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power to the penguin!
Hot News; Fresh from the Floe.
Newsletter #1 - April 2007
Greetings Penguins and other assorted creatures of the Arctic regions. Welcome to the first official Arctic Circle Newsletter. Firstly, be sure to see below where you will find the most essential, vital information, distilled to a few sentences to be easily copied to your diary, calendar or the back of your hand. Its really up to you penguins, we’re counting on you!
Also in this freshly chilled edition: Really Terribly Important Dates for Your Diaries: Our other forthcoming shows. (we’re all properly excited about these; go on, have a peek…) Dale Grundle of The Sleeping Years tells all about writing, recording and gigging in Paris. Free to all Penguin Pals: The Sleeping Years’ enigmatic How Long Have You Waited mp3? Get yours while it’s fresh!
It’s a…penguin! Everybody here at Circle HQ would like to offer their manifold best wishes to Sarah, who may well have given birth as this hits the polar press. All the best from the penguins!
See you on the 27th at the Whitechapel...
Chief Penguin
chiefpenguin@jointhecircle.net
April, May and June events for your diaries:
WHITECHAPEL GALLERY 27/04/07
North Sea Radio Orchestra, Ken Peel, The Sleeping Years with Nick Hornby (video instillation) & Jonny Trunk DJ Set.
Buy your ticket in advance
SPITZ 30/05/07
Venue: Ellis Island Sound, Oblong & Laura Rossi & dj tench (expanding) with visuals from Bad Hand Film
Gallery: Hybernation, Seven Sang & Rothko (DJ set) video instillation from Nick Hornby
Bistro: Clark Hammond Duo
Spare Oom: a night of poetry currated by Sundown Multimedia
Buy your ticket in advance
UNION CHAPEL 02/06/07
Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN
12 - 2pm - LUNCHTIME
Songdog, Woodcraft Folk & Dollboy
Free Entry (but bring your own cake!)
From: The Sleeping Years
Dale Grundle talks from beneath the seabed about producing The Sleeping Years - You and me against the world EP, involving his folks in the creative process and plans to wreak havoc with yarn…
Most of my recent time has been taken up with the recording of my debut EP, You and me against the world. It's the first time I've recorded and produced everything myself. Also, because all the covers are handmade, I've been working with the designers over the past few weeks helping them out. So much work has gone into it - it's incredible. They've been cutting cloth, stitching, printing, stamping, silk-screening...going through every process known to man... but everyone is so proud of the end product. It's very beautiful indeed! (see pic below)
Aside from that I just got back from playing a couple of dates in Paris. One at a festival called Meeting People is Easy and another at a great little venue called Pop In.
A recent highlight has been returning to Paris. I haven't played there for a few years and it was great meeting all the French fans. The French audiences are some of the best in the world. Also, just having the finished EP in my hands and hearing the reaction from people when they see/hear it for the first time. It's always good to get to that stage after everything seeming uphill for so long.
I'd had a few teething problems with the production of the EP but it's been a good learning curve. I guess the most disappointing thing was that the designers (Pika Pika) planned to come to Paris to create a street installation to coincide with the EP going on sale for the first time. They were going to stitch red thread or yarn around the area of Paris that I was playing in (the sleeve is stitched closed with red thread) with it leading up to the venue. Unfortunately Eurostar suspended all their trains on the day they planned to travel over because of a fire so it didn't happen. I was really looking forward to seeing what they would do. I kind of expected them to get arrested in the process though...
For a lot of the songs on You and me against the world I began referencing my home (the North Antrim coast in Northern Ireland) more than at any time before. The first song mentions 'Harbour Hill' and 'the Crescent', and sings of 'strung lights and drunken sounds' that 'glimmer at the edges of your town'. This is Portstewart, the town that I would always be drawn to when I was younger because I grew up in a tiny village in the country. Portstewart was right on the coast and had all these great bars where everyone met and I was very isolated where I was so I spent a lot of time there. I ended up living there for a few years after I left school and wrote the first Catchers album (my first band) living in a house there beside the sea. I'd watch the storms approaching from far off and witness these incredibly beautiful sunsets. It felt as if I was living at the edge of the world.
The lockkeeper's cottage was written for my father and Dressed for rain for my mother. They both recorded dictaphone tapes answering questions I had written out for them centred around their lives. I think in some sense I was trying to understand them more as people. I had reached the age that they were when they had me so I was trying to find out what they were like when they were younger, how they felt when they met each other, etc. These two songs were written around some of their stories. For example, my great grandfather was the lockkeeper on the part of the River Bann that runs through the town that I was born in. My father grew up in the cottage by the river. You can hear him speaking from that very place at the end of the song.
How long have you waited? is about someone who has spent their life hidden behind words discovering that they need to love. It starts with them trying to feel the word in their mouths and repeating it until it begins to make no sense to them.
The Paris gigs went really, really well. Better than I could have hoped for. I met so many wonderful people. Some old Catchers fans were there and lots of people who know me only through The Sleeping Years.
I love Paris anyway and I have had a long relationship with the city through music. From the very first Catchers single on I seem to have had so much support from the people there. I have a lot of friends there as well so it's good to go and see Paris not as a tourist but be taken to the good bars. I really enjoyed the gig at Le Pop In, a great little indie bar. The owner Denis is a fine host! I'll hopefully be back soon. I'm planning to release a series of three EPs and then an album so I'll try and go back and promote each one.
Well, it's back to London now... (just writing this on the train). I have a busy couple of months ahead...
There are loads of gigs coming up (everything is listed on my myspace page at www.myspace.com/thesleepingyears ), a session for Resonance FM, then the Arctic Circle gig, and then work begins on the next EP...
The EP is out now and you can buy it for £5 from www.sleepingyears.com or from The Sleeping Years myspace page.
Download to ‘How Long Have you Waited’ here. [no longer available - but we recommend you buy it!]
full news on all gigs and other Arctic Circle activities at:
www.jointhecircle.net
myspace.com/jointhecircle