Hello!

Welcome to The Tupolev Ghost's online presence. We'll do our best to keep this place as up to date as possible with news, dates and press etc. so keep checking back. We also have a myspace and a twitter that you should check out.

Get involved!

FEST!!

Yep, we're confirmed to play and we've booked our flights to this year's Fest extravaganza, put on by No Idea records in Gainesville, Florida, USA. It's gonna be an interesting one too as we're getting our old-time bassist Steven to play, he's flying down from Canada to get crucial with James and I.

Steven and I were present last year so we know how awesome The Fest is, and we're stupidly excited to be able to play this year. We're on at 2.20pm at The Atlantic on Sunday 1st November so if you're still reading this, get there! Sweet.

In other news, get over to our myspace page to hear our latest recording 'Omar Coming' again, incase you missed it last time. It's pretty fucking awesome.

- Andy.

Okay so the last two months have been a very challenging time for us logistically, not least with Ross living in Dorset and the rest of us in or around London. We're very sad to announce however, that last week both Ross and Chris individually decided to leave the band. It's obviously a great shame for us, both musically and personally but they leave under no bitter circumstances and the four of us will remain close friends.

Enter: Ben Sydes. Ben has been a good friend and collaborator of ours for over a year now and it's just natural - and awesome - to have him join us on bass. We're amazingly excited about having Ben on board, along with the prospect of all of us finally being in one city! Back to regular rehearsals and some degree of prolificacy.

We have had to make one sacrifice amongst all of these changes though, and that is that unfortunately we have nobody available to play bass for us at Off The Cuff in Birmingham on the 6th September, meaning we will regrettably have to pull out. We are still able to play all of our other upcoming shows, so make sure to come to one/some/all of these:

5th September 2009	London	OFFSET FESTIVAL	w/ The Horrors + Future of the Left + Dananananaykroyd + Rolo Tomassi + The Ghost of a Thousand + more!
16th September 2009	London	The Barfly, Camden	w/ The Outcry Collective + Shotgun Riot + Spy Catcher
19th September 2009	Portsmouth	Venue TBA, Albert Road	Southsea Fest w/ And So I Watch You From Afar + The Strange Death of Liberal England + Blakfish + Shapes + OK Pilot + more!

Thanks!

We've had to pull out of the first three dates of our upcoming 'Holy Monsters' tour this weekend as Ross and Andy have both been diagnosed with swine flu. This means we will unfortunately no longer be playing Peterborough, Norwich or Middlesbrough. As far as we know the gigs will still be going ahead so please show your support to Holy State!

We're gutted but we figure if we wait until Sunday when they should both have recovered, we can at least do the remaining three dates (Leeds, Sheffield and London) without risk of anyone else catching it. Our biggest apologies to anyone who was going to come see us at any of those shows, we are doing our best to book up dates in all three towns as soon as we can.

In the meantime, we're gonna sweat it out and get loaded on prescription drugs. Thank you.

NEW 'Holy Monsters' Split 10" and Tour

So, if you check our MySpace page at the moment you'll hear a brand new song, "Omar Coming", and, incase you wondered, yes the title is a reference to the greatest character from the greatest TV series of all time, The Wire. If you haven't seen it then take a week off work, blame it on the swine flu, and immerse yourself.

We're proud to have BSM and Holy Roar releasing this on 10" vinyl, available in two different colours, green and purple and a limited run of only 500. Once this print-up is gone, there will be no reprint. So get in there for a copy at Big Scary Monsters Records. There are some deals up there to get our album and T-shirts cheaper too, so if you haven't got them already then that's the best place to do it.

As well as us, the split features our labelmates Shapes who have put together something a little prog for the release, and two bands from Holy Roar - the John Reis-channeling Holy State and math-rock instrumentalists Brontide. We've heard all the other songs and they're great so you should probably think about getting this yes? Yes.

To promote the release and to give us another excuse to climb into Ross's van, we're touring at the start of August with the aforementioned Holy State boys, who are awesome. Please take a look at our dates on the shows page and, if we're in your town, come down and see us. It would mean the world to us.

Thanks!

Recording

We've been in the studio (Serafina in Eastbourne to be exact) getting a brand spanking new track of ours recorded. It's called 'Omar Coming' and it's our first recording with Ross, our awesome new bassist. Nick Kinnish - the producer - described one part as "Mastodon gone happy", either way we're pretty darn pleased with it.

The track is being released as part of a BSM vs. Holy Roar split on limited 10" vinyl. It's going to contain four tracks by four bands; The Tupolev Ghost and Shapes from BSM, and Holy State and Brontide from Holy Roar. We're also doing a tour with Holy State in support of this, the details of which are here.

We're off on tour again next week with BSM's Wintermute. It's sponsored by The Line of Best Fit and there's an awesome flyer here, which contains all the info. For your convenience, the dates are as follows:

4th June 2009	Birmingham	The Victoria	The Line of Best Fit Tour w/ Wintermute (BSM) + Shapes
6th June 2009	Newcastle	Cluny2	The Line of Best Fit Tour w/ Wintermute (BSM) + Waiting for Winter
7th June 2009	Leeds	The Library	The Line of Best Fit Tour w/ Wintermute (BSM) + These Monsters
8th June 2009	Cambridge	The Portland	The Line of Best Fit Tour w/ Wintermute (BSM) + We Found The Fox
9th June 2009	London	Buffalo Bar	The Line of Best Fit Tour w/ Wintermute (BSM) + Copy Haho

Come and see us or we'll beat your asses.

New T Shirts!

Head over to the Merch Stand to see some new shirts that Chris Summerlin designed for us. They're totally awesome and feature a HUGE TREE. They are available in White on Green or for those who are absolutely cool, Black on Black!

Only £9 including postage, get in!

So much news...

...and I'm sure at some point we'll dedicate some real time to it but, for now, we're going to hit you with some bullet points. Since the last news we have...
1. Finished recording and released our debut record for Big Scary Monsters, a self-titled 6 track mini-album. It's available online and through Shellshock Distribution. You can download it from I-Tunes.
2. We're in the process of writing towards a 4 way split with 3 other amazing bands for a 10" split in August. Can't announce exactly who yet, but we're very pleased to be a part of it.
3. We went on tour, for almost 3 weeks, and made so many new friends. We're all toursick. Made us realise that we just want to play whenever we can, wherever we can. Message us if you've been wanting to put us on - we'll probably even do your house party if you cover our petrol...
4. During this tour we also hit up Ireland - thankyou Alan, Mick, all of Enemies and all the other wonderful people we met there. Hopefully we'll be back to see you all soon.
5. Ross, previously of Secondsmile, has joined us on bass. He helped out for the tour and then we got jealous of his skills and asked him to be in the band. He'll be involved in the songwriting for the full album (planned for next year) and we're seriously happy to have him on board.
6. We have had a lot of press recently - its been pretty humbling. As well as being on the covermounted CD for Rock Sound and being their "band of the week" we also received a full 5 K live review from Kerrang! We've got features coming up on Drowned In Sound and Total Guitar also. So watch out for those. More suprises to come after that hopefully.
7. We received our first play on Radio 1! Dan P Carter played us on his Rock Show and we only found out the next day. Fucking amazing. Thank you Dan!
8. There is talk of us putting out the record in America, and we are also going to announce details of an American festival date in the next few weeks too.
9. We have a twitter account, follow us if you have one too: twitter.com/thetupolevghost
10. We have new T shirts, which we'll have photos of up shortly. White on green and, yes, black on black. Same price as before.

I think that's it! Thankyou so much for all your support, and please buy the new record if you haven't already.

Diagrams video - Rocksound exclusive!

After a long (and hella funny) day filming in Cambridge back in January, and a month or so's editing, the video is now finished! Head over to Rocksound.tv who are showing it exclusively throughout this week. It was directed by Mathy Tremewan and Fran Broadhurst who were awesome to work with, so big thanks to them.

The track featured - Diagrams - is taken from our forthcoming self titled mini album, more info and pre-orders here.

Mini album now available for pre order!

Head over to the Merch page to read a little about our new mini album and you'll see a link to pre order yourself a copy prior to its official release on 30th March.

In other just as awesome news, today we received a KKKKK live review for our recent show at The Fly in London! We've written it out in the Press page and there will be a scan of the article added when we can get hold of a copy!

If this was Myspace, our 'current mood' would be set to "Damn Chuffed".

Label, mini album and tour!

The last few weeks have been the band's busiest and we have a lot to shout about. Firstly and most importantly, we're lucky enough to have been signed by the awesome Big Scary Monsters Records! We're so excited to be part of the family and consequently have been keeping up our side of the bargain...

We've just finished mixing our self-titled mini album and it's currently in Chicago being mastered by the truly awesome Carl Saff. It has six tracks and is due for release by Big Scary Monsters late March 2009 (actual date tbc).

To coincide with the release we're touring the UK and Eire, the dates to which will be added to the Shows page over the next couple of weeks.

PRS guitar and Mesa Dual Rectifier head stolen!

After the show at The Portland in Cambridge on the 10th January, Chris' car was broken into and his guitar and amp head were stolen. The guitar is a modified PRS SE EG with a humbucker fitted, it's white with a tortoiseshell scratch plate and is in a soft PRS branded guitar case. The head is a 3 channel Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and was in a soft black Mesa branded cover.

If anyone becomes aware of anyone trying to sell something like either of these, or you see something come up on ebay, please email us. We will be eternally grateful for any help we get on this.

Unfortunately the 9th January show at The Portland in Cambridge has been pulled for various reasons. We are however formulating plans to play a crazy warehouse show in London the same night, more details when we have them.

In the meantime, get up to Huddersfield tomorrow night (Saturday 20th) to see us and a shedload of other awesome bands. It's at Bar 1.22 and there are more details here.

Merry Christmas!

Last minute Christmas shows and more...

We've been added to the bill for Wednesday's Big Scary Monsters' Christmas Party at The Windmill in Brixton. We're playing first at 8.15pm so get down there early, £6 on the door.

Also we're excited that we've been added to the bill for Small Town America's Christmas Party with The Thermals at King's College, London. It's this Sunday (14th), starts at 4pm and tickets are available from wegottickets.

Finally, James and Andy are guests on this Friday's VS Recharged, a London based online rock radio show. It's live from 7 - 9pm and you can listen here.

To coincide with today's 'Introducing' feature in Kerrang! (go buy it), we're giving away our new single "Diagrams" from forthcoming release The Beta EP. Click on 'The Tupolev Ghost Music Player' up there ^ and you'll be able to download it free! There's another taste of what's to come in the shape of 'The Night', also streaming in the music player. Otherwise...

Right-click here to download it!

Just a bit of a heads up - we've been back recording again this weekend, and final touches have been added to new recordings of both "Diagrams" and a new version of one of our first songs, "The Night". Both sound fantastic and are a big step up in terms of production quality. It was also great to link the old with the new - the instrumental foundations to these tracks were laid down while Ben and Steven were still in the band and we've added further guitar by Chris and some of his and Andy's vocals.

We're also about to receive our biggest piece of press yet and we're both humbled and excited. Next Wednesday we have a full-page Introducing feature in Kerrang! magazine. In the article we will announce where you can download the recording of "Diagrams" for FREE.

Thanks for all your support, we're excited to hear what you think when the new tracks hit.

Unfortunately we've had to pull out of Monday's show in Cambridge with Youthmovies for various reasons. Sorry to disappoint anyone but we promise to more than compensate when we return to The Portland on 3rd December with new material!

So the first three shows as The Newpolev Ghost were in all, radical! Cheers to all who came along, the support is awesome and is pushing us to write some new material pronto! Couple more London shows being confirmed for November and December, more details very soon.

Today some confirmed shows have been added to the Shows page, gooduns too; with This Town Needs Guns, Pennines, Hot Club De Paris and Youthmovies to name a few! It's been a while and we've a complete new line-up so come and say hello.

So it's been almost a month since we've had any concrete news to report, rocky times. Our bassist Steven had an amazing opportunity open up for him involving a last minute move to Canada (Calgary to be specific), which obviously meant his departure from the band. Having just about found a replacement for Ben, this obviously knocked us back again. Not ones to give up, we managed the mammoth task of finding someone who can play both bass AND drums! With Chris Bradshaw (Days Ago, Capitals) on guitar and Greg Hilson (Chillerton) on bass and occasionally drums, we're finally rehearsing again, the Ghost lives on!

Couple of shows in the pipeline, we'll up date the Shows page when they're a bit more confirmed. Keep your eyes peeled!

Today is a good day, we've had a rather lovely review of The Alpha EP by Ben Marwood on Drowned in Sound, click here to see it.

Also, the two 'last' shows with our soon to be missed guitarist Ben went down a storm, both at our spiritual home The Portland in Cambridge and The Buffalo Bar in London. Cheers for coming along to either and making them both such great nights and of course, cheers to Ben for being so awesome!

More news to come very soon regarding The Beta EP and also our new guitarist!

You may already be aware of our soon to be departing guitarist/bassist/scream-machine Ben Perry to pastures Swiss (witty Helvetica related comment here). So it's finally come that we are playing our last show together with him on Sunday, 13th July at The Portland in Cambridge and to celebrate, we are pulling something rather beautiful out of the bag. Nothing too major but let's just say it will be a fitting way to End, on End. We'd love to see as many at the show as possible and give Ben the send off he damn well deserves!

Have a look on the Shows page for more information. See you there!

When you go to your local shop today, make sure you pick up a copy of Kerrang! and NME as we're featured in both this week! Kerrang! contains a live review of the awesome Rock Sound / Club Fandango show we played last Tuesday with Secondsmile, and 'The Alpha EP' is listed in this week's ‘What’s on the NME stereo?’.

We'll be writing both reviews up in full in the 'Press' section if you haven't the pennies to spare. Big thanks to all involved, you are too kind!

Massive changes here today, meaning that the site should now actually appear on search engines! We've uploaded some images, added this news page and generally cleaned up our act.

In band news, we've got a big'un coming up in the form of the Rock Sound sponsored Club Fandango show at the Dublin Castle in London. It's on the 17th June and is headlined by BSM's excellent Secondsmile and we're in main support, but get there from the start as a little bird tells us Ice, Sea, Dead People are rather great.

Also, as some may know, our guitarist and part-time bassist/vocal cord shredder Ben is leaving, with great sadness, for the greener and more snowy pastures of Switzerland. We have some cards up our sleeves though, watch this space.

Finally, just the vocals to go until the recording for the new EP is finished. It's following on from 'The Alpha EP' in our series of three and is cleverly titled 'The Beta EP'. It features another three tracks, two new and one from 'Take Courage' that we felt has changed so much (for the better, assured) that it deserved a place on this record. Then it's just the small issues of mixing, mastering, artwork and pressing, but we're hopeful for a late Summer release. Excitement!

Lots of news to digest but now we have this dedicated page, it's going to be easier to update in the future. Take care all and look forward to seeing as many as possible at the Dublin Castle on the 17th!