MTD: STATE OF OUR AFFAIRS SESSION AND INTERVIEW

From Mt.Desolation's website,

Click right about here to head over to NME.com to see Tim and Jesse chat about State Of Our Affairs, and perform it acoustically.

Or watch it below :)

MTD: WATCH THE DEPARTURE VIDEO!

Check out the amazing new video for Departure, which was directed by Tom Palliser.


Some of my screencaps :) *sighs*

MTD: MORE HIGHLANDS PHOTOS

From Mt.Desolation's website,

In the dressing room at Loopallu festival.

Tim.

Tim.

Timothy.

Tim.

Soundcheck at the Watercolour Studio.

Tim and John-William

Tim.

MTD: BANDWIDTH SESSIONS

Bandwidth Sessions spent an afternoon navigating a maze in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin with Mt Desolation where they played 2 new tracks.

Camera/Edit: Will McConnell

creative commons - 2010 Bandwidth

bandwidthsessions.com

mtdesolation.com

"Departure"

BANDWIDTH / MT DESOLATION / "Departure" from Bandwidth on Vimeo.

"Bitter Pill"

BANDWIDTH / MT. DESOLATION / "Bitter Pill" from Bandwidth on Vimeo.

MTD: TOUR PHOTOS

From Mt.Desolation's website,


Tim.

Ladies love him, men want to be him, the police are after him, it’s Mr. Tim Rice-Oxley.

MTD: BITTER PILL OUT NOW IN USA / CANADA

From Mt.Desolation's website,

Ahead of Mt.D’s North American tour dates in October, the band have released a track from the album, Bitter Pill, as a single in the US and Canada. Click the links below to get your copy:

- US iTunes- US Amazon MP3
- Canada iTunes

You can also hear the track on Mt. Desolation’s MySpace profile. And the rather lovely artwork looks like this…

Bitter Pill (Live)

RICHARD'S NORTH AMERICA PHOTOBLOG

From KM.com,

i made Tim choose a band to stand next to... everyone has been very patient with me snapping away for the last four weeks...

Tim took advantage of the grand piano that was in our dressing room.

DISCONNECTED - NEW KEANE SONG

Yes, finally Tom said the name of the new Keane song called "Disconnected" debuted in Philadelphia, PA. August 2010. I think it's awesome!!! Check the lyrics in the previous post. Enjoy it and thanks Alphamoongrrrl for upload it!!

KEANE FREE TRACKS FROM UK FOREST TOUR

Enter your details to download four free live Keane tracks recorded on their 2010 UK Forest Tour. Click here.

The four songs are:

Is It Any Wonder?
My Shadow
Somewhere Only We Know
Stop For a Minute

Thanks KeaneShadow :)

KEANE ON JIMMY KIMMEL

This week, Keane took a little break from the N.American tour to perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live. They only performed the following...

My Shadow



Stop For A Minute

ROCKFEEDBACK´S FRIDGE FILM

From KM.com,

The music website rockfeedback.com went along to Keane's Night Train launch show at Brixton Fridge on May 12, where they filmed the performance and an interview with the band.

Click here to watch their excellent 18-minute film.

RETROSPECTIVE EP2: SUNSHINE

From KM.com,

Following the success of our first retrospective digital EP of Keane rarities (the Everybody's Changing EP), we're pleased to announce the launch of a second one, the Sunshine EP. This EP is exclusive to the keanemusic.com download store (powered by 7 Digital).

Here's what Tom has to say about it:

Hello Everyone,

Greetings from the Keane camp! Here is the second of our trips down memory lane, looking back at the time we began to get songs together for Hopes & Fears. In the summer of 2001 we decided to move out of London after a series of disappointments but with the prospect of a balmy autumn in Northern France with our new friend (and mad musical brain) James Sanger. Many of the songs for the album materialised around this period and we enjoyed several months of real fun and creativity, as well as gaining loads of experience in James’ sprawling (and chaotic) farm house in Barneville-Carteret.

We had many happy days camped in the garden, making music, barbecuing fresh mackerel caught on our fishing trips and getting drunk in the quaint local bars! James employed many innovative approaches to recording, as well as letting us loose on
his huge collection of vintage synths.

At this point, it’s probably best to hand over these "never before heard" demos to you and also an interview I did with Tim, which will hopefully enlighten you all as to how the record was shaped.

Lots of love
Tom

The tracklisting is as follows

01. Sunshine (Original Demo 26-10-01)
02. Sunshine (Live At Glastonbury June 2005)
03. This Is The Last Time (Demo 26-10-01)
04. This Is The Last Time (Demo 31-03-03)
05. Maps (Demo 26-10-01)
06. Walnut Tree (Demo 10-05-02)
07. Happy Soldier (Demo 26-10-01)
08. Digital Booklet (inc link to download interview video)

Click here to download your copy, for 99p per track, or £3.79 for the full EP.

You can preview the tracks on the widget below:

RICHARD'S FOREST TOUR PHOTOBLOG

From KM.com,

TIM'S BOOK CLUB

From KM.com,

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles

I read a lot of music books. I've got a pile of them called things like Tips From Great Record Engineers, which will be endless stories of what microphone they used on the snare drum and stuff. They're specialist to say the least. I've been trying to get back into just reading for pleasure and I suppose also for inspiration, and not trying to get quite so hung up on the technical side of things.

But this book offers the best of both worlds. It's the autobiography of Geoff Emerick, the guy who engineered a lot of the Beatles' most important albums. Being a lifelong Beatles fan, I've read pretty much every book on them that there is. I don't think this one is massively well-known, but I've found it, as a musician, much more insightful, exciting and atmospheric than pretty much any of the others. It's got so much about the creative process of the Beatles. It was interesting to read about the way they spent their time in the studio. You always have this sort of image of the Beatles turning up in a chaotic mess, recording a masterpiece in about three hours, and then speeding off in an E-type Jag to some trendy club. But it really gives you an impression of how hard they worked and how much time they put into their writing and pre-production before they started recording stuff, working out harmonies and polishing up songs. For instance, he talks about sitting there with Paul McCartney all night working on a bassline note by note. I found it quite encouraging, because you always imagine that these guys had an almost supernatural talent to put down these amazing songs and productions without even thinking about it. It's kind of reassuring to know that they had to work really hard for it too.

It's a very, very interesting book if you're into learning about the actual creative process of a band. And this kind of book really does help you as a musician. I was actually reading it while I was writing songs for Perfect Symmetry, and I remember finding it very exciting and having that feeling of being in a room while great music is being made, which is definitely inspiring. It makes you think, "Oh, I could sit at a piano now and try and write a song like that." You get this surge of excitement and a feeling that you can do it too. And that's always a really, really great feeling.

Tim

(This book is not currently in print, but you should be able to find it on eBay or through Amazon sellers)

Tim's Book Club #1

PICTURES AND MP3 FROM THE O2

Enjoy the pictures and the following link for a mp3 of the gig...

Live at the O2, 12-02-2009
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1YLIH7VU

EXCLUSIVE Q&A WITH TIM

From KM.COM,

For the latest in our regular chats with the band, we called up Tim to talk about the upcoming tour, Keane's lost classic and a strange Swedish sleepwalk...

Hello Mr Rice-Oxley. How are you?

I'm fine, thank you.Did you have a nice Christmas?Yeah, pretty chilled out. Didn't do very much really. Watched quite a lot of Entourage and Spooks. It was good.

You're on record as saying that Christmas is something of a disappointment. Was that the case this year?

Well, Christmas Day was a disappointment because I had some nasty virus and spent most of the day either in bed or being sick. So that was a shame. But other than that, it's been nice to just inhabit the real world and be at home.

What were you doing at midnight on December 31st?

Probably reading a book (lol, me too!). We went for the minimalist approach to festivities this year.

Are you excited about 2009?

Yeah, I think it's gonna be great. It's certainly going to be busy and it's nice to feel that the tour is finally getting going properly. We had that great European tour in November and then just as we were getting into the swing of it, we were back in London doing bits and bobs of promotion. It'll be good to get the Keane machine properly on the road all over the world.

Does it feel daunting having so much in the diary?

I'm looking forward to it, to be honest. Pretty much everyone in the world has to go out and work every day, so I try not to get too worried about the fact that we have to get out there and play a bit of music! It's going to be busy, but it's going to be great. So far the live shows have been really, really fun and I much prefer playing live to doing interviews.

Oh. Would you like to play piano for the rest of this phone call?

No, it's OK.

So, March 13th is the final gig of the ones that have been announced. Is it safe to say there will be more coming?

Yeah, I think we'll be busy until the end of the summer at least. And then we'll see where we stand. I imagine by that point we might be eager to get into writing again and thinking about new songs. But we'll just see how it goes. Everyone's very excited about the touring, so we just want to roll with that for the time being.

Do you have big plans for the upcoming UK shows, as they're in big arenas?

Yeah, I think we'll be stepping it up from what we were doing in Europe. We'll be really trying to bring some of the best elements from what we learned touring arenas last time, and combine that with a lot of new songs and a new visual identity. I think we've been a lot bolder and more colourful and high energy so far on this tour, and it'll be really nice to see that in a big venue setting. I also think that we've learned a lot about playing songs acoustically, from the European tour and also doing things like that Largo show. And I think we'll be trying to incorporate some of that spirit into the really big shows. I think the contrast should be really exciting.

The Largo and Union Chapel acoustic shows both went down incredibly well.

Yeah, it's turned out to be something that we really enjoy. There's quite a big thrill in just being exposed in that way and feeling like it's just about the moment and the four of you playing to a few people in the room. In contrast to the big production of a big show, there's something quite magical about taking it back to the very basic parts of the music.

Will the next single from the album be announced soon?

Yep, I've just been working on a radio edit of that.

Some people were a little unsure about the Perfect Symmetry radio edit, because it chopped out big parts of the song. Is it hard for you chopping your own song?

Yeah, I don't ever like doing radio edits. I hate it really. But it's a clear choice between your song being played on the radio and your song not being played on the radio. But it just acts as a taster for people. I don't feel like Keane's music is ever going to be adequately represented by one song being played on the radio, even if it was a six minute song. So really you've just got to do your best to get it on the airwaves then hope people hear it and come and hear the album, which I feel is the medium in which we really excel.

True. Although, saying that, at gigs you've been performing the radio edit of Spiralling.

Yeah. But that's mainly down to being really disorganised. We haven't got round to learning the full version! But we do quite enjoy playing the radio edit. That is actually the one Keane song I've ever felt was genuinely tightened up by the radio edit, rather than just becoming a snapshot of the song.

So, we've started posting up the archive of all the old gigs. Do you remember the first ever Keane show?

Yes, the Hope & Anchor on July 13th 1998. I've got the setlist here.

Did you play any songs we'd have heard of?

No, nothing. Apart from a cover of Paperback Writer.

So you subsequently dropped every other song?

Yeah.

Are there any on the setlist you wish you'd stuck with?

Yeah, I think there's some good songs on there.

Which is the real lost classic?

Well there was a song called Gingerbread, which was the last song we played at that show. That was the favourite among our friends. It was a really good song. I still think it would probably be a hit if you released it now.

You never recorded it?

Not properly, no. But every time I see Chris from Coldplay he always says, without fail, "When are you gonna release Gingerbread?" Which can only mean that my songwriting ability has gradually receded over the last ten years!

Could you still play it?

Pretty much, yeah. And I'm sure we've got it on a tape somewhere. But most of the songs we played that night were recorded on four-track at some point.

So Gingerbread will probably appear on a Keane anthology eventually.It looks from the gigs list that you didn't really start playing regularly until 2003.

Yeah, that's true. But I think there might be a couple missing from your list. I seem to remember we played at the Barfly in Sheffield. And the Night And Day in Manchester. Perhaps the fans can help fill in the gaps.

Of the early gigs, the one on 21 September 2000 leaps out as unusual, because you were supporting Chesney Hawkes! Do you remember it?

I do, vividly. We were offered that gig at the last minute. We were all at work and I remember Adam [Keane's manager] ringing up saying we'd been offered it. So we borrowed some instruments and just turned up and played a fairly ropey sort of gig. Actually, I seem to remember that our playing was slightly hampered by it being after two or three pints of beer. But we muddled through. And the thing I remember about Chesney is that there were quite a few people there, most of them female, but he didn't play The One And Only. It was quite bizarre not to play his big hit. But I think he was trying to re-launch himself as a serious musician.

And your last gig with Dom on guitar was on 12 July 2001 in London.

Yeah, I remember that. And then we didn't play again until the Night And Day, which I think would've been about September 2002.

How did you end up in Malmo in March 2003?

That came about because that gig we did at The Garage, in February, The Ark were also on the bill. They really liked our set, so they invited us to come and support them in Malmo. They paid for us to go over. It was great. We flew to Malmo and played this gig with a fantastic Swedish crowd and everyone was really nice to us. We had a really, really fun time. I particularly remember I was sharing a room with Tom and he sleepwalked down to the lobby of the hotel in his underpants in the middle of the night! They were a great band The Ark. A bit like The Darkness, but much better.

When you look at the list of the shows, do you remember them clearly?

There are specific ones I can remember. But then we must've played at the Bull And Gate three or four times and I can't remember all of them. It seems like a long time ago since those very early shows.I know, it's mad!

So, have you been writing any new songs?

A little bit. But I find you have to just absorb life a little bit. And I've been listening to a lot of music, which has been nice.

What have you been listening to?

I actually got given several copies of Alex James' autobiography for Christmas, even though I've already read it. But I was leafing through that again and that inspired me to go back and listen to some Blur, which I loved.

Which album?

My two favourites are Parklife and the self-titled one. Especially the latter. And Modern Life Is Rubbish is brilliant too. And I've been listening to that Amadou and Mariam album that came out before Christmas a lot. And, funnily enough, some of that is a collaboration with Damon Albarn. But I suppose I've just been trying to get out of the mindset in which I wrote the last album, so that when I start writing new songs, they'll come from a fresh place.

It seems this interview will continue these coming days. Woah, I really would like to hear Gingerbread. It was the one from the Keane old rare songs' titles that always attracted me.

Ask for the next single, I would like it to be Black Burning Heart or You Haven't Told Me Anything :P

PRE-2004 SHOWS ADDED TO LIVE ARCHIVE

From KM.COM,

With the band currently enjoying a well-earned break, we thought now was a good time to start adding all of Keane's past shows to the km.com LIVE archive. Luckily, the fine folks at erstwhile Keane fansite keane.at (RIP) had a list, and we've been bothering Tim over the last couple of days to try and fill in some gaps.
To begin with, we've added all the shows we have info for from before 2004. If you went to any of them, then please sign in and add your memories and/or pictures. We look forward to hearing what you have to say. Also, keep an eye on the site for a new interview with Tim, in which he talks about some of the early shows. Plus, we'll be adding shows from 2004 onwards over the next few days.
Click here to see the shows we've added so far.

YAY!

Greetings!

Haha! The Keane's Latin America tour dates are everytime nearer so they're announcing theirselves before coming...

This one is for the Argentinian fans...



and this one for the Mexican fans...

Have anyone noticed that Tim is very stiff? Is he alive? LOL

Anyway, he looks very cute moving opening and closing his eyes quite a lot in the last one.

The start of a new Timmified year...

Happy New Year everyone!

To start this year well and renovated, this blog has a new banner, new background...even music! yes! I'll be adding more demos from our talented Mr. Rice-Oxley.

Also, I made a new video for Tim with one of the most famous songs of Mr. Bowie called As The World Falls Down.

Enjoy it!

KEANE ON NYE TOTP!!! edited*

From KM.com

Tomorrow evening. Keane will perform Spiralling on the special New Year's Eve edition of Top Of The Pops, which is on BBC1 in the UK at 5.35pm. The show was filmed just before Christmas - and Richard very kindly sent us through these pictures from the recording...

We hope you have a cracking NYE, wherever you are.

aww Timmy

EDIT: Watch it now!!!

Pics :P