BlueLights...Super Deluxe Extravaganza....
So, for a short time before release, we'll be offering exclusive bundles of joy giving you first access to music from the record, a limited edition t-shirt, a fancy poster, and for the first time, the album on vinyl!!
If you're into that sort of thing. Oh, and a tote bag.
Purchase of these limited edition packs also entitles you to two new bonus tracks.
For a full description, click http://www.bellx1.com/Blue%20lights/packagesdescription.htm
To order :
In Ireland - http://www.towerrecords.ie/page/28
In the UK - http://www.townsend-records.co.uk/bell+x1
In North America - http://store.yeproc.com/album.php?id=14146
Anywhere Else - http://www.bellx1.com/Blue%20lights/packages.htm
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We've posted the first single from Blue Lights On The Runway in our music player.
It's called The Great Defector.
Reply
The kind folks at WXPN in Philly have posted a live video of "How Your Heart is Wired" which was shot at Vicar Street –Dublin in November.
You can check it out here if you like: http://wxpn.blogspot.com/
Reply
A quick note to let everyone know that all tickets are now on sale for the September tour with Stars and our headline show at The Paradise in Boston.
Details and links below :
September 2008
17 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street - Tickets
18 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club (Headline Show)- Tickets
19 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero - Tickets
20 New York, NY - Terminal 5 - Tickets
22 Columbus, OH - Milo - Tickets
23 Newport, KY - Southgate House - Tickets
24 Chicago, IL - Riviera - Tickets
25 St.
Louis, MO - Pageant - Tickets
26 Lawrence, KS - Granada - Tickets
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Here's a little something from the road...featuring an original soundtrack by Benny Ondaleuse
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-v7aGCzpsO4
Reply
We'd like to make photographs a more regular feature, so it took a while, but here are some from back in March...
http://bellx1.com/photographs/NorthAmericaMarch08/
Reply
I'm home, and wide awake at half four in the morning. I can see two pigeons necking high in the branches of the tree outside my window. The water is thick brown and still on the canal.
Where were we... yes, Philadelphia, sweet Philadelphia. We came here to play at the 2008 Non Comm radio convention, where people from the non commercial (mainly National Public Radio) stations all over the country meet up and talk and listen to music and laugh and drink and are merry. NPR stations are funded mainly by their listeners, who pledge say $50 a year to be a member of the station. We met some members at the convention, which was one of the events and gigs they get invited to as part of their membership. There seems to be a real sense of involvement with the station, as a supporter, and while people liken NPR to the BBC, people choose to support the former, and aren't forced to pay a licence fee.
We're playing for twenty five minutes at midday in a hotel conference room - so on paper it's all wrong, but actually goes swimmingly and is really warmly received. We meet people from stations in Kentucky and Idaho who know our music and are glad to get to see us play. Quite mad.
We now have two whole days off here! These will be the first proper days off all tour (when we're not driving for 10 hours), and there's a pool at the hotel and all...
There is bowling (this time it's a little more bling than Atlanta- glow in the dark pins - and a little less brutal. Except for Tim, who was already hung over by the time we got to play), buying unnecessary electronic products, margheritas, and falling asleep by the pool - lobsterification. I really wanted to see the new Indiana Jones film here - opening weekend, in America - but apparently it's shite, so we didn't. The Roots are based here, and we went to one of their haunts, Copa Banana, in the hope of meeting the drummer Questlove and his magnificent hair. Alas, no joy.
Washington DC is home to the 9.30 club, which boasts the most heplful and most together house crew in the land. With impeccable standards of personal hygiene too. This is our first time to play in DC (as the kool kidz call it) and it's a fine time, thanks so much to all concerned for making it so. On the way back to Philly we stop at a petrol station for refreshments. What is it with these flavoured coffees? French Vanilla? Sickly sweet synthetic awful. I do love those Reeses peanut butter cups though. But Hershey's chocolate is not good. Like yellow pack cooking chocolate. Anyhoo, each to his own, tomaytoes, tomahtoes etc. We have a litttle dance to the piped reggae music in the forecourt (I'm a little disturbed by how twitchy some of these gas station attendants seem to get in the small hours when our van pulls up and we the bedraggled spill out of it. All we want is to find more pointless shit like the soap-dispensing nail brush we found in Florida)
Phil has made a playlist for late night van travelling, that starts mellow, but then gets to Money for Nothing via I Wanna Know What Love Is. It's a party. Sting, the guest vocal on Money for Nothing, has this scatted "Money for Nothin!" several times over the outro, which has us in stitches. You can just imagine him - "Can I do another one Mark??... ah go on... 'Money for Nothin'!'"
Phil is jonesin' for a proper cup of tea and a sausage and white pudding (from Ken's of Inchicore) sangwich. Oh, man, me too
New York City's irving Plaza has some great posters from shows gone by - Patti Smith, Radiohead, Willie Nelson. Its got chandeliers too. Gemma Hayes plays with us tonite, ably accompanied by Joe Chester on guitar and singing. Thanks too to Brooke Waggoner who's been with us on this whole tour, with Nathalie Prass and Hannah Schroeder. Breakfast is ours to make when you get over to our side...
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Sadly, all good things must come to and end....and tonight we will end the American tour @ the lovely Irving Plaza in NYC with our friends Gemma Hayes and Brooke Waggoner.
We look forward to seeing some of you there!
Many thanks to the kind folks in DC for a great gig last night.
Reply
Athens Georgia! The South seems to have a lot of these arty college towns like Athens, Chapel Hill, Austin, and Asheville NC. Places where Slingblade would not have been set.
We have good old time here, at the Melting Pot. It's attached to a hotel, where there are two weddings taking place. Some of the guests come to see us play, leaving their wedding party. Also strange is that the receptions are done by one o' clock, with everyone in bed. No stray cousins to chase. We head into town afterwards, to what we're told is Mickey Stipe's bar, called Go Bar. It really should be called Mickey Stipe's, like Paidi O Shea's in Ireland. The bit of GAA celebrity is good for business.
Onward to Nashville, where the gig is broadcast live on the wireless, on Nashville's WRLT. Afterwards we head to a strip of Honky Tonk bars downtown, which is kind of depressing. There are bands in these places playing for tips from 11am to 2am. It's tourist messy, like Temple Bar in Dublin. I meet a guy in the toilet who looks exactly like Biff from Back to the Future. We are taken on a brief tour of some of the landmarks down there by my friend Tony - The Ryman Auditorium, where the Grand Ole Opry used to happen (now it's out of town in a purpose built theme park, and has a presenting sponsor in Cracker Barrel, a chain of country themed restaurants what are shit), the Country Music Hall of Fame, which has amazing piano key features on the outside, and a great guitar shop called Gruhn's. It's closed, and we peer through the shutters with a child's excitement.
Heading to Columbus, there is a code-red-urgent piss stop somewhere in Kentucky, and we decide to find food as we're there. Dom and I decide to give Arby's a chance, as they advertise fine roast beef sandwiches. They are anything but. Waifo style slices of reconstituted non-descript animal, salty synthetic bread, overdone sitting-there-for-ages curly fries. We are very angry, and join the others across the road, at an outlet called Country Kitchen (marginally better) where we calm ourselves with some passable apple pie.
Columbus Ohio seems a bit of a ghost town, but we have one of the best shows of the tour there, and are buzzing after it. What it's all about.
Dom and Brian learning all the state capitals to busy themselves (or stay awake) while driving, and have done so via word association. An example - New Hampshire. Ham - pigs - pigs can't fly! - what else can't fly?! - Concorde! ... Concord is the capital of New Hampshire. Giants among men...
Last time we were in Chicago, we went to Gino's for deep pan pizza. We were ordering in a state of acute hanger (hunger + anger), so got far too much food. They're enormous swills of molten cheese, and we felt we had to bring them with us (Irish famine guilt...). I'm a bit queasy thinking about it now. We tried heating them up in the Comfort Inn microwaves...I set the fire alarm off in my room, as I had neglected to remove the cardboard. Good times. So we didn't go there this time.
The Empty Bottle here has a resident cat called Radley. He's just turned 75, in cat years. He seems cool, but when we arrived there was a shit on the stage, by the drum monitor. He sleeps on the stage, and can be quite territorial about it. Evidently.
The gig is an odd one. I don't think we really had the room, and there were people talking. I always feel if you have to ask people to shut up, then you've lost. That you should be able to unify the room and make it happen without resorting to that. I dunno...it didn't happen anyway. I think we're a bit knackered.
The following morning Dave and I flew to Pittsburgh to play on the wireless at WYEP, and the rest followed on in the van. The lovely Melissa from the station drove us to the hotel, in bad traffic, and gave us the scoop on the Pittsburgh. Big sports town. Hockey team doing well. Go Penns!
Reply
So we're driving from Lake City, Florida to Athens, Georgia and we've just heard that Munster have beaten Toulouse 16-13 to win the Heineken Cup. Phil sound engineer has been receiving text message updates during the game. This would be rugby (the oval ball), and yes, it's kind of a big deal.
The road is bedecked with massive advertising hoardings - pecans and all manner of related baked goods seem to be widely available. Lots of law firms advertising their services in the event of "accidents or wrongful deaths", with accompanying photo of ambulance-chasing asshole. The hard shoulders are littered with shreds of truck tyres from blow-outs. Must be the heat. Just passed a sign for an erotic goods store - "Love Stuff wants to thank our troops!", with a big lipstick kiss on the stars and stripes. God Bless America.
We started this tour last wednesday in New York, playing at a Rolling Stone/Men's Journal presented event to celebrate Bushmill's 600th birthday. Lesson learned - never compete with a free bar. On my way through customs at the airport, the officer went though my bags and guitar cases, asking all manner of questions as to the purpose of my visit. He seemed unconvinced, and asked me to sing him a song. I took his hand and sang the opening bars of "Carrickfergus". He, being Greek (name ended in "...opolis") blinked in bemusement and told me to go on through.
The next morning Dave and I played some songs on the CW11 morning news. There was a segment .. us by this doctor dude taking about some remedy for a yeast infection... straight out of Dr Steve Brule (http://www.videosift.com/video/Dr-Steve-Brule-on-Wine). I didn't like how my hair looked on TV. Kinda dirty. On the drive to Boston we stopped for a sandwich from Antonees in Mont Vernon, New York. It was like being in Satriale's Pork Store in The Sopranos. I believe somebody actually shrugged their shoulders and said "What you gonna do?" while we were there. We had been to Annapolis before, to visit the radio station WRNR there, and it's truly like something from Pleasantville or The Truman Show. There's a big naval academy here, and on this saturday night with the navy boys out on the town in their fine whites, ladies on their arms, it brings to mind An Officer and a Gentleman. As the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles spring forth in New York...
The gig is a dinner-and-cabaret-show kind of vibe, and very pleasant it is too.
[Continued]... http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=21081442&blogID=398634778&Mytoken=7DC2DEE8-B805-42D3-8C5E251550F5C5303068265
Reply
Bell X1 / Blog
Blue Lights.....Super Deluxe Extravaganza
BlueLights...Super Deluxe Extravaganza....
So, for a short time before release, we'll be offering exclusive bundles of joy giving you first access to music from the record, a limited edition t-shirt, a fancy poster, and for the first time, the album on vinyl!!
If you're into that sort of thing. Oh, and a tote bag.
Purchase of these limited edition packs also entitles you to two new bonus tracks.
For a full description, click http://www.bellx1.com/Blue%20lights/packagesdescription.htm
To order :
In Ireland - http://www.towerrecords.ie/page/28
In the UK - http://www.townsend-records.co.uk/bell+x1
In North America - http://store.yeproc.com/album.php?id=14146
Anywhere Else - http://www.bellx1.com/Blue%20lights/packages.htm
Reply
The Great Defector
We've posted the first single from Blue Lights On The Runway in our music player. It's called The Great Defector.
Reply
Live video of "How Your Heart is Wired"
The kind folks at WXPN in Philly have posted a live video of "How Your Heart is Wired" which was shot at Vicar Street –Dublin in November.
You can check it out here if you like: http://wxpn.blogspot.com/
Reply
Fall USA Tour - All Tickets On Sale Now
A quick note to let everyone know that all tickets are now on sale for the September tour with Stars and our headline show at The Paradise in Boston.
Details and links below : September 2008 17 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street - Tickets 18 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club (Headline Show)- Tickets 19 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero - Tickets 20 New York, NY - Terminal 5 - Tickets 22 Columbus, OH - Milo - Tickets 23 Newport, KY - Southgate House - Tickets 24 Chicago, IL - Riviera - Tickets 25 St.
Louis, MO - Pageant - Tickets 26 Lawrence, KS - Granada - Tickets
Reply
Europe, from a van
Here's a little something from the road...featuring an original soundtrack by Benny Ondaleuse
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-v7aGCzpsO4
Reply
Photos from North America March ’08
We'd like to make photographs a more regular feature, so it took a while, but here are some from back in March... http://bellx1.com/photographs/NorthAmericaMarch08/
Reply
Jetlagged and Waffling and America and All
I'm home, and wide awake at half four in the morning. I can see two pigeons necking high in the branches of the tree outside my window. The water is thick brown and still on the canal. Where were we... yes, Philadelphia, sweet Philadelphia. We came here to play at the 2008 Non Comm radio convention, where people from the non commercial (mainly National Public Radio) stations all over the country meet up and talk and listen to music and laugh and drink and are merry. NPR stations are funded mainly by their listeners, who pledge say $50 a year to be a member of the station. We met some members at the convention, which was one of the events and gigs they get invited to as part of their membership. There seems to be a real sense of involvement with the station, as a supporter, and while people liken NPR to the BBC, people choose to support the former, and aren't forced to pay a licence fee. We're playing for twenty five minutes at midday in a hotel conference room - so on paper it's all wrong, but actually goes swimmingly and is really warmly received. We meet people from stations in Kentucky and Idaho who know our music and are glad to get to see us play. Quite mad. We now have two whole days off here! These will be the first proper days off all tour (when we're not driving for 10 hours), and there's a pool at the hotel and all... There is bowling (this time it's a little more bling than Atlanta- glow in the dark pins - and a little less brutal. Except for Tim, who was already hung over by the time we got to play), buying unnecessary electronic products, margheritas, and falling asleep by the pool - lobsterification. I really wanted to see the new Indiana Jones film here - opening weekend, in America - but apparently it's shite, so we didn't. The Roots are based here, and we went to one of their haunts, Copa Banana, in the hope of meeting the drummer Questlove and his magnificent hair. Alas, no joy. Washington DC is home to the 9.30 club, which boasts the most heplful and most together house crew in the land. With impeccable standards of personal hygiene too. This is our first time to play in DC (as the kool kidz call it) and it's a fine time, thanks so much to all concerned for making it so. On the way back to Philly we stop at a petrol station for refreshments. What is it with these flavoured coffees? French Vanilla? Sickly sweet synthetic awful. I do love those Reeses peanut butter cups though. But Hershey's chocolate is not good. Like yellow pack cooking chocolate. Anyhoo, each to his own, tomaytoes, tomahtoes etc. We have a litttle dance to the piped reggae music in the forecourt (I'm a little disturbed by how twitchy some of these gas station attendants seem to get in the small hours when our van pulls up and we the bedraggled spill out of it. All we want is to find more pointless shit like the soap-dispensing nail brush we found in Florida) Phil has made a playlist for late night van travelling, that starts mellow, but then gets to Money for Nothing via I Wanna Know What Love Is. It's a party. Sting, the guest vocal on Money for Nothing, has this scatted "Money for Nothin!" several times over the outro, which has us in stitches. You can just imagine him - "Can I do another one Mark??... ah go on... 'Money for Nothin'!'" Phil is jonesin' for a proper cup of tea and a sausage and white pudding (from Ken's of Inchicore) sangwich. Oh, man, me too New York City's irving Plaza has some great posters from shows gone by - Patti Smith, Radiohead, Willie Nelson. Its got chandeliers too. Gemma Hayes plays with us tonite, ably accompanied by Joe Chester on guitar and singing. Thanks too to Brooke Waggoner who's been with us on this whole tour, with Nathalie Prass and Hannah Schroeder. Breakfast is ours to make when you get over to our side...
Reply
Tonight in NYC
Sadly, all good things must come to and end....and tonight we will end the American tour @ the lovely Irving Plaza in NYC with our friends Gemma Hayes and Brooke Waggoner. We look forward to seeing some of you there! Many thanks to the kind folks in DC for a great gig last night.
Reply
Go Penns!
Athens Georgia! The South seems to have a lot of these arty college towns like Athens, Chapel Hill, Austin, and Asheville NC. Places where Slingblade would not have been set. We have good old time here, at the Melting Pot. It's attached to a hotel, where there are two weddings taking place. Some of the guests come to see us play, leaving their wedding party. Also strange is that the receptions are done by one o' clock, with everyone in bed. No stray cousins to chase. We head into town afterwards, to what we're told is Mickey Stipe's bar, called Go Bar. It really should be called Mickey Stipe's, like Paidi O Shea's in Ireland. The bit of GAA celebrity is good for business. Onward to Nashville, where the gig is broadcast live on the wireless, on Nashville's WRLT. Afterwards we head to a strip of Honky Tonk bars downtown, which is kind of depressing. There are bands in these places playing for tips from 11am to 2am. It's tourist messy, like Temple Bar in Dublin. I meet a guy in the toilet who looks exactly like Biff from Back to the Future. We are taken on a brief tour of some of the landmarks down there by my friend Tony - The Ryman Auditorium, where the Grand Ole Opry used to happen (now it's out of town in a purpose built theme park, and has a presenting sponsor in Cracker Barrel, a chain of country themed restaurants what are shit), the Country Music Hall of Fame, which has amazing piano key features on the outside, and a great guitar shop called Gruhn's. It's closed, and we peer through the shutters with a child's excitement. Heading to Columbus, there is a code-red-urgent piss stop somewhere in Kentucky, and we decide to find food as we're there. Dom and I decide to give Arby's a chance, as they advertise fine roast beef sandwiches. They are anything but. Waifo style slices of reconstituted non-descript animal, salty synthetic bread, overdone sitting-there-for-ages curly fries. We are very angry, and join the others across the road, at an outlet called Country Kitchen (marginally better) where we calm ourselves with some passable apple pie. Columbus Ohio seems a bit of a ghost town, but we have one of the best shows of the tour there, and are buzzing after it. What it's all about. Dom and Brian learning all the state capitals to busy themselves (or stay awake) while driving, and have done so via word association. An example - New Hampshire. Ham - pigs - pigs can't fly! - what else can't fly?! - Concorde! ... Concord is the capital of New Hampshire. Giants among men... Last time we were in Chicago, we went to Gino's for deep pan pizza. We were ordering in a state of acute hanger (hunger + anger), so got far too much food. They're enormous swills of molten cheese, and we felt we had to bring them with us (Irish famine guilt...). I'm a bit queasy thinking about it now. We tried heating them up in the Comfort Inn microwaves...I set the fire alarm off in my room, as I had neglected to remove the cardboard. Good times. So we didn't go there this time. The Empty Bottle here has a resident cat called Radley. He's just turned 75, in cat years. He seems cool, but when we arrived there was a shit on the stage, by the drum monitor. He sleeps on the stage, and can be quite territorial about it. Evidently. The gig is an odd one. I don't think we really had the room, and there were people talking. I always feel if you have to ask people to shut up, then you've lost. That you should be able to unify the room and make it happen without resorting to that. I dunno...it didn't happen anyway. I think we're a bit knackered. The following morning Dave and I flew to Pittsburgh to play on the wireless at WYEP, and the rest followed on in the van. The lovely Melissa from the station drove us to the hotel, in bad traffic, and gave us the scoop on the Pittsburgh. Big sports town. Hockey team doing well. Go Penns!
Reply
Southern Bellies
So we're driving from Lake City, Florida to Athens, Georgia and we've just heard that Munster have beaten Toulouse 16-13 to win the Heineken Cup. Phil sound engineer has been receiving text message updates during the game. This would be rugby (the oval ball), and yes, it's kind of a big deal. The road is bedecked with massive advertising hoardings - pecans and all manner of related baked goods seem to be widely available. Lots of law firms advertising their services in the event of "accidents or wrongful deaths", with accompanying photo of ambulance-chasing asshole. The hard shoulders are littered with shreds of truck tyres from blow-outs. Must be the heat. Just passed a sign for an erotic goods store - "Love Stuff wants to thank our troops!", with a big lipstick kiss on the stars and stripes. God Bless America. We started this tour last wednesday in New York, playing at a Rolling Stone/Men's Journal presented event to celebrate Bushmill's 600th birthday. Lesson learned - never compete with a free bar. On my way through customs at the airport, the officer went though my bags and guitar cases, asking all manner of questions as to the purpose of my visit. He seemed unconvinced, and asked me to sing him a song. I took his hand and sang the opening bars of "Carrickfergus". He, being Greek (name ended in "...opolis") blinked in bemusement and told me to go on through. The next morning Dave and I played some songs on the CW11 morning news. There was a segment .. us by this doctor dude taking about some remedy for a yeast infection... straight out of Dr Steve Brule (http://www.videosift.com/video/Dr-Steve-Brule-on-Wine). I didn't like how my hair looked on TV. Kinda dirty. On the drive to Boston we stopped for a sandwich from Antonees in Mont Vernon, New York. It was like being in Satriale's Pork Store in The Sopranos. I believe somebody actually shrugged their shoulders and said "What you gonna do?" while we were there. We had been to Annapolis before, to visit the radio station WRNR there, and it's truly like something from Pleasantville or The Truman Show. There's a big naval academy here, and on this saturday night with the navy boys out on the town in their fine whites, ladies on their arms, it brings to mind An Officer and a Gentleman. As the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles spring forth in New York... The gig is a dinner-and-cabaret-show kind of vibe, and very pleasant it is too. [Continued]... http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=21081442&blogID=398634778&Mytoken=7DC2DEE8-B805-42D3-8C5E251550F5C5303068265
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