20lb Sounds

The Zanzibar - Sat March 3rd 2012

dan — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:21:06 +0000

That's right, 20lb Sounds ride again! We have another gig at The Zanzibar, Seel St, Liverpool on Saturday March 3rd 2012. It's the start of the month, everyone has been paid and it's gonna be a serious blow out. The last gig was really great so don't miss out. It's only 4 quid on the door and we should be on about 9:30pm.

The picture you can see above was taken by David Forbes at the last gig. Many thanks to him for that. I look like I'm about to bite the microphone but I promise you I didn't.

You can find the event listed on Facebook and Skiddle.

Come down and say hello if you can. We'd love to see you! :)

Dan

Gigs Galore

dan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:14:05 +0000

Gigs, they're a bit like busses. You wait ages for one and then 3 come along at once. You'll notice a list of gigs in the sidebar to the right there. I'll be keeping that up to date as more come in. We slacked off a bit on gigs for the backend of last year. This year we're hitting the ground running,

Come down and see us if you can, we always do everything possible to put on a great show and make sure everyone has a good time.

Next gig is Saturday February 4th at The Zanzibar, Seel Street, Liverpool.

Here's a Google Map and a Facebook event link. It's open so feel free to invite friends. All are welcome.

A big thanks to Tony at The Zanzibar for being so supportive. It's a top venue too. If you want to come along you can just wander in. It's only £4 on the door and I promise it'll be worth it. Doors open at 8pm.

See some of you down there :)

Dan

It's been a long time...

dan — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:35:42 +0000

...we shouldn't have left you, without a strong rhyme to step to :)

That's right we're not dead and we haven't split up. I'm happy to report that 20lb Sounds are very much alive and well. We have been a bit quiet in recent months while we wrote new songs and concentrated on recording. We released a tune here called Rip It Up not so long ago. Have a listen to that if you haven't already.

One thing we really have dragged our heels on is booking gigs. I'm pleased to report that after some delay we have another gig and it's pretty short notice. Here's the vital details:

Mello Mello, Liverpool - Sunday December 4th @ 9pm

Here's a map, to help you find it.

I don't have ticket details yet but I'm told it will either be free entry or 2 quid max, so either way it's not much.

Come along and see us if you can. We'll be debuting a lot of new material and we could also do with more gigs. So if you'd like us to play somewhere just drop us an email. We'd be happy to!

See ya Sunday,

Dan

Rip It Up

dan — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:21:47 +0000

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I'm proud to finally present a new song called "Rip It Up". I say new, but it's actually a recent recording of an older tune you may not know. If you've been to one of our live gigs you might have heard this. It's hard to know how to describe the song itself really. Gary came up with the guitar riff years ago but never did much with it. We jammed it out in rehearsal one night and I wrote the lyrics a few days later. The words could be about lots of things but specifically they refer to my disillusionment with politicians and their promises. The manifestos mean nothing. I'd probably been watching Question Time. That always get's me going.

It's the first new release in a while. Sorry for the delay. This recording was made about a month ago at a temporary studio we set up on the Wirral. We locked ourselves away for a weekend and worked on 5 songs in total. So there should be more to feast your ears on very soon.

You can leave comments below and let us know what you think. Please send links to friends and share this on any other services you like. Twitter, Google+, Facebook etc. We can use all the promotion we can get. Thanks, I hope you enjoy the song.

Dan

It's Been A While

dan — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Hello everyone,

I just noticed the last update here was months ago. I apologize for that and I promise to sort this out. I'm thinking of redesigning the site and simplifying it but at the same time making it more useful. If that's possible. I realized recently after a good chat with my friend Anna B that it doesn't make much sense to build your own social network just for a band.

Better to really integrate the existing ones people use like Facebook and now Google+ etc. Also getting more live videos and recordings on here to make it more interesting. I'll be concentrating on that in the coming weeks

So what's changed in the world of 20lb Sounds in the last couple of months? Well, we've been practicing hard and writing some new tunes. As of now we have 11 original tunes in our set. That's not bad going and could even add up to an album, though a couple more would be nice. Most of our tunes are under 3 minutes long, we're keeping it punk and even with 11 of them there's probably only just over 30mins of music. That's enough for a punk album I suppose but I like the idea of having 12 or 13 songs and I'm sure we can manage that.

The two newest additions are titled "Bird On A Wire" and "Late In The Game". They're both pretty fast and loud, as is our way, but they also have catchy melodies and could be popular I think.

We haven't got any gigs booked at the moment and I'll be having a stern word with myself about this. People keep asking, which is a positive sign. We tried to get on a couple of summer festivals but probably didn't do enough chasing and life got in the way. Don't panic though, we'll get more gigs booked for the second half of the year and hopefully come up with some good studio recordings too.

In the meantime our music has been featured on quite a few podcasts. The guys at Cyber Unions used a excerpt of El Bubblino in their show and the good folks at This Is Not A Podcast also played Jimmy Carter. So go and check them out.

Stay tuned for some changes around here a ton more videos from the 20lb gig archive. Till then, take care :)

Dan

20lb Acoustic Gig Review

dan — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:52:34 +0000

Just a quick note to say check out the lovely review Sebastian Gahan from Nerve wrote about our acoustic gig in FACT. I'm really glad he enjoyed it and had nice things to say. We appreciate it!

In reference to our song Jimmy Carter he says - "It's bluesy swing on the EP is less evident in the acoustic format, but the charming conceit of using his name only because it fits the melody is brilliant enough to win over the harshest of audiences."

You can read the full article here

Don't forget to come and join us at The Zanzibar in Liverpool on Sunday April 24th at 8pm for an amazing night of live music from a selection of bands. It's only £5, and what can you buy for that these days? Not even 2 drinks in most places. See RatholeRadio.org/gig for more info.

See ya,

Dan

Rathole Roadshow EP Feat 20lb Sounds

dan — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:40:46 +0000

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since the last update, apologies for that. I've been very busy with arrangements for the Rathole Radio gig on Sunday April 24th at The Zanzibar, Liverpool. I made a free EP featuring all the artists to promote the event. It has two songs by us, Jimmy Carter and El Bubblino, and also contains great music by I Am Not Lefthanded and Rob Warren.

DOWNLOAD IT COMPLETELY FREE

Burn it to CD, put it on your phone or whatever else you kids do these days ;)

Please spread the word and help us promote the gig. We have loads of new songs to play on the night and it's gonna be a cracker. Get yourself down there! Doors are 8pm and it only costs £5 for 3 top bands.

Tickets and information available at - http://ratholeradio.org/gig

Thanks!

Dan

Reality

dan — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:39:24 +0000

The first public performance of this song at our Feb 2011 LEAF gig in Liverpool. It's called "Reality" and it's actually one I wrote many years ago. This version certainly rocks a lot more than the original acoustic demo. You can also see Bubblino blowing bubbles in appreciation of our performance in the bottom left of the screen. The hero of our song "El Bubblino"!

Big thanks to Pete The Sheet for taking this video for us as always.

Come and see us at The Zanzibar on April 24th --- tickets on sale here.

See ya,

Dan

Venue Change

dan — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:08:25 +0000

Great news everyone, I've secured a new venue for the Rathole Radio gig on April 24th. It'll be at The Zanzibar on Seel Street. It's just a few hundred yards from the old venue, on the same road. Massive thanks to Tony from the club for sorting this out. I haven't played there in a while but it's a great venue and I'm really happy.

Getting new tickets printed as we speak and I'll get them out to everyone who's ordered ASAP. If you want to come along we have 20lb Sounds obviously, I Am Not Lefthanded and Rob Warren playing on the night. It's going to be great and you don't want to miss it.

Venue location details can be seen here.

You can order tickets here and they're only a fiver, so get on board. It'll be the best thing happening in Liverpool on that night, I promise. More announcements to come soon. The promotion drive can now get back into full swing! :)

See you all there,

Dan

We're Playing The Cavern

dan — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:02:47 +0000

Hello everyone, just wanted to update you about more upcoming gigs. Firstly, bit of a disaster with the Rathole Radio gig as the venue is no longer available. I'm trying to find another venue and fighting for it to stay on Sunday April 24th. Lots of places offering me Monday instead which isn't great. More updates on that soon!

Some good news, we have confirmed 2 gigs in May as part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival in the Cavern. On Wednesday May 18th we'll play the Cavern Pub (over the road from the club) and our stage time is down as 23:45, bit late for those working the next day I know but at least entry is FREE.

On Monday May 23rd we'll play in the Cavern Club itself at 23:15, again a late one but the festival schedule is very full. There might be a small charge of £1-3, it's up to the Cavern really. Don't know for sure yet.

I hope some of you can join us for these gigs and I'll be posting more information about the Rathole Radio gig ASAP.

Take care,

Dan

Blood On The Windscreen (live)

dan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:20:16 +0000

The first video from our gig at LEAF in Bold St, Liverpool last month. This is the opening song of our set and it's a new original one called "Blood On The Windscreen". The vocals are a bit loud but the mix improved as the gig went on. We're really proud of the song, and it's a rocker! :)

As always, thanks to Pete The Sheet for taking this video. Please share this with friends if you like it, all promotion helps. There's a "share this" widget below. Thanks!

If you want to catch us live we'll be doing a big gig with I Am Not Lefthanded and Rob Warren in Liverpool on April 24th 2011 --- Tickets available now from the Rathole Radio website.

White Room - Live @ Vanilla Lounge

dan — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 12:56:30 +0000

Just when you thought it was safe.... 20lb TV is back! I realise it's been a while and that's mostly my fault, sorry. Here's a video of us performing the Cream classic "White Room" at the Vanilla Lounge on Saturday Jan 8th this year. Massive thanks to our videographer Pete The Sheet for his camera work and everything else.

Unfortunately the lighting isn't brilliant. There were basically no lights in the place. Please excuse any problems with the picture. I also possibly messed up the video encoding a little, I'm just learning about that. I'll try to get a better version up soon.

Stay tuned for more videos over the coming weeks. We have loads of new original songs recorded from our February gig at LEAF. They also had lights in that venue :P

Take care,

Dan

More Gig News

dan — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:55:55 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! It's the first 20lb update of 2011, unless you're a member of our mailing list which of course you should be. I send out monthly updates but try not to spam anyone with too many emails. We recently played our gig at the Vanilla Lounge and it went really well. I'd like to thank everyone for coming down and supporting us. With your help we packed the place out and it rocked!

We're currently working on new songs and getting back into the swing of rehearsal after the gig. We created a tune last night Led Zeppelin would be proud of, I kid you not. Ok so that's a very bold statement, but hopefully you'll agree when we finally get it released for everyone to hear. It's called "Blood On The Windscreen".

El Bubblino has been doing well on Bandcamp so please continue to help us spread the word, we'll be your best mate, honest ;)

We've just confirmed another gig for Friday February 11th 2011 at the new LEAF Cafe in Bold Street, Liverpool. It's the closing party for Social Media In Liverpool week and we'll be playing upstairs with some other great acts. The hippest social media geeks will be in attendance so I'm sure El Bubblino will go down a storm. We might also be able to debut some of this other new material for you. Entrance is free so get yourself down there, the night starts at about 8:30pm and it's gonna be a late one.

You can read more at the Social Media Cafe Liverpool blog, thanks to Ella.

There's also a Facebook event and a Google Map to help you find it.

Hope to see some of you at LEAF and if there are any other gigs arranged in the mean time I'll be sure to let you know. We have the Rathole Radio gig at The Masque on Sunday April 24th and we might also be playing the International Pop Overthrow Festival in May, I have yet to confirm that. Stay tuned. 2011 is shaping up pretty well so far, even if we're only 2 weeks in.

El Bubblino

dan — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:44:31 +0000

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Hola amigos!! Sorry, I slipped into Spanish for a moment there in honour of our new song "El Bubblino". It's a slice of crazy Mexican rock celebrating Bubblino, the lovable bubble blowing robot created by inventor and good friend Adrian McEwen. He watches Twitter and blows bubbles when certain things come up, he's a popular fixture at many geeky events. A while back I had the crazy idea that he should have a Mexican cousin called El Bubblino. It wasn't long before I was trying to write a vaguely Mexican sounding song to promote this and now you can hear the results. It's become a lot heavier since we started jamming the tune in practise but I'm really happy with the end product. We recorded this a few weeks ago at our Wally Rd Studio in Wallasey. It's exactly 2 minutes long but there's a lot packed in. As Flight Of The Conchords famously sang "2 minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven" hehehe :)

I've created an EP you can purchase from Bandcamp with this single in higher audio quality and some other treats. These free downloads are 160kbps which is perfectly listenable and good but you'll have to head over to Bandcamp if you want more sorry, you can name your price. Believe it or not many people have asked us how they can contribute money and this way you get something cool in return. Massive thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, we really appreciate it.

Now go off and play this song LOUD, drink too much tequila and perhaps go loco. It's Christmas after all. Enjoy!

Bubblino cover image courtesy of Alex Ingram

El Bubblino by 20lb Sounds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

8th January Gig

dan — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:44:11 +0000

Hello everyone, I hope you're keeping well in this icy weather. If you're in our Facebook group or signed up to the mailing list (which of course you should be), you may already know about this. We've booked a gig at the Vanilla Lounge in Hoylake for Saturday the 8th of January. We'll be playing two 45 minute sets so there should be plenty of music to go around.

If you're within travelling distance (I know some of you aren't, apologies) come down and see us. We're on from about 9pm to 11pm and the bar seems very nice. We'll also be debuting some of the new original songs.

Vanilla Lounge, 6 Market Street, Hoylake, CH47 2AE.

Saturday Jan 8th 2011 from 9pm.

Here's a Google Map to help you find it, and you can also mark your attendance on the Facebook event if you like. Invite your friends.

Hope to see some of you there, it's gonna be fun!

New Songs & Interviews

dan — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:22:33 +0000

Hey everyone, it's been a couple of weeks but I just wanted to update you on the events in our little world. We've moved into a new rehearsal room in the centre of Liverpool now and we're settling in nicely. It's cool to play with live drums and a proper PA, we can play a lot louder and really rock out. Good training for gig conditions. Speaking of which, we are booked into play the 2nd Rathole Radio live event at The Masque in Liverpool on Sunday 24th April next year. We should also have news on some more gigs soon. I know April next year is a long way off, hopefully we can get in a good few more live dates before then.

We've been writing some new songs and I will share those with you as soon as I can. We're heading back to Wally Road to record them and then I'll get them on the site. I really like the new tunes but obviously I'm completely biased.

I wrote last time of our music being featured on various podcasts and I'm pleased to say that's continued. I joined the guys from the PentaMusic podcast to talk about music, the band and much more. I also played a live acoustic song. The show is usually in German but thankfully for me this one was in English, my German isn't up to much. You can download it here.

In the past week our music has also been featured on The Bugcast, which is hosted by Dave & Caroline Lee. Thanks to both of them for that, and also thanks to Russ (aka KFive) for emailing and letting me know our music was also played on the 50th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. You can download both of those shows from their websites so check them out.

It's great to see so many people supporting us, and we hope to have some shiny new music for you in plenty of time for Christmas. Take care in the icy winter weather and don't forget to sign up and share your thoughts in comments and the forum. We need you!

Dan

For The Love Of Pod

dan — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:52:38 +0000

Hello again everyone, just wanted to let you know that 20lb Sounds were featured on a number of music podcasts lately. Firstly a big thanks to Steve Gower of the Alternative Airwaves podcast for playing Redemption Song in a recent show. He also played a couple of my solo songs (Dan) as well. You can download it here.

I was co-host on FLOSS Weekly this Wed (17th Nov) and I slipped in a big mention for the band and our growing online community at the end. You can find that at the TWIT website.

Finally in the podcast mentions, we were played on AMPed 257 this week and got a good reaction. I'll have more news on another music podcast interview next week. In the meantime please join our community and build yourself a profile, invite your friends! The forums are now open and I'm still building the members area up and improving things, I could really use your help. Join the 20lb Army!!

"Uncle Dan Needs You" :)

Take care,

Dan

Some Site Tweaks

dan — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:48:44 +0000

I realise the site is less than a week old at this point but in the quest to make it even better I've added some new stuff. We were asked by a few people to set up a mailing list, something I had been thinking about anyway, so now we have one! If you're already a member of the site you will see a mailing list tick box appear in the sidebar when you're logged in. Tick it and click save. Otherwise you can just enter your email address in the box and click sign up. It's that simple. We'll use it to announce gigs, new tracks and all kinds of other stuff. You can also use this link to share send the signup form to friends - http://eepurl.com/bwPJH

We were also asked about getting Flattr buttons from micropayments and I've set that up. There's one on Jimmy Carter now. I still need to tidy up the siplay a bit but it's down at the bottom below the license.

Let us know what else you'd like to see here. I want to build up the community side of things and make this our own little social network. Any ideas you have please leave a comment on this post or send us an email to info AT 20lb DOT net.

Looking forward to your ideas and a big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to sign up, like us on Facebook, repost our links and so on. We appreciate it :)

Dan

Jimmy Carter

dan — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:49:59 +0000

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This is our first original release. It's called Jimmy Carter and as you might expect it's about... well... Jimmy Carter, the former US president. We didn't set out to write a song about him particularly, it's just that someone came out with the line "Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer", and it had to be put into song. After a quick trawl of his Wikipedia page we were turning up all sorts of gems. Such as Jimmy Carter is the cousin of Motown Records suprimo Berry Gordy, he's also won a Nobel Peace prize and even a Grammy award. Mad huh?

All those nudgets of trivia found their way into the lyrics. It was originally just the main riff but then other sections were written to make it a bit more interesting as a full song. It's hard to know what to describe this as, it's almost country blues, but somehow not. There's a bit of harmonica thrown in there so watch out for that too. You can't beat the old gob iron.

This is licensed under CC BY-SA because it's our own original work. You can download it, share it with friends, give out CDs and generally help us spread this music as far as possible. We need your help to make this work.

Enjoy!

Jimmy Carter by 20lb Sounds is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Doors Are Now Open

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:11:39 +0000

Hello everyone, and welcome to our brand new site! Sexy isn't it? Still a work in progress admittedly and there's a bit to do but we're finally on our way. You can sign up here free to get involved. Signing up allows you to create a 20lb profile page for yourself and also post comments without those pesky CAPTCHAs. I'm sorry about those but spam is a killer these days. I'm working on more membership benefits to add.

Please post comments and let us know what you'd like to see on here in future, this is a community project. I can enable a forum, image uploading for members and all kinds of other things. The sky is the limit really, so whatever you want just ask. We can't promise it'll happen but we'll certainly do our best.

So first of all please let us know, would you be interested in a forum? Reply in the comments. I want to check whether anyone thinks it'll be useful before setting it up. What else do we need, a mailing list perhaps? All suggestions welcome.

Join the 20lb Army, leave comments, share the music, watch videos and make yourself at home. We hope you'll stick around a while.

Dan

P.S - Oh and if you'd like to use those little widgets to share our posts on Twitter, Facebook or other places, please do. Share the music and spread the word. We're relying on you!

Matthias Listening To Rathole Radio

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:55:35 +0000

This is an amazing video posted right after the Nerve Centre gig by my friend Morten in New York. Here's his young son Matthias dancing to the sound of the band playing live via Rathole Radio. Uploaded almost instantly from the other side of the world. Crazy huh?

Part 4 - Bad Format Gig 30/04/10

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:38:44 +0000

The final part of the video from our first ever live gig at Bad Format in Liverpool. You can read a longer description in part 1.

This is part 4 of 4 in total.

Songs:

Bob Marley - Redemption Song
Pearl Jam - State Of Love & Trust
Oasis - Half The World Away

Unfortunately the power on the camera ran out about half way through State Of Love & Trust.

Part 3 - Bad Format Gig 30/04/10

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:34:16 +0000

Part 3 of the video from our first live gig at Bad Format in Liverpool. You can read a longer description in part 1.

This is part 3 of 4 in total.

Songs:

Dan Lynch - Elephant In The Room
Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward

Enjoy!

Part 2 - Bad Format Gig 30/04/10

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:32:02 +0000

The second part of the video from our first ever gig at Bad Format. You can read more here.

This is part 2 of 4 in total.

Songs:

Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
Men At Work - Down Under

Part 1 - Bad Format Gig 30/04/10

dan — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:30:16 +0000

Here's a video taken by Mr Herbie Green (who some of you will know) at our debut gig earlier in the year. It was part of the first Rathole Radio live event on April 30th 2010 and took place at Bad Format in Liverpool. He took this from the DJ booth at the back of the stage, which is why you can't really see Gary's face at any point. We didn't even know the camera was there on the night, just in case you're wondering why we never ackowledge it.

The video is in 4 parts and the others will follow this.

Songs:

Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack Flash
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

Enjoy!

Redemption Song

dan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:26:57 +0000

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Here's our version of the classic "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley & The Wailers. We first played this at our debut gig in April and since then we've been playing it often in practices.

It's a bit different to the original but if you're gonna do a cover version you have to do it your own way, right? This was recorded at Wally Road studios with some technical wizardry by Gary. The whole thing was done in a couple of hours and then he mixed it down. Hope you like it. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think :)

Licensing for this one is a little complicated. Obviously it's originally by Bob Marley and his estate or perhaps Island Records must still own the copyright to it. Therefore we can't formally release it under Creative Commons, but as far as we're concerned you can treat it as CC. Share it with friends etc.

We can't be held responsible for any problems you may have with the original copyright holder in reusing this, sorry. I guess the comforting thought is that we'd be in more trouble than you hehe.