A Bear

The End.

2009-09-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

We split up. No final show, no fuss, no explanation.

2008 - 2009 isn't much of a legacy though.

Endless amounts of thanks to the people that matter - you know who you are.

Our tour with Hair Traffic Control was possibly one of the best weeks of our lives so anyone involved in that in any way; thank you.

If new bands happen we'll let you know. Right now we have to figure out what to do with all the leftover merch.

Bye.

Luke, Nathan & Jake

A Big Ol' Update..ish

2009-07-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Right, so we just did the world's shortest tour with Pharaohs. It was lovely and we all agree that those Pharaohs boys are very attractive men. They make some alright songs too...

Thanks to anyone who watched us/bought hot bear merch in any places where we played and got sweaty. It was very sweaty. I was so moist.

Now we've decided that we need to write a whole bunch of new stuff to stop us going insane or something, so we're not gonna play any gigs now until probably around Autumn-ish.

That's a bit gay, yes, because playing shows is basically the best part about being in a band, but we're gonna come back better, faster, stronger than we were before. 6 Million Dollar Man Stylez.

We might record some stuff between now and then. I hope we do... Fingers Crossed, eh?

See you after HiBEARnation. (Ugh... Puns.)

x

The Blog Got Sexy

2009-06-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

Not posted in a while...

2009-06-04T20:17:00.001-07:00

Still booking our tour with Pharaohs, I just found this old picture of A Bear taken when we went for lunch after our first ever practice. Awwwww.

Clearly we didn't know where to go for lunch.

Also, we're gonna try and record at some point this month! That'll be lovely.

Bye for now. See you soon. Love you xx

RRRRRADIO BLAH BLAH!

2009-05-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we've been on the radio quite a few times over the past couple of days, and that has certainly been strange, but frankly quite ace. At time of writing, most of the iplayers and things no longer have us on 'em because time moves fast n' shit.

However, you can catch us on Tom Robinson's BB6 Podcast which you can download and keep forever by searching it on itunes or clicking here! Probably not for a massive amount of time, mind you.

We also got two tracks played back to back on the 'Double Pack' Feature POPSCENE with Jalal on Radio Weser in Germany, which was a lovely thing for him to do. So thank you to Jalal! You can hear his show at www.popscenewithjalal.com
So make sure you do that. (It's in English, by the way)

ALSO! We're going into BBC Towers in Manchester on Sunday night (May 10th) to have a live chat with Sam Walker on her Introducing show, so make sure you listen in to that at www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/introducing between 11pm and 11:30pm! We'll talk about exciting things, I'm certain.

Thats all for now.
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
xxx

TOUR NUMERO 2!

2009-05-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I reckon we're gonna tour again in July, no proposed dates yet but it's on the cards.

At least we're gonna attempt it - we're gonna try and play more dates than we did on our first tour. That'd be rad. Want us to play somewhere? Get in touch.

thisisabear@hotmail.co.uk

In the meantime we're gonna try and record some more stuff, also we've been on the radio lots recently. I say lots, about 4 times. It's a lot for us. The BBC seem to quite like the cut of our jib, or something.

Thanks specifically Huw Stephens, Tom Robinson and those involved in producing the respective shows.

Thanks to you for being you - go join our mailing list. The form is on the myspace.

Kiss Kiss. xx

Label stuff and Free Music!

2009-04-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

So we're on this little DIY label now called Dapsone Records. It's the brainchild of our good friend Joe Penny of Helsinki Seven fame and should hopefully vomit up a few nice treats for your eyes and ears.

We're planning a proper release for this year, which will be just dandy. To kick things off though, download this free 10 track sampler by clicking here! Here's a pic of the cover to gawp at.

Our track on there is called 'The One That Did' it is the exact same song we've been giving away free with the mailing list and is also the song that got played on Radio One. Sorry about the lack of exclusivity - we don't have that many songs recorded!

We'll record more soon - as soon as we've finished writing it.

Love your local Bears xxx

Tour Over!

2009-04-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

So we've finished the tour with Hair Traffic Control now and we had a damn wicked time and we miss them already. We didn't update this blog because we got lazy and did it on myspace instead. Soz.

Things that happened on tour include:

- A Bacon Party
- A lovely meal
- An epic game of golf
- Lots of Driving
- A Broken Guitar
- Some floor based fun rockin'
- Probably some other stuff

We played The Canteen in Barrow In Furness earlier. It was fun, except for my guitar re-breaking after we thought it was fixed. To make up for the sadness of me having to now probably spend money on repairing things, we became reet happy in the car on the way home because Huw Stephens played a song of ours on his Radio One Introducing show. Smiles all round!

We're playing in Sheffield on Sunday with Atomic Garden and Kimmy Yeah. It's gonna be wicked. Hopefully I'll have a guitar by then, otherwise it'll be an interesting set.

Lukey B xxx

We done an interview

2009-03-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

It's true, a man called Will from a Website called UK Music Scene asked us to do a quick interview over email, of course we were deadly serious about it.

He said we had some decent music, I'm not quite sure if that's a positive thing. I think he was being polite. Regardless, check it here!

http://www.ukmusicscene.org.uk/2009/03/a-bear/

Yum Yum. Tour in 10 days.

x

Stuff that happened!

2009-03-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend lots of nice things happened.

We played a lovely little gig to some quality people on Friday at the Rampant Lion, thank you to UBiK for letting us play your triumphant return to promotion - it was bangin' and we had a fly time.

On Saturday we went to Cheshire to record with our good friend Joe Penny at Boom Studios, we recorded two songs; The Two That Didn't Make It (previous version available on our EP innit) and The One That Did (Newer song, never recorded before, it's nice). Here's a video of that very experience.

The on sunday, the BBC played a track off our EP on BBC Manchester Introducing which we were very happy about, because we only actually found out because we were already listening to the show to catch an interview with Dinosaur Pile-Up!

So massive thanks to UBiK awesome gigs, Joe for awesome recording times, Ross for driving us around and making that video for us and the BBC for saying nice things about us on the radio.

In other news, we're off on tour with Hair Traffic Control soon and some other bands too! there's a poster, you can look at it HERE!

See y'all!

xxx

BBC Reviewwww!

2009-03-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

"...Free-thinking and forward-moving, A Bear are everything rock needs to be."

They're nice aren't they?! There's a whole feature with an interview and a wee little review over at this link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2009/03/03/a_bear_introducing_feature.shtml

We're recording on Saturday and have a gig on Friday aat The Rampant Lion with a bunch of cool bands. Get on it. G-e-T-o-N-i-T.

bEaRs
XxXx

Some of Our Friends are Animals

2009-03-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

So the EP will be in your hands very soon, it's called 'Some of Our Friends are Animals'. As soon as all the tracks have been mastered we can burn all the CDs then stare at a massive pile of them before 'releasing' them, and by that we mean take them to gigs. Probably in a bag.

Tracklisting:
1. The Two That Didn't Make It
2. The Kids Don't Appreciate Sci - Fi Jones
3. Fairy Lights, What a Mistake!
4. Grass Between the Thumbs

So as soon as we get that out of the way we can hopefully record the newer stuff as some of these songs are older than the internet now.

Lastly, here's the artwork, which is available in sticker form from all good A Bear retailers. i.e. us.

Bears Out for now xx

Under Lock and Key...

2009-02-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

So the other night we had a right royal time at the Retro Bar with Helsinki Seven, it was more fun that you could imagine having in a place that smelled like Spicy Masculine Cheese Sweat. Thanks to the Helsinki boys for being generally bloody awesome and also for bestowing me with one of the great wonders of the world; Dokken's 1985 album 'Under Lock and Key' on Vinyl.

Of course, I've been made to promise to never ever listen to it. It is merely to be admired, respected, adored. Anyway, Helsinki Seven are awesome, their album is awesome, they're awesome and we're gigging with them again in sheffield and hopefully a lot more times too! Yes yes yes!

EP news soon. K bye
x

Why Won't You Bloody Well Smile?!

2009-02-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

The other day, our good friend Simon Thelwell who is a photographer came into town and took some pictures of us looking a bit grim in places, a bit shouty in others and at some points, a bit trolley.

Yes, I just used trolley as an adjective, it's how I roll. Anyway, the photos came out looking bloody fantastic and we cannot sing high enough praises for Si for putting up with us for a day. Go and check out some of his other work (it's pretty damn good, I assure you) at www.ixographic.com or you could click on the picture below to be whisked away to an album on our myspace with a few pics from the day in there. Excellent!

In other news, the EP is almost finished being mastered! We've put up one track from it on our myspace player, it goes by the name of 'The Two That Didn't Make it' and feels like a bit of a pop number if you ask me.

As far as EP release time is concerned, we're basically just waiting for the masters, then once we decide what we're calling it we can make up a bunch of copies and get 'em out to you, the loyal listener. Won't that be lovely? Yes it will!

Tour is being booked for april! A few gigs here and there in the meantime, we'll let you know via the medium of horrible, horrible spam.

Stay Fresh. Stay In School. Learn Yo'self an education.
Bears xx

WE DUN RECORDING WE DUN!

2009-01-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

Here's a video

We'll finish mastering this bad boy soon.

K Bye xx

IT'S OVER. (The Year, that is)

2009-01-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

Done and dusted. 2008 is over and we sent it out in style by rockin' it up with Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster in Manchester.

Although the night started out damn awfully as we got to our practice rooms where we keep all our stuff when we're not making noise with it to find it was totally locked up and we didn't have any keys or phone numbers to assist getting it open. So armed with only two guitars, a foot pedal and some rusty old cymbals we turned up to the venue and after a series of well-aimed begs, were able to borrow pretty much everything off a lovely trio of gents in a band named Scar - www.myspace.com/scartheband check it.

We went on at like 9:30 the room (smelling of a mixture of sewage and insence) was surprisingly packed even though we had been thrown on the downstairs stage. It was probably one of our most solid performances and we very much enjoyed getting out there and talking to people afterwards too. Many many thanks to Phil for the sound on the night and to everyone that was down there watching us.

2009 is sure to throw up some good times, for instance; in about 14 hours time we'll be recording our EP and at some point in the year we'll be touring this fair country to hurt ears in new places. We've got other plans and other things will surely happen that aren't planned as of yet. Sack it though, just join in and we'll take everything as it happens. It's gonna be FUUUUUUN!

XxX

Some Old Romantics and Eighties Matchboxes

2008-12-18T06:18:00.000-08:00

The other day we played a gig with The Old Romnatic Killer Band. We were frankly a bit messy, but they were spectacular and so is their album. It is also an album you should buy. Its out on Bad Sneakers Records, and is well worth every penny.

Right, onto New Year's Eve. We're supporting Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster at the Dry Bar and we're being sneaky and underhand about the ticket selling aspect. Tickets are supposed to be £10 in adv. Which even for Eighties Matchbox is a wee pricey, so if you come to us, we'll sell them you for £6. Thats right, we're cheap, you're cheap, we work together in perfect harmony. Lets remember to go crazy for this one now people. Ring in the new year with ringing in your ears or something like that!

GO GADGET, GO!

A Blog about Bonefest.

2008-12-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

So Saturday December 6th (almost a week ago now, I'm lazy) was Bonefest at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, and unless you're an idiot, you'll know EXACTLY what the lineup was. Do you know?

I do. I was there. So now I'm gonna tell you about it through my eyes. There is a video of it that we need to upload, but the camcorder ran out of batteries before the end of our set, so we've got not all that much footage to share with you. Which is why I'm using words currently...

Basically, we got to Leeds on Friday night. Driving there in a ford focus full of equipment. Enjoying Chocolate chip cookies. We were staying at our major homeboy (and bassist of our previous band) Jack Drummond's house. Which is wicked, we bought him some chocolates to say thankyou.

BUT YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT!

Next morning, after a refreshing sleep on a floor next to an open window, we woke up and went to the Brudenell. We set up stuff, said hello to people then doors Opened and Shapes kicked things off. They fucking blew us away! Absolutely quality, buy their EP. Buy it now. DO IT! and go see them live, and prepare to have your balls ripped open by a wall of awesome sound.

No Kilter were bloody good, and I owe them my life for lending me an amp. (Cheers Colin!) Then it was our turn, set went well. Only major hiccups being a bit rusty on the new song and being my constant apologising. Ah well, we wrecked shit and a nearly killed some people with my guitar. I hope they don't hold that against me!

At this point, Jake started getting tipsy, so I'll let him tell you his version of events... HI JAKE!

Hi guys! I'm going to apologise for any repeated content as, frankly, i can not be arsed to read Luke Bathers babble above. I would also like to add that i am not tipsy, although at bonefest i was quite drunk. Anyway.. Yeh we got off stage feeling pretty rubbish about our set as all the other bands were top, i got shouted at from the sound guy for knocking his £90 microphone of the front of the stage, ahem. The whole stage change over routine was pretty crazy for fear of knocking everything out of time by taking too long which would have made James Brown very angry and nobody wanted to do that.

After mooching around looking sweaty for a while, drinking cider and talking to people we became aware that we apologised far too much during our set (which won't happen again!). I want to comment on some of the bands being really good but to be honest they were all amazing.

Oh! BLAKFISH!?!?! WHAT THE HELL!? They appeared on stage wearing helmets made from boxes, various cutlery, an assortment of fruits and no pants. Which scared the shit out of me but at the same time made me wish i could not care about anything as much as that, their set was amazing amazing amazing (as were all the other bands). I'm not sure if Blakfish have any photos of their set on Myspace but you should probably check it out anyway.

At this point im going to pass over to Naf as the rest of the night is quite blurry for me...HI NAF!

I started reading the boyz above blogs until I thought I carn't be arsed reading theres this is MINE. So, day 1 drummond of love and crew had a large night at Drummonds and it was cockin good. Day 2 the bonefester spent lots of time in the ross mobeeeel driving around after people and making everything was all good. We was by far the first band there! We even got to meet the shameless tribute crew out the venue. Met some amazing bands during that day shapes blew my face off. The velvet orchastra were sick sick sick. Then of course the big chunks of the night were AMAZING Tubelord,that fucking tank, Blakfish (What a reception they get!) as for the other hand full of bands Ye was sick. Day 3 ramming back into the ross mobeeeel to drive home! Shame love out of town gigs. Bring on the tour I say!

Back to the band dog take it away gerald.

WOOF WOOF WOOF. (Trump)

Bye guys xxx

T Shirts T Shirts Tea Shorts!

2008-11-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there are no such thing as Tea Shorts (yet). We do, however, have t shirts on the way to your faces. They look like this! Artwork was done by the ever wonderful Emily Sear! We owe her our lives.

Ace innit? They should be here for you to buy by the time we play Bonefest. Which is in 8 days, and Tickets are £8 from seetickets.com

go go go go go goggles!
x

MASTER! SWORD!

2008-11-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one to say thank you to John J. Serre for re mastering a live recording of Fairy Lights, What a Mistake! for us. He's done an ace job on it if you ask me, you can hear the song on our myspace and on his. Which you can find by following this link. So do it.

You can also hear it on our last.fm which you can locate by pasting this next lot of text into your browser like the internet hound you are: http://www.last.fm/music/a+bear

Luke.
x

The Marmalade was Bad Ass.

2008-11-19T20:51:00.000-08:00

Right, so we played this gig the other night at Mojo in Manchester. It was a bit of a mixed night, I might go into detail a bit later. It was a Bad Marmalade Party, apparently the last one of an epic weekender. Currently it's 4:56am and our good chum Ben Hynes has just decided to drunkenly invade our flat, so now I'm going to get him to type his account of the events of that night.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ben Hynes' three-minute super-review...

(The Views of Ben Hynes don't represent the views of A Bear, or any relatives of Michael Barrymore, or Drew Barrymore. She's pretty sexy...)

"I turned up at mojo and was luvin it. A bear r a emmense as fuck. sat down with all the stoners methin out 2 the acoustic chaps. guy with a sax, bruce willi harmonicay and guy rockin it with 20 cords a sec. truly great lol. a bear came on destoryin the chilled mood. every 1 left minus the clan. The Fag came in (dAVID gEST) rocked it hugged every1 i kicked him in the chechs."

So, yeah... That was THE Ben Hynes in three minutes exactly. Now for a sober round up:

- We played pretty late. (1 hour 45 mins later than billed)
- We broke the P.A. 2 songs from the end so we started shouting in people's faces.
- Mega Celebrity Awesome Man David Gest showed up for some reason known only to him.
- David Gest showed up.
- DAVID FUCKING GEST MATE
- I gave David Gest a Hug!
- Apparently Jake ran off and threw up at the end of the set.
- I stood at the top at the stairs holding my guitar, I swear to god I was talking to Joanne Hartley (plays Cynth in This is England among many other ace roles)
- I lost some cables.
- The sound was pretty poo to be honest.
- We played on the floor.

Thats all folks, next stop for us is Bonefest which we'll be playing with SOME OF THE BEST BANDS EVER.

www.myspace.com/bonefestival

Tubelord, DANANANANAYKROYD, Blakfish, Secondsmile, That Fucking Tank, The Velvet Orchestra, These Monsters, Shapes, Copy Haho, No Kilter, Red Stars Parade plus more more more more more more more more more (including us)

See you See you See you there.
Luke x

Free things are great.

2008-11-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

Free Gigs are my favourite kind of free.

We're playing one on sunday. In Manchester. At Mojo. Did I mention it was free?

BECAUSE IT IS!

Anyway, for info check out www.myspace.com/badmarmalade because it's their party. They make the rules. They have the info.

Or you can talk to us. We might know a thing or two.

I'll be back.
x

Easy Tiger... Lounge

2008-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

So the other day the lovely chaps down at FictionNonFiction asked us to play at their brilliant night at The Tiger Lounge, which we were very happy to do.

We got down there at about half 8 (slightly late yeah, it's the new early) and dumped our stuff backstage. Then, just as we turned around to go back out, the finest of fine things appeared on the table before us; FREE SANDWICHES. There were even choices. Ham OR Cheese. To be honest, as a band, we've never felt happier. We're moving up in the world. Although we didn't have too many, we felt cheap.

So yeah, the gig was SICK. The band on before us was brill, they're called Metamusic and they are well worth checking out. So go!

We had a laugh, played a set, people watched, we broke a sweat. Sound was ace, big thanks to the lovely sound man.

We all genuinely enjoyed ourselves and got talking to some lovely lovely people afterwards. Including a gent called Luke who was touring with Men Diamler. One man with an acoustic guitar and a bucket full of mental. By the time he came on the lounge wasn't mega busy but I think he managed to captivate just about everyone in the room, at one point getting up and wandering around singing some epic acapella soul to a chorus of claps. To put a genre on him would be insulting. Just go listen, find where he's playing on tour near you and go. Go NOW. and buy his album 'Sea Shanties for the Far Inland' while you're there. Sick.

Alright, I think that's the night covered badly. Thank you every single one of you who showed us a bit of love. It fills our hearts with joy.

Apparently we've got another gig on Sunday that we totally forgot about. We'll keep you posted on that one.

BYE FOR NOW COOL GUYS.

Bit o' News

2008-11-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

Whaddup gangsters. You should know that we played the Roadhouse in Manchester the other week. This is how it ended up. My god, what would our Mothers think? I don't know, I'll ask them one day.
Also playing that gig were HOT BONE. Who are bloody well good. Check them out.

Anyway, we've got a couple of gigs to announce:

Tuesday November 11th at The Tiger lounge in Manchester with Warm Widow. Should be bloody goooood.

December 6th BONEFEST at The Brudenell in Leeds with like a million good bands. Check out www.myspace.com/bonefestival for the full lineup/details.

So this is like our new blog thing right, we might even keep it updated regularly with general goings on and stuff. (Basically outright ripping off the wonderful job Sean does on the Tubelord blogs innit)

S'ok though, he'll never know.

Luke x

Hallow

2008-11-08T11:13:00.001-08:00

We're bloggin' now mate!

PEACE!

x