Hello. Welcome to my official home on the web! This is my space for posting news and thoughts, updates on my music and work with the band Dogstand and anything I find on the internet or even the real world (!) that I might want to share with you all. Check back regularly. I'll try my best to keep this up to date with photos and videos etc... Oh, and I also tweet regularly on Twitter @LeoVK Lx
Plenty of opportunities coming up to see your doggie-pals doing their thing!
SATURDAY 17th AUGUST
CRYSTAL PALACE GARDEN PARTY
Crystal Palace Park, South-East London
with THE BLOCKHEADS & more!
All day festival // Ticket prices vary // Doors open at 12pm.
http://www.crystalpalacegardenparty.com/
FRIDAY 30th AUGUST
DEAD OR ALIVE Promotions @ THE COMEDY presents...
The Comedy Pub, Leicester Square
with other acts TBC.
Tickets £6 or £5 with flyer // Doors open at 7:30pm.
http://www.deadoralive.org.uk/
FRIDAY 27th SEPTEMBER
TIGER FEET CLUB
Alley Cat, Denmark Street, London
with PENNY FOR THE WORKHOUSE and KING ZOOT.
Tickets £4.99 // Doors open at 8:00pm.
http://www.alleycatclub.co.uk/
Much to our dismay, we learnt from a handful of buyers of our brand new album "Wonky Love Songs" that iTunes were delivering faulty copies!! In these cases, a random quantity of tracks would play for about a minute before skipping to the next track.
Initially, we thought this was restricted to a few specific tracks but, after re-downloading a few times, it became apparent that different tracks were affected by the glitch each time. Totally erratic and illogical!
We hope that this problem will settle down eventually but, in the meantime, have a go at following these steps to get yourself a perfect copy of "Wonky Love Songs".
Make sure you follow this guide to avoid Apple trying to recharge you for downloads! If you re-download the tracks straight from the iTunes Store without following this system, they WILL recharge you!
iTunes Desktop Version (MAC/PC) Version 10.3 and upwards
1) Bring the Dogstand album up in your iTunes library. Identify which tracks have the "cut-short" glitch and delete them.
2) Click on the "iTunes Store" option on the left.
3) When the iTunes Store homepage loads up, click the "Purchased" option on the "Quick Links" menu to the right. Make sure you are logged in to your account before doing this.
4)A list will load up of all the artists of whom you have previously purchased music. Look for "Dogstand" in the list and click on it. A list should appear on the right of all the album songs with little icons of a cloud next to the songs you deleted. Click on the icon to download them afresh.
5)Once they have downloaded, look for the album in your library and play the freshly downloaded replacement tracks and...fingers crossed...hopefully they will have delivered you some bug-free copies this time!!
iTunes on iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad)
Make sure you are using an up-to-date version of iOS before doing this. Think it should work on versions 5.1+
1) Bring up the Dogstand album in your music library. Identify which tracks are faulty and swipe your finger across them to bring up the "delete" option. Delete them from your device.
2)Go to the "iTunes" app.
3)Depending on what version you are on, there will either be a button at the bottom called "Purchased", or it will be in the "More" section.
4)Find Dogstand on the list of artists and you should be able to bring up a list of the tracks you have deleted with the "cloud" icons next to them. Tap the cloud icons to redownload the tracks for free.
5)Once downloaded, go back to the album in your music library, have a listen and hopefully they'll play without a problem!
Can't guarantee that this method will necessarily work first time but it is the only fix that we can find at the moment. I have actually managed to download a completely glitch-free copy from iTunes so there's proof that it is actually possible (thankfully)!! :)
Many apologies (on behalf of whoever's fault it may be!) to all our dedicated fans and friends who bought the album early and were affected by the problem!
It seems a long time ago since I first teased you with the promise of the debut album from DOGSTAND being released. Well...finally it is here! A lot of time, sweat and love went into the album "Wonky Love Songs" and we're pretty happy with how it's turned out. We would love for you to check it out and hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording it. 1 minute previews of each track are available for the cautious buyer! ;)
The tracklisting is...
1) My Best Friend
2) Down To Nothing
3) Yal Fsnar Hevendnya Heem
4) The Assistant
5) Over You
6) I Feel Like Shit
7) The Hunter And The Hunted
8) It Was Lamentable in the Eighties
9) Between The Eyes
10) Mistake
11) Bleed
12) Selfish
You can CLICK HERE to launch iTunes and head straight to the album in the store.
Please help us spread the word and share news of the album through your social networks of choice (or by good old fashioned word of mouth!) or even write a review and rate it on iTunes if the mood takes you!
Also...you can catch us live this Saturday 4th August at the "Petts Woodstock" festival. We will be onstage at about 1:30pm and (I believe) playing on the outdoor stage. Hoping for sunny weather!! No doubt we will be playing at least a few songs off the album too so get learning the words. Find more info about how to get there at http://www.pettswoodstock.com/
Hope to see you there. Remember...sway your hips, sing out loudly and shout words of encouragement to the band.
Hi all. Long time no speak! Writing this at about 4:00am and 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, about four hours away from London Gatwick. Supposed to be sleeping right now but, as always, whenever I know that I really MUST sleep, the absolute opposite will happen. Why should I be sleeping? Well...to make a vague effort to try and avoid the inevitable jetlag, and also because I am playing a show with Dogstand in Dartford on the same evening I arrive back. Not only have I not rehearsed for two weeks (save for a modest amount of "plink-plonking" on my iPad Korg emulator), but I will also no doubt be falling asleep on my keyboards. Perhaps I should wear sunglasses for this gig to hide my bloodshot eyes? Could complete the look with a cigar held in my mouth as an homage to Jools Holland...? Would that be cool...?? Anyway...I ramble... Lots 'n' lots happening right now. Well..."lots" compared to what life is normally like. As I already mentioned I am playing with Dogstand this weekend, and we also have some dates coming up at The Windmill in Brixton (tickets at http://www.windmillbrixton.co.uk) and also another London venue which I can't really announce just yet, as I am waiting for the tedious formality of official confirmation...but one of my favourite venues in London which I am very excited at the prospect of playing at! According to our bassist, producer and general all-round creative and technological genius Si Keefe, the album "Wonky Love Songs" is now FINISHED. How long have we been saying that for? Hmm...probably about two or three years now. But it seems that this time he means it. Test CDs are being made and we should be heading towards a release soon! But if you are just itching to part with your cash in return for some Dogstand related music right now, pop along to iTunes and search for "The Valerie Brown EP" by Bum! , which has just been reissued and made available to buy again for the first time in nearly twenty years. Apart from being a really great little record, it's at the bargain price of £1.79 for all five tracks. Or...if that's really still too steep for you(!)...it's also available to stream for nada on Spotify. That's all for now. Going to close my eyes again and see if writing this blog has helped to tire me out at all. Don't forget to check out http://www.reverbnation.com/dogstand and http://www.facebook.com/dogstand to keep up with the latest news and hear the latest tunes etc... Take care. Lx
Dogstand - Live @ Hard Rock Cafe London on Tuesday 28th February
We did it!!
Thanks to all of your voting, and putting up with our (what felt like an endless) campaign, we have been given the opportunity to compete live at the Hard Rock Cafe in London against the other leading bands for a place at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park!
Needless to say, we are all extremely excited about this!
There are three dates on the 27th, 28th and 29th February. We are playing on Tuesday 28th. Each night, a winner will be picked to go through to ANOTHER Hard Rock gig on Tuesday 13th March and compete once again.
Even just to get this far is a great achievement and we are so thankful to all of you who took the time to vote and tell your friends.
Now we have another task for you...get yourselves down to the Hard Rock Cafe in London on the evening of the 28th February, have a drink, a dance and support Dogstand!! Tickets are only £3.00 and proceeds go to charity. Pretty nice!
It'll be quite a short set...just a handful of our carefully chosen, best songs...but there will be plenty of other bands playing as well.
Will be a great night and would be nice to say hello to some of you!
Fingers crossed we make it onto the NEXT stage as well!!
See you there.
Love Dogstand x
(Leo, Graeme, Carli, Paul, Si, Jimmy and Rob)
Dogstand competing in Hard Rock Rising 2012! We need your votes!!
Hi all!
We are currently doing pretty well in this competition, but it could quickly change as voting doesn't end until 6th February. The prize is a chance to play at Hard Rock London and compete for a place at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park!
But we need your help!!
All you need to do is follow these simple steps...
STEP 1 - Go to this site - http://www.facebook.com/hardrockcafelondon?sk=app_205164529573076
STEP 2 - "Like" the page by clicking the button at the top.
STEP 3 - Scroll down to the Hard Rock Rising app and "Sort by Downloads"
STEP 4 - Download the song "Here Comes Devil Dog" by Dogstand.
We are currently quite near the top of the download list but, if we don't get enough, we will start to drop down the list (which is bad!!). You are rewarded with a free MP3 of the song for your good deed!
This little task would mean a great deal to us! :)
A great new single called Boo Shuffle from The Pipettes. Bit of a return to their polka-dot roots which made their name around about 2007ish. Ani, the lead singer on this song, did the artwork for my single some months back and helped to promote it a bit so here's returning the favour! Incidentally...apparently this song is named after Ani's late-hamster! It's also dedicated to producer Martin Rushent who passed away earlier this year, and features his daughter Amy at the piano.
Hi all! Thought it was about time that I made a new post. It's been too long. Last time was when I put out my song "No Fun Without You"...which currently has over 1,600 views on YouTube...by far the most people who have ever listened to one of my songs I'm sure. Most of those views are thanks to my ol' pal Jim Sterling of Destructoid.com pulling a few strings to get the video put up on his website's main page for a few hours, which helped no end! Slightly embarrassing really that so many people have watched a video of me in front of a wall, prancing about and pretending to sing! Anyway, since then I have been keeping up with my "day job" and rehearsing lots with my band Dogstand. We now think that we have practised enough songs to confidently play a full set so, hopefully within the next couple of months, we will be playing our first gigs since about 2006/7ish! Blimey! When our amazing comeback spectacular is announced you will all be the first to know and I'll make sure it is all over my Facebook page and Twitter. Hopefully some of you will be able to get down to see us and would be nice to say hello to some of you as well. I'll be the guy behind the tower of keyboards, peeping out at the audience from behind a stylophone. More than likely that 9 out of 10 of our gigs will be in the London(ish) area. Also, the gigs will probably coincide with the release of our album "Wonky Love Songs" which has been in the making for a long time now. I currently have the full mastered album (sans one song) in my possession and am desperate to share it with you all. We are very pleased with it and hope that you will enjoy listening to it just as much. The tracklisting will be (subject to change)... 1. My Best Friend 2. Down To Nothing 3. Yal Fsnar Hevendnya Heem 4. The Assistant 5. Over You 6. I Feel Like Shit 7. Hunter And The Hunted 8. Lamentable In The Eighties 9. Between The Eyes 10. So You Made A Mistake 11. Bleed ...plus a little bonus or two if there is room on the disc, so I've been told. Some of those song titles may mean something to some of you already. In fact, some of the songs (albeit in unfinished mix form) are already available to hear at Dogstand's ReverbNation page. That's about all for the time being I think. So nearly there now that we can taste it, and hopefully on the verge of a very exciting new year! Hope you are all well! Stay in touch...Twitter and the like. Lx
My new single is now available to download from the iTunes Store worldwide!
Click the "No Fun Without You - Single" link above to find out more info, download exclusive artwork for the single by Ani Saunders of The Pipettes and watch the music video!
Here is the brilliant 'official' artwork for my new single by the very talented Ani Saunders (of The Pipettes fame). Unfortunately, I had to submit the single to the distributors before the art was ready, so it won't appear in the iTunes store but I will provide a full resolution image of the artwork on this site from Monday so that you can all download it for yourselves and then associate it with the song in your iTunes libraries and so on.
If you like Ani's work then please pop along to her website at http://www.thelovelywars.com/ and check out her portfolio and blog.
Remember, the single is out on Monday 4th July through the iTunes Store, Amazon and other download sites!
"No Fun Without You" - OFFICIAL VIDEO - (Out July '11)
Here it is all. My first "proper" music video. Hope you enjoy it. Release date yet to be confirmed but it will be available at some point in July. Will keep you updated!
Website hasn't been updated for a couple of weeks, so just breaking the silence.
Rehearsals for Dogstand are going well. Got next week off as some of the band are visiting Glastonbury to watch some kind of little music festival that is happening. Haven't heard of it before...think it's quite new. Sadly, due to funds, I'm staying at home. Boo!
Well on the road to playing live again though. Have submitted a few tracks to BBC Introducing to see if there is any interest there as well. I'd be interested to know just how many submissions that website receives actually...just to know what the odds are of actually getting airplay! Obviously, as soon as we have some gig dates, you will all be the first to know.
Just finished a new Leo VK music video. And not one that has been cobbled together from various bits of old YouTube footage for once. It's all 100% original footage, shot in glorious high-definition widescreen! Wow. Am pretty pleased with how it has turned out, especially for a video made on a budget of £0.00. A bit of discipline and video editing know-how has made it look vaguely crisp and professional, so I am looking forward to sharing that with you all.
New single is almost ready to be submitted to iTunes. Waiting for the artwork to be finished to accompany it and then I'll have a date for you all...and I'll also publish the music video prior to that date, so that there is time for all you lovely people to bother your friends with links to it on Facebook, Twitter et al! ;)
Think that's all. Hope you are all good. Bless your cottons!
DOGSTAND 2011 : The first photo taken of the entire line-up! A rare treat. This was taken outside the rehearsal studios last Friday...hoping to play live sometime very soon. L-R : Leo VK, Jimmy Martin, Carli Dogstand, Si Keefe, Rob Lewis, Graeme Martin and Paul Langford.
