news
JULY 2010
Sorry to have to report that the Psych Frog festival wil not be taking place this year. We wish the organisers all the best for any future events
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Review of the above 7" vinyl by Andee of Aquarius Records, San Francisco, USA
To commemorate the recent 25th anniversary Current 93 performances in London, a super limited number of these commemorative 7"s were pressed up (only 300 copies!), featuring exclusive tracks from three of the bands that performed with C93, psych drone combo Rameses III, psychedelic folk legend Simon Finn, and most excitingly, legendary seventies acid folk outfit, the mighty Comus!!The Comus track might be what gets folks most excited, and rightfully so, a recording of the group performing "Diana" on the Melloboat, in Sweden, in 2008, their first show together after nearly 40 years!!! We tried to watch clips on YouTube, but the crowd was so amped, and howling and clapping and singing along, you could barely hear the band. Thankfully this recording is pristine, and the band sound incredible, even more woozy and carnivalesque and maniacal than they did back in the day, the player practically perfect, the vocals incredible for the many decades that have passed, definitely makes us wish we had flown over'
JUNE 2010
Click the banner above for a live internet broadcast of our entire set at Roadburn 2010 in April - unedited!
New to our merchandise page, you will find a purple 7" vinyl EP featuring a track each from Comus, Simon Finn (who designed the cover above) and Rameses III, issued to mark the event of the Current 93 25th Anniversary and David Tibet's 50th Birthday event at The HMV Forum in Kentish Town, London on 29th May 2010. Side A features our track "Diana" - the live recording from the Melloboat festival, Sweden 2008 - and Side B has track 1, Rameses III "Like The Stars (micro ending), plus track 2, Simon Finn "Polsr Veil"
Please note, this is a limited edition and we only have 100 available!And another compilation featuring our track "Diana", the album A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind - Vol 2, Pagan Love Vibrations, has won the Best Compilation Album award in the Mojo Honours List 2010.
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MAY 2010
Update on our gig with Current 93 at the HMV Forum. Get there early, because we go on stage at 19:10 hrs, on Saturday 29th. May for about an hour and a quarter.
Tickets £35.00 each night, from Ticketmaster or credit card line 0844 847 2405. Booking fee applies (one fee for one or both nights). Also cash from the Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, London NW1 - 020 7916 6060, open daily 7am to 2am. Also, from the Forum itself, but only when a gig is in progress. Check their website to see when they are open.
Press enquiries to Sophie (Source Productions).
'We are pleased to tell you that Omerch, Opeth's own merchandising company, recently approached us to handle our merchandise - so far t shirts and posters - though our Melloboat DVD can still be purchased directly from here, and you can still see details of some of the t shirts there and the Art Print poster.
At Omerch, we have 2 new t shirt designs available, 'Finger Figure' and 'Head Cluster' (both Tony Kite designs, who designed the Comus logo) to add to the 'Classic' and 'DVD" designs, with more to come at our official store at Omerch.
We are pleased to announce that we are to appear at the first Burntwood Festival, which will take place on 9/10th October at the 2000 capacity Brentwood centre, Essex. Brentwood means 'Burntwood' in olde English.
The weekend will comprise of 1 day of 'wyrd folk' (Saturday 9th.) , with Trader Horne reforming for that show + many more, and one day of prog (Sunday 10th.), which is when we will be on stage. The prog show will feature 12/14 bands across 2 stages, and is to be compered by former world snooker champion, and prog enthusiast, Steve Davis, who is helping put the bill together. The show is a fundraiser for local radio station Phoenix FM, where Steve has a prog show.
We have no information on ticket prices at he moment, but in the promoter's words they will be "very sensible".
More information here when we get it.
APRIL 2010
This month we are featured in issue 41 of Acoustic Magazine, with a very informative article by Noel Harvey, stretching across 2 pages. It features quotes from Roger, Glenn and Bobbie with some interesting insights into our reformation and how it came about. The magazine will be available in newsagents worldwide from April 16th, or can be ordered from their website linked above.
MARCH 2010
Comus In Spain
We will be playing at a beautiful location in Spain at the end of July. We have recently been confirmed for the Psych Frog festival in Guadalest near Alicante. Come back here for more details when we have them.
Comus At The Current 93 Anniversary Concert
29/05/2010 12:00atThe HMV Forum
9–17 Highgate Road, London, South NW5 1JY
Cost: £35 a night, with a weekend ticket for £60 (limited numbers).
February 2010
In addition to our song "Diana" being featured on the cover disk (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble) of Mojo magazine this month, there was also a review of our dvd from the 2008 Melloboat festival. You can see it below. The reviewer, Phil Alexander, found it to be "heart-warming and inspired". We hope you will think the same about the 3 tracks that we have been recording over the last few days. We have already performed Out Of The Coma, and we have 2 new songs which have not yet been performed. We plan to release all 3 as an EP in the coming months. We will keep you informed.
January 2010
We are pleased to announce that The British Film Institute are releasing "Permissive", a film made in 1970 by Lindsay Shonteff, on DVD and Blu-ray disc as part of their Flipside collection. Comus provided much of the score for this film, and also made a brief appearance in one of the scenes. The release date is set to be the 25th. of January, and the price will be £17.99 for the DVD, and £22.99 on Blu-ray.
Click the picture to order at a discount from Amazon, and below that is an extract friom the press release.
When Suzy arrives in London to visit an old school friend she is unwittingly plunged into the ruthless world of the "groupie". Fuelled by Sex, drugs and jealousy, her new lifestyle fosters in her a cold. cynical instinct for survival. But tragedy is never far away.
AUGUST 2009: A new t-shirt design and MOJO
Just to tell you that our new T shirt design is available to buy on the Merchandise page in White, Khaki, Olive and Mid Blue as illustrated. The design is the cover drawing for our just-out Melloboat DVD (also available from the site £12 + £3 p&p) by Roger Wootton.
ALSO, we are proud to say that we are featured in MOJO magazine in the September issue which is just out! It's the 'Welcome back' article on page 27, and tells of our connection with David Bowie in the early days of Comus. Have a look and let us know what you think.
Also, we're really looking forward to Moseley Folk Festival, (Birmingham, UK), at the beginning of September. Hope we can see some of you there!
JULY 2009: A new song at Manchester
Manchester was a fantastic gig at a fantastic venue. We met a lot of good people there, one of whom, Stefan Veldman, shot footage of us playing the first new Comus song in 30 years, 'Out Of The Coma', and posted it on Youtube. Here's the link: Out Of The Coma. Thanks, Stefan!
MAY 2009: Tickets for the Manchester gig on 27th June.
Hello Comus people! Quite a few of you have been asking about tickets for the St. Clement's Church, Manchester, 27th June gig, and I now have the info to pass on to you.
Tickets will be available from Tuesday/Wednesday from: Dulcimer or Ticketline and cost £15. The support will be Circulus. Really looking forward to it, and hope to see loads of you there!!
MAY 2009: We're featured in this month's Wire (June issue) - a six page article by Rob Young (no relation!). It includes a photograph of Roger Wootton sitting in a frightened-looking tree.
.......and look; it's got a picture of Ornette on the cover!
MAY 2009: Hello people, You may already know that our US tour planned for the end of May had to be postponed due to visa problems. However, we are planning another, and Easter 2010 is the proposed time. Sorry to disappoint our US fans, but it will happen! Please check this site and our myspace site for updates.
In the meantime we have some festivals/concerts in the offing. These are:
• The Equinox Festival in London on June 13th
• Concert at St. Clements church, Chorlton cum Hardy, just south of Manchester on 27th June
• Moseley Folk Festival, Birmingham 5th Sept.
Please see the myspace site - www.myspace.com/comusofficial - for addresses.
ALSO, there will be a 4-6 page article about Comus in the June issue of the Wire magazine to coincide with the Equinox festival !! It'll be accompanied of course, by the first new band photos to be taken in about 35 years.....we've changed a bit, but we're thrilled to be in such a great publication.
And lastly, new material is being written, the first song of which is to be showcased by Comus at the Equinox festival in London. See you there.....COMUS WAKES!
MARCH 2009: AT LAST!Yes people, at last I can divulge, (well the gig list on our profile has already, but anyway...) some of the detail of our east coast USA tour, which finally has some confirmed dates. Have been dying to tell you all, but I just couldn't jump the gun!
As you can see on our MySpace profile, there are 3 so far - Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia, plus about 3 others which will probably include Boston, Portland (Maine) and definately New York, but dates and specific venues may yet be swapped about. There's also a possibility of Northampton, MA plus one other venue in Connecticut, but these are still being sorted. So it will be about a week to 10 days tour, in early summer - who could wish for anything more?! We are so looking forward to it, especially as the whole thing had a bit of a false start with a change of agent, but pleased to say that all is running really well now.
We also have another addition to our team of fantastically generous people who have offered their help to make this whole Comus thing happen. Someone who travelled from the States to the Melloboat performance in Sweden last year, who is very well connected and experienced in areas of band management, merchandising etc., who is a huge Comus fan and generally great guy!
Another friend in the US who used to live in England when Comus was first on the road has also offered generous practical help and again, buckets of enthusiasm.
Will update you all on the other dates as they are confirmed - please check out the gig list.
Bobbie.
LATEST NEWS: Comus have just been taken on by an agent for Britain and Europe! So hang in there Europeans............hope to bring you some news soon.
JUNE 2008: Hi everyone! Well here it is - shiny and new, and a real, genuine, none of your Myspace stuff, Comus website. Not that we diss Myspace - you people would not be reading this if it wasn't for Tom and his mates. So thanks Tom!
There's been such a lot going on lately - mostly future planning, and currently, this website organizing - gathering up and preparing the material, and I'm not even the one who's put it together. We have a fantastic woman in Philadelphia, Lynnette Shelley, who's done all the hard stuff, and is apparently a huge Comus fan. (See the links page for some of her websites)
Hopefully there should be some interesting things here for you fans, and you can see that there is now the facility to buy our merch, surprisingly, on the merchandise page! We are planning some new t shirt designs, (since four of us are illustrators/designers of one form or another), and the autographed Art Print of the Melloboat poster (drawn and designed by Roger Wootton and Glenn Goring) will be available too.
The sound for the DVD of the Melloboat performance is being edited and mixed by Jon Seagroatt at the moment, (our resident expert!), and then the DVD can be completely edited and finished and will be available to buy on this site.
We also have plans for a mini album in very original packaging - again, wish I could tell you, but I'm sure you'll love it. Well, I hope so...
There have been rumours (can't say a lot else at the moment), about some US dates in the not too distant future, so of course we'll keep you posted about that. Negotiations are ongoing....!
Sorry there's nothing more concrete at the moment, but just thought we'd keep you up to date with the Comus saga. Keep checking in to see the latest...
