News

Sad news came our way today. It would seem that the open mic night at Exeter’s Black Horse has now properly ended. We were informed by the organisers earlier today and it does not appear as if there is another suitable venue for the boys to use. A sad day indeed.

In other news, Andy is back from Croatia and earlier today the Bastard Sons of Dennis ran through their set, including their two newest songs Seven Screaming Diz-Busters and Quicklime Girl (Mistress of the Salmon Salt). Their next performance will be at The Hole in the Wall, Castle Street, Exeter on Tuesday 18th May, and they plan to arrive a little earlier (from 8pm) in the hope of being able to perform for longer.

It’s up! We’ve finished and uploaded the beta mix of Way to Go from Dark Company’s forthcoming Bad Habits album. Parental advisory! This is the sweary version and we shall make a radio/child-friendly version of it as well at some point soon.

Way to Go is a darkly amusing rock/blues number about modern life in which we found a use for some of the out-takes. It motors along and everyone involved did a great job in making this song.

Way to Go is the 13th song on Dark Company’s Bad Habits album. Only the final three songs now need to be brought up to the pre-mastering stage.

New mixes of two of Dark Company’s songs from the forthcoming Bad Habits album have been uploaded to the Wud Records website. They can be found in the default Flamplayer as well as the Bad Habits Flamplayer, and one of them (Don’t Look Down) is the opener for the Heavenly Harmonicas compilation on the Dark Company’s homepage here at Wud Records. The two songs are both fine examples of Pete’s lyrical tongue-in-cheek gallows humour.

Don’t Look Down is a mad bluesy rock number with a saucy shuffle and a harp that sounds like it was blown by a hurricane. A Pocket Full of Rye is a kick-ass folk song in the tradition of bands such as The Levellers and The Pogues. We hope you enjoy them both and will return soon as we shall have more songs from the Bad Habits album finished and uploaded in the near future.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis recorded all of their songs in a live stylee on Wednesday and plan to burn off some CDs to give away at live performances. The finished recording was just under three hours long, so the boys will need to work with our engineers to edit the thing down to a CD’s length.

In other BSoD news, the duo have been continuing to perform and entertain at various open mic nights including The Hole in the Wall, The Black Horse and The Oddfellows. Andy is off for some holidays in Croatia on the 4th, so the plan is to play many shows before he goes. Upon his return they hope to start performing some longer gigs.

It would seem that the Black Horse’s open mic night is about to move. The Bastard Sons of Dennis hope the move will be quick, painless and successful as it is a venue they particularly enjoy playing.

There will be a charity event held at Mama Stone’s on May 17th to which The Bastard Sons of Dennis have been invited to play for an hour. More news on this when it becomes available.

For all you Dark Company fans out there, you will need to tune your radios to The Future Sound of Exeter programme on Phonic FM this coming Tuesday. John will be playing some Dark Company songs from the forthcoming Bad Habits album starting from 8pm UK time.

Pete has also agreed to do an interview for the show at some point in the fairly near future. It will be fascinating to hear him in one of his rare interviews, so we hope the Dark Company fans among you will be able to tune in. It will be the first interview he’s given this century, the previous one being in 1993 following the release of the Rage in Heaven album.

For Dark Company fans living outside the UK or beyond Phonic FM’s broadcast range, you can tune in to the show online by following the link in our ‘links’ page.

Silver for the Revolution is the title of the latest collection of songs hot from the pen of Pok. Professor Dinboffin has been busy in our studios laying down these songs and the results are rather pleasing.

All of the recordings are very simple, just guitar and voice recorded straight through without any trickery. The songs deal with issues such as politics, war, anarchy, heroes and villains (both ancient and contemporary), and more personal matters such as love and loss.

We hope to publish some of these recordings here in the near future. Lyrics and more information are available at the Pook of Pok website (see our ‘links’ page).