A new year greets us with the blooming and sad decay of January. Snows, sleets and slush have been our bed follows this month but has it dampened our British weather hardened spirits - well to be honest it has a bit. Traumatic hailing from headlines almost everyday might have suggested that the UK was a goner this time for sure. Thankfully, other than occasionally damp socks and the cats down at 'E.ON' getting fatter we've just about pulled through.

The Monsters kicked the year off resolutely practicing hard and gigging. Perhaps the most fun we've had was trekking down to Moira to play at the National Forest Folk Club. We almost didn't make it down because of the weather and Kieran's car angrily throwing one of its wipers onto the motorway in protest. Kieran affectionately calls his car Roxanne or 'Roxy' for short - it seems like it was a bad time of the month for Roxy but she survived delivering us unharmed to Moira. We played to a smallish weather beaten crowd who where really supportive, wildly cheering after each set. We played two sets premiering two new songs written recently - Amy's Gastown and a Finish tune called 'Vralkada'. The show went fantastically well warming the audience up for their journeys homeward in the snow.

Unbeknownst to us Dick Dixon was at the National Forest Folk Club , appearing at the end with a big grin he wanted to congratulate us. For those not in the know - Dick Dixon runs a number of folk enterprises but is best known for being the man behind Warwick Folk Festival. Dick enjoyed the night so much that he asked us to come along to Warwick and play a few concert spots in 2010 immediately after we'd played! We were delighted with the offer and accepted, if you're at Warwick this year come and say hello. We'll be doing concert performances and we'll also be doing workshops. We have yet to confirm the particulars of said workshops but suggestion range from clogs, fiddle, bass, tune accompaniment etc. Kieran has been muttering threatingly about doing a workshop called 'ComMandoCello' or possibly 'Going ComMandoCello - no capos, no pants ' if he can get away with it.

On that note festivals have been approaching the Monsters with increasing regularity. The word is out - who left the bloody door open, it's going take ages to find the bugger. ...Er, onwards I guess....The Monsters have been planning different shows and ideas have been plentiful, favourites currently include - Acoustic performance with extra special tandem jumping, elctro-dance performance featuring Producer 'the touch' and Beatboxer Ashely Hobbins and the original Pans People and one of our favourites the UV ceilidh (lit entirely by Ultra Violet lights). The possibilities are our oysters....or something like that.

New ideas have been pulsing through the frighteningly net savvy David this month as the internets course through him making monsterceilidhband.co.uk more and more high tech like the Lawnmower man at a séance. Please stop by and check it out - David hasn't come out of his room and has been insisting on people referring to him as 'the Webmaster Dave'. He has created new forms and built a database driven website Steve Jobs would be proud of (would have said Bill Gates but we Monsters are Macs now!). If you understand what all that means please leave us a comment on myspace or facebook explaining it in as small detail as possible. In fact don't bother we won't understand....except for David who will probably quite like the company of another person who only speaks in hexadecimal right now...

Reverbnation is our new vice at the mo and you may well get this little blog posted to you if Kieran manages it. Check us out on it - do whatever it is you do with it, then get yourself a can of stella and go down the quayside, pet.

Exciting news about Amy - she will be available on iPlayer for the second time since her fantastic performance at the end of the Sting's Winter song book. Amy will be on Scotland's BBC TV Alba with the fantastic Shee. We'll update you with more news when we get it. Coincidentally the Shee have been booked at this years National Forest Folk Festival along with the Monsters. Other artists include Ade Edmonson and the Bad Shepherds and The Peatbog Faeries.

From that plug we claim the bath chain of loneliness, turn the tap of completion off because we've finished running the blog. We hope you've enjoyed a good soak in the murky waters of the Monsters.

Taraa for now,

Monsters

From first frosty breaths on a winter's morning, to snow laden ice scraper when we're already late for work, we love Christmas here at Monster HQ. Carly has been listening to her Christmas compilation CD, Kieran has been learning to 'snow skate', Amy has been drinking whiskey by the fire and Dave has been singing merry Christmas songs with Jez Lowe. Here in the snowy northlands the Monsters have been having great fun. News is as plentiful as good cheer here and we'll tell you why, my dear, what news draws near. The Monsters have been been nominated, supporting, interviewing, updating, playing and planning.

First things first - The Monsters 'Make Me A Dancer' (M.M.A.D.) CD has been nominated for best instrumental album of the year by the folks down at spiral earth - we need your support to help us win it. We're up against some stiff competition in Fiddlers Bid so what you have to do is go to http://www.spiralearth.co.uk/spirals2010/instrumental.asp and vote for us. You only get one vote per computer so make sure you cast your vote on a different machine to your friends or partners. Needless to say we are delighted to be nominated for this award - incredible really when you think we were just having fun and making music in Dave's Flat! Excitingly, this is being written we're 1% ahead!

Another big thing to happen to the Monsters was to be asked by one of Newcastle's most notorious bands the Bahgdaddies to support them at their gig at the Cumberland arms. Incidentally, the Cumberland has been the subject of much media hype recently as Sting has been singing there with friend of the Monsters Kathryn and Peter Tickell. Chris Lewis Joined us on Accordion that night and the Monsters pulled off a great performance gaining some new fans along the way. The Bahgdaddies played a fantastic set of new material which knocked everyone's socks off (I should say - again because they'd had to put them back on after the Monsters set!). Ending the night in style was our friend Rob Heron who ripped out some tunes on the wheels of steel which got the dance floor burning up until 1. All in all, a great night out for £5 so Keep your ear to the ground for more gigs with the legendary Bahgdaddies...

A few gigs came in this month. The Monsters have been confirmed at - the Acoustic Festival of Britain (Mayfest), The National Forest Folk Festival and the London International Festival of Exploratory Music. We're also arranging the next set of Newcastle Ceilidhs. All our dates will be being updated on the MySpace and website soon.

Which brings us rather cleanly to the next point - Kieran and Jon Proud have been busily beavering away to update the MySpace. It's now the swankiest profile page on MySpace you'll have seen! Well, forgive the overtures of enthusiasm but we like it. Kieran says that it took them a long time so you better like it too! There will be various rough mixes available to listen to via the MySpace player as we try out new sounds on you. So check it out at -

www.myspace.com/monsterceilidhband

Our good friend Emily Portman, after much organizing, reorganizing and devious manipulation managed to get all the Monsters together in one place for long enough to do an interview with the prestigious 'fRoots' Magazine. The Article is called 'Roots Salad'. It will be looking at the region's most successful young bands and sees what they're up to, where they've been and where they're off to next. We had a great laugh telling her about the origins of the band and how it has been evolving into something much bigger than we thought. We told her how we started out at a party at Dave's flat and that now we're breaking all sorts of boundaries by involving new musicians, touring all over, being played across the world and being nominated for an award. The article is due out soon when we know the publishing date we'll tell you.

Well, lovely Monsterettes, that wraps things up for the month. There is one thing left to say.

Have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year,

All our love

The Monsters

P.S. get voting ;)

Its been another great couple of weeks here at Monster HQ. We've got lots to tell you, so go and get a hot chocolate and pop M.M.A.D. (Make Me A Dancer) on the stereo!

Recently, we were approached by the Red Orange Arts Agency and are now very proud to be represented by this fantastic company which is run by Miguel Santos. We are excited to be involved with an agency which is clearly brimming with talent, diversity and creativity. There are some very, very exciting things in the pipeline which I can't possible tell you now, but needless to say, keep reading this little blog and all will be revealed. Go and have a look at the Red Orange website here www.RedOrange.co.uk. There is some stunning music on there, plus a great radio station for picking up all the latest in world flavours.

The Monsters are romping in America. We were featured in a number of broadcasts by the legendary American web-based radio station Folk Alley last week. Our American fans will be please to hear we know there are a few out there!

Pictures have come back from our album launch gig, taken by photographer Joe Steele. There are some lovely shots of what turned out to be a great night! For those that came, our grand finale, featuring Joe Truswell AKA the Touch on laptop, will be part of the new festival sound which we'll be taking on tour with us.

What's more, we've finally got a copy of the iHerd game in which our music is featured and we are completely addicted. Herding sheep in the 2000's has never been so much fun! Thanks to Gavin Ward for letting us be a part of this unique project. It only costs about 50p, so get downloading from the iPhone App Store.

Finally we've been having loads of requests from people who want to try remixing some of the tracks. Have a look at our remix section of the website to listen to two remixes by our very own Touch and one sinister remix by Anomaly.

Until next time!

The Monsters