In my dreams I’m on the run
faces melt into the sun
on my own in quicksand
always holding out my hand
and I fall and I fall and I fall in black and white
and it burns and it burns in the back of my eyes..

TIME WAITS FOR NO-0NE ALIVE
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW
WE’RE TURNING IN CIRCLES TONIGHT
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW.

In my dreams the colours fade
and i’m digging holes for my own grave
the world is flat the sky is round
what i once lost i now have found
and i roam and i roam and i roam all through the night
and it shine and it shine and it shine the final light

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE ALIVE
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW
WE’RE TURNING IN CIRCLES TONIGHT
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW.

and the tide goes out and we’re miles away
this could be heaven where we lay
and when i wake up will i find you there

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE ALIVE
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW
WE’RE TURNING IN CIRCLES TONIGHT
SO LETS TAKE THIS MOMENT NOW.

Produced by Bas Productions at ZENEssex Studio
Camera: Tom Brown, Jasper Sharp
Sound/Lights: Gary Clark
Set design: Richard A. Sharpe
Editor: Kevin Burtt
Direction: Claire Coulton/ [STRANGERS] / Richard A. Sharpe

THE BEATWOLF TOUR
>
> It’s day one of the tour, sitting in the back of the Beatwolf dodge tour van on our way from Manchester to Leeds where will we be heading a top line up assembled by ‘Popular’ at the Oporto bar. It’s a typical Morrisey skyline outside and you can barely see the road in front as rain pummels down but that has not got the spirits down on board the Strangers wagon.
> Tonight we are showcasing Empire. A tune we love and are very excited by. Let’s hope the crowd share the same feelings! I’ll let you know tomorrow!
>
> As I write this we are on our third trip down the same road, there seems to be two roads calling themselves Call Lane in Leeds and the satnav (raife) isn’t liking it. Piers is the designated man on the ground, asking at various eateries and bars for directions, we finally find The Oporto, a cool little venue boasting free wifi and very nice barstaff and venue manager. I’m told to leave the kit set-up to piers and raife so I use the time wisely by taking pictures and writing this. The other bands turn up as we’re soundchecking so they get to hear us ironing out the usual technical issues we have during soundcheck: dodgy leads, piers rendition of your song by Elton John and the banter that goes with it.
>
> We bond by offering out our rider which consists of a truckload of Bondi Beer (they sponsor the Beatwolf tours), it goes well. The evening begins with Get Machine, DESTROY; a one man chemical brothers, dirty beats and big synths! He is quickly followed by M.A.S.K.S who I can’t find on Facebook, but they sound pretty sweet ( a female fronted electro pop group). Mad colours next. They have a raw britpop sound, and it goes down really well. During their set we meet our public (a crazy woman who signs to our mailing list with only her name and takes a free cd of our single and leaves: Cheers!
>
> Then we are on, and I couldn’t possibly give an objective review of this, but apparently we should have played In Chaos again according to one heckler mid-set. We think it was a good show but my monitor could have been louder (geeky band stuff that no one else cares about but the discussion gives us at least 20 minutes of crucial inter band conflict time).
>
> So to conclude, it was our first time in Leeds, we picked up a mega fan who we’ll never be able to contact and I can’t understand why Nando’s is a world famous chicken joint, it’s rubbish…..
>
> ….It is now the morning after, and we have woken up back in Manchester at Davids flat. Raife has currently got his headphones on going through the backing track smoothing out any creases from last nights show.
> Tonight we are returning to the scene of our first gig in Manchester back in September ’11 at the Trof in Fallowfield. A charming and intimate venue with fantastic food!
>
> Looking around the room David is hooked on his ipad. Quote, ‘I’m thinking about what book to buy on my new iPad, which I’m becoming worryingly dedicated to, especially the instagram app’ A little insight into what it’s like to be around David Maddox Jones.
>
> See you tomorrow anyway, keep it strange….

Strangers tour day two …

We have just arrived at the Trof and the heaven’s have opened. We’re all soaked within seconds except David who for a man, is casually applying tinted moisturiser to his apparently ‘too white’ skin. Just as the last piece of equipment enter’s the venue the sun comes out and David’s door opens.. ‘why you so wet’.. He remarks.
Soundcheck runs like a double hip replacement granny doing a marathon, but we’re satisfied when the other band turn up for their sound check.

The food is amazing just as we remembered. Everyone’s gets a burger, except David who for some reason (allegedly he is on a diet) gets the sharing platter for four, we each get offered an olive….

Right now we’re in the pub next door stealing those quiet moments before the night kicks off. We are overlooked by a photo montage of many Northern music legends: Ian Curtis, The Beatles, Stone Roses, Morrissey; Manchester has a lot to answer for, we are inspired!

The Manchester show at the Trof is good. The venue is intimate and it gets hot onstage, the crowd sing along with our new single shine on you, which is a great feeling. We have a bit of a sound issue half way through which gives Piers a chance to give us a quick rendition of.. yep you guessed it… Elton John’s ‘Your Song’. After the the show we set about depleting our rider.. The guys promoting the show are good friends of ours and assist us, 2 boxes of wine and a lots of beers. At this point I head home slightly drunk leaving Raife and Piers to handle the rest of the night. I awake at 4am to a tweet from the promoter saying she is singing along to Elton John with Strangers. Sounds like i didn’t really miss out….

Friday marks our first show with Niki and The Dove in Sheffield at the Bungalow and Bears. It’s a great looking venue. We swiftly decide it’s the best in town. Niki and the Dove are running late as their flight was delayed a while so we soundcheck first. They arrive just as we our finishing up and when we chat to them afterwards they tell us Safe/Pain (our next single) is a timeless tune, what a compliment! we liked them before (from their tunes) but now we like them even more!! We rather well organized all eat dinner at completely different times. After all being well fed, we leave the venue to get some air and see a bit of Sheffield. We end up in a bar called the Bowery. It feels very good not to be paying London prices.

Back at the venue the gig begins. Opening to show is ‘Anneka’. She is from Brighton and has a haunting electronic sound, she could be compared to ‘Grimes’ but I’m not very good with comparisons. We will be playing with her again in her home town on the 19th May at the Green Door Store. The ever-expanding crowd dig it.

We start what is to become our best show of the tour so far. The venue is packed and sounds great. Promises, Safe/Pain and ‘Shine On You’ definite highlights. As the music ends we can hear the crowd singing our tunes. We leave the stage feeling elevated. Time to start enjoying ourselves properly now the business end of things are out the way. Down comes the whiskey, a lot of whiskey. We stand in the makeshift backstage area to watch Niki and The Dove. Their energy and charisma is amazing and the audience are captivated. They deliver what we all think is one the best live shows we’ve ever seen. Inspiring stuff.

At the end of their show I take a moment to chat to Raifes dad who has come up to see his boy in action. He’s looking slick to be honest, and is gushing about the show in between large gulps of red wine. He says he may even come to reading to the show the next day, but I reckoned that was the wine talking, and I was right, nonetheless, he’s the man Raife wishes he could be. A real life hero.

Ed the promoter and Raife decide to stay the night in Sheffield to continue the high whilst we head back in the Beatwolf bus. Apparently Raife and Ed are at an all night warehouse party where Madcolours (last nights support band) play an impromptu set. We we’re watching Top Gear! …Raife is ‘on one’ as it’s his first ever tour and he is taking full advantage of what tours have to offer. Apparently he signed a few body parts that night…

Saturday morning is all about Lucozade, and lots of it. Lucozade, Piers assures us, is the best hangover cure, and one bottle just isn’t enough. We begin our journey listening to some 90s classics provided by our manager, Claire. All the hits are in there: Spaceman, Babylon Zoo, Joan Osborne, What if God Was One of Us, Cornershop, Brimful of Asha….it gets rids of our hangovers…. Tonight is the last night of the tour and there is still a lot of life in us! It will be the biggest night as we have hotels in Reading, we want to make the most out of it. Tonight we are the only support and we soundcheck to a pub full of football lads celebrating Reading going into the premier league. The sound is the best we’ve had all tour, but we’re not sure how the locals will take our synth pop music, we’re not exactly Oasis. We get a few cheers during soundcheck though and their are a couple of guys singing along to all the words; we have some avid fans at this show, nice!

The real test of being on tour is what to do in the downtime. We all deal with it in various ways.
Do you drink or do something more productive? I feel like I should be doing something productive so I put my headphones on and load up GarageBand on my iPad, ready to write a hit, lets do this! It’s good to get ideas down on tour but it’s not the easiest place to concentrate. Raife goes on photo booth and takes loads of stupid but very funny photos of himself, and Piers finds a quiet corner and curls up on a sofa.

Our show sounds great and we are all happy with the way the way our last show goes on this leg of the tour. We feel like a proper band finally! We sell quite a bit of vinyl afterwards. We cut a deal with one punter who wants a pound off, we admire his business sense…we love a good haggle….
We all feel like we’re ready to do another 20 dates and we don’t want the tour to end but we know that life’s not fair so we enjoy every moment we can…… Raife enjoys the last night a lot more than everyone else, chasing women round Reading town. Piers is the designated wing man, and what a wing man he is fending off and letting all the right kind of people until Raife has his trophy in sight… but alas… at the pivitol moment, just when the clubs about to close… he strolls off for a casual roll up and promptly loses his girl to the night…..

Somethings you just can’t teach…
Saturday 5th May Bas II.

We have just returned from an amazing night at an electronic music festival celebrating early 80s synthpop music such as Yazoo, Gary Numan, Visage and of course Depeche Mode. Basildon is where the members of Depeche Mode grew up and a place where many devotees of the band flock on to on a kind of pilgrimage. The evening is run by a lovely woman called Deb. Deb, back in the 80’s, used to run the Depeche Mode and Yazoo fan clubs. She is all about the bands and looking after the audience.
The event is like a Star wars convention for synth pop music lovers , which is by no means a bad thing. The event has no pretentiousness about it, and we meet loads of really natural and interesting people.
A guy called Gaz who co runs the event with Deb, Is the house sound man for tonight. He is really good. We chat with him afterwards and thank him for a great show. We ask him whether he’d like to do sound for us at our next shows. He agree’s to do it and we’re all very excited. After talking with some other people involved in creating the event, we come to learn that Gaz has worked with some of the great bands of the last 20 years doing as a sound engineer including.. Depeche Mode!!! What a RESULT! We are honoured!

The gig in Basildon is the favorite show we have ever played. Throughout the night we receive great feedback and people even want photos and autographs, something we are not use to.

We meet Chi from The Electricity Club blog. He has been really supportive of us over the past couple of months and it’s great to finally meet him. We all geek out for a long time on music chat.

We are inspired by this festival. Bas II has brought a lot of electronic pop music fans together over one weekend. This is where we’d like to take our ‘Strangers Club’ to, but that will take lots of hard work. We are up for it, now more so than ever…

Next weekend we are playing two shows at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton, we will be filming it and reviewing it in full, until then..

Stay Strange…

Here are a few blogs its featured on:

We are very pleased and excited to announce that our single ‘Shine On You’ was released this week!

We are very grateful to all of our fans for supporting the cause and downloading the track, it means we could potentially make the independent charts, we hope!

Here’s the purchasing link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/shine-on-you-single/id512578935

See you on tour next week.

David Stranger x

We share the spotlight with a few of our favourite up and coming acts such as The Ghosts, Awol Nation and Citizens…. http://www.xfm.co.uk/onair/playlist/new

text 83936 or tweet @xfm to request us!

Strangelove..

x

The man himself is also DJing at our single launch on 11th April at Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen

We are played at about 40 minutes in.

[STRANGERS]

Also playing the tour are Madcolours  and Tea Street Band.

Entry to the shows are all free!