way. We're on at 9.30pm and no doubt we'll knocking about round the other gigs during the day, especially The Hope And Anchor before ours. There's been a great reaction to our first mix of 'A Wise Man Said' so here's a chance to come and sing along.

RECORDING - SISTERAY - Getting on the right track

We are going to let you have a listen to an early version / mix of a recording of one of our new songs. It might be a good idea to shed a bit of light on the recording process and for anyone reading this, we thought we might include the #Sisterymob and give you a sneak preview of what we have been doing.

When we sat down and took stock of where we were and scribbled our wish list for the coming months on the back of an old set list, we all agreed that the minimum requirement was to make sure we reached a position where we would be offered a slot at Reading / Leeds Festival in 2016.
The live gigs have been rocking, we're rehearsing more and more importantly people are coming to see us and the new songs are going down really well but to let the wider world know that Sisteray are coming, we knew that we would have to be spot on with how they were recorded.

This brings in the idea of a 'producer' - what does a producer do, we asked. Well it's true, left to our own devices in the studio we might get lost in the piles of kit and possibilities, so we all said what current tunes and sounds we liked and find out if and which producers were involved. We came up with a few names but Rory Atwell and his Bratwell Recordings really stood out, not least because he has also produced The Vaccines, Palma Violets and The Bulletproof Bomb, another exciting new band who's tunes and recordings we really like.
We didn't want the sound to be too clean as the tunes we were ready to record were a bit more punky and punchy than usual and Rory ticked all the right boxes - he made his name as a member of Test Icicles and a couple of their tracks got in the Top 40. We particularly like the way he has used his name as an acronym RORY = Result Of Reckless Youth.

Anyway, we had feedback from a few producers but it was obvious that Rory was our boy and we arranged a couple of days to go and record with him at Lightship95 recording studio - who would have known? der.. it is ACTUALLY a studio on a boat, a lightship in fact, docked in an arts complex in East London opposite the dome/O2 Arena - you record songs and look out of a port hole at the O2 and imagine one day we might be playing these songs there, pretty inspiring really…

So he had an idea of our sound and songs, we had been sending Rory recordings from gigs and when it came to the recording we focused on four which we felt we could nail and produce something sounding special. Whether it was the boat wobbling on the Thames or just the general quivering excitement, the ideas and music flowed and Rory made sure the tunes were done some justice. It's interesting that live, we are definitely going for a more stripped down punk sound but in the studio we were able to get any ideas recorded to help Rory create the magic dust when the tracks were mixed.

To quickly spell it out, for those that don't know exactly what happens when you commit songs to tape - well the first thing is, for us like many new bands, actual 'tape' doesn't come into the equation, in the same way that in the olden days they used to put film into cameras but now it's all digital, the same goes for recording music - you play and it turns up on the computer. Anyway, once all the instruments and voices have been recorded, the next stage is called 'mixing'. In this case, producer Rory would listen to everything we had recorded for each song and get the balance right. 

Now, where we are at the moment is, that there is a bit of a delay between us having finished the recording and getting the mixes right and this is where you can come in if you want - fancy a listen? We have what we are calling the first mixes or version one of the tracks and we thought we'd get one out there. The track is called 'A Wise Man Said' - this may not be the final mix, we've made our comments so are going to get another version to listen to but in the meantime, you can listen to and download the track here:

We are going to send a link to everyone on our mailing list or if you want us to send you an MP3 directly then email us @ sisteraymusicldn@gmail.com with the subject line 'A Wise Man Said' and we'll get something to you.