+latest newsSee www.myspace.com/forestgiants for blog, latest news and audio clipsMay 2007On 30 April 2007, we released our latest LP, the aptly titled "Things We Do When We're Bored". Because what we do when we are bored is write and record more songs! The album is not so much a follow up to the Cherryade-released "Welcome to the Mid-West" as a companion volume - it contains songs written and recorded over the past two years, some of which were originally intended for inclusion on "Mid-West", others were written for compilations or other specific projects, but all sitting nicely together on one finely balanced long-player (even if we do say so oursleves..) Overall the album is a bit more reflective in nature than "Mid-West", containing some slow and almost acoustic moments, but it still has a number of those high-tempo high-octane fuzzy songs that you liked last time around. For various reasons this will almost certainly be the last Forest Giants long player, and so we've also included a 2nd CD containing lo-fi demos and out-takes from our 4 year history - there are some new songs which never received the full recording treatment, some live recordings from our very first proper rehearsal, and some of the initial demos for songs that went on to form the back-bone of the "Mid West" LP. A song by song biography for the album can be found on our Myspace page WWW.Myspace/forestgiants For those of you that are interested in these things, you might like to know that "Things We Do When We're Bored" is the third full-length release on the International Lo-fi Underground record label, run by some lovely Bristolians who are striving to bring you the best of British - and like all the other releases on the label, the record was produced at lo cost without the need for expensive studios, producers or any of the other useless props so beloved of our record industry which is hell bent on destroying itself! For more information on TILFU, visit www.Myspace.com/theinternationallofiunderground So that's almost it. No more gigs, no more albums. There is one more thing we have to do, but we'll let you know about that nearer the time. In the meantime, enjoy all the lovely music that is being brought to you from the shores of lake Henleaze, and have a good summer... December 2006Our Christmas song for Cherryade is now up on their MySpace site at www.cherryademusic.co.uk/bonus , along with a few other tracks that arrived too late for their 2nd Christmas compilation - if you’re after a party song to get you in the mood for Christmas, we suggest you avoid it, but we like it. There’s a Beatniks song on the album-proper which Andrew knocked up by himself and which gives the corporate Christmas greed factor a good old lashing… If you have half a mind to vote in the Festive 50 this year, and can’t find anything about it on the BBC, that’s because they’ve ditched it. But you can go here - www.dandelionradio.com - and vote instead. Please feel free to vote for us (we’re not begging!) - we suggest that the song “So You Think You’re Unhappy” is most likely to get the voters out on the streets. Plans for next year are coming together, we’re hoping to release our new ”out-takes” album in January - it’s kind of different from Mid-West, more of a mish-mash of song types and less of the full-on fuzz sound which has drawn so many Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons recently - (what the hell is that about?) but that’s because its made up of all the songs we didn’t think would fit on the last album. Mind you, there are a few gems on there in our view, including the opener “Goodbye” and the finale “Play Your Trumpet” which are kind of gentle acoustic songs but done about as well as we’ll ever do them… In true Beatniks fashion, we also have about 40 songs in the pipeline for the next album, although we’re not sure when we’ll be recording these as it would be nice to learn them all and record them in one big session in a more lo-fi kind of way - we’ll see… Top 10 songs for this year? I don’t have any, I’m so bloody poor I can’t afford to buy any records, and my friends are too miserable to lend me any.. So there! Happy Xmas Tim July 2006Now that the album's been out for a couple of months we thought it was time to post up some of the reviews. We hoped it was a pretty darn good record, but some of the reaction has been amazing - thanks to everyone who's written or gotten in touch, we're glad you like it..! July has been too hot to do very much of anything, but we have been putting the touches on our next single, a re-mix version of So You Think You're Unhappy. "Re-mix, what's that all about?" you may well ask - well, the version on the album is good, but its not how we wanted it to sound originally, there's a great keyboard which didn't go on because (not to bore you with this or anything..) it was broken at the time.. Also, the vocals are stronger and as people keep making it the stand out track, we thought it would make a great single. And besides, there are three brand new songs on there as well - "At the Dogs", a brilliantly short story of love at the races, "Car Crash" and "Leave".. what more could you ask? All three songs are in a different vein from the album but we like them all, so there you go... The single should be out in September to co-incide with the few dates we're doing, which appear above - please pop along and see us if you can...Happy summer holidays! May 2006The new Forest Giants album finally gets released on 15th May through Cherryade records of Lancaster. Its nearly two years since we started recording, so its something of a relief to be honest!The album features 10 songs which we think are some of the best we've written and recorded to date - its certainly the most coherent record we've made.. The idea behind the album was to make an old-fashioned 10 song record with all proper-length songs, no weirdo fillers, one overall sound, a bit like a classic Bunnymen album.. and this is pretty much how it came out. We recorded plenty of other songs during the last two years, but if they didn't fit the feel of the record we left them off - although they'll start appearing as b-sides and compilation tracks hopefully - this is very different from the approach on UFO Stories, where a real mish mash of songs and recording styles was used.. We'll shortly be putting up a song-by-song summary on the Myspace site, where you can also listen to some of the album tracks right now... If you like them and you want to buy the CD, visit Cherryade at www.cherryademusic.com, or if you're really young and don't understand the beauty of physical product, you can download them via Karma Download at www.karmadownload.com/label/?9027.. On the gig front, we're hoping to play a few shows in September, places like Bristol, London, Oxford and anywhere else who might have us.. again, we'll post details up on Myspace as they come along.. And finally, the next album is already written and we're recording songs as we speak - provisional title is "Things we do when we're bored.." and its going to be full of beatiful slow songs with strings and trumpets and stuff...or so we think! Bye for now and happy purchasing.. April 2006Upon hearing the news that Morissey has been pipped to the number one spot by a mystery band, mainly based on the number of download singles they have sold, some wag suggested recently that it was us! Sadly, we don't think our new single has yet hit such giddy heights, but some people have said nice things about it and you can read these on the Cherryade website at www.cherryademusic.co.uk. If you want to hear the single in its entirety it'll be up on our My Space site for most of April, and then of course you can dash off to Karma Download at http://www.karmadownload.com/album/?2142266 and buy all three ace songs for just a couple of quid. Value! As for what we're up to right now, well, the sleeve designs for the album have been finished and the album itself should be available some time in April. Many thanks to John who has been a star once again.. We haven't been able to arrange any gigs yet because Tom doesn't have any spare holiday, what with being the drummer in another top beat combo as well, so we're auditioning young hopefuls to fill in with live work at the moment, primarily with the aim of significantly reducing the average age of the band.. We're also recording new songs for various reasons, there's a compilation to do, hopefully a seven inch single for Germany, and also a new album to consider. So its not like we're just lying around waiting for things to happen... Paula's headaches have mainly gone which is great news, she just has a bad back now! But hopefully, we'll be out and about eventually to play some of the songs from the new album and some even newer ones to the discerning few.. February 2006Lots of news this month, but we'll keep it brief.. Firstly, we can tell you that our new album "Welcome to the Mid-West"
will be Planes Fly Overhead The single will be available through Karma Download only, and you can
get more We've also opened up a MySpace page. You'll be able to go here to read
more Our Beards video (made by filmmaker Phil Collins, not bad drummer Phil
Collins), We're also continuing to record and write songs for a new album and
a 7" single Paula is also working hard on art stuff which she's taking out to an
art So there you have it. Busy bees, aren't we? January 2006Happy New year to all our readers. Special thanks go to people who’ve helped us out in 2005, particularly Fernando from Cielo Liquido in Spain broadcasting our session and John for doing our artwork and web-stuff… 2006 is looking very busy at the moment, although FG activities are on the back burner while Tim and Tom promote the new Beatnik Filmstars album with their friends Andrew, Geoff and Maurice. We are all hoping to be seeing some old friends on 6th January when we are up at the Water Rats in London.. However, we do have a new LP to release, and it looks pretty certain that it will actually be coming out at long last - although probably towards the latter part of the year. We can’t tell you the lucky label just yet for reasons of National Security, but yes, for all you doubting Thomases out there, there really are labels who wants to release our records! One thing we can tell you is that its fab! A lot more up-tempo than UFO Stories, and a lot more songs.. At the moment we are recording the follow up to “Mid-West” - it’s quite a change of direction and a bit of a slow-down, but its really enjoyable getting back to song-writing after all that mailing out to labels etc. We hate that stuff! Hopfully we’ll get to play some new songs live before too long, although fitting it all in is going to be a bit of a problem - but a great one to have really. Oh yes, and while we remember. we now have distribution in the US through CD-Baby for those that don‘t want to buy from us using Pay Pal... The address for our page on the site is http://cdbaby.com/cd/forestgiants. Take care for now! november 2005Not sure quite what's happened this month, but we've suddenly started to sell quite a few records, which is nice. And because of this, we've had to sort ourselves out a bit, and can now accept Paypal from anyone who wants to buy from us. Just drop us a line with the details of your order, and we'll sort out the rest for you! We've now sold out of the first pressing of our DVD, although we have to admit this wasn't a huge number of copies - still, its nice to know that there are good people out there sitting down in darkened rooms with bottles of wine to watch plastic dolphins swimming around in time to our music.. Is it art? Well, we like to think so.. November is always a terrible month, dark and cold and wet, but a good time for sitting at home by the fire writing new songs. If only we had a fire! But the new songs are coming along,and even though we've yet to finalise a home for our new album, we are starting to think about recordng the next one.. It would be nice to have a second guitar player to be honest, so if anyone out there lives nearby (that being Bristol, UK) and fancies giving it a go, drop us a line. we won't be playing as Forest Giants until later next year now, but Tom and Tim will be onstage with Beatnik Filmstars at the Track and Field "Winter Sprinter" event in London (Water Rats) on 6th January, so feel free to pop along and say hello. Provided we haven't been laid low by bird-flu or bankrupted by Christmas of course.. september 2005Well, the last month has been a strange one, and we’re glad it’s nearly over! As well as losing most of the work we’d done on our “UFO Movies” video, Ruth had her camper van smashed up and written off by some losers out joy riding; Paula’s had a re-occurrence of her repetitive strain injury, and this contributed to us cancelling our London gig next month, although mainly we were all feeling a bit depressed and it seemed a long way to go for very little reward.. Tom on the other hand has been on holiday in California, so hopefully he’s missed out on the general malaise which has hit the camp.. Anyway, the good news is that things are picking up a bit now - we’ve finished our new LP, and are currently going through the process of touting it round interested labels.. Early reaction has been, asa they say, “very favourable..”! And on 15th October we’ll be announcing the birth of our new DVD at a special free gig in our home town of Bristol, with accompanying film show and “celebrity” DJ. So if your in the area, download a copy of the invitation and pop along - its going to be a great evening if its anything like the last one of these we did.. late august 2005A month of mixed fortunes! Having worked so hard on the video for UFO Stories last month, it was accidentally deleted from our computer which means we've had to start all over again! Hopefully everything will still be ready for October 15th when we are launching the DVD at another of our infamous free parties! (see details in the gigs section). Last month Tom and Tim attended the premier of an alternative video for "Beards" at the Ashton Court Festival - made by Phil Collins (not the bald one) as part of his "Thinking of the Outside" arts programme, it will hopefully also appear on the DVD as well as getting another outing at the Bristol Arnolfini when it re-opens in September. Its very different from our own vision, but pretty cool nonetheless! Tom and Tim have also been rehearsing with Andrew in preparation for some live Beatnik Filmstars outings later in the year to accompany the new album, which is now finished and is called In Great Shape - follow the link on the "Other Worlds" page to get to the Beatniks new website and find out more.. As if that's not enough, Ruth and Tim are supposed to be rehearsing some songs for an acoustic gig at the Folk House in Bristol on September 6th, although we haven't seen much sign of it yet! Hopefully something a bit different though.. |
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