You’ve probably seen it already but I’m posting this interview with Owen Hopkin on S4C’s Bandit show as some kind fella on YouTube has actually translated the thing over from Welsh into English. It basically goes along the lines of: “I was on my way home from London today, there was a review [of the album] in Q [magazine] in the service station, it was like 4 out of 5. Most people like the stuff off the album - people from the internet, people from the magazines - so yeah, the attention is nice, but odd really because we were in a band, The Crocketts, where basically everybody hated us, so it’s just… it just feels nice”. Cheers James.

In other news, it’s that time of year again where I spend six hours infront of the telebox, recording BBC Three in the minute hope that the camera settles on one of The Crimea members for a few seconds. You may do better if you actually have tickets to T In The Park this weekend.

The Crimea @ Bestival last year —>

More to come though unfortunately most of it’s old Crocketts vids, but there’s some old Crimea stuff too. Check out the user page for pepsimax2k on YouTube for the latest, I’m uploading them pretty much as soon as I’ve got them on my PC and encoded properly. There’s most of the Crocketts stuff there already, though I’ll be adding them to Vimeo when it lets me and you can download the proper quality versions from there. I’ll mention on inaudible.co.uk/crocketts when they’re done.

Getting even more off topic; heads up for Lecia and ex-Crimea guitarist Julz Parker who’ll both be playing live on www.rawaudio.net on July 2nd and 9th respectively. I’m reliably informed the UK time will be 11am, but the sessions stay online for a week after just incase.

“As long as I give him a bone every now and then he’s happy.“

Find out whom the above was said by/about in this classic Crimea interview.

“What will you do immediately after completing this interview?
Hang myself.“

Geez. Rope burn’s terrible. Howsabout listening to The Crimea’s gig in Cardiff a few days ago? For £6 it’s yours. They’ve stuck a video up on YouTube too. Actually…

If that works I’ll shit myself. (Edit: blimey. hit play, i guess… :o| ) I’m off back to google some more stuff up. While you’re waiting, get over to The Big Swap site and offer better than a holiday to Florida for thier signed Fender guitar thingy.

The next bunch of MP3s are up and available for download. Lottery Winners On Acid and Fred Flintstone were played live on XFM’s Music: Response show on 27 March 2003. They’re slightly better quality than the Peel Session recordings so get over to the downloads section and have a listen. You can also still get the song that Davey likes to call “It’s raining financial advisers”. Forgotten will be available for the foreseeable future as the band have asked me to keep it up on the site.
Two new gigs have been confirmed. The Crimea play at The Windmill in Brixton this Sunday (4th) and at The Borderline in London on Tuesday 20th May. Make sure to check the gigs section for information on all future gigs for the band.
Owen Hopkin has said that there will definitely be a 7″ vinyl to go along with the White Russian Galaxy CD single although at the moment it’s not known whether they’ll be selling any merchandise at future gigs like they did during the LWOA release tour.

A month before the new single comes out, you can now download the Crimea’s Peel Session version of their last single Lottery Winners On Acid. Also available is the final song from their Peel Session, Forgotten. They’ll be there until April 22nd when some tracks from their Music: Response session will replace them. As well as these, I’ve put Fred Flintstone and Opposite Ends MP3s from the Klutzville Promo EP back up now I know neither of these will be on the next single.
The airing date of The Crimea’s appearance on Cable TV has finally been announced. The BBC 2W website has the date as Tuesday 15th April at 21:15, and says this about the show: Stuart Cable returns for some cosy chat with David Dickinson and Edith Bowman, plus music from The Darkness and Crimea. You’ll need BBC 2W, available in Wales, to view the show, so if anyone there would like to record the show for me I’d be really grateful, and could get some shots of the show up on the site.
New photos of the band have been added to the site. There’s some of them during the Monarch gig on March 25th, some old Crocketts photos from their appearance at the Day At The Races festival in Donnington in 2001, a couple of extras added to the index page of the Rummers gig photos and various things added to the other pictures section.

The art work for the cover to The Crimea’s latest single White Russian Galaxy is now available for viewing. It’s anyone’s guess who the person on the front is, according to the band it’s just a photo they found on the bassist’s bedroom floor. At least the b-sides for the single have been confirmed, and it’s old Crocketts track La Sinoco and newcomer and crowd pleaser Girl Just Died taking up the two spare places on the CD.
The MP3 fest has begun, starting with Fred Flintstone and Isobel from the Radio 1 Peel Session up for download for the next two weeks. If you don’t want to wait for the rest, there’s a little competition running to get a copy of all the XFM and Peel Session MP3s burnt onto audio CD. Click [More] for the extra info on that.
The band have been confirmed to play at the Kerrang! Weekender on Sunday April 13th. It’s the first festival appearance for The Crimea so if you want to attend, you can buy tickets at aloud.com and find out more information on the festival from the Kerrang! website.
Do Something Pretty fanzine have written a review of the DiS Vs DSP gig featuring The Crimea among others. Check out the whole review here or just read the Crimea bit by clicking on [More].
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So I’m sat here listening to the first Crocketts song I ever heard, and I figure it’s time to let you know what’s been going on for the past three years since then. Well, it feels that long anyway. Sorry for all the promises of an update, hell, even Owen got in before me with the mailing list. So here you go. Updates, at last.
White Russian Galaxy. Formerly titled Who Knows, the much awaited second single from The Crimea was announced on Friday through the mailing list. It’ll be released around the middle of May, and it’s coming out on the Double Dragon record label, which is yet another label I can find no info on. If you ask me, it’s just another name Davey made up for a joke, and he’s currently producing all the CDs in his bedroom, along with everything else that goes on in there.
MP3s. The stuff you’ve all been waiting for, MP3s of the John Peel and XFM radio sessions are now available on the downloads page. Currently there’s only interview and talk stuff, but all the songs will be available at some time. I’ll probably put up two tracks every couple of weeks, starting in about a week, so keep checking the site for updates.
All the links pages have been updated. There’s not much new but at least you won’t be sent to any non existent websites.
A publishing deal has been signed by Davey & Co. with Warner/Chappell Music, bringing the band much needed cash for a second set of clothes. Thanks to website local SR, you can click on [More] to find out the difference between a publishing and record deal.
More gigs are lined up for the next couple of months, including one this Thursday, which is part of the Drowned in Sound fanzine vs. Do Something Pretty fanzine night. As always, check the gigs page for more info. Both the DiS and DSP websites have more info about The Crimea on them, and the DiS site even has a link to the Utopia MP3 on this site to promote the band to their readers.
New photos have been put up on the site. There’s three promo shots taken of the band by Tina McClelland on the main page, and photos of the lads and all new lass playing at The Borderline have been put up on the pictures page.
A new update on the Peel Session in February. Turns out Davey’s guitar skills weren’t quite as good as they seemed, as it was actually a session guitarist they’d bought in for some extra help before gaining Julia Parker as lead guitarist. Julz is now settling into life with The Crimea, and looks to be staying with the band for as long as she wants, though continues work with her own band Project Winterhaven.
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The Mailing List
Click [More] for details on the band’s new publishing deal, and the title of their next single.
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The Crimea’s Peel Session will be aired TONIGHT on John Peel’s Radio 1 show, which runs from 10.00pm until midnight, and the four recorded songs will probably be spread out between the show. You can listen online via Radio 1’s website but if you miss it, you’ll still be able to hear a recording of the show on the site and I may get it on MP3 and let you download it from here. More details on that later.
Bombay Sapphire Coma made it’s radio debut on Peel’s show last night; I’ve almost lost count of the number of Crimea traks he’s played now. Until next Tuesday, you can click here to hear a recording of the show, the song starts at about 1 hour and 39 minutes in. Instead, you can download the song from the MP3 page, and have a look at the show’s traklisting on the Radio 1 website here, or click on [More].
Staying with Radio 1, and Davey’s not the only MacManus to be inhabiting the station’s studios. His sister Annie also produces the Colin Murray show, on just before John Peel’s.
And you’ll all be pleased to know that the old message board is back. Re-visit it at http://212.87.85.170/boards/cayweb/forum.asp?L=24.
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There’s another gig happening this Saturday evening at The Gallery in Leystone. More details are on the gigs page.
There’s also a few new downloads on the downloads page. Check them out, they’ll have dissapeared by January the 15th.
More Lottery Winners news, there’s a review of it over at The Despondent e-zine. I don’t think they liked The Crocketts much *grr* but they do like the new single enough to name it their Single Of The Week *yey*. Click here or on [More] to read the reivew.
And I’ve put up photos from the Crimea gig at The Monarch on the eleventh. Thanks to Tina McClelland from www.photo2000.co.uk and Elodie for sending me their pics, which you can view here.
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Elodie’s photos of the Monarch gig have been added.
Can someone enlighten me as to why three of the Klutzville mp3s have been downloaded about 70 times each, and yet Opposite Ends has been downloaded 370 times? I know it’s the best song but cumon… I’m gonna have to take it down if it gets any worse.

The Ruffwold site has some information on the ITC event, which The Crimea are playing at. They have a whole page on the band here http://ruffworld.com/com/itcartist.cfm?recordid=The%20Crimea and there’s info on the gig, along with a nice photo of the band and some streaming audio of Who Knows, now called White Russian Galaxy. If you can’t get it to play, click on [More] and follow the instructions.
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