After many long years of wait the end is here. Yes, HER SMILE by Leo & The Mane is available now.
It is available from Amazon.co.uk, CDBaby.com, Gatefield Sounds -Whitstable and eventually iTunes and Napster. You can also order through me on here or my website leocookman.com.
Please buy it. It cost me a lot of money, time and effort and I think its rather good. Let us know what you think.
Cheers!
Leo

The Launch of previously Blogged Super-Album will be at the Carpenter's Arms in Canterbury on Friday 10th August. Come one, come all!
We are (sadly) Supporting my other band Dalit Freedom, which means we are on first but seeing as this is the only gig I've been able to get in the vicinty full stop I took it.
Upon 'release' it will be available on CDBaby.com, Amazon.co.uk, iTunes, Gatefield Sounds and, of course, at our Gig(s) or through me directly.
Listen to and download the single, leave us comments, etc. etc. It all helps.
See you on the 10th.
Cheers!
Leo

The lead-off single from our forthcoming album is now available EXCLUSIVELY on MySpace for download. "He Left You A Note" is our catchy flagship tune with which to publicise the album. The more perceptive of you will have heard a rough, un-mastered mix a few months back, this is the finished product. We hope you like it. There will be more but only after the album has been released. The album launch is set for the beggining of August and will be available on Amazon.co.uk, iTunes, CDBaby, Fopp Canterbury, Gatefield Sounds and at gigs.
Let us know what you think,
Leo


P.S. The actual album cover is now our profile image. Courtesy of the amazing Mr. Steve Bramble

Mission Accomplished:
Oh yes! Last day of mixing was today. I'm going back in to the studio in the week to get the Masters (and pay) then all we need is to master it and send it off to be duplicated. By summer I reckon we'll have it out so watch out for an album launch party coming soon!
Check out the studio diary at leocookman.com for more info. Also be aware we have a gig at the Beercart Arms in Canterbury on April 3rd. Be there or you won't...be, there.... or something....
Keep rockin' amigos!
Leo

In advance of the imminent album...
"Overdressed" - EP, my first solo effort is now available on BuyMusic.com, Napster.com, MP3tunes.com, PayPlay, Rhapsody and will soon be available on iTunes!!! It is also available to buy as a hard copy (i.e. you get the actual CD) at CDBaby.com. Even if you don't buy it go and have a look/listen and then tell your friends. Cheers!
Leo

... The time is upon us. The planets and stars have alligned in a celestial accord and godly rays shine down upon the earth. Why?

THE STUDIO IS BOOKED.

THE BAND IS ASSEMBLED.

THE ROCK CANNOT BE STOPPED.

THE TIME IS NIGH. FOR THE ALBUM IS COMING....

BigSqueak is waiting for us in March for 2 weeks. We have already begun rehearsing. The song selection process is underway. We even have a couple of session musicians on call. I will be a-blogging like crazy on here and at leocookman.com to document the process but in the meantime.

Get ready......

Yes folks, THE album is imminent.
With my father's money finally coming through and after the government gas taken their 10% (motherfuckers), I will spending it on a full-length studio album. It will be out this year, probably towards the end, and will be a proper, glass-mastered, jewel cased, pro-recorded job. We have no studio dates yet but it will be recorded by the Lovely Matt Barwick at Big Squeak studios in Womenswold.
To be honest I cannot wait. Definitive versions of some of my songs is going to be fucking awesome. I can finally start thinking about newer material. Woo-Hoo! I am also hoping to do more gigs as we'll have an album to promote and we'll be better rehearsed at the songs than normal.
Either way, watch this space and keep coming back.
Leo

the sharpness comes from the concert tuning of the classically trained and the way the track was recorded it couldnt be avoided all the way through. the players were asked to tune to the pitch of the track but oh well. many thanks go to the quartet as they recorded for free.

Anyways.....I just wanted to say that the ramshackle outfit that we seem to be is sounding more and more like a tight proper band. the only downside is that alas we no longer have a drummer full time. Andy travelled down for our last gig only to have to leave straight after we played for a two hour drive back from whence he came so much respect is to be pushed his way for this. The main problem we have being from an area that seems deprived of any constant music scene and or venue is that there is a distinct lack of rehersal room.I (chris) ahve grand plans to turn my house into a private studio but I get the ida that if I made my plans public to my girlfirend and indeed my landlord/lady (being P.C) i could be homeless with no body to fall back on.... sure there is a blues song in thier somewhere. Leo hope that the writers block is clearin up.

Is not just a song by the Foo Fighters (great song thought it is) - (oh hang on, that was Have It All, fuck it!) Anyway,

I'm sick of this apathetic, "post-modern", degenerative, deliberately ignorant, slightly-right-of-Hitler Cunt-ry, or society or its populace. Take your pick....
I write my songs with a real passion. I sit and study my lyrics. I am horrendously critical of all my output I've written so many songs that never got further than the note pad because they did succinctly describe what I was trying to convey. Lyrically AND musically. I am sick to death of bands/songwriter who think they're modern day Bob-Fucking-Dylan's by writing boring, self-indulgent tripe about how they couldn't afford that canvas belt from Topman last week because that's what the guy from the Kooks wears (don't even get me started on the straw fucking hats!) and putting it to the most derivative, banal, formulaic cock-shit known to man. Dylan WAS a poet because he could write in an uncontrived way about his feelings and put his own personal stamp on it. Every band who sees themselves as an advert for how cool they are because they have the right instrument and play the right songs are Cunts. Pure and Simple. And I'm sick of being so polite about it. YOU ARE ALL CUNTS!
I like the musicians who get yelled at by their neighbours, who record on a shitty tape deck with a karoke mic, who scrimp and save to afford the cheapest plank of wood that has a pick-up (yes that is what they are called, Tossers!) in it. I like bands that passionatley believe in what they do and will do it come hell or high water.
A while back I got ground in to the mud. I was misreable and my one relief was my music. It was a vent and shining ray of hope that made me happy. Then some cunt told me I had a shit voice after he had just finshed whining like a goat with constipation on stage to a bunch of un-convincing, forced "mesmirising" (short for "long, drawn-out, arse gravy") 'songs'. I am fully aware of my short comings as a vocalist and don't need reminding least of all from some pre-pubescent shit-licker with sewage for brains and the vocal ability to match.
Originality these days is undermined to the point of repression and there can't even be a revoloution as the record companies (despite the protestations of "music piracy is killing music", bullshit, its all that we can do to save it from the likes of quality quashing cunts like you) own so much they can't and won't allow anything to become seen and appreciated by the public at large unless it has been "focus-grouped" and hence, sanitised, by them. Even so called Indie (a word that was abbreviated from 'independant', what a fucking joke!) Is now used by Sony to promote their latest signings.
Don't get me wrong, some music is great. If you know where you're looking, and thanks to myspace and the web it is SOOOOOOO much easier now, you can find your perfect band, listen to them, support them, go and see their gigs and so on. But even then there's the fucking "Digital Music Awards" so the records companies can monopolise a largely un-controlled medium. I found some great bands on myspace and have been lucky enough to play with some of them which is great. But this is also being misused which returns me to my original point.
I have now, with my wonderful band, played all of three gigs. I have poured my heart and soul into these efforts and aired my favourite works to a bunch of dissasociative arseholes who gave me no credit or creedence what so ever for my hardwork and then praise these immaculately coiffured prats with about as much to say as a lobotomy patient with a stutter and about as articulately expressed. This is what I do this for is it? I have a voice and means to express it in the most beautiful and articulate way I know how and it is met by a bunch transient, zombies in a malaise brought about by lack of passion. This is freedom of speech.
If you look at it, its genius. The governments looked at what happened when music meant something, from Beethoven to the Clash, and realised it caused problems so they saturate the market with spurious, wanky sound-alike tossers with no message of rebellion or resistance, freedom of thought or otherwise and there you have it. A nation of braindead, drones happy to agree to gross injustices because they're tucked up tight in their HD plasma screen, Canon EOS 400D, DVD, James Blunted paradise and merrily placated in to subsistance. Brilliant!
So to all you, thoughtless, inexperienced, talentless, beauty-queen, hair-straightened, androginous, slack-jawed, ignorant, closed minded, fuck witted, shit for brains CUNTS. Fuck off back to your bedrooms until you have something to say and the proper means to say it. Until that Blue-Moon rises I'll keep trying to get people to listen to me, probably to no avail but by God AT LEAST I'M FUCKING TRYING!!!!!!!

And to all who have supported us, thanks I really appreciated. You will be welcomed into the fold happily when the revoloution does come...

Rant over. You may go about your business.









P.S. I'm not normally this didactic but I was particularly stewing at work today and had to get this off my chest. And no one reads these things so I thought I'd 'Blog' another brilliant use of the Web. Long Live Myspace!