Beta Band fansite

Just received this email from The Aliens mailing list (cut n pasted below), which gives details of a new EP and a seven date UK tour during May:

THE ALIENS_ UK DATES_NEW EP _ LUNA ON VINYL!

Hello, hope your well.

Exciting news – The Sunlamp Show EP out on May 18th!

The Sunlamp Show EP features the title track ‘Sunlamp Show’ in its original form, accompanied by remixes by Disco Bloodbath and Manmouse (aka John Maclean). Also included on the EP are the Roman Noise (aka Robin Jones) remix of ‘Boats’ and new track ‘Pernickitty Jack’.

It is being released digitally and the tracklisting is as follows:

Sunlamp Show (Edit)
Sunlamp Show : The Disco Bloodbath Effect
Sunlamp Show : Manmouse Mix
Boats : Roman Noise Mix
Pernickitty Jack

We are also touring the UK in May, check the gigs section of our website for more info.

Friday 22nd May – The Studio, Hartlepool
Saturday 23th May –Stag & Dagger @ Stereo, Glasgow
Tuesday 26th May –Deaf Institute, Manchester
Wednesday 27th May - Bush Hall, London
Thursday 28th May - Faversham, Leeds
Friday 29th May – The Cluny, Newcastle
Sunday 31st May – Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh

We are making LUNA available on vinyl, you can pick up at copy at one of the gigs or buy through the website.

See you on tour!

The Aliens X

You can buy tickets to The Aliens concerts in London and Leeds via Seetickets.
I assume the rest will be onsale soon….

Check out The Aliens’ official site and official message board for more info

Update1: You can also buy tickets from Ticketweb for the following shows: London Bush Hall, Newcastle Cluny, the Stag & Dagger event in Glasgow, and The Garden Party at Kelburn Castle in Scotland (the latter goes onsale today, Fri 27th March at midnight)

Update2: Here’s a poster for the Leeds Faversham gig I found on the venue’s website:

The new single by King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson, Fence Records supremo and brother of Gordon Anderson) has been given a helping hand by members of the Beta Band. John Maclean directed the video which you can watch below via Youtube, and Steve Mason lent his production duties:

King Creosote - Coast On By
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vex-5ozOnYg

On 27th April 2009, Domino will release Coast on By, the first single taken from King Creosotes new album, Flick The Vs (released on 20th April 2009).

King Creosote explains here how the song came about:

“It’s all well and good when a pal offers to work on and record one of your songs, but when that pal is Steve Mason (Beta Band, King Biscuit Time, Black Affair) then up goes the ante. With album Flick the Vs well under way, and with no sign yet of a contender for the 3 minute pop hit thereon, I arrived chez Mason clutching a string of uneven verses each spitting out some facet of the tour-tired “leave me alone to my small village” blues. There followed 3 happy accidents:

- During the run thru’ Steve muttered “is that it?” in such a tone of voice that, in fear of ridicule, I ad-libbed a positive sounding one line mantra to the end of take one.

- Whilst I made the tea, Steve “lost” my original guitar take and mistook my ad-libbed mantra for “the hook”.

- A bungled cut n paste somehow morphed a duff bridge into a blinding chorus - three times?!

And that’s it - the precise art of song craft lies in the choice of “Coast On By” over the more accurate title “two grumpy old men realise that, together, they’ve created the very monster both have spent entire careers baiting, only for it to sneak up and bite them in unbridled joy”.

Directed by John Maclean

www.kingcreosote.com
www.myspace.com/kingcreosote

The Aliens have just announced details of a London show in May via their MySpace blog:

17 Mar 2009, 15:21
Subject: THE ALIENS _ LONDON SHOW
Body: Hello,

Hope your well.

We are back on the road with a London Show on Wed 27th May @ Bush Hall.

310 UXBRIDGE ROAD, LONDON W12 7LJ

Tickets from:

www.seetickets.com
0870 264 3333

www.ticketweb.co.uk
08700 600 100

More shows to be announced this week.

The Aliens xxx

Currently if you visit Seetickets they already have two dates on sale:

27.05.2009 London Bush Hall
28.05.2009 Leeds The Faversham

London show is £13.50 plus booking fee, and Leeds is £10 plus b/f

Here’s an update from Steve via the King Biscuit Time MySpace blog

Sunday, February 01, 2009

UP TO THE MINUTE
So, my manager told me to write something here and let everyone know whats going on. This is whats going on–

I’m still in the studio. Working on about 12-15 new tracks. Though i am still writing new songs. I have been down to London and spent a few days with Richard X at his studio. We worked on a couple of my demo’s and the results are promising. A little hard to describe here, but he is trying to drag me from obscureness into the light. It might work, i have some amazing songs, its just a matter of staying the right side of the dark side. I;m going back in the studio with Richard in Febuary.
I WILL be playing this year, as KBT. No more cancel’s. Its on. Trying to put the KBT touring band back together, Pete Rankin ( OJR ) is back on board but C-Swing is on about giving up music. I will do my best to persuade him not too. What a waste that would be. I have a new bass player who i am sure most of you will have heard of, so the bottom end is locked down tight.

I will be posting more studio bits on YouTube as and when i feel like it. A new one soon though.
I think thats all she wrote.
la la later

steve

"I have a new bass player who i am sure most of you will have heard of" … that part sounds particularly interesting :) It wouldn’t happen to be a bassist who’s played in a couple of rather large bands would it? …hmmm

Here’s another video of Steve Mason in the studio writing the new KBT album during January 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtfHxKPOFi8

I’ve removed the message board from the site as it was getting bombarded with spam. It wasn’t getting used very much anyway, so I don’t know if it’s worth putting it back online? Maybe if I can find a decent alternative to phpbb…

Watch new material from Steve Mason as King Biscuit Time via YouTube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yiyh4R6BtOg

Looks like there’s a new King Biscuit Time album on the way!

Check out this behind the scenes/making-of video for Magic Man by The Aliens

The video is reminscent of The Beta Band’s classic Inner Meet Me, with a touch of Michael Gondry :)

Here’s a video of The Aliens performing Billy Jack live at the The Caves gig in Edinburgh

Check it out below or here’s a direct link to the Vimeo page… The Aliens have their own channel on there now so head over and subscribe

The Aliens - Billy Jack Live from The Aliens on Vimeo.

The Aliens played a live set on BBC Radio Scotland’s Vic Galloway show last month - 6th October 2008 to be precise :)

You can check out the breath-taking performances of ‘Billy Jack’ and ‘Theremin’ over on the BBC website right now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/vicgalloway/sessions/thealiens/

If you do only one thing today I’d recommend checking out these videos… they’re incredible!