After an amazing tour of Germany (thank you everyone who came and supported us, we love you) we hit Stag & Dagger festival (erm…) and then made the picturesque drive up to north Wales to play Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Bangor.  It was an amazing day for us, massive thanks to Bethan, Huw, Tom, Jen and all at BBC Introducing.  There’s some live footage online here:

After that, Anna paid a quick 5* visit to Primavera in Barcelona (joining our engineer Joe on tour with the Dum Dum Girls)…

…and then we came back and made a start on sessions for our debut album!

Week 1 was all about the drums, and we hired in a gorgeous vintage kit for the occasion, as well as borrowing a whole heap of Joe’s sexy analogue gear and a sweet old school mixing desk.  We’re self-producing with Joe engineering and it’s already sounding amazing.  We’re taking a really organic approach to the sound this time around – it was great having a whole week to just focus on drums, getting great takes and trying to keep the live feel of what we do.  Live we’re definitely a rock band and we want this album to reflect that…

Work is going to continue over the summer and by October we’re going to have 17 tracks of beauty and wonder (not sure yet how many will be on the album) – some we have been playing live for a while, but we also have 7 brand new tracks which no one has ever heard, so we are absolutely champing at the bit to get these out into the world.

At the end of a long week of drumming, we headed off to the Isle of Wight Festival to play the Strongbow Stage alongside out buddies Is Tropical and Crystal Fighters (we’re gonna make a supergroup called Tropical Tiger Fighters or something).  It was an amazing weekend full of tutus, fairy titten, old puss, tents, bowtime (hard earned), sunshine, and great music and we can’t wait to do it all again with the same line-up at V Festival in August.

Big love,

Tigers x

Upcoming Dates:

17 Jun 2010 Gallery Launch @ Ginger Moo
20 Jun 2010 Modular Presents… @ The Lock Tavern
25 Jun 2010 Proud, Camden
20 Aug 2010 Strongbow Stage @ V Festival
28 Aug 2010 Festibelly
18 Sep 2010 Lemonfest

We’ve just got back from an amazing week touring in Germany – we’ve made friends, eaten heartily, drunk copiously and driven fast on the autobahn.  And also played some blinding shows.

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who welcomed us and made the tour possible – especially Santiago, Felipe, Alex, Emma, Nils and Elena – and to everyone who came to see us, sang along, bought merch, hung out and generally made it one of the best things we’ve ever done.

Here’s our tour diary, there’s a video coming soon…

11/05/10 Day 1 – Leaving Town: London-Folkestone-Calais

22:30 – We’ve packed the trusty LDV van, had our final panics, stopped off to watch Pavement in Brixton and then set off for Calais.  Seb’s sick so he’s joining us by plane tomorrow.  James and Elena are joining us from Prague.  So it’s Jamie doing the driving, Anna on navigation and iPod shuffling and Gary riding dirty in the back.

We have snaxxx!

The Eurotunnel in Folkstone is full of Fulham fans going to Hamburg – they’re gonna be our travelling buddies today #fml.  There’s a sign that says ‘To France’…the jokers.

12/05/10 Day 2 – Epic Trails: France-Belgium-Holland-Berlin

03:00 - Calais – we have to remember to set our watches forward an hour!

Anna has made a tourbook (it’s pink) and it has our itinerary and everything in it – 9 hours to drive to Berlin now. We’re going through France, Belgium (Antwerp Ring!), Holland (very flat) and a bit of Germany on our way to the first show in Berlin.  Gotta make soundcheck at 17:00.

07:00 – Day dawns and we all start to hallucinate – Jamie sees cars as Space Invaders, an old grey woman scrubbing the road, taxis that turn into Hello Kitty – it’s time for some sleep, we’re checking into a Formule 1 in Bochum.

It’s very basic.

The toilet is like on an aeroplane – it seems to sway, communal facility hallucination!

11:00 – that wasn’t enough sleep but we’re hitting the road again.  Seb is catching his plane, he’s sick as a dog

There are a lot of wind turbines in Germany, they can hypnotise you if you stare too long.  We’re blasting out Metronomy and hitting the autobahn.

17:00 – …then we take Berlin.  White Trash Fast Food tonight, it’s this cool cross between a Chinese restaurant, an American burger bar and a tattoo parlour.  Everyone’s here – it’s good to have the Tigers all together again.

Burgers! Mine’s a ‘Marquee de Fuck’ burger with ‘Fuck You’ fries. And a double tequila and lemonade. Balance is restored.

22:30 – first set (we’re playing twice tonight), it’s packed, quite a lot of people are eating while we play (but the food is good so fair enough).

23:30 – second set – this one’s really revved things up, everyone’s dancing!

Time to party – Elena’s friends are here, there are a lot of English and Americans too. There’s a smoking den downstairs.

Tonight we’re staying in a hostel – it’s nice and clean and we’re all in bunks in one room, it’s like a school trip. Welcome sleeps!

13/05/10 Day 3 – To the Reeperbahn!: Berlin-Hamburg

After a good sleep and a nice German breakfast (cheese, ham, milkbread, Coke) we’re hitting the road for the 3 hour drive to Hamburg. Bye bye Berlin.

Arrived early in Hamburg – parked just by the venue waiting for Nils the promoter to arrive. Elena just called him and I think she woke him up…it’s 4pm!

The venue – Astra Stube, named after Hamburg’s beer and carrying its heart&anchor logo (this represents the whores and the sailors apparently) – is great, it’s a little German CBGB’s packed under a railbridge. As soon as we walked in we could feel the rock n’ roll spirit crackling, it’s gonna be a good show tonight.

Nils is a legend, he takes us to a local coffee bar, it’s cool, there’s a sweet shop inside, international newspapers, people doing science homework on laptops, good music. We have some Bionade.

Apparently tonight’s show is being promoted on regional radio!

We just met tonight’s DJ – he’s also cooking us dinner, it’s delicious homemade quiche and salad followed by gummy bears, we’re being kept like kings. This city is amazing, it has a true alternative, independent art vibe to it, not poncey and corporate like Shoreditch, not up itself like Brooklyn. The people are cool without having to shout “we’re cool”.

After dinner and time to check out the band apartment – it’s right by the venue, perfect for stumbling home. There are a lot of cocks drawn on the wall. It’s a band apartment, kinda comes with the territory. Full-length mirror though #win

Back to the venue to catch the support band – it’s totally packed and very sweaty, people smoking inside and outside, loud guitars, old friends, a real buzz.

22:00 – Showtime! Nils told us “don’t be alarmed, but Hamburg crowds don’t dance”. Well these ones do, I think we got them in the palm of our sweaty hand. Shows like this make you realise why you always wanted to be in a band, it doesn’t matter that we’re onstage and they’re not, we all love music and tonight feels like band and crowd are merged into one vibrating sea. We do two encores!

The rest of the night we dance, drink Jaeger (first of many times) and Seb and Jamie disappear for a few hours to the Reeperbahn. We’ve met so many amazing people tonight, thank you everyone, we love Hamburg. Time to crawl back to our apartment and fall asleep with our ears still ringing.

14/05/10 Day 4 – Into the Unknown: Hamburg-Darmstadt

Breakfast at the coffee house (ham, cheese, rye bread, OJ) and then a bit of impromptu photo-me booth snapping round the back of the shop (album artwork we reckon).

Then fond farewells and off on a 6 hour drive to the southwest of Germany to an unknown town which isn’t even signposted until about 10 minutes before you hit it.

Travel Pussy…only 5 Euros from all good German service stations (but only 4 at Eurotunnel!). Roadtested by us so you don’t have to (true).

Tonight we’re playing at Schlosskeller in Darmstadt, a beautiful 14th century university town. We’re actually playing in the cellar of the castle…it’s pretty awesome but takes a while to find because…we didn’t expect it to actually be in the castle.

We have a room with two fridges of alcohol and a nice selection of pretzels (finally!) – the venue manger has uttered the immortal words “help yourself”. Oh lordy, drinking starts early.

Soundcheck done, over to a little Italian restaurant in a pretty, old fashioned town square – “ein gross pasta carbonara bitte”…parmesan shaver confusion ensues.

Time to hit the hotel before we play. We were all imagining something fairly Travelodgey but as we cross the moat (yes) and enter the cobbled square we see a very grand building indeed – 4-star accommodation tonight, we’re all on the verge of tears, clean towels, hot showers, scented things on the pillows, German telly and lots of freebies to collect from the bathroom.

Back to the venue for showtime. On the way we see a big student demonstration, it’s really rowdy, pumping techno and lots of flashing lights, they really know how to demo. According to the promoter, they will all hit the venue by the time we hit the stage.

00:30 – Stagetime! The vaulted cellar is full of dry-ice, packed with sweaty students, partygoers, locals, Americans, English, Germans, Mexicans, Italians – everyone’s here. We hit the stage, there’s no question tonight, everyone’s here to dance and get happily wrecked, they’re leaning on the stage shouting at us “We love English bands!” this fucking rocks. We do another encore.

Back to the band room to hang out with some of the people who came to see us, sign CDs (!) and drink more Jaeger. The ensuing horseplay loses us our room…but we’ve got a 4-star hotel so fuck it, bag some booze and take the party there.

15/05/10 Day 5 – Just Down the Road: Darmstadt-Heidelberg

Amazing showers and breakfasts all round – 2 types of hash browns, 10 types of bread, 7 types of ham, 5 types of cheese (or something like that)…variety is the spice etc.

Next stop Heidelberg, another university town, just 40 minutes away, easy. We have loads of time to look around Darmstadt – there’s a classic car collection laid out in the cobbled town square (“I like that this has been laid on for us, I like that my life is the kind that can have old Mercs appearing in it”), a food market and Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker in the lobby of the hotel.

We wander around the town. Elena buys ravioli. Inexplicably they have a red London telephone box here. It’s getting cold – time to move on.

Heidelberg is another university town just down the road – the landscape gets very mountainous and imposing, lots of tall black pines (they strip off the lower branches here to make them look ultra tall and gothic) and craggy peaks.

The trusty satnav leads us the wrong side of a building site – looks like we’ll be playing in a garden centre whose mascot if a cheery looking beaver (on a tangent, it was discussed that beaver in German is bieber…ergo Justin Beaver!). Gary isn’t impressed “I’m not fucking playing here”.

We soon find ourselves at the scarily huge Halle 02 for tonight’s Physical Feeling Festival, headlined by Reading funsters Zoot Woman, whose impressive yellow nightliner is parked outside (for a while we try to pass this off as our own).

The engineer here is quite a character – he has a full set of gold teeth (later in the evening he will take out the bottom row to show James…scary!). Soundcheck…

We meet Felipe and Santiago who are running the show and they introduce us to the best catering room we have ever seen – we eat like kings in here on several occasions tonight (the schnitzel und spargel works out just great). And they have mirror balls everywhere.

Back to the hotel for quick sleeps – it’s well 70s and there are metal herons on the roof.

Back to the venue – more food! More drinks!

21:15 – Stagetime – let’s warm these folks up. It’s a big room but the show rocks, it’s a buzz to see people getting into it, there’s a little girl down the front!

More drinks, interviews and then out to man the merch stand – good opportunity to chat to people. Germans really know and love their music.

The little girl from the front row (Antonia) asks for an autograph! (Anna nearly cries)

We eat lollypops and take obscure questioning from teenagers.

Party!

(always try the gin sours).

Bed.

16/05/10 Day 6 – The Long and Winding Road: Heidelberg-Home!

We wake up to sore heads and a 1970s breakfast, complete with hard-boiled egg yolk loss and garish (but kinda cool) swirly wallpaper…mesmerising.

The German tourists in this hotel really know how to squeeze the most out of a buffet breakfast – they do a portly scuttle side to side using their back as a shield to prevent interlopers getting in and taking the schinken.

Time to hit the road – iPod on, sweet and crisps and fizzy drinks, Uri the pig neckbrace for the sleepers, coca cola for the road warriors!

Something hit the windscreen hard on the autobahn! Everyone says it was a bird but Anna reckons it’s a baseball (gets a bit upset and recounts other instances of animal squashage).

Dusseldorf airport – we wave farewell to James and Elena (but not for long) and covertly film some men in lemon cream yellow blazers.

The long drive home…

(eww bug blood on the windscreen).

…but we make Calais with time to spare and get on the train early.

England! “Land of tea, toast and proper talking” (© Gary Drain).

James and Elena’s flight was delayed so we meet them at Gatwick – an aeroplane can’t beat pedal to the metal in an LDV Convoy.

Intermittent torrential rain and a Mini rally from Brighton (about a third of them are cooling their boots on the hard shoulder though).

Crawley – auf Wiedersehen Harrison.

The final lap through south London.

Load out (ugh).

Home!

(post tour blues kick in almost instantaneously).

We’ll be back soon, ich liebe dich Deutschland <3

Photos by Elena Curdt, Jamie Harrison, Anna Vincent and Emma McLellan.

This week we hit the road for Germany, we’re playing 4 shows in Berlin, Hamburg, Darmstadt and Heidelberg – we’d love to see all our German friends there, let’s make it a party!

We’re really pleased to announce that we’ve been invited to play on the BBC Introducing Stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Bangor on Sunday 23rd May.

We’re blown away to be playing on a line-up that includes some of our favourite bands of the moment, including Vampire Weekend, Paramore, Django Django, Delphic, Ke$ha and JLS!  A massive thank you to all at BBC Introducing for their support from the early days of the band, we’re gonna make this a really special show.

BBC Introducing says: “My Tiger, My Timing are a five-piece from New Cross, London who play catchy, electro-tinged post-punk with one eye fixed firmly on the dancefloor. Their combination of pointy guitar riffs, hypnotic rhythms, glittering electronics and dark-edged melodies has drawn comparisons with bands like Gang Gang Dance and Hot Chip (with whom they’ve collaborated). They were recently featured on a compilation album from the über-trendy label, Kistuné Maison alongside other hotly-tipped acts like The Drums and Delphic.”

Check out the full line-up here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend/2010/lineup/

And our BBC Introducing profile here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend/2010/artists/mytigermytiming/

See you at the front!

Welwn ni chi yno! Rydym yn caru chi i gyd!

Super cool Paris band Fortune have just released their debut album ‘Staring at the Ice Melt’ and to celebrate they’re giving away a FREE remix EP featuring their lush version of our tune ‘I Am The Sound’ alongside tracks by Phoenix, Pony Pony Run Run, Rubin Steiner and Axe Riverboy.

We’re loving what they’ve done with the track!

To download it, just go to their website and sign up for the mailing list:

http://www.f-o-r-t-u-n-e.com/remixcollection

A belated happy new year to all of you out there reading this. 2009 was a great year for the Tigers, in which we released two singles, an EP, were included on numerous comps, made videos, took photos, toured the UK and got to know the inside of the van perhaps too well. We want to thank everyone who made this all possible, everyone who came to see us, bought the records, asked about the t-shirt (coming soon) or in any way made us feel that being in a band was definitely a worthwhile thing to do.

But enough looking back, it’s a new year and a new decade and we’ve kicked off as we mean to go on with some new recordings (also coming soon) and a handful of great gigs, including an epic return to La Flèche d’Or in Paris. We were there this time last year and going back really felt like a bit of a continental homecoming. The crowd was incredible (see pic) and fully responded to all requests for “mains en l’air!”. It was great to talk to everyone after the show and we can’t wait to come back and see you again.

Now we’re back in the studio with Andy Spence putting the finishing touches to what will most likely be our next EP. It’s sounding great and we can’t wait for everyone to hear it.

We have a string of live dates coming up (see here) including a visit to Brighton’s legendary Concorde 2 on Friday and an invitation to play SXSW in Austin, Texas in March which we are over the moon about (although this is rather dependant on us raising the funds to get there so all donations from mystery benefactors should go to cat@interbase.co.uk via PayPal — seriously!!).

We’ve also been documenting our adventures in a series of photo diaries lovingly put together by our own Jamie Harrison — you can see the start of this on our new Tumblr page, and the rest will be updated as we go along.

On Thursday we’re celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Tiger with Dazed & Confused and Tiger beer (appropriate) so come down to Chinatown and break open a fortune cookie with us…

x

Well what a month it’s been – October is the cruellest month (well, after April), especially if you’re in a band. Cruel to the body and mind and liver because you really can’t ever do enough gigs even if you do one every day – there are fields of fresh young students out there all rosy cheeked and waiting to be kissed on the lips.

But it has also been kind to us – we released out second single ‘I Am The Sound’ and our first EP, got our songs on some great compilations and radio shows, played endless gigs, heard ourselves in Topshop (Anna career highlight) and started to feel like we actually exist in the real world outside of the pubs, chippies and betting shops of the New Cross Road.

So what next? Well we’re heading back into the studio this month to start work on what will be our second EP for around March. We’re also heading to Europe in the new year – can’t wait to get out there and practice our GCSE chat up lines and out of date swear words.

But before all this, we’re rounding off the year with a live album recording c/o Boxcars Production at Highbury’s Buffalo Bar on Sunday 29th. Come and make crowd noises and be part of the record.

This week we’re also really excited to be involved in the launch of Electric Minds‘ A Tribute To Arthur Russell tribute album. The record comes on CD (12 tracks) and also sampler 12″ LP (4 tracks). Our cover of Arthur’s Arm Around You appears on both (our first vinyl release!).

You can buy both formats online here: Vinyl / CD

To celebrate, Lovebox and Electric Minds have put on a huge event this Friday 27th November at the Relentless Garage in Highbury, 7pm-4am.

Time Out says: “London festivallers Lovebox and secret disco partystarters Electric Minds team up to launch this tribute (cover) album to the late disco artist Arthur Russell over three rooms. A screening of Matt Wolf’s ‘Wild Combination’ kicks things off, plus a reading with Tim Lawrence from his new Arthur Russell biography, followed by live sets from My Tiger My Timing + Killer Whale and nuff disco DJ sets from the likes of Maurice Fulton, Dolan Bergin, Yam Who?, Faze Action, Hot Blood, Tom Findlay (Groove Armada), Bill Brewster and the Loose crew. You won’t know which room to choose!”

I’ve heard there’s gonna be popcorn too…

Tickets here!

Kitsuné Live Session at MySpace HQ

A few weeks ago we played a stripped-down set at the MySpace offices in London with Crystal Fighters and Chew Lips in support of the new Kitsuné Maison 8 sampler (which we’re all on). Below you can see some excerpts from our performance…

My Tiger My Timing MySpace Session

MySpace Today | MySpace Video

NME 03 October 2009

WHAT’S ON THE NME STERO – Ten Tracks To Check Out This Week

In other news, we’re included on the upcoming Kitsuné Maison 8 sampler (out Nov 16), tracklisting below:

01. French Horn Rebellion – Up All Night
02. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
03. Siriusmo – High Together
04. Le Corps Mince de Françoise – Something Golden
05. Midnight Juggernauts – This New Technology
06. Heartsrevolution – Dance Till Dawn
07. Logo – Junocide
08. Two Door Cinema Club – I Can Talk (Moulinex Remix)
09. Slagsmåklubben – Brutal Weapons
10. Beni – Maximus (Harvard Bass Remix)
11. AMWE – Friction Between The Lovers
12. Jolie Cherie – Star
13. Chew Lips – Salt Air (Alex Kapranos Remix)
14. Delphic – This Momentary
15. Memory Tapes – Bicycle
16. Parallels – Find The Fire
17. Nottee – Control
19. Crystal Fighters – I Love London
20. My Tiger My Timing – I Am The Sound

And also the Electric Minds 12″ tribute to Arthur Russell which we’ll be helping launch at the Highbury Garage on Nov 27…

Limited edition 6-track CD EP exclusively through Pure Groove. They say “An ace new band from south on the river. An extremely danceable indie-beat flavour in the shape of Hot Chip, Tom Tom Club and Architecture In Helsinki, and we’re happier than a dog with a bone to be doing this beautiful extended EP in conjunction with them. Ones to watch.”

A few weeks ago we wrote about our next release. Here are a few more details…

I Am The Sound EP will be released through Pure Groove Records on a limited edition (300) CD EP with specially designed artwork and some brand new tracks. It’ll be avaliable exclusively from the Pure Groove store in London or from their website from October 19th 2009. You can pre-order now.

The lead track will also be released on simultaneous download through Silver Music Machine with some specially commissioned b-side remixes.

We’re also really excited to have songs included on the recently released Modular Leave Them All Behind III and Pure Groove 3 samplers, check ‘em out on our Music page.

This Is Not The Fire is going to be included on Modular’s upcoming Leave Them All Behind III compilation (out August 7th) alongside the likes of Calvin Harris, MGMT, Golden Silvers, The Juan Maclean, Simian Mobile Disco, Florence and the Machine, Passion Pit, The Invisible and loads more wickedness…

Full details here…