September 14th 2005
Hello all, hope you had a good summer. We've been doing a bit of spring cleaning on the site so its looking a little cleaner these days. W'eve been busy and we've now completed our new Shammy Leather CD which is called "Electric Bakery." It should be "in the shops" in the next few weeks but as a sneak preview listen to MP3s of "Washing Up" and "Electric Bakery (Rebaked.)"
July 9th 2005
Whoops! Sorry it's taken us a while to update the old home page. We always were a bit useless. Anyway we have lots of news. Shammy Leather have completed the recording and mixing of our new CD "Electric Bakery". It's our first for six years and its really good. The tracklisting is Washing Up, French Film Stars, Electric Bakery, Sabina, Time Well Spent, Only I Can See The Real You, Escapees, Some Dreams Pass You By and Goth. Guests include Jai and the Hornsey Horns. Hopefully it will be out in the next few weeks.
The Beekeepers also continue their appearances on various compilations. We appeared on a Mandolin records compilation with "Rafine Hoshida", which also got us played on Australian National Radio - the Triple J programme! Fame at last! We've also featured in the Asaurus Records EP club with four tracks - A Girl and a Dream, Mobile Library News, Freak of Nature and Too Boozed to Bother. Apart from Freak of Nature they are all newly recorded or different versions. Thanks to Matthew at Asaurus. Also the ancient SL track "Hovis" recorded in 1986 is due to appear on a compilation in September.
Finally the Original Beekeepers are playing live next month at Blang!, the club run by Joe from Sergeant BuzFuz. It's on August 10th at the 12 Bar Club in Central London. More info when we have it.
November 18th 2004
Hello all. It's November 2004 and we've been technically going for 20 years! That's much longer than the Beatles. Anyway we should be doing a special Shammy Leather 20th anniversary gig next year some time. We'll let you know when we get it organised. We've now completed the radio programme and it went out on Resonance FM. We enjoyed going down to Andy Coules' studio and chattering on about the Shammies and the Beekeepers. You can hear a recording of the programme at the Orchestra Pit site. Click on the "Radio Section."
There's also some news about the Original Beekeepers' album "Music for Barges". Phil and Stuart at Victory Garden records have contacted us to let us know they've been doing up the tapes, so we'll post up details when we have it.
Finally the Original Beekeepers continue our appearances on obscure compilation albums. We have a track ("Light Moves Darkness") on Postcards., a CDR compilation from Ugly Dog Records in Germany and Living Room Records in Holland. I received copies in the post a couple of days ago and the packaging is really nice. The track is the one from "Making Honey."
We've also appeared on Danish label' BSBTA's compilation the "Afilliate Program Vol 2". Our contribution, Ladies Fingers, featuring Harley Richardson and Guy Standen hasn't appeared on anything else. We're also due to appear on the label's online advent calender with a surprise MP3 appearing on December 6th. It's all go!
October 26th 2004
We're on the radio tomorrow. One of the songs we're going to play is Pie. In fact its so great we've put up the MP3. I'm getting the hang of this website thingy. We've also heard today that Music for Barges is nearly nearly ready.
October 22nd 2004
Lots of Beekeepers news. Following on from our appearance on the CDR compilation from Asaurus Recorrds called "For Whom the Casio Tolls", we are going to appear on two more compilations. The first is from Ugly Dog Records and Living Room Records (from Germany / Netherlands) and is called Postcards. Our track is "Light Moves Darkness" from Making Honey. Secondly we are due to appear on Denmark's BBSTA label on their Affiliate Programme Vol 2 CDR. Our track is the exclusive "Ladies Fingers."
We are also due to appear on Resonance FM on the 28th October at 1.15pm. The programme is a 45 minute retrospective of the Original Beekeepers featuring interviews and music. Yes, you're right, it is pretty self-indulgent. Presented by Mark Braby, "Full Circle" features one of our oldest tracks ("Disc Drive") and a new 2004 re-recorded version.
Also we may be appearing at the National Honey Show, the annual real Beekeepers shin-dig. Unfortunately we'll be outside distributing CDs to the general public.
October 20th 2004
Thanks to all who came to see The Original Beekeepers play at Scaledown. We played for twenty minutes without amps and microphones and seemed to go down pretty well. Here's a picture of us looking intense.
September 19th 2004
The Original Beekeepers (just Tom & Steve for this performance) play a small set (15 minutes) live at Scaledown, this coming Friday on the 24th September. Entrance is free but you have to be a member so please check out the Scaledown, website. The venue is the King & Queen pub, Foley Street, near Goodge Street tube. Hope to see you there. Also the Asaurus Recorrds compilation called "For Whom the Casio Tolls". should be out this week.
August 17th 2004
Dear all, sorry for not updating the site for about three years. We just had a few technical problems. But we're back now and we can read feedback and everything. Hooray! Hopefully we'll now be updating regularly and give the site an old spring clean because by god it needs it. Anyway here is what we are up to:
Shammy Leather have nearly completed their first CD in five years. It will probably have ten tracks including "Washing Up", "French Film Stars" and a new recording of "Goth." We'll pop MP3s of a couple of rough mixes on the site soon. It's sounding good and should be out hopefully by the end of the year. In November we will be celebrating our 20th year anniversary and we hope to mark the occasion with a gig late this year or early next. Watch this space, or whatever you're meant to say.
The Original Beekeepers have some obscure releases coming out. In the next few weeks the lovely people at Victory Garden Records will be releasing our new low key album "Music for Barges" on cassette only as part of the S.O.U.L (Sides of Unequal Length) series. Music for Barges was originally distributed free to barges in North London and Oxford last year.. You can download an MP3 of one of the tracks "A Place To Stay." More details as we have it.
The Beekeepers are also going to be appearing on a CDR compilation from Asaurus Recorrds called "For Whom the Casio Tolls". Consisting of tracks performed entirely on toy keyboards, our contribution is a song called "Nina."
Finally the Original Beekeepers will be performing as a duo on Friday September 24th live at the very very low key evening at Scaledown, at a pub somewhere in the West End. More details to follow.
Finally many apologies for not replying to any of the feedback for the past three years. I've now retrieved it and we're going to reply. Thanks to the approach from the Chinese firm who thought we were import-exporters of Shammy Leathers and the girl who said we weren't very photogenic.