Pretty much our entire catalogue thus far is now available for your listening pleasure on last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Tugboat

Several tracks are available to download as of now as well, likely with more to come. If we can flush out all the 8-bit listeners we'll put the whole catalogue up for free :) 

Enjoy!

Hello Peoples!
We are back jamming in Jimmy's new House of Hits in East Brunswick, Jeremy's loaded in a big old retro P.A. and my drums are living there to better facilitate spontaneous jam sessions. I have finished vocals on a song written by my pal Adam Spellicy called "Until Our Hearts are Broken" and we are gearing up to do guitars on it any day now.... it's great fun to be back in the saddle, and in true Tugboat style we have an excellent newie we surprised ourselves by writing in a little over 15 minutes.... who knows we may even play a show this year.

Happy southern hemisphere summer..

During Bek's whirlwind visit back to Melbourne we managed to squeeze in the recording of a brand new song.

Recorded specifically for the new christmas compilation on the Traffic Sounds label, "Two Summers" is something a bit different for us, with lots of blips and wibbles and other electronic-type sounds. We'll put the song up here in a little while, but in the meantime you can hear it on this page. The compilation is called "I Don't Want Anything For Christmas" and is a corker.

In other less Tugboat-y news, I have been helping Melbourne band Nici Blue Eyes record their new EP and it's shaping up very nicely indeed. The Sand Pebbles' new album Ceduna has just returned from mastering and is sounding great, and the remix I engineered for Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips has just been released on their new EP "Variations".. sharing disc space with the delightful company of Tony Visconti and Sonic Boom, among others...

I'll be replacing the songs on the player here in a few days, so if there's anything you've not gotten around to downloading yet, get on it!

til next time..

Happy spring to all.

Bek and I have taken advantage of Bek's brief return to Melbourne to work on some Tugboat stuff. There's still heaps left to do on the album - which at this stage won't surface til early next year - but we've got a bunch of our guests lined up and it's already shaping up to be a very fun record to make.

In the meantime we've nearly finished a new track for a compilation (more details to come on this one) - it's a huge departure for us stylistically but it was a total blast to make. A snippet will be up here very shortly..

The only other news right now is that we're back to being a three piece for various reasons. Also there won't be any gigs from us this year, but we're working on some very special things for the future.

In the meantime, I have joined Light Music Club and we can be seen quite frequently around Melbourne town.. check the LMC page for gig details.

til next time
James/tugboat

While Bek is in Europe and Jeremy enjoys his new fatherhood, I've been keeping very busy doing almost anything other than working on our third album (argh!)..

I've been doing lots of recording and mixing for others though.. here's the rundown:

During late '05 and early '06 I recorded (and played bass on) most of the brand new Popolice EP "Middle Ground". My recording job on it is the only thing about it that isn't genius. Marc is easily one of my favourite Aussie songwriters and all four songs are nothing less than great. Check it out:   http://www.myspace.com/popolice

Not so long ago I helped Go Spot Run out with a 3-song demo. Recorded nice and quickly (by my standards anyway!) it captures their essence pretty well I think. Go here: http://www.myspace.com/gospotrun

I've been doing bits and pieces for Light Music Club  (http://www.myspace.com/lightmusicclub) but there's nothing new out there yet.. watch this space. One day I hope to record some 'proper' LMC recordings, which will rule the earth.

I've helped out with a couple of very small bits and pieces (assuming they make the final cut!) on the upcoming Cor'delle EP which sounds incredible so far. So much talent in this little town that goes underappreciated! Go here:  http://www.myspace.com/somewhatfoolish

Next weekend, the debut album by Kurosawa goes to mastering. It's been a labour of love over the last (nearly) year or so but the results are fantastic. Recorded and mixed by myself and Bek Varcoe, it's one of the classiest and dreamiest moody pop records you'll hear this year. Watch this space: http://www.myspace.com/kurosawadreams

Last but not least, over the last two months I've been immersed in recording the fourth album by Melbourne's own kings of psychedelia, the Sand Pebbles. I can tell you now - this album will knock your bleeding socks off. It's not just a trip, it's a tremendous pop record too, and guaranteed to be their loudest record yet (if I can at all help it!). Don't snooze: http://www.myspace.com/sandpebbles

Phew! And once all that's done, it's Tugboat time. As Duffman would say, OH yeah!

Tugboat are pleased to announce that after various delays, our new EP Rushes is finally done and ready to go!

The EP features 6 songs, and over 25 minutes of music. Two tracks from the EP are available here for you to preview and download. Enjoy!

In other news, Tugboat will be taking a small break from band activities for the first half of 2007, due to Bek and Steve being overseas with Heligoland for the next six months. However there will still be some activity! James will be working on editing and recording parts for the as-yet-untitled third album, which we're aiming to have done well before the end of this year. We can only hope!

til next time
Tugboat

hello again from Tugboat-land..

The release of the EP has been slightly delayed due to some problems with the printing of the sleeve.. but we hope to have these all sorted out within the next week or so. Apologies to anyone hanging out for it, we promise it will be worth the wait.

In other news, we have made a big start on the recording of our next album. The music has all been written and we've started on 10 of the 13 possible contenders. While it's difficult to say at this point how it's all going to turn out, it's already shaping up to be quite a different piece of work from everything else we've done, and considerably more ambitious. Sneaky peeks will make their way here as things take shape.

I've just uploaded another song from the Rushes EP - the six-minute psychedelic love epic that is "New Colour". It's very different from what you may have come to expect of us..

In other news, Rushes is now all mixed and ready to go, as soon as the artwork is done (and it's only days away) it's off to be turned into a couple of hundred cds. Hurrah.

A track from our new EP, a remix of Round Again (remixed by Clare Moore and Dave Graney) has been uploaded. More to follow very soon..

At some stage during the next month or so, we will be releasing an EP that will go by the name of 'Rushes'.

It will have five songs on it - Round Again, Remain In Light, Flightpath, New Colour and a remix of Round Again by Clare Moore and Dave Graney.

It will be very limited (we're only going to make 100 of them) and may or may not be on 3" cd.

One or more of the songs will be posted here and on the Tugboat Online website.

More news when we have copies in our hot little hands....