Hello world, below is a review taken from the Loughborough Echo, it refers to our support gig for the band Ash:

Here is a review taken from Ultimate-Guitar.com, to see the page in full, follow this link http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/summaries/unsigned_artists_of_the_month_march_2008.html-

Please read and enjoy:

Penfold Gate boasts all the credentials necessary to feature in this monthly feature. One may recall the Shepshed 4-piece on the UK’s Channel 4 show, ’The JD Set’, or, alternatively from the band’s supporting slot for the Futureheads a while back, which, in the band’s brief career is no mean feat. The band’s myspace page lists the band as Melodramatic Popular Song/Powerpop/Folk; in simple terms, this translates as Indie, only this band is a little too intelligent to be pigeonholed like that. Potion is the stand out track in Penfold Gate’s repertoire, with its sharp guitar work and bouncing bass grooves. The track remains a rarity in that it is not often that one listens to a song and can sincerely admit that, regardless of genre, everything comes together perfectly well, as is the case in the seamless transition from verse to chorus on Potion. The chorus itself is intrepidly gallant, and epitomises the band’s work, with soaring backing vocals and sharp jabbing upper cutting lyrics that come to the fore. The vocals are very English, and the humour is there for all to hear and appreciate.

Of course, not Indie band is complete without its own distinctive image, and upon further investigation, it seems to transpire that these guys have a penchant for Batman And Robin fancy dress; this is fitting considering that the band’s myspace is quite cryptic regarding the band members’ names, and I can only quote them as: Ste ’Batman’ Smith (drums); Robbie ’Klaus Ubersex’ Jones (bass); Pete ’The Boy Robin’ Flood (guitar); and finally, I don’t actually know! Therefore, it becomes paramount to UG’s cause to find out. Pester Penfold Gate with myspace friend requests, comments and messages and find out the identity of the missing band member! They’re so underground they’re superheroes, and you simply have to hear them, and watch the live video on the band’s myspace page.

That’s some good shit right? Thanks to Sam for the review.

pfg

x 

Taken from Art of Noise blog - http://the-art-of-noise.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-heads.html - thanks!

Talking 'Heads

The Futureheads/Grammatics/Penfold Gate, Loughborough University, 19th January 2008

Leicester's problem with the live scene for a while has been that while there's a few good small venues, for the most part in recent years there's been nothing in size between the Charlotte (capacity 390) and De Montfort Hall (2200). However, following a change of venue management Leicester and Loughborough universities, with capacities round about the 800 range, are now starting to get their acts together in terms of booking bands all year round to gain a foothold in the touring fraternity, which for a city often overlooked in favour of Northampton or Nottingham can only be a good thing. Attracting bands of this calibre out to the east Midlands' foremost part-sporting development centre of excellence's student union is part of the result. (Or at least that's by and large what the promoter told me when he buttonholed me.)

Quite aside from having a singer who looks like a scaled-down version of Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta, locals Penfold Gate are no slouches, having appeared on some sort of Channel 4 Music unsigned band competition thing (no, not that one). If at moments they resemble the kind of wide-eyed band whom an unscrupulous major label might mold into a Hoosiers-type image, they seem far too smart to fall for the easy route to the charts - there's more than a little of the just down the road Young Knives in their wide-eyed indiepop as it used to be with smart, witty lyrics. They've brought quite a few friends along by the looks of it too, and make a lot more by throwing a good number of CDs out into the throng mid-set. Also of note: the guitarist ends the set seemingly playing guitar with his left hand and keyboard with his right like Battles' Ian Williams, although his set-up is probably more advanced than a mini-Korg.

Leeds' Grammatics are nowhere near such an easy proposition. The sort of sound that omnipresent Myspace descriptive tag of 'Melodramatic Popular Song' was made for, for the most part they tend towards interlocked post-rock portentious complexity, not quite as heavy on pedals as most, although there's a lot of delay used, and with a cellist, apparently in her second gig, creating soaring vapour trails across the sound, but it's definitely in the ballpark of what gets called the Sonic Cathedral in some quarters, along the lines of the long lost Hope Of The States or much touted Leicester outfit Kyte. Sometimes, as with recent single Shadow Committee, the controlled noise resolves itself into giddy jerkiness not far from Les Savy Fav at their most awkward. They're not quite at their cathartic peak here and a lot of people clearly don't follow what's going on, but there's quite a lot here to suggest their quoted influence from Cursive could take them along similar cult lines.

You have to feel some pangs of sympathy for the Futureheads. Dropped by 679 Recordings when they followed up their number 11 album with number 12 follow-up News And Tributes, they've had to watch the whole post-punk revival world flatten out and take advantage of the sound they brought into play back in 2003, not least the Killers, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party, the bands they went on the 2005 NME tour with (Manchester Evening News: "If you were to put a bet on any of these NME tour bands to go the distance, then The Futureheads rise head and shoulders above the crowd") And yet that debut might well end up being anointed as the very best to come out of this mid-00s revivalist scene, still standing up today as it did three and a half years ago as an unsettled, unsettling wonder. It's no wonder they play eight tracks from it here, opening with Meantime; it is interesting, though, that they only do one, single Skip To The End, from News And Tributes. It barely matters, actually, as this audience is up for it, Barry Hyde, tonight sporting the curious sartorial choice of a leather waistcoat with nothing beneath but topped off with a bow tie (which eventually comes loose and has to be literally wrung out with sweat), moved to comment on the energy levels and that "you're better than Warwick". In fact, they contravene the usual method by starting the pit from halfway back during the second song, superior recent free giveaway Broke Up The Time.

Oh yeah, the third album, scheduled for their own Nul Records in March. Six new songs are played, and while not all work those that do - The Girl With The Radio Heart, tentative title track This Is Not The World, proper single The Beginning Of The Twist - prove adversity has not dulled their way with a fractured melody, guitar interplay or harmonic call and response vocal, meaty riffs placing them largely somewhere between Meantime and News And Tributes' Cope. Some of the old songs are teased out a bit in places, but on Hounds Of Love Hyde doesn't need to deploy his old routine of dividing the room in half, everyone not just singing along with Ross Millard on the intro but adding Jaff's counter-vocal before he can. They're confident enough to ignore First Day and end with old B-side Piece Of Crap, which helps reinforce that it's like they've never been away...

 

The Search For the Key to the Penfold Gate

INTRO

Pete: Welcome one and all. Tonight's performance will take the form of a heroic quest. The Search for the Key to the Penfold Gate.

Ste: Hold up, I'm just having a bit of sex with this pile of sick.

Robbie (vomiting): I volunteer that Ste be arrested.

Pete: Let me set the scene and introduce the players. The year is 1536, and we find ourselves in a tiny hamlet in rural England. On drums we have Ste 'Batman' Smith. On Bass guitar, Robbie 'Klaus Ubersex' Jones. On guitar, 'tis I,  Pete 'The Boy Robin' Flood. The play begins as Batman returns from a hard day pouring cocktails for business types.

AERIALS

Ste: My house! It's fucking burnt! All of my mates were in it! Forget metaphors for apathetic tendencies, I'm really quite pissed off!

Pete: Up in the distant hills, Klaus Ubersex views Batman's plight through his magical glass trumpet.

Robbie: Oh great glass phallus! Show me my foe! I see you Batman. Oh, how I laughed as I set alight your thatched hovel. They call me Klaus the Destroyed, and I long to see you brought to your knees!

Pete: Having nowhere else to go, and feeling a little upset, Batman leaves the village by way of a passing hay cart. Something inside him tells him he should seek the help of someone wise... and preferably old. Joining him on his valiant quest is I, The Boy Robin. We recently entered into a civil partnership. The cart enters somewhere resembling The Village of The Damned.

Ste: More like the damned ignorant! No one is saying a single word that they mean. They're all severely retarded!

NO ONE IS SAYING

Ste: Robin, I tell thee, I can't deal with this village anymore. In that tavern a seemingly kindly old crone tried to sell me her left breast. She claimed it was a campus map of Michigan State University.

Pete: Yes Batman, we must leave this forsaken place. I seem to have inadvertently acquired a deaf swan in a box of fine cigars.

Ste: Insanity! Let's get rat arsed!

Robbie: It is the morning after, and Batman and Robin wake to find themselves sprawled naked outside of Loughborough Crown Court.

Ste: I hate being a superhero. You have a few too many drinks and you find yourself thrust into the future.

Pete: Why is my swan bleeding Batman?

Ste: Ahem. Never mind that. Fetch me coffee Robin. I shall then, in effect, have caffeine after alcohol.

CAFFEINE AFTER ALCOHOL

Robbie: I have followed my archrival Batman and his hopelessly camp sidekick across the stretches of time. I will ensure their immediate demise! But wait, they appear to have just conversed with a wise looking old man!

Ste: Well, that was certainly a useful chat I had there Robin. This old bloke just told me that in order to find and destroy my mysterious foe, I must first find The Key to the Penfold Gate, then open the gate itself. He says it's behind an old mattress somewhere along the A6. They key is called... The Heartache.

Pete: That's a rather pathetically limp name for a magical key.

Robbie: My foes are acting quite strangely. Why are they searching through mounds of discarded shit alongside a motorway?

Ste: Robin! Here it is!

HERE IT IS

Ste: 'Tis a glorious looking object Robin.

Pete: How can you be sure that's the key Batman? It looks like issue number 34 of The Adventure of The Outsides, published by DC comics.

Ste: Because inscribed inside is the following message: 'myspace.com/penfoldgate'!

Robbie: The time has come to act. They have found the key to the portal to my dimension. I must prevent them from proceeding any further! (plays a face-tearing bass riff wearing a face of anguished superiority).

Pete: Are you OK Batman? You look a little pale...

Ste: Worry not about me Robin (coughs). Well, you could worry a little. Something rather enormous seems to be coming out of my backside. Could you possibly check it out for me?

Pete (inspects): Um... I don't know how to put this Batman, but you appear to be giving birth to a fine example of Edwardian furniture.

Ste: Ah Christ, this really is not pleasant. Oooooohhhh....

Pete: Bloody hell this is gorgeous. A fully varnished writing bureau. Can I have it?

Ste: No. I have strong paternal feelings towards it. I shall name it Karen.

Robbie: MWA H A HA HA HA. I have sapped his strength; he cannot continue now.

Pete: Batman, I have brought you the only elixir I know that can help you now.

Ste: By the gods, 'tis my last hope. A single Archers and lemonade. (Downs drink and jumps into action) I haven't felt this alive in years!

ALIVE IN YEARS

Pete: After much arduous travelling and many a terrifying experience, we arrived at the mystical and wondrous Penfold Gate.

Ste: Robin! We are here! Quickly, use the key to open the gate! Let us learn what the point of our quest has been!

Pete: Alright (proceeds to open gate).

Robbie: Ahah! 'Tis I, the demonic Klaus Ubersex! I was the one who burnt your house Batman, I am the one who will soon rule small parts of rural Britain with an iron first!

Ste: Oh for fuck's sake, not you. Robin, you remember this wanker don't you?

Pete: Didn't he used to walk your great dane?

Robbie: Shut your mouths! I plan to destroy you!

Ste: Why us Klaus?

Robbie: Because it is written in the scrolls that two fateful young gentlemen very much like yourselves will destroy me and open the gate to their futures!

Pete: Now you mention it, I am feeling a little Klaus-traphobic.

Ste: With surprising ease, Klaus is vanquished. REJOICE! We thrust open the Penfold Gate. Suddenly everything is clear! Robin and I know our true path!

THE MANDATE

Penfold Gate welcome you bossomly! Click HERE to download the first AUTHORISED Penfold Gate podcast! Thats right Fox News, you can imitate all you like, but this is the real thing...

Wolf it down you meat hungry hounds!

Immaculate conception is a concept shared by many religions. Jesus and Bhudda, for example, were born unto this world via a virgin birth. Apparently.

Also, Zeus once turned into a swan and raped someone. This is not particularly relevant, but does follow in a similar theme.

Penfold Gate were born in this way.

A middle aged man named Kenneth Cook, who worked in educational publishing, came home late one night and complained to his wife of abdominal pain. With a mild disinterest (their marriage had long ago become a farce, kept together merely to avoid social embarrassment) his wife phoned the village doctor, who interupted his weekly dark acts in the pond and rushed to Kenneth's bedside.

For a long time nothing happened. Kenneth merely writhed and moaned, pausing occasionally to mutter in strange toungues under his breath. Then, as the clock struck 02.00 and a depressed starling hit the bedroom window, Kenneth's mouth opened. Audibly (but only just), he muttered four words:

"I... bear... this... child"

To the sound of a single acoustic guitar, and a pulsing purple light, Penfold Gate stepped coquettishly out of Kenneth Cook's savaged abdomen. They smiled briefly at the pale and wide-eyed faces of Mrs Cook and the doctor, and threw themselves out of the bedroom window.

Reaching the ground, newborn Ste picked up the dying starling, who was really, really sad, and put it down the front of his pants. There was a slight bleet from the starling, then load munching sound, but then silence. Ste grinned.

"Still fucking got it" he said. Pete laughed and wiped away a little bit of vomit.

"I hope that the day never comes when you stop making me sick Stevo" he murmured to himself, and they stepped out onto the dark village road.

The rest, as they too often say, is history.