Beryl Sessions 1-6

Here I Am

Taking Over

Easy Ride

Because (The Beatles Cover)

Old Man (Neil Young Cover)

HERE I AM - THE MAKING OF

Here I Am EP - The making and meaning of

Track listing:

Here I Am

70’s Child

Girl

Taking Over

Released 25th Nov 2013

iTunes -  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/here-i-am-ep/id726681567
Bandcamp - https://bleech.bandcamp.com

So as a build up to the release of Humble Sky early next year, we decided to release a kind of EP/Maxi single.

This release is probable the last ‘punk’ type of release we will do.

Apart from ‘Girl’ this EP is a rock out type of ting.

Humble Sky moves into a much more mature solid set of songs that feel are like a step forward. So, even though these are good old fahioned live favourites, the Here I Am EP felt like the right stepping stone to branch Nude to Humble Sky.

‘Here I Am’, the second single from Humble Sky, is certainly the riffy-est song we have written yet and the lyrics take a darker turn in which the HS album follows suit. It’s durdgy and nasty with a big open chorus. Matt came up with the riff and we were like yeah that’s fat. I wanted to write a chorus with sparse guitar part and a soaring vocal so thats what I did. Katherine wanted to add harmonies under the lead vocals to get that haunting feeling so she did. Its the sort of song that creeps up behind you in the dark, then takes you for all you got.

Here I Am, moves underground

Raging fists, twists the sound

Your sinking ship, i’ll kiss your lips

Hold my hand, the best place to stand.

So Here I Am

Here I Am, your little girl

Standing tall, give us a twirl

Bite your teeth, eyes dance with greed

Hold my hand, the best place to stand

So Here I Am

Letitng it all, letting it all hang out

Don’t stop, don’t stop till i’m dead

Then you come around with an aching head

And I will find you and i’ll get you, in the end

Looking at the years past looking at the years

There’s one for all and then you let them all go down. 

70’s Child is more tongue and cheek. It’s a feel good song, with a hats of to T-Rex because Marc Bolan is the man. We had fun recording this song, its kind of got a mod feel that we could have taken much further lyrically and melodically but we aren’t mod so. But there are a lot of 60’s mod bands that we grew up listening to that went into this track. The Kinks, The Small Faces, and obviously The Who. I mean why else would we play Hiwatt!

70’s Child is British song. British lyrics and British attitude. I had a picture of a kid at school in 2013 wearing flares and listening to these bands and his name was there from the start. Tony was an odd ball that didn’t fit in because he is 40 years too late and he needed a song written about him. If there was a sepia button in pro-tools it would be on full.

Tony’s a weirdo, he thinks he’s born in ’57 or something

With all the big kids driving VW campers.

He thinks he’s cool, I said “its old skool” he said “Oh well whatever then”

“I’ll pay the price, of living the life of a 70’s Child”

He listens to T-Rex, he thinks their cosmic man

I said I agree I mean, he’s got a point

But there’s no way of knowing, if he’ll ever come back

To the time to the world in which we’re living in

Tony’s a weirdo, he thinks he’s born in ’57 or something

With all the big kids driving beatles and mopheads

He thinks he’s cool, I said “its old skool” he said “Oh well whatever then”

And it’s the sweetest thing you do

Like when one and one are two

They all laugh and call you names

Cos they all think that your insane.

‘Girl’, for Rosie our friend x

And this girl, has gone away

And taken with her time, to grow old

“I, wanna see the world, from heavens gates”

Oh sweetheart

Oh sleep tight 

xxxx

‘Taking Over’, “they say we need a revolution, well you know”. There are too many things wrong with western society, no we aren’t Russell Brand yet with all the long words and I have been a drug addict story, although he has a point. I wouldn’t not vote, i’d spoil my ballot because that counts on ‘paper’. They know your saying I don’t agree with any of you. Too many women died for us to get the vote, it would feel like a waste of time. “Looking at the lives on the other side of the world through a screen thats bitter clean, it’s obscene”. Maybe instead of watching X-Factor and playing X-Box young people could make a difference these days.

Oh, yeah we’re taking it over.

Waiting for you to follow me, waiting for the parting of the seas, follow me

Blink and its gone, out of sight, keep your eyes wide shut through the night, and daylight

Watching other lives on the other side, of the world through a screen, thats bitter clean, its obscene.

Let’s start a war worth fighting for, i’ll lead you through the street of the east end or I’ll fall

Going to a party, flying now you get scared

Tell them like you mean it, tell them like you ever cared

Out of sight, Out of mind

Looking through the lens to the greater Queen

Find your horse and men and set them free

Oh, yeah we’re taking it over

So I hope you enjoy the EP, according to Geri Halliwell's last release we only need to sell 400 copies in the first week to make the top 100…

Jen

Humble Sky out early 2014 - spoiler below.....

Track Listing*:

Not Like You

I Just Want You

Isolate

Love Is Free

Here I Am

Sparks

Light Up The World

Marching Song

Easy Ride

Grow

*order may change ;)

All photos by Jordan Curtis Hughes

Beryl Session # 4 - 'Because' by The Beatles

BLEECH | Beryl Session #1 | HERE I AM

BLEECH | 70's Child | Featuring Ash

TRACK LEAK | Humble Sky - Easy Ride

BLEECH | EASY RIDE | HUMBLE SKY

*Must be listened to loud.

NOT LIKE YOU | LIVE AT St GABRIELS CHURCH | JUNE 2013

In a little local church of ours in Aldersbrook, a very rock n roll vicar allowed us to bring in a drumkit and 2 massive amps and record a live version of 'Not Like You'

Video - Caitlin Mogridge & Aaron Leppard
Audio - Kieran LeBram
Mixed - Dave Gravy (GTA)

BREAK MY NOSE WINS BEST VIDEO AT LIMELIGHT AWARDS 2013

BREAK MY NOSE WINS BEST VIDEO AT LIMELIGHT AWARDS 2013

Here is Director Ben Kent picking up the award at this years Limelight awards

With thanks to:

Production companies:
Fidget Films
No Hoverboarding
Hardcore Yak

Boxers:
Frank Buglioni
Courtney Pryce

Director: Ben Kent
Producers: Joel Braham, Ben Kent
DOP: Jun Keung Cheung
Focus Puller: Alisa Boanta
Camera Assistant: Mussie Tecle
Make-up: Sally Crawshaw
Stills Photographer: Ben Yacobi
Additional Crew:
Jack Binks
Dan Ring
Gary Jones

Not Like You - The Making Of

Not Like You was one of the first complete finished songs written that we knew was going to go on the second album. It had a great drum beat and a wicked pick up line in the second chorus "oh there's a little house in the countryside with my name on it. And a happy summery feel to start the album off with. 

It's a funny thing being in a band, you spend so much time travelling to play a gig, which to us is the best part of being in a band. But when you get home and all your mates are like do you fancy going out to a club tonight....you think "er no! Actually I couldn't think of anything worse" to the point where I actually stopped going to gigs to watch other bands for a while because I couldn't find any bands worth going to see (please correct me!!!). When you come back from a 3 week European tour eating good cheese and drinking nice wine everyday and your a stone heavier and thinking "fuck how did that happen' your supposed to loose weight on tour" NB this doesn't apply for every country ;) Going out 'clubbing' isn't the most appealing idea.

Either way I lost faith in good live music. Radio and mags seemed to be pushing the same busy buzz bands down your throat, of which none of then did anything to me. The big Grunge Revival! What a load of bollocks, it's nearly as bad as Simon Cowell stuffing Ollie Murs into a Leona Lewis outfit and doing the cha cha. 

We had the whole grunge comparison 4 years ago. If people had of wanted grunge back it would have happened then..but it didn't. Thankfully this gave us 4 years to put out our first album, write a better one and prove that we are just a band with songs, not a grunge revival pin up poster.

No offence. Also don't get me wrong, grunge fucking rules.

So, back to the point. We have been doing 100+ gigs a year for the last 4 years and going clubbing (and I mean Indie clubs, I never did the dance/trance thing. I never found a club as good as Metro on Oxford St and that got shut down) so I found myself feeling a bit like an old lady and looking for my house in the country side. I couldn't relate to going out and getting wasted and dancing on the outskirts of a fight...although I was happy to get up onstage and perform to these people. 

I was confused, and frustrated with what was on offer. 

The chorus of the song lyrically was written first as this was where the frustration lay.

Trying to adjust myself to what was normal for me and what was normal for others, without people thinking I thought I was better than that, I couldn't possibly go out with them because I was in a band. this was not the case. It sounds weird but it's hard finding a happy medium working such unsociable hours. 

Locking ourselves away and recording felt like the right thing to do. Especially through all the snow. We saw no one except Juju and Ben from Candy Says and their very cute little one who popped in twice to hear how it was sounding for a month.

It was great to see them and hear how their new music venture was going. We talked about new bands out and who was picking up their ears. Juju mentioned Pins. A girl band out there with a clear image and sound and I have to say they were about the only band we both agreed on.

During the recording of 'Humble Sky' we had down time at the end of each day with producer and engineer and now good friend Ian Davenport and we listened to songs that made us tick.

We went back in time and skipped out the 80's and 90's and only ventured into early 70's....well with the exception of Talk Talk. This album was built on Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, QOTSA and Heineken.

None of the other songs on this record challenge last feelings of youth. Maybe I grew out of it as this record wrapped to an end. We do feel much more like a more mature and older band. Wiser? Who knows. But we have a clearer cut of where we are going and what we want to sound like. Who knows where album 3 will take us...but it feels like we are riding a wave, and we're excited as to where it will take us and we'll soak up everything that it throws our way.

And I'm glad that we can share it with some of you guys out there who have been there since day dot. And still read these blogs. And welcome on board new people finding our music not because they have been told too.

Love is free '\/'

Jen, Katherine & Matt

VERSE

Play dead to make it look like a safe place to be

Pipe down, it's not as if you haven't been found

You float along in a emerald cloak, waiting in the clutches

Fantasise in the mixed up mind of real or vivid blindness 

CHORUS

I'm not like you, the things that you do

The things that you say, the way you go about it

Living like this, it's all just for laughs, all just for jokes

But when you gunna grow up?

Oh there's a little house in the country side with my name on it

I'm not like you, the things that you do

The things that you say

VERSE

Play dead it's much the same as running away

Out for the count for the night till the sun makes light of day

Like a child of 24 with so much more to give

Fantasise in the mixed up mind of real or vivid blindness

MIDDLE 8

It's just another way, to make it look like your not scared.

CHORUS

OUTRO

And all those little words that linger on and twist inside your mind it's all the same.

NOT LIKE YOU OFFICIAL VIDEO

NOT LIKE YOU - 1ST SINGLE - LISTEN NOW!

LISTEN HERE

Bleech Play Liverpool Sound City on 4th May

New T-Shirts!

Get yours exclusively at www.bleech.bigcartel.com

Tickets at www.seetickets.com

KOKO 15th February

Photos from our headline show with Club NME on 15th February

ALBUM 2 - The Humble Beginning...

THE HUMBLE BEGINNING OF ALBUM NO. 2

(No it doesn't have a name yet)

I'm sitting here listening through the mixes being sent to us for our second album that we have now finished recording. I'm not exaggerating, I'm so fucking excited I want you to all hear it now!

This album feels like a long time coming, but I guess it's not as the last one only came out in June. Its just that this time it feels like a new Bleech.

We stepped up, grew up and have written a bunch of songs that we really want to shout about. 

 

There are a couple of tracks on this album that have been tested live but the majority are brand spanking new and its killing us not to be able to play them live yet to you. Plus there is quite a variety on this record, I'm proud to say we have successfully written a record that takes you on a journey, it makes you want to sing at the top of your voice to the skies, it makes you want to cry, it makes you want to dance, it makes you want to mosh and throw piss at people in front of you. At least it does for me ; )

The Recording Process

After doing a couple of days making sure that the arrangements were good and fixing and bettering parts etc we went to Evolution Studio in Oxford to lay down the drums, when they were cooking we moved to Courtyard Studio to put the bass, guitars and vocals down.

Each track was approached differently, we wanted every track to have its own sound to really make them unique and have their own place in the record.

Even down to the point where we swapped and moved drum kits around the room to get different sounds.

Katherine used a few different basses for different tracks, the most used was probably a Fender Jaguar but she also used a Gibson Grabber for the heavier tracks and an Ibanez! All through her Hiwatt set up

Matt used a number of kits, including his Gretsch kit that he uses live as the bass drum is so fat, but the toms and occasionally a 20" bass drum used were off an early 1970 Slingerland. He also used a 1980's Tama snare drum and his stage snare which is a black panther. And obviously all cymbals were Paiste.

Jen used her trusty Gibson 335 for lots of tracks, but most tracks have a 1975 Gibson SG which sounded even fatter! Plus her Fender Strat and an old Fender Tele were used on occasion. Amps used were Hiwatt and an Ampeg combo. Plus shit loads of pedals : ) too many to name!

Anyway that's it for now. We will have videos with interviews of us talking about the making of the album soon to follow.

Jen, Katherine & Matt

"Think from now, a million years across the universe, we took it all, we scaled the world, we made it all ours.

Love. Speed."

ALBUM TEASER #1

2013 TOUR DE FRANCE