BandCamp Feature

We’re very happy to be able to say that not only has our Be The Architect special release been enthusiastically received and is selling well, but it’s also been featured on the BandCamp blog itself here (Bottom row of the pics, in the middle).

Bandcamp is, for us, the best solution for getting our music to our fans and letting them pay for it. It’s what enables us to do Pay What You Want on all our digital releases, and that they now do physical (with PWYW Physical distribution coming soon) is great news. It’s a really important part of our weaponry as an independent artist.

Why? It’s embeddable here in WordPress, on Myspace (soooo much more elegant than the MS player) and enables listeners to listen to, download in most whatever format you want, and to buy/pay what you want in a tiny amount of clicks, and even works without paypal.

Soo…. thanks Bandcamp and keep up the awesome work. We’re privileged to be included on your blog. There’ll be a in-depth post about the uses and benefits of Bandcamp up on thehuxcapacitor site soon too!

The Ideal Christmas Pressie – “Be The Architect”

Be The Architect – Ready for Christmas!

"Be The Architect" Box Set

In October 2009, about 100 or so people crammed into Hope and Social’s studio (the crypt of a Church somewhere in deepest darkest Yorkshire) and took part in what became this record. Recorded in front of a live television audience. Imperfect and lovely because of it.
Made possible by people who care ;)

We’re very excited to announce that with Herculean effort, on the part of the band, we’re able to confirm that we’ll have the Be The Architect release ready for Christmas.

There’s have been 4 weeks of working over 85 hour weeks to make this happen and still be able to pay our Chrimbo bills. There have been tears and literally sleepless nights but it’s sounding great (it makes me smile every-time I hear it) and though we lost a few songs and sections to the technical gremlins, it’s a beautiful record of a great night.

The book, the CD and the box all look amazing too… It’s going to be a beautiful artefact.

The Set includes:

Be The Architect live CD recorded on the night

68 minutes of the Hope and Social live crypt show.

80-page Be the Architect hardback book

We asked all who came to the Be The Architect show to help us record the evening. We asked them to write a wish/poem/prayer/hope and submit it to us for inclusion in the Be The Architect box set. The result is an incredible 80 page insight into people’s lives in 2009. It’s a beautiful and inspiring artifact.

Hope and Social début album Architect of This Church

Prayer Song (Bonus Track)

Excerpts of people’s “prayers” will be made into a new work by Hope and Social. This will be included in the download, i.e. not on the physical CD (NB, anyone purchasing this before 1st January 2010 will be sent a link to this track by email)

…all in a beautiful leatherette (yes, leatherette) box with silver H&S logo. Wow.

Also includes:

Immediate download of the 10 track live album recording of the show and

Immediate download of a photo- slideshow, a beautiful visual record of the evening.

The box set including Architect of this Church album, Be the Architect live CD, Be the Architect book and decorative box is now for sale for Christmas delivery. For those of you who weren’t there, sorry, we’re gonna have to make it a little more expensive than it was for our early adopters (those who came to the gig who made this happen and funded the box-set, but then again you should have come to the gig shouldn’t you!
;)

Christmas Giveaway – Remix-a-Hope-and-Social

We originally intended to do this as a special for Barnsley College (where Ed and I spoke the other day) though due to demand (We’ve had literally some emails), we’ve decided to make this public. Always keen to share with our friends and fans, we want to give you the chance to help choose which song from “Architect…” we’ll output for you to remix!

We’ll give you all the files to mix your own Hope and Social song (not the splits, not processed tracks, the RAW audio that we used to mix the album!). Simply choose which one you want to work on and we’ll get the files for the poll winning song up online for your use. We’ll feature our favourite (or possibly all versions?!?!) here on our blogsite and credit you for the work done. Schimples!

Anyway, here’s the tracks to choose from, just click the down arrow to display them all!

And here’s the poll! Vote away!

There’s no money in it, but hey, it’ll be fun… and if any of you want to turn it into a Rock-Band track, well that’d be nice!

As for the tools you’ll need, if you don’t already have a multi-track editor/DAW then we highly recommend “Reaper“. and this is what is says on the Reaper site:

“The evaluation version of Reaper is complete and uncrippled. There are no artificial interruptions or restrictions, and you can save and load projects normally. We believe in giving you a fair chance to make sure that REAPER works correctly with your hardware and suits your workflow. The Reaper installer simply copies Reaper and its support files to disk. It does not install anything except itself. If after 30 days you decide that Reaper is not for you, simply delete it.”

Reaper reminds me of Hope and Social, they’re giving you a chance to try before you buy. If you love it as much as we do, do what we’ve done and purchase a license.

Happy mixing!

Santa Claus is Coming to Liversedge

So, to continue the Christmas feel-good shenanigans, we wanted to give you this:

(The “Back-Story”) – On my birthday last year, Hope and Social played in the Church above our studio for the local schools’ Christmas Service. It was a very Christmassy affair, with singalong Christmas tunes, sleigh-bells and the usual kazoo solos. If you want you can download a zip file file rather than the mp3

Tomorrow (Sat 12th Dec.) we’re playing again and this time it’s public. It’s a minimum of £5 donation from here and it’ll raise money for the church roof too.

At our Home from Home…

It’s set to be a great night of Christmas cheer, audience participation and mulled wine. We like it so much here that we recorded this song for our album, live.

All proceeds go to the church roof fund, and as we are the downstairs tenants of the very hospitable Rev. Pitcher, we urge you to not only attend a great gig in these beautiful surroundings but also to go above and beyond when it comes to your donation. (I suddenly feel very “Vicar of Dibley”!)

Support comes courtesy Quiet Rebellion and Blackstone Edge.

We expect a pretty darn high demand for available places so if you can please Book Your Tickets in advance… if you can’t get down early, it’s a big old building I’m sure we can squeeze you in!

Come play out, or if not, please do share this and spread Santa’s love far and wide.

Show Tunes, Shed Seven and Mince Pies

NEW EP FOR SALE NOW!

Some of you may have heard about this already and even heard songs from it but our EP Songs from the Bar of Lost Souls is now available to download from our new Bandcamp site at bandcamp.hopeandsocial.com Once again it’s released on a pay what you want basis so just donate whatever you can afford.

The EP is a little different from the usual Hope and Social fare. Written, recorded and mixed in just 5 days for the Imitating the Dog show Tales From The Bar of Lost Souls it’s 50% more umpah band and 50% more Nick Cave. We like it a lot. The show should be touring some UK theatres next year and there’s some talk of the band playing in the shows but you’ll just have to wait and see.

You can buy the EP now on Bandcamp and watch the making of video on our YouTube Channel

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GIG – IN THE CHURCH

Those of you who came to the Be the Architect gig in the Crypt a few weeks ago will know what a special place it is. Mix that with some Christmas cheer and mulled wine and you’ve got our special fundraising gig on 12th September in aid of a new church roof. A great cause to support, not only because it will save a truly remarkable building but also because it will stop the rain leaking into our recording studio! We’ll be headlining the acoustic gig in the church itself and adding some yuletide tunes to our normal foot stomping affair. Tickets can be bought online from Alamo Music here

A FEW MORE DATES FROM SANTA

We’re going to be doing a few more gigs before Christmas so shake off the Christmas shopping blues and turn off yet another re-run of Mr and Mrs Smith on ITV3 and get yourselves out to one of the shows. You’ll get a free kazoo. What more can we offer?

4/12 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (supporting Jon Gomm)
5/12 Adelphi (The), Leeds
5/12 Manchester Academy (supporting Shed Seven)
12/12 Christchurch, Liversedge (Christmas special!)

MORE MORE MORE

Plenty more news to announce before Christmas – including the release of our special Be The Architect release to anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be at the gig. It’s going to a wonderful thing! See you soon…

h&s x