Second Monday » Blog

Alvorada on iTunes now!!

Will — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:05:15 +0000

Alvorada is now on iTunes!!
iTunes UK

Live at The Railway

Second Monday — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:09 +0000

Photos taken by my brother, Chris Law (http://www.chrislaw.co.uk/). Live at the Railway Inn in Winchester on August 22.

Here is the whole set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/secondmonday/sets/72157622194210916/

Pre-order update

Will — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:13:21 +0000

The pre-orders will hopefully be shipped out tomorrow. Expect them to arrive early next week for people in the UK. Thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered so far.

Pre-order “Alvorada” now!

Will — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 23:26:03 +0000

Very excited to announce that you can now pre-order “Alvorada” on CD now. We’re a small speck of a band putting this out by ourselves so if you like what you hear pick up a copy or five. Thanks to everyone who have ordered a copy already, we appreciate it.

Pre-order Alvorada and get a free poster

For people in Germany: We will be selling this record on the upcoming tour. You can order it now, but you might get a few days sooner if you’re coming to a show this August.

Album artwork

Will — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:21 +0000

Hi everyone,

I was getting a bit bored of the other site and thought a more classic blog theme might help. The artwork for Alvorada has been sent to the printers. The stock should be arriving with us next week. Here’s the album cover:

Alvorada artwork

Pre-order’s will start tomorrow. It will be released Friday, August 21st 2009 at the Boilerroom, Guildford. We will be selling the album at all shows, as well as some new shirts printed by our local screen printing experts: Fresh Prints (like Bel-Air…!).

More information about album coming soon!

August Tour announcement

Will — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:20:46 +0000

We are releasing our second album, Alvorada, on tour this August. The artwork has been finished. It’s going to the manufacturer’s this week. The master sounds huge. Life is insanely busy.

August tour 2009

21.08 uk Guildford – Boilerrooms
22.08 uk Winchester – The Railway
24.08 lux Rollingergrund – Café Bamboesch
25.08 de Trier – Exhaus
26.08 de Siegen – Vortex
27.08 de Dessau – Beatclub
28.08 de Wirges – Spack Festival
29.08 de Berlin – Magnet Club
30.08 de Leipzig – Secret Show
31.08 de Heiligenhaus – Der Club

Second Monday Alvorada August 2009 tour

Master preview and Andover

Will — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:38:30 +0000

I’ve heard the new master. We got given two versions of “Vivo Molto”… one a bit cleaner, one a lot thicker. Naturally I’ve asked for a mix between the two. It’s certainly a whole lot brighter.

A big thank you to everyone who came down to the ~~Guildford~~ Andover show. I had a lot of fun. The night didn’t go down without a technical hitch…. Andy from A Stranger In Moscow couldn’t reschedule his work so A Stranger In Moscow played their set without him. At the last moment Jonny filled in on guitar and, not knowing any of the songs, just jammed away. It was much better than you’d think too. He even took over singing for one song. They figured Jon should pitch in about 15 minutes before the set up to play. There was no rehearsal.

Besides the terrible sound on stage, and the practically non-existent (in volume anyway) foldback amp for Freddy, we made lemonaid with lemons. Our second show performing the songs (ever) and it was clearly better than the first. Still didn’t get the right tuning at the start of one song. Not good. Taken as a whole though, good.

In other unrelated news, keep checking out Steve Daoud’s illustration blog. He has produced two illustrations for us and a third is on the way. His latest story is about a fisherman. I loved ‘the Discontented Bear’ so I’m looking forward to how this one turns out…
http://stephen-daoud.co.uk/blog/website-updates-and-maintenance/the-joys-of-progress/

Now, time to not sleep, quit procrastinating, and spend the next 19 hours writing my yet-to-be-started essay on ethics and the Bible. This isn’t the place for theological ramblings but I’m going to enjoy this one. Widows, orphans, strangers, the poor, disabled, the sinners, thieves, outcasts and oppressed… Jesus gravitated towards people like that. Remarkable. That’s all.

Alvorada

Will — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:37:45 +0000

Track order/track names/album title/transitions are FINISHED and DECIDED! I’ve sent the album off to be mastered by recorded delivery air mail, sparing no expense. I can now announce our next album is 10 tracks long, 50 minutes long and is titled “Alvorada“. There were a lot of different names for each of the songs, but after a lot of consideration here is where we landed on the track names/track listing:

Don’t talk about dust
Stereoscope
Vivo molto
Hour of the wolf
Barricades
He’s wired
Vespertilio
Emissary sleepers
We’re not coming home
Analogues

One song on our myspace/bandcamp will be renamed soon… so 13 Cards = Vivo molto.

Somehow we’ve ended up with 4 different languages between the song titles and album name (English/Portuguese/Italian/Latin) even though I believe none of us are particularly fluent in anything besides English (Jon’s getting better at German).

Also, we had one of our (unmastered) songs released on a 30-track Alter The Press compilation along with Thursday and New Found Glory and a host of other fantastic bands and artists! You can check out the compilation here. I jumped the gun and called it “Stereoscope” by mistake, the actual song is “Vivo molto” (or 13 Cards).

Next up: the artwork for the record (maybe)

Record labels…schmecord labels

Will — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:48:35 +0000

So we’re talking with a few record labels for our second album. It’s slow work and it can be pretty intense sometimes. The whole music industry is changing and this whole economic-downturn that seems to be making people redundant left, right and centre. Basically, there’s more risk. So it’s pretty amazing that record labels want to talk with us about our record

There are three things I care (my opinion only) about when it comes to this album…

1. A cheap and affordable physical record
2. A release date this year
3. Breaking even

Physical CDs are losing ground in the marketplace. Digital music is going to be the future. Still, I’ve enjoyed putting together the artwork for our records and seeing the printed result and that’s something that you don’t get with digital… even if it comes with a “digital PDF” it’s really not the same. If you want to sell your CD on the road you’re going to need a physical product too.

CD distribution has a smaller role in UK shops today. It seems the only time I buy music from HMV is when I’ve been given HMV gift card. I still seem to be buying DVDs as and when there are good deals, but I prefer buying the real CD online. I haven’t yet bought my digital ticket just yet. Plus, call it old-fashioned, I enjoy the anticipation of waiting for a CD in the post.

I’ll let you know when anything happens. I still dreaming of doing this record DIY. Less hassle, less expectations, what you get is yours and it’s earned. Sure, it’s one way ticket to no-where but the journey’s not too bad. Still, being part of good indie record label, being part of a collective of quality music, that’s not so bad either.

DISCLAIMER: Non-representative opinion of the collective group known as “Second Monday”

Final day of mixing

Will — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:07:55 +0000

Today me, James, Jim and a very sleepy Rich finished mixing our album. It was a fun experience. We removed all the compression from the recording, worked some interesting dynamics in to a couple of songs and, much to my liking, we brought up the level of the guitars when we really feel like the song needed more rockin’. Happy to say the whole album is now at 100% rockin’ capcity. Once we get it mastered I dare to think how awesome it will sound. Not because I like our music but simply for the fact Jim Turner has done a sign and a wonder in producing this album and Alan Douches has got the history and skills to master this record to new levels of hugeness that no man on earth has yet witnessed. Ok I’m slightly hyperbolic but I’m excited.

In other news I had an interesting conversation with photographic extrodinair Chris Law and illustrative genius Stephen Daoud about business ideas, life management, marketing and networking. It certainly got me thinking….. if there isn’t a good record deal to sign and we self-release this puppy then how on earth am I going to market it? I couldn’t care less for the money but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to not put value on art. It’ll be a terrible day when people don’t buy good records anymore just because they feel entitled to free music. As the mantra of the working band and record label goes: support independent music.

I typed this on an iPod touch… sorry for my probable lack of good spelling.