Opal-Sky Blog

Cheers.

2007-11-09T01:57:00.000Z

by Joe.

Hi.

Just wanted to thank everyone for their kind words since we announced the split.

Also wanted to say that the farewell party will take place at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh on Saturday the 26th of January with an after show party taking place at the City Cafe bar across the road that will go on in to the early hours of the morning. Tickets are availble on the Ticketmaster website. Go there by clicking here. We'd love to see as many old and new faces there as possible!
We'll be putting on a coach for all the Glasgow peeps who want to make the trip across to see us for the last time too. We'll put more details up about this shortly.
We are also meeting up this Saturday to pick the track-list for the album too, so if you have any special requests you really want to be on the album please let us know about them by writing to us at opalsky@hotmail.com.

Peace out.

x

Opal Sky Splitting Up.

2007-10-06T19:37:00.000+01:00

It is with much sadness and regret that we tell you that we have decided to call it a day and pull the plug on Opal Sky. After the best part of ten years together as friends and musical partners (under one guise or another) the struggle of gaining a larger fan base and progressing as artists was too much for us to take in this form.
We are very proud of what we have accomplished, however small the dent in the scene was, and are extremely grateful for all the friendships and opportunities we have come by.
We are currently planning the mother of all farewell parties for January where we will perform one last time and we plan on finally liberating the recordings we have hoarded over the years on iTunes in the coming months.
Keep checking our myspace page and website for more details on these events and the next musical projects of the OS members as they happen.

Finally… we want to thank everyone who ever supported us, followed our development or came to our shows and enjoyed them. Your love and respect means everything. We couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it without you.

Don’t be a stranger….

Much Love,

Opal Sky.

Off to Germany.

2007-07-16T23:46:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

Just checking in before we head off to Germany on Wednesday night. Really looking forward to the gigs and cruising over there. Thilo and his girlfriend, Angie, have flown over already to go to his sister's wedding so we'll be meeting them there. We've all just taken a wee bit of time off after the release of the first single. We hope you all liked it and thanks so much to those of you who have bought it and given us feedback on it. It means a lot to us. I'm really looking forward to you hearing the double A-side coz you ain't heard nothing yet!
Karina and I went to the Indian Summer festival here in Glasgow this weekend and were, again, completely blown away by the phenomenon that is the Flaming Lips live. If you've never seen them before I thoroughly recommend it. Emotional, fun, beautiful, funny, exciting, and more emotional. They will change you're life! Those guys really know how to put on a show. (More recommended purchases include their DVD "The Fearless Freaks"). The rain stayed off for us (mostly) and other bands that impressed were Wilco (they were also totally dynamite actually), Midlake, Maps and Make Model. Guy Garvey from Elbow was there presenting a show on BBC 6 so was stoating about and Karina tried to go up and talk to him (as he is a bit of a hero of the bands) but she told me she made an arse of it and ended up insulting his mate!! Nice one Kaz.
Anyway, we look forward to seeing you Scots at a homecoming gig after the Germany dates and if for those of you who are coming to see us in Germany; we can't wait to see you up the front!! See you at the beach!!

Web site and The Blue of You.

2007-07-02T20:42:00.001+01:00

posted by Joe.

Hi folks. What do you think of the website then. No too shabby I think you'll agree! Thanks a lot to Greg again for doing such a great job. We now have our own shop too! I'm so excited that I've just moistened myself a little bit. Here, you can buy our new t-shirts that our lovely in house designer, David Eunson, designed himself. Oh, he is a talented little hairy bass monkey ain't he. You can also pre order the forthcoming single and you'll find links where you'll be able to find "The Blue of You" to download! It's still out there so if you haven't got yourself a copy yet, what are you doing ya stingy bam!? It is only 79p dagnammit!
Talking of "The Blue of You"; a massive thanks to everyone who came along to the launch at Octopus Diamond on the 21st June. We hope you had as much fun as we did. It was one of those shows where I felt we were firing on all cylinders. Sure, we had a few mistakes and stuff, but when you are playing with loads of passion it sounds better when you muck it up! Thats what we tell Tony to make him feel better anyway! We had such an amazing time and want to thank Amplifico for coming along to play as well. The track was played on XFM the night of the gig by Jim Gellatly and is going to be featured on the Three From Leith podcast this week by Grant Mason. You can listen to Three from Leith on Grant's website if you follow the hyperlink or you can subscribe to it on iTunes.
This month we'll be heading off to play a couple of dates in Germany and we're really looking forward to it. I'm gonna try and film loads of it so I can make a wee tour video to show you all when we get back. We're also gonna try and get a few old videos from the DVDs up on our youtube site so add us as a friend on that and subscribe to our videos so you know when they're up. Anyway by for now. Make sure you pre-order the new single!!!!

Loads of stuff.

2007-06-07T20:04:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

Hi everyone. Our new website is nearly completed and it looks smashing. Greg at Sweet Style Design has been great and done an amazing job. Hopefully it'll be up in time for the gig on the 21st of Edinburgh that I need to tell you about.
Quite a few things have been changed in our wee single plan. The double A-side single (Tiny Tales and Game Show Host at Home) has been postponed in true Opal Sky fashion. We now plan to release it in August so that we can promote it properly. However, fear not, we shall be releasing some new material in June. The other song we recorded called "The Blue of You" will be released at a special launch party in Octopus Diamond (it used to be the Left Bank on Guthrie Street in Edinburgh) on Thursday the 21st of June. We'll be giving out a very limited amount of free CDs with the track on to the first people there and it will also be available on iTunes for 1 week only from Monday the 25th of June. Exciting, no? Dave has designed a beautiful poster for the gig. Here it is. If you live in Edinburgh, you'll have hopefully seen it on the streets already!

Nice.

In the middle of writing this I got a call from Tony letting me know that Amplifico have been confirmed to play with us at this show! Great news as we've been trying to get a gig with them for years now! Should turn out to be a bit of an amazing night.
Glasgow folk, don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you. We're playing King Tut's this Saturday the 9th of June so please come along and shout us on.

Last but not least, we've been given a great live review in The List. Go and check it out by clicking here. Not bad, eh?

Single Finished.

2007-05-08T11:55:00.000+01:00

The single has been recorded, mixed and mastered and all we need now is to get some artwork for it and send it to the pressing plant. Yippee. We're really pleased with it. Not only are they the best recordings we've ever had but I'm pretty sure they are the best songs we've written to date. We've decided to put the single out as a double A-side. The tracks we'll be using are Tiny Tales and Game Show Host at Home with The Blue of You held for another release or maybe as a download only track. Not too sure yet. The single will be out in June and we'll have a wee tour to promote it. Exciting stuff indeed.
In the meantime get over to our Myspace page where we will be putting up a new track every fortnight. These recordings were produced and engineered by our good friend Nick Trepka. They were recorded to be part of the album that we eventually shelved, but we thought the tracks should be heard as both us and Nick put a fair amount of time into them. They're pretty bangin'! Keep checking back to hear the tunes as they go up.
The first tune we have posted is St. Germaine which has been a live favourite for quite a while now. This track has also been chosen to appear on Spira Records new compilation album that was released yesterday. All proceeds go to Cancer Research UK and you can grab yourself a copy via Spira's myspace site. Click here to visit it.
Peace out.

12th of May.

2007-04-12T20:18:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

Hi guys,
Just a wee one to let you know that we'll be playing Henry's Cellar Bar in Edinburgh again on the 12th of May. Please come along, it'll be spiffing.
The recordings that we were doing in La Chunky Studios with Ronan and Colin have been mixed and now just need to be mastered. These should be released as a single in the summer time. We are soooo happy with them. They sound so nice. Can't wait for you all to hear them.
Here are a couple of pics from our time recording.

Karina warming up. Check the size of the microphone!

Some nice things and a bottle of coke:

A picture of a mixing desk. Oooh:

Nice and Sleazy Review.

2007-03-08T23:02:00.000Z

posted by Joe (as usual)

Hi guys. Massive thanks to everyone who came along to the gig at Nice and Sleazy on Tuesday night. Hope you had fun.
Here is a review from the Loud Horizon Music website. You can go right to the review here but please check out the rest of the website.
Hope to see you at the gig in Henry's in Edinburgh on Friday night.

Recording and even more gigs!

2007-03-02T19:04:00.000Z

posted by Joe.

Hi! Just back from our second recording session at LaChunky Studios. We were in last weekend and got almost all the drums, bass and guitar down and it was sounding great. Today me and Thilo were in. Thilo got just about all of the keys down and I added some percussion to the tracks. We're recording three tracks with Ronan and Colin at LaChunky and will be releasing it as a single asap. The tunes are sounding really promising just now. We're recording three new tracks. They are "Tiny Tales," "Game Show Host At Home" and "The Blue of You". They all sound so nice and warm even though none have been mixed at all. We're just chucking all our parts down and because the sounds Ronan and Colin are getting are so good, it still sounds cool even though the levels are all over the place! Nice.

Our first gigs in Glasgow and Edinburgh for 2007 are coming up this week. On Tuesday we'll be playing Nice and Sleazys. We're on at 8.20pm so make sure you're there on time. If you want a ticket, e-mail us at band@opal-sky.com or message us on our myspace. I'm gonna be a busy bee that night as I'll be playing drums with our friends On This Day We Met Gambas Pil Pil as well. The gig in Edinburgh is in Henry's Cellar Bar on Friday 9th March. It should be a cool gig too. Hope all you peeps can make it along and get our 2007 off to a screamer.

All the best.

More Gigs!

2007-02-22T08:31:00.001Z

posted by Joe.

Yaldie, Yeeha, Ho! We've got some brand new shows! After our great gig in Inverness we're gonna be playing at Nice and Sleazy's in Glasgow on Tuesday 6th of March and at Henry's Cellar Bar in Edinburgh on Friday the 9th of March. Don't know who we're playing with at Henry's, but we'll be playing with Gambas Pil Pil at the Glasgow show and I'll be playing drums for them as well as O.S! Should be a good laugh. Hope you can make it along.
Inverness turned out ok after a really crappy first gig in some pub. We were glad to get that out of the way though and when we played Hootenanies on the Saturday, we got a really great reception and had an absolute blast. Tony still won't shut up about it being the best night of his life! Big thanks to Angie and Lindsay for doing the merchandise nonsense for these gigs. What a sterling job they did.
We'll post a blog exclusively about the Inverness shows with some pics and stuff later.
Hope to see you at the gigs coming up then. Cheers peeps.

February gigs!

2007-02-07T20:22:00.000Z

posted by Joe.

Hi peeps,

Just writing to tell you that we're all really excited about the gigs we've got coming up this weekend in Inverness at Hootennanies and The Gellions. Hope all those that are up that way will be able to make it along.
Also, I lost the right cable to hook my camera up to my computer when I moved and just found it so I thought I'd chuck up a few stupid photos of the OS Christmas night in at my pad. We got a bit wasted, so please excuse our terrible appearances.
Here you are then!

Update and gigs in February.

2007-01-18T03:05:00.000Z

posted by Joe.

Damn, it's late and I'm still not sure if I've spelt February right. Anyway, thought I'd better let y'all know that we're still alive after the festive period and all. Happy New Year! Hope you had a good 'un. Most of us had the flu over Christmas which was just great, apart from Thilo who had the bright idea of getting the hell out of the country. Oh, to be a foreigner. Not much band activity has been happening because of this, but as always, we've got loads planned for this year. We're planning on getting into the studio to record some of these songs we've been writing since forever (or October to be precise) and I'm really looking forward to it. We think we'll be heading into La Chunky studios in Glasgow, where Amplifico have just finished up recording their album. Karina was in there, recording some backing vocals for the 'fico record back in November/ December time and she was saying its a great wee studio with lovely ye olde mics, compressors, etc. Thats going to be great. I think the tunes we'll be recording are Game Show Host at Home, Time Flies By and Tiny Tales. All of which you would of heard if you were at the King Tut's gig in December (which was great btw, thanks for asking!). Tiny Tales is defo gonna be a stonker and we've got high hopes for the others. The guys from La Chunky came down to the gig and have had some great ideas for the tunes, so that too is very exciting.
The band have also got a couple of gigs up in Inverness in February and the wonderful Dave Eunson (who it feels like I've not seen in about 6 months) designed this nice wee flyer for the shows. Read and it'll tell you where and when:

woops, sorry, wrong html code. This is what I meant:

Nice.

Hope some of you can make it to these gigs. Tis always a hoot shooting up that way.

Thats enough for now anyway. We promise that we won't take such a long blog writing vacation as we've just had so check back please.

All the best and good luck with your New Years Resolutions.

Davey do a bloggy

2006-11-27T22:44:00.000Z

Howdy folks,

Quick update on all things Opally. Although things may have seemed quiet on the OS front recently, it's been a bit of the opposite for the five of us. Karina, Joe and myself all moved house, which has been ultra hectic, but band wise we've been concentrating on writing loads of new tracks. As well as being in and out of rehearsal rooms we also went away to a cottage to write new material and we've been really pleased with the results. (There's some photos from the cottage here). We took a portable studio with us to the cottage and demoed a number of the tracks, which we've been getting great feedback about. We'll possibly put up one of these up on MySpace soon, so watch this space.

We've got a new website in the pipeline that we're really excited about, which is hopefully going to be up and running sometime in the new year. Lots of rather cool new things to be included on that so we'll keep you posted with it.

We'll also be playing some dates around February next year although details are still to be confirmed, again of course keep your eyes on this wonderful space of ours!

Cheers for now and enjoy the festive warm up.

Dave

Writing Week!

2006-09-17T23:58:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

We're off to some cottage again at the start of October to write and demo some new material. Really looking forward to it. Should be the same kind of deal as we did in January when we wrote songs like Glue, Mobs of Spies, Sea Legs and a bunch of others. On that holiday we wrote two songs a day and although they weren't all classics, we definitely enjoyed ourselves and liked what we recorded. The same week (on Thursday the 5th of October) we'll be playing at The Hold which is downstairs in a pub called The Admiral. It's on Waterloo Street in Glasgow City Centre and it should be a really great gig. Hope you can make it along. We're playing with our good friends On This Day We Met Gambas Pil Pil
so be sure to come along and check it out. There should be another band or two on the bill too so keep checking back for details.
Talking of Gambas Pil Pil, I had the opportunity to play with them in Edinburgh last Wednesday at Cafe Royale as Gemma, there drummer, couldn't make the gig. I had a great time and the gig was recorded for Radio Magnetic. You can hear me playing with them on their myspace page by clicking on the link above. I play on the songs; Ladybird and Tara Key.
Well, we'll be in touch so, as I said previously, keep checking back.

P.S. Have you noticed a couple of lazy b*stards still haven't written anything on this blog yet? God, I hate those guys.

Video for Dead and Gone!

2006-09-10T22:51:00.000+01:00

Posted by Joe.

Hi guys,

Well, it's finally here for you all to see; the video for Dead and Gone, animated and directed by the wonderful Tudor Thomas. We're really, really pleased with it and we want to send out a massive thanks to Tudor for doing such a good job. Hope you enjoy it and we look forward to hearing what you think of it.

...Chapter 3

2006-08-29T10:20:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

It seems like so long ago now. Can't believe it was only two weeks ago we got home! Anyway, the drive to Switzerland took about 4hrs and we arrived to a warm (and noisy) reception from my Dad and his dog Barry! Dad had cooked us a great tea with salad and tofu and loads of other goodies. It wiz great. It was a very emotional part of the trip for me from start to finish cos I've not been over to Switzerland in 9 years! I was so excited about seeing my brothers and sister! After tea, everyone started arriving home and it was crazy! The kids are all beautiful gigantic grown ups! They're awesome! It was also great to see Franzi, my Dad's wife. She's great fun and helped us get settled into our wee house. That night we sat around a wee bonfire and sang songs (my Dad's a musician too!). It was really chilled, just what we needed after the madness of Stuttgart. I wondered if the kids thought I was a bit starnge cos I couldn't stop staring at them! They're gorgeous and related to me! Nuts!

The next day we went into town and bought copious amount of cheese, chocolate and beer and Dad bought food and booze for a party we'd planned for the evening. We eventually headed back up the hill and set up the gear in Dad's living room for what turned out to be a feckin' stonker of a party! We had BBQ's on the go outside with LOADS of food. All the neighbours came down to party and it was totally awesome! We smoked and drank the night away and it was great to get the chance to hang out with my Swiss family! The nights entertainment ended with my Dad joining O.S on stage and us both singing together...it was a beautiful moment dudes! Then we took the acoustic outside for a sing song before we reluctantly headed for bed in preperation for the long drive the next day. We had so much fun and it felt really amazing to get to spend time with my Dad, Franzi and the kids. It was a very special time for me...gnarly.

It was a bit of an emotional goodbye the next day as we packed up our gear and cheese : ) We had a coffee with Dad and then set out on the road to Amsterdam...

On arrival in Amsterdam, we got lost and couldn't find the campsite. We drove around for ages and eventually found it tucked away in a random spot. We were a bit knackered when we arrived and promptly got on with pitching the tents so we could go and get pissed. Tent building was made more difficult with the circle of stoners around us watching us do it! : ) Once the tents were up, we headed for the pub and had several beers and a good feed. We followed that up by sampling some of Amsterdams finest then had a great nights sleep. The next day was spent walking around a gloriously sunny city centre and taking in the sites. It was a really great day out, after which, we made our way to the ferry port.

We ate some Swiss cheese as we waited to board and then drank, ate and on-board entertained ourselves to sleep...

I had the best time of my life while we were away...It really couldn't have been any better.

Thank you so much to eveyone who made us feel so welcome and comfortable along the way.

Happy, happy days!

Speak soon,

Kazzalina xxxx

...Chapter 2

2006-08-24T10:37:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

I think we pretty much got to the end of our trip to Kappeln in the last post. You can see some pictures that the local paper took at www.foto-panozzo.de then select Strandfest Weidefeld and after the fireworks, there are some pics of us doing our thing...much fun!

So it was with the most positive of feelings we set out on the road to Stuttgart. The drive was long but fairly painless and we arrived (on Tony's birthday!) at around 11pm on the Monday night. After a fantastic welcome from Thilo's family, we were led through to a spread of goodies, beer and birthday cake for Tone which was feckin' ace. We ate ourselves stupid that night and pretty much every meal time at Thilo's folks. They provided a very generous BBQ one night too. Everyone ate till it hurt! A big thanks to you both and to Simone and Sacha (Thilo's sister and her boyfriend) for looking after us so well! We managed to fit in a practice while we were there thanks to Thilo's good friend Lars. He very kindly let us use his practice room which was a bedroom in a converted army barracks! SWEET MAN! Really cool. You rent the room month by month, wish we had something like that over here. The evening's entertainment was provided by another of Thilo's wonderful friends called Jens. He kept the lads occupied till the early hours of the morning at his pad . They had a really great time and always arrived back laughing hysterically... can't think why... We were also lucky enough to hook up with the dynamic duo (Matze and Ade who came to see us in Kappeln) while we were in Stuttgart and things rapidly went down hill till we ended up singing Billy Jean at a karaoke at an Irish pub in the centre of town...ouch! Again, with hangovers in tow, we set off for Switzerland, over the moon with our trip so far and I was doubly excited about our next stop cos I was going to see my Dad!

Stay tuned for the next instalment of 'The Thrilling Adventure's of O.S in Europe', coming to a computer near you in a couple of days!

Love you's,

K xxx

The last wee while, chapter 1

2006-08-19T17:56:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

Where do I start? I bet you've been wondering where we disappeared to eh? Well, the truth is we disappeared to a lot of different places! I've got so much to tell you it's tough to know where to begin (to avoid a massive blogation I may do this yin in stages)...

For those of you who don't know, we've been away to Europe on a wee adventure. It began on the shores of Newcastle. We had one to two beers aboard the ferry to Amsterdam (except for our hardcore rhythm section who managed to sink one to two hundred!) and took in the delights of the ferry entertainment, all thoroughly excited about the coming days. On arrival in Holland, Tony promptly bought some porn and we hit the road for our first eight-hour drive of the trip to sunny Kappeln (in Germany). We arrived to a stunning holiday apartment with a fridge stocked with beer and a hot meal cooked for our arrival! Our hosts were incredibly hospitable, we we're looked after by the wonderful 'Sommer Haus'. You should check these guys out, great players and unbelievably nice human beings! We were also lucky enough to be blessed with the company of Sheila and Ronnie, the most rock folk ever who flew from Scotland to see us play (and have a wee holiday!). You crazy cats! It was so lovely having them there. Thank you guys! The good company didn't end there, we also had the full-on crazy times, party crew on call, in the form of Ade and Matze, friends of Thilo's from Stuttgart. These guys party hard! They were spectacular fun and it was a pleasure hanging out with them.
To be honest, everyone we met there were really wonderful people, proper great.

Anyway, after much sea swimming, sun bathing and sound checking in bikinis. O.S took the stage for their headline slot and the Strandfest beach festival on Saturday night. IT WAS FECKING AWESOME! Truly one of the best night's EVER and I know the whole band would agree with me on that one. Sommer Haus had just played a blinding set before us and the crowd were truly primed for some O.S action.

As the evening drew to a close and Daniel (our wonderful soundman) twiddled his knobs from the lifeguard hut above us, we sucked up the German beer and fantastic atmosphere and lord we did ROCK! So much fun, it almost hurt! The party went on till well into the wee small hours and we made some great friends that night.

The Sunday saw a relaxed early evening appearance from us, which meant playing in the blazing sunshine. Something we're truly unaccustomed to in Scotland. It was really lovely. Later in the night, Sommer Haus rounded off with a belter of a set while awesome fireworks went off overhead! Beautiful man! We were moved! Especially when Sommer Haus presented us with a framed, signed picture from the night before... It would've brought a tear to a glass eye! As our time in Kappeln came to a close, we were truly gutted and reluctant to move on. We had such a good time there (definitely want to go back next year!). Fortunately, there were more good times to come...

I don't want to flood you with too much info in the one go fellows, so I'll leave it here and the next instalment will be all about high times in Ludwigsburg (I've definitely spelt that wrong! Sorry!) and Stuttgart.

Love you all,

Peace homies,

Kaz xxxxxxxx

P.S I’ll put up a link to our photos and photos other folk have taken so you can have a look through at your leisure.

Boya! Graduation!

2006-07-31T23:44:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

Hello my friends, how's things? Just wanted to pop up some pictures of my big day. It was really, really good fun. Had a ball. Thanks to everyone who was there and made it such a magic day. The photo's will be up soon, Joey has found a new way of chucking them up which is pure easy, but I've still to learn how. Got to nash to the gym, want to shave a few pounds off for the O.S photo shoot this Friday (how girlie is that!).

Love from Kazza. x

Update frae the Queen o' the Opals!

2006-07-04T10:59:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

Hello my beautiful specimens of love! How are you all? Live is good. Uni is all done, the world cup is on, I'm only working in two part-time jobs in quite possibly two of the nicest places to work in the world and I'm finally getting to concentrate on seeing all those wonderful friends of mine that I've not seen for pure ages. Bliss! Aside form the fact it's pishing down outside, life is pretty much fantabulous!

On the O.S front, I finished putting down vocals for the album last week. All sweet. We also booked our ferry tickets for Europe, YEE HA! Cannie wait likes! Gonna be super dooper fly! The band had a weekend off for holidays this weekend just past. Dave took off to Orkney; Tony went down south to visit his brand new wee niece (called Emilie), Thilo stayed home to work (poor Fandy!). Joe and I both lacked the funds to go anywhere so we holiday'd in our hometowns. I thoroughly recommend this to anyone. You save on travel and get to booze and eat it up to the max with the extra funds. Also, if you live in Glasgow, and get a room with 'a spectacular river-side view', it's almost as good as Venice. Proper nice!

Spend the last night of my hols partying at a mate’s house, which was really lovely. Joe was there too. We'd been boozing since 3pm so we were well on the way by the time we got there. We were graced with the company of many a talented musician including an On this day we met Gambas Pil Pil member and a Pimento Groove member so inevitably the guitars came out. The star of the evening’s musical delights however came in the form of a chap called John. He's a mate of ours but I'd never heard him play before, he's a feckin' gnarly dude! He chewed the guitar up and spat it out, very impressive!

Got my marks back and I cannot believe how well I did. Don't have the official grade letter yet, but it's all good guys! Graduation is on the 13th of July; feel free to come along for a shandy or two if you're free.

Also, spent the night at ma mate Donna's house last week which was really good fun. Again, it involved copious amounts of booze (in this case Stella) a burny pizza (the roof of my gob was melted the next day) and two bags of the most incredible popcorn I've ever tasted (sweet and salty at the same time, incredible)! We spent the night chatting about tunes and our bands and stuff (Donna fronts a wonderful band called Amplifico check them out!) it was a great night and even had a wee bit dancing thrown in (literally a wee bit, the club was closing 15 mins after we arrived!). If you haven't heard of these guys, now's a great time to check out what they're up to. They're doing a webathon to raise funds for their first album and there's some great stuff to peruse at your leisure on the webathon page, it'll make you giggle!

So, I think that's all I've got to tell you just now. There's no doubt a whole host of things I've forgotten to say but I'll be updating you again soon. Start work in an hour so I better get my skates on. Can't wait to see you all at the next Opal Sky outing (Glasgow in a couple of weeks I think).

Peace homies!

Frae Kazzamataz xxxxxxxx

The Album SHALL be out in October!!

2006-06-16T19:41:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

How do? We do good. Sorry about the pictures below. We were all a little Inhebriated. Just as well you were spared the picture of Dave with his hairy arse out! I ended up heading back to Glasgow with Joni (who you can see in the first pic with Kaz) on the last train with a bottle of wine that night. I was great company and fell asleep half way there. I then awoke to Joni trying to wake me up in Glasgow and the conducter shouting for us to get off as the train started pulling away from our platform! Luckily, the driver must have been told there were still people aboard and stopped for us. Cue a messy visit to Subway where I bought a meatball Sub that I ended up wearing.
We then ended up back at Joni's boyfriend's flat (Joni goes out with Greig from Gambas Pil Pil and he and Dan from the band share a flat) where I proceeded to eat a packet of Haribo and fall asleep on the couch with all my clothes on. Woke up in the morning with a helluva sore neck and had a Paisley shower in their bassin before heading straight to work. Rock 'n' Roll.
The Paisley shower leads me nicely in to the next topic! On Sunday night we supported Paolo Nutini (also from Paisley!) at King Tut's. We had a great time despite some technical difficulties, Tony's amp started packing in on the first song for instance, but we managed to pull it off all the same.
Paolo was brilliant and had the crowd eating out the palm of his hand. He's got a great voice. Check out his song Jenny Don't Be Hasty, it's bloody brilliant.
Now that Karina's finished university, we've been doing loads of band work and things are moving really fast. The guys are all getting ready to put the finishing touches on their stuff in the studio and we've planned to have the album out for the start of October. The launch will be supported by a UK tour. All a bit scary, but it will be done!
Really looking forward to the upcoming gigs in Stirling and Aberdeen next weekend too (Friday 23rd at the Tolbooth in Stirling and Cafe Drummond's on the 24th). I'm actually trying to arrange a secret wee gig on the 22nd in Glasgow with the Gambas crew at a new venue! More on this when I have it.
Anyway, thats enough to think of for now! I've still got loads of work to do and THE WORLD CUP IS ON!!!!! WHAT AM I DOING!
See you beauties later, love Joe.

Yeeeeee-feckin'-ha!!!!

2006-06-04T13:47:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

Why hello you fantastic summer-lovin', magically, brilliant peeps!!! How happy am I (very)! I've officially finished uni! It's all done and dusted! I can't wait to start focusing all this extra energy on all things Opal Sky. That is of course after some well deserved rest and relaxation!

Hit a bit of a 'crash and burn' stage at the mo' after running off of pure nervous energy for weeks, I just constantly feel like having a wee snooze! It feels damn fine having got all this work done though. My final task was my singing exam on Friday morning (think X factor type judging panel, but they're actually nice folk who know what they're talking about!). It went well and was actually a lot more fun than last year. I had one major screw up that meant my fantastical brass/horn section didn't get to do thier thing (sorry you talented bunch!), but apart from that I was well happy with it. We had a good time playing, I guess because the gigs have been scarce since I've been uni-ing -it-up-to-the-max!

Anyhoo, much joviality and (lovely, lovely) boozing followed, and it was a great end to the last two years o' studying. I wound down and felt pretty exhausted for the next couple of days (still do), but with long lazy summer evenings finally upon us, and feck all to do but enjoy them, I'm pretty much over the moon! A big thanks to my mum for cooking me a top notch BBQ last night, I ate till it hurt (mmmmm!)!

No rest for the wicked though. With a sold out Tut's gig next week, we need to get some serious practice time in. Can't wait to play a proper gig again! YAAAASSS!!! It's going to be a whole lot of fun!

A big thanks to Jane for surprising me with Corrine Bailey Rae tickets on Friday night (what a sweet heart!), and also to Robbie for inviting me out to see the Black Eyed Peas with him next weekend.

Last but not least, WELL DONE to all my mates who've got through another stressful year of education, especially to those who've now reached the end! BIG UP YERSELS! Give me a buzz for some pint action, lets' make this summer a belter folks!

Rock n' roll!

From Kazza-I've just finished uni-Hay xxxxxxx

King Tut's SOLD OUT!

2006-05-31T21:35:00.000+01:00

posted by Joe.

Yo! So, I'm delighted to let y'all know that the gig at King Tut's has been sold out for days now. We're really looking forward to the gig and we're hoping to convert a few Paolo Nutini fans into Opal Sky disciples. If you want to hear any of Paolo's stuff before the gig, one of his tunes is the free download of the week on itunes. If you didn't get a ticket in time, don't worry we should be playing a few more gigs in the central belt in the not to distant future.
Another thing we thought you'd be interested to know was that our first music video is now finished and we're soooooooo excited about it! The video is an animation that our good friend Tudor has been working on for months now. It looks absolutely incredible and we're so chuffed! A massive thanks goes out to Tudor, who has been working on it full-time all this while for next to hee-haw. In the immortal words of En-Vogue: "What a mighty fine man!" We are hoping to set up some big screening for it somewhere. Some ideas have popped up such as renting a screen at the Dominion (lovely old independent family-run cinema in Edinburgh) and getting suited and booted for a premier showing with a red carpet and limos and all that jazz! Whatever happens we'll let you know about it. (I think I might go in my arse-less trousers...hmmm).
On a bad note, our guestbook on the main website has become the latest casualty of evil spamming b@$t@*Ds! I saw that Amplifico's also came a cropper too not that long ago. I don't know what those eejits are up to. I hope they can't sleep at night and I bet they've got rubbish faces and abnormally large knees and stuff. (That's the spammers and not Amplifico!)
Anyway, we're still planning on having the album finished and touring it for October, ambitious I know, considering that we've still got vocals, piano and a load of guitars still to put down, but we're optomists and have nice knees so we're sure we're gonna do it! Come to think of it, there are loads of other things we still have to record as well! We're planning on having brass and strings on the album too! Aaarrggh! We actually had a wee rehearsal the other day with some brass players for Karina's University singing exam. She's doing an old Ella song ("It's All Right With Me") and has had the horn part scored out and everything. She's drafted in Tom from Bombskare and a few of his mates to play and it sounds immaculate! Tom wrote out the score and everything, so Kaz wanted me to say a massive thanks to him on this entry. So excited about getting them on our recordings! After that, there's just the small problem of getting the score done for the strings, finding good string players and having some funds to release the record! Like I said, we're optomists!
Anyhow, that'll do for now. Hope you're all well and looking forward to our upcoming gigs. See you all there.
Lots of love,
Joe.

a wee(k long) Germany trip

2006-05-25T01:00:00.000+01:00

posted by Thilo

Hi folks, how is it going?
Thought I'll let you know about my wee trip to Germany the other week, just to show we're still alive, n aw that!.
I had a school reunion (a sure sign that I'm getting old), plus it was Mother's day that Sunday - which was a good enough reason for me to jet off to my homeland and seeing some friendly faces, hurray!

I arrived on Friday, which was pretty boring as I was stuck in traffic for about 4 hours on the way home from the airport - totally forgot how busy German roads are compared to Scotland. I mean people complain here about the M8 - but that is only ONE road in the whole of Scotland! Germany's a bloody nightmare, I tell thee!

Anyway, Saturday was much better: In best German manner my mom had decided to do some spring cleaning while I was there - which is a great thing and generally should be applauded, BUT: it makes moving around the house much harder ("You can't go to the bath room, the floor's wet!") and unfortunately my mom likes to take things always a bit further than normal people. This time she cleaned the front door with a pretty powerful hose, which had the unwanted side effect that the buzzer system got soaked in water and therefore rang NONSTOP for the rest of the day. Trying to write a bloody email without being able to go to the toilet AND the buzzer ringing full volume constantly is a bloody nightmare, I can tell you!
Anyway, it was time for me to leave the house and go to the reunion. After a further 20min wait (the floor was wet in the hall) I grabbed my mom's set of keys and left.

What a fantastic time I had! Met loads of people I hadn't seen in ages: 5/6th of the members of my former band DEWJAM for example, my first girlfriend (who got married last week, congratulations!) and loads, loads more. Great stuff, didn't realize how much I missed these guys!

Around two o'clock we got chucked out of the bar we had the reunion at, and most of us proceeded to another pub, where one of my friends used to work, which meant we were able to stay way past closing time. Nevertheless, around half four the barman had enough of us, so we grudgingly left.

Around fifteen of us decided to go back to a friend's flat for a wee while longer. As we couldn't be asked to call a taxi we just all crammed in the back of a VW van to get to his place. It was bloody good to see that everyone is still as irresponsible as they have always been - I mean, if we would have got caught most of us would have been in serious trouble. Got to love that stuff!
In the flat we spent another fun-filled 2 to 3 hours, as everyone started to get their stories out about other people in the room. As it was mainly concerning embarrassing first-love-incidents, I wish I would have recorded the lot: I would have had a lot of material to blackmail people, that's for sure!

Anyway, about half seven I finally arrived back at my parents place. I was quite looking forward to my bed as I knew that I was going out for a Mother's day meal with my parents, aunt and grandmother in about four hours time.
Well, unfortunately it turns out that the keys I took earlier from my mom were the keys for her work, not the house keys... Hm, "dumm gelaufen" as we say: The last thing you want to do on mother's day is ringing your mother out of bed at half seven on a Sunday morning in a eh... slightly intoxicated condition, I can tell you! What a great present that is!

Anyway, there was no way around it, so I rang the door bell...
Weeelll, as it turned out my parents had finally got fed up with the buzzer ringing constantly and therefore decided to take the battery out. Great stuff, no buzzer either...

I was quite in hysterics I have to say, there were just too many funny coincidences for that to happen!
So still giggling I decided to make my way to my friend Jens who lives in the same part of town - the only solution I could think of. If he wouldn't open the door, I would be in serious trouble.
But fortunately Jens is pretty damn Rock'n'Roll: he opened the door and happily offered me his couch to sleep on. What a man! I owe you big time my friend!
So I finally got my three hours sleep before going to the family meal.
Needless to say that I wasn't very communicative that day... sorry, family!

Anyway, cheez, that was actually I quite long blog I wrote - don't think I wrote that much since leaving uni! So better go, but not without mentioning the next set of gigs we do in June. Hope to see you guys there, should be great! Can't wait to get the whole live thing moving again!
Lots of love,
Thilo

A satisfying wee quicky...

2006-05-10T21:46:00.000+01:00

Posted by Karina

Hiya folks. Just thought I'd skive for a few minutes and say hi. This uni stuff is driving me round the bend. I'm missing out on so many social events (including my sisters birthday! (sorry Rach!), Matt's birthday, a couple of blinding Amplifico gigs (feckin' ace Edinburgh based band), Sammy's night (Pollokshields residents will know what I'm on about here) and many, many, many, many other things!!!). It's driving me to the crazy madness, so it is. Not to mention the fact that I miss my family and my friends so much it's nuts. Ah tell thee!

However, I am being mega productive and have even handed a couple of things in early (yes, that's right folks, it aint no spelling mistake!). Gnarly dudes!

Just got my singing assessment and my big bastard of a major project left to do. The sleeves are rolled up and I'm ready to kick the arse oot o' this shiznit! If anyone fancies coming to my singing exam, yer more than welcome, there will be some large beers going on afterwards, and your all invited to come along and watch me shiting myself (not literary, that would be gross dudes). Let me know if you're up for it and I'll give you the details...

It's a weird kind of half O.S life I'm leading just now. Miss gigging with the boys so much. I keep getting we updates of what's going on though, it's all sounding fab. Strange not being so involved though. Roll on the 2nd of June when all this is over!

Anyhoo, I better go, the minutes are ticking on and I'm on a 'tighter than a gnat's muff' schedule!

I love you dudes. Keep it real, take it sleazy and I'll see you all real soon.

Much love, frae Kaz-o-rama-fest xxx

P.S - here's a picture of my wee sister Joolz, she wanted a mention on the blog so here's her mental self (poser or what?)! (That is once one of the boys kindly adds it to this post, cos I cannie do it here, bum!). Love ya sis x