Davey talks alot (more that usual) about The Crocketts in an interview with I Like Music, and also his favourite place on earth - a huge fuckoff massive rainbow coloured dragon rode by green jelly babies. I think.
Owen talks more about The Crimea and their US tour with New Noise.
The inevitable Tragedy Rocks reviews come in via Manchester Music giving it a rare less than favourable mention.
And looky at this - Virgin give it the opposite, a great review. Not sure where the 3/5 fits in then, but being the company who droped the band’s previous incarnation I’d say maybe it’s a slight touch of sour grapes. Mehehe.
Another great review, but this one of a gig. Manchester Online witnessed crowd interaction and amp ascending. I’ve gotta get to a gig sometime.
Another gig review comes via BBC Liverpool who showed up at the Liverpool Academy to be enchanted by babbles and bubbles.
Here’s a mention of the band from the Telegraph, apparently they’re on a par with the Artic “look at us at number one with no help” Monkeys.
I’ve added a few blog links in the past, some nonsense, some totally foreign, but this one’s a little different. Radio Wales presenter Adam Walton mentions them in his, but he’s kinda miffed with Warners for not sending him a copy of the album yet. So get to it someone. Speaking of AW, I just noticed a playlist from last year on his Radio Wales site. Look down the page and you’ll see what looks like him playing half the album in a row. I swear I don’t remember seeing it before, and I’m sure it wasn’t a session, so *yay* for mr Walton.
Oh oh, photos from Cardiff from mr Jon. More coming soon but christ, give me a break for a while, I’ve just spent four hours scanning magazine articles in. And the gigs page is updated for the guy who wasn’t sure whether the next Cardiff gig is on or not. It is. ?8 on the door I do belive.
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Tragedy Rocks review at King Of Quiet, it’s one for everyone who bought the last version. Hit More to read it.
Thankyou very much mr James Ellaby, editor of Manchester Entertainment Online who pointed me towards their review of The Crimea’s gig at The Roadhouse a few days ago.
Over on Livejournal, Turkeyphant has posted his review of the Cambridge Portland Arms gig with a few pics, the last of which is a rather interesting set list. You can post your best ideas for what the “X, A, E2″ stuff is by hitting More.
And for some photos, check out Flickr or more specifically, barney britton’s shots from the Newcastle show and judyboo and Colonel Fabian’s of the Harlow Square gig. The latter of whom just happens to be and ex-member of Crocketts fans El Spoonio who’s now in The Shadow Project. If they’re as good as El Spoonio then they’re most deffinately excellent.
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Well, lucky viewers of S4C’s Bandit music show last night will have seen Owen give a one minute interview about the band’s new album, and a few seconds of film from the Cardiff show a few days ago. Crowd surfers ahoy. Cheers to Phil on the message board for filling us all in. And damn my video again for putting white lines all over the recording. The sooner I get a TV card in my PC the better.
Anyway, not all’s lost, Decoy Music have two new Crimea home movies to view. Titled The Making Of Tragedy Rocks they feature Andy N’s attemts at singing, Joe’s attemts at making a Chilli Peppers video and many more amusing events. I tried to rip them but alas, rip they would not, so you’re stuck with the stream for now…
Talk about tabloid interest, The Crimea are in The Sun again, although this time it’s the online version featuring a large article on the band. Cheers Emma for the heads up.
Here’s something for all you Japanese fans from the Same Shit Different Day blog. I know how they feel, if not what they’re saying.
And for the ones of you who entered the album comp, we’ve not forgotten about you, just waiting on one of the judges to get back from a wee trip he’s on and give his verdict :o)
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Sorry for the small break in transmission, it was much needed. I’ll start with some stuff from the band’s official website www.thecrimea.net: Free guestlist places for the UK tour shows are available, drop the band a line via their MySpace profile if you want one. The comp for signed album copies is over, check the site for the winner’s details. And the band have been added as headliners for Boobytrap Records’ 5th birthday party at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff on November 13th. The gigs page on this site should have more details soon.
Now, some real news. The Crimea’s drummer Owen Hopkin features in an interview and his own tour diary article in this month’s issue of Drummer Magazine. It’s available for ?3.20 if you can find it in a store, or for ?4.00 via their website. My copy’s currently in the post :o).
The Crimea’s album Tragedy Rocks has also been reviewed in the December issue of Q Magazine, out now for ?3.80. Why these things are out a month early and sell out before the named month arrives is beyond me, but don’t wait ’til December to get it.
Speaking of magazines, I feel the need to mention the State Of Mind magazine again. If you live in the States, the October issue available from their website for $4.00 features a huge four page interview with Davey and Andy from the band, going into great detail about various song lyrics and the band’s last US tour. It’s a great read, and for anyone outside the states, I should have something online soon ;o).
Another interview with Davey MacManus can be found on the Clickmusic website, though there’s not much new from previous ones but you can hit More to read it if you so wish.
“The Crimea have produced a surprisingly delightful album”. Words from The Beat Surrender’s review of the album, ending with a 7/10 rating.
Also reviewing the thing are BBC Northampton; “I?m still only days into being enlightened to this band but already I love them”.
The Cardiff Barfly show on October 28th has a preview on the icWales site and there’s also photos from the show on the Xplosure site. Props to mr jon for getting his head right in the middle of it :o).
To the blogs, again, the Big Bad Bit blog mentions them and the White Russian Galaxy song, while an old friend of Owen’s is suffering Hopkin withdrawals on the Pidster blog. Personally I’m happy people have stopped writing me for a week, I was about to die with all those reviews to post :oP.
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People In Planes have been confirmed as The Crimea’s main support for the full UK tour, along with The Heights. The gigs page has been updated to reflect this and other minor changes. Also, the New York gig has been rescheduled to next year due to the UK press going mad over the album and keeping the band occupied over here.
Tragedy Rocks is now available as a download from TuneTribe.com for ?8.90 (that’s 9p less than the full CD from HMV) but they also have plenty other Crimea stuff to download too.
And if you need some convincing before purchasing, Flotation Suite say the album is a “jem of a debut” in their review.
Continuing their promotion of The Crimea, Channel 4’s Slashmusic blog mentions the free Out Of Africa download.
To the blogs: You Ain’t No Picasso mention them with a link to an MP3 and someone on MySpace also gives them a high recommendation.
And here’s something from the site that brought us such artistic one-liners as “The Crimea used to be The Crocketts who were a crock of shite”… Norman Records, unsurprisingly not the band’s biggest fans, still find time to say something nice about the album. “Aint too bad” I think are their words :o)
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Radio sessions. Six of them. And not a god damn one in sight. Sorry if you stayed up listening to Kerrang or Radio Nottingham all night (like myself), seems they’re actually gonna be broadcast later in the year, so if you do come across them in a listing for Radio City, Radio Notingham, BRMB, Kerrang Radio, or somewhere in the Manchester or Glasgow area then please let me know.
Back to the usual then; reviews. Glasswerk London give the album a small one and say The Crimea “can touch hearts faster than any other band at this moment in time”.
Another one from Contact Music get’s Tragedy Rocks it’s best rating yet: 10 out of 10. The well informed review concludes by saying it’s “the best debut album I have heard”.
Almost as good is the 4 out of 5 from Rock City. “The Crimea are maturing nicely and should prove to be a good vintage for this year”.
There’s one more over at Blogcritics.org who quite like the lyrics.
The Crimea’s puiblishers Nuxx get in on the action by mentioning the album release on their site.
And here’s one session you won’t get to miss: Under Ground Online’s video of The Crimea’s in-studio session for them will be available to view from November 22nd, but for now you can make do with their photos of the session and short bio.
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The Crimea feature on a double page article in this months issue of The Fly Magazine. Title “The Tragic Numbers” it talks about the origins and future of the band in an interview with Davey MacManus whilst on tour in America. The mag also features a couple of full page adverts for the band, so get down you local Barfly venue and pick up a free copy. ‘Course, you could always check out the press clippings page instead, where, thanks to Roger Hoyle who scanned em in, you can see the article without even leaving your seat.
I mentioned yesterday about possibly hearing Frank Skinner mention The Crimea on his show during an interview with McFly. At the time I thought I was just hearing things, but oohhh no. With huge thanks to Uma and Sophie over at the McFly McFans website, I bring to you a video of the very incident where Frank Skinner is heard to say (on prime time television I might add): “There was a band on with [Dashboard Confessional] called The Crimea, who are brilliant, and I went [for] The Crimea… and I watched [them] and left”. Get in there.
And here’s some screengrabs of the BT Digital Music Awards 2005 performance. Which somehow I managed to fuck the recording of right up. So if anyone did see it, was there any more of the band shown other than the performance?
Nearly forgot about this; The Crimea are on Kerrang Radio tonight giving an interview on the Ctrl ALT Del show. Listen online right here between 9.00pm and 11.00pm. Or don’t, cos you knows I’m recording the thing and’ll have ripped MP3s up in no time :oP.

Oohhh yes, there I was thinking the review barrage was over. Oh how wrong I was. So sit back and relax while I spend another five hours of my life going through the latest Crimea reviews and a few interviews to hit my inbox…
And starting with one of the interviews, Davey told The Downloader his thoughts on the digital age and his favourite artists; Tom Vek, People In Planes and Midasuno. The site also has a review of Tragedy Rocks up saying it’s “full of catchy tales of urban ennui and swirling hymns to lost loves”.
Next up for the interview/review double are GigWise who find out why asking Davey historical questions is a bad idea and take a very Welsh look at things during their great interview with the band. I dunno how true their statement of Lottery Winners On Acid being the next single is, but good god, how many times can you release one song? They also popped along the the Monarch pub in London and reviewed the show and are quite satisfied with the result.
The final interview for the day comes from Room Thirteen, where Davey mentions that the US only album tracks will be released for nowt in the future. Probably not by Warners, but I wouldn’t say there’s no truth in that, I know I’ve got a load of stuff that will eventually get put up for download, just not while the band are still around to complain. And much like the previous two sites, they also gave the album a once over. Which would be great, if it weren’t for one thing. “Lottery Winners On Acid’ sounds like it was written for a steel band”. FUCK. ME. PEOPLE. Enough. Shut up about the damn steel bands, here’s a fecking steel band, ain’t no pop tunes ever come close to the soca that pan tunes are based on. Oh well, it ain’t all bad, while you’re on the R13 site you can also check out an interview with the afformentioned Midasuno. Really, they ain’t bad at all.
Album reviews now, and Refresh Daily have a small one saying “this really is a great album to make you feel good.”
The CD’s given a longer look over by Music OMH who come up with the conclusion that “it’s tempting to just label them the Bart to the Lisa of Coldplay”. And may I be the first to say, “D’oh”.
A little less interesting is what’s looking more and more like a PR man’s version of a takeaway. Ready to eat, just add your own rating. Not that the Guardian Series even bothered with that; their review has already popped up on UK Online and the Adult Contemporary Essentials site, and this version still has the same rating as the latter.
Also in the “let’s not bother and use someone elses review instead” game, are SubCulture magazine who’s review previously featured on FMagazine and was most likely invented by Warners. Please, if you’re gonna send out reviews to people then at least change them about a bit so they’re not as easy to spot.
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You may have thought the SXSW vid mentioned yesterday was the best thing you’d seen in ages, but today I bring something even better. As mentioned previously The Crimea played a live version of Lottery Winners On Acid on BT’s Digital Music Awards 2005 on Tuesday. Now, if you missed Channel 4’s broadcast on Wednesday, don’t recieve S4C or don’t know what the hell 4Music is, no worries, The BT DMA website has a full recording of the show on their website available for streaming whenever you like. It’s a pretty nifty little thing, sort of an unedited version of events so you can see the kinda stuff that doesn’t get aired. The Crimea feature on part 2 but you’ll have to sit through 15 minutes of award talk beforehand as you can’t skip through it. But like I’ve said before, we put up with this streaming shite at Inaudible. Thanks to Denyer (for the 1000th time) who ripped, cropped and searchified the thing, you can download the whole thing right here. It’s 13.7 MB in size, in Microsoft’s AVI format and almost 5 minutes long. A link to it will be put up on the downloads page soon, as well as screen captures of the whole thing.
Staying with TV, I know I’ve gone through so many news posts in the last week I’m starting to see and hear the band’s name everywhere I go, halucinating images of Davey in the trees like, but I could swear I heard Frank Skinner mention the band’s name in an interview with McFly last night on the Frank Skinner show. Went something along the lines of “I saw the support band [The Crimea], then left…”. Someone let me know if I’m going mad, please.
Don’t foget that they deffinately are on BBC Radio Nottingham tonight giving an interview to Dean Jackson between 6pm and 10pm
Thanks to Steve Smith who sent in loads of pics from the Enterprise Peel Day show on the 13th, they’re all up on the images page so check em out.
And guess what? Ten more album reviews coming up, so long as I don’t shoot myself at the prospect of shitloads more work beforehand.

Here’s part three of yesterday’s news downpour, and hopefully the floodgates will now shut for a while so I can get some rest. I’ve got some real special treats in store but first up, some info some more Crimea radio sessions. That would be live sessions, on the radio in Glasgow, Manchester and on Liverpool’s Radio City. Unfortunately, they were on Wednesday. Sorry for not having any info up before, but I only found out via Davey’s MySpace blog on Thursday. Apparently they played a cover of Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” in Glasgow, and interviews elsewhere. If you happen to have a recording (likely) then I’ve stuck all my e-mail addresses on the bar to the left.
Another public service announcement; Wild UK are organising The Crimea’s official street team, including some mini-raffles at each gig, and they need some help. If you’re available to assist at the Harlow show in London tomorrow then please get in touch with Sam at streetteam@wild-uk.com and he’ll most likely make it worth your while.
Right, good stuff. Channel 4. As well as broadcasting a live performance of Lottery Winners On Acid on the Digital Music Awards on Channel 4 last Tuesday, S4C this Sunday and 4Music err.. sometime… They’ve also behind The Crimea’s first popular kiddie interview! Yes, the kind where they ask what flavour ice cream you like. Not only that, but they’ve stuck the link to it on their main Music Features page! Ohh yes, everything you’ve wanted to know about their looks vs. McFly’s, and their attraction to Rachel Stevens. Next up, a Saturday morning MOM appearance. If it’s good enough for Sleeper, it’s good enough for The Crimea.
If you’re lucky enough to live in the States, you can order a copy of October’s issue 11 of State Of Mind magazine for only $4.00. Ahh, I hear you ask, why would you want to? Their interview with Davey and Andy Stafford from The Crimea of course!
Now for the icing on the cake, and I hope you’ve kept reading this far. They may have been on Channel 4, the official site may have exclusive live videos on the way, but you can watch the band right now on the South By Southwest site who have a near 4 minute video of them playing SXSW 2005, including clips from their performance of Baby Boom, Girl Just Died and Someone’s Crying. And it’s the fourth item on their videos page, no less (with a lower quality version if needed). I do have copies saved incase it’s ever removed, so lemme know if it dissapears and I’ll stick it up here.
Some old news mentioned elsewhere before comes in from the CMU Music Network with their Out Of Africa and live dates post.
Also old, but a little more detailed; Loose Record’s news on the band’s WOXY radio show session.
On the sales front, Picadilly Records have what at first glance seems to be a simple sales listing, but a quick read will revel links to two sample mp3s from the album.
Going even further is the twmsiy* blog who have a news-article-come-review of the album and links to three whole MP3s: the WRG album version, original LWOA version and great remix of Baby Boom by The Vaden Plas.
And if that ain’t enough media for you, check out the other images and Bowery Ballroom photo pages for new Crimea flyers, setlists and live photos thanks to Awreye.
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They conquered the UK, then the US, but The Crimea’s appeal has flown much further affield than that. Here’s the latest news and reviews on the band from those websites that we English speakers like to call “foreign”. Hit more for the original articles and horrible attemts at translation; if you can do any better then please email it in or leave it as a comment.
Crossing the channel over into France, the Sound Of Violence website has a few updated news articles on the band (hit the Derni?res news link) on their Crimea profile page.
Some guy on the Telerama forums is going bonkers over the band. The word “ph?nom?ne” about sums it up.
Fellow French speakers Voir in Canada mention The Crimea in a news roundup.
Moving south, a blogger from Brazil mentions the Baby Boom video and talks about the single, even giving some lyrics for any English speakers who happen to turn up.
Back to Europe, Netherland’s New Frontiers site has some news on the band and their Out Of Africa download single.
To the East now and the Czech Republic’s Free Music site has a review of Tragedy Rocks. If the english reviews are anything to go by then I’m sure they love it.
North a bit and Russia’s Music Reporters have a post on the White Russian Galaxy download.
Much further east to Japan now, and the Crazy Rythms blog gives it a small mention in one post.
Someone called “Candy Pink” also mentions the album in their blog, what it’s all about is anyone’s guess.
And we end with Japan’s cheerfully titled School Death Co. blog who give the album what looks like a review; deffinately a mention and cover shot if nothing else.
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Oh boy, oh boy. First it rained, then it hailed. Now the levee has well and truly broken and I’m ten foot under a torrent of Crimea news. I’ve got over thirty articles to get through so I’m just gonna shut up and get going. Me thinks I’ll start with yet more Tragedy Rocks reviews, and remember you can view the things by clicking on the link to the respective sites, or should the review have been removed, (or you’re just lazy) hit the big white More button at the top of this post to read them right here on this site.
And what a way to start. Manchester Online gave it a whopping 5 out of 5 stars even though the reviewer’s information was a bit off.
Next up, Indie London are rather indifferent about the album though still manage much praise like the following: “There are more hits than misses, particularly during the opening half that transports you across the emotional rock spectrum”.
Most probably the best compliment The Crimea have ever recieved comes from New-Noise.net who, in their review say “its even the kind of album that could see them win a Mercury Music Prize nomination”. Needles to say, they quite liked it.
Going back a year, here’s a review of the original Tragedy Rocks Release by Six Different Ways saying who liked the “Thoughtful lyrics, tight instrumentation [and] sexy production”.
Music blog Fufkin mention the CD in a recent entry along the lines of “texturally satisfying, stylistically invigorating and drenched with passion”.
Not quite so impressed were Swing Batter Better blog who reviewed it for the October issue of Crack magazine, but then, they were expecting a “thrash-core metal” album. Ahem…
Sticking with blogs, LiveJournaler jamesgilmer raves on about the US version due to it’s “big-sound songs and a bit of swagger”.
For the grown-ups, Adult Contemporary Essentials’ review give it a final rating of 9 out of 10.
Now, I dunno who ripped of who, but UK Online have a copy of exactly the same review as ACE, but change the rating to 3 out of 5. Very naughty.
Although an original review, Productshop NYC are one of the few people who don’t like Davey’s dark lyrical manner, even if they do like the music.
Over in Nottingham, the BBC also give it a less than great review, but mainly due to their thoughts that “Tragedy Rocks might be too clever for its own good, struggling to cross over to the mainstream”.
But we end the reviews back up the ratings with a 7.5 out of 10 from The Communion who say Tragedy Rocks “sounds a lot more accomplished than a few other debut albums by hyped new bands”. Thank god for that.
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Just a few extra things to let you know about after yesterday’s news fest, though first there’s just time to mention The Crimea’s musical appearance on the BT Digital Music Awards 2005, on tonight on Channel 4 at 11.40pm (Sunday @ 3.30am on S4C). They’ll be playing Lottery Winners On Acid and I should have some pics of that and their televised Bestival appearance up here next week.
Another review of Tragedy Rocks comes in via XFM who say, among other things, “Tragedy Rocks leaves you with each song vying for brainspace, each chorus trampolining on your eardrum, offering you no alternative but to press play again”. Hit more to read it.
Over at the now regular Crimea reviewers God Is In The TV fanzine, they have an interview with Davey MacManus up on the site. Being his regular self, you can expect the usual lines such as “it’s Madison square garden or the Mississippi river”. The interview also means that the band have all but taken over the lead article links on the fanzine’s homepage with their images and details appearing on three out of the seven main site section links. Infact, they could almost start a new Crimea fansite with all the band’s info they have on there.
Hopefully that’s it for today, only thing left is this: Someone entered the album comp! Woohoo, I almost had to change the entry question there. Anyone else enters and you’ve got a 50/50 chance of winning, so get your lyrics in.
Oh and, I just got my copy of Tragedy Rocks yesterday. Shame they had to stick the intro on the same track as White Russian Galaxy, if you want a copy of the intro on it’s own then lemme know. Different track order is pretty good, makes a little more sense than the US one I recon. And, although not mentioned, the album cover shot was actually by Crimea keyboardist Andy Stafford at Lake Sardis, Mississippi. See that on the right? The original work of art. Thanks mr Andy.
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Good lord, it’s like, hailing Crimea news right now. Hopefully you were here sometime between mid-day yesterday and today and caught the streams of some choice cuts of Crimea audio on the site, including some US only stuff and Davey’s extra-ordinary guitar skills. A good time to say a huge thanks to all those who’ve sent me recordings of shows/radio sessions etc or anything else Crimea related in the past, the site wouldn’t be the same without you, and some day the recordings will get put up here. And if you didn’t catch the streams there’s plenty more to keep you occupied, lord knows I’m hardly ever away from the PC these days…
Lets start with this: Tragedy Rocks is out now in the UK, your local record store should have it in. Andy’s Records in Aber does, he even had a sign outside advertising the fact. With their history, I didn’t see that coming, but the sight was so good I had to capture it (see right). Online it’s selling like hotcakes on a cold day, shooting up to 170 on Amazon.co.uk’s sales chart earlier today, it’s still below 200.
Now, I hope you’re signed up to the band’s official mailing list. If not, you can via their official site, and you’ll be greeted with all manner of news such as the following: The Crimea will be appearing on the BT Digital Music Awards 2005 on Channel 4 tomorrow evening (Wednesday 19th) at 11.40pm. They’ll be giving Lottery Winners On Acid the once over for your listening pleasure; viewers in Wales can catch it on S4C on Sunday 23rd at 3.35am (that’s Saturday evening for you night owls).
Also mentioned in the last mailout was a Tragedy Rocks e-card. Click here for the beautiful mini-site featuring song clips from the album, tour dates, all the vital links and a chance to win a signed Tragedy Rocks album.
And on with the reviews. Crud Magazine gave the album 4/5 but christ, when will they stop going on about steel drums? I swear, there are none. Anyone saying otherwise again will get my steel drum shoved over their head.
Big time? It don’t get bigger than Microsoft. You may hate em, but not for their review of Tragedy Rocks, with lines such as “The Crimea pose a danger to both The Flaming Lips and Radiohead, who could struggle to win back their alternative crown”.
From the big hitters to the.. err.. Jewish Telegraph. Obviously not picking up on the band’s seemingly anti-religious stance they highly recommend it, even based on the song titles alone.
Taking a break from the album, Yahoo Music have a review of the Lottery Winners On Acid EP up and give it as good a review as everyone else is giving the album.
Back to Tragedy Rocks, and the band in general, The Music Edge have a huge feature on the band based around a telephone interview with our Davey, who happened to mention ?There was a distinct stop and start? between the Crimea and a certain former band. Sure, in your head, like.
Gigs wise, the Carling Live site has a preview of The Crimea’s Camden Barfly show on October 11th. And, unlike myself, you may notice that was over a week ago. A good read nontheless.
Cornerstone Media, some kinda PR PR people, have obviously sent out another Crimea related mailshot as both Now On Tour and Rift Rock have a small news article on the Baby Boom music vid, available to view online as a stream viw Warner Brothers. Meh, we don’t put up with that kinda stuff round here, download the whole thing to view at you leasure right here.
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Tragedy Rocks
Hmm… wonder what this one might be about… ahh yes, TV appearances of course… WTF?!?
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