There I was, checking out Regina Spektor’s website forum to see if anyone’s mentioned The Crimea yet, when I come across a few people slightly confused over exactly what connection she has with the band. Well, far from some kinda English-Russian love orgy, she happened to meet up with the band waayyy back in 2005 (see photos) and recorded a small poem of Davey’s which features on an old gig recording (available here as Opposite Ends (Live at St. Louis) ). Originally the band planned to include the recording on the new album, but this never happened due to legal reasons (a DMCA takedown would be enough no doubt, damn yanks). Feel free to discuss legal issues surrounding the inclusion of an individual’s voice on a non-commercial album release in the comments. But you never know, one day maybe some clever, mpaa/riaa hater will edit the stuff back in. Now I just gotta get this site’s hosting moved outta the States…

Tom Wiggins of Stuff.tv, home of Stuff magazine, has made Secrets Of The Witching Hour his download of the week, seeing the story make it on to the front page of the site. Thanks Tom. And If you haven’t already, download the thing or check out the album lyrics.

The story also makes it’s way on to the front page of Netscape.com thanks to a number of user votes.

London blog 020.com give it their top spot, and it’s a great article too, as is another one at Rock Sellout.

It’s front page news too at Click Music, who include some gig dates along with the regular album story. Also posting similar articles are ShoutMouth, CMU Beats Bar and long time Crimea supporters This Is Fake DIY.

Smaller articles appear on Owen’s ex-employer Fly Magazine’s site (check out the latest mag release btw, it’s free too!), monster music site Contact Music, Entertainment.ie and technology blog PC Advisor.

And Danish news site GAFFAk gets in a story for the Danish speaking Crimea fans.

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Slacking? Me? As if, I still ain’t left my chair. Annnd Davey’s just lovingly sent me about 300 more links. Oh well, they can wait; I’ve been busy updating this site as well as finding out what else is new on other Crimea sites. Here be the low-down:

Someone was looking for this earlier, and as the release caught us all on the hop I hadn’t got one ready, but it’s now finished and here, in all it’s glory, is the wholey unofficial Secrets Of The Witching Hour lyrics page. If you can fill in any of the (albeit very few) gaps, please comment below.

Another returnee to this site is the gig listings page, though it’s missing the kinda excruciating detail my obsessed self would have added in times gone by. But it’ll do you for the next couple of months anyhow.

More updates come in the form of downloads; I’ve added both of Crimea manager Steve Taverner’s radio interviews to the downloads page. And I do appologise for the lack of any other working links there, lord knows how long they’ve been like that but I promise they’ll be fixed very soon.

Not my site but the official one this time. TheCrimea.net’s photoblog was updated sometime last year with summer tour photos. Fun with glasses and bananas abound.

Also trying to trick me in to complacency is the Davey’s MySpace blog which, although not looking like it on the main page, has been updated numerous times in the last few months. I’d try and be funny about it but the Davey’s tales of near self-halm and depression are about as fun a read as Kurt Kobain’s diary. Speaking of which, I’m gonna be dead myself if I don’t get something to eat soon…

Sorry if you’re the last to know. You didn’t think all those news articles were for nothing, did you? The Crimea’s album Secrets Of The Witching Hour, originally destined for a May 13th release, was brought forward and released late last night due to overwhelming demand. The whole thing is free, available in 128 kbps MP3 format with a pdf of artwork.
For old and new fans alike, the retail CD version of the album can be pre-ordered here, along with old singles and merch.

The Crimea’s manager gave an interview to Dave Fanning on Ireland’s RTE Radio 1 yesterday on the Drivetime With Dave show. Thanks for the link goes to Peter who also says Dave’s the biggest DJ in Dublin. Manager Steve Tavener of Double Dragon Music (they also manage Ash) talks all about The Crimea’s road to their free album release, and their current activities including tea with the Chinese government. I don’t wanna know; all I ask is Davey back in one piece. Anyway, the interview lasts over ten minutes and features two song clips aswell. You can listen again by hitting this (it opens in RealPlayer) and skipping to 6 and a half minutes in, but cos I don’t know how long it’ll be there for, here’s a shiny new MP3 of the interview, just cos I love you all.

Here’s a couple Crimea related vids to give you a break from all the album articles. First is possibly the world premiere (outside of YouTube) of The Crimea’s official Bombay Sapphire Coma music video. I only just saw a link to it on Music Justice so I don’t know much about it. I do know it makes the Lottery Winners On Acid video look understandable. Second is what I spent all day yesterday making. Technically, it’s not a Crimea video. But I added All Conquering as the soundtrack and it came out pretty good so what the hell. It’s my guide to winning in Battleracer from five places down at the start.

I should never have Google’d it. I’m gonna be sat here all day adding reviews, ain’t I? Good reason for it too… have a read of the below and you just might find out (though again, it’s not like I’ve had time to read em myself yet…).

The top audio story at Pocket-lint today is The Crimea’s free album download. It’s not much you won’t have read already.

It’s top story for the whole site on Strange Glue, so just visit to say thanks.

Second top story on ICWales’s Arts & Ents section is a slightly longer “Free” article with a Welsh twist.

The story’s one of the top three at Undercover.com.au and if you’re wondering why, you really wanna read this one.

Music blog Musical Justice just reference ye olde Guardian article, but add just a little extra something. Yes, you wanna read this one too, but I’ll give it a bigger mention later today.

Proving that a free album has at least a little wider intrest than just within the music industry, technology blog Tech Digest gave the story a mention yesterday. Again, the story ain’t new, but the audience sure is.

Possibly the best article of the.. err… last hour (gimme a break, they’re coming thick n fast today)… is from DJ Ivi’s blog at music website MOG. If you’re tired of the last 24hr’s hype, this guy tells it how it is. Well, dunno about the pop bit…

And another tech blog, Gadgetell, also have an article on the free album story.

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The Crimea’s All Conquering features as the first song in the latest podcast from music website The Tripwire. Check out the tracklisting / download it here and while you’re there do a search for “crimea” for all of The Tripwire’s previous Crimea articles, they’re clearly big fans.

Mr Monkeyfish posted this one on the boards, have to say that Proud Gallery place looks like a prison cell.

The official Crimea website has had a makeover. Gone is the music playing Flash based fancyness and in it’s place is a much darker but easier to use HTML based one. So far there’s some up to date gig news and YouTube vids, links to the most important Crimea places on the web and a form to sign up to the official mailing list (see below for an example).

The band also seem to now be endorsing 7 Digital’s Indiestore.com as thier official online retailer. So far there’s only a couple of tracks but I’m sure that’ll increase in time.

Last Thursday The Crimea’s lead guitarist Andy Norton performed live with ex-Ash member Charlotte Hatherley during her Radio 2 session with Janice Long. You can check out the show’s tracklisting and listen again (up until this Thursday, when I’ll stick some MP3s up) at Janice’s web page (skip to 30 mins in). Andy only really speaks once, mentioning The Crimea recording their album in Latvia and Janice says they could come in a play a session once it’s released. Thanks for the info, Phil.

Checkout the YouTube vids added to the Google video bar feed to the left / below :d Now they just need to add a sort by date option and it’s perfect . Oh yeah, anyone at the gig tonight? You missed Paris Motel if not. Their singer’s on Requiem Aeternam if you didn’t know already .

I know my loyalties may seem a little screwed, but seriously, if the guy stays in Fame Academy past today you’re gonna miss tomorrow’s installement of the Colin Murray Crimea show aka. his Radio 1 slot. So vote the man out already, you all know Barry’s gonna win anyway.

Last month Mog.com featured a post on The Crimea. There’s a couple videos and some Wikipedia text there, regular Inaudible readers will have seen it all before.

And I dare say you’ve seen this interview at Penny Black Music before, but I can’t find it in the archives so either my search tool or my brain are buggered. I’m know which I’m going with.

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The Crimea have updated their MySpace page with extra details on their new album Secrets Of The Witching Hour. They would also like to remind you that they’re playing a gig at The Metro in London tomorrow. Yes, Valentines Day. Owen and Joe have even offered free snogs to the shortest and tallest people to turn up. Possibly not the most well-thought out of ideas; this webmaster assumes they’ll end the night making out with each other.
If you can’t make it, not all’s lost. There’s a new Crimea track up for download on the same site, so you can at least close your eyes and pretend you’re there. Or frankly anywhere but your own front room reading your own bloody website for entertainment. And it didn’t even snow :o(
For something a little more visual, check out Google Video. I’m slowly re-uploading everything YouTube destroyed, just do a search for my user name - pepsi_max2k - and it should bring up most Crimea related clips.

Lemme know if this works, will ya?