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twitter.com/SIRREGband
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reverbnation.com/SIRREG

The last time we toured Europe we were supporting our friends in The Misfits, so this time it feels kind of odd going out on the road all by ourselves. We’ll have different bands joining us at the various locations and are really looking forward to sharing the stage with exciting bands we’ve never met before.

See you on the road!

www.myspace.com/sirregband APX Booking & Zorglüb Proudly Presents: SIR REG - “A sign of the times Tour” (2011 – 12 – 24 May) 12 Beta @ København 13 Schwarzer Adler @ Egelsse, Germany 14 France Day Off 15 Pacific Rock @ Cergy, France 16 France Day off 17 Canadian Café @ Tours, France 18 O’Sullivan’s @ Beziers, France 19 Country Rock @ Nimes, France 20 O´sullivan´s @ Albi, France 21 Le Poulpe @ Reignier, France 22 Mac Callary’s @ Ste Savine, France 23 The Scruffys @ Karlsruhe, Germany

SIR REG – Far Away

SIR REG releases Far Away — a single from their forthcoming album. The song is released in April in honour of the 95th anniversary of the “Easter Rising”, an attempt by Irish republicans in 1916 to end the British rule in order to establish the Irish Republic. The song pays homage to the young Irish soldiers who fought and died in WW1 in infantries under the British Army. Many fought with the notion that their efforts would help further the cause for an independent Ireland, free from British rule.

The Easter Rising started in Ireland on April the 24th, 1916 and lasted one week. Meanwhile WW1 was in full swing and young Irish soldiers fought in the trenches in France. Among these were The Royal Dublin Fusiliers, an Irish Infantry Regiment of the British Army, and they kept fighting at the same time as the Rising was happening back home in Ireland. In the middle of the seven day Rising, on the night of the 27th of April, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers suffered a heavily-concentrated German chlorine gas attack which left 135 soldiers dead and 351 wounded. This song tells their story.

Although the times were different, the song remains the same. History keeps repeating itself. Even today soldiers are stuck in hellish places and dream of friends, family and loved ones back home. The one’s who survive to come home, will be forever scarred.

Stream at:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_8115694
or
http://www.myspace.com/sirregband

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dublin_Fusiliers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hulluch

We finally have begun our recording sessions for the new SIR REG album.  The plan is to cut it up in two or more longer sessions and to record as much of it ourself as possible (since we know how to and to keep things spicy/fun/cheaper/DIY), and then let other engineers mix and master it all in the end. As of now we have five tracks recorded on drums. Soon we will add bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bouzouki, violin, flute, banjo, mellotron, (etc) and finally all vocal tracks.

Smedjan, with great acoustics and in close vicinity of our beloved little rehersal room.

On the 28th of March 2011 we got the keys to a local live music club called  Smedjan in Köping, which has a great sounding room that is perfect for recording loud drums. Erik got to it and set up his drumkit in the middle of the room and Palle set up all the recording gear. 13 mics got used and after a few hours of finding a good combination the recording begun. Erik was excited and everything sounded great. Geek-note: The bassdrum had three different mics, so all frequencies are covered.

Notice the home-made sub kick mic that Palle frankensteined from various parts he had laying around in his home studio. Despite the look of it, it sounds feckin’ neat.

13 colorful tracks, courtesy of Steinberg Cubase.

Prior to the recording the drums, we had all decided tempo for the tracks and Brendan had recorded rough “guide tracks” on vocals and guitar for Erik to play along to.  Initially four songs were set out to be recorded, but on the second day of recording the drums we had some time left to record another song. We decided on a great slower song that Brendan had written not to long ago and that we had rehearsed sporadically. Some minor changes to the middle8 were made and Erik jumped right into it.

The song can be heard briefly in this video  at around 1:50 (we shortened it in the video so that we don’t give away too much):

It was recorded by Erik in just a few takes. We were happy with the result so we rigged down the drums and all the equipment.

Erik exercising the poses he learnt as a kid.

Palle trying to find the recording button.

Just a few days before NYE 2010 SIR REG got a late christmas present from the eminent internet radio station/site Paddy Rock Radio and their Celtic allies, the blog-zine Celtic Folk Punk. They let the listeners and visitors of the site vote for the best album of 2010, and out of many, many (42+) great albums we “won”. We are really honored and it took a few days to really sink in (partly hence this late post). We knew we had a good album, but we would never have guessed that it would make it to the top.

http://www.paddyrock.com/home/?p=585

http://celticfolkpunk.blogspot.com/2011/01/band-of-year-sir-reg.html

We were already excited in early 2010 when John from Paddy Rock asked us if they could air a few of our songs, starting slow with “Arrive on S:t Patrick’s Day” on their podcast. It might sound silly, but knowing that your song is aired between Flogging Molly and The Dubliners made my hands wet from sweat.

As we are currently writing/rehearsing new songs for a scheduled full length album our self-esteem is a bit higher than prior NYE. Exciting times indeed!

A big hug and Thank You to Paddy Rock Radio, Celtic Folk Punk and to everyone who voted.

//SIR REG (Palle)

It’s winter – snow and cold. We are pale. The majority of the band have been eating a bit too much during the chritmas holidays. The songs are coming together. This is a good time to start documenting the progression. We have decided to start vlogging the rehearsals, meetings, studio sessions, etc to let fans (and ourselves) see how it all comes together.
Maybe in the end we will all be slimmer, sun tanned and have an awesome record (+ a DVD with the “behind the music” thing).

Here is the first vlog. Enjoy:

//Palle, SIR REG

Palle have been editing some moving images and sounds from the tour with The Misfits. Here Dez Cadena (Black Flag / Misfits) joined us on stage in Stavanger, Norway for the last song of the set. What a blast it was!:

Although, SIR REG have been rehearsing (and listening to) new songs. Brendan have a whole treasury chest of unrehearsed songs. Juba and Palle are also chiming in with a few songs of their own. It’s pretty exciting! We have also had a bit of discussion on what direction we feel that we SIR REG is/should be heading musically – what makes each and everyone in the band tick. If we should sum it up in two words it would be “good songs”. As of now it’s up to us to see what sounds good and what doesn’t sound so good. It’s our job and duty to make it sound good. We have to make the upcoming full length album better than our last EP.

Maybe we will post a few ideas/tasters for you to listen to. Who knows?

It’s friday evening now and I (Palle) is at home and the rest of the band are playing at Ögir in Köping, Sweden as Banshee Bones. They are playing there tomorrow aswell, so if you are in the neighborhood – stop by for a pint and some stomping Irish classics.

//Palle

P.s here are a few shots from the rehearsal room (just gear):

Erik and his gf Maja went to New York, US where they got married in Central Park. They also spent a lovely week there, having a bit of a honeymoon. SIR REG will like to congratulate them and give them our best wishes. When Erik came back he, Brendan, Karin and Juba got back on the road and played shows with SIR REG side-project Banshee Bones on the weekends. If you want to see where Banshee Bones are playing, go visit their myspace at http://www.myspace.com/bansheebones. Palle spent most of his days with his young daughter, being a true “houseman” (opposite of a housewife). Brendan flew over to his “home” of Dublin, Irland to spend some appreciated time with family and friends. There he also enjoyed a few barrells of the best beer in the world, or so we are told.

SIR REG is now back on track and currently writing and rehearsing songs for a full-length album recording later this fall or winter. It’s going to be a blast and we are very excited.  We played several of these “new songs” on the Misfits Tour, so some are already arranged and well thought-out, but not recorded in a recording studio. We are off to a really good start. This means we will probably not play too many live shows in the upcoming months.

So what’s ahead?

• We are currently working on a website where everything regarding SIR REG will be gathered. Right now we only have a myspace, twitter and a youtube channel which isn’t too much to brag about. A nice website where everything is compiled, is much welcomed.
• Palle has (besides being a houseman) been editing videos that was filmed during the three week Misfits-tour and has compiled an hour worth of “behind the scenes, live performances, occasionally unrelated goofs and internal SIR REG jokes”. There is still some editing work, post-production and subtitling to be done before it goes online (youtube, vimeo, etc).
• We are planning to make a video (or two) with songs from our last EP “This Is SIR REG”. Hopefully we will be able to execute them before the snow starts to fall here (which is pretty soon).

We hope that you check back here occasionally to see/hear what we are up to. Until then – Cheers!
//Palle – SIR REG

The tour has been going excellent and it’s been an amazing ride so far. Nothing to complain about at all. We just wish we had internet all the time so we could update this blog and upload the good stuff.  We have been writing a Swedish blog and I think we will just translate that to here when we get the time. We’ve all been taking lots of pictures and filming (in HD) which takes a crapload of time to upload,  so we will compile/do that when we get home I guess. There is so much to tell. There are some pictures on our Swedish blog though:

http://blogg.magazin24.se/sirregtour/

Thanks to everyone that has come to see The Misfits, Hat Trickers and SIR REG! We love you guys!

/Palle, SIR REG

p.s

Brendan Sheehy in SIR REG with Wattie Buchan from Scottish punkband The Exploited.

Palle here. SIR REG have been rather busy lately so we haven’t updated this blog about the three festivals we played the last couple of weeks.

Two weekends ago we had two shows, one in Hässleholm at the town’s festival on friday and Ingbofestivalen the following day. Both were great fun! Juba and Palle had the flu and were feverish when we headed towards Hässleholm. This was the first gig with our friend Mats on Bouzoki (a greek mandolin type of instrument which sounds great). There weren’t too many people in the crowd, but we tried to get the ones that were there to dance (and we succeeded to some point).

The following day we woke early, had a big breakfast buffet and then drove up north to Ingbofestivalen, a serene place in the outskirts of nowhere. The weather was great, the festival staff were sweet and the overall mood was excellent. There were two stages and they both seemed to have really good sound and light. We listened to some metalbands and some semi decent coverbands. After a meal and a refreshing shower we got ready to hit the stage. Palle discovered that his main guitar was still left behind in Hässleholm (Thank the guitargods for backup guitars!). The sun was setting as we did our soundcheck. Then we dove straight into our usual crazyness. We had a great time and the crowd seemed to follow our lead. One of our best shows to date. Everyone was really on their edge and gave it all. It felt very spontanious and spartacus, all at the same time. We drove home through the night feeling quite satisfied.

The following weekend we played the Pretzeltown Festival in Södertälje. A really cool place which seemed to have been placed in a valley in the center of the town. Again, two stages – one smaller and one big one. We went to a bar where we enjoyed a few Guinness, Kilkennys and cheap Swedish crap beers before heading back to the big stage. As we were setting things up on the main stage we noticed that the backline was the most expensive one we have played on – the guitar amps, bass amp, drums, mics and wireless systems probably cost more than what we dared to estimate. The sound from the big PA wasn’t as impressive, but we had good sound on stage. Some people in the band were still feeling sick and some of the really high vocal notes couldn’t be pulled off. Overall an average C+. After the show we sold our new merchandise that we just got from www.swedishmerch.com . Great stuff! We have two prints on black t-shirts, girlies and tanktops (AKA wifebeater). We will let you know when we have them for sale on some website.

Now we are just preparing for the tour, supporting The Misfits. We have checked/fixed our gear, optimized pedalboards, bought new gear, shipped our merch, made pins, flyers, ordered CDs and bought computers, tools, cameras and clothes. Next wednesday we head to Augsburg in Germany where we will play the first show out of 13.

Europe, here we come!