Hello to all of the internetz.
How'd ya be?

We here at Heritage Centre are very proud to announce that our new E.P. Sidney Maxwell Williamson is released today - Friday 13.10.09.

It's been a long time since we started work on it. We started recording in March and finished in July this year. At the desk was Heritage housemate and handsome man - Fintan Moore. Seems like a long time to record an EP eh? Well, truth be told we recorded 4 songs in one day in March and 2 songs on one day in July. Actually, I tell a lie. There was an extra morning of recording in July too. That morning provided the little extra that the physical EP and iTunes EP have.

We love Fintan. Thanks so much to him for putting up with us.

Then in August we sent the tracks away to the great man Tom McFall in the U.K. A couple of weeks later we had the final mixes. A few revisions were made and the EP was ready to be mastered. That weekend myself and Ciaran got up, to spite the morning and the lack of what it offers us, and went and got the EP mastered in Suite Studios by the gent that is Fergal Davis. It was fun hearing the final tracks at volume through amazing speakers. Excitement!

Big thank you to Tom and Fergal. You made us sound awesome!

Job done. Only artwork now. This process went as smoothly as it always does. Heritage housemate Ian O'Neill already had a concept. We loved it. We worked together until we had the final draft. Big Thanks to Ian for helping us out. Very talented and thoroughly nice chap altogether.

You can see us recording "Stolen It Twice" from the EP here:
..

The EP will be available physically in Tower Records in Dublin and Plugd Records in Cork. More shops to be added soon. Also it will be available on iTunes and various other online distribution stores.

We are playing two dates to celebrate the release of the EP. They are:

18.11.09 Spirit Store  - which is next Wednesday
11.19.09 The Academy 2 - which is next Thursday

Tickets for the show in the Academy 2 are available here. Tickets are selling fast so if you plan on coming I would buy a ticket asap. We would love all you guys to be there to help us celebrate what will be a very special night for us!

These two dates will be the last we do for the year and the start of next year. So if you can't go that long without a fill of HC come join us. We promise it will be an awesome night.

The night won't end there though oh no. We are having an after party in The Globe/Ri Ra. So come join us for all the drunken banter. Conal will be DJ'ing so it'll be some beers and all the said banter. It shall round of the night perfectly we think.

So we'd just like to THANK EVERYONE who made this EP possible. The list is very, very, long. If you buy a copy of the EP you'll see what I mean.

So until next week, goodbye.

Roge

Hello to myspace.

Got some news on the auld gigger front.

Come the 7th of November we will be playing the Tower Records Best of 2009 In-Store. Tower are throwing a massive party to celebrate their 16th birthday and they have asked us at HC to be involved. As far as I know there will be 6 or 7 artists playing. It kicks off at 12. When we know we'll let you know when we are on. Now, to blow another P.A.!!

MCD have kindly offered to organise two shows to coincide with the release of "Sidney Maxwell Williamson". They are as follows:

18th November - Spirit Store - Dundalk
19th November - The Academy 2 - Dublin

The Academy 2 has a smaller capacity than the usual venue(s) we play. We strongly recommend you buy tickets before the show as we expect it to sell out. They are on sale via Ticket Master here.

Support both nights will come from A Plastic Rose. They are an excellent band of men from Belfast. Anyone who saw them at HWCH will testify to this! We met them when we played Belfast earlier this year. Great bunch of lads and we are very excited to have them down. More to announce soon we hope!

These gigs will be the last we do until next year. You may or may not have heard but in the month of September we travelled to Canada to record our debut album. We will be spending the end of the year and early next year putting the finishing touches to the album.

So the other big news is still the release of Sidney Maxwell Williamson on the 13th November.

As a taster you can still download "Stolen It Twice" and "Hold That Thought" for free here. You're welcome! I'll assume the pints are in the post.

As per usual we will have physical copies of the EP to sell at the gigs. They will also be in various record stores across the country. They have a little somthin', somthin' extra to them. I guess you'll just have to buy one to find out what that is eh?!

The EP is at all radio stations now so please, if you can, request us? We'd be ever so greatful. We always miss when we are played on radio for some reason but for this EP we will shift work pressing our ear to the nearest transistor.

We have become more friendly to the other ways of the the interwebz. I can haz cheezburger and all that palaver.

You can find us on Facebook here.
You can follow us on Twitter here.
You can join us on Last FM here.
You can join us for more "You Are" on YouTube here
Think that's about it for now.

More "Sidney Maxwell Williamson" stuff to announce soon.

Now, that endless search for a fresh pair of joggers continues.

Roge

Howdy,

Lots of goodness for you here. Have a read. Let us know what you think.

The big news is that on the 13th of November we are releasing our EP "Sidney Maxwell Williamson.

The EP was recorded in Apollo and Sun Studios in March and July this year. It was tracked and produced by Fintan Moore and our good selves. It was mixed by the awesome Tom McFall (Weezer, Bloc Party, Snow Patrol, R.E.M, Stars) in July of this year. We think both him and Fintan done an excellent job. Hopefully our contribution wasn't too shabby!

The final tracklisting is as follows:
1.Stolen It Twice
2. Throw Stones; It's Easy
3. Free Out Here
4. Whatever
5. I Will Protect You
6. Hold That Thought

As an extra special gift for those of you who buy it on iTunes you will get "Space & Time" as a bonus track. It may be popping up in random spots too. Obvious and not so obvious places!

At the moment you can preview it on our myspace player but as an extra special gift of types you can download "Stolen It Twice" and "Hold That Thought" here.

Don't say we're not good to you!!

If you want to view the artwork click here.

The EP should be with all the radio stations by the end of the week. Could you do us all a favour? When you're bored, you know studying or like such as, could you request it on the radio for us? You will? Thanks. Have some free songs, wait, I already told you of these! Go - download!

Also feel free to share this information with as many people as you would like to!!

Tour dates are being finalised at the moment. As soon as we know them they will be up on the page. Check back for updates!

We done a photoshoot with the super talented and very handsome Enda Doran to tie in with the EP's release. Basically we spent a few hours up a tree dressed in home made, full-on parachute regalia. The fruits of Enda's as per usual amazing work can be seen here.

I think I've crammed in all the SMW stuff in there. If not, expect edits.

We set up a few new interwebby sites:
We set up a facebuke. Add us. Everyone seems to be on "The Buke" these days so join us there.

We also, for those of you who prefer it, set up a Last Fm. As with the Facebook add us if you are a user. Seems to be one fantastic device.

A nice little site we found through a friend was Bandcamp. This is the site where you can download "Stolen It Twice and "Hold That Thought" from "Sidney Maxwell Williamson for free. As an added bonus from that very same site you can download our debut EP "The City, The Tree and The Fox" for FREE. I won't hear of you paying for it again. All the free stuff under one digital roof. Great! Pass the knowledge on to those you think would care!

Also stay tuned for more of the "You Are" series. We have been super busy the last few months so things like "You Are" have suffered. Expect a lot more where that came from!

Last Friday we made our return to the live circuit at the "Hard Working Class Heroes" festival. We were all quite nervous. With a radio session sucessfully negotiated we made our way around to watch some bands. Our favs from the weekend were - Heathers, A Plastic Rose, Pocket Promise, Adebisi Shank and We Cut Corners. Think the lads went to many more gigs. There was tooo much to see!

Our gig went very well. I think we played very tight for we had but one jam in the previous 7 weeks. We debuted two new songs, drank a few beers, talked to some cool people and had a laugh. Love having the laughs!

Return to playing live - a success I would say!

During the month of September just gone we lads in HC took a trip. We went to Canada to record our debut album with the gent that is David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals, Los Campesinos). We had a blast of a time recording and eating crab. The album is being mixed as we speak. It won't be realeased until next year so we will tell you stories, show you tracks and all that jazz closer to that time. Lets get SMW out of the way first eh!

Jesus that was long.

If you read it all well done and thanks!

Roge

Hello, Hazzah, Good Eve.

It's been a while since we've blabbed at each other. I will give a full field report on the haps and mis-haps from Heritage Central soon.

Just a quick blogotheque to let you know that our new EP "Sidney Maxwell Williamson" is up on our player for you all to enjoy. So go, use your ears to factorise.

We have take down "The City, The Tree and The Fox" FOREVER!

If you want it, you can have it. I won't so much as hear of taking a penny off you for it.

You can download it for free here:

http://heritagecentre.bandcamp.com/

Go, enjoy.

Until soons.

Roge

Hello Squires and Rogues.

It's been a while I know but when I'm not at practice I am on a bus or asleep. Still trying and failing to get a half fare. Maybe it's the beard?

So many things have happened as always since we finished. I'll tell you a few nuggets shall I?

Last week we hit the M1 in our newest method of transport. The Pigeon 206. I must (and may we all) pass my condolences onto Ciaran for the death of the Red Bullet. She served him and us very well. RIP. Anyway, the M1 was hit, we were set for the first of our two farewell gigs. This one was in The Spirit Store in Dundalk. We thought we'd use the opportunity to try out one of the brand new songs. It went down very well I thought even if we didn't play it the best. As always gigs in the Store are a treat. Big thanks to Blind Pilots and Heathers for supporting us on the night.

So that was the first of the farewell gigs. The other you ask? Well it's this Friday the 28th of August in Whelans. It's our last gig before we head to Canada to record our debut album with acclaimed producer David Newfeld (Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals, Los Campesinos). We shall be playing songs off our last EP, songs off our unreleased next EP, songs that are brand new and songs that are reworked. Support on the night comes from We Cut Corners and Offshore. We've had the pleasure of playing with both of these bands before. You won't be disappointed let me tell you. We would really love to see as much of you there as possible to help us celebrate our trip. It will be our last gig anywhere until November. We promise we'll make you smile.

The album will be released some time next year. We wouldn't leave you waiting until then for new music though, oh no! We are pleased to tell you guys that come the 23rd of October this year you will be able to get your hands on our new EP "Sidney Maxwell Williamson". I will give you the track-listing closer to that date but I will tell you it has 6 songs on it. We recorded the songs over 2 days. One day in March and another in June 2009. It was mixed by Tom McFall (Weezer, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party). He done an awesome job on it. Can't wait for everyone to hear the results! There will be a nationwide tour to support the release. Details are just being finalised at the moment.

Well that's night for now methinks.

I'm off to find the nearest rehearsal space/bus/bed.

Good morn'

Roge

Well.

One day late this week. The Bank Holiday threw me off. Thought today was Monday. It is not. It is Tuesday. If you want to be technical I forgot to publish this so it's Wednesday

The majority of this week was spent holed up in our practice room writing. We took one old song apart. We had all the Lego pieces in front of us and wondered what we could make with these pieces that was better than before. The answer was simple. We needed some new pieces. So we fabricated them. Added them to the new structure and a new song was born. It's sounding pretty good. Hope we can play it live at the next few gigs. We also got together the bones of about 4 new songs. They just need similar treatment. They are not ready for it yet though. A decent structure is needed before dismantling. Think that brings the grand total to 34 songs. Not bad at all mon cherie.

On a balmy Saturday morning me and Ciaran went to get our next EP mastered by the excellent Fergal Davis in Suite Studios. It's funny going from hearing the songs straight from the desk, then mixed and then mastered. They change so drastically. For the better we hope. Well we know. We are all very happy with the results. So after 3 hours of mastering we had the final product. All we have left to do is approve artwork and get the EP pressed. I've been informed the name is definitely "Sidney Maxwell Williamson". It will be hitting your ears in October on Myspace and the physical release will be in November.

We put a new song up on our Myspace player for few days earlier in the week. It was called "In My Imagination". Hope you had a chance to listen to it. If you did what did you think? It's one we are thinking of doing for the album. It will need a little rebuilding but it's almost there. There will be another new one up on Friday.

You may have noticed we didn't have the next installment in the "You Are" series up this week. Why? Well, we are the reason. When we got the camera it was all a bit of a novelty. So the sheer amount of chaff we recorded that was little or no use is astounding. So we spent the time whittling down what we could actually use. We are back on course for this week. We promise.

On Monday night we traveled to Oldcastle in Meath to play the Le Cheile Festival. We had never played it before but had only heard great things from other bands that had. It was quite the cool venue. So we hung around. Watched a few bands, hung out with some cool people and basically had a great time. We may have played at some point too! Thanks to all at Le Cheile for having us down.

Right.

That's all that happened last week.

Plenty more already happening this week.

Until Monday,

Roge

It's a new week.

Stuff has happened since the last week.

Here it is:

Early last week the (on it's last legs) Red Bullet hit the M1 straight to Liams house. Our mission? To play the Spirit Store and maybe enjoy a home cooked meal. We weren't let down, a full spread for the HC boys again. Triumph! So we scoffed the lot and hit the Store to play with the good lads of Curtain Thieves. As per usual the Store has a great crowd/sound so of course we enjoyed it. Also the songs from our next EP are sounding pretty good live if I do say so myself.

We stayed up in Liams that night. Liam being the DOP that he is put together the next part of our Webisoap - "You Are".

This one is called "You Are At Phantom". It was an interview we done for "The City, The Tree and The Fox" launch in Whelans:

....



After a good 4 hours sleep or so we got up, ingested Corn Flakes and hit the garage. This day we had two items on the itinerary:

1. Finish EP artwork.
2. Do promo photographs for the EP tour.

So, well yeah, we successfully completed said itinerary with the help of the wonderful Enda Doran. Can't really say too much other than I really think they will look cool. Well Enda is involved so they will even if we don't! If I told you about them though where would the surprise be? Cilla wouldn't be a fan of ruining the surprise. We have more than one thing in common.

That night in the wee hours, still in Liams of course, we uploaded another of the album demos. This one is called "Everything I Trust Turns To Dust". It's the top song on our player so if you want to get a musk of what the album will comprise of take a listen. Go on, it's free. Well, for a while. Then we're taking it down.

Of a Sunday we had a gig at the Knockanstockan Festival in Wicklow. Really cool festival. We were afraid we were going to get rained out, as we are coming into Middle Winter so the rain is totally justified, but alas about 30 minutes before we played the sun shone. Through clouds but shone none the less. We played in the mouth of a giant fish. I must say it was the most pleasant experience I've ever had in the mouth of a fish. We stayed around and caught a few bands, had a snack or 2 and set Yoda for home.

We were hoping when we got back the first batch of mixes for the EP would be waiting in our inbox. They were. So we all listened quite intensely. They sound great . Wish you could here them. Well you can, just not now. Soon. OK? Oh yeah, this EP I'm rabbiting on about. It's called "Sidney Maxwell Williamson". I probably should have shoehorned that in by now.

Last bit of great news:

What you doing on the 28th of August? Well I'll tell you where you could be. Whelans with us! We decided that since we are heading off to foreign soon and we may not get to play for a long time we'd head off in style. It may also help us with the last bit of cash towards the album so come support the HC boys. We won't let you down.

That's it.

Night.

Roge

Good Monday.

Trust all is well apart from the fact it's Monday. Actually fuck Bob Geldof, I love Mondays.

Anyways, what's happened in the last week of Heritage Centre I hear you ask with your brain?

This is what:

Last Wednesday the lads went up to Dundalk to begin building what we hope to be the cover of our next EP. Paint, wood and all sorts of Pat Sharp paraphernalia were purchased and put to good use. Remember when he used to put a camera up high and build something awesome? It's somewhat like that. We should be heading up this week to finish it off hopefully.

Liam also used the time to edit together some of the footage we have recorded over the last few months. Most of the footage revolves around gigs around the country and us recording and well all things Heritage. That camera is always about! It will be the first in a series. The first one is from our gig in Dolans, Limerick in February. Enough talk, if you want to see it, here it is:

You Are In Limerick:


The next installment should be this Wednesday.

On Friday we had a gig to play. Well looking forward to this we were. Hadn't played in almost two weeks. The longest time for us in about 6 or 7 months. We were there to support the excellent One For The Team for their last gig of their recent tour. It was a really great gig. I was just thinking. We've probably played upstairs in Whelans maybe 15 times or more in those 6 or 7 months I was talking about. Can't remember them all but I will remember this one.

On Saturday morning me and Conal had to record our parts to the last song for the EP. It was an early start (8.30, on a Saturday) so we ambled down with Ciaran and bought coffee/sugar based drinks to keep the eyes open. We spent the guts of 5 hours there and we almost got everything done but a much larger task faced us that day.

Ciaran used the time between our fluffs (well mine) in the studio to put up one of the demos we have done for the album. It's a song we played live up until about 2 months ago. Check it out, tell us what you think. It's called "Don't You Ever Give Up On Yourself" and it will be up on our player for another few days. There will be a new one this Friday so look out for that.

After getting back to HQ and having one of the finest Centra rolls man could buy we were ready for our mission of the day. A gig in Donegal. Glencolumbkille to be exact. The coordinates were loaded into the sat nav. Yoda gave us the news. 4 and a half hour trip. We didn't think the red bullet would be up to it. She's has been sounding awful ill of late but had yet to give the death rattle. We put all our trust in her and got there safe. We were invited up as guests to a Donegal battle of the bands competition. It was real fun to play somewhere the vast majority of people haven't heard of you. I hoped we entertained them. The €1 shots seemed to help! Hung around after for some free burgers then the red bullet set course for home. We got home safe and sound at around 6.30 in the a.m. Bed was the only thing we were fit for.

Last night myself and Conal went to finish off recording our parts for the EP with Stephen. We had a little more time so we used it to finish of the song good and proper. It's a quiet number but it sounds really good. Can't wait for you guys to hear it. The EP is off to be mixed today so we literally finished it on the last day possible. We still haven't got word on the release date but as always as soon as we know you'll know.

Well that's all that happened since last Monday.

Talk next week.

Roge

Here we go, part 2 of what we are going to be up to for the next couple of while.

We started work on the album recently. We have written a lorra, lorra songs. Most are there, a lot of them need the screws turned and a few just need to be stripped down and built back up again. Seems like we finalised our producer and eveything is looking good. Actually, lets talk about this EP we are releasing first eh?!!

We will release our second EP at the end of October or the start of November. We are just trying to lock down dates for the tour and as soon as we have them, we will know exactly when the release date will be. The working title is the "Sidney Maxwell Williamson EP". We have all the song but one recorded and a bit of piano left on another. We shall step in once again this week with Fintan to finish these off and get them the remaining tracks mixed and ready for mastering. What else can I tell you about it? Eh, it's seven tracks long. We have still to decide the order of the tracks but we should have an idea once they are mixed. The artwork should be sorted pretty soon too depending on us remembering what Don Conroy thought us as kids. The tour as usual will see us visiting every corner of the country and possibly our first trips to the UK. Stay tuned to the shows section to see when the big red van rolls into your town!

From this week on we are going to be updating the myspace quite regularly since we have barely done a tap in the two months. We've decided to put a routine to it. Of a Monday we will post a blog letting you know what we've been up to the week before. We're going to be pretty busy the next few months so it'll be really cool to document what we are at even if it's just for us! Of a Wednesday we will put up a new video of what we've been at the last few months. We bought a video camera back in Feb/March and ever since then it's gone everywhere with us. We have oodles of footage which now just needs to be whittled down into fun-size chunks for your eyes to feast upon. Of a Friday we will put up a demo for a few days. As I said - we have been writing an album the last month or so. We have 30 songs on the board and have demoed a little over 20. So come Friday we'll lash one up. They are nothing special. One mic on everything, one take wonders, guitars out of tune here and the but we thought it would be cool to let you guys see where we are at.

We are slow little sloths here in HCHQ. Waiting until the last minute to join the internet revolution. Well that's not true, it just took us a while to learn how to use that Twitter gadget. I mean we could "tweet" (have I got that right?) at people but didn't know how to reply. Well guess what? After an intensive Twitter course from my little sister we can now "Tweet" you, and you, well, all of you really.

"Tweet" us here: www.twitter.com/heritage_centre

We also started what many people seem to have on the internet and not just myspace. I believe it's pronounce "blog"? or "yog" or something? What have I even been doing here? I dunno.
Whatever it is you can check it out here: heritagecentre.wordpress.com

Also hit us up on Last Fm. An unreal invention that I never really paid attention too until the last few days. It's chuffin' great.
We iz ere, innit: www.last.fm/music/Heritage+Centre

I think we've just got internet on our practice room so we are going to take advantage of a great tool we just put on our page. Basically we will be streaming live most of our rehersal from our practice space. To look on us from the internet go to our myspace. Below the video for "I WIll Protect You" is the usteam app. There should be a picture of us on it. All you will have to do is press play to see us slogging it out. We will bulletin you guys to let you know when we will be rehearsing. It's all a little Big Brother but hey, wouldn't you rather be watching us than those fools in London? I hope so!

Think that's it for now. I'm sure I've forgotten something. I always do. I am currently sans iPod. Leave things everywhere me.

Hope you all have a great week.

Until next Monday.

Roge