Go
to www.myspace.com/lesvalentinemusic or write to lesvalentine@hotmail.co.uk to
join the mailing list.
A
massive welcome to all of the newest members of the Les Valentine mailing list,
it’s a pleasure to have you on board and thanks for signing up to receive our
updates!
A
great deal of our new recruits are now with us due to a successful night at the
University of Sussex Freshers’ Week Event, Laid Back & Latte. We had a set
of just under half an hour to win over the sold out audience and it seemed to
work, with a sizable number signing up to receive our newsletter and over 200
CDs given out!
Thanks
to everyone who came and chatted to us as well, it was a great night for us and
we always enjoy getting feedback from audiences. The sound team at the
University were excellent, which helped us a lot, and people seemed to really
get into our set – there was even some spontaneous hand-clapping to the song “I’ve
Been Waiting Far Too Long” (which Steve nearly accidentally stopped by drawing
attention to it and seemingly embarrassing the people who started it).
The
gig also saw the debut of our new look CDs, duplicated by a local company
called CopyDog (www.copydog.co.uk) who, despite being given a tight deadline,
got 500 of our demos copied in time for the gig! I think it’s fair to say that
the new CDs look great, much better than the ones manufactured at Steve’s house
using a laptop, i-Tunes and a small, unreliable printer....
We
will be back at the University again soon for those who want to see us again,
playing at East Slope’s Sunday music night on the 14th October. We look forward
to seeing a few of you there, and hope you manage to get some friends along and
help us spread the word on Les Valentine.
Away
from the gig on Thursday night, there is also news about new songs from Les
Valentine. Having played essentially the same five or six songs for a number of
months now, we thought it was time for a change and finally got around to
practicing and fleshing out 3 new songs soon to played at a show near you (for
those of you who live in Brighton). These songs as yet don’t have titles so we
can’t tell you what they are, you’ll just have to mosey over to one of our gigs
to hear them soon!
We
plan to return to Ford Lane Studios by the end of the year to record some new
tracks as well, taking the number of tracks on our CD to around 8 or 9. As a
larger CD, we are considering charging £1 or £2 for the CDs which should be
available in the New Year, just enough to cover production costs.
However,
for members of the mailing list who come along to gigs for a new CD will get their
CDs free, as a thank you for your continued support.
Beat
The Mix Update – text ‘mix 339’ to 83070
It
was also another successful week for us in the chart at www.beathemix.co.uk, once
more coming first in the weekly chart and moving up to third in the overall
rankings! A huge thanks again for anyone who’s voted for us over the last couple
of weeks, and please keep voting whenever you can and whenever you remember to
because now we could be in with a real chance of winning the overall
competition, with your help.
Originally,
we were hoping to just win one of the weekly competitions to get ourselves
heard, but now we are counting on your support to keep us advancing in the
overall vote as the prizes for this are incredible:
GRAND
PRIZE
- Two day recording session at
the state of the art music complex Soundlocker studios
- Track released on CRASH
records and entry into talks for signing album deal
- Two day music video shoot
and production with Regions TV
- Professional one day photo
shoot with Image Catcher
- Headline sell out gig at
prestigious venue
- Episode dedicated to the
overall winner on BEATtheMIX's very own ITV Local programme
(www.itvlocal.com)
- Extensive local radio and
press coverage
- A selection of top musical
equipment kindly donated by Solutions Inc and Beyerdynamic
It
would be an astounding coup for Les Valentine to win this competition, so if
you could spare a vote or two until the results are announced in January we
would be extremely grateful.
One
or two people have said they will vote for us each week as the competition goes
on which will be a great help, and if it’s possible for you to do something
similar please, please do. For example, it would cost you just 50p to text each
time you read one of these newsletters, but if your support helps to win the
competition for us it would be absolutely priceless.
Don’t
worry, we will be voting as well, but every vote counts and it could just be
yours that wins it for us!
Les
Valentine Reviews of the Week:
‘Excellent songs and great vocals, worth checking out!’ – Paul at indiereview.net
Dates for
the diary (e-mail us or go to www.myspace.com/lesvalentinemusic for more info
on gigs)
2nd
October – GIG – The Sky Bar, Brighton
14th
October – GIG – East Slope, University of Sussex
26th
October – GIG – Sanctuary Cafe, Hove
11th
November – GIG – East Slope, University of Sussex
9th April
– Steve's Birthday
19th
April – John's Birthday
And
remember – SPREAD THE WORD!
If you
like our music, tell people about it. Copy our CDs for friends who you think
would be interested, bring people to gigs. The hardest part really is getting
heard, so if you can help in any way, please do. As always, your support is
very much appreciated.
Thank
you,
Les
Valentine