Tim and Sam's 2008

Here's a summary of our year. It includes a break down of Tim and Sam's year, and lists of our favourite albums and gigs. There's also the odd picture, too. Enjoy!

T&S highlights:

January - We made our TV debut! on 31st Jan we recorded a session for Channel M. It was the windiest day ever and we got blown away when we were carrying our stuff into the studio. It was great fun though.

February - Started our first tour of the year. We played 10 dates starting at the end of Feb. We travelled all over the UK and had lots of fun. There is a blog up on Myspace if you'd like to read more about it.



March - We finished our tour and then we started our epic recording session. This month, we mainly focused on recording drums for all of the songs.

April - More recording. We ended up recording 19 songs. 7 of them are on our EP, which is out now. The rest should be released as an album next year. How exciting. We also played a few great gigs, including Huw Stephen's Introducing night at The Social, and a show with Shady Bard and Polytechnic. Both of whom are ace.


Hello,


May - A fun month. We played at The Great Escape Festival, which turned out to be one of our favourite gigs so far. I also got a new car. This was exciting because we could now travel in one vehicle to all of our gigs.



June - We locked ourselves away to get a move on with our recording. We also did a lot of rehearsing, so we could play all of these songs live.

July - Latitude Festival! This was lots of fun. Thank you very much to Huw Stephens for asking us to play.



August - Our second tour of the year. This time slightly longer, playing at a number of small but lovely festivals.



September - We set up Full of Joy Records in September, and set about work on releasing our EP. This was a really big learning curve for all of us. We also recorded the live video for House by the Sea, which you can watch on Youtube here:



October - A small number of gigs in between doing the PR for our EP. This involved lots of promo CDs and lots of envelopes.

November - We released our EP! Our first proper CD. Something we'd been looking forward to having for a long time. We also had an amazing launch party at the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford.




December - Our first in-store at Purgroove in London. We also did as session for Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music, which was amazing.



Some lists. All are in no particular order:

Favourite T&S gigs of the year:

27th Nov - EP Launch Party - Sacred Trinity Church, Salford. A really special night in a fantastic venue. Couldn't have wished for a better way to celebrate our EP launch.

28th March - St Peter's Church, Kingston - It took us 8 hours to get there. We turned up and went straight on stage, and we didn't get home until 5 in the morning. Despite this, we were still in the studio for 9 the following day. Hardcore. Anyway, the gig itself was great.

4th May - Sounds from the Other City Festival, Salford - Great festival. We played in a pub that was completely packed to the rafters.

16th May - Great Escape Festival - Our first larger festival. We were expecting to play to an empty room, but instead we got a full one. Better still, they were all quite and appreciative.

20th July - Latitude Festival - Easily the biggest gig we've done so far. Our second set in the woods was equally as good too. Definitely something we'll always remember.

4th Nov - Tommy's Bar, Cardiff - Dwi'n hoffi Caerdydd! We played with The Kabedees, who all bought T&S T-Shirts and wore them on stage. For this, we love them forever.

21st Dec - Wirksworth Town Hall, Wirksworth - A small town in the middle of no-where, but it turned out to be the perfect final gig of the year.

Non T&S gigs of the year:

Radiohead - Manchester LCCG. Probably our collective all-time favourite band.
David Bazan - Night n Day, Manchester. What a voice.
Bon Iver - The Great Escape Festival. We were all really impressed. Great show.
Okkervil River - The Great Escape Festival. Amazing live band.
Adem - Brudenell Social Club. With his band. One of our collective favourite solo artists.
Elbow - Delemer Forest. Elbow in a forest. What more could you want? Great that they've done so well this year, too.

Albums of the year:

These are all albums that have been doing the rounds in our tour car a lot.

Micah P. Hinson - The Red Empire Orchestra
Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Death Vessel - Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Why? - Alopecia

I hope you've enjoyed this year as much as we have. Very much looking forward to the next one!

Happy new year,

Tim and Sam x

Hello.

We thought it would be nice to make a round-up of all of the reviews we’ve had of the Put Your Slippers On EP so far. Enjoy!

DieShellSuit: “Lovely cheery melodic post indie rock, with what seems like a complete lack of pretension and a very down to earth feel.Highly recommended.” 9/10 <

The Fugitive Motel:“Seemingly seizing on any new tool in the musical family, beautifully constructed melodies compete with each other for the listener’s full attention. You can follow any of them for as long as you wish, or take a step back and appreciate the way they combine to make a totally satisfying whole.” 5.0/6.0

Huddersfield University Student Newspaper: “From the endearingly silly name down to the playful and astonishingly pretty details of their music, Tim and his very able band-mates seem to come from another Britain altogether, a sweeter and more thoughtful place, with this sensibility woven through their heartfelt and cinematic instrumentals.” 9.0/10

CMU Music Network: “'Stepping Stones' is a beautiful acoustic highlight, although truthfully every song is a joy. Composed by a patchwork orchestra of eclectic instruments and tied together in the band's indie-inclined roots, 'Put Your Slippers On' is pretty, magical and rich; an emblem of DIY chamber-pop delight.”

Isthismusic?: "Tim and Sam’s… are a band, that specialise in songs which are immensely and impossibly beautiful. The violins join in on title track, ‘Put Your Slippers On’, it’s one of the finest moments of any song I’ve ever heard.These guys are pretty special."

MEN: “The Manc oufit make music as snug as a warm winter blanket; all folk-drenched pastoral psychedelia, like a mix of Sigur Ros, Belle And Sebastian and Sufjan Stevens, with an extra sprinkling of ethereal wooziness.”

MP3 Hugger: “ ‘Join The Dots’ is an unbridled success as much for the emotions it inspires as the instrumentation, which is both fragile and adventurous.”

Organ: "Lovely indie-flavoured light delicate simple clever post-rock and gorgeous drops of fresh rain in the sun and jumping over stepping stones and badger sets and all warm and organic and wholesome and good” SINGLE OF THE WEEK

Planet Sound: “Brings back summer.” 7/10

Student Direct: “This is the epitome of summer music - and if it’s not summer, listen to it and you’ll never care about what’s going on outside.” 4/5

Subba-Cultcha: “A pastoral symphony of textures and colours played on everything that makes a noise.”

Supersweet: “‘Put Your Slippers On’ weaves an aural tapestry of naivety and maturation. Their songs cajole the senses into a comfortable state of comatose for what is ultimately an ethereal listen.”

ThisisfakeDIY: "Tim and Sam haven’t stuck to the norm really, choosing instruments which are better suited to the BBC Philharmonic rather than an indie-folk band, but the fusion of classical (flute, clarinet, piano, glockenspiel and violin) and modern (guitar and percussion) works wonderfully well, and partly contributes to their quirkiness.”

ToxicPete: “These instrumental renderings, are wonderfully constructed, gentle and sensual works of fluid and organic 'scores' or mini-symphonies. Post-rock maybe but, there's nothing at all stark, angular or obtuse about this EP. What's offered here is gently lilting, softly flowing, cosseting and easy on the ear. A classy and very well structured EP of excellent modernistic music for the heart, mind and soul."

You can order the EP here:

www.timandsam.bigcartel.com

Thanks,

Tim and Sam x

New Video!

Hello,

Below is a live version of our song "House by the Sea". It was a bit of an experiment. We used a bunch of old cameras and carefully set them up so we could film it whilst playing the song, and then we took the footage home to edit it ourselves. Don't expect a super pro video, but we think it's a charming representation of one of our live songs. Enjoy!




The properly record version can be heard on our forthcoming EP Put Your Slippers On. You can order it here:

www.timandsam.bigcartel.com

Thanks! Hope you like it,

Tim and Sam x

Put Your Slippers On EP! Pre-order now!

Hello everyone,

There have been some big developments in the Tim and Sam camp this week. Here's the news:

Tim has started a brand new record label called Full of Joy Records, which will be releasing Tim and Sam's debut EP! It will have a whopping 7 tracks and will be released on November 28th on CD and download. Here's the track listing:

1. Put Your Slippers On
2. House by the Sea
3. Join the Dots
4. Notebook
5. Stepping Stones
6. Staring into Space
7. The Badger Set

All this for just £5!

All of these songs have been newly recorded, re-worked and re-vamped.

The EP will be available to pre-order through Tim and Sam's shop at www.timandsam.bigcartel.com

To become a friend of the new record label visit www.myspace.com/fullofjoyrecords

Tim and Sam will be having a big launch party on Thursday November 27th at Salford Trinity Church. More news on that, and lots of other things coming soon.

Thanks,

Tim and Sam x

Tim and Sam’s Summer Tour Round-Up!

Hello,

A massive blog for you. We're back from our summer tour! We travelled 2500 miles over 17 days and had lots of fun along the way.

Our adventure started on July 30th when we drove from the T&S North Wales HQ to Guildford. We played at a lovely seated venue called The Boileroom.


Beforehand we had noodles. They were tasty.


After our spell-binding set we headed to Luke Leighfield's house in Southampton to get some beauty sleep.


The following morning we headed into Southampton to have an explore. We found a snooker place but they tried to charge us £22 for two hours (!). We decided to drown our sorrows in a nearby tea shop.


After our tea we made our way back to Luke's house to have some fun. We didn't have a gig to play that night so made the most of it by watching a film and by having a manly press-up competition (I think we did about 5 each). Rock on.

We rose nice and early the next day and made our way to Plymouth. This was pretty exciting because it was the first of 8 gigs we were doing with the super amazing Klaus Says Buy the Record. We also got to meet the wonder that is Paul Turner, who was travelling with us on tour.

Before that, though, we had more tea.

After our tea we headed to the venue and played the hits. The gig was pretty fun. We got our faces melted by the wonder of Klaus.

Another day came and we made our way to Cornwall! After a few wrong turns, we arrived at the Leopalooza Festival near Bude.




After our set we left the site to give ourselves a rare treat. A real dinner! We splashed out on a pub dinner before making our way back to the site to see the lovely Luke Leighfield, who would be playing with us for the rest of the tour.


After Luke's set we found out that our sleeping arrangements had fallen through, which meant we had to sleep in our car! We had to squeeze all of our equipment and 4 people in our VW Passat for the night.

Feeling less than refreshed, we woke up and made our way to Truro to play at the Gig on the Green Festival.

Our tour bus.



Fun on the see-saw!





And on the assault course!


After that we made our way to the second stage to watch Ice-Cold Idiots. This band had a combined age of 33! They played some original songs, as well as classics like Song 2 and Teenage Kicks. What more could you want?



We then made our way to our stage and set up. It was fun, despite the massive downpour that went on throughout our sets.


We celebrated with a group photo.


Once we packed up we made our way into Truro for some dinner. And another group photo.



After that we made our way to our free hotel(!). This was probably the most exciting thing ever.


We had an amazing sleep, which more than made up for the night before. We even got free breakfast! Yum.

After our morning feast we travelled to Exeter. We had some more tea. And cake!


After our tea-dosage we went to the venue to do our thing.

Klaus (Jon and Inigo) rocking out.

After the gig we drove through the night to Luke's house in Southampton for some sleep.

The next day we made our way to Kingston. Before we went to the venue we stopped off at Banquet Records to admire their excellent CD selection.


Yummy.


After our set we drove back to Southampton again. This time because we had to help Luke with his photo shoot. This involved lifting pianos and sitting in the back of vans like the real men we are.


We followed Luke and his piano to The New Forest near Southampton, and then to Bournemouth beach.


After our manly work was done, we drove to Southend-On-Sea for the next gig. We got there just in time to enjoy the rides opposite the venue. Yeah!




After the gig we drove to Inigo's house/ studio for the night. It was amazing.



They even had a parrot! Yeah!



Next up was Brighton. We decided to get there reasonably early and have fun in Brighton. Those of you who have read our tour blogs before may remember that last time we were in Brighton we played mini-golf, where Fordy beat me in a sudden death after we were tied after 18 holes. We decided to have a rematch. This time I won! Yeah!

To celebrate my victory, we decided to go for fish and chips before we went to the venue.


The Brighton gig was a special one because Massimo joined us on stage. Although Massimo has played with us a few times before, we haven't seen him for a few months so it was nice to have him back.


After the gig we went to my Uncle's house near Lewes to sleep for the night. We love staying at my Uncle's house because he has a swimming pool! Despite the fact that it was freezing outside, Fordy and I manned it up and went for a dip. Check out our comedy diving poses.


Baywatch!


After our dip we got dressed and made our way into Lewes to celebrate Becca's birthday. We went to a place called Bill's for lunch. It was amazing.


After our feast we drove to Portsmouth to play our first ever BBQ! It was Paul Turner's private birthday BBQ. We played a special acoustic set under a marquee.


This was a bit of a sad day too as it was the last of our gigs with Klaus Says Buy the Record. Sob.

We waved goodbye to Jon, Inigo and Paul and made our way to Leeds to play with Gossamer Albatross at the Packhorse. This gig turned out to be lots of fun because the audience were super quiet and attentive.

After our set we dropped Kathryn off at the train station. She had to go home to move her things to her new Uni house in Edinburgh.

The next day we drove to play another outdoor gig at the Belper Summer Alldayer.

Always wear sun cream.


After our spell-binding sets we drove into Belper to get ourselves a Chinese.


The next day we drove to Huddersfield for the last date of the tour with Luke Leighfield. We played a private party. This was a bit scary as we didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out okay in the end.

Luke looking dashing in Becca's hat and sunglasses.




After our emotional goodbye we drove back to the North Wales HQ for a couple of days. Our first day off was filled by a trip to Liverpool, and the second was spent having a fun day out at the beach. Most of the day was spent by playing Croquet and having long-jump competitions.



After our two days off we went to play at Telford's Warehouse in Chester. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this one because it turned out to be a goodbye gig for Kathryn, who decided to leave the band after the tour to concentrate on her uni work. This was a bit of a shock but we'd like to thank her for all the fun and adventures we've shared together. There's always room at the T&S table though so maybe she'll come and play with us again someday. Hope so.

The next day we drove to Northampton to play at The Labour Club with My First Tooth. It was almost a year since our last gig there, where we met My First Tooth for the first time. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the tour. The crowd were super and we got our third-ever encore! Yeah!

Then came the final date of the tour. We drove in convoy with My First Tooth to the Herne Bay Festival in Kent.

Before we played we decided to have a quick round of mini-golf! Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to finish our game, but it was fun nonetheless.


After our set we had the customary seaside fish and chips before throwing some stones out to the sea.


It was then time to set off back home. But not before one last photo!



We drove through the night (and through the rain) back home. It was the end of another super fun and super successful tour.

We would just like to thank everyone who came to see us, everyone who put us on, everyone who gave us a bed/floor for the night, and all of the bands we played with (especially Luke, Klaus and My First Tooth).

We're hoping to do another tour in October/ November time to coincide with the release of our next EP. Keep your eyes peeled!

Thanks for reading,

Tim and Sam x