Quick update- Album out weekend 25/26th May...

Sappnin?  As a lot of you know, its not long now till our album AWAKENINGS is released!!

Its been a long fuckin time coming, but we have a hell of a party lined up for you to celebrate the release with us, in the form of "Southport Metal Fest" where we have an entire weekend of metal for your faces kickin off on Saturday the 25th and all over again on the 26th click the link to find out more!

So 17 days till you get to hear it, theres some pretty good reviews comin in already so check them out, we gotta vid out for the track "Limit Of Resolution" keep a look out just after the album launch on the 28th May at the moment we just gonna tease you with the tagline #iamnotanumber expect some video updates soon, and be sure to check out our past blogs for more info on us as a band, and what we went through to record this album.

So as any of you who know us can testify to, we work hard and this album is a product of this, so help support us an show you care by sharing all our things about on facebook, twitter, youtube etc, buying the album (Obviously!?!) but most of all, get yo asses to a show- especially our album launch, lets make it a weekend this fuckin little town will never forget!!

Thanks guys, and remember to stick the 25th May in ya diaries, and keep a look out for pre-orders available soon, and loadsa other cool shit comin your way!!!

AWAKENINGS....

lead up to the AWAKENINGS release. pt 2: What's with the name; what you all about?

Hello again! we are back with another exciting installment of Sa-Da-Ko motherfuckin facts for ya!

As we explained in the first post, on the lead up to our first full length album release we are doing a little series of blogs for you to get into our mindset, and hopefully understand us a bit better, know why we do what we do, what drives us etc, 1. to (hopefully) get you excited about the release, and 2. so when it comes out you gotta bit of background to it, and appreciate it a bit more...

So first up, the name. We for some reason, have a LOT of trouble with our name. Other bands get it wrong, fans of the genre get it wrong, venues get it wrong, promoters, reviewers, you name it... all get it wrong. Its not like we picked a really obtuse hard to pronounce name either, and its split up for you too- could we make it any easier... sheeesh!!! lolz!! Back when Sa-Da-Ko was a home studio project, Simo decided upon the name using The Ring as inspiration. The Ring is a 1998 Japanese horror film by Hideo Nakata. There was an American remake more recently  but that was balls, Sa-Da-Ko fact there bitches, anyway, the film centres around a cursed videotape, which brings death to all who watch it. A great psychic called Shizuko Yamamura commits suicide, passing her abilities to her daughter, Sadako Yamamura, who psionically made the videotape- and the assumption is that Sadako is dead and it was her vengeful spirit that killed the teenagers. Go watch the film if you wanna know more Filthlickers! Exploring the origin of the name, brings another interesting fact to light, Sadako is a Japanese name used for females. The same name can be written with a variety of Kanji, and the meanings of the name differ accordingly. So basically it means different things to different people, something which we try to do as a band, steering away from traditional "metal" names and deciding on something with a variety of meanings- meaning you decide what you want us to be to you!!

So now you see, thats the name taken care of, were not a number puzzle or any other combination of 6 letters, heres a list of some we have genuinely been called, either on the net, posters and programmes, and the worst being a Tshirt, although annoying, it has become a bit of a running joke between us and our fans, leading us to jokingly refer to ourselves as "Skidadle" lets hope this clears up the confusion, and people stop being fucktards ;)

"So-Da-Ko  So-Do-Ko  So-Du-Ko  Sk-Da-Ko  Sa-Do-Ko  Sa-Da-Ku  Su-Da-Ko  Sa-Do-Ka"

You get the picture...

So thats the name, what's in a name hey... Its the music that does the talking surely? In the Awakenings album, we cover a lot of different elements, which we naturally do as a band. We all have different tastes of music, and try and fit elements of all we like into our songs. Obviously a common love of metal as a whole binds us together, but all the different sub-genres too, and different styles. So musically you've got elements of Classic metal, Hardcore, Djent, Thrash, Math, Death, Nu etc, which is probably one of the reasons we do peoples head in, cos we try an stick a bit of everything we like in there! Vocally we cover subjects from apocalyptic visions, political frustrations, Folklore and cultural mythos, to my own misanthropic views of the world and other such dark subject matter- tackled from an almost hip hop style of rhythm at times. But essentially we are about the groove- getting your head bangin an the pit erupting is what we essentially set out to achieve. We make music that, we hope, makes you wanna go sick; that empowers you and makes you feel good! Music that puts a big fucking smile on your face, makes you raise ya glass in satisfaction, then turn to your mate next to you, put ya screw face on and nod appreciatively...

You can take it as deep as you want to do- If you wanna learn every riff, beat and lyric, finding the true meaning of the songs- cool thats awesome, you gotta dig deeper for that shit, but if you are just a casual listener thats cool too. We aren't about  writing songs so complicated, extreme or so impenetrable that no one knows what to do when we hit the stage, nor are we basic and boring, we just do what we came to do, and we have fun- That seems to be missing from the scene in general at times. Sometimes people lose sight of why they got into metal in the first place, and are so bogged down with tryin to label things and deem them "metal" enough for appreciation- So shut up, stop being a judgemental prick, crack open a beer an listen to some metal, LOUD!!

Right, I'm off to eat bacon, and perhaps an egg, cos I'm edgy like that.... Be back in a couple weeks where we will look at the actual album closer, and the processes we went through to develop it.

Check out the website for where to catch us live- back on it BIG TIME, we got loads of gigs comin up over the next few months, so I expect to see some familiar faces there yo!!

Take it sleazy filthlickers- catch ya soon!

lead up to the AWAKENINGS release. pt 1: Why the fuck do we wear suits?

Whats happening filthlickers? 

With the imminent release of our first full length album "Awakenings" due out at the end of may, with preview tracks available NOW on Soundcloud, we thought it would be a good opportunity to start a series of blogs, outlining what we do, why we do it and what the fuck we are all about, so when this album finally fuckin drops, youve gotta bit more of an insight into the band behind it.

We are starting off with an easy one- "why the fuck do we wear suits?" That is a question we get a lot because, obviously, we wear suits! A lot of people just dismiss it as a gimmick of sorts, we have had numerous comments on the subject, good, bad and indifferent, and I suppose it is a kind of gimmick, it sets us apart from the rest and allows us to be easily identified amongst our peers, but the reasoning behind it is a lot deeper than that. 

Back when SaDaKo was just an idea, we knew we were different from a lot of what was going around in the metal scene, we still are. Being pretty fuckin obsessed with music ourselves, and going to shit loads of gigs etc, we had noticed that the first judgement came from before the band you were watching even started playing. not meaning to be judgemental and make assumptions based on image, it is a natural thing we as humans do subconsciously  Picture the scene- a band walks on, all wearing jeans and band t.shirts, the bassist has a Slayer shirt, vocalist a lamb of god, lead guitarist wearing a bring me the horizon- you get the picture. You can hear murmurs, some of approval, some dislike at the bands on the shirts, and some written them off as a big load of puffs already- before anyone has heard them play a fuckin note! Lets face it, we have all been there as witnesses to the pricks, more commonly known as metal chavs- or just plain bitches! Fuck the scene! So already people have made a judgement, so after the first couple of songs, people make a second judgement- "Yeah the vocals are a bit lamb of god ish, but that riffs well from BMTH" straight away, with no challenge, people know your influences and can hear them shine through your music. So long story short, that is part of the reason we wear the black suits- When we step up onto a stage, we look like a unit, play as a unit, and hand your fuckin ass to you on a plate like a unit. We all have widely different eclectic music tastes which all go in the melting pot and is churned out as our sound. People struggle to categorize us, we don't fit in, we ain't part of any scene, and never will be. We accept that some people wont like us, we accept that people will be put off with our image or whatever, there's no magic to stamp out pre-conceptions, but we really couldn't give a fuck- but people always remember us after they've seen us, so we must be doin somethin right!

In summary, we just rock out, we wear suits to try and stop people judging us or catogorising us before they've heard us. Also we like ice cream.

Stay tuned filths- we got more of this sweary bollocks to come!!!

Demo out, and update...

Change My Fate

Yo, Back in the room- if ya thinkin things have been a bit quiet from Sa-DaKo recently, fear not, we`ve just been mega busy with our asses up in aKu studio gettin shit recorded for forthcoming release "Awakenings" which by the way will be available EVERYWHERE from the beginning of august... you heard it here first!!!



So click the clicky link thing, and hear "Change my fate" with your own ears, and let us know what you think! Remember though, it is only a sample, and one which will hopefully keep you going until we release more ear jizz at you!!

Also keep a look out for some behind the scenes vids, so you can keep an eye on how we recorded everything, and to witness the sheer professionalism and dedication of our band ;)




In other news, we gotta a few photos up now, taken by the wonderful Neil Forshaw, who put up with us fucking about very well, (Sorry mate!!!) so feel free to check out how sexy we are on our facebook page.



Also, a special mention to our mates in "Incidium" they unfortunately are calling it a day, but don't miss their final last ever gig, at Grand Central, Manchester on the 19th April 2012. We`ve played with them a few times now, awesome lads, awesome tunes, they will be missed on the scene, here`s wishing them the best of luck for the future!!




And finally, it wouldnt be an update if we didn't mention food in here somewhere we thought we would share our new favourite breakfast place- The Gallery Grill on Eastbank St, Southport... decent breaky at a decent price, including perfectly cooked black pudding, bacon, sausage, egg an shit WITH hash browns- and Jim was most impressed that you get a choice of white or brown toast!! So big thanks to friend of Sa-Da-Ko Mr Aharon Sugden for the recommendation!!! Here`s a picture of our bassist Charlie Bobby reading his new book in there!!!



Stay Classy San-Diego, catch ya soon bitches x

Marketing Metal Bands 2

In the past ive posted some other ideas of how to market your band, and because of my day job I regularly stumble accross valuable promotional and marketing ideas. I came accross thie blog by Andrei Petrik & thought I would share it as it has some great info here.

8 Lessons for marketing from heavy metal

I am always amazed every time I go see a metal band with the amount of people actually attend the concerts. That’s not the amazing part; the amazing part is realizing that metal bands are able to accomplish this with minimum or no airplay and with very little marketing budgets. Take Iron Maiden for example, for more than 2 decades they have been able to fill arenas across the planet consistently, while artists from other genres with massive marketing dollars and over saturated air play on radio and TV can barely hold it together for couple of albums. The obvious question is how do the metal bands get people to come to the shows consistently? Judging from my own experiences, minor research and analysis, there’s something that metal bands are doing right. Perhaps marketers can learn a thing or two from heavy metal and apply it to their own strategies. Here’s what the metal bands do to pack the venues, consistently.

Quality Matters
Believe it or not, successful bands spent countless hours and sacrificed a great deal to become good at what they do. Practice and sacrifice. If by some chance a band sells out a venue during their first gig and completely butchers the show, no one will come back to see them again. After all, the core product is the music. Successful bands are good at what they do and always deliver quality show. When you go see Iron Maiden or Slayer show, you know you’ll get the best out of it every time.

Give Them Something To Talk About
Even if the band plays a killer set, they’ve got to get the audience to talk about the show the next day. It could be anything from pyrotechnics to lighting, stage props to mosh-pits, or just simply playing flawlessly. The first time I saw Hatebreed for example, the next day I was telling my friends (even the ones that aren’t metal fans) about a huge circle pit the band got going.


Engage The Fans
Metal bands are great at engaging their audience. They spend time signing autographs outside the tour buses, they get the audience to sing along, and instigate mosh pits. Engaging and interacting with the fans is pivotal when building a loyal fanbase. Anyone ever attended a music festivals knows that performing bands will usually mingle with the fans and sign autographs after they’ve performed.

Build Loyalty
Metal bands that stay true to their roots, music and their fans build a loyal following. Fans that make a personal and emotional connection with bands tend to feel disappointed and frustrated when their favorite metal band “sells out”. Case in point Metallica; they lost a loyal fanbase when they released Load record that signified change in music direction. Only recently Metallica has made an attempt with Death Magnetic to lure back original fans that were with the band from Day 1. Loyal fans are the grease in gears that will prolong bands’ careers.

Scarcity Drives Demand
Another reason why some metal bands can pack each and every show is because they don’t come around too often. There are only so many times in a given time frame fans will pay to see their favorite bands. Playing too often in a given market saturates it and makes the event a commodity. Some bands strategically plan out their touring schedules and routes to ensure that there’s enough demand to fill the arena while commanding a top, yet fair dollar for the seats. Although creating artificial low supply and scarcity is unethical, but saturating the market with product or endless licensing agreements not only devalues the product and the brand, it will also eat into your margins and eventually drive down demand.

Exclusivity
Heavy Metal or any other sub-genre of Metal is not for everyone. Outsiders often dismiss it as real music because the barrier to understanding the genre is fairly large. No one but metal fans have the clearest understanding of this. For the most part they don’t really care. What they care about is the sense of exclusivity the metal bands create. Exclusivity creates a sense of community, pride and ownership.

Cross Promote
Metal bands are very effective at cross-promoting their music. Although most metal fans share similar tastes, but it is a common practice for metal bands to tour together and cross introduce fans to other bands’ music. In recent years, veteran bands such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Metallica have taken younger bands on the road. This introduces the young to the old and vice-versa.

Promote With No Budget
All of the methods and strategies discussed above can be accomplished with low or no marketing budget. Metal bands let the fans do all their marketing for them. Loyal and happy fans become advocates

Sa-da-kO Music Video

To say that we are a bit exited at the moment at camp Sa-da-kO is a complete bloody understatement, for the past 3 months Sa-da-kO has reached the point where all the planning and prep work is really begin to pay off.

So we have reach our first land mark, the album is well in mid flow and the recording is shaping to be one of the strongest things I’ve done so far, I had to research my ass off and basically studied recording & production techniques from the likes of Andy Sneap, Colin Richardson and Terry Date via Andy Sneaps forum site. The site is a great resource for learning production especially tips on producing metal bands etc check it out!!

We had the initial demo of “rEd” played on a local radio station as part of a studio promotion on Saturday, which was greatly received and this Saturday we start filming the “rEd” music video. We have posted groups give out flyers and basically pimped ourselves to the max to get as many people down as possible to be extras in the video, at the last count the Facebook page was around the 120 mark.

If you live locally to the North West and you would like to be a part of this get down to Club Lodge, West St, Southport between 12-3pm on Saturday the 8th. We will be filming full band shots which will act as cut away scenes and the vast majority of the video will be filmed on the locations a posted a few months ago in all the blogs.

We’ve been thinking of a few album titles recently and a few ideas came across well, however finally after a good few bits of dialogue we came to the conclusion that the title of the album will be called “Zero one” which I kind of like as it’s a nod to several things we’ve done in the past:

1) Jim is aka Zero on versus other projects, Zero + 1 (sIMo) = Sa-da-kO

2) Sa-da-ko is a girl’s name in Japan so actually getting Sa-da-kO as a domain name is quite difficult so most of our sites can be found by adding the 01 to the name (try it today kids)

3) This is the second recording we’ve done as a band the first release under Aku Media our home grown label so this would make zero one literally Aku-01 as a Sku/catalogue number.
So there are a few fun facts for your kids to chew on,

I’ll leave you for now with a quick sketch of how the album may look and a very, very old music video we made oursevles (sheeeesh!), all going well we should see you Saturday, if not ill post some photos on here and on some of the other sites so you can a glimpse of how it went down.

See you in a bit……

A Madmans view on Sa-da-ko

We’ve had a few reviews lately, but I really wanted to show you this one not because it’s a positive one, but because this guy hits the nail on the head regarding to achieve with our sound. I met this chap via the SN app twitter,

I started following his blog not so long ago and I’ve enjoyed his rants and views immensely, if you’re looking for honesty, metal love and genuine point’s view in your blogs then check him out!! You can find the Madman by clicking the links on the side over on the right hand side….

Not something for the train journey
There are some nice things in the world. A cold beer in the sunshine on a hot day, the smell of a fresh steak on a barbecue, the scream of Metro Station's fans as the lead singer is pushed under a train.

There are some things that aren't nice, like people with halitosis yawning, genocide, warm lager. And Sa-Da-kO.

Not to be confused with commuter time-hemorrhage Sudoku, Sa-da-kO are a five-piece death/grind band from way up North. There's a distinctly oriental theme to these bruiser's blogs so I can make the educated assumption that the name is taken from the scary long-haired chick that crawls out of the TV at the end of The Ring. However, this is a big hit with MADman as I'm a huge fan of Japanese culture, so was intrigued to dig into their MySpace. And they are not nice

Demo tunes "rEd" and "Name Your God" open the set of eight songs in the kind of noise you'd expect if Lamb Of God walked up to Atreyu in a chainsaw factory and called their mum's a bunch of slags. The immediately harsh guitar slaps you round the chops and in my opinion, vocalist Jim Arnold absolutely shreds his throat to open the demo. In fact, it seemed a bit rude sitting down whilst listening to "Name Your God" and I felt I should try and get a wall of death going with Hot Chick. There's a vocal break that has Dimmu Borgir-like qualities and reminded me a great deal of the initial slow down in "The Serpentine Offering", only with less Nordic atmosphere.

The third tune "The Struggle" didn't felate me in the same way as the openers but, with similarities to Disturbed's "Sons Of Plunder" on the intro, it's still worthy of some ear time. My one possible criticism about the first four songs is that "Ju-on" could have gone into a mental halfbeat breakdown after the first couple of bars; this tune has the potential to create fucking carnage in the pit so I would have liked a to hear a bit of variation here.

"It Grows" shows a Black Dahlia Murder style to Jim's vocal and, if properly produced, should be on a demo. I can see legs, arms, bottles of piss and babies being chucked around a pit once this piece reaches full swing. "False Prophecy" gives us a traditional "bit from a horror film" intro, with a poor woman being terrorised by some sort of mean demon types, before we get toe-punted in the cock by Jim and the crew as the song kicks in. Interestingly, this number takes us back to the horror narrator midway through, giving an interesting depth to an otherwise pretty traditional thrash chugger.

The last couple of tunes lose the initial impact for me but overall, this is a fucking fantastic display of garage death metal. If Jim Arnold can hold on to his vocal chords before they rupture into some kind of pissing gore shower, I can see myself banging my head off of a stage in front of this bunch of reprobates in the not too distant future.

Reviews

Tony at http://www.metalunderground.co.uk/ was kind enough to review of our current demo tracks.......

http://www.myspace.com/sadako01

Sa-da-kO, 5 piece from Southport in the North West.Listening to the tracks on my space, there is a mix of everything in the music, they use a combination of brutal vocals backed up some clean vocals, on some of the songs, and I loved some of the guitar work, as some of the musicianship is of a good standard.Its obvious that a lot of work has gone into the writing of the songs, when I first listened to the tracks on my space, the music didn’t impress that much but after a few listens, it grew on me, and taking into consideration that it will sound much better on CD.Give the band credit for trying something a little different would say give the music a few listens before making a judgment as it is a grower.

3.5/5

Ok, so not the greatest of reviews, however there is an understanding what the band is trying to achieve here, there are too many clones!! Too many bands, who write the same, produce the same, use the same equipment, use the same plug-ins and market the same.
I’m drawing a line in the sand now and I’m promising that the new album is a step up, not a departure, not a “radio friendly sound” but a complete overhaul and completely focused recording.

I love reviews it helps mold and focus us as a band and gives us an import view of ourselves removed from the confinements of the studio or the practice room, you can read more of our reviews via Garage band but more importantly have your say on face book, twitter, blog whatever, let us know and unite.

Track written and up on Myspcae

Tuesday, May 05, 2009
New Track up!!

Its been a while again guys and weve been hard at work writing and recording demos for the up coming album.Just to keep the slavering monkeys happy Ive posted a demo track of one of our new tunes entitled "name your God"Drop us a line and let me know what you think and dont forget you can keep in touch using facebook and by taking one up the twitter from me on ya mobile.More news will follow soon.........sIMo..m/

Akumuink vs Sa-da-ko

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
New Merch Deal!!!!

Just got wind this morning that a deal we’ve been working, is going to go ahead!
Sa-da-kO has just signed an awesome merchandising with Canadian T-shirt Company Akumuink!

You can check out some of their current designs over at www.akumuink.com
We should be receiving our new Merch over the coming weeks and I’m sure you all will be the first to know when we get them.

Heres a little bit of info about our new chums!!!!!

Akumu Ink is a Montreal based t-shirt company that launched in the beginning of 2008 by Joey and Dora. Our style is heavily inspired by everything coming out of Japan from its cute pop icons to its terrifying horror movies. The name Akumu can be translated to Nightmare in Japanese. We loved the concept of creating hand drawn images based on our nightmares. So we focus our theme around darker subject matter, even when sometimes it's done with a cute twist. ....
You can find us in stores around Canada and Europe. We'll be attending a ton of tattoo conventions across Canada this summer so be sure to check us out.

Wear it to death!....

We are totally stoked that Joey & Dora want to be involved in the Sa-da-kO crew and look forward to the new merch coming our way!!!....

sIMo