Friendly Fires

Hello,

Just a quick word……we are playing at the lovely Roundhouse on the 15th July with Magistrates. For a chance to win a pair of tickets all you have to do is email friendlyfiresitunes@xlrecordings.com with your name and mobile. Deadline is the 3rd July though so get cracking…..Also get ready for Jack’s Twitter which will be up on the site soon!
xx

Hey Folks,

Radio 1’s Essential Mix will be broadcasting a two hour DJ mix made by yours truly this Friday night from 3am-5am. However if like most people you’re gonna be getting down and dirty at this years Pilton Pop Fest then you can catch it anytime for seven days at www.bbc.co.uk/radio1. Lucky you.

In other news we’ve been hanging out in Ibiza (no sign of Jordan yet though…) shooting the video for our new single ‘Kiss of Life’ which will be unveiled exclusively at Glastonbury. Here’s a sneaky peak at what it will look like.

Speak soon!
xx

Hello there. How are we all? We’re in the middle of our official 12 day holiday. Myself and Ed Mac have opted for recession-friendly ‘staycations’, so if you see us mooching around St Albans or London, be sure to holler at your boys. I’m getting more and more obsessed with Twitter, and, sad fad-crazed moron that I am, I genuinely feel like my life would be much poorer without 5 or 6 little messages from the mind of Tim Westwood every day. Similarly, whatever you think of Calvin Harris’ music, you can’t deny he’s got some strong tweeting going on.

So the festival season has begun. We had some amazing shows at the two Dot2Dots, and just about managed to fight off the rain at Newcastle Evolution, and went to Istanbul for the beautiful but somewhat bizarre Freshtival. We had a Turkish bath afterwards, which is like being beaten up in a sauna and then given a sponge bath by some pretty burly and infragrant old men. After its over you feel like you’ve achieved positively Zen levels of cleanliness. Definitely something everyone should do once in their lives.

Anyway some news to report. We’re playing the iTunes festival at the Roundhouse in London on 15th of July. If you’d like a chance to win some tickets to it simply go to this link and do whatever it says you have to do. www.ituneslive.co.uk

We’re also doing a weird gig in pitch darkness, aided by night vision goggles. It was dreamed up by our ‘pals’ at Sony Ericsson, so free handsets ahoy. If you’d like to win some tickets to it then follow this link. ffpitchblack@iris-experience.com. Competition entry opens at 9am on the 8th June and all you have to do is give your name, email address and phone number.

That’s all for now, I’m off to surf Twitter for another few days.

Jack x

Eagle-eyed webventurers may have noticed this corner of the web has been a little neglected of late. Admittedly we’ve been mega-lax at updating this place, but as the above pictures show we’ve been hot-footing it non-stop around the globe, playing gigs across a variety of climes and continents. It is 3 months ago today that we set off on the NME tour as wide-eyed innocents from the home counties. Today we play the Wolverhampton Wulfrun as callous-hearted touring machines, whose only care is where the next Beck’s is coming from. We’re currently being joined on brass by all round samba, jazz and african music genius Barak Schmool and ex-Jamie Cullum associate ( :- / ) Rory. They’re adding an extra level of Remain In Light big band vibes to the tour. A lot has gone on in the interim, not all of which I can be bothered to write about- but here is a very brief selection of highlights:

- Shared a bus across the USA with White Lies and their crew, who I can reveal are excellent touring companions, very easy to get on with and such. Went for a nerve-shredding session at a firing range with them in Spokane, WA. I don’t think I ever want to fire a gun again; its too easy.

- Went to Mexico City to play to the most amazingly excited, singy-alongy crowd we’ve ever experienced. You’ve all obviously heard about this swine flu business in Mexico now, and one of the many sad aspects of this is that the growing music scene built on bands travelling over there will take a while to recover. Our hearts go out to the promoters of our show Diego, Sofia, Andreas and everyone else we met there. We’ve got huge love for you Mexico, keep ya heid up and we’ll be back as soon as we are allowed.

- Always eager to find new ways to waste my miniscule amounts of free time, I’ve signed up for a Twitter account. My ‘handle’ (that term gives it quite an 1970s CB radio kind of vibe don’t you think?) is @jackbsavidge, so follow me if you’re similarly inclined towards these sorts of things. Friendly Fires fan Tim Westwood’s Twitter is an unbelievably good read.

-Played Coachella, the most spectacular, picturesque, and restricted festival in the western world. If I had a pound for every time I heard “you can’t take alcohol into there sir”, I’d have about £5! But also, if I had a pound for every time I saw/heard something amazing happen on a stage surrounded by stars and palm trees, I’d have about £9, so all in all Coachella is a good thing. Our show there was great by the way, there was a genuine conga line for a bit; it was just like an office party!

If I think of anything else I will post it. I’m going to endeavour to make this place a bit more lively, a bit more bits and bobs, more regular like. If you head on over to our myspace you can hear the new Thin White Duke (A.K-fucking-A Stuart Price of Les Rhythmes Digitales, Zoot Woman, and producing Madonna, The Killers etc etc) mix of Jump In The Pool, which is fast turning into my fave remix of us ever. Manages to be utterly ‘avin it and really tasteful at the same time. The forthcoming Wild Geese mix of JITP pulls off a similar trick with extra hands-in-the-air pianos, so all is well on the remix front.

That’s all for now, I will hit you crazy soon. Jack x

Hello all.

You find us heading o’er foreign hill and dale. We’re in Koln lapping up the usual ham and cheese platter in the dressing room. I’m tucking into the Nutella, which has been in plentiful supply since we began our European. Due to circumstances way beyond anyone’s control, the wonderful Heartbreak had to pull out of being our support for the German dates. They’ve been replaced by Wax Stag aka Rob Lee, our live bass player / percussionist doing his hypermelodic instrumental pop thing. What an added treat for you lucky German fans!

Our single Skeleton Boy is out now on 12”, download (available everywhere), and very limited one-sided etched 7” (available almost exclusively from our merch stand at gigs).

You can buy the download here for only 50p :

http://www.7digital.com/artists/friendly-fires/skeleton-boy/

The 12” features remixes by Air France and ZIO, which take the song off in balearic dream-pop, and muscle-bound EBM directions respectively. Lovely.

You can also get the album for £6.99 at HMV this week:

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;-1;-1;-1;-1&sku=761590

Oh and by the way, winner of the drink-naming competition was a certain Mr Edd Gibson of Brockley, South London, who suggested ‘Dentist’s Delight’. There is no more perfect name for this tooth-rotting tincture. Thanks to everyone who entered. Keep in touch yeah?

FFx