C&C Custom Drums have kindly let everyone know about Crimea drummer Owen Hopkin’s new drumkit. Say goodbye to the mean green machine, hello to the purple sparkling wonder. Visit their site or click More for all the info. He’s also mentioned on the Zildjian website (very bottom) for using their cymbals. If you’re really interested in the short Welsh bloke with funny hair, the Crocketts Unofficial Website has some stuff on his side projects too.
Read more »

So with them being over in America recording, there’s not much new stuff I can tell you, cept that they’re currently planning on returning to the UK in late December (so no more asking when the next gig is :oP). But I have managed to find this lot on the web…
Pics of the band playing V Festival @ Weston Park on 22nd August, there’s only three but what can you do, eh?
And a couple more copies of the Warners press release on the band have been posted on Top40-charts.com and MarketWire.com. If you would like to make up some news for me to post or, even better, become a regular news poster yourself, let me know.

Happy and sad news for you today…
Happy: God damn my memory I forgot already… so I’ll get on with the sad for a sec…
Sad news: Wait wait… I just used my brain and the sad news is no longer aplicable… so neither any happy or sad news today then… fooking ‘eck…
Well one thing you can’t miss, that twat bush & dick have managed to convince most of America they’re the good guys again. Sadly the rest of the planet knows differently.
Oh oh I remembered the happy news… Halflight’s Susbside EP has been reviewed… somewhere… and I’ve been to soo many sites today I’ll never find the page in the history… it did say something good about Owen, i promise…. but they’re playing Aber on the 12th :o) like it matters to anyone as no one but me lives here anymore. Maybe I should just go do something useful instead of writing crap here :o\ Hopefully the next update I’ll have remembered something :o( Hands up all who think I should just piss off down to the refectory for some rubarb crumble *sticks hands in air* woo. cept it’s closed in 8.. no.. 7 minutes. Fookit…

2 minutes… :o\

Click More and smile at the fact that one day, just maybe one of these’ll turn up in a shop window near you. And no, I don’t know where you can get one from.
I’ve also finished the lyrics page for the LWOA EP, click this and have a sing-along.
Apparently White Russian Galaxy was played on UK Channel 4 comedy/drama series Teachers last night.
If you want to do a bit of Crimea promotion yourself, The Street Network should have a Crimea street team sometime soon, though there’s nothing on them there yet.
I’m not sure about this one but I think Iona Bateman’s stuck up a few extra shots of The Crimea playing in Dublin, at least, the ones towards the end look newish… You can also buy prints of them and any other band she’s shot through her site, she’ll send them to America I’m sure but you best e-mail her for postage prices first.
Read more »

The Depaulia have a small review of The Crimea playing the CMJ Music Marathon in New York a couple weeks ago. You can read the original version here (at the bottom of the page) or by clicking on More.
Read more »

So John Peel’s dead, which’d be a huge fucker if The Crimea were still releasing stuff here. Cept they’re not, so it’s only a huge fucker for every other decent band on the planet. :o(
But anyway, I finally got my copy of The Croc.. er.. The Crimea’s Lottery Winners On Acid EP this morning, after much hastle at the Uni post collection desky place thing… nothing new, though some (probably American) type’s stuck a nice pic of a car driving down the wrong side of the road on the back cover. And it’d make sooo much more sense if it was actually an Englishman who put it there. Think about it.
I did have some Crockett’s news… ummmm…. umumumumumum…. *still umming*….. fuckit. Maybe if I stick this on the web it’ll come back…
Oh yeh oh yeh… I probably didn’t wanna remember this anyway but err, you know The Crocketts have split when a kid in Aber comes up to you pointing at the Crox logo on your top saying “What’s ‘The Crocketts’?”. Dear lord let me never wear a ‘The Hot Puppies’ top. At least not while they’re still around.

Radio 1 DJ and one of The Crimea’s biggest fans, John Peel, has died at the age of 65 while on a “holiday of a lifetime” in Peru. His playing of The Crimea’s Lottery Winners On Acid gave the band more exposure than anything else I can think off. The band also recorded one of their first radio sessions for his show, the tracks of which are currently up for download here. Tributes are already pouring in, you can leave yours on the BBC site, or just post a message on this Radio 1 message board. You can read more on his passing away on this BBC news page, on the Radio 1 site, or visit his Radio 1 Peel Show homepage.

It now includes the discography, promo and compilation info aswell as all the lyrics :o)

First off, sorry for the short site outage yesterday. In the words of a man named after a dog “it wasn’t me”. So here’s some tiny bits of recent Crimea facts to read:
The album Tragedy Rocks is currently at number 42 in KCRW’s Top 50 Airplay Chart.
The Lottery Winners On Acid EP is at number 7 in WYBF’s weekly chart, having been at number 4 the previous two weeks.
The EP was also the 1,725th highest selling item on Amazon.com yesterday morning. It all helps.

I’m sat here listening to numerous different versions of Opposite Ends, and thinking I should probably update stuff. Sounds about right…
Klutzville Promo EP review. And they bloody love it. Cept for some reason they think there’s a group called The Crimea and a guy called Andy Norton playing on it. Lord knows what that’s all about. Read it here.
Halflight, for whom Owen Hopkin played drums on their recent Subside EP, just played the CMJ festival in New York (much like a certain other band) and will return to the UK tommorow (Monday 18th) to play The Cavern Club in Liverpool. The would be The Cavern Club then. Still, I don’t see them on US morning radio, eh? :o) Oh, and they’re playing Aber in November. Nice. Check their site for more.
Project Winterhaven (well actually, just Julz) have been around the world and back again. Again. And after playing such renowned locations as ‘a back street in asmall town near calais’ and ‘the back of a van in a bordeaux winery carpark’, she and the other members are now off to the US (isn’t everyone?) to play some proper gigs. Well actually, with seemingly little planning, lead singer/ex-Crimea guitarist Julz managed to get herself and friends onto numerous gig bills and even onto a radio show. Oh and they got some stuff nicked from their van too, so if you can spare the odd mic or two, and a guitar tuner… video camera… some “wicked earings”?!?… i’m sure they’d appreciate it. Err.. yeah so, if you’re around, and frankly it seems like there’s no point staying here if you wanna hear some good bands, they’ll be at Baltimore 22 October, Norfolk 23 October,Baldwin City 25 October with Tommy Emmanuel, 29th October - AJ´s Bar and Grill - Jacksonville Florida, October 30th - Eddies Attic - Atlanta Georgia Supporting Halcyon.
And if you’d like to buy some old S Club 7 CDs… As if… they’re way too good to sell, but I do have some of my old CDs / video games currently for sale up on eBay. Maybe avoid the Steps (sadly, that’s not a joke), but I highly recommend the set of seven Sleeper singles, if I didn’t have em already there’s no way I’d be selling them at all.

Hopefully the site should now be 100% Firefox web browser compatible, though if you do see anything that doesn’t look right then let me know.

In an attempt to attract even more Russians seeking online dating agencies to the site, I’ve started a new competition to win the Crimea’s current single back catalogue. Sadly it does not include the recent five track Lottery Winners On Acid EP, I don’t even have one in my own possesion yet, so I can hardly give any away. That said, the first prize does include the Lottery Winners On Acid single released in 2002 with cat no. SHB001CD, aswell as the White Russian Galaxy CD and 7″, cat’s DD2008CD and DD2008 respectively, and a copy of the Baby Boom single released 2003 by Boobytrap Records, cat no. BOOBREC006CD. Click More for the entry details.
Read more »

The Crimea’s eight song session for Morning Becomes Eclectic is now available to stream via the KCRW website. Just click the ‘listen’ link and as long as you have RealPlayer installed it should start playing. The session lasts 36 minutes and includes songs from the recent LWOA EP, the Tragedy Rocks album, a new one at the end, and a small interview in the middle where neither the host nor the band seem to know what they’re talking about (imma call it the Davey effect). Check the bio page or the diary for some slightly more factual band facts. I’m gonna try and stick a couple MP3s from the session up on the site, though if not you can always buy a copy of the new EP. Apparently it’s pretty good. I just got a copy myself off eBay so expect some kind of lyrics page for it soon. And hi to all the new American visitors on the site, there’s now more of you here than English people.

Best Crimea review I ever read. Nuff said. Rainydawg.org/review.php?reviewID=79. Click more if it dissapears from that link.
Read more »

Incase you missed the numerous posts on this event earlier (Amy, Chris…), LA’s KCRW will be broadcasting a live session from The Crimea on thier Music Becomes Eclectic radio show, this Friday 15th at around 11.15am PST, 2.15pm EST and 7.15pm GMT (that’s the UK time). If you want to tune in for the rest, the MBE show starts at 9.00am PST, 12.00pm EST and 5.00pm GMT. To listen, head over to www.kcrw.com/online/ for full details, but as long as your connection’s not too slow, you’re best off listening to the SHOUTcast stream by clicking this. I’ll do my best to record the show so anyone who misses it doesn’t miss out.
EDIT: MBE’s host just mentioned that highlights of The Crimea’s session will be featured on Sunday evening’s Sounds Eclectic show, on at 6pm PST, 9pm EST and 2am GMT (Monday morning). You’ll be able to hear it at KCRW.com or an archived version at SoundsEclectic.com.