Friday 24 December 2010

With some brief time off...

There it is! The mark of our first gig at the Birmingham o2 Academy 3. We've been breaking in to Birmingham a bit, and this seems like a pretty solid place to start. Thank you very much to the lads in 'Mezzotonic' (http://www.myspace.com/mezzotonic) for putting on the gig and asking us to play, and 'Fly by Nature' (http://www.myspace.com/flybynature) for providing support as well. We also got to bimble about in a dressing room and, way more importantly, we got free beer. Also there was a spoon stuck in the light fitting, which must have taken a considerable degree of effort and genius thinking.

If you missed this gig, or just want to come down again, we're supporting the British Kicks at their E.P. launch on the 26th January in the same locale. So please get in contact with us if you want more details!

Being that it's the festive period and we've got a pretty successful year under our novelty bottle opener and Batman belts, esteemed friend and father of the band Mr. Jack Russell threw us a 'Stacks Christmas Bash' a week previous to Christmas day. Most bands host Christmas gigs with cheap drinks as a get together for friends and family, but we threw our callousy fingers up at this idea and decided we'd just get shitfaced on our own and alienate the population of Burbage in the process (including a landlord that didn't appreciate our version of 'Angels'... at all). It ended in Peckleton with a buffet of manly food, The Prodigy's greatest hits, a massive amount of drunken dancing and 72 cans of lager.

There are no photographs.

 Final shout out goes to Dec O'mara of Redbox Film, who shot, edited and created our first music video for 'The New Era' in a workshop in Barwell; the trailer and his other works can be found at http://www.youtube.com/RedBoxFilm. We'll have the video available shortly, it looks ace! We also took the opportunity for the standard moody photo shoot:

The Set:


"Look angry at life in general." 





...Jump around:




Come on, lads. Keep it together for ten fucking minutes.

From a fledgling foursome at the o2 arena London to where we are now, gig wise, set wise and fans wise, we've had a great 2010, a big thank you from all of us! New E.P., COMPLETELY new merchandise and gigs being booked up for 2011 are the next things to look out for. 

Festive high fives all around! 
Your friend in time - Ben

 www.myspace.com/thestacksuk

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Stacks/111971585493489
*Photographs courtesy of Zoe Shannon, Dec O'mara and Andrew Benge. And Ben's Phone.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Nonchalance, and it's benefits.

I wouldn't say my existence is meaningless, but I will say it's fairly uneventful. Considering my only commitments are gigs, practises and studio time (their own frequency aside) it's no real surprise that having an analytical essay to do has shcoked me to the point that I've had to get drunk to deal with it. In my time of a writing crisis, I've turned to beer, and I'm still on a voyage of discovery to see if the two things compliment each other. So far this is going pretty well, it's making it much easier to 'blog'.

Also winter has decreased the gig scene a huge amount. Quick gripe there. But things are picking up for the new year; so I can not only be shocked by having to do some work to further my third year degree course, I can forget about it with very little guilt or battling with any kind of conscience.

Conscience is something that a healthy alcohol diet for a couple of years has eradicated, so no worries about point number two. It also brings us back to what will be a running theme of this post: How intoxicated Ben is, and how he's about to begin on wine. I don't like wine, but I'll drink it now I'm out of beer.

Coming back round the gig thing, we've still got the Birmingham Academy 3 gig coming up on the 15th December and tickets are still on sale. So, anyone reading this blog on the offchance, get in contact if you need tickets. Other than that we're setting gigs up for the new year in Birmingham, Leicester and Coventry,
as well as hopefully revisiting our preferred locales such as Northampton and Blackburn. The land that time forgot.

Is it a new discovery to me, or is chatroulette a forgone conclusion? There's a lot of pressing next and the occasional reaction of "OH, that isn't RIGHT". It's serving as tonights entertainment in my house. That and Comedy Central, the cause of my academic downfall. Personally, I'd want to do something more fulfilling, like going on our myspace and checking out our tunes.

A cat. Just a Cat.

Merchandise on the way for the 15th December, and recording time early January, so stay tuned, and check your local listings.

Your friend in time - Ben

Wednesday 1 December 2010

That horrific time of year.

The cursed season is most definitely among us. Snow has already made it difficult to do anything except stay indoors, and it isn't even good snow that you can use to create amazing structures with...



Commendations to the hardworking music students at Wolverhampton University. But so far we've had a gig cancellend on us cus of the cold. I'm so bored of winter messing up my life!! I can't even wear shorts indoors anymore, I can't LIVE like this.

Unfortunately, there aren't any pictures to visually represent what happened last weekend. Northampton SU is a venue that we have to play at again, the crowd is mental and the venue is niiiice and roomy so we have lots of room to jump around like idiots. Archives were absolutely on it again, who've just made some recordings that can be found on www.myspace.com/archivesarchives! Also everyone seems to know the words to our tunes...
If anyone did take any pictures (and I saw some flashing cameras) please let us know. There was an obligatory party afterwards that a) i can remember very little of and b) it's probably best that we keep it that way.

Secondly, a big big thanks to everyone that came down to Nuneaton's Queens Hall for us on the 27th; people literally came from all over the country and we really appreciate it! Made the gig insane to play, it's been a while since I've seen a good gig at the Queens Hall and everyone there made it happen.



Lastly, I'd like to celebrate the birth of this idiot -



22 years old on Tuesday the 30th.

Twenty. Two.


We'll see anyone in Coventry this Friday at Taylor John's House; please please contact us if you want tickets for the o2 Academy 3 gig on the 15th December!


Regards...