Click here: http://rawaudio.net/, wait for the player to load, click the magnifying glass, enter a chat name and come watch Julz play from a new york rooftop…

Aww… look what you missed… lottery winner? Three hours of fun. I think the full recording will be up somewhere soon. Update: Below. Thanks to Julz and RawAudio.net for the music. I’m off to record some T now, wish for some crimea for me…

Skip to 7 mins in on the 2nd vid to hear a wee Criema cover, though I deny all involvement in any other childish requests…

You’ve probably seen it already but I’m posting this interview with Owen Hopkin on S4C’s Bandit show as some kind fella on YouTube has actually translated the thing over from Welsh into English. It basically goes along the lines of: “I was on my way home from London today, there was a review [of the album] in Q [magazine] in the service station, it was like 4 out of 5. Most people like the stuff off the album - people from the internet, people from the magazines - so yeah, the attention is nice, but odd really because we were in a band, The Crocketts, where basically everybody hated us, so it’s just… it just feels nice”. Cheers James.

In other news, it’s that time of year again where I spend six hours infront of the telebox, recording BBC Three in the minute hope that the camera settles on one of The Crimea members for a few seconds. You may do better if you actually have tickets to T In The Park this weekend.

…and this place could’ve turned back into a personal blog again. God help you all. ‘Ave a listen to this, then - Murry The Hump - Vodka & Wine. I think I’m meant to get arrested for that or something. If I post nothing for a few weeks… err.. you’ll never notice I ’spose…

Julz Parker, second favourite only to ice cream in the musical stakes, appears on slightly more credits than I previously assumed humanly possible. Here’s another one of her bands. I believe she played with these lot a while ago. Anyway… ahem*obsessed*… hey my link’s on the hussy hicks site :o)… I didn’t even ask… Check Julz out when she plays rawaudio.net on Sunday around 11am GMT. Just visit the site between 11 and 12 and you should see it; if you join the chat you can abuse myself and say hi to everyone else (personally I nearly died when my three current favourite artists all tuned up in the chat at the same time last week. almost as good as the old crox.net crocketts chats :o) as if i was ever at one…).

There’s more rubbish up on YouTube. If you hate the crimea stuff you’ll love the charlie & lola clips :o)

Crimea are gigging somewhere soon. Scotland I think. Ohh, this place is going downhill fast…

The Crimea @ Bestival last year —>

More to come though unfortunately most of it’s old Crocketts vids, but there’s some old Crimea stuff too. Check out the user page for pepsimax2k on YouTube for the latest, I’m uploading them pretty much as soon as I’ve got them on my PC and encoded properly. There’s most of the Crocketts stuff there already, though I’ll be adding them to Vimeo when it lets me and you can download the proper quality versions from there. I’ll mention on inaudible.co.uk/crocketts when they’re done.

Getting even more off topic; heads up for Lecia and ex-Crimea guitarist Julz Parker who’ll both be playing live on www.rawaudio.net on July 2nd and 9th respectively. I’m reliably informed the UK time will be 11am, but the sessions stay online for a week after just incase.

I think it might be you, but if not, can whoever *does* have the video of The Crimea’s Cable TV performance a few years ago please get in touch, I wanna do a proper recording of it :o)

UPDATE: Well, D1939 don’t have it, so if anyone else has a copy of The Crimea in their television debut on Cable TV a few years back, please pleeeasee get in touch - christopher@inaudible.co.uk.

“As long as I give him a bone every now and then he’s happy.“

Find out whom the above was said by/about in this classic Crimea interview.

“What will you do immediately after completing this interview?
Hang myself.“

Geez. Rope burn’s terrible. Howsabout listening to The Crimea’s gig in Cardiff a few days ago? For £6 it’s yours. They’ve stuck a video up on YouTube too. Actually…

If that works I’ll shit myself. (Edit: blimey. hit play, i guess… :o| ) I’m off back to google some more stuff up. While you’re waiting, get over to The Big Swap site and offer better than a holiday to Florida for thier signed Fender guitar thingy.

The Big Swap website is still going strong, they’ve currently got a copy of the Artic Monkeys’ first EP up for swaps but if you want it then make sure to get the offer in ruddy quick cos it won’t be there much longer. That said, the next item should be even better, so if you’ve got an unused car, old speedboat or a spaceship you no longer need then keep hold of it, you just might wanna trade it in for something…

From Owen: Dearest good natured, kind-hearted folk.

So we’ve taken on a huge challenge. War Child gave us a de-commissioned landmine; we told them we’d give them a million pounds for it. And why not - we’re generous folk. Obviously, without Dark Side Of The Moon in our discography, we couldn’t just stump up the cash and hand it over, so we decided to swap it for something. And then swap that something for something else. And then swap that for… you get the idea.

Instead of breaking out a ‘War and Peace’-style mail-out, have a look at the website. It’s here: www.the-big-swap.com. We’ve currently got a signed copy of Tragedy Rocks to swap (first edition, red cover - the one that’s rarer than a miracle cure for Wayne Rooney’s busted foot and fetches extortionate prices on ebay).

Make us an offer. Go on, you know you want to…

Basically then, a de-commissioned landmine is the starting point, enough money to fund War Child’s two-year programme in Iraq is the end. The Big Swap is aiming to convert evil to good, a potential killer to a potential lifeline. In the process, we hope it’ll be fun, you’ll get something you quite fancy and, ultimately, the children affected by war in Iraq get something they need. Simple as.

As well as taking part in the trades etc., if you can help by linking to the website or mentioning it either on-line or in a blog, we’d be eternally grateful. It’s a massive undertaking and we’re going to need a hand. We promise to fashion some sort of ‘Hall Of Fame’ for everyone who helps us out.

So that’s it for the moment. For those of you who haven’t checked www.thecrimea.net or www.myspace.com/thecrimea our summer dates are listed below. Good things are afoot… [click 'more' for those]
Read more »

Guess why? I can just image the fun I’m gonna have deleting them, one at a time… If I find a reliable solution to block spam then they may come back, though my host has now twice disabled the blogging software due to problems with it and if anything like this happened again they may not let me use it at all. Soo, anyone know another hosting company that charges ?50 a year for 2 Gigs storage and 75 Gigs bandwidth? I don’t really wanna leave HostFolks (I love them really) but no Greymatter = no site :o(. For the meantime, there’s still the message board. Or maybe you should check out the official board too.

Taking a break from trying to mess up the music industry as much as possible, or just trying to find another media to infect, Sony sponsored the 24th Radio Academy Awards which took place in London on May 8th. Apparently the “UK’s most prestigious radio accolades”, awards were handed out to a wide variety of Radio shows, stations, programmes and presenters. Of note to you lot was the Specialist Music Programme Award, present to the winner (Zane Lowe) by non other than The Crimea’s very own Davey and Owen. I have it on good word that they were sat on a table with Peter Andre and Jordan, though a Crimea version of Mysterious Girl is something I’m sure will only ever exist in my head. Click the pic on the right for the full size shot of them posing with Mr Lowe (copyright Getty Images as I’m sure you’ve guessed) or, even better, visit the Sony Radio Academy Awards website for the official webcast video from the night (sign up, click the on demand bit, choose options, choose the awards part 1 link, scroll right and click on the specialist music award show title link (36m 48.0s))… aannnd breathe…. alternatively, click this to download the right bit. XviD format (it works on my poratable mp3/video player :oD ) and about 8 megs in size. Thanks to those who let me know about this, you know who you are.

MORE UPDATES!!! It’s like there’s a right roarin Crocketts internet resurgence swarmin through the electrical airwaves as we speak :o) And I have nooo idea what that means. But - two words - As. If. LOOOK!! It’s Sooz, staring in some proper screencapped photo posey goodness, and the only decent image I’ve ever seen of the Crocketts motorhead style t-shirt. Credits go to Stephen on the Would You Go To Bed With Me website forums. The As If fansite also features downloads of many of you favourite Crocketts promotional teen drama episodes (trigger happy wha?). Check out the thread here where I’m trying to find out who ingeniously smuggled all the Crox shirts into the show, and register and look around the rest of the forum for the downloads (screencap’s from episode 15 (aka. 115)).
Stay tuned for even better Crocketts news, just as soon as I fail my major project at Uni. Weekend, then.

The Crimea now have a fully functioning, right proper e-tailor website store thingamajig for you all to buy your Crimea goodies from. Check it out at corporationrecords.com/store/index/27, and no more emailing Owen with problems cos it’s nowt to do with him, or myself for that matter, though it is gonna replace the shop page on this site cos, well, it always did look a bit crap didn’t it? They also have all the remaining Crocketts merchandise for sale too, though the new skool will most likely be wording “whaaattt?!?” at their screens right now… Any problems or inquiries then please contact the lovely folk at Corporation Records who are running the store.

AN UPDATE!!! Yes, a rare occurance of the updating kind to bring you some very special news - A New Crocketts Online Shop!! The lovely people at www.corporationrecords.com have added muchos Crocketts goodies (and Crimea ones too) to their online store, and their special Crocketts only merch page has now replaced the previous shop page on this site. Check it out at www.corporationrecords.com/store/index/28, and if you have any problems then, as much as I won’t mind you letting me know, the store has nothing to do with myself (or Owen anymore) so please correspond directly with Corporation Records if you need to, not that you’re likely to have anything to complain about :o). PS. Davey’s book Unamazing Disgraces is available from the Crimea merch page, going live very soon at www.corporationrecords.com/store/index/27

Sleeper - What Do I Do Now?

And here’s a mirror of something on The Vanden Plas’s website:

Monday, January 30, 2006
As The Crimea grow gradually in stature (they had their first Top 40 hit a couple of weeks ago) and their album TRAGEDY ROCKS comes out today, so does hope that The Vanden Plas remix of Baby Boom might one day get a proper release. It’s the only remix they’ve ever had done, and for now it sits in the deep freezer. Raise the subject in their forum here

If you’ve not heard it, you can download the remix on the downloads page of this site, or just hit this. And when you do, be kind enough to mail me and tell me what id3v2 compatible music genre The Vaden Plas are. Damn mp3 players… been tagging for the past 4 days… 1000s of mp3s… stupid no pop-punk, glam-rock, garage, anti-folk… mmm…

Dear all

We know that you probably already have the song, probably in a million different formats. We know this is all getting very tedious, but we are currently outside the Top 40 in the midweek charts. Without radio or TV coverage, the power to get us into the charts on Sunday - judgement day - lies with you guys. If you haven’t already bought a copy this week, we’d appreciate you shelling out some hard earned cash to get us up there.

Loads and loads of love, as always (but even more on a ‘chart week’),

The Crimea

All these formats count towards the chart: Album version | Single version | Double Dragon version

[ The best online source for a hard copy is probably HMV.co.uk since they do free postage. CD1 is two quid. ]