HWCH

Just a quick note to say that we've been selected for the prestigious HARD WORKING CLASS HEROES Festival which will be held in Dublin on the weekend of 16-18th October. The festival is all about celebrating the best indie and underground music Ireland has to offer and showcases many artists that go on to big things. We're delighted to be chosen and are really looking forward to the festival.

Yay us. Read more at http://www.hwch.net/

Recording Update 1

Hallo there.

Sitting here in what was once a kitchen in a lovely house on the edge of a lake in Donegal but is now the control room of the headquarters for the recording of our debut album. Dave's standing beside me doing the second take of a re-recording of a song you all know while Karl and Kevin sit on the other side of the dinner table/control desk twiddling things and generally trying not to make Dave laugh. We finished our live takes this morning with another re-recording and the cabin fever is being kept at bay by liberal doses of hob-nobs, tea and ridiculous punning.

The scoreboard on the wall beside me shows that Kev is well ahead with final drum takes done on 13 songs and Dave is very, very slowly creeping up behind him. I've got vocals, backing vocals and guitars to do on everything so it's a fair bet I'm not going to be winning this album. Everything so far has been recorded live with guitar, bass and drums being put down simultaneously but now begins the business of seperately recording all the other elements (and redoing those bass and guitar takes that just don't cut it).

Once more, we're not going to let you know what's being recorded but already things are beginning to sound a lot like we hoped they would. A long way to go yet but it's great to be some of the way there. Got to go as Dave has just completed that song and the lads are doing an impression of a bunch of dogs barking the riff from the next one.

Unlimited love to y'all

Billy/TDF

ALBUM

Right.

Myself (Billy), Dave and Kevin are going to be locking ourselves away in a house in darkest Donegal for the next 2 weeks with Mr. Karl Odlum to begin what we hope will become our debut album. There's no release date or anything set yet so don't get yourselves into any kind of panic- it'll be 2010 before anything like that'll be happening. However, this is a big step for us and we're delighted to be finally going for it.

We've got a great set of songs, painstakingly culled to a 15-16 song shortlist to be recorded over the next few months and we're really hoping to put what we've learned with previous releases to good use with this one. We're very much upping the ante and all I'll say is that this is not going to be a flash-in-the-pan kind of thing. We're aiming to put together an album that'll knock your socks off so we're going to take our time about getting it right.

If our internet access is working, we'll try to keep you posted during the recording process and we'll be having some shows in Sligo and Bundoran in mid-August so we'll see you then

flags, the dead xx

Our Grand German Adventure

So we played the Eier Mit Speck Festival in Viersen near Dusseldorf in Germany.

A wonderfully organized (it was a German festival, not an Irish one after all) event, we had our own driver and free beer/food all weekend. Free eggs and bacon every morning (hence the name) and a wonderful atmosphere in general.

we took to the stage around 2pm on Saturday and it duly started to absolutely piss down during our set. with technical hitches aplenty, we rocked out as best we could in front of the soaked hordes, most of whom left the mudbath pit area and sought shelter in the various tents around the place but they still watched and clapped and cheered and sang along. in the middle of O My Love! O My God!! (which a fair proportion of the audience seemed to know, probably thanks to it being up on the festival website) the sun came out and more people ventured out to dance and frolic to our wonderful tunes.

after the set, we headed backstage to the bar and began a marathon drinking session during which we met all the other bands and had a good old broken-english natter about the german and european music industries.

strangely monikered but actually very entertaining bands such as "She's All That" and "Buttermaker" kept us going all afternoon and (it may be the beer's fault) but we really began to enjoy the sounds of German hip-hop and Dutch reggae after a while.

then as the night came on, entering the 8th hour of boozing, myself (that's Billy) and Dave were chatting behind the stage when a northern irish accent yelled "Ah, The Dead Flags! How are ya?" and we turned into the face of Andy Cairns of headliners Therapy? After a brief bit of starstruckness we had a wee chat and wished him luck with their set. Then we headed to the side of the stage to watch their fantastic set to an absolutely huge crowd during which Andy dedicated a song to us and got the crowd to give us a big hand.

Following those great events, I took stock of my utter drunkenness and decided it was better for everyone that I head back to the hotel. Dave and Kev stayed drinking with Therapy? and the rest of the bands and from what we could all piece together, it was a great night all round.

Sunday was spent like this:

So to sum up our German Adventure in one word:

Thanks to Saori, Miranda, Jurgen and all the crew for such a great weekend. Even the DeadFlagMobile breaking down in Kinnegad on the way back from Dublin to Sligo couldn't put a dampener on the experience.

Check out the official festival photo's and website here.