Friday, 14 May 2010

NEOTOPIA Sound Awesome!



This is a sort of MySpace kinda forum for musicians and listeners to join up to. And what's really nice about it is that it's a lot smaller and intimate than those big unwieldly networking sites most of us use. This one has been designed by a few enthusiasts who occasionally get their favourite bands from the site together for little festivals. Because it's still fairly new you can be more sure to be heard by some of the promoters who're already members.

There's a bit of a space rock and psychedelic electronica bias to it, but they're a nice open minded bunch. This will really suit many of the musicians who we're associated with already. So, we've just signed up to it, built a profile and loaded some new tunes up.

Each band or listener can have their own site and gallery space (much like MySpace) which they can decorate how they like - Also, there's a radio feed, which plays a continuous random mix of all the music the bands have put up on their own profile's player. It plays through iTunes as a stream, really smoothly. I quite like it.

You don't have to be a musician, though. Just be a listener, if you want.

Monday, 10 May 2010

Saturday, 8 May 2010

Into The Future...

Neotopia is changing

We have, for the last few years been a five piece band, based in south Shropshire. The line-up has fluctuated a few times, due to the geographic spread of its members - and the availability of each to rehearse or get to gigs.

Original guitarist Gareth Kirk and vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Carolina, both of whom from mid Wales, had to leave the band at the end of 2008, for this very reason.

Vocalist Laura Higgs and jazz guitarist Stuart Thomas soon took their place. However, even with this new team, many writing sessions have often had an absence of members of even this regular group. And now that Gareth is making appearances in sessions, once more, we have decided that Neotopia will become more of a musical collective, than being regular group. This means that gigs and sessions may or may not feature all or most of this pool of musicians. Some songs familiar to you here might not be played at certain gigs, whereas other gems, you haven't heard before, will.

Welcome back, Gareth. Sort of.