It's the just same old show, on my radio

Last week we did an interview on Leeds Student Radio. Big thanks to James Travis the astro-physical DJ. You can download the podcast from the James' show here. It contains some great laughs and some records being chosen by us.

We've also been working on a remix of a tune by Elso (a Leeds DJ/producer type) which will be released in the next week or so on the front of Leeds Guide Magazine. Full details to follow and I will whack the tune up for download when interest in the magazine version has died out!

Come and see us play Santiago's in Leeds on the 20th of November, it should be a larf.

September / October 2009 tour dates

We are on the road again this weeks;

25th September - SWG3, Glasgow
26th September - Polish Club, Bradford
27th September - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds w/ Zu & Chickenhawk
30th September - The Lexington, London w/ Pulled Apart By Horses
1st October - The Jericho, Oxford w/ Pulled Apart By Horses

Come out and say hello! Mine's a pint of foaming nut brown ale stout yeoman of the bar. Etc.

Tourage UK

Now we have returned from our tour of two halves of the UK it is time to extend a warm thanks to all those who helped organise the gigs, put us up, fed us, watched us play and talked to us afterwards. We had an exceedingly excellent time; the UK really came up trumps with some Summery weather and we took in some exotic sites in pockets of England we have never visited – Hell Fire Caves in west Wycombe and ‘frog’ pub being particular highlights.

So, in no particularly strict order cheers to;

Michael Matthews of Sunderland and We Be The Echo of San Francisco

Poor Girl Noise Toms and lads in Oxford

Double Dot Dash girls and boys in Reading, Toddlers and The Hobgoblin pub

Mike Diver and Clash music Londoners

The Camden Barfly, particularly Adam and John for being incredibly accommodating of our jam.

Toby in Brighton and the pier arcade for stocking Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Don McClean and the Bletchley massive for a stonking night. Chops!

We were pleasantly surprised and humbled by the turnouts and the kind reception we received. Thanks to everyone that came along. Many promoters noted that it wasn’t their regular crowd which means we’re either drawing a new set of people along to DIY gigs in the UK, or that we’re so old that our audience is made up out of people, like us, who haven’t been to gigs in ages!

It was strangely pleasant to hear people say to us; “It’s really good that your still going’. I’ve never really thought of Tank as a long-running band, let alone an institution, but I guess we’re hitting our 5th or 6th year soon and it’ll soon be time to start writing some power ballads. Catch us while we’re still rocking hard.

I guess another reason people might seem surprised that we’re still going at it is because a lot of bands ride some kind of wave of hype that launches them into the stratosphere or they just stop and try again with something different. The ‘buzz’ around Tank – which people tell me about but I’ve never experienced first hand – seems instead to be like some kind of almost imperceptible constant hum like tinnitus. I hope people appreciate the way we keep on doing our thing, trundelling along, progressing slowly into newer territories. I’ve always had more respect for bands that play the long game. DIY isn’t a stepping-stone, it’s a network that should be pushed, prodded and expanded into new places. We very much look forward to rolling into some new places on our next trip out. Please feed us something hot, our aging bodies need it.

Summer Holiday

We are doing some gigs in England, as August is the only month pf the year when it is warm enough to do so (in theory). We are also playing Moorfest on August 8th. Moorfest is in a field somewhere between Skipton and Leeds.


See you soon.

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More press-ups, less sit-ups

We have been in two NME's in a row, and no I didn't sleep with Alastair Campbell.

Check the reviews, page 45 for a 8 / 10 stunner!

Here is what Andy thinks:

the new tank album seems to have been getting some unexpected and quite supportive reviews. i think its a combination of writing the press release ourselves, (accidentally) writing songs that sound like reef, the lemonheads, foo fighters and bruce springsteen, and of simmo from souvaris doing a decent job of being an independent press guy for smaller record labels like gringo - see http://fiverosespress.net/ for details.

obviously we're pleasantly surprised by the nme review, seeing as most music of our ilk gets met with bemusement from that mag (see the shitty limits review on the opposite page, the last tank album, the 'classic' bilge pump 'unlistenable guff' review etc.). that said, looking through the nme for the first time in years after hearing we were in it, there is a generous smattering of words like 'poltics', 'diy', 'independent' 'underground' etc.

maybe there is a turn in what the nme are covering. or, more cynically, perhaps 'diy' music, along with its politics, is going the way of 'punk' and 'indie' and being recouped by the mainstream. maybe this has been going on for ages (see ATP and associated 'one-off' reformations and album playback gigs, gigantic guarantee's for noise-artists and angular rock bands like Hella, Lightning Bolt, Wolf Eyes and Black Dice and generally unquestioned American hegemony in the underground community)?

ironic, then, that tank would potentially be seen as contributing to that co-option after having expressed our views and written about such things (http://burnttoastleeds.blogspot.com/ and http://www.thatfuckingtank.com/resources for example). less cynically, i guess we might see some 'mainstream exposure' as a way of opening up the debate about what type of bands have 'the right' to appear in music mags, and what type of aspirations you need to do that, or what type of aspirations people will assume you have once you've appeared in there - not to overplay the importance or impact of what is essentially just a relatively small article in one issue of a magazine that less and less people are reading.

the optimist in me might hope that we, with an album of pretty accessible but sincere tunes, open up the possibility of people finding out about sometimes more challenging but equally sincere music - including Bilge Pump, Cowtown, MKBL, most of the Leeds (and international) DIY music community - and, more importantly, that way of doing music (as a self-vaildating, playful, means in itself) through getting people to more of our gigs and the familial connections that exist through the label, our website and myspace and so on. in that case, though, it would have been nice if the nme got the label right! i didn't even know that southern had anything to do with the album, unless they distribute gringo releases?

i guess we'll see what the follow up is or whether it's just a hair in the nme soup.

For a full gig list go to our myspace page at click.

For those of you who don't want to click, we are rocking this shit in July:

July 14th - Middlesboro @ Westgarth Social Club
July 15th - Holmfirth @ The Nook
July 21st - Leeds @ Brudenell Social w/ Marnie Stern

Fame at last?

Hi Tankers. The hype surrounding the release of Tanknology is positively fever pitch. The NME has featured us in the 'Top 10 Cool Things To Check Out' or something. You can also download an exclusive track from their blog here. This freebie is really going to make the collector nerd sweat! The track is an outtake from our 'Tanknology' album sessions and is an instrumental version of our last single which I have dubbed 'Awesome Magnet (slight return)'.

We are doing a couple of shows next week;

Tuesday 30th June - The Macbeth, London w/ Shield Your Eyes
Friday 3rd July - The Portland Arms, Cambridge; Independents Day Festival

Hopefully you will be there. I will be.