Once again, we can hardly believe the attention we are getting as MySpace user Silver Wings apparently likes Champagne Socialist enough to embed it in his profile, here:

http://www.myspace.com/the_silverwings

However, more to the point, the very same person also makes his own music, so we implore you to lend his songs a listening ear as well:

http://www.myspace.com/guitarslacker

These were apparently recorded on a fairly limited hardware multitracker, which REALLY impressed us when we found out.

Many, many thanks and warm fuzzy feelings all round, I think!

Our first album ended with a bit of an epic, and this time we open with one. Dan loves the ancient Romans – he reads about them, watches films and documentaries, plays videogames based around that time… and now he’s written a song about the rise and fall of an Emperor, sung from his point of view.

You can click here to listen to the demo (right-click to download):

http://www.thehomeguard.info/demos/Year_Zero_Demo_16-4-08.mp3

As you can tell, this is in edited form, but the essential body of the song is presented here. There’s going to be a slow, soft, prog rock-style intro before the main song crashes in, and the demo stops just before a proposed flute solo. After a build-up section, the main verse/chorus will return, before a slow ending reflecting the intro.

Please excuse the half-baked production, and bear in mind that some parts are guides rather than the finished takes. Not to mention that we haven’t recorded any final vocals yet either. However, this should give you a taste of what to expect

Don’t forget our other demos are still up for your listening pleasure:

http://www.thehomeguard.info/demos/03_Pseudonym_Demo_27-3-08.mp3

http://www.thehomeguard.info/demos/06_One_for_the_Road_Demo_27-3-08.mp3

Please let us know what you think!

We’re pleased to announce that our music has now popped up on Rhapsody. You can visit our page here:

http://www.rhapsody.com/thehomeguard

We have absolutely no idea whether everything’s working properly or not as you have to be in the US to access anything on the site. So if any of our Stateside fans wouldn’t mind checking and letting us know…

We’ve managed to pass 200 friends and 3000 plays, coincidentally on the same day.

Put like that, it doesn’t seem like a great ratio, but when you consider that we don’t actually SEND any Friend Request – except to those that say something nice about our music elsewhere – we’re very proud of the achievement.

(It’s certainly better than having 1000 friends and only 30 plays, as some bands seem to have.)

Also, we’ve conquered the world. By which we mean that our TweakYourPage.com World Visitor Map shows that we’ve been viewed by someone on all inhabited continents (Antarctica not included).

Rather humbling for a little band like us!

Major “thank you”s in the direction of MySpace user spencer for embedding our song Champagne Socialist into his profile.

His page is here, though it’s automatically set to “private” as he’s under 16:

http://www.myspace.com/spencedickulas

A few of our fans have commented on our artwork, and it’s been mostly positive feedback received. For those of you with mp3 players capable of showing photos, we created sleeves for all of our songs, and we’ve finally uploaded all of them to our MySpace gallery.

This link may or may not take you there:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID=277150713

Feel free to download them and use as you see fit.

All the photos were taken in a village named Wansford, which is just a short train journey from Peterborough. The station, a location we’ve used extensively, also features in the James Bond film Octopussy, while the train line is referred to as the Nene Valley Railway, which was where Queen filmed their video for the song Breakthru.

Let us know what you think (come on – help us make this website look lived-in!) by leaving a comment or signing our guestbook.