And then suddenly, it’s a whole new year!
I think it’s safe to say that the band have never been tighter, more creative and keener to share our brand of Indie Rock with the world. We’ll soon be posting details of our two festivals booked for this summer, including a return to the fabulous The Eyes Have It festival in Duffield, Derbyshire in July.
We’re also trying to line up some gigs for the coming months. Watch this space.
Oh, and we have some new photos. Here’s one, taken in our studio…
As if to prove you can’t keep a good band down, TELSEN have recommenced rehearsals to prepare for two festivals scheduled for July. But first, here’s our first official photo of 2021 (including, you’ll notice, “new” drummer Luke, who’s been with the band for almost two years but only had the opportunity to play a couple of gigs with us)…
Right. Those festival dates:
Saturday 3rd July: “The Eyes Have It” Festival, Duffield, Derbyshire. Main stage. Supporting the legendary Steve Harley. You might be aware we’ve played here several (4? 5?) times before and it is truly a highlight of the TELSEN calendar. Click here for more information and tickets.
Saturday 17th July: We’re still waiting for full details about this event but it will be in the West Midlands. TELSEN have been asked to do an acoustic set on Friday 16th July and then a full set on the Saturday but this is all yet to be confirmed.
What we can tell you is that apart from storming, re-energized renditions of those classic TELSEN songs, we have a few new songs fighting for their place in our set list that we feel have the makings of future classics.
Well 2020 didn’t quite pan out as we’d hoped, did it?
Our (now) annual appearance at the wonderful The Eyes Have It festival in Derbyshire was cancelled due to some sort of pandemic, and even though we did our best to keep rehearsals/writing sessions going, this proved increasingly tricky with our home town of Birmingham flying the flag for high infection rates.
However, you can’t keep a great band down and TELSEN are now chomping at the carefully-sterilised bit to get back into the studio and pick up where we left off.
Before Boris & Co. told us to stay at home, we were beginning to create, in an appropriately socially-distanced stylee, some wonderful new material. Our singstress Abi plays a bigger part in some of the new stuff (both writing and taking the lead vocal) plus we’re playing around with different sounds/instrumentation. During the numerous lockdowns we’ve been sharing new musical influences and generally whetting our appetite for future creativity. “New” drummer Luke (he’s been with us for a year already) has been putting the rest of to shame with his dedication to improving his craft – he was good before, he’s amazing now. Nick, Karl and David have also been processing new ideas and lyrical influences that can be introduced into new music as soon as we’re allowed.
So hello 2021! You don’t scare us. We’re ready for you. TEHI has been rescheduled for this summer and we’re optimistic that TELSEN will be back and firing on all cyclinders.
In the meantime, there are quite a few live performance clips available on our Facebook page and YouTube so please keep in touch with our music until we can be out there breaking microphone stands and kicking musical ass “in the flesh”.
Speaking of microphone stands, here’s a unique TELSEN-patented “Post-breakage mobile microphone support apparatus“, currently unavailable in retail outlets…
Well, that’s our favourite festival done and dusted for another year. “The Eyes have It” 2017 was roughly double in size to last year and four times the size of 2015. Headliners this year included the Blockheads and Climax Blues Band -and TOYAH, who we were delighted to be main support for on the Saturday night and who turned out to be really lovely and a total professional.
Our set seemed to go down very well and there are rumours (actually, slightly more than rumours) that we’ll be back next year – our FOURTH consecutive appearance at this wonderful event.
Telsen would like to thank Simon Clark and his amazing team for a fantastic weekend and his continued belief in our little band of noisy West-Midlanders.
Thanks also to Quentin Clark of Silk Purse Videos for his excellent video footage, which we’ll be posting here, a track at a time, for your delectation.
Here, to get the ball rolling is “Cowboy”, a newish song from mid-set that we’re especially pleased with…
TELSEN 