The Paper Odyssey

Our old friends The Paper Cinema are getting some fantastic press for their current production "The Odyssey". This was in The Times this week. They're on at the Battersea Arts Centre until the 25th Feb. I'd post a link for tickets, but the whole run is sold out. Look out for them at an arts venue near you soon!

littleboat album

This is rather lovely.

Milk Solves Thailand

Carolyn and Will have moved to Thailand, where Will has turned amateur sleuth and has started documenting his investigations here: http://milksolvesthailand.blogspot.com

Betika - Conch Club

Moozikk

This is what Martin has been doing lately.

This is a review of it.

I did try to write a song for it, but I couldn't make my fingers do what I had in mind. I'm going to work on that.

Flyer

Click it to make it bigger

Videos for Old Songs

The Sleeper Wakes

We've been re-animated for four weeks now, the limbs are getting looser and the little tingly moments in the rehearsal studio are becoming more frequent. Our ranks have been swollen to 9 with the return of Imogen who is flitting between bass and supplementary horn duties. The gig on 29th April will see (I think) a total of 15 people on stage, but you'll have to come along to see who they're going to be.

We've contributed a track to a CD that will be available over the BhOne 5th birthday weekend with all proceeds going to Julia's House and the Dorset Cancer Unit, and if all goes well there might even be an EP of previously unheard Betika stuff being hawked for the same good causes. Work Continues. And when it is done, that will be that.

A Other Blog

This is where Mark, Gary and I are doing a bit of writing about various musical and electronic things we've cobbled together over the years, some of which you may have seen or heard on Betika recordings or at gigs.
zaardvark.blogspot.com

New Bands

This is a new band with me, Mark and Andy Guttridge (ex-Brothers in Sound, Clams, Yufei Chowder). We are called Zaardvark, and we make sort of Prog.



This is Martin's band, which isn't new; Here is their MySpace


And this is Will's new band;

This seems likely

This was posted on Facebook today, so it must be true. Time to dust off the hitty / blowy / twangy things and try to learn our hands what to do again. Please come, give freely to the good causes, and watch us try our hardest.
We have top secret special guests. We have a training regime. We have almost agreed upon a set we all like.

Bob Hope @ the beeb.

Sound: Live Radio Session March 08
Pictures: Approx 800 still pictures from the Betika Archive

Mad again soon

www.betika.co.uk

Having driven the long-suffering Betika slightly angrymental lately recording my overcomplicated songs (challenge risen to, and the angry comes across in a very positive way, I think), I began glugging off my own beastly medicine today - the singing has started. We began with Peter Marfan, which is a song about obsessive running, so takes were alternated with sprints around the carpark to get in the correct mind-frame and achieve the right degree of breathlessness. On some takes this was overdone, and the results verged on tubercular. Think we got some good stuff tho. Carolyn goes through the same mill on Friday. Bet she can't wait.

Some freebie downloads

www.betika.co.uk



Some songs from the old line-up to download.

I Killed A Fly - recorded for "Halflove" but left off, for some reason. Pete Doherty heard it and asked us to support him.

The New Shrew - almost a completely live recording from late 2007. The bits we cheated with are Imogen's backing vocals and some electric guitar I did afterwards.

The Castle - nearly live too. Again the backing vox are overdubbed.

Undersleep - recorded in an abandoned hotel in 2004 and lost shortly afterwards when an archive was corrupted. Recently restored thanks to new-fangled studio trickery.

Hatred in the rain.

www.betika.co.uk




Another wet festival! This was the otherwise very lovely Sundial Fest last week. Thanks to Tone for the vid!

A thing I made.

www.betika.co.uk












Pictures above are of a two-stringed electric fiddle I made recently from the amputated leg of an old table and some old guitar parts. And some Meccano. It's made entirely of things I had lying around the house and garden, the only thing I had to buy was the bow, which was the cheapest factory second I could lay my hands on. It sounds surprisingly violin-like, though we don't have a trained fiddlist in the group so brave volunteer Mark will be spending some quality time with the thing before it's unleashed on your delicate ears.

Lots of new songs on the way. I got no damn hair thanks to a clippering accident. I was trying to save money on barbering, and I sure will for the foreseeable future. And on shampoo too.

Cover etc

http://www.betika.co.uk/
Our friends The A&E Line have just made a mini-album of truncated covers of songs by bands called "Einen Einfach Fahrkarte Nach Bournemouth", which has a version of our song "Twenty Five" on it. You can download it free from their MySpace page.
Also, following Toupe's "Villains", I have discovered a second song which includes a reference to Betika or me - in this case with reference to a Smiths tribute band that some friends and I were talking about starting a few years ago- "Richard and Dave played guitar / but neither one wanted to be Johhny Marr / Both sang a fine "Girl Afraid" / Rich had the quiff, but Dave sings like that anyway / I hope that it worked out alright". The song in question is "Zammo" by Miniature Pygmies, whose two-album back catalogue I have been enjoying immensely over the last couple of weeks and highly recommend.

The Last Song

www.betika.co.uk

This is The Missionary, the last song to be performed in public by the Modernday Betika. A massive thankyou to Tone from BHone for putting on the gig, to all the other bands who played, and to everyone who came along, and everyone who has lent us their ears over the past few years.



We go studio now. See you next year with the Betika of the Future!

L'autre Betika

www.betika.co.uk

We've been aware of this lady from the Ivory Coast for a few years now, but this is the first time I've heard or seen her. My french is just good enough to recognize that it's being sung in the song, but I can't pick out more than the odd word - can anyone who paid attention at school help out with a translation? (I spent my french conversation lessons talking with my teacher about rugby, in English) I'm guessing from the uncontrollable sobbing at the end that it's not such a happy song....she's not half bad at singing though, and it's one heck of a catchy tune. According to le wikipedia francophonique she's also a film and TV actress and won "best female" at last year's Cote D'Ivorie music awards. And she has an acute on the "e".

Vampire Moustache

www.betika.co.uk

Live Sancho last week, thanks to bh one