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!

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

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.

blackwoods blogotheque

a little present from ute to u...

Studio video day 1

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