News

Witches support Sugababes

We have been confirmed as main support for the Sugababes at Trinity College Ball on 20th June 2008. Stornoway will be joining us on the bill at arguably the biggest and best college ball Oxford has to offer. Plans to form a Witches/Stornoway/Sugababes supergroup are progressing steadily.

Witches headline Charlbury Riverside Festival

Charlbury Riverside Festival makes a welcome return this year and we're excited to be headlining the main stage on the Sunday evening (22nd June). Live music starts at 2pm on Saturday 21st June - more info including a provisional lineup can be found at the festival website. Best of all it's free!

Witches, Ivy's Itch and Fee Fi Fo Fum raise £130 for Shelter

We're dead happy with the outcome of our Shelter fundraiser gig last Saturday (17th May), which was organised in association with Audioscope. Between us, Ivy's Itch and Fee Fi Fo Fum we raised an impressive £130 for Shelter. Thanks to all the bands, and to everyone who came along and parted with their hard-earned cash. Give yourselves a big pat on the back.

Cheers

Witches

Kinetic Wardrobe album released

Previous-Witch Dan Burt has recently released his debut Kinetic Wardrobe album Becoming Nothing. The album is free to download - all you have to do is email Dan and tell him what you think. Witches wish Dan the best of luck with his new project, which sounds fantastic. Lots of very cool samples and beats all mashed up the right way. Don't take our word on it though: go check it out here.

The Fly interview

Big thanks to Joby Mullens from The Fly for writing the first in-depth interview with Witches for a while. Dave G has since decided that Witches are, in fact, very rock and that obviously he wasn't feeling very rock at the time of the interview. And it was good to see all the beards getting the respect they clearly deserve :)

Shelter fundraiser - May 17th

As part of our ongoing relationship with housing charity Shelter,we're organising a fundraising gig at The Wheatsheaf, Oxford on Sat 17th May. We're particularly proud to have Ivy's Itch and Fee Fi Fo Fum join us on the bill, and want to encourage as many people to come along and support a cause that we continue to feel very passionately about.

We're running the gig with Audioscope, who last year raised an impressive £1,200 for Shelter at a one-day festival at the Carling Academy. All profits from the gig (we have very few overheads) will go direct to Shelter. Advance tickets: £5 incl. booking fee from WeGotTickets.

6 Music and The Fly

We got our first national radio play this week on BBC 6 Music's Tom Robinson Introducing show, broadcast on Sunday 9th March. Tom spoke about the album and video release, as well as some of our previous gigs, before playing forthcoming single Josef's Lament. We'd encourage everyone to check out his show which features some of the best new up-and-coming bands and solo artists.

Just prior to this we received our first national press, courtesy of The Fly magazine. Our picture was used on the Oxford music page, and Joby Mullens wrote about Oxford music in general, focusing on Witches, Stornoway and Truck Festival. Thanks to Joby for helping spread the word!

Witches on OX4 Radio 87.9 FM tonight

We're being interviewed on OX4 Radio tonight (3rd March 2008) between 9pm and 11pm. We'll also be playing some acoustic versions of tracks from the Heart of Stone album alongside other stuff liked by Witches: Click here to download a digital stream to play back in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Witches nominated for 2008 Indy Award

We're in the Best Alternative category. If we get enough votes we get through to the finals in London. Please vote for us! Here's how to do it:

1. Go to the voting page
2. Under 'Witches' click 'Vote'
3. Submit your email address.
4. Click 'Submit'
5. Check your email for the confirmation link
6. Click the link and you're done

Thanks for your help!

Witches in London and Oxford

We'll be returning to the wonderful Windmill in Brixton on Friday 15th February playing alongside Danny and the Champions of the World and many others. There's a cheese auction too. It's Valentine's weekend so we're going to be extra romantic :)

We'll be back on home turf the day after, headlining Big Hair @ The Cellar on Saturday 16th February, with excellent support from Brother Francisco, All Our Good Friends and Cat Matador. This will be our biggest headline to date, so keep some space in your diaries!

Equitruck and Beard Museum

Happy new year from Witches! We're looking forward to playing some cracking gigs this year, starting with Equitruck, an all-day event held at the Jericho Tavern on Saturday 12th January 2008 from 1pm. A whole load of excellent bands are playing - for full listings visit their Myspace.

Following on from this, we'll be playing our debut gig for the Beard Museum at the Purple Turtle on Sunday 27th January 2008. Well done to the Beard Museum boys for booking excellent support from the likes of Semaphore - those who like Witches will like these guys too. Also playing are Sam Beer and Liam Ing-Reeves.

This is going to be an exciting year for Witches - we're starting to play more regularly in London in advance of the release of our debut single later this year, and we'll be writing and recording a new album throughout the course of 2008, to be released next year. This will mean lots of new songs at Witches gigs in Oxford and beyond. See you all soon!

Witches get Christmassy

Come and join us at the Jericho Tavern on Saturday 8th December for our final gig of the year. Hosted by The Coo Coo Club, we'll be supported by the excellent 50FT Panda and, from London, Eddie Halliday.

Main support 50FT Panda should need no introduction here in Oxford - as Nightshift recently stated, it's all about the riffs. These guys are fantastic. We met opener Eddie Halliday at our recent Windmill gig where we were greatly impressed by his Elliot Smith-inspired songwriting. Expect great things.

Tickets are £5 in advance, or £6 on the door. Advanced tickets are available from We Got Tickets. Come and celebrate the end of a fantastic year for Witches. Hope to see you there!

Audioscope

We're proud to be joining a fantastic lineup of band playing at this year's Audioscope festival, to be held at the Oxford Carling Academy on Saturday 10th November.

Kraut-rock legends Michael Rother and Dieter Mobius will be headlining this year's festival, which raises money for homeless charity Shelter. Also appearing will be Clark, The Sea and Cake, Shit and Shine, Rothko, Einstellung and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element.

Tickets are available from We Got Tickets, visit the Audioscope website for more info.

Free video download when donating to Shelter

http://witchesband.com/shelter/

Witches are raising money to support the work of Shelter. Focusing primarily on the causes of homelessness, Shelter helps more than 170,000 people a year fight for their rights, get back on their feet, and find and keep a home.

Make a donation via our Just Giving account and we'll send you a URL, username and password allowing you to download a four-track Witches video: Witches - Live and Undead.

Recorded at the Heart of Stone album launch in Oxford in September 2007, the video contains exclusive performances of four tracks from the album:

• Josef's Lament
• Taking Myself Home Again
• Heart of Stone
• At Night I Dream of Black Dogs

You'll be given an opportunity to sign up to the Shelter mailing list as part of the donation process.

http://witchesband.com/shelter/

All the best,
Witches

Brixton Windmill and Lisa Lindley-Jones

The Brixton Windmill have booked us as support for the excellent Lisa Lindley-Jones (4AD) on Saturday 17th November. We're really excited to be playing at arguably the best indie venue in London, and look forward to playing to some new faces. Also playing will be Maxwell's Daemon + Eddie Harrison, tickets cost £4 on the door.

uniTruck at Oxford Brookes

We're going to be playing one of our biggest gigs yet on Tuesday 27th November at Oxford Brookes Student Union, as part of the uniTruck lineup, to be headlined by Blood Red Shoes. The Truckers are organising a mini-indoor festival complete with astroturf and an excellent lineup spread over three stages, also featuring The Warlocks, Goldrush, The People's Revolutionary Choir, Stornaway and DJ Teddy Dubspin. Tickets cost £8: buy online or on the door.

Debut LP Heart of Stone out now!

Witches are proud to release their debut album Heart of Stone, which is now available on Amazon and iTunes. We'll also be selling the album at Truck and Audioscope, so pick up a copy whilst you're there.

Heart of Stone launch gig

Tickets are now available for the Heart of Stone launch at The Wheatsheaf on Saturday 15th September, featuring performances from Witches, The Workhouse and Flies Are Spies From Hell. This will be a very special night, with all three bands playing headline sets.

Tickets are limited, so book early!

Witches launch line-up goes to London

The Witches album launch line-up will be playing at The Oh! Bar in Camden, London on Wednesday 12th September 2007. Full lineup: Flies Are Spies From Hell, The Workhouse, Witches and Dirty Jaguar. We'll be on quite early, probably about 9pm, so if you're in London this week come and see some excellent Oxford bands. Oh, and the album will be on sale too.

Witches on the BBC

Saturday was fun - we were on The Download - BBC Radio Oxford's local music program - playing tracks off of the album live and acoustic.

And that's real live, none of this pre-recorded live business! Having said that, you can listen to a recording of the live show on BBC internet radio. It's only available for a week though, so if you haven't heard it - be quick!

It was good fun to do, and I particularly enjoyed the banter between the hosts Tim and David this week :-)

Audioscope 2007

We're proud to be joining a fantastic lineup of band playing at this year's Audioscope festival, to be held at the Oxford Carling Academy on Saturday 10th November.

Kraut-rock legends Michael Rother and Dieter Mobius will be headlining this year's festival, which raises money for homeless charity Shelter. Also appearing will be Dalek, The Sea and Cake, Shit and Shine, Rothko, Einstellung and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element.

Tickets will be on sale soon - keep an eye on the Audioscope website for more info.

Yay album review!

Many thanks to Oxfordbands.com who are the first to review the new Witches album Heart of Stone. We received a glowing review from Colin MacKinnon, and encourage everyone to go check out the site, which contains lots of information about Oxford bands, including reviews, news features, MP3 downloads and more.

Yay Nightshift cover!

We are very excited about being on the cover of the August edition of Nightshift.
Ronan Munro interviews Dave G and finds out more about the forthcoming album. We would like thank Ronan for helping Witches get the word out - the suitcase of drugs and cash is on the way.

Truck

Truck Festival has had to be postponed due to the crazy mental flooding we've been experiencing this summer. Fear not, however - the festival will now take place over the weekend Saturday 22nd - Sunday 23rd September. We'll be playing on the Lounge Stage on the Sunday at 11am. Keep an eye on the festival website for more info.

Oxjam 2007

Our friend Stuart from Oxfordbands is organising an Oxjam fundraiser, to be held at the Port Mahon on Wednesday 17th October 2007. We'll be headlining the gig, with excellent support from Harry Angel, Richard Walters and Mewgatz. This will be a good chance to see all four acts in a very intimate setting as well as doing your bit for a very worthy cause.