We are spending September doing more work on our album before heading into a busy schedule of shows running up to Christmas, so there is lots to be done and we are really excited about it all.

 In October we will be playing a number of UK shows with our old friends from Ontario, Canada, OX. If low fi, neil young esque travelogues are up your street then do not miss these guys... we can not wait.

 Then at the end of November we will make our fifth and final visit to Europe this year making a number of stops in Germany and Holland including a first visit to Berlin and two shows on boats - one in Amsterdam and one in Bremen - as well as a live session on National Radio in Holland.

 See you somewhere on route!

It looks like we will be getting to know the road from Oxford to Bremen pretty well over the next few months...
We had a great tour in Holland and Germany earlier this month and are heading back to Groningen on May 2nd for our biggest European show to date as we play at the 4000 capacity Oosterpoort Arena! It should be a great evening and well worth the road time. Catch us in Amsterdam on May 1st if you can... it will be a squeeze but alot of fun no doubt.
In June we head back to Bremen to play a very special show at the woodlined, sprung floor Radio Bremen concert hall. This will hopefully yield us a live album as well as some great live video footage.
Then in early August we return again for some outdoor shows in Germany before finishing 2009 with a 10 date tour in late November.
Busy times on the road. The big bonus is that Holland and Germany have some of the best record shops on the planet so our record collections are going to look pretty impressive by year close... along with the new epstein album as well!

Indeed, Indeed!!
We were very happy to hear the other day that the surf film which features 6.06pm quite prominently had picked up 2 main awards at this years X-Dance Sports Film Festival in Utah, USA.
Dave Arnold, the director, picked up Best Emerging Filmmaker and the film also snaffled Best Original Score too! This is wonderful news for the film and will go along way to making sure it gets a decent release and widespread distribution. So who knows wo will be enjoying not only the story of the first Indonesian surfer to break into the worlds elite but also the beautiful sounds of th epstein as well?
See you all for a beach gig in Hawaii then?
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_T_QespwJU

 The epstein are thrilled that our instrumental 6.06pm has been widely used throughout a new surf documentary coming out later this year. The film is about the first Indoesian surfer to break into top levels of the sport and has been three years in the making.
The Premier of this film is being held in Utah, USA this week at the sporting version of the Sundance Film Festival and we wish the director and producer David Arnold all the best with it.
Please watch the trailer on the U-Tube link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_T_QespwJU
Cool...

 

We are pleased to say that after a week stowed away in a north london studio the bones of our second album are very much set in place. Ten tracks laid down all in all, and all sounding very nice indeed. There is much to be done yet before we unveil this beautiful new epstein album but we are all very excited about it and hope that you will be too when you hear the songs.
 The aim is to get the tracks finished and mixed by March so we should have this album available by the late spring/early summer.... keep looking at the myspace for the latest news.
 Stay well and see you all real soon!

We are happy to announce that 'Last of the Charaguistas' will be released in Holland in early 2009 through Sonic Rendevouz, a partner of our German distributors Cargo. Booking in Holland is in the hands of Inge at YIMA and we are thrilled to be working with such great people....

The plan is for a small tour of Holland in early April 2009 followed by another nationwide tour of Germany. Keep an eye on the myspace for dates as they go up.

What a first trip....!! Germany was an absolute blast from start to finish and it was sad catching the plane back to Bristol early last Tuesday, although the journey did allow for some sleep catch up after a couple of very long nights at the end of our trip.

Our first show in Oldenburg will go down in epstein history. It had been a long day leading up to the show with both Olly and Jon getting seriously ill in the afternoon before we headed north out of Bremen and at various points it looked like we might not make it.... but make it we did and how well it turned out... great venue (pure retro seventies top to bottom) great crowd (longest clapping we have ever heard) and a great set (Olly and Jon out the otherside from illness and loving the healing qualities of the sauna like conditions..!)Oldenburg we will be back soon.
The return trip to Bremen was filled with music and laughter and we headed south to Koln the following morning a happy band of men. Beautiful city with a great river and a seriously impressive Catherdal. Our night was made when we found out that a couple had travelled 100miles to the show from near the Dutch border and we hope you had a good time. Great venue again (red - top to bottom) Great style (Torben - thanks for having us) and a great set from us (next time we will visit during term time hey!?) Bobby, Jon, Roland and Olly hit the streets late and just about made it back to the hotel (all furnishings pre 1969) after a few street skirmishes.
Friday and Saturday night in Bremen hanging with Heiko, Martina and Frank. Playing our last outdoor gig of the year at the House in the Woods was a huge pleasure and after the torrential downpours of the afternoon it was great to be playing at all... It took a while to get everything sounding right but we got there and we played another blinding set to a good crowd as the moon came up right in front of us. Perfect!
Saturday night saw us down on the river playing in the stern of a great big boat to a small but really attentive crowd. Sometimes the shows that seem like they are going to fall flat just turn out the opposite way and this was one of them. After two encores and a few beers on deck with our new friends Secret Circus (a great new band made up of identical twin brothers now living in Sweden and New Mexico) we headed back to basecamp at Heikos and a few more drinks at the 24 hour working mans bar round the corner... the tour was two thirds done and we were on fire..!
Once again Hamburg proved to be a night to remember. We got the crowd dancing and we got the atmosphere sweaty and intense and it ended with an unplugged version of  Leave your Light On. Perfect show and a perfect night got better and messier as we headed down to the docks for a tour of the drinking dens of the old town. It is so nice to meet folks so proud of where they live and thanks all you guys in Hamburg for taking us out on the town. Next time we will be playing Friday night and not Sunday!!

So to the final show of the tour.. back in Bremen and right out the back of the Dandyland office at the great Arts Theatre that had been feeding us coffee and buscuits and vitamins all week long as we passed through in various states of fatigue.... Could it top all the great shows that we had had? Yes indeed it could and we played a last set for this tour with a great guest appearence from Heiko singing AC/DC ( see YouTube for more) and finished it off with flowers in our hands and lots of promises to return...

Return we will....We had the best of times and the best of shows. It is the greatest thing to feel like you are playing a home town show when you visit a place for the first time and that is how we felt on this tour... pretty much every night....

Thanks to all of you who made us feel so welcome... Heiko, Martina, Christina, Sonia, Daniel, Christian, Frank, Florian, Tomas, Torben, Wolfgang, Hanke and the Hamburg Posse... and all the rest of you lovely people!!

Olly++