Sharklings!

Music News are sucking our cuddly willy right now. It’s great! We did an interview for them which you can read here: http://www.music-news.com/ShowReview.asp?nCID=0&H=Cuddly-Shark-&nReviewID=5315&nType=4

Or read on, we’ve copied and pasted it like proper IT specialists…

Cuddly Shark were born and bred in the bonnie highlands of Scotland. The band consists of Colin Reid on guitar and vocals, Ruth Forsyth on bass guitar and vocals, and Jason Sinclair on drums and vocals.

With the debut album recorded by Scott Maple (Le Reno Amps) and Ross McGowan (Dananananaykroyd, We Are the Physics), released in November 2009 Music-News.com caught up with the three-piece to ask some questions.

You’re called Cuddly Shark but you have a picture of a dog on the album cover, why?

Jason: We didn’t want to give the album a title, fancied giving it more of a theme. We have a song about a dog (Mannybix) and we have doggy nicknames (cos we’re off the chain like that!) so went with dogs.

Ruth: Jason loves his hounds.

Colin: If it had been a shark it would’ve been too obvious and he’s such a cute wee doggy. I think this album was always going to be dog themed. Maybe a different animal for every album?

Why did you gravitate towards Glasgow?

Jason: The glamorous weather! It’s the music hotspot in Scotland so thought it made sense to be here. You stand good ground for touring north and south.

Ruth: Yeah, We all made the move from Aberdeen to Glasgow at different times, but for similar reasons, mainly music and work! Escaping the Granite City’s nuclear sea gulls was a bonus too.

Colin: Glasgow’s an obvious choice. The music scene here is great and we’ve made so many friends through playing with other bands. If it was called for I’m sure we’d move south of the border.

What’s Woody Woodpecker all about?

Ruth: Its real meaning is a closely guarded secret.

Colin: It’s about that chap you meet at a party who really wants to hammer their point home even though you got it 2 drinks back.

Jason: Yeah and you’re polite and well mannered but in your mind you’re thinking please F**K OFF!

Who inspires you?

Jason: Vic Mackey from The Shield. He was a cheeky blighter but by God did he get the job done! I’m kinda like that.

Colin: I guess the bands we grew up listening to, Faith No More, Nirvana, Pixies stuff like that. From the moment I watched Faith No More Rock in Rio all I wanted to do was be in a band.

If you had to sum up what you sound like in one line how would you each do it?

Ruth: Barking!

Jason: Everything X factor isn’t

Colin: Good old fashioned punk rock!

What is the most memorable thing that has happened on tour so far in musical terms?

Jason: The other week we were playing and watched a guy in his forties slamming with a bunch of young un’s and he was just pulverizing them! Kinda like that scene in Bad Santa when he kicks the shit out of the kids. It was mental.

Colin: A while back we played an amazing gig in Sheffield, it was just awesome. The next evening however was a completely different story. We were playing Leeds on one of the wettest nights of the year. We all got a bout of food poisoning from the local noodle bar. J threw up in his mouth while we played and I nearly had a full scale panic attack. It was just awful and we had a 4 hour journey back to Glasgow to look forward too.

Ruth: Well for me being taken up to dance by a fishy smelling drunk geriatric while on tour in Inverness was real memorable!

Who’s your favourite Scottish band?

Ruth: Super Adventure Club.

Colin: I’ll second that I love Super Adventure Club.

Jason: Make that a full house! We recently played with them (Super Advenutre Club) a few times and it’s great to watch them live. Albums ace too.

Who’s the wild one of the three?

Colin: I would’ve said Jason but he’s a knackered old dog now, Ruth’s a bit of a dark horse, there are some stories about her that’ll never see the light of day.

Jason: Yeah Ruth’s got a firey side. She’s punched my mum you know!

Ruth: Oh c’mon it must be Colin. He works in IT and drives a Volvo but we all know that’s just a smoke screen!

What album are you most into at this present time?

Ruth: We played a couple gigs in Edinburgh recently, and the sound girl introduced us to Matson Jones. They make cellos sound rockin’.

Jason: Yeah I’m listening to Matson Jones a lot just now.

Colin: Well I recently went to see The Flaming Lips so listening to anything and everything by them right now.

What would you like to tell our readers?

Colin: Please call for help they’ve got us locked in the Music-News basement!

Ruth: My dad has 3 nipples.

Jason: That the chicken is the closest living relative to dinosaurs! And buy our album!

When you become megastars will you still give Music-News.com an interview?

Jason: Of course! You’re Music-News.com !

Ruth: Music who?!

Colin: Don’t worry I’ll make sure to fax you from LA in my guitar shaped pool while Courtney Cox Arquette spoon feeds me white chocolate toblerone.

THANKS!
Thank you x

As ever the album is available at Armellodie Records:
http://armellodie.bigcartel.com/product/cuddly-shark

OR

If you’re a tight-ass Music News are still running their win our album competition here:
http://www.music-news.com/ShowCompetition.asp?nCompetitionID=1011&

Yours Sharply,
Forsyth, Reid & Sinclair Ltd.
xxx

Music-News have made Cuddly Shark a Featured Artist on their website. What lovely folks!

They’re also running a competition to win one of 10 copies of our spunkin’ debut record. So if you’ve nae bought it yet (yer a dick!) go here to be in with a chance of winning one for nowt but a few clicks!

Schlaters,
Cuddly Shark
xxx

Sharklings,

Let’s properly launch this mofo into the orbit! Gang you with us!!!!?

Sharklings!

“Cuddly Shark” our eponymous debut album is out now, including the sma’-shit singles, The Punisher of IV30, Woody Woodpecker and The Sheriff of Aspen Bay plus a whole host of other riff- busting tunes.

You can buy the record on CD from the freshest faced indie in Scotchland, Armellodie Records:
http://armellodie.bigcartel.com/product/cuddly-shark

If digital is your thing then the usual myriad of Mp3 shops should be stocking our wares as of noo.
Here’s the link for iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/cuddly-shark/id337265544

Also available on eMUSIC:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Cuddly-Shark-Cuddly-Shark-MP3-Download/11678946.html

Thank you for your support.

The album’s been getting some great feedback, none more so than from our faithful allies, Subba-Cultcha, who not only gave all our singles accolades but have now pretty much nailed what we’re all about in this album review. Big thanks to those Subba folks!

Cuddly Shark – Subba-Cultcha Review
http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_album.php?id=10556

Some of Glasgow’s freshest faces release their debut album and it’s pretty spectacular…

Cuddly Shark, upon first listen, are one of the rarities a music journalist is given – a band you have never heard of that you actually want to keep listening to. Upon second, third and fourth listen my initial reaction is not wrong. Hailing from Glasgow, which has a very tried and test amazing music scene, Cuddly Shark are two boys and a wee bonnie lass, and they create brutal, solid rock n’ roll that is sometimes like Fugazi and sometimes like Weezer. And sometimes, it’s like nothing and no one else. But it is always good.

A particular highlight of the album, other than the simplistic but intriguing dynamics of it all, are the lyrics. One of my favourites off of the album ’12 Months’, has the vocalist (I don’t know which of the two blokes it is, I think both plus girl all sing) shout-singing “I need sex because I’m a perv” and “I stare at girls because I’m a perv” – there’s nothing quite like brutal honesty and self reflection. In fact, it usually makes for awesome song writing when done in a self degrading not-poetic-at-all way.

Another favourite of mine from the album is ‘Whiteoaks’, which is very reminiscent of Weezer having one of their inspired pop moments. In fact, imagine Weezer crossed with Pavement, but definitely with Rivers on vocals. The lovely melodies, the simplistic and catchy riffs topped with the sweet sounding vocals make a very good song indeed. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is ‘The Sheriff of Aspen Bay’ which is more brutish a la Fugazi and co than it is Weezer pop. ‘The Sheriff of Aspen Bay’ captures you in it’s frenzy, carries you on a torpedo ride – pausing slightly for a little break down section – and then carries right on and spits you out. In fact, the same could be said of the awesome ‘Bowl of Cherries’. However, they do meet in the middle and make this a very cohesive, well thought out album. Another personal favourite from the album, ‘Woody Woodpecker’, take the harsh elements as well as the pop sound and moulds the two together to make a near flawlessly executed piece of rock n roll.

All in all, Cuddly Shark’s self titled debut is very impressive indeed and they once again prove that the Scots (mostly) know how to make music.

****
By: Sara Curtis

Yo peeps,
Scotland’s finest DJ Mr Vic Galloway has been a staunch supporter of the Shark, playing all our singles to date, now he’s only gone and debuted a track from our forthcoming album on radio 1 . What a good loon.

Listen again here – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio..1/vicgalloway/ – Shark on aboot 1:50:00.

Hey Shark Mob.

Without further ado we can now reveal the songs in the order that they’re going to be in on our first album of tunes what we wrote except the one that we didn’t wrote. Voila…

Bowl of Cherries
Woody Woodpecker
The Punisher Of IV30
Mannybix
What Goes Around
Whiteoaks
Boney Fingers
12 Months
Jamie Foxx on Later With Jools Holland
The Sheriff of Aspen Bay
Instru-Mentalist
Shakey Baby

The album drops next Monday (9th November), we’re very excited for peeps to hear it, so much so that we’re going to be indulging ourselves by posting a tune a day for the whole of this week with “cuts” – that’s an industry term for songs – from the album. Titalating news I trust you’ll agree. First up is a song named after a dog, Mannybix!

SHARK LAUNCH PARTIES:
The Moorings in Aberdeen on Saturday 7th November .
The Ark in Edinburgh on Sunday 8th Novembeer
Henry Cellars in Edinburgh on Wednesday 11th November .
Captains Rest in Glasgow on Monday 16th November.

Bon Voyage,
CS

Peeps!

Tasty Fanzine hooked up with The Shark so that we could inform and educate them about Justine Frischman’s fringe, the Battle of the Brows and the execution of Piers Morgan.

Read all about it here: http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/tasty_10 4.htm

They also have an exclusive track from our debut album as a free download on the site ‘12 Months’ go here for that:
http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/MP3s/old/cuddlyshark-12months.mp3

Voila! The eponymous debut album from Glasgow’s finest hillbilly rockers Cuddly Shark will be released on Monday 9th November . Recorded by Scott Maple (Le Reno Amps) and Ross McGowan (Dananananaykroyd, We Are the Physics), Cuddly Shark encapsulates the band’s purist plug in and play ethos with a touch of ice cold rock’n’roll. Idiosyncratic lyricism and odd anti-melodies combined with foot down pedal-to-the-metal performances prove deadly in this trios hands.

Cuddly Shark were born and bred in the bonnie highlands of Scotland. Two thirds masculine and one third feminine, the band consists of Colin Reid on guitar and vocals, Ruth Forsyth on bass guitar and vocals, and Jason Sinclair on drums and vocals. Magnetically drawn to the rain-soaked musical hotspot that is Glasgow things have been going swimmingly for the sharp-toothed threesome.

Rock solid with the minimum of fuss, Cuddly Shark songs are anarchic and free spirited. From the opening thrash of ‘Bowl of Cherries’, by all accounts a sonic fit of standing on your toes and singing right in your face, to the Pixies like donkey kick of ‘Woody Woodpecker’, an ode to all those people that peck at your head until you can’t take it anymore. Proving they have more hooks than a tackle box the furious delivery and pace of ‘The Punisher of IV30’, referring to the Elgin post-code where the band members grew up, befits the contradictory nature of the band name as this lot can bark like a nutcase at a bus stop. Listen on and it’s clear linear songwriting isn’t on the menu with the dog-on-the-prowl nuttiness of ‘Mannybix’, and the epic 52 second ode to self-indulgence, ‘Jamie Foxx on Later With Jools Holland’.

Flexing their musical pecks the album centres around the downbeat travelling tune ‘Whiteoaks’, and the hillbilly punk of 70’s country standard ‘Boney Fingers’. Jason from the band enthuses, “How could we not cover this song when we found out it was by a guy called Hoyt Axeton, what kind of a name is Hoyt!?! Then to find out he was the dad in Gremlins I mean how cool can you get, the tunes nae bad either!”

Elsewhere the record boasts fat slabs of post punk grit with feverish rockers, ‘What Goes Around’, the Zeppelin baiting latest single, ‘The Sheriff of Aspen Bay’, and the crunching riffage of ‘12 Months’, where a year spent involuntary abstaining from sexual relations has never sounded so brutally demonic! The album draws to a close with the glorious ‘Instru-Mentalist’ and the Caledonian stomp of ‘Shakey Baby’ which wages war on political correctness with the shameless sing-along jaunt, “see the lady with the baby, grab the baby, hold the baby, shake the baby, jelly baby, got me a syndrome!”.

Brimming with punk attitude and spilling over with melodic brilliance Cuddly Shark will never have an ounce of pretentious hip fat on them. Their live shows have seen comparisons made to Husker Du, Minor Threat, Ween, Fugazi and Weezer. Yet Cuddly Shark are unmistakably their own entity, a blistering romp of rock’n’roll carnage firing as loud as they can from a post-rock cannon.