Sloan

Chris will be visiting muchmusic around noon today to talk about his participation in the "Do They Know It's Halloween" single. I'm not sure if this is live or taped, but I'm sure that it will be repeated a few times in today's schedule. For still more info on the North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative, you can visit their myspace page at www.myspace.com/nahpi. And remember to give generously to Unicef and other children's charities this Halloween.

Our friends at yahoo music have included Sloan in another one of their "Dig It or Dis It" polls. It looks as though The Killers have run away with this one, but it would be nice to have a strong finish for Sloan. If you have the time, please visit music.yahoo.com/promotions/digitdisit/ to vote.

Special thanks to Claire who brought this to our attention in a news reply yesterday.

This summer, while I was at a cottage with the families of the band and our extended organization, I got a call from my old friend Leslie Feist. She told me she had just sung on a song that she thought I should contribute to. The song was called "Do They Know It's Halloween" and its proceeds were to go to Unicef.

Miss Feist may or may not have known I was a Unicef fan but she definitely knew I was a big fan of some of the people who were involved, namely Steven MacDonald of Redd Kross fame and David Cross of Mr. Show and Arrested Development fame.

Yes, it was still summer, but they had to have the thing done in time for a Halloween release. They sent me a version of the track with someone singing it through to illustrate how it should/could go. The people at the project were open to having it be interpreted however I wanted. I should also mention that they were interested in having the other guys in the band participate, but only I ended up being able to do it in time.

I went over to Jay's and recorded on his computer. They had given me 5 lines or so to sing and would keep however many they needed, presumably depending on how many people they got to participate, or how horrible my contribution was.

In the end I can hear my voice only briefly, but it's there. If you're ever playing 6 Degrees of Separation and you are stuck on Beck/Malcolm McLaren, the connection is Chris Murphy. My voice is paired with both of them.

I wanted to somehow include my gem of a line that the scariest thing about Halloween is that rent is due the next day but it didn't make it.

I guess the moral of the story here is: Don't vacation with your bandmates.

By the by, next year is the 30th anniversary of my going out dressed as KISS for Halloween. 30th! Holy crap!

Happy Halloween. Chris

"Do They Know It's Halloween" is out now on Vice Recordings. For more info go to: http://www.vice-recordings.com/halloween/

We are spending a couple of days recuperating from our whirlwind tour of Canada's east coast. This Tuesday night we will return to Guelph's Peter Clark Hall with our friends The Stills. Tickets are still available and more information is available at www.sundaycinema.ca.

As it stands we will be paring down the tour schedule for a bit to focus on writing and recording some new material. If you live in the general vecinity, it would be worth the drive to Guelph to get your Sloan fix!

Hope to see you there!

September is shaping up to be a busy month for Sloan. Tonight we are in Pontiac, Michigan closing the night at the Arts Beats and Eats festival and next Saturday we are in Stratford Ontario for the Ovation Festival.

For the geographically challenged, Stratford is between London and Kitchener, just a couple of hours from Toronto. Tickets are still available, but going fast! www.standingovation.ca

We have also added a couple of shows later in the month. We finally get to return to Moncton on the 20th. Aside from an impromptu performance by "The Navy Blues Band" Monctonites have had to travel to see Sloan for several years. We are happy to be coming back.

A show at University of Guelph's Peter Clark Hall has also been added on the 27th. Sloan were once vilified for trashing the dressing room at this venue. Let's see what happens this time when we face off against our Montreal friends The Stills.

There are still some cities that we are working on adding to our tour schedule for this year. Glaringly obvious are Toronto, Montreal, and Los Angeles. But we are also looking into some other possibilities both close to home and internationally. Hope to see you at a show soon!

Koch Records have started to re-issue our back catalogue in the United States. August 9th saw the release of Smeared and Twice Removed. September 6th will see One Chord To Another and Navy Blues on the shelves. Between The Bridges and Pretty Together are scheduled for an early 2006 release date, as these records are newer and still floating around stock rooms. These are straight re-issues in their classic form to replenish your friendly neighbourhood record store’s Sloan section. For our newer fans this is a great way to catch up on what you’ve been missing. For the die-hards, it’s a great way to replace those worn out copies.

Check out this vote of confidence from Yahoo.com.

http://music.yahoo.com/promotions/videomusicawards/

As many Toronto fans have probably heard, Sloan is playing a special show with Finger 11 and David Usher on Friday August 12 2005. The only way to catch this exclusive show is to win tickets! Here's the info:

Friday August 12 2005, 5:30pm
Rogers Wireless Presents
Rexall Centre
Toronto, Canada
Featuring Finger 11 and David Usher.

We have been given a limited number of tickets to give away to fans directly through the website. Please e-mail Mike Nelson at info@sloanmusic.com with the subject heading "sloan ticket contest". Winners will be notified by e-mail over the next few days.

Hope to see you there!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes footage from the All Used Up video shoot that is now up on the SonyBMG site. Funny stuff. I wish that we had more of Andrew as the cycling peace officer.

Click the multimedia tab to find the links.

Sloan will be taping a couple of songs for a new music show on CTV called ETalk Playlist.

I have just found out that there are a limited number of studio audience tickets available for the taping at the old Masonic temple building at Yonge and Davenport tomorrow night (Thursday July 28th)

For tickets Contact: audience@ctv.ca

Tickets are free however there are limited seats left and they are going fast.

For those who wish to watch from home, it will be airing on Wednesday August 3rd 2005 at 7pm on CTV.