Tribute Gig
Christian Ashcroft 1/9/76 - 21/7/06
31 August 2006
Following the tragic death of Chris, there will be a tribute gig at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool on 31st August 2006. Everyone is welcome.
Love and sadness. Monkey Steals the Drum
WEBSITE EXPLODES. NATION SHOCKED
5 May 2003
Yes, the rumours are true, last week we had a terrible accident. The highly trained chimps that run our website died from exhaustion/lack of food/terrible working conditions. We were shocked. Fortunately we are currently in talks with a Brazilian smuggler who claims he can supply us with a steady flow of fresh chimps within the next few weeks (hopefully avoiding any similar website-down-y tragedys in the future).
Your patience as Adrian (our head chimpanzee rangler) gets things back to normal, is appreciated.
In the meantime, laugh.
RANDOM WORDS
11 June 2002
To give you a taster of things to come on the site. Have a go at the new random words game. Click here
RECKLESS BREAKFAST BALLOON
10 June 2002
Saturday 22nd June @ The Portland Arms, Cambridge
This is the new series of slow movements. Your awareness will increase in sympathy with your determined physical intelligence. Please be prepared to
experience physical intelligence.
Any fool can hammer the dents out of a hollow lead wolf; It takes a wise man
to construct a lead wolf, it takes a genius to fashion the lead wolf around
himself as he works thus allowing him to accomplish the work of the fool more
easily.
This is the plan. We ask you all, politely, to imagine a crunching sound that
lasts the whole of your life. Whilst that happens we are organising. Little
things at first, like rehearsals and van hire, right down to gutsy hard-line
choices like Welcome Break or Moto*?
Load up all pipes! The M4 are back on the M6! So come on down to any of the
following live dates. There will be music, hair, on-stage re-string delays
and literally thousands and thousands of fantastic Spiderman(TM) goodies to
give away!**
MORE LIVE DATES HERE SOON
* Formerly Granada Services
** No Spiderman(TM) merchandise will be available
JAPANESE GRAVITY WAVE EXPERIMENTS ARE SMALLER
12 Dec 2001
What would YOU do if your son was at home crying upstairs on the bathroom
floor 'cos he's hungry, and the only way to feed him was to sleep with a man
for a little bit of money? First things first things first. No doubt
whatsoever about the controversial health benefits of a moderate crack
romance; boosted self esteem, a heightened roboticism towards the right
honourable members of the opposition, fashionably slapstick motorskill
phenomenon.
Apologies to passengers for the delay and the total lack of any
correspondence since June. Casual clothing has been enforced to induce mock
hypocrisy amongst the well pressed and henceforth regular updates, which have
long stood as the flag-ship of our teetering institution, will be re-imposed.
Will Smith once said, 'S'up Unca Phil?' Time may distance us from the
zeitgeist of these words, but their timeless wisdom echoes on: What is
happening Uncle Phil?
Put in brackets (much in rehearsal room twiddling and very little in on-stage
wiggling). We plan to be releasing a full LP early next year.
RoadKill fanzine will be running an interview with our good selves next
issue. Email
captainbadger@nme.com for further details :)
Circuit magazine will be available quarterly from all good record shops. Some
of the bad ones may have it also.
Best wishes for the approaching Christmas. Keep an eye on the 'artists to
ignore hit-list' sponsored by Gap.
Mount Rushmore don't push for the ultimate prize. A leafy suburbian Cuba
ain't wise.
THE HEAT IS......ON!
29th June 2001
Pests of every glistening hue flood the scented, crimson air of another
summer evening and irritate the garden alcoholic. The rivers of vanilla
ice-cream attract wasps like an insectile strip-club on coupon day and
another haphazard generation is blinded by our nearest star. Nature is doing
it's damned best to remind you how much being at work sucks.
Ten for a pound
yer lighters!
We managed to finally make it down to Norwich to play at The Ferryboat this
month and what an excellent night it was. The Wombat Wombat Collective made
us feel truly welcome and so did the beer and wine they gave us. The support
acts were top notch too.
Big up to The Charlie Horse.
Oxford was equally as friendly where we supported the oblivion psychedelia of
NOUGHT. Free booze and backstage schmooze all added to make a very buoyant
R'n'R soufflé. Fantastique!
Aside from much needed camping we shall also be undertaking some much needed
recording. New tunes and new recordings in the pipeline.
Join the Mailing list to have the latest news e-mailed straight to you.
That's all for now. May your joy never cease...Let the good times roll..etc..
THE WIND'S STICKIN' TO ME FACE MAN!!
21st May 2001
Where Archimedes had his bathtub and Newton his apple, so, according to the
usual suspect legend, Galileo had a church lamp, swaying back and forth, time
and again, on and on, sending its message monotonously into his
consciousness...
We have a brand new barbecue. And with glorious weather we come together to
cook...some...meat.
Thanks to everyone who came down to the Masque on Monday 7th to support the
People Not Profit collective. Apologies for the short notice of the gig, it
was short notice for us also. Overall, it was one in the eye for the
despicable capitalist machine with a particularly passionate display of
defiance from 'Mugstar' which ended in a classic bout of R'n'R guitar
destruction. Castro bambasto!
We have a small but rebellious
uprising of gigs currently tunnelling their
way to you, including The Lomax on Wed 13th June, for those of you who are
local, that's with Shifty Disco's Nought from Oxford and local band Flamingo
50.
Tickets are available online at Oxfordmusic.net
We also have a new live review from Oxford based Music Magazine Nightshift,
you can read it all on-line here:
http://nightshift.oxfordmusic.net/
"WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY GOT IN THERE, KING KONG?"
17th April 2001
Happy Easter everybody. We finally have all our stuff replaced and we are now
ready to take the stage again. Our first show will be at The Cellar in Oxford
on Tuesday 17th April. Not much rehearsing has been done, but we're hoping
our hunger for noise will force a powerful show.
We have been working with our friends Birdman recently, helping to record
their demo, expect them to be playing with us in the not-too-distant future.
We have put some pretty pictures up in 'Goat Delights' for y'all to flick
through so check them out if you like.
That's about all for now really. Oh, if anybody knows of a good van for sale,
let us know!
BUY INJURED BIRDS ONLINE
THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US, MAKES US LOUDER
24h
March 2001
I know we promised a deluge of updates and written material since our van
disappeared, but we've been so busy! Busy driving to Milton Keynes to buy
amplifiers and playing bass rigs in music shops so loud that we get kicked
out! Boy, not being in a band for a while is just like being in a band. We
have almost replaced all of our equipment within not very much time at all.
Special thanks must go to Andy at 'adc Drums' in Liverpool.
You will notice that the 'Old Gigs' section on the website has been replaced
with 'Words and Pictures' which contains photo's, reviews and links to other
bands websites and folk we've met along the way.
Also, check out our groovy new links page, which you can access from the
'Goat Delights' menu.
Thanks to all of you who sent us e.mail in the last couple of weeks. They
were the spoonful of sugar that helped the rather unpleasant medicine go down.
TRANSIT BANDITS,
HALF-INCH OUR BAND BITS
5th
March 2001
A misfortune of unimaginable proportion befell us in London
during the early hours of Saturday morning. Our
beautiful ex-morgue cruise beast was unceremoniously hot-wired into the dawn,
along with all of our precious noise tools. Our drums and amps are probably
being hustled for crack hats down The Swan and Bat as you read.
We
will, regretfully be unable to fulfill any of our posted Upcoming live
engagements. We can't even rehearse :(
During the slow process of chasing up
insurance and generally scrabbling after money like some greed riddled city
coke-boys, we will channel our creative energies into the website and beyond.
Please feel free to email us during this period with your comments and
contributions.
Expect frequent updates documenting our phoenix like rise from
the ashes. This kind of thing should only happen to Nicky Wire. Yeah...just him,
over and over...
IN SQUINTING GRATITUDE WE SALUTE YOUR BLAZING MAJESTY!
27th February 2001
...And with the nourishment of your endless mercy, this arid and unforgiving
land shall bring forth a multi-screen cinema and waterslide park. Maybe even
a B&Q.
There were endless stretches of M6, terrifying cabaret acts, indigestible
service-station fudge, sleazy live sex shows, gut busting all-you-can-eat
carvery meals, hand shakes with Satan, influenza-distorted slices of Saturday
night TV and crates and crates and crates of lager.
Now for the other half of the tour...beginning on
March 12th at The Fleece &
Firkin, Bristol
and finishing on
March 19th at The Moles Club, Bath
Thank you to everybody who snapped up a copy of '
Injured Birds' and pushed us
up to number 7 in the indie charts. We have been informed by the cats at
Shifty Disco
that the limited run of 1000 copies has sold out from their
distribution company (Pinnacle). Copies may still be
available online, or from shops who
are 'down with it' and ordered plenty, before they realised that limited run,
meant limited run.
To get hold of a copy of
Emancipation fanzine (stocks are limited) which contains
an interview with us,
some Slak Fox action and plenty more besides. Please e.mail us with your name and postal address, and
we'll get one out to you.
INJURED BIRDS RELEASED INTO THE WILD:
MONDAY 29TH OF JANUARY
26th January 2001
We are now firmly up to our ankles in the year 2001. No manned missions to Jupiter as yet, but soon, the worlds most powerful Texan will unveil an orbiting antinuclear defence system that will turn our beloved home planet
into a suicidal version of the Death Star. I feel safer already.
To celebrate this great leap sideways in the evolution of mankind, we have unfurled a mammoth 16 date (and counting!) tour, kicking off on Monday 29th January at The Lomax, Liverpool. Supporting us on our home turf will be America's one and only 'Jack Drag,' fresh from their adventures in Europe, as well as experimental guitar architects 'Birdman'.
This show also coincides with the release of our second single 'Injured Birds' under Oxford based label 'Shifty Disco.' The first 20 people through the doors at this particular show will receive a free 'Shifty Disco' promo CD, and will get straight to the bar with minimum hassle.
Copies of
Emancipation Fanzine, containing the first ever 'Monkey Steals The Drum' interview (and much more besides) will be available from us at the approaching live shows for an irresistible 50 pence. Or send £1 to Ruth at
Emancipation
Well, that's all for now, keep watching the skies...see you on the road.
2001. BEGINS WITH MONKEYS. ENDS WITH PSYCHEDELIC LIGHT SHOW.
26th December 2000
Merry Christmas everybody!
The Christmas holidays draw December to a close as far as live shows are
concerned. We only played three gigs this month, one being a private gig
solely for the benefit of one Sarah Lee, cousin to our guitar player, Phil
Lee. The other two being at 'The Blues Tavern 2' in Sleaford, Hampshire and
'The Back Yard Club' in London. The Tavern gig is worth mentioning if only
for the 'hair incident' involving Adrian's wayward dreadlocks becoming
entangled with Chris' guitar tuning pegs during 'My Chinese Burns'. Very Spinal
Tap.
Coming up early next year is the release of our 2nd Single!!
'Injured Birds' will be released through
Shifty Disco on the
29th January
2001.
This CD is part of the Shifty Disco Singles Club and will feature Galileo as
the B-side.
To accompany this release we will be touring throughout the UK.
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if you weren't showered with gifts. Check the
website for a big Christmas slice of 'Slak Fox' - and something altogether
new... 'Goat Delights', a unique Internet experience. There is no effective
way to explain it...just enjoy the forbidden pleasure!
That's it for 2000. Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm, all of
your letters and e-mail's (we'll keep trying to answer them all) and for
generally making it a fantastic year for us. Have an excellent Christmas and
we'll see you out there in a crazier, louder and downright better 2001
:oD
SINGLE OUT NOW!
Buy it Online From Action Records
......Click here to join!......
