ALBUM COMP WINNERS

After much deliberation and hard thought, a winner for the album competition has finally been chosen. It was ruddy close, not helped by the fact there were hardly any entries. Both entries (yes, all two of them) were based on Lottery Winners On Acid and were both good efforts in their own ways. During judging, combined opinion went out the window, and I’d declare a tie break if it weren’t for only having one album to give away. So, by shear number of votes, and as I personally feel it’s a more original effort (and it made me laugh more), the winner is…

Americans On Springer by Andy Parker

Sorry Denyer, I know you prefered ‘Anthony Blair On Acid’ due to it scanning better, if only I hadn’t left my other album copies at home :o(

There was also a third entry, though unfortunately it came after the closing date and my conciense would not let me allow it entry to the competition. That said, the song, titled Opposite Shapes (a lovely story about the life and death of a Babybel cheese), was considered by all judges to be most excellent, with one judge judging that it’s line “Yeah I was a fool, well I am a fool laughing cow brandished on my outer foil” was better than the original song. It was also the favourite of the competition’s special guest judge, whom I can now reveal to be Mr Andrew Norton of Crimea guitar fame, who felt it flew better rythmically, and that having “so much dark, addictive passion about Babybel was amusing”.

Anyway, I’ll get the album off to the winner asap and hopefully I’ll be able to get something to the runner(s) up too. And if there’s no objections, I should also be bringing you the full lyrics to all the entries very soon.

The Warner Brothers PR crew must be in full swing, mailing out promos to any and everyone they know. The Music Edge got hold of the US version and have given it a good review and a rating of ‘B’ over on their site. In the UK, the nation’s favourite comedians music reviewers Drowned In Sound gave it 4/5 saying “the album is a battle between opposing forces ? bleakness and humour, beauty and ugliness, pure pop and musical interest”. Tabloid UK paper The Sun also found themselves with a copy and gave it another 4/5 in yesterdays edition saying it was a “cracking debut”. Hit more for copies of all the reviews.
Away from reviews, rumour has it the band are having some little raffles during their UK shows. If you happen to give your name and email to sign up to the band’s mailing list during the show, you could be in with a chance to win some CDs or T-Shirts. Speaking of which, I should be having my own competition on here sometime later today, so don’t go anywhere.
UPDATE: Almost forgot the monthly plug for Davey’s MySpace blog. Tales of intrigue and mystery abound. Here’s an excert and your weekly music fix: “I remember when I first moved to London, ‘The Big Joke’, listening to ‘Going Over To Susan?s House‘ again and again, saying hello to everyone I met on the street like you did in Ireland and Wales and not realizing that this was London and no-one says hello on the street…“.
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The online cultural fanzine God Is In The TV is about to a question and answer session with The Crimea and they want your questions to put to the band. If there’s anything you’d like to know (why Joe dyed his hair blonde then shaved it all off, why Andy always wears thoes stupid hats) then pop along to their forums and leave your question in this thread. Be quick though, they’ve all gotta be in by this afternoon :oS (told you I was slow lately).

So much to get through, I don’t know where to start. Probably with the 20+ Crimea related emails I was sent over the weekend. Mostly by one person. Revenge shall be mine…
But first, two of you emailed me about this: a section on The Crimea in Warner Brother’s Rock News mailshot, mainly a list of tour dates. Hit more to see the article.
Another nameless Inaudible fan pointed me towards the Boston Globe for a preview of the band’s TT The Bear’s show. Someone should tell the Globe’s webmaster that if they want people to pay subscriptions to read articles, don’t give em the whole text in the search results. Ah well, hit more if you still can’t be bothered.
Yet another article on the Out Of Africa download comes from Crud Magazine who inject their version with a bit of history.
Here’s something Davey mentioned in his latest blog entry; The Sunday Time’s article on The Crimea. If you can’t be bothered signing up for free then by all means, hit more.
The gig dates have changed again. Out go Sheffield and Birmingham and in comes Newcastle. Check out all the change right here. There’s some special Christmas show at some point too.
Also in need of mention is Dermot O’Leary who, on September 24th, played White Russian Galaxy during his BBC Radio 2 show (see Google’s cache and also, I’ve figured out why I’m sent straight to the US version of the official site half the time. Seems http://www.thecrimea.net takes you stright there, while http://thecrimea.net sends you to the region selection (with http://www.thecrimea.net/uk being the UK version). Or you could just stick around here, but I’m getting mighty busy so it might be a while before I post important news.

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To celebrate the life of Crimea fan and broadcasting legend John Peel, The Crimea will be playing a very special show at The Enterprise pub in Camden, London on October 13th; John Peel Day. To purchase tickets to the event, please call The Enterprise on 020 7485 2659. Expect a barnstorming gig and special guests aplenty; burning envers and not a hint of monophonic sound. For more details on this and many other Crimea gigs, check out the gigs page.

Anyone wanna take over a fair to middling Crimea fansite? I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up. Damn Uni. I know why Davey called it an internment camp now…
Sooo… Thought the WOXY session was the only radio promotion the band were doing over in the States? Think again. They also popped over to British Accents Radio to talk and play another session on monday afternoon. Of course, no one thought about telling anyone, but never mind eh… Oh wait, they played Sleeper just before The Crimea. Noooooooooo… Show recordings anyone?
Here’s Filter Mag’s news on the show and the tracklisting via Spinitron.
Also giving the band some radio luvin’ on Monday was Zane Lowe, who played White Russian Galaxy during his radio one show. Whether he procedes to play the remainder of the album during a single future show remains to be seen, though lord knows Peel would. Single in January? Unlikely, but hopefully the US album should be out around then.
This month’s scandalous appearance of The Crimea in tantalisingly feminine surrondings come curtosey of SheKnows.com. The self styled “web for women” features a bio on the band which looks to be a larger version of the one on their MySpace profile. Next up, PlayBoy. Or some shots of them surrounded by naked women… Nah, it’ll never happen.
This Out Of Africa download seems to be getting music news sites in a twist. FMagazine have a large bio and gig dates along with a link to the download, GigWise a much shorter post with link, This Is Fake DIY virtually nothing but the link and Thunder Chucky have the news hidden away down the bottom of their news coloumn.
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