Last day.....

*LAST DAY!*

Today is the last day to get my first 3 solo albums (Relic/Ghost/Echo) for £1 each from:

https://mattstevens.bandcamp.com/

OR The Fierce & The Dead's album for £1/£5(CD) from:

http://music.badelephant.co.uk/album/spooky-action

Please share and tell your friends  Thanks loads to everyone who has downloaded already 

Photo by The Chaos Engineers

Matt Stevens December News

Hi 

Hope you are good? 

Today I saw a trailer for Star Wars 7 that looked pretty cool and now I'm off to see my friend Kavus play guitar for Gong. Happy times! 

If you want to get my band (The Fierce And The Dead)’s latest album Spooky Action for £1 (download) or £5 on CD this offer finishes at the end of November. You can order it here:

http://music.badelephant.co.uk/album/spooky-action

And also my first 3 (pre Lucid) albums (Echo, Relic, Ghost) are £1 each on download until the end of November as well. Get them here:

https://mattstevens.bandcamp.com/music

And if you are feeling the Christmas spirit a bit early you can download my version of Silent Night here:

https://mattstevens.bandcamp.com/album/silent-night

Purchasing these downloads allows me to keep making music and paying the rent and is very much appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has downloaded already, it means a lot to me. 

Speak soon 

Matt Stevens

http://www.fierceandthedead.com

http://www.mattstevensguitar.com

What happens when they close all the small venues?

I just saw that they are closing my local “small venue” The Buffalo Bar in Islington. It’s a wonderful little venue. I played there supporting Prescott a while back and I’ve been to quite a few gigs there. Please visit:

https://www.change.org/p/save-the-buffalo-bar-one-of-london-s-best-loved-music-venues

And sign the petition to keep it open. 

It’s made me think, what happens when all these venues are gone? OK so a a lot of them make very little money, often because bands either don’t have any fans/friends or gig too often, messing up their draw. If people don’t come it messes things up for everyone, that’s why bands and promoters need to work together to get an audience to gigs. 

The key with promoting these sort of places is making the gigs “events”. Once these places are gone where will new bands learn their craft? You can’t just start doing support slots without any experience or fans or contacts. You have to build it up and these sort of venues are an essential part of the process. 

It’s a very hard thing to do, The Buffalo Bar has a great promoter in Paul from Guided Missile, well worth supporting. 

Legendary small venues like The Peel and The Bull & Gate are now gone. I played the Peel so many times opening for lots of prog bands thanks to my friend the legendary promoter Twang. That was my "break", where I built the audience. 

Let’s try and keep the Buffalo Bar open. Support you local small venue. 

Something Spooky Happened.

It’s easy to be cynical, but I try not to be, I believe that to get things done you need to be positive. I don’t always succeed but I’m aware that the alternative (sitting around being depressed) doesn’t help. (I realise this is a massive over-simplification). 

Why I’m writing this is because something amazing has happened with regard to The Fierce And The Dead’s Spooky Action album. Our friends at BEM music are selling Spooky Action for £1 on download or £5 for the CD. You can get it here. I’ve always felt that this album (which I co-wrote and played guitar on) was one of the best things I’ve worked on (alongside Lucid). I just thought it was really good. And it got really good reviews as well. Such as:

"4 out of 5” Total Guitar Magazine

"..post-hardcore bass tone; pulsing motorik drums; chiming, interlocking guitars somewhere between Afrobeat and Robert Fripp (and) shockingly brutal bursts of math-metal”  Rock A Rolla

"(This) is what would’ve happened if Philip Glass had ripped up his Fulbright scholarship at the kitchen table and said “Screw you Mom, I’m gonna start a garage band”'  Demon Pigeon 

"(Spooky Action) doesn’t just shift goalposts – it uproots them, sends them into space and puts them on another planet” Echoes and Dust 

"...these chaps are some of the most intrepid explorers in rock music.” Oliver Arditi

Anyway BEM tell me that lots of people have been downloading Spooky as part of this offer. Lots. Which is amazing, I’m not sure if it’s because of people getting to know my music more or because of all the gigs we’ve done this year, but this really is hugely appreciated. I’ve always wanted more people to hear this record. It’s interesting that on release things don’t always find an audience but eventually grow and this seems to be the case here. You find it across culture from comics to fine art. Some things just resonate later on. Why in 2014 are people becoming interested in "progressive rock"? Why do some artists barely sell a painting during their lifetime?

Enough. 

If you like Spooky Action, can you help us? Share the link to it on Facebook or Twitter. Write a blog post about it. Tell a friend. Include a track on a podcast. Make a film and use one of the songs as a soundtrack. Tell the world. The audience has SO much control now, it’s up to you. The link is here:

http://music.badelephant.co.uk/album/spooky-action

Massive thanks to everyone who has shared it already, this success is because of you. 

Thanks loads

Matt Stevens

http://www.fierceandthedead.com

http://www.mattstevensguitar.com

A reply to David Gilmour from a modern musician.

“God, I’m going to sound like a grumpy old man. Modern music, to me, is very formulaic."

So says Dave Gilmour of "the Floyd" on the Prog magazine  website. I like Pink Floyd especially Wish You Were Here. 

I'm sorry but this isn't true, only if you listen to the mainstream charts. And guess what? Most mainstream music from the 70's was rubbish as well. Tie A Yellow Ribbon around any argument if you want. Check out new albums by Knifeworld, Trojan Horse, Hi Fiction Science or loads of other stuff if you want to hear some great new music (or even the last Fierce And The Dead record for £1 *cough*). 

We can all make generalisations:

Here is some music from now:

Some music from the 70's:

  

See. Open your ears and try some new music. John Peel said:

"The best year for music? This year, and before that, last year."

For every Bowie there was a Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap. NOW is a very exciting time. 

Get Spooky Action for £1 or £5 on CD

A year ago a band I'm in made an album, we're still really proud of it. Now you can get it for £1 for the download or a fiver on CD (for November only) thanks to Bad Elephant Music. If you like it please tell your friends.

http://music.badelephant.co.uk/album/spooky-action

From The Desk Of Matt Stevens - November edition

Hiya 

How is it November already?

This is a previously unreleased track from the Ghost album sessions. It's called Blue Filter, I played it live a lot around the time when the album came out..

https://mattstevens.bandcamp.com/track/blue-filter-2

Available to download for the next week then it’ll be deleted :) Buying music like this allows me to keep on making music. 

New video - playing Big Sky for Auden Guitars 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AVE0iSdM7w

I'm selling some of the my gear on Ebay. The Kaossilator I used on the song Lake Man on the Ghost album and delay pedal from the Stabbing A Dead Horse tour. 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/trinovantes1/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Other than that it’s heads down writing and recording new material for new projects/Fierce And The Dead and the next solo record. One gig coming up in Milton Keynes in on the 31st January with Solstice.

Thanks for all your support. 

Matt Stevens

http://www.fierceandthedead.com

http://www.mattstevensguitar.com

Matt Stevens - Big Sky

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