Beta Band fansite

Steve Mason is set to play the ParkLife Festival in Platt Fields, Manchester on Saturday 12th June. Steve will be appearing on the Now Wave stage alongside Kele, Four Tet, Errors, Egyptian Hip Hop, James Yuill, We Have Band and May68. Tickets go onsale tomorrow (Thursday 18th March) priced at £25 for advance tickets. You can also purchase a ‘Joint Ticket’ which will include entrance to the Ian Brown show at Platt Fields the day before. Find out more on the ParkLife Festival official site

Update 8th June 2010: ParkLife Stage Times
I’ve been told that Steve Mason will be performing between 16:40pm – 17:20pm on the Now Wave Stage this Saturday at ParkLife (although as you can imagine runtimes are subject to change, so don’t take that as gospel!)

Update 12th June 2010 @ 10:42am
I asked on Twitter for runtimes for today’s Parklife and samstarling sent me a Twitpic of the Parklife runtimes… they don’t match up with what I heard for Steve’s stagetime though!?

Twitpic by stefidoo. View original at http://twitpic.com/1w2qas/full

Tickets are now sold-out for ParkLife, but you can still buy them from Viagogo (if you’re prepared to pay more than face value – currently they’re around £54)

Steve Mason has recorded a session for Mary Anne Hobbs that will be broadcast tonight (Thursday 4th March) between 2-4am on her BBC Radio 1 show. Mary Anne has been a long-time supporter of the Beta Band throughout the years, with the band appearing several times on the Breezeblock. I imagine the new session tonight will feature tracks from Steve’s forthcoming album Boys Outside (scheduled for release on May 3rd through Domino Records). If you miss the show you’ll be able to listen again via the iPlayer from tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Steve has been busy posting album updates to his Twitter account. Apparently he shot the video for new single Lost and Found in Snowdonia last weekend. You can follow Steve on Twitter via @SteveMasonKBT. Also, check out his new official website and Facebook page, and if you want to hear some demos from the new album pop over to his MySpace.

Update: just spotted this Twitter exchange between Beta-fan @j0annepsi and Lauren Laverne that suggests a BBC 6Music session for Lauren’s show is on the cards too :)

Update2: The show is now up on the BBC iPlayer to listen again. In case anyone wants to skip straight to Steve’s new songs, the first part starts around 23minutes:

24m00 All Come Down
28m03 Am I Just A Man

Second part starts around 1h28:

1h28m33 Boys Outside
1h33m27 I Let Her In

New single out April 19th – Lost and Found
New album out May 3rd – Boys Outside

I shot some HD video on my little Panasonic Lumix TZ7 camera back in May when The Aliens played at the Manchester Deaf Institute

Ten videos in total, here’s a direct link to a YouTube playlist

YouTube [1] The Aliens (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [2] The Aliens – Theramin (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [3] The Aliens – Sunlamp Show (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [4] The Aliens – Robot Man (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [5] The Aliens – Boats (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [6] The Aliens – Robin Jones drumming (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [7] The Aliens – Billy Jack (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [8] The Aliens – Happy Song (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [9] The Aliens – Gordon falls (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)
YouTube [10] The Aliens – Blue Mantle (Manchester Deaf Institute, 26th May 2009)

Alternatively click on the read more link below to view them individually

Read the rest of this blog post »

Steve Mason is busy recording a new album – you can follow his progress on Twitter via @KBTstevemason

You can also listen to two new demos All Come Down and Lost And Found via Steve’s MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/stevemasonlovesyou

Here’s Steve’s about me section from MySpace, which should get you up to speed:

Yes its me- BETA BAND/ KING BISCUIT TIME/ BLACK AFFAIR. Its time to step out of the shadows and confront society. So what the hell is going on? Well, I’m about 3/4 of the way through recording a new album which i will put out under my own name, Steve Mason. The songs are fully realised in demo form but i really wanted someone to lift a little of the pressure of production of my shoulders and Richard X ( http://www.blackmelody.com ) offered himself up. So we are working through my demo’s and re-doing all the vocals and any other parts which need it. The results are amazing. Best songs i’ve ever written and they SOUND big. I reckon i will put a 4 track EP out in about 2 or 3 months then maybe one more and do the album very early next year. There will be fresh music up here very soon. But its not quite ready yet. See you on the ice…….

Here’s a video of The Aliens performing at the Queen Head stage at Glastonbury last month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKYhW23ASb8

Thanks to srs456 for posting the link on The Aliens msg baord

The setlist according to Mark on themsg board was:

• Only Waiting
• Robot Man
• Billy Jack
• Rox