Recent posts

New single 28th November from all good download sites

My Stream Photos by

USA News!

Tentatively been offered a USA distribution deal with Dysfunktion Records together with USA and European Tour dates - due in the USA in May 2012. More details will follow

Sharon's Podcast & Fantasy Bride Follow Up - "WARSAW"

Hi all,

Sharon's podcast is fully available - a summary entry on the website is below together with a URL for the interview itself. A review of SWALK is shortly to appear on the site and the follow up to Fantasy Bride, "Warsaw" will be available on itunes very soon.

Beloved Jon

I am in a state of total shock. My dear friend and long-time musical partner, Jon Stoppard, has died. He was the most brilliant pianist - he could make the piano sing and cry and we spent many happy hours in his smoke-filled room playing and recording. Please check out the music we made - it's a fitting tribute to his brilliance as a musician, recorded often first take and filled with the soul that made him special.

http://www.myspace.com/omriva/music

 

Artist Connection Podcast

 Hi all - long time since I blogged but I am going to get back into it! I recently had a really great interview with an excellent chap called Matt Kacar from Bethlehem in Pennyslyvania who runs a very good artist podcast site called Artist Connection. Check it out on www.artistconnectionpodcast.com

He is genuinely a lover of music of many kinds and his site is testimony to that. Have a listen....

Fantasy Bride for download on all good download sites or ask about the cd

MSM Facebook Marquee Album by

FANTASY BRIDE - SINGLE RELEASE - AUGUST 22nd 2011

THE QUIET BEFORE THE SWALK!!!

Sorry for the radio silence guys - its now public knowledge that I have been in hospital for a couple of life-changing operations; I am alive basically.

Join us on Facebook

RUNNING HORSE - NOTTINGHAM

The Running Horse, legendary Nottingham venue, is to re-open on Saturday 22nd of January and The Amplifires are re-opening it. We will be joined by The Franchise with some cool sounds!

Its back, we're back - see you there,

 

Steve

MESA - ing about with gear again

OK, I now promise that I will stop! I have just added a Mesa Boogie Roadster 2 x 12 combo to the armoury and this really is a one size fits all swiss army knife of a tool. Compact and effective. Its part of the Dual Rectifier range but sports 4 channels, 3 modes on each, a solo facilty switchable on all channels/modes giving 24 different options at the flick of a switch or the prod of a button and without changing a single pot setting.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

......and a happy new year from The Amplifires!

 

12th November 2010 - The Appleby, Burton

It was great to be back at The Appleby, lovely place to play and lovely people - Hi Kev - and dedicated to live music. And not covers bands playing 'classic rock'. Badly. Honestly if I hear Alright Now murdered by a bunch of never beens again I will do something I regret.

The Maze, Nottingham

A bit odd playing an opening slot on a miserable Monday night in December, but that's what we did and well received it was too. We were due to 'headline' but circumstances being what they are we were the warm up and apologies to the other bands if we were a bit hard to follow - sorry that sounds really arrogant but we were on form and delivered a non-stop barrage of Voodoo Train, Mr Pleasure, Wired, Windspun Day and others. We played Grace and Danger as well as Don't Turn Around - new songs debuted at The Appleby, Burton, that went down well.

The Bellrays, Le Machine, Paris

A bit late this but what a storming set by The Bellrays in the music club part of Moulin Rouge - bloody expensive for beer though! The support band was Detroit 7 from Tokyo - frantic, energetic and clearly inspired. The Bellrays were superb, from the opener You're Sorry Now through a tightly delivered set, encoring with Voodoo Train. I have a video of that recorded on my phone where sadly I am drowning out the chorus with my own version of 'singing'.

Recent gigs what I liked.....

The Fenton in Leeds was brilliant! Don't know why it's taken me so long to write anything about it. Cool club, fantastic audience, the sound engineer was really positive and supportive and the whole atmosphere was sticky, real, like music used to feel before it became too manicured and manufactured for its own good. I know, this is becoming a theme and I am boring myself! It reminded me of venues we played in the US - a great vibe.

 

When It Rains It Pours

Ah, the joys of using someone else's equipment, not knowing exactly what you are walking in to. On the drive over it was raining, and I don't just mean cats and dogs, horses, elephants too and I think there was some water in there as well and the hostelry presented itself as a foreboding building in the midst of it. Why was I here?. Something that was going to prove even harder to answer after we finished.

NEWusb Radio

We have some songs on www.NEWusb.co.uk from the Fire On The Moon album, have a listen, request our songs and get us up the charts

Life is sweet!

Following on from Steve's theme, it's great playing regularly again. I didn't realise how much I had missed getting out there until we started in earnest and it's brilliant playing with Kim. I find myself wanting to dance - and that has to be a good thing because then the audience feel it too!

August Bank Holiday

We had a busy weekend........... Friday night saw us at The Dalesman in Leeds; near Kirkham Abbey to be exact and we played to a very enthusiastic and warm audience. You know when you can't put a foot wrong and I loved being told by more than one person that we were great - we'll be going back there for sure. The kebab on the way home was good as well!

White Hart, Calow

Hi,

Just a quick note to say thank you from Highly Strung for all your hard work in making yesterdays outdoor gig at the White Hart a great success.

The time and effort you put into setting up your P.A. equipment for the other bands to use was most appreciated.

I have had some positive feedback from some of our followers regarding the sound mix you created for our "warm up" spot - we had a great time on stage and the sun even shone on us for some of the time.

aaa

8% Of all the guitars in the world have been owned by me!

NEW GEAR

For any devotees of my gear page this will be NEWS! Puzzled by the fact that I have 2 Bad Horsie Wah pedals? Well to confuse you I now have a Bad Horsie 2! Does that make four..................

Oh, and have bought a 77 Les Paul Custom with three pickups - like Peter Frampton, well mines natural! Don't worry we aren't going all classic rock, its more Mick Ronson than the former mod.

That's it for now,

 

Steve

Let Me Be Your Swampsnake!!!

Now officially over 3000 unique hits. For anybody who thinks this kind of stuff is important, at the time of writing Swampsnake has racked up 3004 hits in the last couple of years. Mr Pleasure and Fire on the Moon is behind, but posted quite a bit later - we're looking at over 2000 hits there. Bobbing way behind are some vids from the USA as well as fan postings - I can only assume that its this website that is directing viewers where they need to go; hang on a couple of weeks while I get the Google diagnostics out!

Keep up the good work and look out for some more vids,