News

The nest is busy!

We're already in the middle of August...this year is flying by!

The guys and I have been mega busy gigging the festivals lately, and we've had excellent crowds of people every time! Thanks to those of you who made it along, it's been a great few weeks of performances for me and the Vipertones.

Last month we played Big Rivers Festival, Dordrecht - a nice hometown gig for the Vipers and the busiest I've ever seen the town centre! Hundreds packed into the square to watch and catch bunches of brightly coloured beads I threw from the stage during the performance. The following week we played Blue Balls Festival in Switzerland, which was a hilarious trip! We had a brilliant time performing to a lovely and lively crowd until the sun disappeared. Signing my name on fresh flesh started and ended here...it's just not right. Luzern is such a beautiful place, and the chocolates are top! I'd love to go back.

I write this little news snippet from Phil Martin's super comfy sofa... I've been here a few days (not on the sofa) taking up space, eating his food, talking to his cat, using his toothbrush (not really Phil, hahhh). I arrived back in Holland on Saturday and that evening we played a packed Delft Jazz Festival. What a buzz, the crowd really lifted the band! I think there are also some photos from that night up online. And then on Sunday we played Park Open in Arnhem, without a drop of rain to ruin our set, as threatened. Thank you to the old lady who brought me flowers!

Coming up with have some more appearances in Holland, so if you haven't managed to make it along to one of our gigs yet, we are doing SPS Jazz Festival (Reeuwijk) on 27th August, Zomerparkfeesten (Venlo) on 28th August and Hillegersberg Jazzfestival (Rotterdam) on 29th August! No excuses now...

The Vipertones and I have been in the studio for a couple of days - you might have noticed if you are following us/me on Twitter or keeping up with us on Facebook. We're still putting down ideas for the 2nd album, and so far so good! Exciting developments and great grooves are being hatched! Watch this space.

Despite a minor set back, we're expecting the Remixes LP in a few weeks, so we'll be shouting about that very soon! Wishing you all well and I hope you're having an excellent summer!

Laters potatas, Laura x

Scorchio!

The summer is beating down strong in the Netherlands today! I arrived from the UK yesterday as we have many things to do on stage and in the studio. Firstly I'd like to mention that we have some great gigs coming up with all 8 of us on stage - yes people, that means we have the cheeky horns under a spotlight on stage with us too. Starting this weekend, we have performances at Reuring Festival, and Supernatural Festival, in the Netherlands. Coming up, we also have North Sea Round Town at the Zuiderpark People Village (Grand Départ Tour De France), Big Rivers Festival and then Blue Balls in Switzerland. Oh yes! We'll be keeping busy...

RELEASE ALERT!
Soon we will be releasing ‘Laura Vane & The Vipertones, The Remixes' LP. This has been a long time coming, and we can't wait to share some of the brilliant remixes we've had in from special talents such as Drawbar, AIFF, Part Time Heroes, Diesler and more. If you felt a connection with our music and us in the first album, this will give you a really exciting new perspective on the songs you already know and love. There are some absolute corkers in there! It will be coming out on Unique Records next month, so get saving those pennies and get yourself a copy!

Right now... last week the sun was strong and the sea was warming up, Brighton beach was buzzing with lobster coloured tourists, kids and ice creams, and people seriously getting into their summer wardrobe... I even had the week free! However, last week I was determined to power through with ideas for the second Vipertones album, which meant that I needed a space without distraction. The sun, sea and sand proved to be a distraction...boo. Anyway! I got a load of new ideas together and fired them over to the guys to listen to. We're all getting really excited about the new material we're writing and we promise to keep you updated on how things are going with that.

I guess that's it for now campers, I hope you have some wonderful plans for the next few weeks, including a little trip to see us perform near you! Yay! Laters, Laura x

FESTIVAL TIME! YAY!

Hey hey hey! ...I know it's not quite hot enough to start raving about summer, but festival season is on the horizon!

I know we've been a little bit quiet for the past few weeks, but that is all about to change! We have some great gigs coming up in Holland, Germany and Switzerland over the next couple of months. We kick off this week at Breda Jazz Festival, where we're playing the main stage on Thursday night (13th May) which I'm really looking forward to. It seems like ages since me and the guys got connected and we've never played Breda before either. This is just a short trip, as I'm flying back to the UK the next day. BUT at the end of this month we'll be performing at the legendary Jazzrally in Düsseldorf, amongst a fantastic line up of bands, dj's and artists! I have no doubt it will be a wicked weekend, and it'll be nice to hang out with our label crew too, Unique Records. Come down if you're around!

Following that, The Vipertones and I will be performing at Jazz by Duurstede, Reuring Festival, Supernatural Festival and North Sea Around Town, as well as returning to perform in the hometown of this project, Dordrecht in mid July. I'd better buy some new dresses!!

But if you're into planning well ahead, we have been given a great opportunity to play the Blue Balls Festival 2010 in Switzerland on 28th July, alongside legendary and popular peeps like Gil Scott-Heron, Sinead O'Connor, Jose James, Gabriella Climi, James Morrison and one of my local Brightonian heroes, Fink. I can't wait to hit the site!

Lastly, as we continue writing for the 2nd Laura Vane & The Vipertones album, we don't want to keep you waiting too long for new music, so we are also putting together a cd of remixes for release a little later in the year! Watch this space!

Staying out of trouble, but not for long... Laura x

Fourteen day yoyo!

I came back from Athens with Ouzo and fancy sandals, a big smile on my face and a heavy anticipation of the rest that I was due from the amazing week The Vipertones and I had. But it didn't go quiet, no... In fact, things suddenly got busier and I was only back in the UK for a day before booking a last minute flight to Holland for the Friday of that week! It was crazy. We had an offer in from 'De Wereld Draait Door' to go and play on the show, which goes out LIVE and is a fantastic opportunity for us to play to millions of people who tune in to watch the show daily. What a great night! The band and I were all a little bit nervous, especially once we'd seen the red lights activate on the cameras. Matthijs, the presenter interviewed me and Ton, and we did our 1 minute edit of the single, ‘Am I Dreaming?' Such a buzz! And since then we've seen our single move up, down and round the charts in the Netherlands!

You can watch this live 1 minute clip on Youtube here AND you can also watch the full length version of ‘Man Of Your Word' we did for the show in the commercial break (which wasn't aired that night).

I came back to the UK the following day, for 2 hours. Okay, it was a little bit longer, probably more like 4 and a half days before I was catching another flight back to Viperland...and this time for a major radio show; Giel at 3fm (Netherlands) with a shocking 5.30am start for our road trip and it's wasn't long before all of us were busting out ‘Roof Off' and killing the subdued morning vibe at the station! Whoop whoop! We provoked comments in texts sent into the show like ‘Wow wow wow, Funky Funky!' and ‘Great! A not-drunk Winehouse' - totally hilarious. Of course, I was drunk, I just handle it better than Amy. Haa. Footage of the tracks we performed can be found on Youtube as well.

Recent challenges include: singing a Dutch name in a radio jingle based on one of the Vipertones tunes. Recent triumphs include: keeping the mic dry and pronouncing with unmistakable English/American twang. Ah well... I hope he liked it.

That morning (Friday 25th February) we drove from the radio station in Holland to our first gig of the weekend in Osnabrück, Germany. Fuelled by coffee, with lack of sleep and still high from the show, it was the perfect combination for some childish face-making in the back of the van. Ah, the amusement never tired, not for 2 days. Sorry guys, it wasn't only me. *ahem* ...you're just lucky the kazoo stayed in the bag!!

We played to a very excited crowd at Glanz & Gloria, and one of the highlights of the evening (besides a beautiful chocolate cake Ela gave us!) was being accompanied by Championship winning Bboys, Osnabrooklyn. They were wicked and brought some real energy to the night! ...I've done a different kind of sliding on my head to them, their move looked a lot more...thought out.

Then the following day we drove to Dortmund for our gig at Domicil. Wow what a stage! Nice size place and lovely lovely people at the venue too. A few coffees and interviews later we had a lot of fun on stage, made a great connection with the people there and sold a load of albums!

I'm really looking forward to going back to Germany over the next couple of months, and we have some dates in Brussels and Holland tucked neatly into spring too with some radioshows as well like 'Meike's Middag' and 'Tros Muziekcafe'. Still rumours of Montreal and Switzerland...but for now, we're busy rocking it a little more locally.

Finally, after a good old wait, we can tell you that part of our performance for WOMAD festival in Gran Canaria last year has been given permission to be uploaded online. SO, you can see it here. We've uploaded all new audio and videos to our website on the home page, so please do check it out if you got the time.

My next liaison with the Vipertones will be in Bremen, Germany on the 12th March... and I'll be full of birthday glee! I should think I'll be absolutely unbearable...again, sorry guys...but make my cake a decent size...and no joke candles.....or...jokes. Ha ☺

Laters potatas, L x

From Greece to Holland to Germany...*screeeeeech*.....

Today I'm sat looking at the beautiful Brighton seafront back in England. It seems like ages ago that the Vipertones and I were enjoying every minute of our residency at the Half Note Club in Athens, even though it was only last week!

When we arrived on the Friday 5th we had no idea what we would be doing with ourselves for the whole week, outside of the shows we had in the evenings...but that time soon gave way to incredible amounts of site seeing, culture, walking, vinyl shopping, ouzo, sandal bartering, rude word exchange, expensive coffee breaks, YouTube discoveries, laughing and (for me) sleeping...oh...wait...and more eating...and maybe some more sleeping somewhere in between all that. The guys and I made friends with some dogs who hated each other, and I rooted through a whole load of junk the people in the hills had brought into town to sell. I particularly liked the one man who *only* sold super glue on a very small stand, stood next to the man with no teeth and a handful of silver forks. There are amazing ancient grounds and buildings surrounding the hotel we were staying in, Athens truly is stunning!

The shows were unforgettable! Each one! Ton, Eric, Phil and Rob played brilliantly, each grabbing a shining moment every night. We really struck a connection with the audiences, and some even came back a second time to see us again. We tried out some new tunes which we are working on for the second album and gave our new Greek friends something no one else had heard before. Thanks to all those who came over at the end of the show for a chat, photo, signed vinyl/cd album. Your warmth was felt by myself and all of the band! Also thanks to the Half Note Staff for looking after us so well! We look forward to putting in some more exotic orders with Michael and George our new Sound buddies, and a return to the smoky Batman Bar some time. We took some photos of the crowd on a couple of nights, and of course a bunch of idiotic ones of ourselves being proper tourists and showing off. They will be up on our website soon! We did an interview with En lefko Radio while we were there which was fantastic, and also a television interview just before a show one night. The promotion for our shows in Athens has been very impressive, even achieving a four-page spread in a sports paper! We felt VERY welcome.

So what happens now? Well! Let me tell you!

This Friday we have a live performance on a rather important television show in the Netherlands. We will appear on 'DE WERELD DRAAIT DOOR' (Holland's equivalent to the David Letterman Show) on channel Ned3 19.30-20.30 on FRIDAY! This is a great opportunity for us and I can't wait! Somebody PLEASE tell me what I'm gonna be wearing...aarrggghhh!

The next weekend we'll be heading back to Germany for a couple of gigs in Osnabruck and Dortmund...and that is us for this month. But it's getting hotter, I can feel it!! A spring is already in my step!

Laters potatas, Laura x

Press

Week CD - Freefm.de - August 2009

35 crisp successful minutes - sometimes less is more.."

Soullady - triggerfish.de - august 2009

"She has sex appeal and voice, something that one of Ms. Winehouse can no longer claim", "This outstanding musical group is not to be missed"

1beat.de - september 2009

"it is not only her unique voice, but her exuberant personality that their contribution to this album into something special."

Keepitrollin.de - september 2009

"Probably one of the best Soul/Funk album the past ten years." "Stylish and groovy."

The Urban Landscapes Radioshow - Album Promo

Hard-hitting funk biz; Laura Vane is firmly in control; her backing band are one tight unit. Really my kind of funk. Full support for this; more, please! 10 out of 10 - DJ Velanche