Commercially Inviable Records

Some months ago we sent a crack squad of Commercially Inviable artists to Somerset to play some songs in a garden shed. All of the bands had a great day and one of them, World of Fox, wrote about it on his blog and we re-published it here. (LINKY)

The reason for the journey was for the bands to record sessions for Songs From The Shed, a brilliantly quirky folk music website that does exactly what it says on the tin - Bands arrive, they are filmed playing in a shed and then the videos go online.

It seemed like a perfect fit for the bands on the label and so when got in touch with Jon, the owner of the shed, we were delighted when he invited us down.

Jon has been plodding along at his own pace for a while now and has quietly gone about recording almost 60 separate sessions. However, and for reasons apparently unknown to Jon himself, it seems that this week the rest of the world has started to cotton on to the great things happening in his shed.

Earlier this week Jon mentioned on his Twitter feed that The Daily Express had written about Songs From The Shed.

This was swiftly followed by an article in The Times, which no-one can link to because of Rupert’s paywall and so therefore may or may not exist, and then there was a mention and an interview on Tony Livesey’s BBC Radio 5Live show. You can listen to Jon on the wireless by clicking on this BBC iPlayer link. The interview kicks in at 54 minutes.

With all of the press attention heading Jon’s way it’s rather lucky that we’d previously agreed this week to make the first of our four Commercially Inviable sessions available online.  We chose the marvellous folk collective Gurdan Thomas to appear first in order for their session to coincide with the release of their album, “The Fat Lady Sings”. Here’s on off the 4 videos in the session:

You can view all 4 videos over on the Songs From The Shed site.

We hope you enjoy the session. We’ll keep you posted on when each of the other 3 from World of Fox, James Summerfield and Richard Burke appear online.  We also hope to send Friends of the Starsdown to Somerset at some point in the near future to complete the Commercially Inviable set.

“The Fat Lady Sings“, the wonderful new album by Gurdan Thomas, is available now!

You can purchase a CD copy direct from the Commerically Inviable store. CDs are £8 and shipping is free to anywhere in the world. Click ”Add To Cart” to purchase.

You can purchase digital copies from all good online retailers including iTunes, Juno and Amazon.

Over on our Bandcamp pagewe have special deal. You can name your own price - paying as little as £5 for the entire album download in the format of your choice.

Keep you eye out for some short films inspired by the album. They’ll be appearing online over the coming week or so, along with some other goodies.

Have your pennies at the ready! The next release on Commercially Inviable hits the shops this coming Monday.

Gurdan Thomas - “Todd” EP - COMIN009 - 13th September 2010

Recorded with legendary Birmingham producer Bob Lamb (The Lilac Time, UB40) the “Todd” EP consists of 3 songs from our favourite travelling folk troupe, Gurdan Thomas. This EP finds them at their multi-instrumental, break-neck best and the lead track “Todd” is a heady, crazy journey into the mind of Sweeney Todd, the fabled demon barber of Fleet Street.

There are only a super limited 100 CD copies of the EP available from Commercially Inivable, and once they go they will stay gone. To order your copy for £5 (inc P&P) visit the release page or click on the logo below.

If dots and zeros are more your thing, you’ll be able to buy from iTunes as of Monday morning.

The single is also available at the following digital retailers: 7Digital, Juno & eMusic

Additionally, and finally, you can buy the EP from our Bandcamp page. We’ve done something slightly different here in that YOU can name the price you want to pay. The minimum price is £1 for the entire EP but should you wish you can pay more. Since Bandcamp do not take a cut of  our transactions you can rest assured that all of the additional money you pay goes directly to the band. Click here or the Bandcamp logo below to visit the page.

If you’d like to help us spread the word about the “Todd” EP then please feel free to do so. You can do this by clicking on the green “Share This” logo below, or by pasting the following link into Facebook, Twitter or your email client: http://is.gd/f5qTi. Either method of sharing will bring people to this page.

The Todd EP is a taster for the band’s forthcoming LP, “The Fat Lady Sings”, which we’re releasing on 27th September. More news on that soon.

Thank you for listening and enjoy the songs!

The Reeperbahn Festival takes place in Hamburg, Germany between 23rd and 25th September. In association with festival sponsor Simple Shoes the organisers have been running an online competition for a place on the bill and Commercially Inviable’s Gurdan Thomas have made it down to the final few!
 
As part of the competition the band were asked to make a video, which they did, and this went live on the competition site last week to mark the beginning of the final stage, which is a first-past-the-post vote.

Click here to VOTE GURDAN!

It only takes a moment to vote and the competition runs until 16th August…and remember, kids, you can return to the site each to day to vote again, so please do so and tell your friends to do the same.

Here’s the video

Last weekend the vast majority of the Commercially Inviable stable of acts took a day-trip down to Somerset.  The reason for the trip was for each of them to record a session for the very lovely Songs from the Shed. World of Fox takes up the tale on his blog

“so, last saturday we all went down to north somerset where we ate sarnies, drank beer, snoozed in a hammock and played a few songs in a shed, captured on a camcorder by a lovely chap called jon. it’s quite a big shed, but even so it was quite a squeeze for gurdan thomas, given that there was five of them, and one was playing a tuba

the shed is an old billet hut and is stuffed full of fascinating detritus. one thing that caught my eye was an old magnetic theatre toy that i had when i was about four!

it was a thoroughly nice day out and some of us popped over to nearby clevedon for a glimpse of the seaside (well, the severn estuary, but close enough for a bunch of brummies). it has a nice pier:

i haven’t seen the finished videos, but i’ve a feeling they’ll be pretty good. jon will be posting them up on his website in the next few weeks, and obviously i’ll keep you posted when they’re up.”

Likewise, we can’t wait to see the results. A big thanks from us at the label to Jon from Songs from the Shed for accomodating 4 acts on the same day. Watch this space for links to the videos!

Commercially Inviable artist Gurdan Thomas is in the running for a slot at The Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany and needs your help. Sonicbids are running an online competition in association with main festival sponsor Simple Shoes, and it really is simple: The act that grabs the most online votes via their festival portal will perform at the festival.

Gurdan is currently sitting in 13th spot but rising up the table fast, so please take a moment to head over to the site and show your support. It only takes a moment and you’ll also receive a 20% discount at the Simple Shoes online store for your efforts.

Click HERE to vote 

Thanks!

We’re delighted to announce Gurdan Thomas as the new addition to our small but perfectly formed roster.

Gurdan is a travelling musician, original thinker and totally free spirit who divides his time travelling between the UK and Germany, stopping off to play at places he finds along the way and often assembling a scratch backing band from whoever happens to be around.  You can follow his progress over on Twitter, where he goes by the name @gurdanthomas. 

Having produced 2 self-released albums, ‘Graceful Rabbits’ (2007) and ‘Gnodelly Gnodelly’ (2008), he will be releasing his 3rd album, ‘The Fat Lady Sings’ on Commercially Inviable on 27th September 2010. Two weeks prior to the album release we are also releasing a limited single, “Todd”. Here’s the artwork for both releases….

‘The Fat Lady Sings’was partly recorded in England, in Gurdan’s van, and in the Villa Waldbertha, Munich, but almost all of it was created at the Meier farm in Stockau, Bavaria along with performances from musician / farmers Wastl and Katl Meier (pictured with Gurdan and dog below).  Meanwhile the 3 songs on the “Todd”single were recorded right here in Birmingham over the course of an April weekend spent in Bob Lamb’s Kings Heath studio.  Both releases contain performances from completely different groups of musicians but feautre songs written and performed in Gurdan’s unique style - Think The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band meets Gogol Bordello.

By way of preview, here are a couple of tracks….

“Stutter” from The Fat Lady Sings LP

“God is Me” from the Todd single

(If you’re reading this via RSS feed then the music players may not work. You’ll need to visit the site to listen to the songs.)

Welcome to the label, Gurdan!

We’re really pleased to annouce that the wonderful Gurdan Thomas has decided to come aboard the good ship Commerically Inviable. We’ll have more news soon, but in the meantime here’s a sneak preview of the artwork for his forthcoming LP…

(thanks to @adrianburrows for the photo)