London show cancelled and next EP plans

The show we were due to play in London next week has had to be cancelled. We don’t want to say too much publicly about this, except that the person promoting it was the promoter of the previous date which was also cancelled, and that we didn’t find out about the cancellation from him. Other than that it is best to draw a veil over the whole incident.

However, we do have some good news, which is that the third EP will be recorded shortly. Olsen, freed from the tight leash on which he was kept by Tilt, has gone power-mad and is putting the finishing touches to his magnificent octopus - a five-song suite about holidays, Stan Lee, alien life, American breakfasting habits and other things. This is the first National Pep music to be composed with an eye on live performance, so to make it doable it’s mostly written for saxophone, flute, ukulele, steel guitar, mandolin and gospel quartet.

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London date change

The London performance we announced for this weekend has been rescheduled to April 5 at the Kashmir club in Islington. The lineup for that show will be Olsen and Mazeppa with Lullington Garth, Martin Braun and two others whose names we're going to reveal when the time is right.

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Lineup Changes Part 2 and Gig Date

The National Pep are delighted to announce that we have our new line-up in place, but being the teases we are we are going to release this information to you in drips and drops over the coming weeks. To start with, we would like to announce the return to the fold of Lullington Garth (The Master Bluesman) on steel guitar, who was a founder of the band along with Olsen, Mazeppa and the now-departed Tilt, but had to leave due to 'the incident' with 'the things'. He is now firmly ensconsed in the bosom of the Pep, and we shall never again even *mention* celery.

Also returning is Sweet Josie Miller, chanteuse extraordinaire, who will be gracing the stages of the Southernmost parts of the country only, as her inability to cross moving bodies of water makes her unable to travel far north. Sweet Josie, however, will only be rejoining the troupe later in the year, as she first has to fulfill her commitment to a three-month tour of the Antipodean penal colonies.

And finally (for now at least) we are proud to announce that drummer Martin Braun will be sitting in for a handful of performances (or 'gigs' to use the young persons' parlance of the day).

We will shortly be announcing further members of the orchestra, including vocalists, keyboard players and flautists.

The National Pep Touring Company will be making its debut performance at Lark In The Park in London on March 1. As this is a provincial performance, rather than a performance by our full repertory company, you may expect a rather scaled-down version of the full grandeur that would await you if you ventured to Manchester, but the touring company will do their best to present to you the full delights of Pep Sounds as adjusted for live performance. We will be performing with Daniel Land And The Modern Painters, and hope to see you there.

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Lineup changes - Part 1
Current mood: optimistic

The National Pep is preparing for 2008 with a new lineup.  When everything's settled with various parties, we'll be bringing you the good news of who's joining the band.  However, before that we have some bad news: Tilt, our drummer and sometime vocalist has decided to leave the band to spend more time on his side of the Pennines, focusing on "smaller and lesser projects" (his words).

Keep watching for more National Pep lineup news, things are going to get exciting.

See you soon,

The National Pep

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New EP - Buy The MP3s!

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New EP! New Songs! MP3s For Sale! How many exclamation marks can one subject have?!!!

Well, we have quite a few bits of pepnews for today. To start with, our new EP, Love Punks Want To Make You Cry is now available. It's not on our CDBaby site yet, but you can order it for $5 / £2 UK by paypalling andrew@thenationalpep.co.uk .

To whet your appetite for this masterpiece, we've made two new songs available for listening on our page. Jaded is what happens when you try to fit an album into three minutes. Since the making of this recording, Tilt's Frankie Valli and Bee Gees records have been confiscated by the other members of the band. Illinois, meanwhile, is possibly the most straightforward song Tilt has ever written, so much so that more than one person mistook it for one of Olsen's.

The EP features two other tracks - London After Midnight, a clattering sax-led blues song, and Degrees Of Freedom, a jangly little powerpop number about thermodynamics and The King, featuring Blake Jones on vocals.

And of course our last EP, Citizen Gomez, is currently available from CDBaby, both as a CD for $5 and now also as MP3s for the low price of just $1. All the cool kids have it. You want to be one of the cool kids, don't you?

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Free Mp3 preview of our next EP

Download free from Lastfm

Here's a sneak preview of our forthcoming EP "Love Punks Want To Make You Cry". A very, very rough mix (you are warned) of a little number called "Jaded", fresh from the mixing desk. We'd like to point out that parts of this performance are very loose (try to guess which part was recorded five minutes before chucking out time with Tilt visibly wilting in the heat of the drum booth), but it should give you an idea why Olsen exclaimed "I've never heard a song like this before...and I wrote it!"

We'll be taking this down after a week in anticipation of the finished product.

Since the making of this recording, Tilt's Frankie Valli and Bee Gees records have been confiscated by the other members of the band.

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Pepcast Ahoy!

Tilt and Olsen return again for the first time, in the only podcast this week where you'll hear the nephew of the co-author of the book on which an acclaimed BBC4 prestige drama has been based. Guaranteed.

Featuring:
The Tubes
The Lovers
Dylan Hears a Who
The Flames
Blake Jones & The Trike Shop
Davy Jones
Santa Dog
Wilful Missing
The National Pep
Children of the Mushroom
rudy vallee
George Grossmith
The Psychotic Reaction

http://thenationalpep.podomatic.com

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The Second National Pepcast est arrive!

The Second National Pepcast can be heard as of now, featuring
Penny Broadhurst
Louis Jordan
The Lazy Saviours
The Mello Cads
Florrie Ford
The Psychotic Reaction
The National Pep
Sepiatone
Conjunto Bernal y Mando Marroquin
Wilful Missing
Cosmo Topper
Sandy Salisbury
Tommy Bond
Mystery Track
The National Pep

and more...

http://thenationalpep.podomatic.com

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Pepcast!

Yes, it's The First National Pepcast!

HEAR! Olsen Bloom say he's insubordinate when he means inarticulate
THRILL! To previously unreleased demos and alternate mixes by The National Pep
BE SHOCKED! By toothpaste-controlled synchronicity!

We're not going to tell you what the tracks are - you'll have to download it to find out - but the bands we've played were:
Silvergirl
Richard Thompson
The Psychotic Reaction
Cab Calloway
Blake Jones & The Trike Shop
Neil Innes
The Flame
Carmen Miranda
Candypants
The Paul Whiteman Orchestra
Candypants again
The National Pep
The National Pep
Little Brother
Jonathan Richman
The National Pep

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