The Shakes Blog

Watch our set at Reading Festival

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

It was the highlight of our summer - getting to play the Tiscali VIP tent at Reading Festival. Junior was so excited pulling into the festival that he drove up a massive ramp too fast and smashed the exhaust off his car. We don't do well with cars.

Anyway, the whole set was filmed and now it's up online at Tiscali's site. You can check out 3 of our tracks here:

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/music/sessions/the-shakes.html

Enjoy

xTHE SHAKES

Borderline Live Review

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:00:00 GMT

Hello everyone,

Thanks to everyone who made it down to The Borderline show on the 17th - we loved it, I think you could tell.

And by the sounds of it so did these people, another great live review:

http://www.new-noise.net/gig-reviews/the-shakes/the-borderline/live-the-shakes_406.html

If you were at the event then check out this link for a couple of cool photos of the night.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theshakes

THE SHAKES x

LIBERTY JONES - OUT NOW

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 23:00:00 GMT

Hey everyone,

Its the day we've been waiting for - our new single is finally out there! The 'Liberty Jones' CD also includes our great video supported by Raindance & Tiscali and another cool track called 'So Serious'.

Get a copy from HMV.co.uk - delivered to your doorstep for a snip at only 1.99!:

http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;-1;-1;-1&sku=569293

If you prefer downloading then you can pick it up from iTunes:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=191580658&s=143444&i=191580688

Or here from the Tiscali music store:

http://sib1.od2.com/common/product/Product.aspx?shop=13&associd=2&catno=OD2DI6105850

And we hope you're going to join us at our big single launch party at the Borderline, London this Tuesday (17th) to celebrate the occasion...Get your tickets here before they sell out!

http://www.seetickets.com/see/event.asp?e%7Cartist=THE+SHAKES&resultsperpage=20&filler1=see&filler2=advanced

Thanks for your support!

THE SHAKES x

It's happened again

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:00:00 GMT

OK, so I took a a gamble.

Bought an old £300 Volvo from a man near Brands Hatch with 10 months MOT hoping it'd do us for the Liberty Jones tour and this morning it ground to a halt coughing and spluttering in the Blackwall Tunnel duing rush hour.

Managed to limp to the garage. Repairs will be three times the cost of the car.

Fuck it.

Anyone got a spare estate car going?

Radio plays: XFM, BBC 6 Music, Radio 2

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 23:00:00 GMT

::: VOTE FOR US @ XFM: MUSIC RESPONSE :::

Liberty Jones has been a regular on Music Response over the past week. Cheers to everyone who's emailed and voted. As a result, we're now up for the Top 7 at 7. With your votes we could make it.

Vote for Liberty Jones here: http://www.xfm.co.uk/article.asp?id=10638

Thank you.

::: RADIO 2 PLAYS LIBERTY JONES :::

Dermot O'Leary played 'Liberty Jones' on Saturday and Mark Radcliffe played us on Tuesday. Apparently Matthew Wright will be playing the track too, but we're just not sure when - great news and the perfect station to reach a big audience.

::: PHIL JUPITUS PLAYS US ON BBC 6MUSIC :::

Got our first national radio play on BBC 6Music from Phil Jupitus. "Very nice that" were the big man's words. You can hear the show for yourself by going here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/listen/ go down to Phil Jupitus and his Wednesday show, Liberty Jones is 1 hour 10 minutes in!

It starts here people.

x THE SHAKES

Something happened on the way to Swindon

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:00:00 GMT

Mates of ours have stopped calling us The Shakes and started calling us The Breaks. Because that's what happens to every bit of kit we touch.

In the last month we've lost a synth at a gig, smashed up a keyboard stand, broken a keyboard, lost a kit bag and had 3 strings break at 3 gigs in a row.

Even by our standards, this Friday was exceptional.

Gig in Swindon. Me, Gaz and Tim met up at the rehearsal room to pack the gear up. Tim's into his gadgets and he's brought along his TomTom satnav which he's stuck to the dashboard, all proud like a Dad who's kid's won at sports day.

Only he must have set it to 'find the route with the most traffic in the whole of SW London' mode, because 1 1/2 hours later we're still not out of London. Finally, we get on the motorway. 'You'd better make up some time is Tim's advice'. It's good advice. I put my foot down.

The engine explodes.

Still an hour away from Swindon we're stuck on the hard shoulder of the M4 waiting for the RAC. 60 miles away, Junior's also waiting. In a wine bar. In Swindon. He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be waiting there for another 4 hours. It's a shit place and full of idiots. We get a text from him."There's Nothing Like This by Omar's just come on. It's true. There's nothing like this."

The RAC man finally turns up and quickly works out what's happened. The car engine has blow up because I've never put any oil in it. I know this is true, because when he asks me to open the bonnet, I realise I don't know how.

Management arrive in 2 cars. Take us to the gig. Meet up with Junior who's 'relaxed himself' with 5 pints. We're now so late that the headline band have already gone on. Turn up to catch their set and play the show.

One of Gaz's strings breaks in Janine.

It's at this point, as he's frantically trying to retune his 4-stringed guitar in time for the start of Little Sun, that you realise some nights it's not going to go for you. That until you get loads of hairy men carrying all your stuff about for you in massive trucks, being in a band is a constant fight against things fucking up. Then we get a call saying our single's going to be played on Radio 2. Suddenly everything's fine again.

Up and down, up and down.

Wonder what'll break next?

If you have Reading Festival tix click here!!

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 23:00:00 GMT

We've been lucky enough to be chosen to play at the Reading Festival on August 27th! We'll be playing 2 acoustic setsin the Tiscali VIP tent on the Sunday afternoon.

We have 30 VIP tickets to hand out to our fans - so the first 30 people to send us a message on myspace can gettheir hands on these!! Be quick!

THE SHAKES

N.B. You must already hold Reading Festival weekend or day passes to be eligible for this competition.

Tiscali Sessions - www.tiscali.co.uk/reading

Liberty Jones is no.1 in the PMC top 10!

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:00:00 GMT

Wow, what a way to start our promotion of Liberty Jones. It has gone #1 in the PMC top 10! This is a chart of the songs being played by podcasters worlwide. Listen:-http://www.podmusiccountdown.com/archives/2006/08/pmc_top10_08130.html

If you are a podacster and a member of the Podsafe Music Network you can play this track and a couple of others from here:- http://music.podshow.com

Thanks to all you podcasters out there for playing 'Liberty Jones'

Don't forget we also have our own podcast called Shakecast.