News

In order to allow Dark Company’s fans to hear what we’ve been working on for the last while, we’ve uploaded a whole heap of alpha mixes for you to enjoy. They are the complete albums of Can of Worms, Mind Dance and Noir. :)

Can of Worms is a collection of rather splendid older songs that tended to be largely ignored by the band during their first two incarnations, although there are a couple of exceptions that Jeff and George developed a little on the Atari during the days of Dark Company II. Mind Dance was only ever demoed with Sammi singing as well as Pete in Dark Company’s third incarnation. Noir is the very newest collection of Dark Company’s songs which we hope to finish and release in 2010. This is your very first opportunity to hear the Noir songs. There is plenty of fabulous material contained within these three albums and we’re sure that you’ll find some of your own personal favourites among them.

All of these albums are in the relatively early stages and we will endeavour to update and upload whenever possible. At the moment Pete is concentrating on recording Ghost of the Art and Noir before his medical issues slow his progress. George is working mostly on Bad Habits and Sven is almost at the end of Mind Dance.

Max recently gave us a CD of all the photos she took of the band earlier this year and there are some excellent shots among them. We shall be uploading them soon, along with the ones taken by Phil last month. Firstly however we plan to reorganise the Dark Company galleries a little during the forthcoming upload of the new site design as they have grown to a vast sprawling mass. It will be easier to locate all the images once this has been done.

We are hoping that Dark Company may be making an appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Up All Night programme with Dotun Adebayo and Jamie Stangroom. Make sure you check back regularly for all the latest news.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis have added some more songs to their set, those being Redeemed, Workshop of the Telescopes and She’s as Beautiful as a Foot. Redeemed came about due to the forthcoming Christmas special at the Black Horse on December 17th, which should be a good night.

The boys hope to debut Redeemed and possibly one or two more at the Black Horse. It will probably be the next time that they will be able to perform live.

Today Pete recorded the vocals for Reflector from the Can of Worms album by Dark Company. These were the last vocal parts he needed to record to complete his parts on this album. We will try to upload some alpha mixes for you soon. Hooray!

He also laid down the vocal for Change the Light from Noir. This song is about the ancient race of Nephilim and features no drums at all to allow Sven to indulge in a little pillaging and burning of coastal villages.

Next week Pete will be starting on the Ghost of the Art album. There are twelve songs on that particular collection and we will be interspersing them with more recordings from Noir.

Another successful performance by the Bastard Sons of Dennis took place last night at the Amber Rooms. This time the set was Before The Kiss A Redcap, Teen Archer, Last Days of May and Cities on Flame. The highlight was probably during Last Days of May when Andy sang ‘Now and then a duck’ instead of ‘Now and then a truck’. It was hilarious!

Their next show will be at The Black Horse, Longbrook Street, Exeter on Thursday 3rd December, followed by probably another trip to the Amber Rooms next Monday 7th December.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis plan to return to the Amber Rooms, Sidwell Street, Exeter for their open mic night later tonight, Monday 30th November. They also plan to perform live at The Black Horse, Longbrook Street, Exeter on Thursday 3rd December. We hope to see some of you there.

George, Sven and Max were all in the studio today. As well as eating all of my bananas, they laid down most of Sauce! from the HappySad album by Flicker. Some of Sven’s drumming needs tidying up and George plans to lay down some lead guitar tracks which he’s not entirely convinced will work, but he says he’s not sure until he’s tried them. We may ask Dark Company’s Pete to blow some harmonica on this track as well. It’s been a long time since any Flicker activity occured due to the boys being busy in their various projects.

Just as the big red button that says ‘record’ was about to be pressed, a magpie landed in the tree opposite. “Morning Mr Magpie” was the salutation, at which point another one joined it. “Wow, two magpies, two for joy!” was the next comment. “How lucky”!” and “How auspicious!” were the next comments. Perhaps this would signify a successful first take?

Next during this bird-induced interlude, a third magpie arrived. “Three for a girl!” was cried with glee, and then came a fourth. “Four for a boy!” and “Any more coming?”

The magpies for silver, gold and secrets never to be told were not forthcoming as it happened. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool.