Provide the next Satchel Blue album cover

How would you like to provide the design or photograph for the next Satchel Blue album cover?



Our fifth album, Another Fine Day, is due for release in February and we'd like your ideas for the front cover.

There's no prize as such, but if you've got the perfect cover then we'll credit you in the album sleeve and your work will be available via iTunes for all to see.

The back cover (in the non-iTunes, old skool CD packaging world) might look something like this. Then again, it might not.



Our last album, February, is available to download from iTunes.

Photographs/designs to me by the end of January please.

Get in touch via Twitter, Flickr or Facebook.

Planning the next Satchel Blue Album

Through to the semi-final!

Last night we (Satchel Blue) qualified as one of the bands to go through to the next round of Surface Unsigned 2008.

Thanks to everyone who turned up on the night and to everyone who voted for us by text.

We do have an audio copy of our performance taken from the sound desk so watch this space for mp3's coming soon.

In the meantime, here's the official review:

"Next up were Birmingham based five-piece Satchel Blue. Delivering another fine performance of their melodic Nu-Folk soundings, they went down very well with the Wednesday evening crowd. On the surface it’s a refreshingly simple, infectious noise that’s instantly likeable and wholly accessible, however don’t be fooled, there’s some real depth (and a nice touch of heartfelt whimsy) in their lyrical content and in the careful arrangement that goes into each track. Excellent material, an engaging and endearing manner, and tight technical ability onstage made for a convincing and impressive set from a band who do things their own way and sound all the better for it."

Read the full review of the night and check out the scoring.

Surface Unsigned - Round 2

Tomorrow night we (Satchel Blue) are playing in Round 2 of the Surface Unsigned competition for 2008 - although noticing that my favourite band in our Round 1 heat, Olly Dabblers, haven't made it past Round 2 then I'm not holding out much hope.

If you fancy supporting us, or just coming along to see what's going on, then pop down to The Factory Bar, Custard Factory in Digbeth.

First band on at 7.30pm and we're hitting the stage at 9pm.

(check out our MySpace or Facebook page for more band details and music.)

Satchel Blue through to Round 2

So we made it through to Round 2 of Surface Unsigned 2008, somewhat helped by the fact that only 4 bands out of 7 actually made it on stage and the top 4 bands from each heat qualify for round 2.

Congratulations to Subjects of the City, Olly Dabblers, and The Kinells who also managed to turn up, thus guaranteeing qualification to the next stage.

A review of the gig has been posted on the Surface website and, at long last, someone has attempted to solve the "what kind of music do you play?" question.

Or at least helped prove that it's not an easy question to answer.

Satchel Blue describe themselves as ‘nu-folk’. What’s that you ask? Well, in this case it seems to mean melodic, folk-edged, retro-rock-pop-blues (and so I guess it’s probably best to stick with the original abbreviation). It’s a timeless 60’s/70’s pop sound with a modern spin which made the band standout as innovators. Immediately likeable and accessible they’ve got some really ‘nice’ songs (but, like, in a good way), each one a memorable, well written track with heartfelt, witty lyrics and a superb tender-folky vocal. It’s refreshing to see a band trying out a direction that is quintessentially pop, yet completely removed from the modern musical landscape; especially when they do it as well as these guys.

I quite like being labeled as an "innovator" and I'm certainly not going to disagree with the "heartfelt, witty lyrics" so all in all, thank you very much.

From an on-stage point of view I think it was one of the worst gigs we've played in a while but at least we now get a crack at Round 2 to put on a proper show.

Satchel Blue to play Surface Unsigned 2008

This coming Saturday, Satchel Blue will be playing in Round One of Surface Unsigned Festival 2008.

The best way of demonstrating your support, to us and the 6 other bands playing in our heat, is obviously to come down to The Rainbow in Digbeth on Saturday night for 7pm.

Alternatively you can help the Satchel Blue cause by texting your vote.
Simply text SURFACE 666 to 83149 to vote for Satchel Blue.

Please remember to include a space after SURFACE otherwise we will not be able to use your vote. 10 (ten) pence from every text will go to Oxfam.

Texts cost £1.00 plus standard network charges. Please get permission from the bill payer. Customer services: info@surfaceunsigned.co.uk or contact us on 0800 434 6076. Terms and conditions: surfaceunsigned.co.uk/termsandconditions

Full details of all bands playing in the central region can be found on the Surface website.

'Satchel Blue' mentions via Technorati

How search results can be deceiving!


English posts that contain Satchel Blue per day for the last 90 days.

Get your own chart!

Satchel Blue on Facebook

In this age of social-networking, virtual community, and all power to the long tail, etc etc etc then it would be simply wrong for Satchel Blue not to have a presence on Facebook.



So, now we do, the Fans of Satchel Blue Facebook group.

Come along and join.

Satchel Blue release 'February'

Our latest album, titled February, has now been officially released.

It's the fourth album released under the Satchel Blue name, although the first to really feature the complete band.

It's also the first to be released with AWAL.

View Satchel Blue - February on iTunes.

A very limited number of CD's will be available very soon.

The Bristol Sessions E.P. was released two years ago and is available to download free at myspace.com/satchelblue.

From bad to worse

Not only is it, apparently, National Yo-Yo day tomorrow (although Wikipedia doesn't appear to recognise this historic fact), BlinkYou can help you celebrate the occasion with their delightful range of glitter graphics.

Go MySpace-decorate crazy!



Slightly more worrying is the indication from my Last.fm Weekly Top Artists widget (lower down this page on the right hand side) that last week I was mostly listening to myself - at least in the form of Satchel Blue anyway.

There is a reason for this, I promise, and it's entirely connected to our new album, February, which is getting excitingly close to being finished - more coming soon!

Satchel Blue on iTunes

Andy's already beaten me to the big announcement, but for those that don't already know... Birmingham based band Satchel Blue (yes, that's us!) now have a track available to download via iTunes, and theoretically other music download stores, for 79p.

Download here.

This technically means that if enough of you purchased this track we could actually get into the official music charts (i think).

The track is just one on a charity CD released under Dannyboy Records (DBM004) and features 16 unsigned bands/artists from the Midlands area.

Proceeds from sales go to the Kidzlikedanny charity which rasies money in aid of Autistic children, so download it today, and help a good cause.

Satchel Blue start recording

At long last we ('we' being the band, Satchel Blue) have started recording our next album with the first session last weekend.

Despite a long and varied back catalogue of material ranging from the first release in 1999, this will in fact be the first full album release with the full band line-up - let's hope it lives up to its' promise then!

Provisionally titled 'February' it will feature a complete set of previously un-recorded material, some of which has been featured in recent gigs and some of which is still unheard.

Further pictures are available on the Satchel Blue Flickr group.

Download free music!

After much hassle and annoyingly niggling problems I've finally managed to properly upload the latest Satchel Blue EP to last.fm and have made all five tracks available as mp3 downloads.

Visit the Satchel Blue - The Bristol Sessions page if you're interested.

Although varying in quality I've also uploaded all previous recordings under the Satchel Blue name and made some of the better songs available as mp3 downloads as well - so even more free music, woo!

For those of you that have ended up on this website looking for cider related content - and I know that there are quite a few of you from the stats - then please spare a second to check out the music and get back to me with some comments on what you think. All comments, critical or complimentary, will be very much appreciated.

Right... now back to uploading a few more random photos to my Flickr account and finally getting around to finishing the website for this year's Fun In The Sun party.
[note] Fun In The Sun now updated with 2006 winners and photos.

Damn it's busy at this time of year!

Mud, tigers, and a band in need

In the absence of a new cider test I thought I'd post a random update featuring bits and pieces from the last few days. Firstly, aren't tigers simply great? My favourite three animals in the world (tigers, penguins, polar bears) are all present at Singapore Zoo and I eventually got around to adding some tiger pics from the zoo to my Flickr account.

Sadly the polar bear photos didn't come out very well thanks to the glass around the viewing area being covered in dirty rain water.


Talking of which, I spent yesterday morning taking part in the Sodbury Slog - a 9.5 mile run through the countryside surrounding Chipping Sodbury, nr Bristol. One day I promise I will train properly for these events.

Nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable and a bit different to my average Sunday morning. There are some photos already on the web courtesy of Pete Tiley but I imagine there will be more available soon - there were certainly plenty of people with cameras around the course.

Finally, despite the fact that Satchel Blue have received 99 votes in the Unsigned Music Awards 2006, we're still trailing some way behind a number of other bands.

So what are you waiting for, get on and vote here now.

Satchel Blue TTV

Much to the confusion of everyone in the band, I took my red striped contraption along to band rehearsal on Thursday. The results aren't overly impressive but still vaguely interesting. All were taken with a shutter speed of 1 sec due to the low lighting in the rehearsal room and quite a few suffered from severe lack of sharpness.

I ended up finding one each of Rob, Andy, Mark and Ian to stick on Flickr to add to my growing collection of TTV pics - time to venture outside next time I think!

Something to talk about

Ok, so i don't really have anything specific to talk about once again but I was getting fed up with pictures of Bethanie's nose on the website all of the time.

The band, namely Satchel Blue, play at the B91 Festival in Solihull recently which, while not the biggest crowd we've ever played to, was certainly good fun.

It even inspired me to create a Flickr group for Satchel Blue photos, although understandably there's not many in there at the moment!

Music aside, I've been putting my creative efforts into random photos recently, trying to take simple photos of almost anything to see what i can come up with. I've even been inspired to get hold of an old Duaflex camera after seeing some of these excellent photos through the viewfinder.