THE SUMMER SUNDAE FRINGE FESTIVAL

Summer Sundae Fringe / Pineapster Podcast

2009-10-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Pretty much as it says on the tin. Two super comedians, mr parkin and mr morgan give you a guide to the leicester music scene. it's something we're going to do every month. we think it's ace. and it's free. go listen to it!!!!!

Current events at DMH.........

2009-10-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

ok. some of you may well have noticed recent articles concerning Richard Haswell and Summer Sundae in the Leicester Mercury. certainly quite a few of you have asked us what we know.

The answer is no more than you. We don't have any further knowledge than what we've read in the Mercury also. We would like to say we are very very concerned over the suspension of Richard Haswell.

We only hope this is not a scenario where certain people are engineering a situation to remove the festivals.

Clearly we cannot run a summer sundae fringe festival, without having a main summer sundae weekender to provide warm up parties for. And, there will be no summer sundae without Richard Haswell.

Should a worst case scenario of festival cancellation occur. Then we'll happily begin a nightmare press situtation for Leicester City Council and scream our unhappiness from the rooftops, at the possibility that we lose our charity fundraising, arts showcasing festival. We've worked for 4 years to get where we are, and we'll be very very unhappy to lose it.

And to remind Leicester City Council, we alone sold 2,200 tickets to Summer Sundae Fringe Thursday tickets on Thursday 13th August 2009. That included an awful lot of people currently on the Leicester City electoral roll.......and the main pineapster site gets 25,000 hits a month.

just saying like.....

for no other reason then it still makes us smile......

2009-10-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

we put the dirty backbeats in to Firebug, and we got the great Dave Bartram from Showaddywaddy to introduce them.....(we've always thought the wads a little undervalued in Leicester if we're honest!!).

What They All Said About Us In 2009 : No.3. : The Guardian & Big Chill

2009-10-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

OK, so this one is easily perhaps the most statisfying and surprising piece of press, if only because we discovered it quite by accident. Whilst in Borders, at the start of the Summer, a keen interest in festivals led us to do a bit of free library browsing, and start flicking through a new book from those intellectuals at the Guardian. They'd gone a produced a guide to the UK festival summer, and not only that, but they did it in partnership with the Big Chill (who themselves know how to run a festival or two!!!). And maddly, they mentioned us!!!!

When we showed it to Richard Haswell at DMH, he nearly choked on his cappuccino and Marlboro Light. And we're quite flabbergasted also (crikey, we're in a full blown, bound £15 book my parents could buy from WH Smiths!!!). Heres the page in particular!!

Just to highlight, they say :

`There's a sense that this is a festival that has outgrown its venue. With BBC Radio 6 as its media partner, Summer Sundae has a level of media coverage that puts most other festivals this size (capacity about 6,000) to shame. But a solution is in sight! Various `fringe` events have started springing up in Leicester around the festival, with buses provided to ferry punters from one to the next. Many happen on the Thursday night, but this time around they're hoping to schedule gigs as far as two weeks in advance. Keep an eye on www.summersundaefringe.com for details`.

The Leicester Music Scene Gossip : Diary Entry 1. Mid October 2009

2009-10-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Right ok, so heres some snippets of news. Not gossip, well not malicious gossip at least, however, the following good and bad things have happened in the last month or so, and we'd thought we'd try and details them there :

Good Things

The Charlotte

The Charlotte re-opening : ok, there are some pay to play complaints, but give the place a chance, it's being run by people who have never done this before. They seem open to advice and they've got good intentions. One things for certain, it's pretty clear they arent in it for the money, so maybe we should all nip down and pay our respects. And join their Facebook group.

Maybeshewill Tour Epic

They've begun a massive tour....really, really massive. Crikey they're even playing Moscow!!! The Leicester date is on the 20th October at the trusty, lovely Firebug, We'll see you down the front. ours is a Peroni.

more tour date info here :
http://www.myspace.com/maybeshewont

OXJAM

Ok, so we've not really mentioned this at all, but a pile of student are doing OXJAM 2009 in Leicester. They've got a poster nearly the same as ours, some of the same bands as us, and they've even got a fringe like we are. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery we suppose. Either way, it's for a very good cause. And they've persuaded MJ Hibbett to play, which we've never managed to do, so well done OXJAM 2009. The main gigs are on October 25th, we hope it all goes well, and they make stacks of cash for OXFAM.

theres more info on all the going ons here : http://www.oxjam-leicester09.org.uk/

Hockley Hustle

We're off to the Hockley Hustle. To see how people do it properly. over 18 venues and 200 acts, all on one £5 wristband. Everyone we know raves about it, friends of ours have played it (Love Ends Disaster!) and this year, we've got friends running two rival venues (The BBC with Dean Jackson and the Hello Thor / Yeah I'll play it later Chaps). Anyhow, Minnaars are playing the BBC venue, so we're all off to watch / crib notes / chase organisers / stare in jealousy at people who do things far better than us.

more info on the hockley hustle here : http://www.nottsbox.com/hockleyhustle/

Bad Things

Pacific Ocean Fire (RIP)

POF have split, into two differing individual projects (or maybe 3, we're not sure). We're honestly gutted, they've been lovely, lovely, lovely people to deal with for the last 5 years. They made beautiful music, which really never reached enough people. However, they did tour the states, play SXSW, Summer Sundae, Summer Sundae Fringe and Truck fest, so it seems we arent the only people to love them very much. We wish all of them the very very best, especially Jon & Jess and forthcoming baby. We can only say thank you, thank you, thank you for all their help and support, and recommend you track down a copy of their outstanding album, `From The Station To The Church` on Leicester's own Sorted Records. Have we said Lovely too many times? justified if you ask me!!

fill glass with bourbon, light cigaretter, go here, listen to arrow from yr heart : http://www.myspace.com/pacificoceanfire

The Firebug toilets.

They smell like a boys high school swimming pool toilets. Comes to something, when now the Charlotte toilets are potentially more pleasant than Firebugs.

What They All Said About Us In 2009 : No. 2 : MORE Magazine!!!!

2009-10-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

Right, so this is pretty much possibly the wierdest piece of press we've ever yet got. For starters, it's in MORE Magazine, which is kind of like Heat, or Grazia. One of those weekly womens magazines with a combination of gossip, fashion, dieting tips, and `I've got £30,000 of debt and I don't care, I love my man` or somesuch. Seems they do these quiz fests on random good looking members of the public, and oddly. They did one at our gigs!!!!. It was the Sep 7th edition, which looks like this :

(Yep, thats Jordan on the cover!!!)

And the article (page 53 of magazine no less) looks like this ;

Clearly, you're thinking what we thought. Yep they got us mixed up with the main festival. We think the majority of the photos were taken on the main festival site, apart from photos 1 and 2, which we're pretty sure (and very oddly) might have been taken outside the Walkers Stadium. Still....god knows how they've heard of us to even possibly get us mixed up with the main festival!!!! Still all press is good press (unless you're Gary Glitter).

On a positive note, we think it's a fairly safe bet that if this Male totty went to the main festival, then we're 90% sure they came to ours as well. So if you're single, female, and like the look of these blokes, let us know and we'll contemplate a speed dating party for next years fringe!!!!

The Charlotte re-opens.......

2009-10-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it seems to be true. Yep, some 9 odd months post Andy Wright regime, and tonight a new team of people open the charlotte with a first night line up including 2009 fringe band Autohype :

and headliners and fringe 2007 / 2008 band the screening (we think this might be shot in the charlotte in fact):

anyway, so it re-opens. it was a handy fringe venue in 2007 and 2008, and one we'd happily look into re-using if it survives, so heres hoping, and good luck to the new team!!!!!

What They All Said About Us In 2009 : No.1 : VICE Magazine

2009-10-08T12:30:00.001-07:00

Vice Magazine......yep, y'know, VICE magazine (www.viceland.com). that ultra trendy fashion / culture magazine? y'know the one that is a bit like the FACE but 20 years on, the one that seems to cater for that somewhat odd generation who dress like the characters from SKINS, but are mostly at least over the age of 26? the VICE magazine with a record label who signed the magnificent BLACK LIPS?

anyway, they mentioned us in their 2009 VICE guide to festivals. they claimed we were street theatre (well almost I guess). and we're quite shocked they've even heard of us, so we're impressed with them also. anyway. here's the article here :

The Starting Point!!!!

2009-09-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

well, we have the date ?

Hello.....it's time to start blogging......

2009-09-27T04:44:00.001-07:00

A Final thank you.....

We raised £6500 from the 2009 Fringe Thursday warm up parties. The money is now in the process of making its way to LOROS (http://www.loros.co.uk/), it's taken a surprising while (avoiding VAT, changing money, moving money) but it'll all be there by this time next week. We're utterly staggered and amazed to be honest. We cant thank everyone and all of you enough. We wrote a letter to the mercury to thank you all. We hope you can read it here :

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Festival-Fringe-says-thanks/article-1264135-detail/article.html

Now...well it's over a month since the Fringe Thursday 2009. And now the planning starts again........Drunken pub conversations mean we've got a set festival date. Well, kind of.

Fringe Thursday 2010!!!!!! and so we will be 5!!!!

Mr Richard Haswell has told the world (well the efestivals ssw forum) that next years Fringe Thursday is on 12th August 2010.

(we'd made no plans to do it again, every year we say never again, and of course now......it's more of a oh well, go on then).

So there we are. the warm up parties will occur once more. 2010 will be our 5th year (god lord? really, blimey...erm well yes). And so we'd better start putting our thinking caps on.

(well, actually since the day after i've kind of already been oddly plotting, we've even found a new secret launch party venue, well I say we....I mean Richard and I.....now to convince everyone else on the fringe team that its a good idea i guess!!!!).

Fringe Team :

The 2009 fringe was brought to you by 4 people....well ok, 3 people and an IT spod (amazingly useful, technically brilliant man, in his own world of family guy, digital noises, bleepy music and coffee and apple mac products anyway).

The 2009 fringe festival was brought to you by :

Mr Steven Jones : http://twitter.com/iamthesteve
Miss Victoria Watts : http://www.myspace.com/vixenpoochi
Mr Sean Clarke : http://www.cuttlefish.com/seanclark.html
Mr Andrew Black : http://twitter.com/mr_black_

And well, 4 people wasnt probably enough, and we all wore ourselves silly and dragged others to help, again the list is way too long to detail, but make special mention to :

A very very special mention to Miss Jennifer Anne Simpson, Kate Owen, Esther Simpson, Richard Haswell, Jon O'Neill, Matt Kirk, All the people who helped Warren on the door at the Donkey, the bus drivers, the two girls who helped on the buses and many, many more.

So we've got to expand the fringe team a bit. We've already found some more helpers. We think everyone will like them and they've agreed to it now, so the 2010 fringe thursday and associated parties will currently*be brought to you by

Mr Steven Jones : http://twitter.com/iamthesteve
Mr Sean Clarke : http://www.cuttlefish.com/seanclark.html
Mr Andrew Black : http://twitter.com/mr_black_
Mr Andrew Wells : http://twitter.com/andywells232
Miss Laurel Davis-Lyons : http://twitter.com/ldlyons

*Miss Watts is contemplating a temporary relocation to the US of A....its not yet confirmed but entirely possible. but we suspect she might either A, come back for the fringe or B, never quite make it there in the first place (though we hope she does), in which case she's on the subs bench awaiting a potential recall.

Coming Up Soon :

This year we're going to attempt to keep you all in the loop about how a festival develops over the year. And so keep an eye on this odd place, for all the news, updates, gossip, etc. Otherwise you can find summer sundae fringe festival info in the following other locations :

website : http://www.summersundaefringe.com/
twitter : http://twitter.com/sswfringefest
facebook : http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=42469806000&ref=ts
myspace : http://www.myspace.com/summersundaefringefestival

more soon.........love Black.