Sooo… apparently Last Plane Out Of Saigon had a limited release a while back too. Which would explain all the reviews of it from 2012. Which I think I may have missed. Still, we get there eventually – Room Thirteen, probably The Crimea’s top reviewer (srsly, search em) gave both the original EP and album releases a long review, whilst the imaginatively names Substance Is Meaningless also reviewed the original LPOOS (oh, dear, I didn’t quite expect that. maybe we’ll stick to writing the full name from now on) a review too.

Back to the present day though, and Sloucher manage to include the current Last Plane Out Of Saigon release (yeah, no more toilet jokes eh) in a recent singles roundup. Now I’m off to watch some more ancient Crimea vids. See you next week .

I just stumbled over my old YouTube account, which seems to have just been unblocked by the powers that be (don’t ask…). So anyways, I found plenty of old Crimea vids on it, including the below. If you’ve never snuck in to a Crimea soundcheck before – I say snuck, you just walk in to be fair – here’s your virtual chance to watch, well, not much really. The band getting blinded by lights, and a cameo from sound tech Rae. Jesus no one even swears. Unlike some videos. Sorry for the random editing too, missed the start of one song. So without further ado, Christmas 2006′s soundcheck. Now make sure you get to one during the upcoming shows – I can’t be the only one to piss everyone off all the time .

Yup, they’re still at it too. Anyone going “who?” must’ve mised the Big Background Listening Post from… about this time last year (damn, it really flies, eh?). Anyways, el-Hump-o topped it off, and their curent incarnation of The Keys are in the middle of a big tour. Hopefully they still play Let Your Soul Be Your Guide (play below), but whatever, if they’re playing near you just get down there eh? And get on their Facebook too cos, you know, thats where all those cool kids are at or whatever the hell they do these days. Ahh the good old days when Holly and Sarah were the only Zuckerbergs required…

Fairground favourite Last Plane Out Of Saigon (surely prime contender for next single release) has been doing the rounds on radio – Joe’s been keeping you updated via Twitter but in short, Amazing Radio played them on 2nd May 2013, whilst Radio Ulster’s Rigsy gave em a whirl on Monday and even managed to mention a history of Davey’s (and Owen’s) previous band The Crocketts – listen again here (skip to 1:01:50) or just hit more for the tracklisting.

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Anyone looking to book The Crimea for gigs or PR, it would appear Coda are the guys to contact, specifically olly@codaagency.com. Thanks Alcopop! for the info. Ahh it’s like the good old days, enough news to fill entire entries with pointless one link write ups. Back to Britain’s Got Talent then. Oh Crimea, without you we’d be left with owt but dancing dogs and old ladies rollerblading. Fucking ace, I say

No, he didn’t decide to go for 7 foot in height, he grew his beard. Oh yes, I totally missed this one, but between 2012 and 2013 – for a whole year – Joe grew his beard for charity, and just look at what a twat he made of himself doing it If that doesn’t deserve your financial respect, nothing does No seriously, you can still donate on his Just Giving page – justgiving.com/joe-udwin – where he’s already raised nearly double his taget. It’s all in aid of cancer reasearchers The Christie. But really, you just want him to grow another, don’t you?

Back with a bang – new label, new album and summer shows!
Been a while since I did one of these (5 years!) so with no further ado, here’s the latest mail out.

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I didn’t think I’d ever see one of these again. But oh no, there’s album news aplenty already streaming in. Time to get blogging then…

Sweeping The Nation are first up with a short news post on the new album and a short history check.

Next up, AltSounds who pretty much put out the standard press release verbatim, but does manage to create random crimea fact of the day – they have at least two fans called Ffi. Hi Ffi. And Ffi. Random.

Both however remind us the band play 2000 Trees festival on 12th July 2013, along with everyone you see to the right.

And whilst the official site and twitter pages continue to be updated, there’s also the official SoundCloud page which includes numerous free-to-listed Crimea tracks, including one of (if not the) very first I ever heard – All Conquering – back in the day that you really could think you’d put on the wrong damn CD when a bunch of orchestral operatic tuba epicness opened up. Now of course we expect it, but anyway… 15 seconds later all was made clear.

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Well, I said one more thing… This might actually count as quite a few more things Yup, you didn’t think they were dead did you? (well, I did, but that’s me right put in my place). Now, to rediscover my old image directory structure… Where the hell did I put those files… And how the heck do I write news posts again? Meh. Here goes…

They’re back! Yup, like everyone’s favourite Ghostbusting sequel, the boys are back with more new news to know than you knew you could know news. Firstly, we’re not the only refreshed website back in action. TheCrimea.net has had a facelift too. Like it?

Social media addict I may not be – I’m gonna join Davey in sitting on the fence for this stuff – but the rest of you, who actually know what a Twitter is, The Crimea now has one! @The_Crimea is where you can find all the tweeting goodness. If I ever figure out how to use the damn thing, I may put a feed to the right of this page or somethingwhatever.

Wait, you want real news? Ok then.

They just signed to a new record lable!

Actually, not one, but two, for good measure. The lucky, lucky, lucky chaps over at Lazy Acre Recording Company and Alcopop! Records are about to get the ole news-feed archiving treatement below, but for now, simply check out their sites for all the gosip. They both of course also have one of these twitting things, @ilovealcopop and @lazyacrerecords will continue to befuzzle me until I get the hang of posting news in 140 characters.

Yeah, fuck that.

Album Release! Inded. You can’t fit “fffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” in 140 characters can you?

Crimea album Square Moon will get another, hopefully much less limited release, on double vinyl record (and inevitable download) towards the end of July (officially, 29th, but you know what these boys are like with time keeping). Both Lazy Acre and Alcopop already have a sample up of every G.I.’s favourite, Last Plane Out Of Saigon. Not to be left out, hit more to hear it in all it’s flash player glory (yeah, it really slows down the main page loading), and remember to sing along. “#We’re better together…#”

Oh yeah, gigs. Ruddy gigs! If you haven’t checked the official website already, here you go:

12th July 2013 – 2000 Trees Festival
30th July 2013 – Jazz Café, London

I think it’s fair to say, get booking your days off work now! And don’t fret if you can’t make these, there should be plenty more to come.

I think I’m running out of space now, so I’ll spare you any more. Other than pointing you towards the clearly-quite-good Kate Booker / Faded Photography who appears to be providing the band’s new PR shots. Kate, if I ever e-mail you, run a mile. You’ll never hear the last of me.

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As Murray Walker would say: “go, Go, GO!”.

Silly deprecated ampersands in old computer code, killed the site until I noticed it a month ago (and only just got round to fixing); another reason I hate PCs. Anyway, first things first, the last comment to be added here – which I’ve only just seen:

September 21, 2012 at 7:54 am

A correction for the history books and crimea boffins of which you are well and truly alone christopher, I wrote and played that solo in tragedy rocks d xxx

Well indeed, I may be alone, but honest to god, at least in this recording, is that really you? *reaally*? (non-boffins, hit this, skip about 2/3rds in for the solo). If that’s not julz I’ll eat my cork-appendaged hat. I said cork. Whatever. As far as I can tell, this post is what started the original argument. Feel free to jump in with an explanation of what davey’s on about this time though. You can’t win though. Really, you can’t.

Next up, a quizzical puzzle for all you Crimea boffins.

Oh, wait…

Well anyway, not-quite-nearly-boffin rest of you can help out too, cos I right disgraced myself by suggesting this could have been Someone’s Crying (“i think i remember you shouting gods of war towards the end of something… “the gods of war…and the bastard that created them all….” bwarararghhgh massive bass riff feedback mess…”) before almost immediately realising my terrible error. From everyone’s other favourite forgetful lyricist:

[Do you have a] recording of gods of war and whos laughing now

The latter was duly provided (thanks Simon and your mac hacking skills, whomever you may be). “Gods of War” however is baffling me. The track mentioned above was indeed Weird, but are there any other Gods of War out there? If you have a track titled “Gods Of War”, or just one mentioning them, feel free to link it up in the comments. If it’s actually by The Crimea, all the better.

Oh and, one more thing…

First, there was the Mailing List. It ended. It ended again. It was quickly resurrected. And continued running, even to this day – to get on it, I forget, email Owen or something…

Next, there was the Tour Diary, firstly on their official site, then mirrored here, like practically half the interwebs last decade.

Then, there was MySpace. What? No, I dunno either… Apparently it’s a socialmcsomething. Whoever.

Not content with one social space, the Facebook took over from ‘Space’s reign, bringing even more socially-awkward and commentable musings.

Finally – well, clearly not finally, if history is anything to go by – there’s Tumblr. Having spent the last 15 minutes clicking through a near un-navigable hell-hole of a MySpace blog design, I can honestly asure you this really is the complete collection of all Davey’s MySpace and Facebook blogs to date, starting from just after the afformentioned Tour Diary, running through the entire MySpace blogs (starting 9th June 05 through 1st July 2011) and all Facebook post following through the current July 3rd 2012 one.

Frankly, it’s even better formatted than the previous blogs, with some entries I can’t find even on them. So, the heck to you, social media – Tumblr ftw! Maybe I can finally find that fabled Davey quote I’ve been looking for. Or just waste another week of my life reading it all again Only thing missing is those ever wonderful comments, but hey, what do you think this site if for, eh?

Yes yes, lazy etc, bitches got houses and lives to sort these days you know… ok, maybe not the life bit. And hey, there’s always time for Crimea

There’s was time back in 2006 when AAA Photography snapped the guys at Oxegen fest, at Punchestown Races in Ireland, 07/07/2006.

There was time a couple months ago (time flys…) for someone other than myself to take some vid of the band playing at Union Chapel. The current entire vid collection is here, or just the new ‘un:

And a coule people – Rodger Button and Michelle Mendonça managed to catch Davey (and Tara) at the charity Fear of Sky gig last week – the latter even getting the below video of Lottery Winners (I know, again):

‘Sall for now, but lots (and lots, and lots) of background reading coming up…

Davey’s last published book was Unamazing Disgraces in two-thousand-and-agesago. About time for a new one then Here’s the write up:

“Fear of Sky is an eBook by Davey, giving a detailed and unique insight into his life as a volunteer nurse at Nyumbani orphanage in Kenya in 2011. Photos, poems and related short stories are also included.

Your instant download includes a 60 page PDF eBook which can be loaded on to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone or eReader of choice, and an MP3 version of The Crimea track, Out of Africa.”

Oh and, it’s now the only place to get the Out of Africa MP3 too, you cheap-os. So get paying and downloading, all for charity see . Get it all here:

http://thecrimea.limitedrun.com/products/501554-fear-of-sky-ebook-by-davey-macmanus

By popular request (ok, some guy’s tattoo…): More poorly ratioed Youtube vids! Actually, it’s just Stoned, the track that finally gave this site a relatively topical domain name.

Originally heard as a demo track in a video on the old official Warners site (I believe recorded whilst they were in a Warner Bros office in the USA, but idk, total guess), this was recorded sometime mid 2005. As I said, the res is shit on Youtube, so grab the original video instead if you can be bothered.

The Crimea – Down on the Farm.mov

It was then recorded and released as a free download, as a “B-side” to the free Loop-a-Loop download(s). The other B-side was Can’t Forget You Girl, a track based around the melody originally in The Great Unknown (itself on the Tragedy Rocks album ). Clearly a fountain of Crimea knowledge, me. Anyway, MP3s:

The Crimea – Stoned
The Crimea – Can’t Forget You Girl