Hello, hello,

Just a quick note to highlight a couple of acoustic shows coming up in the next week.

Menagerie – Saturday 20th March – Afternoon Show
First up we’re playing the annual Black Box Bacchanal festival this saturday, on stage around 3pm. The full afternoon line-up includes Amy McGarrigle, Dirty Blues Band, Tom Portman, and Isobel Anderson with Semaphore, The Yeuts and Cat Malojian in the evening.

John Hewitt – Wednesday 24th March
Another acoustic show at the Liblab fundraising raffle extravaganza featuring Acoustic Dan, Scorpion Jack, Augustus Allen, The Wee Weirdies, Sarah Lynn and an amazing opportunity to win some interesting raffle prizes!

Sunday April 18th – Dublin
We’ll be in Dublin for a BalconyTV session so we’ll be playing an acoustic set or two in some interesting places. More details soon

Don’t forget to check out some new songs here, or on the player to your right! —>

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Escape Act have pretty much been off the radar for much of the last 12 months, but we haven’t been resting on the laurels of our first album, even though we were more than chuffed with the response it got. Instead we got stuck into a new album almost right away, and the first fruits of that labour can now be heard on our music page, and even downloaded in return for an email address.

Throughout this period we’ve been capturing video footage from the studio, gigs and other exploits. With a little help from our friend Tim Newell, we’ll be producing a series of video blogs and retrospectives on the recording process. The first one is on our youtube channel: www.youtube.com/escapeact

After the release of ‘Loosely Based On Fiction’ we realised that in order to keep things moving along in between work, life and what have you, we had to go straight back into another recording process. This started with Chris, a hard drive recorder and many late nights towards the end of 2008 – the result being 14 songs demoed. Several of these had been knocked about by the band in the practice room, but many were brand new ideas for what is now an album entitled ‘Balance’.

February 2009 saw a three-day stint at Chem19 in Hamilton with our friend and producer Andy Miller. This session was basically a drumming marathon and saw Alan putting down the foundation that would be built upon over the subsequent 11 months. Between March and July we returned to Chem19 five more times, building up guitars, vocals, bass and many other parts. At the same time Chris was working with musicians in Belfast writing, arranging and recording various parts for strings and brass.

By the end of July, Andy Miller had finished work on his own masterpiece – Gargleblast Studios, not far from Chem19. Gargleblast would be our home from that point forward and five more sessions concluded the recording process and 11 songs, finishing up in December.

2009 also saw some line-ups changes. Firstly we were joined by Ross Neely on guitar, keyboard, vocals and melodica. Ross has been helping us develop our live sound and add a new dimension to that experience. During early summer it became clear that drummer Alan, would have little choice but to follow his career over to a new post in Leicester. This saw the extremely talented Michael Samson join the band in time for a show at Dublin’s HWCH festival. Alan’s role in the band always reached beyond the drum stool however, and he still contributes distinctive artwork to our activities. (look out for new stickers at gigs!)

We’re really proud of what we have achieved with the creation of this new record. It was been a challenge, it has been a lot of hard work, it has tested every bit of musical motivation we have, but it has ultimately left us with a profound sense of gratitude and achievement that we look forward to sharing over the coming months.

Summer 2010 will see the release of ‘Balance’ along with ongoing activities surrounding particular songs. In the spirit of the new, empowered, independent music industry we intend to continue our policy of novel and interesting release and promotional activities. Our regular video blog updates, email newsletter and twitter will keep folks up to date on what we’re doing, but we’re eager to hear from fans who’d like to get involved in helping us release songs, make video, packaging, remixes, hold listening parties or anything else we haven’t thought of.

Rich Dale
- Feb 2010

Links:
New mailing list subscribers can download 3 exclusive live tracks from our Radio1 session.

For video blogs and more visit: www.youtube.com/escapeact
Facebook fans: www.facebook.com/escapeact
Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/escapeact

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throughout last year we captured a lot of video footage as we progressed through the various stages of recording our new album. with a little help from our friend Tim, we’re going to put some vlogs together over the coming months, talking about the songs and the process, along with updates on releases, gigs and whatever other plans we cook up!

so without further ado…

we’d love to hear your comments, and thoughts on what you’d like to hear about in future vlogs… you can also get in touch with us on our twitter and facebook pages…

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hello and happy 2010 from us Escape Act folks to y’all. we’ve all sorts of good stuff happening this year, mainly revolving around the release of new tunes. to kick things off however we’ll be playing some shows around Ireland in coming weeks, mainly supporting the excellent John Shelly and the Creatures, who are making a name for themselves beyond belfast music circles. the lads are also releasing an album in March.

The dates are:

Friday 12th Feb – The Backroom, Navan
Saturday 13th Feb – Whelans, Dublin
Sunday 14th Feb – Cuba, Galway
Saturday 20th Feb – Sandino’s, Derry (also with The Wonder Villains)
Saturday 6th Mar – The Stables, Mullingar
Wednesday 25th Mar – John Hewitt, Belfast (Full band, acoustic)

Hope to see you along the way.

Rich

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Our last show of 2009 will take be Upstairs In The Attic, Auntie Annies, Dublin Road, Belfast.
Also on the bill are Strait Laces, and there’ll be a free compilation CD for every punter!

This will also be a bit of a celebration, cos if everything goes to plan, we’ll be more or less finished the bulk of our studio sessions by the time we play this gig! We’ve also been adding dates for our February tour with John Shelly and the Creatures, including Galway, Derry, Navan, Mullingar and Dublin. Full details to follow!

Don’t forget, if you wanna join into the Escape Act google wave… email me your username

rich

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I’ve been playing about with Google Wave over the last few weeks, and i thought it would be a good place to discuss some of our plans for next year. Many definitions exist of what Wave is, and what its for, but broadly speaking, its whatever you want it to be.

I’ve introduced some topics covering ideas about Video, Release Formats, Gigging, Collaborations, and the discussion has wound its way round all of them with some very interesting thoughts on packaging, compositions, iPhone apps and story-telling.

With most of the hard work on album number two coming to an end, we’ve been pondering our approach for next year. First on the list is definitely engagement. As we’ve grown and evolved as a band we’ve realised that we have achieved most when working together, initially just as a band, and latterly with inspiring and creative folks to generate results that are greater than the sum of their parts. Equally, we’re not afraid to test out some new disruptive ideas for delivering our music into the ears of music lovers. The Wave is a good spot for putting those ideas out there and getting perspectives from a range of people.

If you have a Google Wave account and you’d like to join in, just search Wave for ‘with:public escapeact’ – otherwise send me an email with your account name and i’ll add you.

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If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise.*

And, if you go down to the iTunes store today, you’ll find Cabin Fever and Sullied Behave for the Moon have been re-released by 17 Seconds Records!

To celebrate the release, we’ve created a very limited edition screen-printed version of the artwork….

Sold out!

This will be the last in the series of the Loosely Based on Fiction physical products.

^{* Escape Act takes no responsibility for any surprises you might find in the woods today.}

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Greetings from chilly Belfast. Brr. Brrrrrrr! Sorry, time to unpack the long johns i think….

So all sorts of fun has been happening since my last post. You may have caught up with some excerpts via our twitter feed…

We had three excellent inaugural gigs with Michael behind the drum kit. Our HWCH Dublin show had a great atmosphere and a warm, attentive crowd. We had a chance to bump into many good friends in Dublin, and make a few more new acquaintances. All in all it was another cracking festival, kudos to the HWCH/FMC for all their hard work. We also had a chance to chat to the nice ladies of the InkyWrists blog, read all about it here…

That was quickly followed by a Radar show at Queens Belfast. It was another step up performance-wise. Then it was on to the 13th Note in Glasgow for a 17 Seconds label show with Chris Bradley, X-Lion Tamer and The Dirty Cuts. We had a lovely time, particularly since it was my first, and long overdue show in Glasgow. The set got a nice mentioned on the Girls Sold Out blog too.

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So this weekend, we’re back in Scotland, this time for 2 days of recording. We’ve more days booked in later in the month for mixing, and, well, we aim to have album number two in the can by Christmas! Plans are already afoot for next year. In fact, we need your help! If you have a Google Wave account, and are interested in shaping some of our release plans for next year, please get in touch.

Finally, the guys at 17 Seconds are re-releasing Cabin Fever on iTunes etc next week and we’ll have some very limited edition screen-printed artwork to mark the occasion… More news on that shortly!

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Come along and check out the new line-up at these gigs:

Firstly, we’re proud to be playing the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival in Dublin. We’re playing the ‘4 Dame Lane’ venue (map) at 8pm on Saturday 17th. Check www.hwch.net for full details and ticketing. Over 100 bands play throughout the weekend, so its worth every penny!

Next up is an excellent line-up for Radar at Queen’s Speakeasy on Thursday October 22nd. Headlining are our favourite melody merchants Cutaways, with Dublin’s Robotnik bringing some electro-tunefulness to the mix.

Lastly and by no means least is an exciting 17 Seconds Records line-up at Glasgow’s 13th Note venue, on Friday 30th October. We’re be playing alongside Aberfeldy’s Chris Bradley, X Lion Tamer and The Dirty Cuts.

Hope y’all can make it to some of these shows!

Rich

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Hello folks,

Time for an update methinks! Sorry for the radio silence, i’ve been off on my honeymoon, but fear not, we have been busy!

Firstly the bad, and good news – Alan has had to move on from the drum stool to pastures new, accepting a shiny new job in Leicester. Needless to say, we’re sad to see a founding member of the band leave, but thankfully he won’t be forgotten, as I still owe him a tenner….. No seriously, Alan will still be playing an important part in our group by continuing to work on the many interesting visual aspects of the band, so expect more of his work to feature in upcoming releases, stickers, teapots etc.

Since Alan broke the news of his departure our network of spies has been scouring the countryside, and the, erm, cities for a suitable replacement and that man is Michael Sampson. We’re excited to have Michael on board, and in true Escape Act style, there’s little time for sitting around, and Michael’s first show will be in Mid October at HWCH in Dublin. (more on that in a near-future post).

Recording sessions have been going on throughout the summer, and its fair to say that we can see the end of the tunnel. We’ll have a full report and pictures to bring you up-to-date shortly.

So, the summer is over, autumn is just round the corner. In just another couple of months we’ll have completed the recording of album number two. We’ve got so much exciting music for you to hear, and many plans in the offing for bringing Escape Act to a living room near you, so please stay tuned!

Rich

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