July 2009

And the hourglass continues to drain. With new single Pep Talk and album Toothpick Bridge only weeks away from release, things are beginning to hot up here at ist Towers.

Kenton and John will be preceding the release with a series of acoustic dates in Scotland (see here for details) and the album will be launched with a series of gigs/parties around the country, the first of which will be at The Donkey, Leicester on August 20th. The boys will be joined for the Leicester launch by the mighty Swinging Laurels on brass. Visit The Donkey's site for more details.

Here on the site, you can find a brand new Lyrics section, bringing you completely up-to-date on the many, many words of ist. Keep an eye out for more additions to the site in the form of free downloads, videos, pictures and much, much more.

Speaking of Toothpick Bridge, there are one or two digital shops where you early adopters can either pre-order the album, or listen to sample tracks. A full list of places where you can buy the single and album will be up in the next few weeks, but here's a couple of starting points:

Those of you in the East Midlands area, while you wait patiently for ist, can see Kenton in another musical guise as he appears in two charity concerts in Loughborough and Leicester on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 and Sunday July 5th, 2009. More details here and here. We warn you, he's dancing. And pretending to look smart.

We'd also like to hear more from all of you as we get closer to release date, so please come and say hello at your favourite social network website. For instance, ist @ Myspace, ist @ Facebook, or let Kenton ramble at you on Twitter.

Feel free to ask any questions, spew any insults, impugn any honour and generally get involved. ist look forward to hearing from you. Until then, keep coming back as news of reviews, features, radio sessions and further Toothpick Bridge tour dates are announced.

Did we mention we're awfully fond of you all? And not just as friends either. We'd even buy you a drink and ask before groping. Until next time. x

June 2009

Well, what can we tell you? Things continues to move forward, with a wealth of stuff on the horizon. Toothpick Bridge and Pep Talk are now about 7 weeks from your ears and grubby little mitts. We're very excited, and we're sure that despite your protestations of a headache, you are too. We will keep you posted about gigs, reviews, radio features, interviews, orgies, the lot.

What else can we tell you? Oh, Kenton has now returned from his stint in The Full Monty which played to sold-out houses for its week's run at Curve Theatre, Leicester. He feels proud that, by keeping his clothes on, he undoubtedly contributed to the enormous success of the production.

In other news - for those who like that sort of thing, this is very loosely connected (join the dots, folks) - to one of the other secret ist projects on the horizon - Kenton also spent a day as an extra on the film Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, the currently filming biopic of Ian Dury, starring Andy Serkis as the man himself. According to the shabby Canadian, "Cinema audiences are in for one of the great performances of modern times. And Mr Serkis isn't bad either." We then punched him in the mouth. As would you have done. I mean look at him. What does he think he looks like?

On which note, we leave you to bleach that image from your mind. Just pray we never find the naked one with the less-than-strategically placed mandolin. All four ist boys are working hard to bring you much music and madness over the coming months. Look for: A radio score from John McCourt! Flash backing our friend and legend, Kevin Hewick at the Summer Sundae festival! (Also featuring The New Beautiful South, containing our very own lovely Gaz Birtles!). Some masterful mastering of the new Mr. Plow album from THE Brett Richardson! The Smears' Hell in High Heels album, produced by and featuring guest vocals from the Canuck git. There's more, so much more, but we'll let you digest. Until next time, lovely listener.

May 2009

There are so many exciting things in the pipeline, it's difficult to know where to start. First and foremost, of course, is the impending release of ist's Toothpick Bridge on 17th August 2009, preceded by the first single, Pep Talk on the 10th August. We've been looking forward to getting these songs out to you for a long time, so we hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we had nervous breakdowns recording them. There will be a variety of ist appearances, of all descriptions, from late summer to support the release.

In other, odder news, Kenton will be appearing from 8th June 2009 until 13th June 2009 at Curve Theatre, Leicester in a production of, wait for it, The Full Monty. He is playing Teddy Slaughter and assures us his clothes stay on, which is a mercy. He will, however, be dancing, which is not so much with the mercy.

Various members of the band will also be appearing as performers, writers, composers or members of the production team on a number of other releases over the next six months, including a six-part radio series, a handful of films, several co-writes with and for other artists and, undoubtedly, at some point, floating down the Thames as statues of themselves. The last of these may prove an unreliable rumour. Oh, and as always, our dear Flash will be continuing to teach the world to drum in perfect bloody noisy. Email him @ flashdrums@gmail.com for more info on that. More news on all of it as it develops. Stay tuned. Much love, ist.

April 2009

There's a new, tarted-up ist website on the way, Toothpick Bridge will be cruising towards your ears in a big way this summer and there's a couple of other projects in the pipeline as well, so get ready for an ist onslaught very soon. (And about bloody time.) So, to celebrate all this - and to give you something to do while we shine it all up... why not catch up with the story so far.

ist's first two albums, Freudian Corduroy and King Martha, and our last single The Wreck of the Eddie Fitzpatrick/I am Jesus (And You're Not) are now available on Spotify. So, while away an afternoon in our audio company for the sum total of FREE.

 ist@spotify

January 2009

Happy New Year everyone. 2008 was a particularly strange year even by our standards, with the conclusion of the album sessions for Toothpick Bridge - coming to a wider release schedule near you as soon as we can dot various i's and cross various t's - Kenton's involvement with the Chris Difford and The Decorations Christmas single, "Let's Not Fight This Christmas", John meeting Britt Ekland (hope you enjoy the album, Miss E!) backstage at a Thompson Family Christmas, Flash teaching the world to drum in imperfect harmony and Brett learning to fly! We can only hope and plan for an even stranger and more exciting 2009. We hope it is treating you and yours well so far.
Keep your eyes open and your mouth free of weasels.
Love,
ist.

October 2008 - con't

It's quite strange, really, that whenever from an outside perspective, things seem quiet, you can guarantee that here in camp ist, it is merely the brief calm before the storm. Frankly, I'm champing at the bit to pass on some of our current news, plans and strategems but the time, alas, has not yet come. Just trust me when I say that strange and interesting things are brewing behind the scenes, some of which will come to pass in the short term, some in the New Year. But trust me when I say that, between us, we've been hard at work with some lovely and interesting people.


One thing I can report is that our annual istmas extravanganze, quite possibly our favourite gig of the year is booked for the 6th of December at our new home from home at home, The Donkey, Leicester's best venue for real music lovers.


We will once again be joined by our brass-blowing brethren, The Swinging Laurels (Messrs. Birtles, Barrow and Sargent) and you'll be treated to an outstanding opening act in the incomparable M48. Tickets are £5 and you can book ahead of time by contacting or visiting the venue, or from Rockaboom Records, St. Martin's Square, Leicester.


In the meantime, I hope those of you who have been sensible enough to grab a limited edition copy of Toothpick Bridge are enjoying them. Please feel free to email your reviews of the record to kenton@istianity.co.uk We'll be publishing the best of your comments online very soon.


For those of you who haven't heard the new album yet, please visit our MySpace blog for more information or sling us a shiny email.

October 2008

There's so much to report this month, I barely know where to begin. Toothpick Bridge, as you know, is finished and as some of you may be aware, over at www.myspace.com/ist we are giving you fans a chance to secure a pre-release copy ahead of a worldwide release later in the year. So go, find, buy and enjoy.

Official ist MySpace Blog

In other news, the scruffy Canadian one has just returned from another fantastic writing retreat, this time in the luxurious surroundings of Hurst House in Wales, and we should be hearing more about that presently.


So, really what we're basically trying to say is get over to our pages on MySpace and Facebook and say hello. And keep checking back here for more news. It's all getting rather exciting.

June 2008

Hello, faithful listeners (and, of course, you slatternly ones at the back who only show up for the occasional emotionally traumatic yet extremely erotic booty call).


It's a strange old time at the moment. I can see insanely busy weeks and months ahead and I'm desperately trying to prepare for them, but I'm still working out where to begin. However, a few announcements.

Confirmation has just arrived that ist will be playing this year's Sugarhill Festival, which takes places on 5-7 September, (www.sugarhillfestival.co.uk). We're on the New Independents Stage on Sunday, 7th September, just before the headliners, The Flies (led by Spiritualised's Sean Cook). We're hoping this will kick off the process of bringing Toothpick Bridge to the masses, and we're planning a number of events, both online and in real life, to kick the latter part of 2008 off with a bang.
The next week, we will be taking part in the Shoreditch Shuffle (http://www.whos-jack.co.uk/shuffle.html) event in good ol' London Town, being organised by the fine people at Who's Jack Magazine. Over the 13/14 September, you'll be able to take in a cornucopia of art, films, music and, I have no doubt, interpretative dance.

In between times, amongst other dates to be confirmed, we will be visiting Bar None in Nottingham on 14th August. As always, new dates on the horizon over the next couple of months while we finalise plans for the now about 3 days work from completion new album. We are actively looking for some events which are a little off-the-beaten track, as well, so if you know of strange and interesting gigs that may suit, feel free to let us know on kenton@istianity.co.uk or kenton.ist@gmail.com.

In fact, plans are afoot to get the first single/taster/frightener from the album out to you soon. We'll be doing this in a rather strange and interesting way, so if you'd like to be involved and get in on the ground floor of that, again with the emailing us, you little monkeys.

I have, as you might remember, recently returned from another writing sojourn in Italy and some of you might have expected another blog-fest by now. I'm still assimilating the experience at the moment, but I would like to take the chance to thank Chris D, Marti P, Linda L, Chris S, Matt D, Madelaine H, Rachel D, Jim B, Vivien S, Eran J, Athena A, Claire H and Jan B for an extraordinary time, which I'm not sure yet I can capture in words. And, of course, to our hosts Alessio and Valeria, Art and Seth - much love and awe. As with my last trip, however, I will need to introduce you to the work of these fine folks at some stage because there is a wealth of music you need to hear.

I think that's all for now. Keep an eagle eye out, cause there's soon going to be more ist about than you could shake a reasonably stout stick towards.
K.

Endorsement

We're proud to announce that our very own rhythm king, Flash has - quite deservedly - been awarded an endorsement from Pellwood Drumsticks. We'd like to congratulate him and we look forward to being hit in the back of the head by Pellwood sticks for many years to come.

May 2008 ~ Tour Update

The first few dates in the 2008 Toothpick Bridge tour are now up. Many more to follow. Kenton will be appearing as part of a songwriter's festival in Montone, Italy, alongside Squeeze's Chris Difford on May 31st, and the tour proper kicks off back home in the UK on June 6th at Sumo, Leicester. Hope to see you there.

Album Update
Toothpick Bridge is nearly complete, you'll pleased to hear, and we hope the 3,000 year gestation period has been worth the wait. New music will be making itself available soon, so you can hear some of what we've all been suffering nervous breakdowns over for the past year. We hope to have some news of when the album proper will reach you over the next couple of months. Keep checking in.

ist on the Telly
ist recently debuted two songs from the new album on Sky 186's new music programme, Ditto TV. We hope to have samples from the performance and interview up shortly.

ist on the Radio
Following hot on the heels of the TV show, ist continued to hawk their wares on the wonderful Fuss FM. Four new tracks were aired as part of an exclusive live session. Once again, we hope to be able to bring you some of the tracks and interviews very soon.

Learn Drums from Our Very Own Flash
As some of you may know, our resident hitter-of-things, Flash has his own website: www.flashdrummer.co.uk, covering his entire career in and out of ist, including special offers for those of you interested in learning the drums for yourself. We particularly recommend the free online drum lessons. Even Kenton nearly managed to stay in time with them!
(Limited Time, Special Offer: 10 half hour lessons for £75 for a block booking.)

March 2008

Flash's new website
Finally after much hard work the all new www.flashdrummer.co.uk website is up and running. The site covers all of my career in music so far, the site features my teaching, session and kit restoration work.

Album Progress
In February 2007, we decamped to The Way Studios, Hackney to begin work on our 3rd album, 'Toothpick Bridge'. On March 8th, 2008, we finished what we, in our passion for mixed metaphors, are declaring 'principal photography'. Barring a few overdubs and special guest appearances (more news on that soon!) we have most of the album in the can. It's been an incredible, if occasionally breakdown-inducing year, and we just wanted to thank everyone at The Way and The Premises for all their help and expertise in helping us and our producer, Jay Burnett, realise 18 songs worth of brand new ist. Still some miles to go before we sleep, but there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. We can only hope it's not a train.

News 2007

OCTOBER
Showcase Gig
The band are performing a one off night featuring The Swinging Laurels, on Saturday 3rd November at the Donkey in Leicester, this will be the last chance this year to see them play two sets of songs charting ist's career from 2001 to the present, including an exclusive preview of material due for release next year, support on the night will be the excellent M48.

JULY
A BIG thankyou
Thanks to everyone who came to the show at Guilfest, we had a marvellous time, and it would seem you did too...Due to the cancellation of the Song Festival by an extremely shortsighted local council in Huddersfield, ist will be making a one-off stop at home in Leicester for Gaz Birtles' Song Club Special, a two day mini-festival celebrating the spirit of the festival, which, if there's any justice, will be back next year. The Song Club for more details. ist will be playing on the 28th July at approx. 9:00pm, at The Donkey, Welford Road, Leicester.

Work on the album continues apace, and to say we are pleased with the results so far, would be...true. Anyone looking for more information on the album can contact Jay Burnett on jayburnett@gmail.com.

There will be announcements over the next couple of months of our movements for the rest of the year, but until then, we return to our series of small rooms to complete 'Toothpick Bridge'.

APRIL

ist confirmed for Song Festival 2007
The band are now confirmed to play Song 2007 in Huddersfield on 28/29th July (day to be confirmed), The Proclaimers and The Levellers are headlining.

Flash & STRESSBITCH @ Hawkfest 2007
Stressbitch are Hawkwinds annual festival Hawkfest the event runs June 15/16/17th at Castle Donington, Derbyshire, (Junction 24 of the M1), this will be the bands first festival but hopefully not the last, click on the link for further details.

Guilfest 2007
ist will be appearing on the Surrey Advertiser Live Club Stage from 3: 15 to 3:45 on Saturday, July 14th. Discount tickets for the day are £35 or £87.50 for the weekend. We have either 50 day tickets to sell or 20 weekend ones, after that it's on full price.

guilfest.co.uk

Headliners: Friday> Supergrass, Saturday> Squeeze, Sunday> Magic Numbers and Madness

Goodbye Andy T
A recent bit of very sad news for anyone who's involved in Leicester's thriving music scene was the untimely death of Andy Tomlinson on Tuesday 3rd April 2007. Andy was a long time friend of the band, booking us early on in our career a number of times, he was a genuinely great bloke and will be missed by us all.

Cheers Andy RIP

MARCH
Back from the brink
Welcome to the new ist website, a bit slicker, filled with a lot more information and signalling the start of the next period in ist history.

The recording of ist's 3rd album 'Toothpick Bridge' is well underway with US Producer Jay Burnett, and it promises to hold quite a few surprises.

Also fellow Leicester band Stressbitch (Flash moonlighting again with Porkbeast, ex of Crazyhead) are currently recording their first single to be released later this year, no release date confirmed as yet.