Radio, Ukulele and other stuff

It's been a while hasn't it! That's Christmas for you - Merry Christmas by the way! Hope you all had a good time with friends and family because we definitely did. However we have found time to get the band together to squeeze in a few things before crimbo:

Salford City Radio 94.4fm were kind enough to have us back on the airwaves playing 3 of our tunes and giving us a grilling about our influences. 3 out of 4 of us made it, as sir limp-a-lot AKA Tatt has busted his knee attempting to play football. Thanks to Daz who organised getting us on the show.

From left to right: Mark, Daz, Adam and Si.

Later on the same day we played a brilliant 'Christmas doo' gig at St Kent's in Fallowfield. We shared the stage with El Gazelle and The Naughtys who both put on top sets. If you haven't heard of either of these bands before we suggest you check them out pronto. 

Before The Naughtys could take to the stage we had to do some quick repairs to the snare stand because whilst packing his stuff away Si managed to somehow snap it! Anyway, Adam did a scrapheap challenge style bodge on it using duck tape and tie-wraps and thankfully it held up. Didn't do too much harm as by the end of the night everyone was up dancing and there was possibly more beer on the dance floor than in the glasses which is always a sign of a good night. 

Nice one to The Naughtys for sorting the gig out, and cheers to everyone who came and supported us.

So as 2013 is almost upon us, we thought we best tell you about some of our plans. First of all...we are asking all of our fans to continue to support us however you can, whether that is by coming to our gigs, sharing our FB and Twitter pages, recommending our music to mates - it all makes a difference and we are hoping 2013 is going to be our biggest  year yet, so please keep it up.

We're mega excited about our first gig of 2013. We're playing Academy 3 in Manchester on 9th February. El Gazelle will be making an appearance with us again, and The Quangos are headlining. 

We've also been working on some new tunes recently so should be able to showcase them in the new year. We're loving taking it back to basics at the moment and trying new sounds so have got a little tune together on the ukelele, bass and drum machine.

It's sounding top! We've been asked to go back into Salford City Radio to play live in the new year and think this will really hold its own on the radio. You never know, it might even make it onto the set-list sometime soon, but you'll have to make sure you're coming to our gigs to find out! 

So major plans for 2013 are more tunes, more gigs, more free demos for you lot and a bloody good time! Hope you'll all join us in the fun along the way.

Last week Recap....

So whilst we have got five minutes spare we thought we'd get you up to date on our going ons.

Firstly like we mentiond in our last blog, on the 28th November we got asked by SJM to support The Coronas at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester.

The gig was megga and hopefully will be able to get more like that in the future.  We had our own dressing room with a fridge full of beer. We were the only support act so were a little unsure to how we would be recieved but everyone seemed to like us and we had lots of cheers and good comments after the gig. Big thanks to The Coronas and Simon from SJM and also to everyone who came to the gig.

Just a few days after our gig at The Ruby Lounge we were back in Manchester playing at Gullivers. We seem to be building up a good little fan base now and keep seeing new people every gig so thanks to everyone who is helping us by telling your friends and bringing new people to our gigs, it's appreciated.

Also check out our latest video. A while back after watching the match in town we did a little bit of spray painting whilst walking to the attic for sound check. We have had the footage sitting around for ages so decided to have a go at editing it into a little video using one of our songs - Who Stole New Years Eve over it.
Anyway here is our first attempt at video editing... enjoy.

Lastly don't forget our Christmas Doo gig, Its on the 22nd Dec at St Kents in Fallowfield. Cheap beer and top bands what more could you ask for?

The line up really is an amazing one with El Gazelle, us and The Naughtys, if you're into live music then make sure you get out and check this one out.

Randomness

Last night we met our first fan from Czech Republic, Lucas.

We were playing at The Royal Oak, Chorlton. It was free entry gig with some tops bands and the turnout was impressive. By the time we'd got on there had already been a couple of decent bands and acoustic sets to warm the crowd up. 

Despite a snapped string for Tat, and Mark struggling to hear his bass (plug it in, Mark, plug it in!) we soldiered on, and got the crowd going. One of the guys who came to see us was crazy-arse dancing all over the show, respect to you sir!

     




So whilst we were loading up to go we met Lucas. Not sure if he came with anyone but he ended up in the back of the van with us on the way to an after party at The Mill. Turns, we couldn't get in The Mill as we had put the keys in a very safe place that we - aka Si - couldn't remember. Think we know where there are now but that's another story ;). 

We finally piled into a house with a load of people that came back from the gig and started talking to Lucas. We think he deserves a shout out as he has been travelling since he was about 15, and is making his way to South America by visiting every other country en route! Says he had more recently hitched from Scotland to England for a festival, stayed for a while and  somehow agreed to build someone's shed...and that's why he is still here. Very random. Just what we like!

Not sure if we'll ever see you again, Lucas but good luck and we hope you spread word of The Nankeens far and wide.

Lucas

We also want to say cheers to any of our new followers that made the effort to come and see us last night. Make sure you come and introduce yourselves!

In fact one thing we have enjoyed about the last few gigs is that the bands and the majority of their fans (including ours) have been sticking around 'til the end of the night. Nothing worse than seeing a venue empty out as the night goes on because people can't  / won't stick around to see the rest of the people on the bill. We enjoy playing to our loyal fans that come to every gig, but it's always nice to see new faces appreciating the music. How will you ever know if you like new bands if you don't give them a chance? Anyway we've had a great time speaking to some of the bands and their fans over the last few gigs, hope it continues!

Here's a few names of bands we reckon you should look out for that we have played with recently... Brouhaha, El Gazelle, Ruby Tuesday, Skeleton Suite.

FINALLY  - our next gig is at The Ruby Lounge, Manchester supporting The Coronas on Wednesday 28th November. This has been organised by SJM events who can be pretty influential in lining up support acts for signed bands so if any of you can make it out to support us on Wednesday that would be ace. Tickets are £5 for the band and we are on at 8.15pm! Check out the Coronas on FB / Twitter if you haven't already.

New Gear, New Gigs

So it's been about 2 weeks since our last blog but we have been keeping busy and got a few new pieces of kit to add to The Nankeens family. We were like kids in  a sweet shop, but finally decided on what we wanted and after a visit to our local music shop - PMT, Mark came out with a nice new Orange Bass amp and Adam with a shiny gold Gretsch! Buzzing with our new puchases.

 

Recently we posted about going into the studio to record our new song, well the new track has now been handed over to our producer Mr Gary Duke for some finishing touches and we should have it back in a few weeks. We're really looking forward getting the finished article back for you to hear as it has gone down really well the few times we have played it live.

We have been looking forward to getting back on stage after an awesome gig at the Ramalama launch night, and two last minute gigs this week put a smile on our faces.

The first was in a nice little venue we haven't played before called Carson's Bar in Middleton and the second was a return to The Attic where we did our Whispers Down The Phone single launch.

The gig at Carson's bar was on a Thursday night, this is the first time we have gigged on a school night for a while but it was really good all the same. The venue was a pleasant surprise and we had a really good night, we look forward to playing there again soon.

 

 

The second gig was last night (10th Nov) after a band pulled out we got a call from Scruff Of The Neck to see if we could help them out and obviously we jumped straight on it. We didn't manage to get there until 8:30pm so missed the first band but the bands we caught were awesome especially a band called Brouhaha (check 'em out). We got on stage about 9:30pm and the crowd were awesome, big cheers and all seemed to like our stuff.

After playing a spotless set we had saved our best 2 tunes 'til last... our brand new song which is un-named and Here We Go, unfortunately we got told we only had 1 left so decided to give the new one a test run and left Here We Go out, if we weren't such good friends with the guys from Scruff Of The Neck we would have played Here We Go regardless haha ;)

 

 

It was busy all night down to all the bands supporting each other and  not shooting off as soon as they had played which is what we like to see.

Anyway we have got a couple of weeks 'til our next gig at The Royal Oak, Chorlton (24th Nov) so will get busy in The Mill making some new music and polishing the set.


Big thanks to Dom for the photos https://www.facebook.com/DosPhotos

Good things come in threes

Well we've had a great week. Here's a round up:

Rock Art Management

After a successful gig last week (see last post) organised by Rock Art Management they are now representing us. We are reliably informed that the people behind the scenes at Rock Art Management used to be involved with the management of a few well-known names including Elbow, John Squire / The Sea Horses & one of our big musical heros - the one and only Joe Strummer so we know we're in capable hands.

They seem to be on our wave length, they like our music, and will hopefully be able to get us some decent gigs over coming months. In fact we're meeting with them this coming week to discuss our plan of action for next year so watch this space my friends.

Talking about gigs we hope you can make it to some of the upcoming ones already in the diary:

24th November - The Royal Oak, Chorlton

1st December - Monto Water Rats - London

22nd December - Saint Kents - Fallowfield

9th February - Academy 3 - Manchester

Get at us on Facebook or Twitter to find out more.

Studio Time

We were lucky enough to record our new tune in Spirit Studio this weekend. 808 state have recorded there, as did Stone Roses in their early days, so we thought if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us ;-)

Check it out:

We spent the whole of Saturday there armed with our magic supplies and we're really pleased with what we got down. We're now waiting on the final cut to be produced. Can't wait to hear it.

Radio Play 

While we were there we got a surprise phone call from Salford City Radio who were just about to do the first airplay of our single - Whispers Down The Phone. Caught us a bit off guard as you might be able to tell when you listen here (you'll have to scroll to upload "Sat 10" and we're on about 3/4 of the way through).

Some pics of our day recording are below. 

The Nankeens

What's that? Double-header weekend? Why not!

So it’s the Monday after a mega double header weekend of gigs (still recovering), thought we’d give you a recap of the weekend’s antics:

Friday –Fox and Goose, Southport

We started off with a cheeky little warm up gig in Southport on Friday at the Fox and Goose - brilliant little venue.  After the local headline act pulled out we ended up being the main act which was a bonus. It was lucky that we had the drum kit in the van ready for our gig on Saturday otherwise we would have been driving back to Salford with our tails between our legs.

Fox and Goose, Southport

Anyway we met a proper top lad on our trip (Big David) who ended up squashing in the van for a lift home so he could catch our set instead of getting his bus ha ha. Turns out he's an awesome singer songwriter who also does an amazing version of Wonderwall (check him out at www.davidshurr.com). We’re gonna try and get him down for a Friday night session at the mill.

So we got on the world’s smallest stage around 11pm, it was difficult to really go for it without knocking everything over or ending up on the deck, but we got the locals dancing which was good.  We played a pretty much spot on set and managed to sell a fair few CDs. Got some decent offers for other gigs too. Cheers to everyone who watched us hopefully we will get up again soon.

Soundcheck on the smallest stage, Fox and Goose, Southport

Saturday – Night And Day Café, Manchester

On Saturday night we played Night and Day.  Apart from being a bit tender from the night before we arrived at the venue at 5pm for sound check, it’s a long day when you get on it that early and you’re not on stage until 11pm!

After chilling down stairs in the green room drinking all the free beer we ventured upstairs to a sold out venue with only 2 bar staff serving which didn’t go down too well with everyone.

We got on stage on time at 11pm and after an awesome little introduction of Mr Pete Boyle we kicked off with our song ‘Over’, it felt like the stage was massive after playing a tiny stage the night before but we got right on it and we all stepped it up a notch, the crowd was mega and it was defo our best gig to date.

  

Night and Day Cafe, Manchester

We got loads of top feedback and hopefully picked up some new fans as well.

Got a couple of things to look out for in the next few weeks, we're going into the studio next weekend to record a new track and we have got a little bit of good news to announce very soon so make sure you keep an eye out for that.

Anyway to sum up it has been a top weekend and we just wanna say a massive thank you to everyone who came down to check us out. Hope you all had a good time and see you at the next one #WeGoAgain.

Don't forget to like us on Facebook here

and follow us on Twitter here

Peace out

Bang Tidy Review

Just wanted to share a top little review written about us and a few of our tunes from The Digital Fix

The site doesn't usually review unsigned bands when they haven't been requested to by a management or PR company so we're buzzing and extremely lucky to have got this:

Link to 'Introducing The Nankeens' review.

Have a read and let us know what you think.

The Nankeens

Whispers Down The Phone

Whispers Down The Phone, *cough* OUT ON ITUNES NOW *cough* is our first single, and we're pretty chuffed at how it has turned out.

Firstly the guys at Scruff of the Neck have done a top job at recording us, and they even made us a little video too. Not bad for an unsigned band eh!

No, seriously we're really pleased with the way it has turned out and everyone who has downloaded it so far (for the absolute bargain price of 79p) has been really complimentary about it.

We had a good night 'Making the Video' where we could prance around like the moody popstrels that we are...er yeah right! We're all bit camera shy in truth. But again the guys at Scruff turned up to our humble abode that is The Mill (you'll probably hear us talk about The Mill a lot) with a shed load of recording gear, and nailed it.

This was in between a fair few beers - always seems to happen at The Mill - and having a good craic!

Anyway, have we sold it to you yet? Here's some pics of us making the vid:

 

And a few HIGH FIVESSSS for the wrap:

You can download the single here


The Nankeens

Hello Music Fans

Thought we'd have a go at this blogging lark didn't we?

This will be one of the places you can come to find out about all of the latest shenanigans going on at Nankeens HQ, the new tunes we're working on, upcoming gigs...you know the drill. So make sure you keep checking back. In any case we'll be posting them to Facebook & Twitter so i'm sure you won't miss us shoving them under your nose ;) Which reminds us - are you following us on Twitter and 'liking' us on FB?

You should do, it's good for your health:

The Nankeens on Facebook
TheNankeens on Twitter

If you've never heard us before have a listen to a couple of our demos on Soundcloud here

Thanks for reading. See you at a gig soon!

The Nankeens