...'A day', they all shouted, with heavy heart and moist eyeballs.

Alas, indeed, we wanted to let you lovely folks know that Underbelly have decided to call it a day after 6 very enjoyable years. There have been ups and downs, wabs and winners, downright scoundrels and feckin first class folks on our journey since May 2003.

It's a fair long time and the day-calling wasn't a lightly taken decision. We've all taken away some amazing experiences and some major lessons from our musical and often alcohol-fuelled journey.

Most of all we've immensely enjoyed how you guys have helped and supported us along the way and how you've made us feel about ourselves and the music we made. It really means a huge amount and all of us want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts, baby.

There will, of course, be a farewell gig – the details of which we shall iron out while we enjoy our annual week in the Highlands – drinking Guinness, going for midnight walks on dangerous paths, making Quinny cook everything and upsetting the girls with our manly flatulence.

The gig will be somewhere in the centre of Edinburgh. A modest-sized venue with a cheerful barkeep and uplifting musical finalé. Finer details to come but we can tell you that it will be sometime between now and into the joys of the summer.

The plus-points are that you won't get any more Belly-related spam from me, post final gig, but every day until then I will send 3 emails a day with another shared memory from the history vault of the Bellies!! (I really won't ; )

So ladies and gents, thank you so much for all your support, whether it was coming to the gigs, giving helpful, encouraging advice, helping us with contacts, telling us which songs were sh1t, and to Keith for his drive and support and to our families (namely Mums and Dads) who will never again say things like:

"so, have you done another CD yet?" (said a week after the release of the last one)

Or
"och, that's a nice wee song – who’s it by?"

Or
"is that distorted sound supposed to be on the recording?"

Or the classic winner:
"oooh, you sound like a real band!"   (I jest of course ; )

If you'd like the 'Empty Faces' CD please go onto iTunes and find us and download a wee copy or we have CDs and will have 'em at the final gig – whenever that is. Best to do iTunes though in the meantime! And we'll leave the MySpace site running for the archives.

Watch our various spaces for future musical projects and apart from that please accept our extended thanks and and we hope to see you all real soon in the pub...

Yours in love and gratitude
Alan D, Simon F, Simon Q, Mikey C
Underbelly
xo

Yes indeed – the Gaelic-speaking community have accepted us. After winning the fav song vote against Anthony & the Johnsons a few weeks back, BBCs Gaeilc radio show Rapal crowned 'Empty Faces' song of the week last week – which was niiice.

'Empty Faces' EP is available now on CD for £3 or on all reputable download sites including iTunes.

Cheers!
Al

The new EP "Empty Faces" is now available to download from iTunes. 

Hi

Yeh, this is quite lovely. We're really proud to announce we've been asked to play in a 5 band line up on 25 October in The Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh, to compete live on stage for this award which would win us, firstly, a slot at the Forth One Awards Ceremony, in The Assembly Rooms, George Street, Edinburgh, in November, but also a support slot with a touring band in The Liquid Rooms as well as airplay on Forth.

Please come along to the gig on Sat 25th October. Tix are £5 and we'd reeeeaaaally appreciate your support.

Cheers
The Bellies
x

Hi there

We are finally releasing the Empty Faces EP. 3 tracks: Empty Faces, Alive Again and If You Could See Me Now will be available on CD as well as online with iTunes, HMV Digital and all respected download sites.

There have been a few obstacles for us this year and a general black hole of time disappearing on my part having been involved in lots of different projects.

But now we're ready to rock. And with upcoming gigs in Herot Watt, Edinburgh (9th October), The Mill, Edinburgh (6 November), The Drawng Room, Glasgow (30 October) and The Roadhouse (London) 23 November we're really getting the momentum going.

With plans for a new photoshoot and video in motion too, plus a few nice reviews for the EP already we're set to rejoin the music scene with style!

Hope to see you at some or all of the shows!
Cheers
The Bellies
x

Edinburgh

This brand new venue is run in conjunction with Miller beer but superbly organised by some very dedicated individuals. This gig, for us, is a very important one.

We get a lot out of it in terms of exposure with billboard, poster and flyer advertising, a live video and a live recording as well as photos and promo on Web and Video casts.

The gig is free entry and tickets must be booked through the website at www.themill-live.com

All very cool. We could really use your support for this one.

It's the perfect helping hand to push the new EP, Empty Faces. We know this is very late in coming out but the songs are still fresh and we've barely touched the surface of how well we can do them live – until now.

Hope to see you there! Thursday 6 November 2008.

It's another review from both Evening News and Music News Scotland...

Alive Again by Underbelly
With this forthcoming single, which you can hear on their MySpace page, Edinburgh-based Underbelly have done it again with another epic tune. The lads have walked the T-Break stage two years in a row in 2005 and 2006, as finalists selected from over 1,000 Scottish band entries. Now it looks as if they're ready to stand on their own feet.

Gary Flockhart – Evening News (June 08)


Underbelly – Number 1 in top 4 Music News Scotland July 08
A new EP from Edinburgh-bsaed Underbelly. Their 2005 single 'Come in to Land' earned them many notable support slots and this is the band's next step before a much-awaited album but before that a tour of Scotland is planned. Some very good sounds.

Hi folks

Happily the answer to the subject seems to be...'yes'.
We happened across this nice review of the upcoming EP. Thank you ITM...


Underbelly – Alive Again (now titled Empty Faces)

With singer-songwriters like Blunty and James Morrisson ten-a-penny and still pretty poor value for money, the importance of the band in fleshing out songs has been undervalued of late. And while it's not clear how much the songwriting in Underbelly is a band effort, certainly the opening chords and verse on 'Alive Again' pretty much check the boxes for tunesmithery and light, delicate chart-friendly pop. However, wait for the chorus and the unprepared may have their roofs blown off - turning a slightly folky tune into a slow-building Snow Patrol-eqsue epic that would fit a stadium better than a folk club.

GIG TONIGHT:

Sorry to say we've had to pull out of tonight's Heriot Watt gig BUT it's for good and unavoidable reason. I've (Alan D) been on uncle alert this last week and this morning, I'm delighted to say, my sister gave birth to a wee boy. Well-chuffed obviously but it's meant we had to postpone our performance tonight. Thanks hugely to Douglas Kay who has kindly stepped in to fill our slot (oo-er).

ON THE RADIO TONIGHT:

In other news we're happy to say that Jim Gellatly will be playing one of new tracks from our Alive Again EP on his 'Xposure' show tonight on XFM (106FM or listen online at www.xfmscotland.co.uk) from 10pm. The single is now going into production and we should be releasing it start of June. It will be available online sometime in the next couple of weeks. More to come on that.

NEXT GIG:

The Ark, East end of Princess Street, Edinburgh
Wednesday 7 May
7.30pm
£2

Cheers!
Underbelly

We’ve finally finished the new single and are well-chuffed with it! We’ve uploaded all three tracks – Alive Again, Empty Faces and If You Could See Me Now.

The CD will be duplicated very soon and we’ll be making the full quality tracks available on iTunes and other online stores. Our mini-site will be launched mid April which means we’ll be taking the old site down.

The mini site will have the 3 tracks, photos from the studio session and some photos from our recent Highland getaway where we started working on yet more new material. The site will also have a few videos and, at some point in the future, specific videos for each of the new tracks. We’re in the Youtube age and feel we need something visual to accompany our new tracks. Actors we are not so don’t expect any outstanding on-screen performances!!

Anyway we hope you like the new tracks. See you at a gig real soooon.

Cheers!
The Underbelly boyos