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

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!