Toupé

Karl is leaving...

For ten months of traveling and music in the US and Oz. We're having a big party to wish him the best fun.

Check the live page! :)

RUNWAY FESTIVAL 2009!

Firstly i just wanna say thanks to everyone who has come to our most recent shows. We had a cracking night at the Hamptons, where we got to support one of my favourite bands 'DUB TRIO'.  It was like a lesson in musical maths! those guys are tighter than a gastric band and nice guys to boot! If you ain't heard of em, slap yourself on the wrist and please go here: http://www.dubtrio.com/anothersoundisdying.html

The very same night Grant started his now sworded and twisted love affair with Juliette Lewis. Don't wanna start too many rumours but apparently she's flying back and fore between L.A. and the talking heads lots! This love is costing her a fortune! Check Grants facebook for pictures of him and her! :)

Main reason i'm on here: check this out:

http://www.bhone.co.uk/content.asp?type=n&id=272

This is gonna be a fun day! Lets hope the weather is with us! 

Anyway  .. Take care all and keep in touch!

K. 

The Gander Show!

Thanks to everyone who came to the Gander show just gone.

Fun was had by all including the band, who'd of thought alcohol fueled racial prejudice could be so funny.  ( definitely a had to be there moment!)  :)

We played with some great bands including Discos out ( murders in) and the amazing 'Your Army'. Check em out, these guys rocked and i got that vibe that they are gonna go far.

http://www.myspace.com/yourarmy

Also big shout out to Ethel, They played their last show and it was rather good. Good luck to you guys in your future pursuits and also getting back together in about a year and a half for that reunion thing every band does .. you know it's gonna happen .. HEH!  ;)

so this week we got Andover and the Hamptons show in Southampton, check the gigs page for more details.  Hope to see you out there!

K.

April The Fourth Be With You

This is the poster knocked up for the April the Fourth show at Hamptons. It was created by the Advance Promotions guys after a lot of coffee and Rooibos tea that tastes like meat and plastic.

Click the image to make it bigger.

This Saturday: MARCH 28th - THE GANDER, BOURNEMOUTH!

GS WRITTEN COMIC RELIEF SONG!

It's Comic Relief time again. To raise some money I was approached by the guys from the local music websiteshttp://www.mintsouth.com and http://www.southSCENE.net to write a song for everyone in the scene to record.

I spent a couple of weeks scratching my head, writing down ideas...it was a doo-wop song at one point...and went through some basslines lined up for the new Toupe tracks and ended up writing a song called 'Belly Laughs (Food For Thought)'. 

We recorded it on Monday at The Ranch Studios with over 30 musicians participating and contributing and yelling and laughing.

There's a facebook group for the whole thing here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=50463298233&ref=mf - please join up and on friday when the song is up for sale for about a pound, buy it and rock out. 

There is also a myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/thefunnymoneybellyband

I'm so happy with it, currently listening to the final mastered version and the feet don't stop moving! :) 

The BBC are publishing photos from various parts of regions efforts to raise cash for Red Nose Day:http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/content/image_galleries/red_nose_day_2009_gallery.shtml?3=

On top of that, TOUPE are playing a special single launch show at the last minute on friday at the SOUL CELLAR, Southampton. Support from The Ramblings, Dustproof, Jazica and my old pal Alex Dawson. Not to mention DJing from Routes To Roots after the show. It's FREE ENTRY until 11pm, but donations to COMIC RELIEF will be encouraged. After 11pm it's a minimum donation of £5. 

Thank you to everyone for your support in this project - please tell everyone you know about the tune so that we can hopefully make a difference and make feet tap all over the place. 

Thank you.

Grant

APRIL 4th SOUTHAMPTON/WRITE UP

So, new gig dates on the Live Dates page. March 28th in Bournemouth and April 4th in Southampton. We're really excited about these shows as it seems like forever ago that we've played to our friends there.

Also, in this month's Southampton Music Magazine (listings of nearly everything going on in Southampton distributed for free in most venues in the city) there's also a lovely write up from the team there.

You can read it FREE ONLINE HERE.

NEWS IN BRIEF: Karl's back from snowboarding, Grant is writing a Comic Relief Song and Jay is tearing down houses with his newly healed bionic hand! 

See ya at the gigs!

New Caroline's Track!

Karl has been fuzzin' busy working on some news stuff in all directions as well as Toupé. One of the fruits of his labour is this new track from Caroline's Capuchin.

Called 'Deepest Fall' - it stretches their legs in different directions from their previous sound. But it's wicked smart!

Facial hair!

hey peepers,

O.K. i've grown a beard! not through any want or lust for it , just out of plain lazyness, but it's turned into a social experiment for me. I've noticed things since my chin got covered in the brown ( and grey in places) fluff! check this:

1. Old women now see me as completely approachable and not intimidating at all, i get smiled at alot by the elderly. never used to!

2. Chavs find me intimidating, they never used to, i'd get the usual lip from em as i walk into tesco, now i get em looking away, an nothing said. i actually miss their imaginative insults.

3. people in the 40-65 age bracket look down on me like i'm lazy and don't take care of myself , i get the most piss taking comments from this age group.

4. young kids are just shit scared of me, which is cool coz i don't have much dealings with those apart from my god daughter Ione Mason who is far to happy being beautiful and happy to be scared of anything it seems.

I'm sure there is some massive moral story here of the way people still judge each other by their looks or the way they look but i've lost the will to go deeper into that and just wanna say;

it's just a fricking beard people! it's not coming off till Toupé have got 10 new songs!!!

It's affected me enough that a line must be added to Love/Hate me thinks.

night night

Special K.

Minterview with Grant

Grant's just done an interview with MintSouth.Com.

READ IT HERE!

Gig 31/1/09 - Andover...in retrospect.

What a great time we had! Thank you to all who came out for the show. 

Lots of funny things happened at the gig, to allow a group of cool teenagers to stay for the show we had to allow them to use the toilets at the beck of the stage, because the only other toilets were located in the strip bar next door and they were not allowed in there. So during the show we allowed toilet breaks to everyone which made for really funny moments. If you weren't there, go to the toilet and listen to Toupé on your iPod and imagine the whole crowd knowing what you're doing.

All things worked, we pulled out the old ones and even slotted in a version of 'LikeHate' and an unrehearsed version of 'Gilly's Weapon VS Stooler's Wheel'. 

Then on to the strippers for me. I ended up staying in the bar until 5am long after Jay and Karl went home. Brilliant night.

Big shout out to Liz for celebrating her birthday with us - we really enjoyed the licking.

Photos:

Next bunch of gigs will be announced at the end of the week! 

Grant