Summer Months  (2006)

Dear readership,
Dani here again to enlighten you of some brain cells whilst you try to decrypt exactly what it is i am trying to say via my very often shitten English.
In short, welcome to the next in line to the previous studio report.
Hallelujah! The album is finished at long last.
The beast is dead!
Long live the beast!
The last few months have been rather trying (but incredibly fun nonetheless) due the strange nature of mixing and undertaking Summer festivals practically at the same time. And much like i had to do on the 'Nymphetamine' album, the week found me up (and Paul) up at Andy Sneap's picturesque studio, hastily overseeing the mix and whatever finishing touches left to be done whilst the weekends, full of pith and pin, would be a frantic drive down to Stansted airport to catch a flight out to our European festival dates.

This was all during heat-wave season where Dan Turner's studio B set-up room (without proper aircon), was like walking into some twisted nazi heat experiment reeking of man fat. But here, amongst the acres of rolling countryside and lolling English green-wood, we embraced the fiery Summer by staying indoors as much as possible, (the stone farmhouse buildings were cool for much of the day, heating up just sufficiently to make it murder sleeping at night...) overseeing all manners of album stuff and trying to avoid the broiling man-chamber as much as possible.

Regular visitors to the studio were wives, Martin Walkier (from Sabbat fame), curious local fans and a homing pigeon we named 'Frank', who Andy had rescued from certain death and who'd decided to hang about annoying the cats and watching telly. I kid you not... (the first time we encountered him being the French/Italian world cup match when he trundled in and perched himself stoically right in front of the game).

All manner of other animals persisted in bugging us throughout the Summer and our eventual return in early September (to finish recording the B-side tracks that were omitted from the album, and not because there was anything even remotely wrong with them, but mainly because the album would've run into days in length had we not excluded them).
These 'animals' took the shape of bats, frogs, slugs, lizards, cows, a hornet that wouldn't die, a stair-climbing hedgehog and two extremely erudite cats to name but a few.

Then there was the squirrel that had had it's back legs broken by an overzealous cat.... watching it pitifully crawl across the lawn practically had us simpering in our boots, so much so that we had to end it's misery by blowing it's head off with a shotgun in a quick, but brutal exit from this world. It was the right thing to do.
Next up we decided that Dan Turner should run across the fields with a target hanging out of his arse as we counted to twenty, to kinda compensate and readdress the cosmic balance (one fluffy animal for another).

So anyway, the time at Andy's went rather well and i for one can never remember a more picturesque Summer finishing recording an album. Absolutely fantastic.

The Summer festivals were also really rather good and many friends in other bands were interfered with again.
The most noticeable moments being the superb response from the people come to see us and the great vibe throughout the Summer, bar a few perfunctory upsets here and there (cue the memory of being threatened by approximately ten of the biggest German security guys ever seen and a 24 hour drinking binge stuck in Budapest).

Other than that everything was spot on. The festivals were all well attended and the fans rabid.The band played well and everybody for once seemed to relish the chaos that is the European Summer festival run.
Andy
And the great memories... well, there's always so many aren't there?
My favourite i think must be the visit to Alzbeta Bathoryova's (no, not a Croatian tennis sensation) castle in Bratislava, a trip that was organised by the promoter on the morning of the show. And how great was it?
Amazing. Oh, and that's Elizabeth Bathory, the evil-queen subject matter of our album,' Cruelty And The Beast'.
Ruined and unkempt, a thousand feet at least divided us from a rocky fate on the precipice of the hill it teetered on, overlooking the nearby village like some vast resolute crow of ill-omen. Three towers are still fairly visible, though thoroughly decrepit and the only sign of active preservation would be the supporting structure beneath the portcullis garret and one brief sign in broken English. In fact the only thing really proving it's authenticity was the 'muzeum Cachtice' in the village, which we visited prior to our ascension to the castle. But all this was magical considering our preternatural link as a band to the Countess and her kin and one that shall be treasured forever.
Elizabeth Bathory Castle
Other highlights include 'Download' which was a party from start to finish, watching Summer lightning over a lake in Italy from the vantage point of a cliff top restaurant late at night, a joint front cover interview with Biff Byford from Saxon in France, playing a belter of a show at Grasspop after watching England win at the backstage bar, scoring weed for Sebastian Bach, Luna befriending Lordi, nightclub dancing in Finland, Nicholas Barker in party mode, onstage in Portugal at 2.00 in the morning where the crowd was still going mental, side of stage for The Prodigy, business class to JFK, sighting the mysterious 'Cloak', a chance encounter with Captain Apollo-( a Martian space captain who high-fives you, you having just flown there from earth to eat an underground themed dinner with aliens.... fucking ace) and the general mayhem and mishap that accompanies the band pretty much wherever we may foam.
Captain Apollo
So all in all a classic Summer festival run spent in the company of some really garish, outlandish people. Oh, and of course, the band!

And so onto the press trips and just what have we been up to since leaving the tender sanctity of the studio...?

Well, i don't want to bore you to tears but (and like J-lo's, it's a big but) the rest of the summer has been spent promoting the new album, finishing the B-side tracks off and basically preparing for the onslaught that the release of our new album will entail.

First off there was the States (four days in New York) and then Germany for two, before heading out for a week of madness across the rest of Europe.
That was a killer week for Jet-lag. Five countries, five days, seven flights.
Sunday it was out to Stockholm for the first of our press days on the Monday. Thereafter we would fly the same day to the next perilous destination. So it was Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and then onto Barcelona via Dusseldorf. All that and then we forgot where my bloody car was parked. Again.
Phew! What a hectic week! Press like it was going out of style. There were some top hotels to help along the way and you just can't beat late night room service on the record company and a good film like 'Slither' to help you off to sleep. Or in that case, a late night stroll through the centre of Amsterdam to a coffee shop.
l
Germany gave us a great night out, firstly to a Japanese restaurant where the food was cooked right in front of us and Paul tested a snapping turtle's patience by urging Anna, the record company girl, to prod it's shell continuously. Then it was onto a venue where we missed the bands but fortunately not the bar. Cues a few more hours lost.

And in Poland where we conducted interviews from the comfort of the hotel, we even had the hotel manager flit about us ensuring that everything was to our satisfaction. Posh bastards! And then, like i mentioned, we forgot where we parked the car...

If one thing is genuinely clear from amidst the clamour of the press trips, is that the new album 'Thornography' is going down a storm and in that vein, we really hope that you, the fans, like the first two downloads from the album, 'Dirge Inferno' and 'The Foetus Of A New Day Kicking' which have been available for a few weeks, i believe, via the Roadrunner site.
The next thing on our damning mandate is the release of the video for 'Temptation'.
Recorded a few weeks back with the female contributor, Dirty Harry flying in from LA, the video has a garden of Eden feel to it, soon to be corrupted by the persuasions of the snake. Hence temptation.
Directed by Adam Mason and featuring a thirty strong crew, the filming, out in the middle of the Cambridgeshire countryside (indeed inside a barn kitted out for storing potatoes) was great fun from very early start to finish. It was a beautiful Summer day outside and despite the presence of sleet and snow inside our mock studio (all delivered by machines i hasten to add), the temperature under all those lights rose considerably as the day progressed. Fortunately wardrobe, make-up and catering were on hand, as were one thousand album cover booklets to sign should anyone flag or grow a little bored.
As well as the filming, we also undertook a few photo shoots for magazines, this being the best way to maximise our time all under the same roof and especially as we were decked out in our finest liveries and standing in front of some fantastic, biblical scenery. At some point in the early afternoon and before the rest of the band finished their filming and buggered off home, we had a visit on set from a twenty-foot long Albino python, which, strangely enough, made Harry tarry in the bathroom for nearly an hour, and then a floppy-eared prop bunny who didn't look too impressed when it caught sight of the snake.
So again, another successful venture and one that should be hitting rotation shortly. I've just seen the finished online and it looks amazing, somewhere in the faery tale hinterlands between 'Her Ghost In The Fog' and 'Nymphetamine'. It's that darn good.
And the song's not bad either.

So don't worry that anything will be delivered in excess on the album (well, good songs, i hope, are in abundance), there are an array of songs on this album, each unique in their own right. So please don't hiss if you think that the keyboards are amiss on the first two downloads, there are plenty of tracks that use keyboard melodrama to sinister effect, my favourites being 'The Byronic Man', I Am The Thorn' and 'Under Huntress Moon' to name but a few.
You might not have any!
Anyway, other than the release of the album on the sixteenth of October, (Friday the thirteenth if you happen to live in Germania), the band have many engagements coming up, first and foremost being the European tour starting in November. Support comes, at time of going to press, from Death Stars and local supports and will be the first European tour for this release (we're planning to come back in the Spring after the US has been circumnavigated and deflowered). As well as the obvious set list change, a new stage-show has been devised and is currently being put together even as we speak (possibly in Lilliput).
Then there is a signing session and party in LA to celebrate the launch of the album courtesy of those nice people at Bravado and Hot Topic, indeed the instore will be at the Hot Topic store on Hollywood and Highland on All Hallow's Eve (October 31st, of course) whilst the English signing dates are at the following venues;

Virgin Megastore , 14-16 Oxford St , London W1D 1AR on Monday 16th October at 6pm
Virgin Megastore, 98 Corporation St, Birmingham B4 6SX on Tuesday 17th October at 5:30pm*
*NB: This is a wristband only event. You can buy the album and get your wristband, which is available on a first come first served basis to personal callers only, from 9.00am Monday 16th October at the Birmingham Virgin Megastore. 1 wristband per person.

And personal appearances and guest DJ slots are at the following venues:
Thursday12th October -Sabotage, Oxford, Zodiac
Friday13th October -Rock, Newcastle, Academy
Saturday 14th October -Rock City, Nottingham

I'm pretty positive that this will get messy!
I guess that is all for now, sorry to have bored you for so long, keep your eyes peeled for further updates/special offers/test tubes full of my love juice.
Until the sky turns black and the angels sing in sorrow....

Count Filth.