HELLO UTE LOVERS
i hope you are all well. we have a little announcement to..well..announce. we've been planning this for a while and so finally to unveil it is pretty awesome. so here goes...
it is with great honour that we announce the EP LAUNCH PARTY for our debut record 'Float, not fight. This is the way!'. We've lined up some of our absolute favourite musicians for this night and so we're really psyched about the whole thing. SO..THE DETAILS!
Saturday 10th January 2009
ute presents...
JONQUIL (www.myspace.com/jonquiluk)
UTE (ep release party - www.myspace.com/utetheband)
VADOINMESSICO (www.myspace.com/vadoinmessicoband)
CLARE CHAPMAN (www.myspace.com/clarefarrarchapman)
+ djs, cake, party hats and of course copies of our new record...
£5 adv. 8pm - 2am, 18+
tickets on sale from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/40722
The Windmill
22 Blenheim Gardens
Brixton, SW2 5BZ
--------
JONQUIL (www.myspace.com/jonquiluk)
jonquil are really one of our favourite bands on the whole planet. when we originally thought of hosting this gig we all individually wanted jonquil to headline it. they're a sort of sunny, folky, poppy, psychy mixture which somehow transcends all of them..not to mention that their live show is something to behold. they've toured the uk and europe, played a stunning blogotheque as well as having done a bbc radio 1 session at maida vale and played live on spanish tv. stoked!
UTE (that's us - www.myspace.com/utetheband)
VADOINMESSICO (www.myspace.com/vadoinmessicoband)
we first encountered vadoinmessico when we played at the notting hill arts club. they kinda knocked us away with their live show which was this sort of mediterranean tango folk with some serious groove. we watched them from the side of the stage and every face on the crowd had a bigger smile than the last..so we had to have them at our party!
CLARE CHAPMAN (www.myspace.com/clarefarrarchapman)
a couple of years ago clare entered a national songwriting competition and came second...to the wombats! we recently played a show on the same bill as the wombats, and soon we'll have played with clare as well..and we know who we'd rather play with..so let's NOT dance to joy division, let's dance to clare's awesome slightly world music wizardry. it's almost as good as her rapping.....she is a long time friend of the band and even sings on our record, so we are so super psyched to have clare playing for us
there are also a bunde of slammin dj's keeping the party going til 2am. it would mean a whole lot to us if you came on down..we would love to see you..
all our love, ute the band xo
Friday 5 December 2008
Tuesday 21 October 2008
damn geese!
hello scoundrels.
well since our last update we have had a pretty cool week. firstly yeah this gig with maps and atlases & colour wasn't our finest hour (so we thought)..we hyped it up massively mostly because we were playing with 2 bands who we are all pretty crazy about but also because we were unveiling a new song and some drastic reworked bits to the older ones..then it all went a bit horribly wrong. strange really because we ran through a couple of tracks before loading the gear in the car and i think those ten minutes were the best that we've ever played together..
either way after our set we received kind words all round from the bands which seemed to go further than platitudes which cheered us all a bit, and then we got to watch two sweet sets from m&a and colour, so that was all pretty cool. to top it all off, a dude was there named sean bamberger who not only plays bass in totally amazing uber pop trio tubelord but also writes for a website named the line of best fit. he was pretty stoked about our set and wrote this:
The evenings proceedings opened with Ute, who managed to deliver a set that balanced all-out spiky guitar bravado with stripped down experimentalism. Songs like ‘Panic/Float’ showed that they could keep a song at a slow burning pace without it becoming tedious, with clapping and strong backing vocals complimenting singer Ollie’s vocal melodies. Their drummer, Joe, also was playing a piece of ‘custom’ percussion, which appeared to be a baking tin perched on a small pot, but sounded great nonetheless. This was followed by the dark, brooding, almost waltzing ‘Airborne’, a piece that showed off the trio’s knack for diversity and power, with bassist Mike mixing pounding rhythms with distorted riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a six string rather than a four. Their set i’m sure wasn’t the tightest they’d ever play, but their mix of influences and sounds wrapped up in an accomplished package certainly entranced the audience, and paved the way for Colour to take the stage.
pretty cool i think you'll agree! so it was a good night overall, even though we didn't feel like we played a good gig at all, and we decided to think of it as a 'learning experience'
and at almost the exact same time we were on stage having a bit of a nightmare at the regal were were being mentioned and played on the steve lamacq show on radio 1! we were tipstered by katherine and they played some of lost voice, which was all pretty damned cool. maybe a million people were listening to us? pretty crazy when you think about it
then on friday after some furious practice and reworking to tighten things up we played another set with baby gravy and foxes! at the cellar..we opened again with the new tune but changed the ending and some other bits to make it hang together better, and it worked pretty well. the set was pretty awesome and ended with a really crazy noisy sample being played for way longer than we intended because phill (the awesome sound guy) decided not to turn it off..it got pretty intense! then we spent the rest of the night drinking ourselves upside-down and meeting some old friends along the way. good times. we also had our first INTERVIEW before the gig which was pretty fun, our interviewer liz was totally awesome and made us feel at ease enough to reveal the secret of band harmony (basically a three-way marriage and sharing a bed)..we'll post the interview when we get a hold of it
so what's next? well, we're finishing the artwork for the record (soon, my pretties, soon) and also confirming some gigs..most excitingly we are playing the NOTTING HILL ARTS CLUB in london (notting hill yeah?) with some other bands and also the legendary DJ DEREK. we are unrealistically excited. that is on the 4th of november and it would be WELL COOL to see you there. in the meantime ollie is thriving in his new job, joe is preparing beats for our party electro side project electricUTE (thanks sam for the unsurpassable name) and michael is wondering why he can never cook cous cous quite right.
speak soon, eh? we miss you. love, ute xo
well since our last update we have had a pretty cool week. firstly yeah this gig with maps and atlases & colour wasn't our finest hour (so we thought)..we hyped it up massively mostly because we were playing with 2 bands who we are all pretty crazy about but also because we were unveiling a new song and some drastic reworked bits to the older ones..then it all went a bit horribly wrong. strange really because we ran through a couple of tracks before loading the gear in the car and i think those ten minutes were the best that we've ever played together..
either way after our set we received kind words all round from the bands which seemed to go further than platitudes which cheered us all a bit, and then we got to watch two sweet sets from m&a and colour, so that was all pretty cool. to top it all off, a dude was there named sean bamberger who not only plays bass in totally amazing uber pop trio tubelord but also writes for a website named the line of best fit. he was pretty stoked about our set and wrote this:
The evenings proceedings opened with Ute, who managed to deliver a set that balanced all-out spiky guitar bravado with stripped down experimentalism. Songs like ‘Panic/Float’ showed that they could keep a song at a slow burning pace without it becoming tedious, with clapping and strong backing vocals complimenting singer Ollie’s vocal melodies. Their drummer, Joe, also was playing a piece of ‘custom’ percussion, which appeared to be a baking tin perched on a small pot, but sounded great nonetheless. This was followed by the dark, brooding, almost waltzing ‘Airborne’, a piece that showed off the trio’s knack for diversity and power, with bassist Mike mixing pounding rhythms with distorted riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a six string rather than a four. Their set i’m sure wasn’t the tightest they’d ever play, but their mix of influences and sounds wrapped up in an accomplished package certainly entranced the audience, and paved the way for Colour to take the stage.
pretty cool i think you'll agree! so it was a good night overall, even though we didn't feel like we played a good gig at all, and we decided to think of it as a 'learning experience'
and at almost the exact same time we were on stage having a bit of a nightmare at the regal were were being mentioned and played on the steve lamacq show on radio 1! we were tipstered by katherine and they played some of lost voice, which was all pretty damned cool. maybe a million people were listening to us? pretty crazy when you think about it
then on friday after some furious practice and reworking to tighten things up we played another set with baby gravy and foxes! at the cellar..we opened again with the new tune but changed the ending and some other bits to make it hang together better, and it worked pretty well. the set was pretty awesome and ended with a really crazy noisy sample being played for way longer than we intended because phill (the awesome sound guy) decided not to turn it off..it got pretty intense! then we spent the rest of the night drinking ourselves upside-down and meeting some old friends along the way. good times. we also had our first INTERVIEW before the gig which was pretty fun, our interviewer liz was totally awesome and made us feel at ease enough to reveal the secret of band harmony (basically a three-way marriage and sharing a bed)..we'll post the interview when we get a hold of it
so what's next? well, we're finishing the artwork for the record (soon, my pretties, soon) and also confirming some gigs..most excitingly we are playing the NOTTING HILL ARTS CLUB in london (notting hill yeah?) with some other bands and also the legendary DJ DEREK. we are unrealistically excited. that is on the 4th of november and it would be WELL COOL to see you there. in the meantime ollie is thriving in his new job, joe is preparing beats for our party electro side project electricUTE (thanks sam for the unsurpassable name) and michael is wondering why he can never cook cous cous quite right.
speak soon, eh? we miss you. love, ute xo
Tuesday 14 October 2008
morris minor
so we have some new recordings up! not a grand entrance as i would have hoped but ready and how we want them. tim has done a great job on the recordings as im sure you'll agree and we're just working on the artwork now.
we played with maps and atlases last night and had a bad time with the tuner. i crunched 60 quid on a tuner that i thought would sort out all our problems. we've never been so out of tune!
and i was a horrible evil diva to mike on stage which i did feel very bad about.
it reiterated for me that being in any silly costume (which i was a bit) and being in a bad mood is one of the most undignified things a man can do to himself.
the worst time was at antic banquet festival when we got really angry with a guy whilst all wearing morris dancing outfits! man that was fucking degrading!
we played with maps and atlases last night and had a bad time with the tuner. i crunched 60 quid on a tuner that i thought would sort out all our problems. we've never been so out of tune!
and i was a horrible evil diva to mike on stage which i did feel very bad about.
it reiterated for me that being in any silly costume (which i was a bit) and being in a bad mood is one of the most undignified things a man can do to himself.
the worst time was at antic banquet festival when we got really angry with a guy whilst all wearing morris dancing outfits! man that was fucking degrading!
Wednesday 10 September 2008
checking in..
good morning ute lovers..and what a shiny morning it is. i (michael ute) have just got back from a weekend in the isle of wight getting rained on and listening to bands so waking up in a real bed to bright sun shine is pretty awesome really.
all is motoring in ute land..we played a gig last thursday with an awesome band from denmark called mimas who not only had a set of kickin songs and a tall guitarist but also some seriously sweet gear which they let us use..so thanks to them..our set was maybe the best we've ever played..i'll let you in on a secret - we didn't rehearse all that much, but that seemed to work in our favour somehow and we pretty much rocked it. ollie even broke out a saxophone and squawked his way to the end of lost voice..we had a whole bundle of fun playing then had a few too many beers and danced the night away with all our wonderful friends who had come down to watch... the next morning was pretty dark for all of us, ollie and joe had work (suckers!) while i got on a train then a ferry and went to BESTIVAL!
bestival was totally amazing, i saw some pretty amazing music which will take me too long to list (but rest assured it was all amazing), had afternoon tea while watching a burlesque show, dressed as a monkfish, got soaked through and spent a whole day wearing not much more than a pair of tights, CHIPS AND GRAVY!!......seriously it was the best festival ever, which might be why they call it bestival. definitely going back next year yes sir!
this little video sums up the weekend pretty perfectly:
so 'what are ute doing?', i hear you ask..well not only are we currently mixing the record (mostly being done by amazing producer tim) which is sounding absolutely pimping, but we are also preparing ourselves for the ANTIC BANQUET this weekend. it's near norfolk, there might even be tickets left, and it seems like a totally amazing festival - on sunday afternoon all 500 people at the festival are having a mega banquet cooked for us! awesome! we are also planning costume ideas for future gigs and perfecting cake recipes
we're also booking a bundle of exciting gigs coming up, including our record launch and our london debut! details to follow...we love you all..
love michael ollie and joe
all is motoring in ute land..we played a gig last thursday with an awesome band from denmark called mimas who not only had a set of kickin songs and a tall guitarist but also some seriously sweet gear which they let us use..so thanks to them..our set was maybe the best we've ever played..i'll let you in on a secret - we didn't rehearse all that much, but that seemed to work in our favour somehow and we pretty much rocked it. ollie even broke out a saxophone and squawked his way to the end of lost voice..we had a whole bundle of fun playing then had a few too many beers and danced the night away with all our wonderful friends who had come down to watch... the next morning was pretty dark for all of us, ollie and joe had work (suckers!) while i got on a train then a ferry and went to BESTIVAL!
bestival was totally amazing, i saw some pretty amazing music which will take me too long to list (but rest assured it was all amazing), had afternoon tea while watching a burlesque show, dressed as a monkfish, got soaked through and spent a whole day wearing not much more than a pair of tights, CHIPS AND GRAVY!!......seriously it was the best festival ever, which might be why they call it bestival. definitely going back next year yes sir!
this little video sums up the weekend pretty perfectly:
so 'what are ute doing?', i hear you ask..well not only are we currently mixing the record (mostly being done by amazing producer tim) which is sounding absolutely pimping, but we are also preparing ourselves for the ANTIC BANQUET this weekend. it's near norfolk, there might even be tickets left, and it seems like a totally amazing festival - on sunday afternoon all 500 people at the festival are having a mega banquet cooked for us! awesome! we are also planning costume ideas for future gigs and perfecting cake recipes
we're also booking a bundle of exciting gigs coming up, including our record launch and our london debut! details to follow...we love you all..
love michael ollie and joe
Wednesday 20 August 2008
one hit for yes two hits for no!
we asked our close friend ed finnis to write some parts for one of the tracks. he wrote brass and woodwind parts for stitch up which we couldnt have been more pleased with. everyone thats taken part has done such an amazing job. our friend tom jackson came up on sunday (all the way from cardiff!) and put down some breathtaking parts! noel and dan similarly recorded parts that took the tracks into another world for me.
the recording came to an end on sunday evening. we all felt emotional and tired because we all believed we had done something special that last week.
i hope that when it is all finished that you will too.
the recording came to an end on sunday evening. we all felt emotional and tired because we all believed we had done something special that last week.
i hope that when it is all finished that you will too.
Friday 15 August 2008
Thursday 14 August 2008
Wednesday 6 August 2008
ute the CHEF
good evening ute lovers, m lounge here. i am beamed to you live from ollie ute's kitchen where his dad and him are cooking some sweet dinner while i sit feeling a little guilty for eating all their food. if i do an update on the ute blog maybe it'll seem like i'm doing something useful and important? well, this update is both of those things.
so since we last spoke we played a gig at the cellar which was pretty epickly amazing. it was our first gig without guitar hero matt marlow, so we rehearsed like animals on the afternoon of the gig then hit the cellar. in typical ute fashion we went to get noodles and missed our soundcheck, but even so the gig was completely wicked. we were playing with rami (awesome reggae rockabilly stuff) and mephisto grande (crazy tom waits sludgy hard rock stuff) who were both cool, but we headlined the night! we were bumped up the bill to headliners because the guys in mephisto grande wanted more time to get wasted. awesome. phil the bass player from mephisto grande left his bass drum on stage so i hit the crap out of that at the end of lost voice, and joe and ollie were in general going for it too. joe was playing almost a full drum kit for the first time (including CYMBALS) which sounded cool. ollie forgot his harmonica but made up for it by singing extra loud a bit like a harmonica. SWEET. all in all a good gig, and then there was a bit of disco dancing afterwards which was pretty super-sweaty. there are pictures to be uploaded which i'll do when i can be bothered.
so aside from that gig we have been planning for RECORDING which is next week, which we are all dead excited about. tym wright is doing the recording in ollie's house and we are drafting in some totally sick players to play on it. we are crazy excited about it all, it should sound totally amazing. we'll keep you updated, maybe we'll even go crazy with the blogging when we're recording so that all you ute lovers can keep in touch.
otherwise we've not been up to much. i've been honing my wii skills and watching some mega movies including DIE HARD 2 which i hadn't seen for an age. what an amazing film. i also went to see oxford united almost beat fa cup holders portsmouth, which was pretty cool too. later that night we went bowling and i discovered that wii bowling skills are NOT transferrable to real bowling. not cool.
joe is away in belfast at the moment, i am sure he sends his love from there if he can speak through the beer.
update from ollie:
hi there!! i started working on a building site this week. on my second day i electric sawed my way through a mains cable and then spent the rest of the day thinking about whether electric current could go into you without you noticing and slowly microwave you.
mike has said most things. cant wait to play you these recordings!
ollie and mike
so since we last spoke we played a gig at the cellar which was pretty epickly amazing. it was our first gig without guitar hero matt marlow, so we rehearsed like animals on the afternoon of the gig then hit the cellar. in typical ute fashion we went to get noodles and missed our soundcheck, but even so the gig was completely wicked. we were playing with rami (awesome reggae rockabilly stuff) and mephisto grande (crazy tom waits sludgy hard rock stuff) who were both cool, but we headlined the night! we were bumped up the bill to headliners because the guys in mephisto grande wanted more time to get wasted. awesome. phil the bass player from mephisto grande left his bass drum on stage so i hit the crap out of that at the end of lost voice, and joe and ollie were in general going for it too. joe was playing almost a full drum kit for the first time (including CYMBALS) which sounded cool. ollie forgot his harmonica but made up for it by singing extra loud a bit like a harmonica. SWEET. all in all a good gig, and then there was a bit of disco dancing afterwards which was pretty super-sweaty. there are pictures to be uploaded which i'll do when i can be bothered.
so aside from that gig we have been planning for RECORDING which is next week, which we are all dead excited about. tym wright is doing the recording in ollie's house and we are drafting in some totally sick players to play on it. we are crazy excited about it all, it should sound totally amazing. we'll keep you updated, maybe we'll even go crazy with the blogging when we're recording so that all you ute lovers can keep in touch.
otherwise we've not been up to much. i've been honing my wii skills and watching some mega movies including DIE HARD 2 which i hadn't seen for an age. what an amazing film. i also went to see oxford united almost beat fa cup holders portsmouth, which was pretty cool too. later that night we went bowling and i discovered that wii bowling skills are NOT transferrable to real bowling. not cool.
joe is away in belfast at the moment, i am sure he sends his love from there if he can speak through the beer.
update from ollie:
hi there!! i started working on a building site this week. on my second day i electric sawed my way through a mains cable and then spent the rest of the day thinking about whether electric current could go into you without you noticing and slowly microwave you.
mike has said most things. cant wait to play you these recordings!
ollie and mike
Monday 28 July 2008
icewolf
hello ute lovers. 'bass giant' mike here. i believe that now that guitar hero matt marlow is no longer playing with ute i am the shortest member of the band, so the 'giant' tag is somewhat misleading.
my life in ute has been short-lived but super fun. last thursday at the jericho tavern was our first gig as a full band, and was a warm up for our big set at the secret garden party festival. it was loads of fun and we pretty much rocked it (ie we didn't forget anything major in the tunes). afterwards we checked out the other bands echo boomer and dead spies who were both cool then took some frosty beers over to clare's house to drink and admire the belly on her cat (seriously massive). thanks very much to clare and sorry to clare's neighbours
the secret garden party was a big heap of fun. i arrived on saturday morning to find the rest of the band in a bad way after hitting friday night super-hard. joe was surprisingly sprightly given that he had passed out in bed before 9pm. our set was on the saturday night in a small tent with a very little pa right next door to a massive tent with a pumping pa and a dub-heavy lineup. we had our work cut out to be heard, but we sang, strummed and banged with all our hearts, and the david-like ute took on the goliath of the stage next door and emerged victorious. no thanks to our wonderful friends who came and danced as loudly and inappropriately as they could. it was a fun gig, it felt really guerilla and was definitely full of energy.
after the gig we ruined ourselves with cheap dark rum and dancing. highlights included running away froma welshman who wanted to talk politics; ollie getting naked in front of, well, probably a hundred people after having been asleep while dancing; joe losing patience with the loaf-wolf; ollie leading a high-volume and low-quality arcade fire sing-along ; and the hours/days worth of laughs we got out of adding 'lounge', 'zone', 'town' and other random words to the end of our initials. from now on we want to be known by our new names - o-town, j-dog and m-lounge. seriously, it's amazing the mileage we got out of that joke.
the sunday was spent mostly feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling our bodies gradually turn against us. so much so that we actually left on the sunday evening so that we could spend the night in our own beds. the festival was full of some of the strangest people i have ever encountered, and all in all it was a really fun weekend. massive thanks must go to spinner and rhys for not only carrying things and driving us there but also for providing killer entertainment and unrivalled company. also big thanks to the icewolf for (not necessarily intentionally) giving us more entertainment than any of the music on offer.
and now i'm back at home and there's nobody here but me. i've been doing nothing today but recovering and playing wildbirds and peacedrums super-loud (check out their tune 'my heart' which is on their my space www.myspace.com/wildbirdsandpeacedrums i think. absolutely awesome song). i am hungry (there's not much food in the house), i am surrounded by animals and i am sweating way too much. maybe a festival is actually like real life after all. love michael
Thursday 24 July 2008
ricehead
its the first sunny day in summer that im not working and im inside writing a blog...im working in a greek deli in oxford which is driving me a bit crazy. loads of really poncy mums come in and correct me when i pronounce 'tabouleh' and ask why im not greek.
someone came in the other day and bought some rice.
"£2 for some rice? don't you think that's a bit much?"
"well. I don't really know, I don't have much to do with the prices"
what the fuck does she expect me to say!
"mmm, that is a bit much isnt it. why dont you just donate what you think its worth, you know, like the radiohead album. "
so she goes out of the shop and comes back in a few minutes later and comes right up to me.
"can i just ask you a question?"
"ok"
"would YOU pay £2 for some rice?"
i was beginning to feel like this was more than my jobsworth..
"well obviously not because if i could go round Oxford buying my dinner from delicatessens then i wouldn't be working here!"
im also rocking some very spindly folk fingernails at the moment to play acoustic. they're amazing for the small percentage of the day i play guitar and a nightmare the rest of it. ive been serving up some very percussive dinners lately!
so we're practicing for the secret garden party festival at the moment and are really excited about it. we have a warm up gig tonight at the jericho tavern and then off tomorrow for weekend to cambridgeshire.
matt marlow from band Strangers in Polaroids is playing guitar with us for these two dates and then he's back off to Newcastle unfortunately. we will miss him and his sweet guitar parts! and then back on the look for a new guitarist..any ideas?
bass giant mike chilcott is now playing with us which has transformed our sound and can't wait to start playing more with him.
so this was my first blog. but dont worry! im going to pretend that you all want to hear about our lives on a regular basis and write all about it.
yum yum x
someone came in the other day and bought some rice.
"£2 for some rice? don't you think that's a bit much?"
"well. I don't really know, I don't have much to do with the prices"
what the fuck does she expect me to say!
"mmm, that is a bit much isnt it. why dont you just donate what you think its worth, you know, like the radiohead album. "
so she goes out of the shop and comes back in a few minutes later and comes right up to me.
"can i just ask you a question?"
"ok"
"would YOU pay £2 for some rice?"
i was beginning to feel like this was more than my jobsworth..
"well obviously not because if i could go round Oxford buying my dinner from delicatessens then i wouldn't be working here!"
im also rocking some very spindly folk fingernails at the moment to play acoustic. they're amazing for the small percentage of the day i play guitar and a nightmare the rest of it. ive been serving up some very percussive dinners lately!
so we're practicing for the secret garden party festival at the moment and are really excited about it. we have a warm up gig tonight at the jericho tavern and then off tomorrow for weekend to cambridgeshire.
matt marlow from band Strangers in Polaroids is playing guitar with us for these two dates and then he's back off to Newcastle unfortunately. we will miss him and his sweet guitar parts! and then back on the look for a new guitarist..any ideas?
bass giant mike chilcott is now playing with us which has transformed our sound and can't wait to start playing more with him.
so this was my first blog. but dont worry! im going to pretend that you all want to hear about our lives on a regular basis and write all about it.
yum yum x
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