Tour Diary update... booyaaa!!

Hastings and Islington

Yo dudes, what's up?? First up, lemme apologise for the lateness of this update, the week has run away from me a bit!!
So anyhoo, I got meself sorted, gotta beer an got some nachos, an am off on one, so if me computer lets me, we on a roll mofockers!!

So as some of you no doubt are aware, Sa-Da-Ko went on a trip down south this weekend just gone, (26th-28th) for a couple of gigs, one in Hastings and one in Islington. Despite the lack of gravy and all things moist, (oo er!!) we had a wicked time, and were sorted out BIG time hospitality by the boys from Subservience, Ryan, Scott, Martin, Matt and Jay and Dj Conasir a.k.a. Liam!! Special mention to the Subservience boys for gettin us onto the BEST bbq beef smoke shack ass kickin meat attack restaurant we have ever seen, but more about that later....



First up was Hastings at "the pig in paradise" which had just recently had a refurb, an was sporting a nice Yates`s like finish to it, which kinda put us aback a bit, were not used to playing venues where your feet don't stick to the floor and you can see through ya beer, until we saw they had a room at the back, phew, this was more like it... scatty walls, junk around, stuffing outta seats, old skool décor... check!! We felt right at home!!!

First up were "The Dead and Buried" a nice dirty, in ya face metal band, based in Hastings. Not much to say about these except that they're freakin awesome and you should go watch the fuck outta them!!! A seriously refreshing band, nice drops and music to punch ya nan in the face to, let down only occasionally by a drummer who looked a bit bored to be there and seemed to only have a few different rhythms. Top group!



Next were "Sak-less Jack". Ace. Sack-less". ha ha. These dudes are all about the punk, ska punk, hardcore punk, melodic punk, punk rock punk punk PUNK!!! These lads gave out a tremendous amount of energy, bouncing around an clearly enjoying themselves, which was immediately infectious from the looks on everyone's faces, good if ya into punk but it all got a bit samey for me, after a while, but enjoyable all the same



Onto our new mates "Subservience" Who were the next to be unleashed onto the stage, gotta quick quote from their website, which Sa-Da-Ko suggest you check out by the way... "Guitarists who pride themselves on being horrible and eating tuna plain" Well keeep eatin the tuna boys, (Even if it is mingin!!) cos horrible is definately the word, in a good way!!! Straight up, no bollocks in ya face metal, marred only by equipment issues with the mic which was outta their control, with a nice bit of pit action at the end... win!!



Then it was time for us to do what we do best and rock the shit outta a club, and Id like to mention that the venue felt that this was a good time to steal Simo`s mic and use it for karaoke next door, nice one!!



After the gig was all over and done with, we then proceeded to get pissed with Subservience at their house and Rob tried to get into bed with me more than once :(

Up early(ish) the next day, and it was time to start up the old cougar again an drive to Islington, where our old friend Liam was puttin us up for the night, true to his alter ego`s title, DJ Conasir was mid-mix by the time we got there.
The day was spent wandering around Camden and trying to use tube ticket machines which are not designed for northerners, grabbin a few bevs as the evening drew in, and then we managed to get a table at the best resteraunt ever, fact, Bodeans. I could go on for hours about how the lightly bbq sauced brisket of beef is smoked and slow cooked to perfection, creating beef that melts in the mouth with a taste to die for, or perhaps telling you how the delicately flavoured rack of ribs compliment the meal adding a varience and texture that you never knew was needed, but couldnt bear to be without, or maybe how the succulent pulled pork served as a side in our case, really topped off the meal adding to make it a deeper, more meaningfull meat experience, (not gay!) or maybe how their idea of veg is coleslaw and chips... but I wont, just take it as a Sa-Da-Ko recommendation, and get your ass down asap, unless your a vegi...



The next day was a bit of a write off thanks to copious amounts of ale, but we got a full english so it wasnt a waste!! Tonight's venue was "The Gaff" A definite metal pub, with a good stage and a bangin sound system. One small point though, just cos its a metal venue, don't mean you can write off the bogs!!! Metal heads need to piss too ya know!! We had to wade through 2 inches of water to wee, and it was grim, plus Simo had a hole in his shoe so his feet were pissy wet through, so SORT IT!!!!

So the Gaff`s first band of the night was "Sanity Burns" who describe themselves as Groove-laden Thrash, a very fitting description!! The musicianship was excellent, all the lads were good at what they did, with some boss solos and frantic light speed riffs an beats, however I did find the vocalist a bit on top at times, which marred an otherwise good performance.



"Shreddertron" were next on, wit one foot very firmly planted in the same soil as the likes of Fear Factory/ Devin Townsend etc. This is no bad thing as we at Sa-Da-Ko are big fans of such artists. With crushing riffs and relentless drums theres nothing not to like about these heavy metal bruisers, except for their lack of vocals. Its nice to have a change and do something different, and it does work, I personally feel after a while of listening, that some sort of vocal would give it that extra something to make this band awesome.



Next up were Subservience again proving they are one of the South's hottest new bands around. another flawless show seeing them thrash around and put the boot well and truly up ya arse and makin you look and take notice!!

"Abadden" were next and the supposed headliners of this show, however due to a decision by the venue management were moved below us. We hope we didn't show you up lads, but doubt you could have seen us through that cold van you were all sat outside sulking in.. lol!!
I actually really enjoyed these, I'm currently listening to their myspace now, sorry about the sly dig lads, it made me laugh though, way to make a point!! These boys were nice and heavy with attitude and skill oozing out of every pore, and looking through their facebook, it has not gone unnoticed, with an impressive C.V. winning comps sponsored by metal hammer and sharing stages with some scene heavyweights, it was quite an honour to share a stage with these bad boys, Sa-Da-Ko recommends you go see these dudes soon an check em!!





Anyway, that's it, that's ya lot, im off to the pub, so see ya next time dude...

London Based Metal Promotion Company - Metal Mash up Promotions

I’ve heard it said before, that the secret to success is to find something you love and turn it into a business, If that’s the case London based promotion company Metal Mash Up promotions sets to be a formidable force in London and the surrounding areas.

Fronted by Moe Banton or Mad Moe Banton to all who know him, DJ Angel & Dj Mumin, Metal Mash up provides a platform for upcoming metal acts and Dj’s across the London area, their straight up approach to promotion, quality of acts and overall presentation of the nights has already gained a reputation with fans of metal and bands alike, so much so in the short months that Metal Mash up have been able to arrange tours under the for heavyweights such as Abadden, Sanity burns, Shreddertron , Kill the machine and the epically awesome Subservience and our very own Sa-da-ko.

Metal Mash up Promotions have many contacts in the industry, including DJs, music studios, record labels, music venues, magazine contacts, radio stations, sound engineers, photographers, alternative models and big promotion teams so if you’re looking for backing or contemplating putting a night that people will never forget contact Metal Mash up Today tell 'em Sa-da-kO sent ya!!.

If you’re on face book feel free to suggest to friends Metal Mash up Promotions that way they can reach further the name and promote you band more successfully.

Metal Album reviews

Rock on Promo review of our sick ass e.p.

Aw hell yeah, hows it goin Sa-Da-Ko peoples?!
We are busy as hell this week, sortin more T.Shirts, makin sure the Cougar is roadworthy, fitting actual seats in the back with actual seatbelts, and ensuring the set is enough to flatten a few buildings!! And what's this all in aid of I hear you ask... well, I'm glad you enquired as to the nature of our industriousness... We are takin the "I see them" tour down south for a couple of dates, This Friday (26th) we are delivering a sucker punch to "the pig in Paradise" in Hastings, following it up with a roundhouse kick to the face on Sunday (28th) at "the Gaff" in Islington.



So as you can imagine, we are all lookin foreward to taking the Sa-Da-Ko slobber knocker down to a new audience, and also as very hard workers in the music world ourselves, its allways good to get a bit of recognition for your efforts, and this came in the form of a lovely little review of our album, Zer01, from the team at Rock on Promo, reviewed by Roz Edwards... So, how can you get to this website and read it??? Well we have put the review in its entirety just below, but, as ever click on this badboy link, and tell em Sa-Da-Ko sent ya, and check out their other offerings cos its dead good and what not!!! :)

When you think about the heavyweights of the local music scene, they don’t come much heavier than Sa-Da-Ko, and their debut album Zer01 is definitely a hard hitter. It doesn’t take long to notice a definite Slipknot influence, but as long as you draw the line between influence and imitation that’s no bad thing, and Sa-Da-Ko certainly have enough of their own style to pull it off. Not to mention some seriously talented musicians.

The album is well produced, successfully loading as much overdrive onto the guitars as possible without sacrificing all clarity of sound. Sadly the vocals haven’t fared quite so well: it’s not often you find a singer sounding better on stage than in the studio, and although the overall effect still works, the vocals might have been better left raw.

There’s definitely something satisfying about Sa-Da-Ko’s music, especially Red, a murderous anthem that never fails to get a pit going even in the smallest bar. With an opening lyric like “You never looked better than when you were lying in a gutter in a pool of blood,” you can either run screaming or go ahead and scream along, basking in the horror. At Rock On Promotions we think the latter is always the better option. Sticking with horror, Zer01 then descends into the twisted remnants of what might once have been a lullaby. Smother is a fitting follow-up to Red: if the aftermath of a brutal murder was ever expressed in sound, this is it.

Ju-On is another heavyweight with a catchy chorus, followed by Echo Relocation, which slows things down a touch to create a real sense of torment. Li features one of the most addictive riffs of the entire album, and Name Your God is a powerful closer. There really isn’t a bad song on the album, and if anything the biggest downside is that, at just over 30 minutes, it’s all over too soon.

- Roz Edwards

Anyhoooo, check the site out, and if any of you stinky buggers are about London way, pop in an come and see us Fri or Sun...

one love Sa-Da-Koers

2 Gigs in as many days

Another tour diary update malarkey

Wassup blog readers, not a lot I presume if ya readin this!!
Got another little entry for ya asses, reviewin our Thurs and Fri gigs in Manchester and Oldham, let the good times roll!!

Thursday found us travelling down to Manchester for a slot supporting the awesome Betraeus at premier live metal venue, Grand Central. After unloading the gear, we decided to go grab a quick bite to eat, making this the 2nd McDonald's of the day for at least 2 of us!! Our tour diet is as healthy as it comes!!



After stuffing our fat faces with greasy meat patty's, ( Congratulations to Simo for eating 2 massive burgers, even Rob was impressed!!) we got back just as Driven Apart were taking to the stage. Driven Apart describe themselves as Melodic Technical/Progressive Thrash with big sing-a-along sections, heads-down thrashy parts and fist-pumping rhythms. Not quite sure where the big sing a long choruses were, as there were no vocals, or maybe that's the point, you can sing whatever you want to it!! :) In my opinion, this let the band down slightly, as there was nothing to glue it all together. After a while, all the riffs started to merge into each other, creating a relatively unmemorable set, with guitars going quite noticeably out of tune by the end... respect to them for still playin despite vocalist issues!!



Next up were Liverpool band Eighth day army who are, apparently, a experi-metal band!! As these three lads were settin up, one of em produced a big flight case, which, when opened, revealed THE biggest collection of effect pedals I have ever seen. It looked like they had disassembled R2-D2 and glued him flat to a board, no wonder there was power cuts in Burscough that night!! Id not heard of these before, and they were good at what they did, more "experi" than "metal" however, but entertaining all the same. I did get the feelin I probably should have had some mind altering drugs before watchin em, beer didn't seem to cut it! Just havin a quick look over their fan club page, I found this quote, " Eighth Day Army have been described as "Biffy Clyro on top of a 100 ton juggernaut, bearing down on Terminator 2 protecting Matt Bellamy."" Boss. That amused me somewhat!



After us it was time for Betraeus, the winners of the "Metal 2 the masses- Battle for Bloodstock" and instantly you can see why. Blistering beats and dirty as shit riffs played with skill and a blatant love for their art!! Goin from insane ass death metal, to melodic treats, the variation keeps you hooked, and reels you right in! From what I can gather, they are due to record soon, so keep a look out for that, but for now you will have to make do with the myspace!!



So on the way home, we decided to talk about weird things Americans say or how they pronounce things, which was fun, and Ill take this moment to add an extra one, they call croissants French Doughnuts... and I think they probably spell doughnuts, donuts... Doh!

The next night we were in Oldham at the Abbey Inn, which had been refurbed since last time we were there, and very nice it looks too!!
As per Sa-Da-Ko style, we unloaded our gear, then went on a healthy grub hunt, by healthy I mean deep fried and made of meat!! Last time we were in Oldham, we went for pizza.. it was pure mingin, not even Jay could manage all of it!! This time however, we went for UK Fried Chicken, with 2 for 1 offers all over the place, the choice was obvious!!! mmmmmm crispy chicken with hash browns.... Epic Win!!!!

Best place to eat in Oldham!!

Back to business now, and with just 2 bands on the bill, the night was a rather laid back affair, with beers goin down far to easily at only £2 a pint, and a good selection of tunes pumpin, the mood was good by the time Incidium took to the stage.
This four piece death/ thrash outfit took to the stage, commanding heads to turn and look on, as these lads wind milled, fretted and screamed their way through a truly great set with great gusto and enthusiasm! Back to good old, no bullshit metal, which is becoming unfortunately rare these days. You can download some promo tracks and they are a defo Sa-Da-Ko recommendation, so check em the fuck out!!



Time for Sa-Da-Ko to make a dent in the Oldham soundscape for the evening... so... turns out we had a bit of a disasterous set, with problems ranging from gutar strings breaking, mics fucking up, songs ruined by feedback issues.... but when we played, we played well!! So with our collection of fucked equipment, we loaded back into the van, a.k.a. "the Cougar" and then had to push start it... great!!!



All in all, despite the issues, we had a good couple of days, and at the end of the day you gotta take the rough with the smooth, and we wouldn't stop gigging for the world... we love taking our own brand of metal on the road, and hey, you either get it or you dont... as long as we get beer and take away!!!! :)

until next time x

tour diary quickie...

Synthetic Ecstasy II Wigan Vanilla lounge

OK, so here we are again with another update on the "I see them tour", and this weekend, we found our selves in Wigan at the vanilla lounge. This was the 2nd time we have played at this venue, and it still has a slimy wall!! :(





Slimy wall aside, its a decent venue! You can buy buckets of beer and there's plenty of room to mosh ya little titties off on the dance floor! With a good amount of stage room, a good sound, and an experienced sound engineer, this made this venue less of a headache than certain other venues.




Synthetic ecstasy II, seems an ambitious beast to me, with 7 bands on the bill, Im amazed it went as smoothly as it did, mainly down to the actual bands themselves making changeovers as painless as possible! The only incident on the night was outside anyone's control, with our old friends Stormcorporation`s van breaking down on the way to the gig, causing them to have to pull out... gutted, hope you get it fixed and back on the road soon guys!!



All in all, it was quite a long night, with music styles ranging from rock to punk to metal and back again! check out the last blog entry, for a quick low-down on some of the bands we played with. I'm not going to review em all, because my mum taught me that if I cant say somethin nice about someone, don't say anything... with a mixture of out of tune instruments, off beat drummers, shades indoors and inferior equipment, (you gotta feel sorry for the sound engineer!!) it was a breath of fresh when Prototype Angel took to the stage, refreshingly competent in their style, with a nice bit of stage banter, these lads put on a good show, with songs taking you deep and thoughtfully down one road, only to kick the shit out of you with a sonic assault that you never saw coming, very enjoyable and a definite Sa-Da-Ko recommendation, we hope to share a stage with them again soon!

Look out for the next leg of the tour, Manchester on thursday, then Oldham on Friday, get yourselves down and come have a drink with us, it would be good to see ya!!



Just a quick note to end on, when we played, Jay fell on his arse. That was funny. Also, I deep fried a bacon sandwich today, my arteries hate me!!

Laters!

November Tour Dates & Up and Coming Bands

The tour continues in November with dates a plenty!!!

5th Nov – SYNTHETIC ECSTASY II | BONFIRE NIGHT! - VANILLA LOUNGE - £3
11th Nov – Grand Central Manchester
12th Nov - Abbey Inn (Oldham) - Oldham
26th Nov - The Pig In Paradise - Hastings
28th Nov - The Gaff - Islington

Novembers will never be the same again.

Joining us on our first November stop at the Vanilla lounge in Wigan will be our old chums

Stormcorporation along with these monstrous acts:

Prototype Angel

Prototype Angel is an alternative rock band hailing from the North West of England, specifically Wigan. Formed in 2006, the band formerly known as Echo Whisper Chaos has gone through some increasingly positive times including the name change to Prototype Angel in 2009 and a line-up reshuffle in 2008-2009. The band’s vast influences from the likes of AFI and Deftones to Tool and Mastodon can be heard strongly throughout their music and creates a catchy anthemic rock sound which will leave you wanting more.

In late 2009, Prototype Angel proudly won the Wigan Battle of the Bands and with their success came some big recognition as they beat some of the North West’s best bands to the crown. They have also had the honour of sharing the stage with other great bands such as: OD Saxon, The Hicks, Sludgepuppy, Metro Manilla Aide, Lights and Sounds, The Broadcast and featuring in Wigan’s first ever Epic Festival!

Social Icons

Tried to find info on these guys but had no luck :(

Skive

This band started when Miles and Josh realised they used to play football together and got to talking about music in AS English Language. Eventually, after lots of hint dropping from Josh, we got a band 'gether and slowly got going. After a while they recruited Mike to drum and that's it up to now.

We just love playing music and having a good time so come down to see us pretty soon.

Parthian

I couldnt find any info on this band anywhere. you'll just have to get down and check 'em out!!

Stone Motor

The band was born in 2010. Dom and Maff decided they wanted to play some music at Maff and France's upcoming 21st however they needed a drummer. Knowing that Bliss was a drummer they decided to ask him if he'd be up for it. Naturally he said yes. After a practise at the local rehersal rooms "The Fuzzbox" the three gents decided that they had somehting.

After another two practises both Maff and Dom asked Bliss wanted to do some gigs after the 21st and so the first point of what would become known as Stone Motor was created. Dom came up with the name of Stone Motor and France was drafted in to play the bass on a few songs as so to include him in both his and his brothers 21st and to give Dom's fingers a break. After a few more practises, France asked if the guys would mind being filmed for a univercity project he was doing, after some thought the guys said yes and decided to go with "I am Legion" a song from Maff and Doms previous band Genocide.

The video went down a treat. Although not the usual style Stone Motor would play, it sat well with fans of Genocide (after some explanation of WHY Stone Motor had coverd it) and fans of Stone Motor alike.

It was at this point that France asked if he could be a permenant member of the band and of course the other guys were ecstatic about this.

What comes next for Stone Motor? Well, we're as excited to find out as you are.

As for Sa-da-ko, were pretty exited for Friday, hoping to burn a guy to celebrate.

See ya there

\m/

The Fox N Goose - Zombie Apocalypse 2, Sa-da-ko tour diary

Picture by John Liot Photography

Flesh eating fun, and bone crunching

metal!!

Another Halloweens gone by, which means only one thing as far as Sa-Da-Ko is concerned, another night of face paint running into stinging eyes, fake blood getting all over guitar pedals, trashing shirts and rotting flesh, all in the name of the Zombie Apocalypse!

This is the second year running for this Southport based event, so its still very much in its infancy, but in age only!! This years event was bigger, better and definitely louder than last years, with more zombies, more blood more

chainsaws and even a smurf and Kick Ass thrown into the mix!!
The Fox and Goose was the venue this time around, dark, dingy and cobwe

bbed, with bloodied medical apparatus hanging from the ceiling and skulls and skeletons dotted about, it definately set the scene for the carnage ahead.

As the crowd slowly grew, it was Stormcorporation who had the task of kicking things off, and kick things off they did, with a set to knock the skin off any decaying corpse!! I must make mention of the Storcorp costumes at this point, with a pirate, zombie, american footballer, Russian communist zombie, and Jedi, which appealed to the geek in me, (I

need those robes dude!!) Once again, Sa-Da-Ko recomends the FREE download of their debut album!!

Stormcorporation piccy by John Liot Photography

Next up was a band relatively new to the scene, this being only their second gig, Skyline Ablaze!

I cannot enthuse about these heavy metal bruisers enough, they tick all the right boxes delivering filth by the bucketload straight into ya lug holes! The guitars are faultless, goin from breakneck runs up the fret board, to beatdown effortlessly, defo ones to watch!!

Skyline Ablaze Picture by Chloe Simpson

Big respect to all who came down and got involved you bunch of mental bastards, I think the Fox will need to invest in new crowd barriers, as the one in place was no match for a Sa-Da-Ko crowd!!!

The Halloween weekend was, unfortunately cut short at this point however, as our Guitarist, and driver of our trusty white van "The Cougar Hunter" dropped some of the P.A. on his foot whilst we were packing up... We were due to play the Manchester Metal Collective Weekender the next day, sunday, but unfortunately had to pull out as Jay had severely damaged his toes and was unable to drive the band and gear down :( We really hate having to miss gigs, and our apology's to everyone concerned, especially Eyton, the organiser, but with more metal bands than you could shake a stick at, Im sure it was an awesome day none the less!!

So anyway, next up is the Vanilla Lounge in Wigan this Friday, 05 November at 18:30, withSynthetic Ecstasy courtesy of Make More Noise, hope to see you there... lets hope we get our driver back soon!!!

Keep it dirty people, inabitch!!! x

Sa-da-ko- Jims Tour Diary 15th Oct-17th Oct

So, another weekend full of gigs down, an I'm nursing a case of moshers neck, an the slight remnants of a hangover!!

The 16th saw us in Burnley, a first for us, at the Sanctuary rock bar, which is an awesome venue by the way, to kick off the rock on promotions, Fire within cd launch tour.

First up was a band called Massive wagons , a Hard rock outfit from Carnforth, whos interests include "Beer. Girls in black. Loud noises."... which amused me!!
Ive not seen this band before, an Im gutted!! They were awesome, sexy solos, gut punching bass, tight ass beats an a vocalist whose voice has been lovingly nurtured on gravel and whiskey, very enjoyable!
Massive Wagons played a mix of their own stuff with a few covers thrown in, ending with a version of Johnny B Good, which they truly made their own... Looking forward to seein these lads again soon!!



Next up were our old friends Stormcorporation from Preston! As usual they were right on form, with a set slappin you in the face with originality and skill. Some nice dirty beats, with huge groovin guitars, nicely contrasted with soaring female vocals, this band demand attention, an they get it!
If you havent seen these live yet, I would urge you too, as they never fail to please, their debut album is out now, and free to download from here... DO IT!



So after a late finish, an a long drive home, discussing the finer foods in life, an coming to the conclusion that caramel shortbreads are awesome, and rice pudding is nice cold, we were set up for the trip to Warrington for Sa-da-ko to play White fest, which, you'll be pleased to know, has no connection to any sort of racist organisation!!!

This was a bit of a strange gig, an we felt a bit sorry for the promoter, as his original venue had pulled out, as had a lot of the acts he had lined up, but this didn't stop us pissin molten metal into the ears of Warrington's populace! We unfortunately, had to rush this one a bit, so didn't see many of the other bands, however, one of the lads from screamo outfit, age of insecurity introduced himself an I have just been checkin em out on Myspace, I suggest you do the same!!


Any way, time to go an organize some Sa-da-ko filled Halloween shenanigans, so Ill leave you with a picture of what I had for lunch... beef double dipped mother lickers!!!!

Make More Noise - Music Social Networking Site for the North West

www.Makemorenoise.co.uk is the social networking site and media company based in Wigan, the site and ethos is the brainchild of Adam Kernig backed with team of talented photographers (Joe Speak photography) and other media moguls from the area.

The site itself holds a wealth of talent from the area helping artists across the northwest connect and pull together to create a strong scene within the area. At first glance the site looks very much like an average social networking site however once you peel back the skin of what the site and the company offer, there is a lot more going on here.

Each week the site features bands and artists from the area as well as album reviews, videos and promotion for gigs across the North West, if that wasn't enough the company also offers its own clothes line and a full arsenal of promotional services including facebook, myspace & other internet tools.

If your looking to tour the northwest as a band or artist www.Makenomorenoise.co.uk

may be worth contacting to help create buzz for your event. add them as a friend on facebook for contact and tell em Sa-da-kO sent you.

Sa-da-ko will be headline act at this years Synthetic Ecstacy's Event showcasing some of the finest metal acts of the area this to be held at the vanilla lounge on Bonfire night so expect a night of insane metal and burning of political figures.....see you there!!!

Quick update for you bitches!!!

Just givin ya a quick update on whats bein goin on for Sa-Da-Ko recently!

We are enjoyin our bad ass, face bustin, lip splittin "I see them tour" ...of the north west. We are just about half way through now with the next dates being the 16th in Burnley @ The Sanctuary Rock Bar, in association with Rock on Promo which is their CD launch night, an then followed straight up the next day on the 17th @ The White Hart in Warrington.

Meanwhile we have been working our asses off creating the event of the year which will be the eagerly anticipated zombie apocalypse 2 held this year in our home town of Southport at the Fox and Goose. Last years event was a resounding success, with the evening being a complete sell out at full capacity!

Not wanting to reveal too much at this point in time... rest assured this years apocalypse will be more blood curdling and vomit inducing than this years sick-ass release The Human Centipede and with more Zombies than Dead Rising 2.

go eat a steak... inabitch x

Zombie Apocalypse 2- Day One

Youtube Viral Marketing for Metal Bands

Original Article stolen absolutely brilliant advice and deserves a repost, without permission........Sorry you can find the original article of this below.

http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/22/the-secret-strategies-behind-many-viral-videos/

Our current video doing the viral rounds

Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine.

When most people talk about “viral videos,” they’re usually referring to videos like Miss Teen South Carolina, Smirnoff’s Tea Partay music video, the Sony Bravia ads, Soulja Boy – videos that have traveled all around the internet and been posted on YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Facebook, Digg, blogs, etc. – videos with millions and millions of views.

Over the past year, I have run clandestine marketing campaigns meant to ensure that promotional videos become truly viral, as these examples have become in the extreme. In this post, I will share some of the techniques I use to do my job: to get at least 100,000 people to watch my clients’ “viral” videos.

1: Not all viral videos are what they seem
There are tens of thousands of videos uploaded to YouTube each day (I’ve heard estimates between 10-65,000 videos per day). I don’t care how “viral” you think your video is; no one is going to find it and no one is going to watch it.

The members of my startup are hired guns – our clients give us videos and we make them go viral. Our rule of thumb is that if we don’t get a video 100,000 views, we don’t charge.

So far, we’ve worked on 80-90 videos and we’ve seen overwhelming success. In the past 3 months, we’ve achieved over 20 million views for our clients, with videos ranging from 100,000 views to upwards of 1.5 million views each. In other words, not all videos go viral organically – there is a method to the madness.

I can’t reveal our clients’ names and I can’t link to the videos we’ve worked on, because YouTube surely doesn’t like what we’re doing and our clients hate to admit that they need professional help with their “viral” videos. But I can give you a general idea of who we’ve worked with: two top Hollywood movie studios, a major record label, a variety of very well known consumer brands, and a number of different startups, both domestic and international.

This summer, we were approached by a Hollywood movie studio and asked to help market a series of viral clips they had created in advance of a blockbuster. The videos were 10-20 seconds each, were shot from what appeared to be a camera phone, and captured a series of unexpected and shocking events that required professional post-production and CGI. Needless to say, the studio had invested a significant amount of money in creating the videos but every time they put them online, they couldn’t get more than a few thousand views.

We took six videos and achieved:
6 million views on YouTube
~30,000 ratings
~10,000 favorites
~10,000 comments
200+ blog posts linking back to the videos

All six videos made it into the top 5 Most Viewed of the Day, and the two that went truly viral (1.5 million views each) were #1 and #2 Most Viewed of the Week.
The following principles were the secrets to our success.

2. Content is NOT King
If you want a truly viral video that will get millions of people to watch and share it, then yes, content is key. But good content is not necessary to get 100,000 views if you follow these strategies.

Don’t get me wrong: the content is what will drive visitors back to a site. So a video must have a decent concept, but one shouldn’t agonize over determining the best “viral” video possible. Generally, a concept should not be forced because it fits a brand. Rather, a brand should be fit into a great concept.

Here are some guidelines we follow:
Make it short: 15-30 seconds is ideal; break down long stories into bite-sized clips
Design for remixing: create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over and over again by others. Ex: “Dramatic Hamster”

Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it unless it’s really amazing. Ex: Sony Bravia

Make it shocking: give a viewer no choice but to investigate further. Ex: “UFO Haiti”
Use fake headlines: make the viewer say, “Holy shit, did that actually happen?!” Ex: “Stolen Nascar”

Appeal to sex: if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in the video. Ex: “Yoga 4 Dudes”

These recent videos would have been perfect had they been viral “ads” pointing people back to websites:
Model Falls in Hole on Runway
Cheerleader Gets Run Over By Football Team
PacMan: The Chase
Dude
Dog Drives Car
Snowball – Dancing Cockatoo

3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page
Now that a video is ready to go, how the hell is it going to attract 100,000 viewers?

The core concept of video marketing on YouTube is to harness the power of the site’s traffic.

Here’s the idea: something like 80 million videos are watched each day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from people clicking the “Videos” tab at the top. The goal is to get a video on that Videos page, which lists the Daily Most Viewed videos.

If we succeed, the video will no longer be a single needle in the haystack of 10,000 new videos per day. It will be one of the twenty videos on the Most Viewed page, which means that we can grab 1/20th of the clicks on that page! And the higher up on the page our video is, the more views we are going to get.

So how do we get the first 50,000 views we need to get our videos onto the Most Viewed list?

Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules.

Forums: We start new threads and embed our videos. Sometimes, this means kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users. Yes, it’s tedious and time-consuming, but if we get enough people working on it, it can have a tremendous effect.

MySpace: Plenty of users allow you to embed YouTube videos right in the comments section of their MySpace pages. We take advantage of this.

Facebook: Share, share, share. We’ve taken Dave McClure’s advice and built a sizeable presence on Facebook, so sharing a video with our entire friends list can have a real impact. Other ideas include creating an event that announces the video launch and inviting friends, writing a note and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.

Email lists: Send the video to an email list. Depending on the size of the list (and the recipients’ willingness to receive links to YouTube videos), this can be a very effective strategy.

Friends: Make sure everyone we know watches the video and try to get them to email it out to their friends, or at least share it on Facebook.

Each video has a shelf life of 48 hours before it’s moved from the Daily Most Viewed list to the Weekly Most Viewed list, so it’s important that this happens quickly. As I mentioned before, when done right, this is a tremendously successful strategy.

4. Title Optimization
Once a video is on the Most Viewed page, what can be done to maximize views?
It seems obvious, but people see hundreds of videos on YouTube, and the title and thumbnail are an easy way for video publishers to actively persuade someone to click on a video. Titles can be changed a limitless number of times, so we sometimes have a catchy (and somewhat misleading) title for the first few days, then later switch to something more relevant to the brand. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend towards titling videos with the phrases “exclusive,” “behind the scenes,” and “leaked video.”

5. Thumbnail Optimization
If a video is sitting on the Most Viewed page with nineteen other videos, a compelling video thumbnail is the single best strategy to maximize the number of clicks the video gets.
YouTube provides three choices for a video’s thumbnail, one of which is grabbed from the exact middle of the video. As we edit our videos, we make sure that the frame at the very middle is interesting. It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views. Not to say that this is the best strategy, but you get the idea. Two rules of thumb: the thumbnail should be clear (suggesting high video quality) and ideally it should have a face or at least a person in it.

Also, when we feel particularly creative, we optimize all three thumbnails then change the thumbnail every few hours. This is definitely an underused strategy, but it’s an interesting way to keep a video fresh once it’s on the Most Viewed list.
See the highlighted videos in the screenshot below for a good example of how a compelling title and screenshot can make all the difference once the video is on the Most Viewed page.

6. Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself
Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. So do we. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video. We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this). Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section – especially if the comments are related to a brand/startup.

Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.

We usually get one comment for every thousand views, since most people watching YouTube videos aren’t logged in. But a heated comment thread (done well) will engage viewers and will drive traffic back to our sites.

7. Releasing all videos simultaneously
Once people are watching a video, how do we keep them engaged and bring them back to a website?

A lot of the time our clients say: “We’ve got 5 videos and we’re going to release one every few days so that viewers look forward to each video.”

This is the wrong way to think about YouTube marketing. If we have multiple videos, we post all of them at once. If someone sees our first video and is so intrigued that they want to watch more, why would we make them wait until we post the next one? We give them everything up front. If a user wants to watch all five of our videos right now, there’s a much better chance that we’ll be able to persuade them to click through to our website. We don’t make them wait after seeing the first video, because they’re never going to see the next four.

Once our first video is done, we delete our second video then re-upload it. Now we have another 48-hour window to push it to the Most Viewed page.

Rinse and repeat. Using this strategy, we give our most interested viewers the chance to fully engage with a campaign without compromising the opportunity to individually release and market each consecutive video.

8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole.

This is one of my favorite strategies and one that I think we invented. YouTube allows you to tag your videos with keywords that make your videos show up in relevant searches. For the first week that our video is online, we don’t use keyword tags to optimize the video for searches on YouTube. Instead, we’ve discovered that you can use tags to control the videos that show up in the Related Videos box.

I like to think about it as leading viewers down the rabbit hole. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for viewers to engage with all your content, rather than jumping away to “related” content that actually has nothing to do with your brand/startup.

So how do we strategically tag? We choose three or four unique tags and use only these tags for all of the videos we post. I’m not talking about obscure tags; I’m talking about unique tags, tags that are not used by any other YouTube videos. Done correctly, this will allow us to have full control over the videos that show up as “Related Videos.”

When views start trailing off after a few days to a week, it’s time to add some more generic tags, tags that draw out the long tail of a video as it starts to appear in search results on YouTube and Google.

9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness
The following is how we measure the success of our viral videos.
For one, we tweak the links put up on YouTube (whether in a YouTube channel or in a video description) by adding “?video=1” to the end of each URL. This makes it much easier to track inbound links using Google Analytics or another metrics tool.

TubeMogul and VidMetrix also track views/comments/ratings on each individual video and draw out nice graphs that can be shared with the team. Additionally, these tools follow the viral spread of a video outside of YouTube and throughout other social media sites and blogs.

Conclusion

The Wild West days of Lonely Girl and Ask A Ninja are over. You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving true virality takes serious creativity, some luck, and a lot of hard work. So, my advice: fire your PR firm and do it yourself.

MNFM Podcast - Exposing the best in UK metal

Download the MNFM Podcast at http://mnfm.podbean.com/?ref=nf

Sa-da-ko will be appearing on this fabulous podcast from MNFM, MNFM stands for music not for the masses and they do a great job of giving unsigned talent airplay and exposure.


Our tracks have been doing the rounds and Boom shake the room will be featured on the podcast, don’t forget you can still download this track from our Sa-da-ko Revebnation page.

This week’s MNFM show is out now with bands of the likes of Red XIII, Not Above Evil, KAIRA, Sa-Da-Ko, Since The Apocalypse, Caym, Sons Of Merrick, Element, FALL OF RUIN & Uphoricide + Kralingtons and this week’s track of the week by Shadow Cops.
If you’re in an unsigned metal band and need exposure contact these guys by myspace or facebook.

Get involved!!

North West Metal Venues & Gigs

We've officially kicked off our North West tour and promoting ourselves to the max, catch us at some of these shows posted below, theres a few dates to be confirmed which will be added as we go on. this will be our last blow out before work on album 2 starts so this isn't to be missed..

A Sic Ass Metal Track to Download

So here it is, our cover version of Boom Shake the Room!!!!

Download the track by clicking on the link below, I'm also currently in the throws of making it available on most of the networking sites and music pages dotted about the web.