PLEASE VOTE NAKATOMI TOWERS – BEST NEW BAND – Camden Crawl Emerging Talent Award

Hey people, we need your help, please vote for us now at the link below, to help us become, Best new band at this years Camden Crawl, and give us a chance to play at this years event!! Feel free to tweet/blog/post about this wherever you want to help us get through!

Earlier in the week Julianne and I sat down for a quick chat with Eddie Mullan about what we’ve been up to recently and the upcoming Winter  Base event we’re playing at this coming Saturday. There are also interviews with Barry Cullen (BEW) and Ryan from Cutaways, a band we’ve had the pleasure of sharing a few stages with over the past year. There are tracks from each band as well and we’ve included a track that we don’t have online anywhere else so go take a listen!

Hi guys! Just to let you know that we were recently interviewed for the February issue of Go Belfast by the lovely Sharon Moody. You can pick up a copy for free across Belfast right now.

We’ve also booked a couple of gigs you may be interested in. We’ll be playing live at trans’ BASE event in the Ulster Hall on February 20th, playing our first gig in The Menagerie @ Skinny Love on the 3rd March and heading down to Dublin for a show with our good friends Sleep Thieves in Whelan’s on the 24th March.

We’re also going to be shooting a music video for Cut Me Out at the end of February. We’re not going to reveal too much yet but will let you know how it goes.  In the meantime the pair of us are writing and recording whenever we get a moment. Exciting times. See you all soon!  x

Hey you guys! Just a quick one to let you know State Mag have put up a mixtape featuring all their ‘Faces of 2010′. Its a great listen, full of audio treats. Go here to download your very own copy to keep forever! Loves x

Hi guys! Dave here with a quick update. As the new year gets underway, we’re continuing to write for our new EP, focusing on getting ourselves a few places on this years festival circuit & last but not least getting in some well deserved R&R.

News wise we’ve been afforded a place on a couple of year end lists that we’re very excited about indeed. Firstly we were included on the BBC Radio Ulster ATL Northern Irish Acts of the year list. This was a big one for us as the team at ATL have been massive supporters of our wee band since the beginning and this was the perfect way to finish off 2009. You can check out the rest of the list here -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/acrosstheline/2009/12/the_atl_northern_irish_acts_of.html

- made up by 20 fantastic truly independent bands & artists – testament to the fact that the N.I. music scene is as strong if not stronger than it ever has been RIGHT NOW.

We were also chosen as on of State Magazine’s Faces of 2010. We’ve had a great relationship with State from the get go and were really pleased when they included us along with other great local bands such as Yes Cadets & John Shelly & The Creatures. You can find the article here – http://www.state.ie/2010/01/faces-of-2010/nakatomi-towers/ - make sure to check out all the other great bands on the list too!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/atl/reviews.shtml

19/12/09 – BBC Radio Ulster -Across The Line
Gig – Oppenheimer/Skibunny/Nakatomi Towers at Spring & Airbrake, Belfast – Review by Patrick Kane

Nakatomi Towers brought their disco pop juggernaut to the Spring & Airbrake, delivering catchy tunes, sultry vocals from Julianne Shawe and thumping drum machines. Cut Me Out displays the desire to create unabashed electro pop with more than a passing hint to the classic Funkytown while What You Know reveals that the band are more than one trick ponies. Their sound is based so heavily upon samples and synthesisers that Dave Frecknall’s laptop computer seems to be doing an awful lot of work which may detract from the live experience: indeed, the last track featured no live instrumentation at all. All in all, however, it’s a very enjoyable performance.

15/12/09 – BBC Radio Ulster – Across The Line
Gig – The XX /Nakatomi Towers at Speakeasy, Queens University, Belfast – Review by Robyn Scott

Support came from Nakatomi Towers – a spangly electro pop duo hailing from Belfast who have nicked their name from the first Die Hard film. It’s been less than a year since the band, made up of Dave Freknall and Julianne Shawe, first formed but already they have written a series of catchy tunes that were showcased to good effect on stage. Julianne handled most of the vocal duties with her strong indie-chick voice, but Dave also chimed in at times and both strummed their guitars along enthusiastically to prerecorded electro backing.

In between tracks Nakatomi Towers occasionally looked like two close friends who had accidentally wandered on to the stage carrying instruments. However, they were certainly likeable and once they got into each song  it was clear they were up there for a reason. And being early in the band’s life, they’ve got plenty of time left to polish things up.

We just did an interview for Belfasts Go Magazine at lunchtime! That should be out in Jan/Feb time, so keep an eye out for that.

TSHIRTS ON SALE AT – Oppenheimer Skibunny showcase - this Saturday 19th Dec – Spring & Airbrake, Belfast.
NAKATOMI TOWERS will be playing LIVE just after 9.30pm so get down early!!!

Bag of Bees have created and exclusive Nakatomi Towers design which you can buy online at their website http://www.bagofbees.co.uk/ or you can purchase at any of our GIGS!!!

We had a fantastic time supporting The XX in a packed-out Speakeasy in Queens Uni on Tuesday night! it was a bit of a last minute show for us, but we had a great time! Big thanks to Rod and Dee at QUBSU for that!

We’re getting deep in writing and recording at the minute, purchased some new equipment which we hope will really improve our recordings. I think you’ll notice the difference and progression from our earlier songs. Theres quite a variety in Dave and I’s writing style and how we create our ideas, but we’re hoping the combination of these styles will produce a good set of songs for the EP.
We’re thinking of getting a set of maybe 5 good strong songs for our EP. We had tought about an album, but we would rather get a strong EP out there sooner, in time to be considered for Festival slots in 2010 etc!

Soulwaxmas TONIGHT!!!! we’re having a bit of a Nakatomi Towers Xmas trip out tonight and getting down the Ulster Hall to see, Soulwax, 2ManyDjs, Mixhell, Tiga, Aeroplane, Riton!!! I CANT WAIT!!!

Hope your enjoying the blog updates, Nakatomi Towers Videoblogs coming soon!
J

Hey guys!

I just thought I’d pop on and say Merry Christmas and another big thanks to everyone who has listened to our music, come to (or offered us) a gig, said something nice and encouraging – essentially anyone who has supported us in 2009. It’s been a pretty amazing year all round and I for one can’t wait to see what happens in 2010.

As Julianne has mentioned already, our main focus at the moment is writing and we’re having some exciting ideas already. Our little home studio is coming together nicely too (our new condenser mic arrives today) and I’m thinking of and learning new ways to get better sounds every day.

I’ve also been DJing a lot myself over the past few months and if you pop into Laverys Ballroom in Belfast on a Thursday or Friday night, make sure to say hello and ask for a tune. I’ll be DJing in Laverys Back Bar on Boxing night too – always a good night to party…

Anyway that’s all for now – we’ll be back soon with some cool pics and vids. In the meantime, have a great week and if you’re at Soulwaxmas in the Ulster Hall this Thursday I’ll see you down the front. See you later!

Hey!
Ok so me and dave both have our own blog accounts, so when I blog my name will come up, and when Dave blogs……u get the idea!

So we’re writing away on new songs for our forthcoming EP, we’re jamming separately to get the ideas we’ll then bring together and work on to see what emerges. I’ve so far wrote bits of 3 songs, one called ‘Serious’ one called ‘Not so Serious’!  I’m also listening to loadsa new and old music getting inspired, and also getting some new remixes for DJ-ing with!   I’ll be Dj-ing at The Warehouse, Boucher rd this Saturday night 11-1.

Favorite listens so far:
‘1901′ – Phoenix
‘Animal’ (Punks Jump Up remix) - Miike Snow
‘I can Talk’ (French horn Rebillion Remix)- Two Door Cinema  Club

I’ve also being promoting the life out of this new website! www.nakatomitowers.com
Hope everyones been getting into the Christmas spirit and downloading our cover of ‘Let it Snow’!  We recorded most of it in a couple days, then Dave fine-tuned, added ‘Bells and whistles’ literally and polished!

I’m hoping to delve more deeply into the side of production over Xmas.  Daves really the main producer, he’s got so much more patience than me, but as I’ve been creating my new jams in logic myself, I’ve started messing about with effects and synth sounds, so I’m hoping to create some weird and wonderful sounds!

Was quite sad to hear local band Oppenheimer are splitting up at the end of this year. I’ve great respect for everything these guys have acheived, great electro band, and really helped bring Belfast bands to the forefront of the UK music scene! We’ll be DJ-ing at their Farewell gig on 19th December in Spring and Airbrake.

Anyway, we’ll be keeping you regularly up to date with our song writing etc, and I’m aiming on getting all our video snippets together for Nakatomi Towers TV v. soon! Bye for now!