Forsophie

Last show, for now

Hi all! January 21 we’ll play our last show, for now. We’re currently not sure about our future. So, see you all in ACU in Utrecht the 21st? Our friends Artificial Audio and All Shall Be Well will playing also. Entrance 5 euro, 21:00.

Cheers,
Forsophie

Shirts shirts shirts!

Hi there all, it’s been a while. How are you doing? We’re fine, writing and recording new songs. Early 2011 we’ll release a new single, so keep checking back. But first: our first shirts are printed and for sale now! See our handsome drummer wearing one below. They’ll cost 10 euro, or 13 together with the EP. If you’re interested in one of those fine S, M or L whities, mail us at info@forsophie.net. Thanks, and see you soon!

Some new live photos

Shot by Lisanne Lentink last Thursday in Utrecht. More photos by Frans van Arkel and a review here.

Photo report on 3VOOR12/Utrecht

There’s a nice photo report (in Dutch) about our recent UK trip online at 3VOOR12/Utrecht. Check it out, and see you September 23 in dB’s, Utrecht?

UK Tour report and new song!

Six months after releasing our debut EP, we thought it was about time to bring our music abroad. Just because we can. After some weeks of figuring out which surrounding countries would fit the best and would be the less hard to book, the UK came out as the absolute winner. We managed to book five shows in a week, in some awesome cities and some little less awesome cities. Here’s some footage from our amazing trip, the song you hear is a new one, called Fight or Flight, which we recorded in one day in March. We’d love to know what you think of it! Below the video you’ll find the tour report. Some photos will be published next week on 3VOOR12/Utrecht.

August 22 – Amersfoort
We’ve got our own rehearsal room in Amersfoort, one of the most beautiful places in The Netherlands. In the late Sunday afternoon we met there, Valentijn (bass) and me (Joris, guitars) coming straight from the awesome Lowlands festival. After a final rehearsal session and a not-so-decent meal we drove off. Aiming point: the tunnel in Calais (France) at 6 A.M. We arrived on schedule, and before we knew it we were in England. It was way too early in the morning, way too cold and way too wet. Time for an English breakfast.

August 23 – Birmingham
The beautiful city of Birmingham welcomed us around noon. We wandered around for a while, but really needed some sleep since we all hadn’t had any for about 30 hours. That’s when we went to our hotel and had the best three-hour powernap in ages, dreaming of the wonderful girl at the reception. After we recovered we made the short trip to the Subside Bar, the venue we’re playing. It looked like a nice place, with a thick pole standing right in the middle of the stage. We had some beers (no not free beers. They’ve never heard of ‘free beers’ or ‘complementary drinks’ in England) with the other bands, who were all really nice guys, and build up our backline. We were happy some people attended the show, since it was Monday and none of the bands was local. The double whiskey’s got us in the right mood, and I must say I think we did a great job on stage. Then finally: sleep.

August 24 – Cambridge
Next stop: the ancient student city Cambridge. Way too early we arrived at the venue, called Man On The Moon. It really looks like a great place from the outside, but it was still closed. Valentijn called Katie, the promoter of this show. Katie told us she was ill, but that we should ring the bell at the venue and everything was going to be alright. So that’s what we did. The venue didn’t know anything about a show though, and hadn’t heard from Katie for three weeks. Fuck. We could leave our van there, and went into the beautiful city, pissed as hell. The awesome sights cheered us up a little though. When we got back to our van, we found out that two more bands had been screwed by the same promoter. The venue owner than decided that maybe the show should go on anyway, and that’s what happened. Some last minute flyer-hand-out-sessions seemed profitable. The turn up was pretty good and we played on of our best shows ever. A happy ending after all.

August 25 – Warsop
After a three hour drive we arrived in the picturesque Warsop, a small village in the Northern part of England. The Black Market Venue, as it is called, is an amazing place for playing pool and hanging out. And that’s just what we did. A classic rock band from Scotland, an indie band from Wales and a crackhead from all over the world, according to his stories, were the other guys playing. They all were great dudes and way more people than we expected in such a small village turned up. Awesome! We met some great people there and slept until late in the afternoon the day after.

August 26 – Hull
Off to, with respect, the ugliest city I’ve seen in the UK. Hull is a place with loads and loads of empty houses and buildings, and a high unemployment rate. The venue, The Ringside, looked like a nice place though, with two stages. One stage was on the main floor, ours upstairs. Four bands we’re playing in the building. Just like the rest of the shows we were on last, but that didn’t turn out to be a very good plan in Hull. For the best part of the show, no one was there. And when I say no one, I mean no one. Pretty shitty. Still had a great night when we arrived at Darren’s (the promoter for this show), where we drank a lot of Finkbrau (the shitty beer we brought a hundred with ourselves) and had a great laugh.

August 27 – Day off in Nottingham and London
This Friday was a day off, so we went to the city of Robin Hood, Nottingham. We sat there and drank coffee for two hours. It was great fun watching all the locals. Then it’s about time to move on, to our final destination: London! We arrived around 10 p.m., in search of a cheap hotel. We found one. Long live Steve’s Bed & Breakfast, a small, old hostel with a pierced, tattooed guy in his sixties owning the joint. We even got a huge discount after complaining about how bad students and musicians get paid nowadays. Yeah! After a quick Finkbrau refreshment, it was time to get into the city. What more can I say? We met great people from the USA and Ireland, and wandered the streets of London till late.

August 28 – London
We didn’t wake up very well, to make an understatement. We’re all hung over and found the owner knocking on our hotel door at 9 in the morning. He told us ‘some parking fuckface’ was giving us a fine for parking in the wrong street. So Valentijn went down, but there was no stopping anymore. Although we paid (a lot) for the parking, we should have parked the van 20 meters further. The place where we stood was not available for parking between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. What the hell?
Well, time to find a swimming pool to recover. After this great (and cold) refreshment we found the tourist in ourselves, and did some sightseeing. The venue, Wilmington Arms, turned out to be in the middle of the center, so that was great. We slept a little more, some in the van and some in a nice nearby park. When we got to the Wilmington Arms, we found ourselves dazzled by how awesome this place was. A small, dark, square room with a low ceiling. That’s how I like my venues! The sound, thanks to the amazing sound guy, turned out to be really great also. This was going to be one hell of a last show. And yes it was. Although it wasn’t fully packed to the back wall, we played an awesome show. One of the best in our, not too long, careers, I guess. After the show we all felt really relieved, but tired. But there was no time to be tired, we had to drive all the way back home tonight. Don’t ask me how we did it (because I was the only one sleeping), but we did it. We arrived at our rehearsal room in Holland before 10 in the morning, loaded our equipment and went our own ways again. We had the time of our lives.

A special Thank You goes out to Michael Verweij, our art designer, driver, tour manager, merch guy and anything else more you want him to be. Cheers!

Forsophie goes UK!

Summer!

Finally, after a long and cold winter, summer’s in town. And damn are we enjoying it! Now, time for an update: we played some awesome shows the past few months, and feel we’re really growing as a band. Next to playing live, we’ve been writing new material. We expect to hit the studio for a fresh release at the end of this year. Excited! At the moment we’re preparing ourselves for the last shows in The Netherlands this season. Than we’ll celebrate a few weeks of holiday (mostly working that is), and at the end of August we’ll start our very first adventure abroad! We already booked five shows in the UK, and we’re looking for some more in France.

So, enjoy the holidays, vuvuzela’s, weather and cold beer and we hope to see you soon again! All the upcoming shows in a row:

16 July 2010 N201, Aalsmeer
23 July 2010 Patronaat, Haarlem
23 August 2010 Subside Bar, Birmingham (UK)
24 August 2010 Man On The Moon, Cambridge (UK)
25 August 2010 Black Market Venue, Warsop (UK)
26 August 2010 The Ringside, Hull (UK)
28 August 2010 Musicborn @ Wilmington Arms, London (UK)

Update: we’ve got some foreign press attention! Check out this one from Canada and this one from France. Good luck translating. Ciao!

Grote Prijs van Nederland

Hello again! We’re selected for the quarter finals of the Grote Prijs van Nederland, one of the biggest bandcontests in The Netherlands. Check out the flyer of our show the 10th of June:

But before that, we’ll be playing Den Haag tonight! See you there?

Raving reviews & UK shows

Hi there! We’ve read some more reviews of our music, this time in Holland’s biggest magazine Oor and on the awesome Caleidoscoop-blog. Pretty nice! Spreading Neurotoxins, a weblog about beautiful, adventurous music, also mentioned our album, and we noticed a lot of (worldwide) downloads coming from there. Check them out, they’ve got a lot of wonderful music. And there is more news! We’ll be touring the UK this August, and we’re happy to announce that we’ve confirmed the first two shows. Yeah! But first, see you tonight in Tilburg, with Kong?

Hollandse Nieuwe #5

Hooray, we’re featured on the online compilation of upcoming Dutch artists Hollandse Nieuwe! Thanks to 3VOOR12 for putting us on it! While listening to all this beautiful music, check out the new LiveXS. It contains a nice review on page 14 ;-) More readable stuff: there’s an article about us in the wonderful Amersfoort Nu. It’s about our music and approach. Read here.