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