Chris Shaw mixed it, Howie Weinbeg mastered it and The Crimea recorded it. Finally Tragedy Rocks, The Crimea’s debut US album, is set for an early summer realease and will feature the uber catchy “White Russian Galaxy”, Peel favourite “Lottery Winners On Acid”, “Baby Boom”, classic “Opposite Ends”, newby “Losing My Hair”, “Here Comes the Suffering” aka Ching, “Bad Vibrations”, “The Great Unknown”, “Howling At the Moon”, fan favourite “Girl Just Died”, “Gazillions of Miniature Violins” and War Child charity download “Someone’s Crying”.
But before they head back to the US for a country wide tour with Ash, they’re playing one last gig in London at the Barfly on March 3rd. Check out the details on the front page of the Barfly London website, or just hit More.
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The Crimea - Album done! UK show! US Tour! What else do you want?
The title says it all. Click More for gig dates, tracklisting, etc…
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Finally, The Crimea are getting on the road for a tour of the USA during March, albeit while supporting good friends Ash. You can find all the details on the gigs page and the Ash website, and I suggest buying advance tickets quickly as they’re likely to sell out before the shows. Speaking of Ash, their guitarist Charlotte Hatherley was interviewed this month by Tasty Fanzine where she was heard to say “We recently toured with a band called The Crimea, and they come highly recommended by me”.

Davey’s obviously noticed the lack of anything really interesting happening Crimea wise right now, so he sent me a little Irish folk MP3 called Cealtra An Tra this morning to stick up here. It’s not quite The Crimea, but it is related to them; It’s by Rod MacManus, Davey’s brother, and should keep you happy for a short while longer.

The Crimea are still in New York at the moment, so with little else going on, here’s a round-up of what they’ve been up to…
They headed off to NY late last month to work on a couple of songs and finish off the new version of the album. Owen emailed Radio Wales’ Adam Walton last Sunday to say it “won’t be too much longer” but the only release date I’ve heard so far is May 2005. Right now they’re busy mixing the album with Chris Shaw of Super Furry Animal and Ween fame.
After the recording work is done they may have time to play a few gigs around America, and are currently schedueled to play the South By SouthWest festival in mid-March.
So as there’s not much going on gig-wise at the moment, why not sit back and relax for a few weeks with a JT Leroy novel in hand. Davey’s a fan so he’s gotta be good.

The South By SouthWest festival is back again in March and after their appearance their last year leading to a subsequent record deal with Warner Bros. Records, The Crimea are currently back on the bill for 2005. The festival takes place in Austin, Texas between March 16th and March 20th. More details posted as soon as I get them.
Less interesting news, a link to this site has made it onto a little Wales On The Web portal website who say it’s a “comprehensive introduction to the band and their music, with reports of recent gigs, discographys, lyrics, merchandise and more”. Indeed.

Listeners to the most excellent Adam Walton show on Radio Wales on Sunday will have heard him play an MP3 of The Crimea’s Marvin Gaye cover, Long Time Coming. Said MP3 was emailed over from New York to him by none other than band drummer Owen Hopkin who said it was in honour of his home country beating the current world champions at rugby. Whatever. He also mentioned it was a new recording they did while they were over there (Adam having played an earlyer recording of the song on the show last year) and that they were working on the album which should be along soon (read: May). Click here sometime this week to listen to the show, you can safely skip the first ten minutes but be sure to listen for three more songs after it’s finished to hear Halflight’s Where The Pins Drop which just happens to feature Owen on drums again, having recorded it with Halflight for their Subside EP (more details here). (ED: ok, it’s more like 20 mins later… skip button usage…)

The latest on the US release date for The Crimea’s album Tragedy Rocks is now an estimated May 2005 release. Info from Metacritic.com (In the Expected In 2005 section).
The UK version of the album made third place in one of CD Times’ authors Top Ten of 2004.
And here’s a link to the people who helped The Crimea get their US record deal with Warners. Click More if you don’t like Flash.
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