urchin news archives

  • URCHIN ROLLING ROCK COMMERCIAL IS AIRING!!!

    Running: May 14-June 3, and June 11-July 1
    Markets: Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis

    Running on the following shows:
    That '70s Show, Titus, Boot Camp, Malcolm In The Middle, X-Files, Lone Gunman, Grounded For Life, Just Shoot Me, Will & Grace, Norm, Ed, the Practice, Third Watch, Frasier (late nite syndicated), Friends (late nite syndicated)

    There will be other cities added, as well as national
    cable buys (VH1, ESPN, Comedy Central, Discovery, FX, E!, etc...) later in the Summer.

  • URCHIN ON COVER OF BILLBOARD MAGAZINE!!!

    in the may 12th issue of Billboard magazine, the cover is a fold-out salute to RCA's 100th anniversary as a label, and the sound of urchin, are pictured right above the word 100 years young!!! right at the center of the page!!! they are 2 squares away from Kenny Rogers, 6 away from the foos, 3 from the eurythmics, and 4 from rick springfield!!! the boys were very honored to be chosen for the cover amongst the labels biggest selling acts since 1901!!! the urchin are pictured saluting the sky for freedom rock in their spring 2000 salmon jumpsuits on the brooklyn bridge, it is real cool. if ya get a chance, pick up the magazine and also check out the great articles on rca inside.
  • January 15, 2001 - URCHIN STARTS OFFICIAL STREET TEAM!!!
    Today, URCHIN announced the start of the official URCHIN Street Team!! It is headed up by Mandy D, who is totally cool, rocks it, works her butt off, and has a plan to spread the URCHIN word all over this place like cream cheese on an eveything bagel. So, any of you who want to join our street team and have a part in helping us bring the urchin rock to the masses, please e-mail her at     soundofstreeturchin@hotmail.com and she will give you all the info you need and get you some cool urchin stuff. Welcome to the urchin,mandy! 
  • January 8, 2001 - URCHIN'S HANALEI MP3 IS TOP DOWNLOAD BEHIND MADONNA AND BRITNEY AT AUDIOSURGE.COM!!!!!
    Press Release from AudioSurge.Com: 
    "Congratulations, For the week ending today, January 8th, 2001, The Sound of MF Urchin has been ranked as the 18th most downloaded artist out of 1,887 artists on AudioSurge.com! We are proud to have you as part of our music community and wish you the best of luck in your music endeavors.

    Be sure to visit     http://www.audiosurge.com/as/artist/topartists.html to see our top 40 lists each week.

    Jim Milton
    President,
    AudioSurge.com/TDMCinc.com"
    We are honored to have Hanalei doin' the do, so go to this site and download one for us so we can get it up to #1 next week!!  The URCHIN
  • December 18/19, 2000 - URCHIN SHOOTS ROLLING ROCK COMMERCIAL TO BE AIRED IN FEB 2001!!!!
    Rolling Rock chose the urchin to be the subjects in their new 2001 national ad campaign to be the "non-sellout beer", so we were totally up for that - plus we got some free beer which didn't hurt the decision making process.  The commercial is a documentary style commercial on us where we will be playing a few of our craziest jams in it, and there will be interview footage, as well,  from when they took some cameras out with us on the road, in our van, at hotels, etc.  Todd Phillips, the director of the Tom Green movie "Road Trip" and the GG Allin movie "Hated" directed the spot, so you know that it is on the ill tip, he is a crazy nut and was totally on the level. We invited our mailing list to come down for the shoot and be in the crowd for the filming, as long as they went sick in the crowd and were on the craziest behavior, and they definitely were!!  And, as a holiday present, anyone who showed up for the filming got a free pass to the "URCHIN NYC X-MAS SPECTACULAR" at Brownies!!! word, urchin on tv, yo!! so, it's supposed to air in early feb 2001, so watch for it, money
  • December 1, 2000 - URCHIN TO TOUR ALL DECEMBER WITH SR-71!!!
    go here for all tour info and tour comments from the urchin
  • November 1, 2000 - URCHIN SIGNS PUBLISHING DEAL WITH EMI!!!
    Tonight The Sound of URCHIN signed a major publishing deal with EMI-Blackwood, Los Angeles!!!!  The boys signed over a sickeningly incredible dinner at Virgils BBQ in Times Square, NYC.  This next step in the URCHIN saga is a big one and is the next step in URCHIN world domination!!  It's too complicated to explain what a publishing deal actually is, but it basically means that a pretty great company is willing to back the URCHIN songbook in a huge way!!!
  • October 18, 2000 - URCHIN UPDATE - WE HAD A GREAT SOUTHERN TOUR & WE GOT NEW NAMES!!!
    First, we have to say a big "Hi Y'all" to all of our new Southern friends!! Thanks for the great tour. We received a real Southern Hospitality welcome from everyone in the deep south as we worked our way from Fayetteville AR to Tuscaloosa AL, and everywhere in between. We ate some of the best food we have ever eaten, and met some of the nicest people. The band we opened for, The North Mississippi All Stars, are pretty fierce and are the real deal, southern swamp blues - go pick up their new cd. They helped show us the ways of the South. Also thanks to Robbie King who worked our URCHINDISE booth and to the English freaks in Electrasy who showed up at our Atlanta gig for some craziness, bollocks. 

    By the way, we all got some new names, even though the old ones still apply. Not to confuse all of you, but here's the lowdown, they might not stick, so don't worry, just take a mental note: Doo Doo Brown is now "Cheddar Burger", The Reverend B. ILL is now "Star 69", Hollywood Scotty Choc is now "Diet Coke", & Tomato11 is now "Stink-o-matic 2000".   

    Also, I almost forgot, thanks to everyone in Beantown at TTs, especially The Betty Ford Pickup who rocked, and also to Days Of The New, who we sort of opened up for at Trump Marina in AC last week. Basically, we got put on the bill last minute, but the show wasn't equipped for an opener, so we ended up playing black jack all night and sold cd's to the fans in the lobby. It was actually a blast! They still hooked us up with a posh hotel, and we had that crazy casino buffet food - like a couple hundred shrimps, then some roast beef, then some pasta, then some little tart things.
  • September 27, 2000 - URCHIN THANKS THE URGE FOR THE MIDWEST INSANITY!!!
    We just got back from our 6 day midwest romp with The URGE and we felt that we have to send out a huge sincere thanks to all in the URGE camp!!! That means (in no specific order) Jerry, Steve, Bill, Matt, Karl, John, Brian, Shaw-Dog, and the man, T-Flow!!! You guys fuckin' rock and made us feel at home in the heartland!!!! We had a blast in all the cities we visited in KS, OK, IN, IL, & NB. If you haven't heard The URGE yet, go find their new album called "Too Much Stereo" and trust us, pick it up. The guys in the band were all great guys with the freak in 'em and it was great to seen them rock every night. And their crew treated us like we weren't just the shit opener, Shaw wouldn't let us ever go anywhere without a swig of the JD Shaw Juice, and T-Flow always remembered B-ILL and kept him in the place to be. We drove around in our smelly van, but the URGE let us share in the rock n' roll festivities of their rock tour bus with them after the gigs. We had too many laughs and too many beers for one week, but we met so many cool people out their in the Midwest, which was a place where no one had ever heard of us before. Thanks, especially to the people in Manhattan KS who gave us the biggest rock n' roll welcome we have ever seen, we could feel the club shaking from the 700 kids pogoing to Space Station. It totally freaked us out!! We also gotta thank the guys in Elecrasy, who we played with on 4 of the dates - you guys are the craziest bunch of English motherfuckers out there, especially Ali the singer - on stage they come off like a heavier Radiohead but backstage they come off like Led Zeppelin!! We hope to see you guys down the road as well, and especially your tour manager (the man in the protable office). We even wrote a song about you with T-Flow - listen to the MP3 here at the end of the live Deuce track. We also have to thank The Verve Pipe for letting us play in Indiana with them and everyone at St Joseph's College who put on a serious rock festival. Go check out the URGE and say hi at their message board at www.urge.net:
  • September 12, 2000 - URCHIN RELEASES RCA EP TODAY!!!
    Well, ladies and gentleman, right now, as you read this, Tues Sept. 12th 2000, the URCHIN boys are taking the real huge step: their first major label cd release is seeing its way into record stores around the world!! In some way, all four members of the band (Tomato, B-ILL, Cheddar Burger [formerly known as Doo Doo Brown] and Choc) have been working towards this goal since they were kids, and now their time has come!!! Entitled "The Sound of URCHIN", the cd is a beautiful sounding, specially low-priced, in-your-face EP that was produced by well-schooled rock masters Dean Ween & Chris Shaw!! It contains URCHINfaves like "Mr. Hanalei" and "Space Station On The 4,5 & 6", and was specially engineered to sound best when turned all the way up, and also contains special jeep-shaking bass frequencies that can only be truly heard and enjoyed in your car stereos!!! The cd also features special prime orange packaging with artwork done by Tomato. SO, GET OUT TO YOUR LOCAL RECORD STORE AND PICK IT UP!! If they don't have it in stock, just tell them to order it and they will!!! And all you internet shoppers, go to any online cd store (cdnow, etc.) and order it there!!! Buy it everywhere!!! It's low-priced, so buy four or ten, and give them to everyone you know as your Fall present - and help get the URCHIN love out to this lame music world we have come to get used to these days!! It is now time for the URCHIN to infiltrate!!
  • August 9, 2000 - URCHIN GETS ADDED TO TONS OF RADIO STATIONS!!!
    This week was the first week that our new forthcoming RCA EP was introduced to radio stations around the country. The label does this kind of thing a month before the release date to start the ball rolling, and it turns out that almost 40 stations around the country added us to their playlists in our first week!!! Everywhere from Alaska to Fort Worth to Tempe to St. Louis have added our EP, now that is cool. In fact, we actually charted in two towns in Iowa, coming in at #28 in one and #25 in another. Those cats in Iowa must be doing something right to be the first place to get the URCHIN!! So, PEOPLE, call your stations around ya, e-mail them (they are all on the web) and their program directors - and start requesting the URCHIN!!!
  • August 8, 2000 - RCA PRES CALLS THE URCHIN PHOTO SHOOT THE BEST EVER!
    We got a call from the men at RCA after they got to see the contact sheet from the hillarious photo shoot we did, and the Pres of the label said that it was the best photo shoot he had seen come through RCA. Now, we have trouble believing that we are more photogenic than someone like, let's say, our labelmate Christina Aguilera, but we will gladly and proudly accept the compliment that was thrown our way from such an important member of the RCA family!!! And we have to chalk this up as another superlative to add to the ever-growing list!!
  • July 28, 2000 - URCHIN DOES A REAL PHOTO SHOOT!!!!
    We did a REAL ROCK photo shoot today with an amazing rock photographer named Dennis Kleinman. It was 8 hours of rock posing for us, which was a first, and was totally hillarious. Dennis totally knew the deal, and let us be ourselves, which made things go real smooth and comfortable. There was a crew, and even a makeup dude, right there with the powder for our foreheads - and he even gave Cash a haircut right there in the studio!!! The polaroids we saw were excellent. We wore all of our stage uniforms including the brand new URCHIN "Safety Gear". Dennis is the man, he did some pics of Slipknot just last week, as well as Ozzy, Kid Rock, Radiohead, and anyone you could imagine. Cool shit.
  • July 26, 2000 - URCHIN DOES A VIDEO SHOOT!!!!
    We did a video shoot today for Mr. Hanalei and Space Station for RCA. These videos will be used primarily for promotional purposes and not for MTV type stuff, but the shoot was loads of fun anyway. We banged out version after version of the songs at our top energy, which was exhausting, while they filmed us from all different angles. We lip-synched our asses off - it was rock ladies and gentleman!!! DMC was hangin' in another room getting pics taken of them with Chuck D, and the band Dope was doing a shoot as well.
  • July 25, 2000 - RELEASE DATE PUSHED BACK AGAIN!!!!
    The release date for the forthcoming first SOUND OF URCHIN EP on RCA Records has been pushed back once again, and for the final time, to TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 12t!!! Even though we, here at Steven, are so excited to see the boys' major label debut get released as soon as possible, we want to see it done right, and luckily RCA has the same agenda. So, with the actual pressing of the cd, the distribution of it by BMG, and the coordination of promotion between press, radio and touring, it all has to come together at the same time - and that is pushing back the release date back another two weeks. Soon, people, the world will know the URCHIN!!!
  • July 24, 2000 - A HUGE LOSS!!!!
    As all of our e-mails have been lately, we have so much good things to report to you. this time, as life can be, the news is not all positive. we must pay our deepest respects to the loss of our friend, roomate, and fellow musician, David Anderson. anyone who met dave immediately knew what a great, good-hearted person he was, and how unfortunate his untimely passing is. we don't think that putting this at the bottom of our e-mail does David all the justice he deserves, but we also know that not mentioning him was not the way to handle it, either. our deepest sympathies go out to his family, bandmates and friends.
  • July 21, 2000 - URCHIN THE LOUDEST BAND EVER AT THE HIGHER GROUND, VT!
    The soundman at The Higher Ground, a real cool club we just played in Burlington VT, said after our set that "you guys are the loudest band we have ever had here at the club"!!! Now, the URCHIN has been all about the superlatives lately - and from being "too loud and rockin'" to play The Lakeside Lounge to this prestigious title in Vermont, we, here at Steven, feel that the URCHIN boys must be doing something right!!
  • July 13, 2000 - * MID SUMMER CHECK-IN FROM STEVE PENNSYLVANIA *
    Summer 2000 for the URCHIN has been awesome thus far, they have been getting real hyped-up and ready for their first RCA EP release, which is set for August 22nd!!! And then they plan on doin' some serious tearin' - trying to make sure that many people get much URCHIN music in their lives because of the sad state rock has been in lately. The boys have spent the summer breaking into new clubs & cities, working on new material, spreading the word, and havin' loads of fun doing it all... and even played their first Bar Mitzvah. The van has been holding up real well with all the driving - there are always a couple of fresh bags of Combos in the "Combo-drawer" (both pretzel and cracker varieties), and even some of those delicious creme-savers candies as well. The overwhelming music of choice in the van has been Wesley Willis, but when in doubt you'll hear the Lee "Scratch" Perry box set, an occasional Pantera from Tomato which usually gets B-ILL a little annoyed, but then Bill gets one of his Dead tapes on and is happy again, Scotty Choc isn't allowed to play his Styx tapes in the van, and Doo Doo is always cool with any tunes.
  • June 26, 2000 - URCHIN 'S RCA EP RELEASE DATE PUSHED BACK!!!!
    We just got news that RCA will be pushing the release date of the new Sound of URCHIN EP to Tuesday, August 22nd. This might keep some people waiting a little longer, but it has taken some time to finish up the cover art and get our publicity in motion. It will be worth the wait because we want to make sure our first release with them is done right, and they all want it done right as well.
  • May 31, 2000 - The Sound of URCHIN - BANNED FROM THE LAKESIDE LOUNGE!!!!
    Well, the URCHIN played their last show tonight at The Lakeside Lounge, EVER, because they were "just too loud/rockin", says The Lakeside's co-owner, Roscoe. Tomato had this to say: "We loved playing those intimate gigs at The Lakeside, but we were forcing the owners into a bad situation because they have been fined serious $ in the past for noise violations, and we were just another violation waiting to happen for them. Roscoe is the coolest and runs a great joint, and was such a big fan of ours he seemed almost willing to get fined for us there for a while. Even though we will not be playing the Lakeside ever again, we still hold our promise to 'clean up the East Village' in any way we can!!"
  • May 4, 2000 - PHISH'S DAD A BIG URCHIN FAN!!!
    We, here at Steven records, just found out that Trey Anastasio's (from the one and only Phish) Dad has been to the last three New Hope PA URCHIN shows to see the band play!!! Our friend, Dave Anderson, works for the local record store and low and behold Phish's Dad walks in and talks up the URCH and looks for some URCHIN cds!!! This is no joke!!! Rock on Phish's Dad!!!
  • April 26, 2000 - EP Release Date???
    At this point, RCA is looking to release the forthcoming URCHIN EP in mid-July!!! That may sound far away, but it is actually right around the corner. We can't wait for the release and look forward to spreading the music as far as we can. More updates on this to come...
  • April 22, 2000 - URCHIN Breaks Its Own Record!!!
    Tonight, the URCHIN boys broke their own record by playing a relentless 3 1/2 hour set at John & Peter's in New Hope PA!!! They played right up until closing time and actually got cut off by the management - who knows how long they would've gone for if they weren't cut off??? Some might ask does URCHIN even have 3 1/2 hours worth of music?? Well, they played every song they know, with the exception of "Rock n' Roll Jubilee", invented some long-ass jams on the spot, got the request to replay Mr. Hanalei (electric version), had a couple of drum solos by Tomato, a ripping B-ill solo, a Choc spotlight jam, and even a scorching bass solo by DooDoo via Cliff Burton. Brad came up and played drums on Green Green Gold and on an impromptu Styx "Renegade", and Claude from Ween came up and jammed a serious Bat's Taxi at around the 5th encore for the night. URCHIN did a hillarious rendition of U2's "Bad" in combination with that Filter song about the airplane that sounds exactly like "Bad". And during Green Green Gold, Tomato made everyone in the band do shots of French's mustard!!! There was a serious heckler to the side of the stage that kept wanting more and more rock, so the guys just kept going - that is the good thing about New Hope, thepeople there know how to rock and really enjoy the long-ass sets!!!
  • April 19, 2000 - URCHIN Hooks up with Nasty!!!
    Today, URCHIN hooked up with the infamous publicity people at Nasty Little Man!!! World famous for The B-Boys (see "Hello Nasty") and tons of other incredible bands, Nasty has now joined the URCHIN team. We couldn't be more honored to be working with them because, simply, they rock!!
  • April 8, 2000 - URCHIN BUYS A VAN!!!
    Today, Tomato and Choc went down to Rockland County, NY (their hometown) to test drive the van that the URCHIN will be calling its own. The beautiful white 99 Ford Econoline Extended 15 Passenger Van was shining on the lot of the Bill Kolb Ford on route 303 in Blauvelt and runs like a charm. The boys are very excited to take this thing on the road - its maiden voyage being this Saturday's Boston gig!!! Congrats are definitely in order.
  • March 24, 2000 - URCHIN GONNA FILM A VIDEO!!!!
    LMC (The Live Music Channel) is filming tonight's URCHIN gig at Wetlands!! The purpose of this is to get footage for a video of our song "Quiz Show Spy" that will end up being the enhanced video portion of our soon-to-be-released CD. LMC is a show on FOX Friday nights at 2:00 AM that shows live rock, kinda like when MTV used to show vids. They also have a website (www.livemusicchannel.com) that shows music 24/7 that is gonna be the MTV of the net - we are psyched to be working with them because they support live music, and, hey, they did the TLC pay-per-view this month - and the URCH loves TLC.
  • March 9, 2000 - URCHIN FINISHED MASTERING THE EP TODAY!!!
    Mastering of our first 5 song EP for RCA records took place today at Sterling Sound in NYC. We were honored to have Greg Calbi master our cd for us, which is the final step in the recording process before actual pressing takes place. Look on the back of all your favorite cds for his name, he has mastered cds from The Beatles, John Lennon, and The Boss (Born To Run), all the way to The Deftones!! Unreal type shit. The CD came out great, watch the news section of the website for release updates.
  • March 7, 2000 - URCHIN FINISHED MIXING THE EP TODAY!!!
    The mixing was done by producers Dean Ween and Chris Shaw at Greene Street studios. Greene Street studios is like a hip-hop Hall of Fame - you go there and LL's BAD, PE's Takes A Nation, DMC's King of Rock, Slick Rick 1st album have all their gold records on the wall, pretty intense. The URCHIN sounds great on the speakers there and Chris and Deaner did an incredible job mixing. This shit is live.
  • March 5, 2000 - URCHIN FINISHES RECORDING OF FORTHCOMING EP!!!!
    The URCHIN boys proudly just finished the recording of the new 5 song EP!!! The music came out totally slamming and we can't wait for everyone to hear it and rock it on their home stereos, boom boxes and computer jammies. The EP was co-produced by the one and only Dean Ween and Chris Shaw - go look on any of your favorite albums for Chris' name, he engineered all the PE shit, just came off of doing the last Dylan single, and engineered the 1st Weezer album - and that is one of the best sounding rock albums - to name a few. We had a blast working with them and they got the band sounding totally crisp and massive. So you guys can get the flavor of the session, we put up a webpage of pics of us in the studio and pictures of us inventing a retarded game in the studio called "7", check out the hillarious studio shots here. Also, go to The Official Ween site at www.chocodog.com to see what those guys are up to - they are gonna release their new album, "White Pepper", on May 2nd and it sounds great!!
  • February 19, 2000 - URCHIN BUYS NEW EQUIPMENT TODAY!!!
    Today, the URCHIN boys went to the huge music store, Sam Ash, in Paramus, NJ, to spend some of its RCA dough to buy some brand new equipment. It was kind of like that Wheel of Fortune thing that they used to do, where you have credit and you go shopping with it and just point and buy (don't get me wrong, the URCHIN are very smart shoppers and did very well for their money by doing tons of comparison shopping leading up to this day). Tomato's childhood friend, George Rigney, drummer from the great band The Moths works at Sam Ash and was really helpful in coordinating the whole day. The boys drove away with a shitload of equipment and broke it all in at John & Peter's that night. Now, they just gotta sell some cds in order to pay RCA back for the glorious spree.
  • February 18, 2000 - URCHIN JOINS UP WITH BIG TIME BOOKING AGENT!!!
    URCHIN played a show tonight for Frank Riley, world famous Booking Agent, at The Lakeside Lounge in the East Village, NYC. The boys must have done something right because Frank is going join the URCHIN team and try to get the show on the road for the boys. Look for URCHIN tours this summer!!!
  • February 9, 2000 - URCHIN EP UPDATE!!!
    We are going to be hitting the studio for an extended period of time to record a new EP. It's gonna be great to bury ourselves in the studio thing and come out with a slammin' new recording of the band. I don't wanna give away the track list yet, or give away any surprises, but I can assure you that this EP is gonna be a crisp, fierce representation of the band as you know it today and will no doubt be something to rock the S out of your home stereos, car stereos, walkmen, or little computer jammies!! The next step in the URCHIN world project (aka Puddin'). Watch this spacefor more info!!!
  • January 2000 - NEW URCHIN SONGS???
    Tomato hits the 4-track to record demos to be in consideration for the upcoming EP. He says he has over two hours worth of songs in the works, and hopes to have enough finished to be worked into the 2000 URCHIN set, and to hopefully have some ready in time to be recorded for the first RCA release. Some working songs are called "Mr. Hanalei", "Let It Rain", and "Rock n' Roll Jubilee".
  • December 21, 2000 - RICKLES TO RETIRE!!!!
    Mr. Richard Rickles leaves the performing life behind and retires his tambouines!!! Long-time URCHIN tambourinest and dancer, Mr. Richard Rickles, has announced today that he will no longer be performing with the band, due to exhaustion caused by overexerrtion of and over-use of his body, causing accelerated stress on the joints and ligaments in his arms legs, and meta-carpals. We will miss him and wish him the best for his future.
  • December 16, 1999 - PROBABLY THE BIGGEST NEWS WE COULD EVER POST...

    THE SOUND OF URCHIN SIGNS WITH RCA RECORDS!!!!

    Hey guys, yesterday (Dec 15th) at 5:30 PM, we signed with the one and only RCA records... home of Elvis, Bowie, Foo Fighters, and even Lou Bega of Mambo #5 fame!!!! Soon the world will be able to join in the power of the URCHIN and we will be able to bring our music and live show to tons of new people. That's pretty cool, huh? We are so psyched to have this opportunity, something all of us in the band have been working for and dreaming about since we heard our first KISS album. And now we will be given the shot to bring our good vibe and hard rockin music to this ridiculous music scene that we all have to deal with these days. We think URCHIN will be a breath of fresh air to all music fans out there and we know we will have a blast bringin' that fresh air to all of the places we are gonna end up playing at. Thanks to all the fans and supporters that have stuck with us at every Baggot show and event over the past year and a half, you all know who you are. It may sound hokey, but we really couldn't have done it without you. And we will definitely be putting together a show/party in the beginning of the year to celebrate with our core supporters. Watch the website for info on that. So, thanks again... and won't it be funny to hear the masses Broccoli Rabe-ing??? It's not that far fetched now.

    Tomato, Cash (Doo Doo Brown), B-ILL, Choc, and Rickles

PRE-2000 URCHIN NEWS....

      
           
   
         

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