Chinese website Sina.com has posted two pics of The Crimea playing the MIDI Festival on May 1st. The first pic you can see to the right, the second one features Davey and a surprisingly long haired Joe. English link to the same pics here and here.

Flickr user Sarah Vossler has posted a collection of her shots from the Mao Live House gig in Beijing. Start here, keep hitting more and you come across Davey with a very familiar looking top. Jason Yuan has also added three of his own from MIDI.

And I just found a bunch of artistic looking pics from Latitude Festival last year on Nosher.net.

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…

The Crimea played at the MIDI festival in China yesterday, and will be playing various gigs around Bejing for the next few days. Here’s a round up of the Chinese based Crimea articles on the web.

Firstly though, here’s Flickr’s latest stream of MIDI Festival 2007 pics. I see no Crimea shots next but there’s some there’s sure some well dressed kids over in the big C.

Lord knows how but someone managed to sweet talk the Chinese government into thinking they’re some kinda superstars, and apparently Davey & Co were having tea with the big wigs a couple days ago. The British Council promoting them as the biggest British act at Midi may have had something to do with it. Somehow I can’t help thinking Davey’s gonna do something mental and fuck it all up. But I guess I found out where I know that Filter mag pic from

The lifestyle website City Weekend has a Midi Fest preview with a paragraph on The Crimea and comments from Owen.

And purely for the Chinese locals, Midi fest has a write up of the band on their site and China News is most likely mentioning the Witching Hour album giveaway.

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The Sun online’s Bizarre column is the next major publication to feature an article on The Crimea’s free album download. It’s so good, one wonders what they want. Anyway, the article’s dated today so you may find a copy in your local newsagent too. If so, let me know as I have some shopping to do.

Regular Crimea news source The Irish Times also mention the free download. It’s written by Jim Carrol, a DJ for Dublin’s Phantom 105.2 who reguarly spits out a few Crimea tunes on his show. Speaking of which, Colin Murray’ll be spinning a new one later today.

Israeli blog ?????? (Tachograph) has a rough translation of the Guardian’s Crimea article in Hebrew (thanks Stefab). Speaking of which, the Guardian’s article was the 2nd lead story on their music page yesterday, which again helps to explain the amount of hits to the site in the past 24hrs being more than there’s been in the past 4 weeks.

And here’s another version of the Reading Fez gig preview posted yesterday. This one’s from the BBC and has a larger version of the same pic.

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Mailing list members will have the UK dates, MySpace member’s the Chinese ones, but if you’re getting confused then click more for a full list of upcoming gig dates. They play China tonight, which technically is either tomorrow or yesterday, but regardless they’re all over Bejing this wekk so you can’t miss em whatever time zone you’re in. Oh how I wish I could frequent the “Get Lucky Bar”.

When they get back to the UK they’re gonna be hanging out with the Angel Of The North, destroying the airwaves with XFM, livening up my two home towns and leaving very few places in the UK untouched. I’ll let you know more closer to the dates; to start with here’s a scarily well researched gig preview from TCT Music. Hit more for gigs galore.

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The Crimea: from London to Tiananmen Square…and back!
Leeds? York?!? XFM!!! Read the latest mail out for news on potentially my most attended Crimea tour since 2002.

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You know the deal. Colin Murray, another Crimea album tune, tracklisting after the jump.

French website and Crimea fans Sound Of Violence post news of the new album. It may say it’s great, then again it may say it’s shite. I ain’t got a clue cos it’s all in French and I defy anyone to understand the language. À cette même! Believe.

English Crimea fans Comfort Comes had album news a few days ago, but it’s dissapeared now. Google’s cache, while it’s available, or just hit more.

Everyone’s using Vox right now. Confuses the hell out of me; bring back Audiogalaxy groups I say. Anyway, at least someone’s posted about the Crimea on there. Yup, you guessed it, more album news.

Here’s details on one of the tour gigs from Norwich Arts Centre. More tour news coming very soon; if you’d signed up to the mailing list you’d already know

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It’s that time of year again. The Crimea play a UK tour and spend more time advertising themselves behind a merch stall than on stage. But now you have a chance to put things right. Stop the humiliation! Owen’s barely visible behind that stack o CDs anyways… Join the Crimea Street Team! You’ll very likely get free entry to gigs in return for handing out flyers and other odd jobs. If you’re interested, e-mail duffyp@walsall.gov.uk or check out the forum post for more info.

A rare thing happened yesterday. A stranger appeared, baring gifts of knowledge, knowledge of a strange sound known as Phantom. Phantom FM that is, the Dublin radio station where DJ Jim Carroll has been playing Crimea tunes for over three weeks now. Tune in on Saturday between 10pm and 12pm for more. Take that, Colin, your Crimea secret is out. Serves you right for not letting Barry win.

Proud that a grand album do come for free.
And if you lose it, you’ll find it in your tele. Channel 700 on freeview, Tuesdays at 11pm. Hit more for tour news!

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Loop A Loop was Colin’s track of the week yesterday. Apparantly it’s his favourite song on the album. He also mentioned his clearly all-time favourite Crimea track Opposite Ends, saying that lyrics from it featured in the new album. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of what they are, so clue me in people. Anyway, listen again or hit more for the tracklisting.

Camden. Don’t you just love the place? I had a pet Camden once. I shot it. Erm… Camden New Journal have a preview of the last Proud Gallery gig. Don’t worry, there’s one more onthe 24th April so you too can get down there and nab your very own Camden. What you do after that is your own business.

Today’s album preview comes from The Irish Times. It’s only short but hit more to read it.

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My new old new favourite band Halflight say:

We’re supporting The Crimea @ The Queen’s Hall in Narberth on 26th May. Yay! x

Yay indeed. Have a listen to their gorgeous song Worship on their Last.fm page.

PS. Another Colin Murray Crimea track in just over 3 hours.

Secrets Of The Witching Hour is unleashed! The Residency Continues…
To free or not to free. Read the latest Crimea mail out and figure out how to do both with the new album.

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

According to RecordProduces.com, a man called Greg Haver was involved in the mixing of The Crimea’s upcoming album, Secrets Of The Witching Hour. His other credits include a number of big names, namely both the Manic Street Preachers and The Hot Puppies.

There’s more details on the album at RoomThirteen.com, who report the release date as May 13th. Read more for the rest of their news.

And don’t forget to tune in to Radio 1’s Colin Murray show tonight from 10pm for a preview of another song from the album.

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