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Gentlemen and ladies, we have a new record out this week available only on limited edition 12" vinyl at Burning Hell shows and digitally at our hero store Zunior.com. Hurrah!

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Good people of Earth, it is going to be a busy year for us on the road. In one form or another, The Burning Hell will be visiting hamlets, towns and metropolises across Canada and Europe. Here are the dates so far, and more are being added all the time, so check back often. Summer festival dates will be posted soon too. And hey, if you're around, stop by at a show for a chat. We'd love to see you.

THROUGH THE MARITIMES w/ SHOTGUN JIMMIE and CONSTRUCTION & DESTRUCTION:

February 25 - Saint John NB @ Jaco's Bar & Grill
February 26 - Fredericton NB @ The Capitol
February 27 - Halifax NS @ Gus' Pub
February 28 - Sackville BS @ The Legion
March 2 - Charlottwtown PEI @ Ampersand (early show)
March 2 - Charlottetown PEI @ Baba's Lounge
March 3 - Sydney NS @ 43 Amelia
March 4 - St John's NL @ 65 Prescott
March 5 - St John's NL @ The Ship
March 6 - St John's NL @ The Ship
March 7 - St John's NL @ CBTGs

THE HEAR SOME EVIL WESTERN TOUR w/ WAX MANNEQUIN:

March 10 - Hamilton ON @ This Ain't Hollywood
March 11 - Peterborough ON @ The Red Dog
March 12 - Sudbury ON @ The Townehouse
March 13 - Thunder Bay ON @ Black Pirates Pub
March 15 - Bruno SK @ All Citizens
March 16 - Edmonton AB @ Empress Ale House
March 18 - Vancouver BC @ The Railway Club
March 19 - Hornby Island, BC@ Joking Ballpark
March 20 - Victoria BC @ Logan's
March 21 - Courtenay BC @ Joe's Garage
March 22 - Nanaimo BC @ Queen's Hotel
March 23 - Kelowna BC @ Habitat
March 24 - Penticton BC @ Voodoo's
March 26 - Cranbrook BC @ Finnegan's Wake
March 27 - Nelson BC @ The Royal
March 28 - Ymir BC @ The Schoolhouse
March 30 - Medicine Hat AB - The Ottoman Lounge
March 31 - Lethbridge AB - The Slice
April 1 - Calgary AB @ The Palomino
April 2 - Regina SK @ The Exchange
April 3 - Winnipeg MB @ Lo Pub

EUROPE w/ SHOTGUN JIMMIE and CONSTRUCTION & DESTRUCTION:

April 6 - Berlin, Germany @ Madame Claude
April 7 & 8 - Prague, Czech Republic @ Brick Bar
April 9 - Brno, Czech Republic @ Sklenena Louka
April 10 - Bratislava, Slovak Republic @ Klub Za Zrkadlom
April 11 - Vienna, Austria @ Rhiz
April 12 - Novi Sad, Serbia @ The Black House
April 13 - Maribor, Slovenia @ Gustaf-Pekarna
April 14 - Faenza, Italy @ Clandestino
April 15 - Ferrara, Italy @ Zuni
April 16 - Arceto, Italy @ La Salumeria Del Rock
April 17 - Recanati, Italy @ Extramante
April 18 - Giussago, Italy @ Ortosonico
April 19 - Bern, Switzerland @ Ortosonico
April 20 - Zurich, Switzerland @ Binz
April 22 - Cologne, Germany @ King Georg
April 23 - Frankfurt, Germany @ Ponyhof
April 24 - Saarbrucken, Germany @ Sparte4
April 25 - Stuttgart, Germany @ Galao (matinee show)
April 28 - Kassel, Germany @ Arm Aber Okay
April 29 - Berlin, Germany @ Schokoladen
April 30 - Hamburg, Germany @ Hasenschaukel
May 2 - Darmstadt, Germany @ Gute Stube
May 3 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Kavka
May 4 - Ghent, Belgium @ Villa Drashhoek
May 5 - Castrop-Rauxel, Germany @ Bahia de Cochinos
May 7 - Gdynia, Poland @ Rockz Club
May 8 - Bydgosczcz, Poland @ Mogz
May 9 - Katowice, Poland @ Cogitatur
May 11 - Gorlitz, Germany @ Stille Post Pub
May 13 - Dresden, Germany @ Ostpol
May 15 - Leipzig, Germany @ Schlechtes Versteck
May 17 - Rostock, Germany @ Cafe Momo
May 18 - Potsdam, Germany @ Waschhaus
May 19 - Mainz, Germany @ Heiliger Aal
May 20 - Metz, France @ Emile Vache
May 21 - Agneaux, France @ V&B
May 22 - Royère de Vassivière, France @ L'Atelier
May 23 - Marseille, France @ Le Lounge
May 26 - Toulouse, France @ Le Saint Des Seins
May 30 - L'estartit (Girona), Spain @ Sala Mariscal
June 1 - Nantes, France @ Spoutnik Bar
June 2 - Rennes, France @ Le Sambre
June 3 - Paris, France @ Pop-In
June 4 - Karlsruhe, Germany @ Bento Bar
June 10 - Oslo, Norway @ Manefisken
June 11 - Oslo, Norway @ Mir
June 13 - Oslo, Norway @ Sound Of Mu

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A naughty little website that has no ideas of its own has been spamming our blog page quite a bit lately. Dear douchebags: your accounts have all been deleted, as has all your punk-ass spam content. So there.

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For the five of you that have ever actually read this blog, you might notice that J. Andrew Magoffin is the very first person without a strong Peterborough connection ever inducted to the 'Heroes' section. But it is highly probable that most of you already know who he is: his work as a songwriter and musician with the Two Minute Miracles and Raised By Swans, among others, is well-known, and his credits as a producer and engineer run into the zillions and bazillions (if you've listened to an album by a great Canadian independent band in the last ten years, chances are Andy was a part of that recording - Great Lake Swimmers, Jim Guthrie, Wax Mannequin, anyone?)...

But right now, while I'm at the House of Miracles mixing the new Spring Breakup record, Andy Magoffin is my personal hero because within the span of an hour and a half he found the perfect Bogan spring reverb for my somewhat hokey country tune, made a to-die-for bacon and cheese tortellini, AND forced me to jog to last call at The Brass Door for a pitcher of 50 and shots of JD after another 12-hour day. Andy has the best pair of ears set on top of the best personality in what passes for what we call 'the business'. In the gaps between the takes of various Burning Hell and Spring Breakup songs, I've been one of the lucky ones to benefit from Andy's great taste in music, youtube videos, bourbon, rodent pets, beards, London cover bands and overall sense of fun in the studio. Not to get all promotional on your ass, but if you happen to be a songwriter or band that needs an engineer or producer with both mad skills and an excellent bedside manner (as they used to say back in the golden days of home visits and rampant tuberculosis), look no further than Andy Magoffin and his House of Miracles. Whew!

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We had the most fabulous weekend just now with our friends The Withering Pines. The show in Kingston went really well, and even my mom and dad liked it. But the highlight was Sunday afternoon at the Black Sheep Inn, with a never-before-seen version of The Burning Hell, including Ariel Sharratt on clarinet and saxophone, Guilhem Loustalot-Forest on banjo and homemade slide guitar, Cory Lance on tiny drum-kit, and the amazing Brian Sanderson on trombone and viola. And the highlight of all of that, for me anyway, was a duet of our song The Berlin Conference that I did with Sharky (see photo), who is probably my favourite person to sing duets with ever. She knew all the words and she owned the stage with confidence. The rest of the band was a little bit unwilling to get back up on stage after the duet, since they all felt that they weren't really needed anymore. Hooray for Sharky! And thanks to Rick Bond for the photo.

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We have big plans for 2010 and we want you to know about them:

1) Touring! The very first show of the New Year is in Kingston, Ontario, which was briefly the chief seat of Canadian power, way back when, and was also the host city for the partial raising of Burning Hell members Jill Staveley and Crab Head. This may or may not be auspicious. In February and March strange and wonderful versions of the band are traveling across the country, from East to West and back again, somehow skipping Toronto and Montreal entirely. Oops. But then we're off to Serbia! For real! And also many other European countries. In fact, we'll be there for nearly three months with Construction & Destruction and Shotgun Jimmie, so if you are a European person, chances are we will be playing at a castle or other historic monument near you. Or a bar. Keep your eye on our tour dates and we'll see you there.

2) New recordings galore! One of my New Year's resolutions was to release as many recordings as I can in 2010, beginning with "This Charmed Life", a ukulele-cello-electronics project that is coming out only on limited edition vinyl (with a free download) in March. Other strange things are afoot, including a possible cover album of a certain Disney masterpiece, a duets album in two completely different languages, and a few cassette-only releases of country songs and classic industrial music covers. And maybe even a 'normal' album in there somewhere.

3) "Happier and nicer!" I put this in quotes because they were some of the first words I spoke on January 1, 2010. Given my condition, I can't actually be sure of what I meant. But I think I meant to say "I am going to be happier and nicer this year", and despite the poor sentence structure of the original, it still counts as a resolution. So if you see me in 2010, and I am not happy or nice, I want you to take me to task. After all, resolutions are hard to keep and sometimes we need friends and strangers to help us enforce them.

Happy Holidays from The Burning Hell. Insert smiley holiday emoticon here.

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Do you know who this person is? You should. His name is Ian Osborn, and he's one of the coolest, bad-assest people ever. And he's a really, really nice guy. As the bass player in the best garage rock band the world has ever seen, The Diplomats, Ian has been laying it down and keeping it mean for years alongside co-Diplomats Patrick Walsh and Jill Staveley. As a sound engineer Ian has won acclaim for his work with bands like Blue Rodeo and just about everyone who has played or recorded music in Peterborough in the last twenty years, including Dave Tough, The Silver Hearts, Jill Staveley and us too. But no matter how good he is at playing his own music or making other bands sound great, it's as a keystone of the downtown Peterborough community that Ian is best known; as chief brain behind Backlash Records and Red Menace Records, and co-chief-brain of the late great Peterborough Arts Umbrella, Ian has donated thousands of hours of his time and resources to local artists, and his generosity and talent are two big reasons why Peterborough has had such a great arts scene over the last couple decades. So if you meet Ian, and you like the whole thing in Peterborough these days, thank him for his encouragement and patience. And don't be scared - he only looks mean.

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Hooray and hurrah, we're in Europe again! If you are of the European persuasion, please come and see us at a quaint village or bustling modern capital near you:

Sept 17 - Berlin @ Cafe Zapata
Sept 18 & 19 - Dresden @ Weinfest Radebeul
Sept 20 - Brno @ Cafe Beng
Sept 21 & 22 - Prague @ Bricks Bar
Sept 23 - Cologne @ Limes
Sept 24 - Dudelange @ Why Not
Sept 25 - Frankfurt @ Cafe Stilbruch
Sept 26 - Saarbrucken @ Wohnzimmer
Sept 28 - Rotterdam @ Voigt
Sept 30 - Berlin @ West Germany
Oct 3 - Copenhagen @ Lades
Oct 4 - Oslo @ Sound of Mu
Oct 7 - Oslo @ Mir

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Another person that deserves to be famous - the bathing in crystal bathtubs and eating money kind of famous - is Brian Sanderson of Rupert/Wakefield, Quebec, formerly of Peterborough Ontario. Best known to hipsters and media types as the viola & sousaphone player for The Silver Hearts, Brian is nonetheless much more than the sum of the Hearts. He has released many, many recordings of his own, all of which demonstrate his mastery of every instrument he touches, not to mention his original and eccentric songwriting wizardry. But that is only one slice of the Sanderson pie: he is also a co-founder and instrumental mover and shaker in the various Radio Free Network projects (http://radiofreenetwork.ca/), as well as the official archivist of the Bernie Martin song catalogue, an excellent father of two, and an all around great fella. You can find Brian hanging out from time to time in the Wakefield area, but start your stalking with a purchase of his album L'apostrophe from the good people at Zunior: http://www.zunior.com/product_info.php?cPath=192_198_84&products_id=112&...

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Results are in: our careful studies have demonstrated that Sappyfest really is the best fest - Sappy 2008 was no accident, and we had even more fun this year, which scientists had previously shown was impossible! What does science know, anyway? Personal highlights for yours truly included the always fantastic Construction & Destruction, Jon Rae Fletcher, Snailhouse, The Magic and of course Destroyer and Calvin Johnson - but then, every single set I saw (and I saw a lot with these tired eyes) was amazing. On a social level I also enjoyed the impromptu Sunday night post-Magic street shenanigans, meeting the fabulous Justin Haynes (who I hugged repeatedly and who gifted me with a magical stick) and personally planning a crazy dance party on Charlotte that I didn't even manage to attend. Kudos to Team Sappy for being superhuman and once again prompting me to sing that old gospel song: "I've had the time of my life, and I never felt this way before. Oh I swear, I swear that it's true - and I owe it all to you."