365 Days Later...

It has been a year since the Masamune as we know it has been together. It all started on a Sunday afternoon when Jack came for his first jam with Steve and James. The first song we jammed together was Queen Easy. From that day Masamune has grown steadily to this present day. We’re unsigned, but, we feel the progress which we have made in this short time has been good in helping us bond as a band.

Our first outing as a band (11/12/09)

Our first gig was at Josephs (now Plugged Inn, formerly White Rooms) on the 11^th December 2009. The first set we played included Queen Easy, Free Like You, Puppetry, Deadstar (Muse cover), Sphere and Hoax. It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago when we were short of original songs and had to throw a cover into the set. At this moment in time we now have 20 original songs in total (12 of which we have played live and 8 which we are currently practicing for introduction into our set in the near future).

'They are not watching you' E.P. artwork

We have been in the studio on two occasions. The first time we recorded Queen Easy, Yours to Keep, Sphere, and Hoax. A couple of months later we recorded Ivan Sparre and Suffer. Recording these songs to form our debut E.P. ‘They are not watching you’ has enabled us to get our songs on the internet for free download and also on CD (which we give away free at gigs).

Round 1 of Northern Exposure Battle of the Bands

Also, in the past year we have reached the final of a local battle of the bands competition, appeared on a local radio station for an interview and acoustic session, been reviewed in a local magazine, and gigged nearly 20 times. Everything that has happened in the past year has developed us individually and as a band and helped us realise the direction we want to take our music.

Rocking out at The Dog and Parrot, Newcastle

In the next year, we plan to continue working on our music and constantly gigging in order to try to better ourselves and hone our skills further. We hope to gig outside of the North East of England and gain a bigger fan base. But, most importantly we hope to get on the first step of the music ladder so next year we can post a blog titled ‘730 days later...’

Final!

We are through to the Northern Exposure Battle of the Bands final. The final will take place on the 22nd August at Pure from 3pm. It's an all dayer. Thank you to everyone who has came down and supported us throughout the competition. Get yourself along to the final and maybe watch one or two new songs get premiered.

We also played our first Newcastle gig at The Dog and Parrot on the 27th of July.

Masamune during a sound check

Our first review...

We got a pleasant suprise at practice yesterday. We read the free Manifesto Magazine which can normally be found lying around the table in the entrance to The Bunker during the breaks at practice. So, when we casually browsed the 'top tracks' section to see which local bands had made it we were pleased to find our song Hoax had been reviewed. It might not seem like a huge deal, from the outside looking in, as it isn't a national magazine such as Kerrang or NME. But, it is nice to read a first review especially when it is generous.

Long time... No Blog!

A lot has happened since the last blog but haven't updated this mainly because of the fact I don't think anyone reads them because no one certainly responds to them. But, on this occasion I will post an update to document our progress.

First of all, the main news is that we are through to the Northern Exposure Battle of the Bands SEMI FINALS! We are very pleased that we have got this far considering we have only been together for 9 months. The competition has been good for us because it has gave us something to work towards and we have wrote more songs which we feel are getting better as we go on. So we'll look forward to the semi finals in August. We'll have more new songs by then as we have some in the making now and we'll enjoy the the rest of the time we have in the competition with no expectations.

Since we recorded our E.P we have uploaded it to www.masamune.bandcamp.com where you can download it for free just by entering your email address and joining our mailing list. We haven't figured out what to do with the mailing list yet so we guarentee we won't be spamming you every day with emails demanding money for a product on eBay you haven't even purchased.

An alternative to the free electronic download is the free physical copy which comes with artwork. You can get your hands on one of these and the free Masamune badges by coming to one of our gigs.

Bloggy! Bloggy! Bloggy! Oi! Oi! Oi!

An update is what you're expecting? OK then.... what's happened since last blog?

We've recorded an E.P. which you can download for FREE from http://masamune.bandcamp.com

We now have a feature on the BBC Wear Introducing website http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wear/hi/people_and_places/music/newsid_8595000/8595425.stm

A quick update...

It's February. We played The Northern Exposure battle of the bands at Pure on the 10th. It was the first round and we got through. The competition is ongoing and takes place downstairs in Pure every Wednesday and Sunday. Our round 2 heat is scheduled for Wednesday 14th April.

We were also got interviewed after our set at the gig. Listen to our first ever interview below.

Podcast 3 Northern Exposure with Masamune, Prodding Juliet, Mannequin Attic & Blind Visionaries by Annie's Podcast

Christmas is over and the goose is getting skinny...

To ....? (whoever takes time out of their busy schedule and gets round to reading this)

We would just like to say Happy New Year for tomorrow and hope everyone had a jolly good time at Christmas. Here is a quick update which will be kept short and sweet.

We are going to start recording our E.P. in the new year so expect to hear from us within the next couple of months with updates on our progress. We have new songs which need more practice but at the minute the word on the street is that the E.P. will only consist of four of our songs. But, nothing is final yet.

Also, we have another gig at Josephs on the 15th January and would again apprieciate it if anyone who likes what they've heard so far, which isn't a lot, to come along and hopefully enjoy.

We have set ourselves goals for the new year and hope that 2010 will be a good year and also a great start to the new decade.

Masamune