Apologies for the bad news in such a festive time of year but we've already let it slip at our recent shows and thought we'd better inform you of what's going on.
From the end of February 2012 the band once known as Cats and Cats and Cats will be coming to an end. It's with heavy hearts we say this but they're also happy hearts as they're full of great memories and fondness for both each other and the people who've helped us over the years. Of which there have been so many we're going to fill a whole blog with thank you messages to all the people we can remember that we owe so much to. If you ever want to be reminded of how generous and wonderful people can be I urge you to start a band, you'll soon realise that all over the world people are willing to let you sleep on their floor, cook you delicious fry ups, drive you around, put you on in their town, produce incredible artwork and much more. I'll bet if you're reading this then you've probably helped us out, even if it's by telling your friends about us. So we send our thanks out to you too.
The reasons behind the break up are entirely amicable, for years the band has been our main priority but at some point other things were bound to get in the way and all of the band members have big plans that have edged their way into contention. Ben's plan of moving to Japan at the end of February means that the band will no longer be a possibility.
We're really sorry to anyone who just got into the band and wanted to see us live, or for us to make them more music (we do have a fairly extensive back catalogue you can explore). Fortunately we're leaving a whole host of amazing bands behind in a never stagnant UK scene which we have loved being a part of. If you ever need any recommendations please get in touch as we always enjoy talking about music. We'll also have some new projects we'll be shouting about before long so don't get too sad.
We'll follow up this blog in the new year with some more soppy literature and about a million well deserved thank yous. Also a big farewell show will be announced soon.
We've been Cats and Cats and Cats, and it's been fantastic.
Ben, Doug, Tom and Jamie xxxx
Friday 23 December 2011
Sunday 16 October 2011
Dunne!
Alright toadfish, we've finished!
It was a choppy slog but we've got 11 songs recorded and ready to put at you!
We're most pleased with what's come together and hope you enjoy it. It'll be available on our bandcamp at www.functionrecords.bandcamp.com from tomorrow.
We're all off to brush the teeth, drink the Cava, eat the curry, and wake the Doug.
In your face chandelier.
It was a choppy slog but we've got 11 songs recorded and ready to put at you!
We're most pleased with what's come together and hope you enjoy it. It'll be available on our bandcamp at www.functionrecords.bandcamp.com from tomorrow.
We're all off to brush the teeth, drink the Cava, eat the curry, and wake the Doug.
In your face chandelier.
Saturday 15 October 2011
19th hour
We're plunging into our last few hours now and things are getting pretty raw. Everything's funny and confusing.
We've got a bunch of songs coming together and we're set to romp home with some drums and vocals when the hour is more sociable. But now is a time for deep introspection. The window is rank with condensation and our stomachs are fighting to digest the last of the chipsticks and curry we ate a lifetime ago. Ben pushes pen across paper, Doug analyses ceiling, Heather wrestles her warmth inwards, and Dan pretends to be asleep. Wayne is a ghost of a man. We haven't seen him for days. His parting words callous and final. He is on a journey now.
In a couple of hours we will be loud on the buzz of a frantic countdown. We will congregate, smiles within all faces, swigging a morning coffee, celebrating each other's heroics.
But not yet.
We've got a bunch of songs coming together and we're set to romp home with some drums and vocals when the hour is more sociable. But now is a time for deep introspection. The window is rank with condensation and our stomachs are fighting to digest the last of the chipsticks and curry we ate a lifetime ago. Ben pushes pen across paper, Doug analyses ceiling, Heather wrestles her warmth inwards, and Dan pretends to be asleep. Wayne is a ghost of a man. We haven't seen him for days. His parting words callous and final. He is on a journey now.
In a couple of hours we will be loud on the buzz of a frantic countdown. We will congregate, smiles within all faces, swigging a morning coffee, celebrating each other's heroics.
But not yet.
The 14th hour
So what I failed to mention last time is that the album is set in the years leading up to the death of an unknown man found on the beach in Adelaide. We have been working out lyrical ideas from a summary of the mystery and some interesting facts that were discovered by various means. If you want to have a read, here's what we're working from - http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2011/08/the-body-on-somerton-beach/
There has been a flurry of productivity since the last blog and now we have 10 or 11 songs down, not quite sure exactly how many, everything is moving too fast! Most of the instrument parts are finished, we have just started vocals and it's all starting to come together rather nicely.
In fact, this blog has been by far the least successful part of this album recording as each post has been started but not finished and slowly added to over the course of many hours. I guess that's what happens if you try to record a whole album in the space of 24 hours. More to come.
There has been a flurry of productivity since the last blog and now we have 10 or 11 songs down, not quite sure exactly how many, everything is moving too fast! Most of the instrument parts are finished, we have just started vocals and it's all starting to come together rather nicely.
In fact, this blog has been by far the least successful part of this album recording as each post has been started but not finished and slowly added to over the course of many hours. I guess that's what happens if you try to record a whole album in the space of 24 hours. More to come.
24 hour album challenge
After a bacon and egg and sandwich and a morning cup of tea we were all ready to put our brains together and start the process of creating an album within 24 hours.
Ben pressed record at exactly 9.54 am this morning with a trumpet solo by Beth Holloway.
The house shortly turned into musical chaos with people fracturing off into different rooms for simultaneous song writing. The first song to go down was a solo effort by Ben, shortly followed by the more raucous "Adelaide". then Jamie's first offering went down whilst Dan and Heather were composing using pure chance as the writing technique. Numbers written on paper depict different chords for the verses and different notes for the melodies, whether they be glock or vocals. It's certainly interesting and sounds surprisingly good. Wayne was composing some terrific lyrics to Dans accordion written "Jestyn". Some songs are being written at great length whilst others are coming together more quickly and getting laid straight down such as Ben's next offering with myself (Doug) and Dan layering up a percussive storm over the top. So at the moment we have about 6 or 7 tracks down, not all of them recorded, it is hard to keep track.
So I have to go back and record again now as Ben just had an idea for some drums to Jamie's song that we recorded earlier. Best get back to it. Will update again later!
Toodle pip.
Ben pressed record at exactly 9.54 am this morning with a trumpet solo by Beth Holloway.
The house shortly turned into musical chaos with people fracturing off into different rooms for simultaneous song writing. The first song to go down was a solo effort by Ben, shortly followed by the more raucous "Adelaide". then Jamie's first offering went down whilst Dan and Heather were composing using pure chance as the writing technique. Numbers written on paper depict different chords for the verses and different notes for the melodies, whether they be glock or vocals. It's certainly interesting and sounds surprisingly good. Wayne was composing some terrific lyrics to Dans accordion written "Jestyn". Some songs are being written at great length whilst others are coming together more quickly and getting laid straight down such as Ben's next offering with myself (Doug) and Dan layering up a percussive storm over the top. So at the moment we have about 6 or 7 tracks down, not all of them recorded, it is hard to keep track.
So I have to go back and record again now as Ben just had an idea for some drums to Jamie's song that we recorded earlier. Best get back to it. Will update again later!
Toodle pip.
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Birthday Challenge
It's Ben's birthday so...we're going to write and record an album in 24 hours!
On October 15th we'll be getting together and working our creative brains into mush and hopefully we should have an album for you to download the following monday (Oct 17th). We'll also be performing the album on the Sunday evening where there'll be physical copies for sale, the location of this will be a secret we'll only let special people know (e mail us if you think you're special enough). We're also looking for musicians to get involved with this, especially those who can play unusual instruments (eg. taramaglock, bubbletrone or the hunk), so if you're interested chuck us an e mail here: catsandcatsandcats1@gmail.com.
We'll blog the whole thing to death over here so you can keep checking up on us. Don't expect a slickly produced set of dance hits, we'll be recording in my bedroom with weird instruments and an extreme time limit.
YES!
On October 15th we'll be getting together and working our creative brains into mush and hopefully we should have an album for you to download the following monday (Oct 17th). We'll also be performing the album on the Sunday evening where there'll be physical copies for sale, the location of this will be a secret we'll only let special people know (e mail us if you think you're special enough). We're also looking for musicians to get involved with this, especially those who can play unusual instruments (eg. taramaglock, bubbletrone or the hunk), so if you're interested chuck us an e mail here: catsandcatsandcats1@gmail.com.
We'll blog the whole thing to death over here so you can keep checking up on us. Don't expect a slickly produced set of dance hits, we'll be recording in my bedroom with weird instruments and an extreme time limit.
YES!
Sunday 8 May 2011
Long blog of the united kingdoms of the American national anthems
Sorry for the huge gap in our tour blog but it turned out that the wonders of the super veggie bus were short lived and after our first show it conked out on us and is now sitting in a service yard without an engine. The start of the tour involved a lot of moving equipment from the bus into a rental car, back onto the bus, back into the car, into people's houses, onto a UFO, finally into the rental car again.
This has meant that there's a huge amount of catching up to do with the blog so I've compiled some lists for each show meaning you don't have to read loads of useless blithering about things I can't really remember.
April 30th - Gordon College, Wenham
1) A big pile of snow
2) A town that looks like Twin Peaks
3) A 5 man circle pit!
4) We're not allowed to drink on campus so we have a completely sober show
5) A 5 hour drive back to New York with the bus falling apart around us and the inside getting full of veggie oil fumes! We still smell a bit like chips (sorry, fries).
May 1st - Pianos, New York
1) We play at a comedy show where Ben gets insulted
2) MARGHERITAS!
3) Tom gets kidnapped by the druggists
4) Josh and Bruce (ex-Ladycop) rip a sicky with their new band Freakowls
5) We scared a rat on the subway (and he scared us a bit)
May 2nd - We didn't have a gig so we spent all our dollars in thrift stores on shoes that smelt so much we had to bin them.
May 3rd - Fire, Philadelphia
1) We did the Rocky steps
2) We got a cheese steak at Jim's and contemplated the 13 in an hour record
3) The Phillies win meaning no ones comes to our show
4) Anne gets stuck in her jumper mid-song
5) Ladycop get experimental and pull out an AWESOME improv MAN!
May 4th - Bar, New Haven
1) The venue has a room made of sofas, best thing about America so far
2) Mashed potato pizzas, second best thing about America so far
3) Kimono Draggin's last show is the first time we've seen them and they're great! Shame.
4) We stay in the most insane house in the world, I couldn't sleep, there was too much to look at
5) We have our first IHOP, it's not great (I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I'm writing this blog making it FACT)
May 5th - Sierra Grill, Northampton
1) Record stores ahoy! Any remaining bucks we had go on a load of music.
2) We play in a restaurant, how bizarre.
3) Reggae night is rubbish
4) C jams on out of tune instruments are great
5) We accidentally smash a 12 string guitar which belongs to the band we're staying with, we're really sorry about that. Especially because they're excellent (check them out, they're called Sore Eros).
May 6th - Geno's, Portland
1) Portland is happening, everyone's on the streets making art
2) "You're wickedgood" thanks
3) More mashed potato pizza, plus butternut squash, cranberry and ricotta pizza!
4) Wesley Hartley introduces us to some ace country music
5) Doug eats an entire live lobster
May 7th - HiFi Music Festival, Durham
1) It's almost rained off but somehow they pulled it off, well done HiFi kids.
2) Ben plays baseball with Julien Koster and then gets all fan boy
3) Saw lessons on the pavement
4) We try and swap accents with Ladycop for the evening, it doesn't last long.
5) Kolby gets so drunk he has to be dragged from the festival because he won't leave
May 8th - We're currently chilling out in a motel having spent the day mucking about in Portsmouth, pretending we fit in to the Cheers-like bar we managed to find. Now we're watching ice hockey and taking it in turn in the bath, that's rock 'n' roll kids.
I'll have an update on how our fishing trip goes.
Bencat and the cats x
This has meant that there's a huge amount of catching up to do with the blog so I've compiled some lists for each show meaning you don't have to read loads of useless blithering about things I can't really remember.
April 30th - Gordon College, Wenham
1) A big pile of snow
2) A town that looks like Twin Peaks
3) A 5 man circle pit!
4) We're not allowed to drink on campus so we have a completely sober show
5) A 5 hour drive back to New York with the bus falling apart around us and the inside getting full of veggie oil fumes! We still smell a bit like chips (sorry, fries).
May 1st - Pianos, New York
1) We play at a comedy show where Ben gets insulted
2) MARGHERITAS!
3) Tom gets kidnapped by the druggists
4) Josh and Bruce (ex-Ladycop) rip a sicky with their new band Freakowls
5) We scared a rat on the subway (and he scared us a bit)
May 2nd - We didn't have a gig so we spent all our dollars in thrift stores on shoes that smelt so much we had to bin them.
May 3rd - Fire, Philadelphia
1) We did the Rocky steps
2) We got a cheese steak at Jim's and contemplated the 13 in an hour record
3) The Phillies win meaning no ones comes to our show
4) Anne gets stuck in her jumper mid-song
5) Ladycop get experimental and pull out an AWESOME improv MAN!
May 4th - Bar, New Haven
1) The venue has a room made of sofas, best thing about America so far
2) Mashed potato pizzas, second best thing about America so far
3) Kimono Draggin's last show is the first time we've seen them and they're great! Shame.
4) We stay in the most insane house in the world, I couldn't sleep, there was too much to look at
5) We have our first IHOP, it's not great (I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I'm writing this blog making it FACT)
May 5th - Sierra Grill, Northampton
1) Record stores ahoy! Any remaining bucks we had go on a load of music.
2) We play in a restaurant, how bizarre.
3) Reggae night is rubbish
4) C jams on out of tune instruments are great
5) We accidentally smash a 12 string guitar which belongs to the band we're staying with, we're really sorry about that. Especially because they're excellent (check them out, they're called Sore Eros).
May 6th - Geno's, Portland
1) Portland is happening, everyone's on the streets making art
2) "You're wickedgood" thanks
3) More mashed potato pizza, plus butternut squash, cranberry and ricotta pizza!
4) Wesley Hartley introduces us to some ace country music
5) Doug eats an entire live lobster
May 7th - HiFi Music Festival, Durham
1) It's almost rained off but somehow they pulled it off, well done HiFi kids.
2) Ben plays baseball with Julien Koster and then gets all fan boy
3) Saw lessons on the pavement
4) We try and swap accents with Ladycop for the evening, it doesn't last long.
5) Kolby gets so drunk he has to be dragged from the festival because he won't leave
May 8th - We're currently chilling out in a motel having spent the day mucking about in Portsmouth, pretending we fit in to the Cheers-like bar we managed to find. Now we're watching ice hockey and taking it in turn in the bath, that's rock 'n' roll kids.
I'll have an update on how our fishing trip goes.
Bencat and the cats x
Saturday 30 April 2011
America is go! (April 29/30th)
Picture the scene dear reader; after the warm welcome of the car hire centre we're plunged into the bowels of New York industrial estate's intestines of roads. To us it's quarter to 4 in the morning and we've never driven on the right hand side of the road before, or in an automatic, or a car that is quite so huge. Four terrified, middle class indie kids, bullied by trucks that are bigger than our houses into slip roads with no end. Eventually we make it to Brooklyn and open the car to breath in the freedom, it tastes good. Like Coffee, hey that is coffee!
We're staying on Ladycop's tour bus in a park, using the local facilities and listening to confused passers by. This strikes me as probably the best way to experience any new country, right in the middle of everything, on a road, confusing people. We hit a rock bar called Matchless to get some Brooklyn lagers but we're pretty spent after a day of worrying (about customs, about crashing, about tipping inappropriately) and we completely crash (no pun intended) soon after in the superbus. Cliff has just described the bus like this: "from outside it's like a turd on wheels, but inside it's like the Taj Mahal!" and he's not far off. I slept like a baby.
The morning is spent getting the biggest breakfasts this side of Poppinas (hello Leeds fans) and buying a cactus garden for the bus (updates to come). We head off for our first show in Wenham, at Gordon College and the bus is rattling away, I've had to retype this about 5 times as I'm all over the place.
HEY! I'M TOURING HERE!
Bencat x
We're staying on Ladycop's tour bus in a park, using the local facilities and listening to confused passers by. This strikes me as probably the best way to experience any new country, right in the middle of everything, on a road, confusing people. We hit a rock bar called Matchless to get some Brooklyn lagers but we're pretty spent after a day of worrying (about customs, about crashing, about tipping inappropriately) and we completely crash (no pun intended) soon after in the superbus. Cliff has just described the bus like this: "from outside it's like a turd on wheels, but inside it's like the Taj Mahal!" and he's not far off. I slept like a baby.
The morning is spent getting the biggest breakfasts this side of Poppinas (hello Leeds fans) and buying a cactus garden for the bus (updates to come). We head off for our first show in Wenham, at Gordon College and the bus is rattling away, I've had to retype this about 5 times as I'm all over the place.
HEY! I'M TOURING HERE!
Bencat x
Saturday 12 March 2011
Mixing and mastering complete!
Hello champions,
So the album is done and dusty so I thought I'd sum up the last few days of mixing and mastering:
MIXY
We started in Folkestone, the only town where you can get away with beating someone up if you claim it was for artistic reasons. We sampled the local fish and chips and seafood bars and also mixed our album, quite intensively, while eating hob nobs. Oz had already gone and done a rough mix before we headed down so we just had to tell him to remove all the squealing guitar solos. In theory....in actuality there were no guitar solos in the first place so we spent 2 days agonising over whether the imperceptible change in volume of the glockenspiel was drowning out the steel pans or if the guitars would sound better if they were a bit more "y'know....sub tropical". At the end of the first day we went to Doug's parent's house, ate lots of olives, watched the rugby and mucked about with the cats. The next day pretty much the same thing happened but with different songs. We had our first ever completely split decision (this is what happens when you become a 4 piece!) over a really trivial part of O' Science, about whether the bit where we all make stupid noises was stupid enough. Turns out it was according to lady luck as we flipped a coin and the number of stupid noises was cut from 6 to 3 (sorry fans of stupid noises but there has to be a limit otherwise the album would've just been stupid noises (although some have argued that this is already the case (and with strong justifications))).
MASTERISH
No one knows how mastering makes everything sound better, all we know is that it does. Ben and Jamie travelled to Turan Audio to try and find out what mastering is, how it's done and what the decibel level of a space shuttle launch is. They found out the answer to just one of these questions. Tim Turan is the man though and between his stories of NASA trivia, hanging out with Radiohead and mastering pretty much all of our friend's bands he made the album sound flipping ace. This is also the stage where you sort out the song transitions too and these feature quite heavily on Motherwhale as there's pretty much no gaps until the 12th song. So there was plenty to do and it was lovely to hear it all being stitched together and start actually sounding like it only has in our heads up until now.
We'll slide out a couple of sneaky peeks over the next couple of days so keep your ears peeled and your carrots peeled.
Bencat and the aristocrats xxx
So the album is done and dusty so I thought I'd sum up the last few days of mixing and mastering:
MIXY
We started in Folkestone, the only town where you can get away with beating someone up if you claim it was for artistic reasons. We sampled the local fish and chips and seafood bars and also mixed our album, quite intensively, while eating hob nobs. Oz had already gone and done a rough mix before we headed down so we just had to tell him to remove all the squealing guitar solos. In theory....in actuality there were no guitar solos in the first place so we spent 2 days agonising over whether the imperceptible change in volume of the glockenspiel was drowning out the steel pans or if the guitars would sound better if they were a bit more "y'know....sub tropical". At the end of the first day we went to Doug's parent's house, ate lots of olives, watched the rugby and mucked about with the cats. The next day pretty much the same thing happened but with different songs. We had our first ever completely split decision (this is what happens when you become a 4 piece!) over a really trivial part of O' Science, about whether the bit where we all make stupid noises was stupid enough. Turns out it was according to lady luck as we flipped a coin and the number of stupid noises was cut from 6 to 3 (sorry fans of stupid noises but there has to be a limit otherwise the album would've just been stupid noises (although some have argued that this is already the case (and with strong justifications))).
MASTERISH
No one knows how mastering makes everything sound better, all we know is that it does. Ben and Jamie travelled to Turan Audio to try and find out what mastering is, how it's done and what the decibel level of a space shuttle launch is. They found out the answer to just one of these questions. Tim Turan is the man though and between his stories of NASA trivia, hanging out with Radiohead and mastering pretty much all of our friend's bands he made the album sound flipping ace. This is also the stage where you sort out the song transitions too and these feature quite heavily on Motherwhale as there's pretty much no gaps until the 12th song. So there was plenty to do and it was lovely to hear it all being stitched together and start actually sounding like it only has in our heads up until now.
We'll slide out a couple of sneaky peeks over the next couple of days so keep your ears peeled and your carrots peeled.
Bencat and the aristocrats xxx
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