A Round-Up

Good evening! It has been a while since we updated this news/blog/confessional section, but now is as good a time as any, as we've done quite a lot recently.

First up - Our debut EP is out! It's called 'This Kingdom', with artwork by my (Matt's) brother Alistair. Here's a picture of them! shiny.

We're pretty glad with how the whole thing turned out, so if you'd like to have a listen, click here. If you feel so inclined, you can even order a physical copy from there and we'll send it to you as soon as we can!

As well as the EP, we had a really great time recording our first music video with Joshua Porter, a great film-maker based in Glasgow (as of a few weeks ago). You can find him here - we can highly recommend him. Anyway, here's the video! We recorded it down in the woods by Blackford Hill in Edinburgh.



That's probably enough news for now really. We've been playing a lot recently, so we're taking a quick break to put together some new songs, balance our books and get some sleep. Although if you're about on the 27th of June, we'll be playing a gig in Edinburgh at the third door with our good friend/award-winning country troubadour Al Shields, before heading to play at a great weekend of music at the Kelburn Garden Party from the 30th! We'll be there both days, so come and have a chat.

Anyway, if nothing else but to motivate myself to keep this updated, we'll have some exciting news in the near future! Vague, i realise, but it's going to be a big deal so come back soon!

Matt

A Very Musical Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's been an extremely musical Christmas over on Facebook this year. Lots of our friends have been recording and posting awesome Christmas songs and in the absence of a Moon & River Christmas Concert, we decided to record our own little Christmas song too.



We thought we'd do a run down of all the excellent Christmas tracks our friends have been posting too.

First up, Kaley Ukulele recorded a Christmas album for her Niece. Matt and Tom played banjo, mandolin and bass on it and Dave added vocals and mixed it. It comes highly recommended!



Second up, our good friend Naomi Black from Chasing Owls recorded a gorgeous version of 'Away in a Manger' with just vocals and harmonium. It's awesome, go listen!



The brilliant and all round Edinburgh institution, the Banana Sessions have an excellent original Christmas song called 'Don't Loose Your Mind (It's Christmas Time)'. Incidentally, they're doing a concert in Pivo Pivo, Glasgow on the 30th December. If you haven't seen them yet (you probably have if you live in Edinburgh) it's well worth it!



We're lucky enough to have played with Washington Irving a couple of times now, they're amazing. They've recorded an awesome rustic sounding Christmas EP on an old tape deck.



That's as much as we know of for now - but let us know if you've heard something awesome that you think should be included.

Hogmanay!

A few weeks ago we entered a competition called Hog the Street that offered the winner a slot on the Hogmanay Concert in the Gardens line up, supporting Primal Scream. We entered, as none of us had any plans for New Year and we all thought it would be pretty amazing to play the Concert in the Gardens. We didn't seriously think we'd win.

Two weeks later, and after many Facebook likes, comments, £670 for Shelter Scotland and the best support from our friends and family that we could every possibly imagine, here we are getting our heads round that we're going to be playing on this stage at new year.

Photo courtesy of http://www.edinburghguide.com 

It will, undoubtedly be the biggest gigs of our lives, on the biggest stage of our lives and we can't wait. Although many of our friends won't be able to attend - we've decided to put on a free gig for everyone in the new year. If you're interested, keep an eye out here, and on our Facebook page where we'll announce details before Christmas.

Anyway, thank you to Leith Records for putting on a great event and most of all, the amazing friends and family that came down to support us. We really couldn't have done it without you.

Here's a wee video from Sunday.

It begins!

It's the eve of our tour! Tomorrow night we'll be kicking off at Sneaky Pete's with the brilliant Anna Meldrum from Kitty the Lion, Ajimal and Caro Bridges.

Friday morning we're picking up the van (well I am, because I'm the only one old enough to drive it) and heading up to Inverness to play at Hootananny, the next morning we're up very early to catch the first ferry to Lewis, to play at the Jager Rooms in Stornoway. We'll be doing a radio session in Stornoway during the day, we'll post the details on Facebook before. Sunday, we'll head back to the mainland and drive to Aviemore to play at the Old Bridge Inn.  After that, we're back to Edinburgh, then heading up to Aberdeen to play at Snafu (with Three Blind Wolves) on Thursday and then back down to Glasgow on Sunday to play at the Captains Rest with Neoviolet.

It's all very exciting really!

Since we last updated you, there's been quite a lot on. We did a photo shoot with Istvan Magyar in the Dean Village. We're really happy with the results. 



We've also got a great new video from our friend Julien Pearly. He did our other videos last summer, he's very talented, you should check him out.



Finally, we had an excellent gig a couple of weekends ago with our friends Chasing Owls at their EP launch. You can listen to and buy their EP below.



Hopefully see you at a gig soon.

Dave

Going on tour!

Lots of exciting things are happening!

Firstly our tour has been confirmed & the van is booked. It's all starting to get very exciting. In total we'll be driving 786 miles. Starting in Edinburgh on the 3rd, we'll head up to Inverness, Stornoway, Aviemore, then back to Edinburgh and up to Aberdeen on the 10th. Matt reckons he's deciding the music, I'm pretty sure the rule is, driver chooses.

We've got some other stuff coming up in the next few weeks too, including a session on Glasgow's Celtic Radio on the 10th Feb and Leith FM on the 27th Feb, so make sure you tune into that.

So the gig calendar is looking pretty healthy at the moment:

February

2nd - Bloc, Glasgow

11th - Cape, Stirling w/Liam Cairns Band

19th - Bongo Club, Edinburgh supporting Chasing Owls

March

3^rd - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh w/Kitty the Lion (solo), Ajimal and Caro Bridges.

4^th - Mad Hatters @ Hootananny, Inverness

5^th - The Jager Room, Stornoway

6^th - The Old Bridge Inn, Aviemore

10^th - Dirty Hearts Club @ Snafu, Aberdeen

13^th - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow w/Neoviolet

25^th - Room @ the top (festival), Bathgate

Hopefully see you at one of the dates.


Dave

First Light of 2011

Happy new year and all that. I trust you ate more than your weight in christmas food. I did so little over the holidays, even basic exercise, such as getting up, has left my legs sore for days. How pathetic.

Anyway, some good moon news; first, we have a new recording up! 'First Light of Day', recorded/produced by our very own Dale "no-nickname" Birrell, recorded in my bedroom. Seriously, some sort of recording genius, i don't think i've heard such good quality bedroom recording. I'm looking forward to doing more. 

Check it out here or under songs.

First Light Of Day by mattnorrisandthemoon

Second: Highlands tour! How exciting. Still being confirmed, so i'll definitely let you know sooner or later more about this. But we're going in a van, which is quite possibly the most exciting prospect of the whole thing. Dave has to drive the entire way though, because he's a fogie.