Some Skeletons

Exciting news!

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:31:06 -0400

We’re very excited to announce that we are joining Mountains of Records, and will be releasing our next EP with them later this year!

Check out MoR’s facebook page for the full details, and expect an increasing amount of stuff from us in the coming months.

High fives for everyone,

Some Skeletons

We have finished recording for EP2. Hurrah!

Sun, 13 May 2012 14:02:38 -0400

We have finished recording for EP2. Hurrah!

Miscellany #5

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:15:00 -0400

Hi,

Prepare for facts:

1. Our song ‘Throats’ is included on a 3SX compilation which you can download here for free. I did and it is very good and a diverse mix of (from what I can tell) mostly Italian stuff. I particularly like Gouton Rouge and Fine Before You Came. ‘Throats’ is from our EP ‘Kypes | Pests | Throats’ which is available for free from our bandcamp page.

2. We’ve nearly nearly nearly finished recording our second EP, and we’ve started churning out ideas for more new stuff. Here we are taking a coffee break at practice on Wednesday

3. It’s a little over a week til we play this. We are excited as it’s our first gig for what seems like a while and will probably be our last for a bit whilst we sort out the new EP and write some new songs. It would be great to see lots of friendly faces there.

Bye :)

Miscellany #4

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:15:37 -0400

Hi! We’ve been quiet but we’ve been busy. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

1. Simon has released an EP under the guise of Mountain Schmountain. It’s ace, go and download and get it for free (or give him some money for it) - here is the Mountain Schmountain bandcamp page.

2. We’ve been doing more recording. EP2 is pretty much recorded now, there’s just a few bits of vocals left to do and then it’ll be mixed. We’re really looking forward to getting it finished and letting you all hear it. Here is a picture of my feet at the wonderful Project 9 studio in Cheshire where we recently did some recording.

We’re hoping to have finished all the recording by the end of this month, and then it’s just mixing, mastering and the lengthy process of deciding what to call it that will stand in our way. Expect to hear some new stuff in the summer.

3. We’re playing a gig at the end of the month in Nottingham. You should come because it will be cool.

4. Our friends Liberation Pact have split up. This is bad news as we have enjoyed playing with them recently. You should get their EP because it’s ace.

That’s it for now, I’m off to play Alan Wake.

Aidan x

We’re heading back to the studio (an actual studio this...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:16:15 -0500

We’re heading back to the studio (an actual studio this time) in the next few weeks to record one or two new songs. Here’s a pic of us hard at work.

Miscellany #3

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:02:00 -0500

2012. Twenty Twelve. 2k12. two zero one two. Now that annoying introduction is over, read the shambles below to discover what’s happening in the sphere of Some Skeletons thus far in the new year…

1. Gigs

We’ve confirmed (hopefully) four gigs, three in Nottingham and one in London.

First up we’re playing at the Jam Cafe in Nottingham on 11th February. It’s a FREE GIG! Excited to be playing with Liberation Pact, their EP is boss.

We’ll be heading to the big smoke on 5th March to support the ever triumphant Swound at the Barfly in Camden. No facebook event for this yet and thus none of the major details, other than it’ll be fun and great.

Not sure if it’s totally confirmed or not yet but we think we’ll be playing at the Maze in Nottingham on 19th March, again with Liberation Pact and our friends Fresh Eyes for the Dead Guy who we’ve not played with for a bit. Again no fb for this yet but we’ll keep you posted.

Final thing we have confirmed is a gig at our favourite Nottingham venue the Chameleon. Don’t know any of the bands but having listened to Before Machines it promises to be a good one.

2. Recording

We’re recording again this weekend down in Cannock. Bass, leftover guitar and vocals. To that end Simon and I are at Adam’s knocking melodies into shape and trying to write lyrics. Here’s a picture of us in action.

I had a haircut today and I haven’t really worn it in yet which is why I look like a footballer.

For an interesting technical insight into the recording process thus far (amongst other things) check out Ian the producer’s blog.

3. Other

Kypes | Pests | Throats was lucky enough to pop up on a few of best of 2011 lists, which is ace and has swollen our egos to grand proportions. In a couple of cases we’re assuming they were best of lists, but as they were in Italian and as none of us speak the language we have no idea if they’re complimentary or not. For the sake of our self esteem we’re assuming they are :)

We also discovered that we’d been reviewed by these lovely people. Check out issue #1 for their opinion on KPT.

YES!

Aidan Skeleton x

End of Term Report

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:20:00 -0500

YO,

The end of the year is upon us, and we’d thought we’d take the opportunity to express our gratitude to everyone who’s supported us throughout 2011. It’s been a great first year for us; some ace gigs, some ace new friends, some ace new equipment. So thanks if you’ve listened to/downloaded/bought our music, been to our gigs, given us a free drink, asked us to play a gig, let us use your leads, watched our videos or written pleasant things about us. It’s been a lot of fun, and hopefully there is much more fun to come in 2012.

We’ll be back in the new year, but until then here’s each of our top 5 favourite albums/EPs from 2011 in the order they came in, with explanatory notes:-

James ‘Judas’ Housley

Before making his decision a concerned Judas enquired “do the albums have to have been released in the last year, or do I just have to have discovered them in the last year? I’m really struggling to find 5 CDs that I rate that were released in 2011!” After being informed that only 2011 releases were eligible he returned the following:

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes And Keys
James Blake - James Blake
The Wombats - This Modern Glitch
Psychologist - Propeller EP
Tubelord - Romance

There followed a short exchange between Adam and James

Adam: “That Death Cab album is worse than [a not very good band]. You’re mental.”

James: “It grew on me.”

Adam ‘Barno’ Barnes

Adam also enquired as to the eligibility of music not released in 2011, and upon receipt of clarification came back with this…

The Joy Formidible - The Big Roar
Blink 182 - Neighborhoods
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Yuck - Yuck
Olafur Arnalds - Living Room Songs

…which was annoying, as it included three of my choices and makes me look like a big copycat.

Aidan ‘Aidan’ Blenkinsopp

I had my first three decided from the outset, but had difficulty whittling down about 10 candidates to fill the final two positions. It looked for a while like Deus and Fucked Up would get the nod, but after much deliberation over my Christmas lunch I fixed upon:

The Joy Formidible - The Big Roar
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
I Break Horses - Heartbeats
Olafur Arnalds - Living Room Songs
Blink 182 - Neighborhoods

Nearly reconsidered the last one whilst typing that.

Simon ‘J’ Curd

Simon was excited about this from the get go, correctly declaring that “this kind of thing is critical to the progress of the human race”. Starting with about 15 outstanding candidates Simon handed in a list of 7 who were in consideration for the final cut before 3 days later finalising his selection:

Christine Fellows - Femmes De Chez Nous
David Bazan - Strange Negotiations
All Get Out - The Season
The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck
Sainthood Reps - Monoculture

In echoes of Denmark’s against the odds triumph in Euro 92, Sainthood Reps had made the cut despite not being in the original 7 Simon had mentioned, meaning that Blink 182, J Mascis and Josh T Pearson had all missed out.

So there you go, the considered opinions of four idiots.

Hope 2011 has been kind to you, and that you have an amazeballs 2012!

Some Skeletons x

End of year gigs

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:28:00 -0500

Alright there,

Taking our theme of playing the same venue twice in quick succession to extreme new levels, we’re going to be playing at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham twice in two days this Sunday and the following Monday, so come on down and bring all of your friends.

Gig 1 - Sunday 11th December - we’re very excited to be supporting Swound! on the homecoming leg of their European tour, and also excited to see We Are The Physics in action. This gig promises to be a lot of fun, I can’t wait.

Gig 2 - Monday 12th December - we’re playing a Nottingham University Christmas party of sorts. It’s open to everyone and features us and some other bands. It also promises to be a lot of fun.

That will probably be it for us in 2011, but there’s an outside chance there’ll a special yuletide gift if we have a chance to create one. We’ll keep you posted. Hope you can make it to one or both of the gigs coming up!

Aidan Skeleton x

Recording Part 2

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:19:00 -0500

Hello everyone! Last weekend was recording session 2 for Some Skeletons in which 4 new songs began to take shape with the addition of (virtually all) the guitars. The venue this time around was Crabb Towers in Cannock, a boutique and very homely recording studio*. Ian French and Tom Crabb (known collectively as Ian Crabb) were again at the recording helm, which sounds like a strange Viking hat, but it isn’t.

We arrived early on Saturday and, after preliminary discussions with Ian Crabb, it was agreed to divide the recording into 3 sessions; rhythm clean guitars, rhythm loud guitars and ASAs (‘Areas of Special Attention’- the umbrella term for lead/weird/interesting sounding loud or quiet guitars which were to involve a multitude of Ian Crabb’s fantastical homemade pedals). An Orange AD 30 and Hughes & Kettner Statesman provided the tones whilst a huge and very good Carlsbro speaker provided, er…the clarity of sound. I think. Something like that anyway.

Aidan was first up to the plate laying down his clean guitars using his telecaster, and a selectionof Ian Crabb’s home made and/or cheap but pimped out guitars. These included a nice jangly Fender Jaguar and 2 or 3 more which looked cheap but sounded great. Whilst Aidan did this I did the only natural thing and tried to download a copy of Pro Evolution Soccer on my laptop.

With uncharacteristic professionalism we laid down clean rhythm parts to all four songs. Then we went to McDonalds. Aidan’s fillet o’ fish took ages as usual. We were all astounded that a Big Tasty had 890 calories. Tom regretted not knowing this yesterday when he ate one. After a brief detour to a music shop for strings and other bits and pieces we returned to Crabb towers, relieved to find that all was well in the world again as it now smelt strongly of the smell that only 4 men kept in close quarters for prolonged periods can generate.

Up next some, some LOUD guitars, with my Les Paul through the AD 30 doing most of the work. In the course of recording I rediscovered an ancient, and utterly awful, Steve Vai riff which I couldn’t stop playing. In retaliation Tom and Aidan launched into Mick Hucknall freestyle vocals at any opportunity. You can imagine how thrilled Ian was.

With day one over, we kicked back with beers and pizza – which was a relief as by that time the ‘man smell’ had begun to lose some of its potency.

We started day 2 as we meant to go on – with another trip to McDonalds. Tom had pancakes with a slab of sausage meat. It did not look good. Ian revealed he had been weeing recently in the style of an 8 year old boy, with his trousers rolled down to his ankles. He didn’t really give a good reason. Back at Crabb Towers Aidan was warming up for the remaining loud rhythm guitars (which were beginning to sound very mighty indeed) and the ASAs. Judas turned up to lend his support* and to do some technical tweakery / mixing of the drums with Ian.

A selection of pitch shifters, WAH pedals, phasers and delay were used to achieve the desired effect for the ASAs which were done with alarming speed. I continued to play Steve Vai, Tom and Aidan continued to sing like Mick Hucknall whilst Ian, I suspect, regretted the revelation about his recent toilet habits. By around 10pm 90% of the guitars were done and it was time to call it day, everyone leaving Crabb Towers pleased with what had been achieved and excited at the prospect of tackling the vocals at the next session. This was marred on slightly by Aidan flipping out in the car on that way back to Nottingham because he had eaten too many crisps.

Adam Skeleton

*of sorts. This is what we are calling it.

Recording Part 1: With Photos

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:08:00 -0500

Good evening,

I am wearing my Russian Circles t-shirt and Simon is wearing his red wine coloured hoodie. This can mean only one thing; Some Skeletons are doing some recording. Adam is somewhere else, presumably wearing a shirt of some description and working on his guitar parts. Judas has finished recording his drums, so who knows what he’s wearing.

Here is what’s happened so far in our little recording adventure:

After lengthy negotiations which began in July we managed to find a weekend in which all four of the band were free at the same time as Tom and Ian (from Minoans who recorded ‘Author’ for us in January) and thus it was that the first weekend of this month we headed into the capacious practice space generously lent to us by our buddies Swound to start tracking drums and bass.

The production team arrived in Nottingham in the middle of the afternoon and set off to the studio with Simon and Judas in tow. When I got to the room at about 7pm there were mics and cables everywhere, and apparently a drumkit somewhere in the middle. Witness.

Two plastic garden chairs are an essential item for any studio set-up.

As the time to start recording edged ever nearer there was feverish activity on the sofas as Judas put the finishing touches to his click tracks and Simon did something or other.

Recording did start, and almost immediately I left to go and have dinner with some other people. When I’d finished I rang the others and was told that things were going well and my presence wasn’t required so I went home and played XBox. As it happened things were curtailed reasonably early due a band in a room the floor above being so noisy that further recording was impossible.

On Saturday morning Judas had a cold but with heroic bravery spent 8 hours recording drums and 10 minutes eating a Subway sandwich before heading off to work all night. As a DJ if you believe him.

It was a remarkably efficient and uneventful day really. Adam sat around working on guitar parts, Simon recorded the occasional bass part and managed to have a little sleep in spite of the cacophony and I very helpfully played Football Manager 2012 and drank beer. It was a lot of fun, as the photo below demonstrates.

Tom looks a bit pensive in that one I suppose, but rest assured he spent most of the day with a beaming smile upon his Midlands face.

We finished at 11:30pm and Ian and Tom sped off into the night having done an amazing job in exchange for food from two of Nottingham’s best kept culinary secrets; namely McDonald’s drive-thru and Subway in Hockley. We are nothing if not classy.

Ian sent us the unmixed drums from the session at the weekend and we’ve been demoing in our respective residences ever since. A bit like Blink 182 but with cheaper equipment and English accents. Whilst I type Simon is finalising his bass parts before he heads off to be stand-in bassist for Swound on their European tour. It’s all sounding very promising. Adam and I have a week and a half to finish working out our guitar parts before we head down to Cannock to record them fo’ real at Tom’s house. Then we’ll record some vocals I guess.

Photos are by Ian (or Simon (except the one with Simon in it which was definitely done by Ian)). Will post another massive update once guitars are done.

Aidan Skeleton x

PS - Adam has confirmed since I started typing this that he is indeed wearing a shirt. All is well in the world.

Miscellany #2

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:03:42 -0400

Areet there?

Cheers to everyone who’s been to our gigs at the Chameleon over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had an ace time and hope you have too!

We’re playing again this Saturday at Broadway in Nottingham for their Halloween party. It’s free entry, starts at 8 and we’re on at 10:30. It promises to weird and immense. Hopefully see you there.

Finally, we’re heading into the studio* the first weekend in November to begin recording some new songs. We’re excited about this. Not sure when the results will be released, but we’ll hopefully be posting updates as we put the pieces of our next sonic missive together. YES! RECORDING!

Take care,

Some Skeletons

*it isn’t really a studio, but that’s what we’re calling it.

Cancelled gig :(

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:15:07 -0400

Hello! We were meant to be playing a gig tonight in Nottingham at the Chameleon but it isn’t happening. We are playing at the Chameleon twice next month though, so that’s ok! Phew!

In other news: Adam has a new amp, he is excited about it. He sold most of his earthly possessions to be able to afford it so hopefully it sounds good.

We’ve written some new songs and are planning on recording them; more on this as it develops but hopefully it won’t be too many months until there’s some new stuff out.

That’s it for now!

Download our new song 'Author' for free!

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:07:00 -0400

Download our new song 'Author' for free!:

Hi everyone,

We’ve put a new song called ‘Author’ up on our bandcamp page and you can download it there for free. ‘Author’ was originally released in April as part of the ‘Notts in Space’ split EP and was recorded with our friends Ian & Tom from the ace band Minoans. Simon design some ace artwork for it, which looks like this:-

We hope you like the song!

Hi everyone, Here is a video for ‘Throats’ - filmed...

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:36:00 -0400

Hi everyone,

Here is a video for ‘Throats’ - filmed by our friend Joe Staszkiewicz from the band Swound!

‘Throats’ is taken from our EP ‘Kypes | Pests | Throats’ which you can download for free from our bandcamp page if you haven’t already.

We hope you like the video and we hope it doesn’t give you nightmares!

Miscellany

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:38:00 -0400

Here’s a photo of us playing a gig in London a couple of weeks ago. It was fun. Hopefully we’ll have an exciting addition to the site next week. Keep checking back here or on facebook, or on twitter to make you don’t miss what promises to be the online event of the year!

The photo is by Chris Dorney - www.chrisdorney.com

We’ve got some more from Chris and will hopefully do something interesting with them soon. Sort of relies on us thinking of something interesting though so don’t hold your breath…

Aidan Skeleton x

Flyer for tomorrow night’s gig. Print one of these badboys...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:28:04 -0400

Flyer for tomorrow night’s gig. Print one of these badboys off or bring it along on your phone to get in at the discounted rate. See you tomorrow!

Swift Update #2

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:38:13 -0400

1. The Notts in Space EP has received a glowing review here, which is nice.

2. We’re playing a gig in London next week at the Dublin Castle in Camden. Here is the facebook event. Imagine how people heard about gigs before facebook was invented? You can’t, it would be totally impossible.

3. We’re playing a super secret mega gig at an undisclosed location this week. Hopefully as a result we’ll have some kind of fresh multimedia produce to share with you in the coming days.

4. We’re in the process of planning our next video. So far we’ve decided what song it’ll be for and given ourselves a deadline. Now all we need is a concept, a location, equipment, crew and catering and we’re sorted.

5. I haven’t had much sleep this week, which hopefully explains the rambling nature of this post.

Aidan Skeleton x

Swift Update

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:02:35 -0400

Yo yo yo, I’ll keep this brief - couple of things to tell you about:

We’ve had a review for our EP ‘Kypes | Pests | Throats’ on kill the outlaws blog. They say kind things about us, and as a result our heads have swollen to absurd proportions.

We’ve scheduled a gig at the Dublin Castle in London for 14th June. We aren’t sure of the details yet but as soon as we know more we’ll make a facebook event and all that. LONDON! I’m excited about playing in London, and there’s a rumour going round that the Dublin Castle has a car park, which makes the prospect doubly exciting.

Various Skeletons have been away in recent weeks which is why it’s been a bit quiet on here, but we’re reconvening for the first time in a few weeks tonight so hopefully we’ll come up with some new schemes.

Don’t forget that ‘Kypes | Pests | Throats’ is available at our bandcamp page either as a free download or on CD (which comes with a free download anyway) and our song ‘Author’ features on the recently released ‘Notts in Space’ EP which is available here.

Easy then,

Aidan Skeleton x

Good News / Bad News

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:58:00 -0400

Hi dudes, seems like a while since we posted some news on here. First off some bad news;

BAD NEWS

Our gig tomorrow night in London has been canceled due to circumstances beyond our control. This is quite annoying as we were looking forward to playing, but these things happen. We’re trying to reschedule the gig for another night in May or June, so hopefully it won’t be too long before we’re in the capital.

GOOD NEWS

The Notts in Space EP is now available from bandcamp. It features our song ‘Author’ and three other space inspired songs from fellow Nottingham based bands Worselings, When a Train Hits a Truck and Fresh Eyes for the Dead Guy.

You can stream the EP, buy it digitally or in CD form, so get on over there and check it out.

Judd Trump is a good name isn’t it?

A photo of us playing in Nottingham

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:41:00 -0400

A photo of us playing in Nottingham:

A photo of us playing live last week at the Notts in Space launch party. Photo taken by Paul Lockton. It was very hot, luckily you can’t make out how sweaty we were in this picture.