News

We are on hiatus until the spring, but you can hear us on the internet. First, the Surf Guitar 101 Podcast #4 features the second part of Ivan and Dane’s interview (conducted in Hermosa Beach on the night of the Surf Guitar 101 convention in early August) – in addition to all sorts of killer surf music (mostly from the sixties this time around). You can download the episode here and check out some comments about it here.

We also found out a few days ago that the song “Carpe Noctem” was selected the Record of the Week on “El Sótano” (“The Cellar”), an hour-long weekly surf/garage/frat show on Spanish National Radio! They also played “Wreak Havoc!” and “SOS (Stomp on Stomp)” and talked about the band (in Spanish, of course!), the Double Crown label and our labelmates the Surfites. Check it out! (If the streamed signal doesn’t work very well, you can download the entire episode by clicking on the green Descargar button.)

Enjoy and see you in the spring!

-- The Madeira

Two members of the Madeira have been keeping busy over the past few months with some outside activities that we’d like to tell you about.

Ivan is a guest guitarist on the track “Magyara” by Frankie & the Pool Boys, a new CD masterminded by Ferenc Dobronyi of Pollo Del Mar, now out on Double Crown Records. Ferenc recorded this CD during the recent Pollo Del Mar break with the help of a bunch of friends, including Dusty Watson (Slacktone, Agent Orange, Dick Dale, Jon & the Nightriders), Dave Wronski (Slacktone, Jon & the Nightriders), Shigeo Naka (the Surf Coasters), Danny Snyder (the TomorrowMen, Meshugga Beach Party) and more. It is a simply remarkable album, but don’t take our word for it – check out some of the songs, including “Magyara,” here (And make sure you take a look at the two videos on the site, especially “Ewa on the Beach” which is HIGHLY recommended, both the song AND the video! :) )

Ivan also wrote a lengthy feature for the new Continental zine (issue #15) on Dick Dale. It is an in-depth review of the recent Sundazed reissues of Dale’s sixties’ albums, complete with the historical background on each album. Read a bit more about it and order here.

Patrick has been extremely productive as singer, guitarist and primary songwriter with his other band the Shake Ups, who will be releasing their second CD, “Breathing the Flood”, next week. They’ll be following it up with a bunch of shows in the SoCal area. The Shake Ups play super-catchy power-pop, and you can hear two phenomenal tracks from the new album (and see more about their upcoming live dates) on their myspace site.

We hope you pick up all the above releases and enjoy them – we give them all Eight Thumbs Up (which only requires four hands from the Carpe Noctem cover)!

-- The Madeira

Hello all!

We very much hope you’re enjoying the summer. We wanted to update you on all the recent and upcoming activities in the Madeira camp.

First of all, our short SoCal tour was an unqualified success!! We played San Diego, Hermosa Beach and Huntington Beach between August 1st and 3rd, and each show was better than the previous one – and together they are probably the highlight of our four years together. You can go here to read some comments posted on the Surf Guitar 101 forum by various witnesses (we compiled the comments about the Madeira only, since the original forum thread is currently up to 15 pages!) . You can also see photos from all three shows here. It was great to see so many old friends, make several new ones and play with MANY amazing surf bands (including Pollo del Mar, Slacktone, the Secret Samurai, and many, many others)! In particular we must thank Ryan Ruiz of the Secret Samurai for going way above and beyond the call of duty helping us set up the San Diego show, make available his band’s practice space AND provide his band’s gear to us; also, Ferenc Dobronyi of Pollo del Mar and Frankie & the Pool Boys for helping with all three shows. We should also recognize the amazing work done by Jeff “Big Tiki Dude” for the Surf Guitar 101 Convention on Saturday at Suzie’s in Hermosa Beach, which was an unforgettable, even legendary, event and one that made our whole trip so much more special! Finally, we would like to thank Linda Miller of the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum for adding us to the Sunday’s lineup and providing an opportunity to play our probably most memorable show to date (and also lining up some incredible amps, owned by Matt Quilter of the Reventlos, and drums for us). Playing right in front of the Huntington Beach Pier, next to the beach, close to where it all began for surf music, on a perfect day – well, it doesn’t really get any better than that. (Please at the very least take a look at the Huntington Beach photos to get some idea of the weekend we had!) We certainly hope we can do all this again next year.

Second, we are THRILLED to announce that we will be in the upcoming surf music documentary called “Sound of the Surf”. This is a fully professional production with highly active involvement by legendary guitarist and surf music historian John Blair (Jon & the Nightriders). We were recorded performing seven songs in hi-def with multiple cameras and multitrack audio in a controlled studio environment the Monday after our SoCal shows. We also did a lengthy on-camera interview with two of the founders of surf music, Eddie Bertrand (Eddie & the Showmen, the Belairs) and Paul Johnson (the Belairs, the Surfaris), as well as John Blair, to be included in the movie. That was quite surreal and pretty incredible. The movie is scheduled to be released in the Spring or Summer of ‘09, so we’ll all have to be patient (the plan right now is to market it heavily, including advertising on network TV, and hopefully a theatrical release before the film comes out on DVD, too). We would like to extend our deep thanks to producer/director Tom Duncan, John Blair and Tim Ferrill for including us in this film, which we expect will drastically raise the profile of the entire genre – and may in fact launch it to heights previously unseen! (Incidentally, one of the more remarkable experiences of our SoCal trip was having Eddie “Squad Car” Bertrand singing our praises – even on camera – and taking a keen interest in making us look good during the video shoot! Absolutely remarkable. One could call it a dream-come-true, but who’d ever dare dream of something so completely fantastical! See some photos from the taping here.)

Finally, we are not done yet for the year. We will be headlining “Surf Explosion 2” on Friday, September 19th, in Cincinnati, OH, for which we will be joined by our good friends the Surge (Atlanta, GA) as well as Don’t Fear the Reverb (Cincinnati, OH). The most amazing thing about this show is that it will be held in the historical Memorial Hall which seats 610 people, and it will be vigorously marketed far and wide, including bringing big-name sponsors on board. This will be by far the biggest show we have played yet, and we expect it to be very special. We hope many of you that are not in Cincinnati but within driving distance will consider making the trek to be there – we think you’ll find it worthwhile. The promoters of the show are also aiming to increase the public awareness of modern surf music to the point where they can hold larger surf music events several times a year – and we think you will all agree that this is a VERY worthy goal! (We also hope to play a show in Chicago the following day, Saturday, September 20th, with the Cocktail Preachers and Roger & the Wraybands. We already booked a venue but just a few days ago found out out of the blue that it is closing down permanently, so we are now looking for an alternative location. We hope we can find something – please keep an eye out on our Gigs page for any updates on that.)

That’s it – whew! Lots going on. Thanks for reading this far, and we hope you have been enjoying “Carpe Noctem” for the last couple of months (and if not, you clearly haven’t gotten it yet – so, what are you waiting for?? :). We also hope to see some of you in Cincinnati and maybe in Chicago.

Best regards,
Ivan, Patrick, Todd, Dane
The Madeira

Hello all:

The brand new Surfguitar101.com podcast features a 15-minute interview with Ivan, Dane and Todd (conducted just over two weeks ago in SoCal as part of the Surf Guitar 101 Convention), two songs from our new CD “Carpe Noctem,” as well as an additional hour of some amazing surf music from around the world! (The second part of our interview will appear in the next podcast, in about a month.) As you’ll hear, we had a really good day – and show – before the interview and were in a happy and relaxed mood! Huge thanks go to Danny Snyder (the TomorrowMen, Meshugga Beach Party, Pollo del Mar) for doing such a wonderful job with the interview, and to Lady Reverb for hosting a great show and including us in it!

The podcast can be found here. It is also downloadable direct from iTunes for free – just search within iTunes for surfguitar101.com and download episode 3.

We hope you enjoy it.
The Madeira

-- The Madeira

Our new CD Carpe Noctem has been officially out for about three weeks, and the initial feedback and informal reviews are all extremely good! See several of them at Surf Guitar 101.

For Carpe Noctem ordering information, please surf on over to Double Crown. The CD is also now available through CD Baby and for download only through Amazon – for only $8.99!! Two tracks from the album, “The Saracen” and “Undercurrents,” are available for your listening pleasure on our Myspace page, and or you can download them at our new official website at themadeira.net on the Songs page.

In order to get more people hip to the greatness of Carpe Noctem :) , we will be playing the CD release show at the Melody Inn this Friday, June 27th. We’ll be featuring a ton of songs off the new album, which we’ll have for sale (as well as the new t-shirts). Come out and have yourself a great time! (The plan is that we’ll go on third, but this is subject to change).

CD RELEASE SHOW
FRIDAY, JUNE 27th @ THE MELODY INN
(3826 N. Illinois Street, Indianapolis, IN)
w/ATOMIC BOMBAY, RECKLESS EDWARD, THE MELISMATICS
21+ 9:30 p.m.

Our East Coast mini-tour was a total blast and a defnite success! We played to many enthusuiastic surf music fans, and bonded with several fantastic East Coast surf bands. See Ivan’s (lengthy!) report here.
You can also find some show reviews (and photos) by other folks here, here, here (this one has a bunch of pics), and here.

There are also a few videos from our East Coast trek on YouTube now:

• The Saracen in Washington, DC
• Undercurrents in Asbury Park
• Planet of the Apes (partial) in NYC (this last one is a sampler of the Ninth Wave, the Atomic Mosquitos, us and the Coffin Daggers)

We hope to see many of you at the Mel on Friday. After that we’ll start getting ready for our trip to SoCal in early August, which should be amazing!

-- The Madeira

Here we go – our second full-length album “Carpe Noctem” will be officially released on Tuesday, May 27th! It will be initially available exclusively through Double Crown Mail Order (dblcrown.com) – and soon after that you’ll be able to find it pretty much everywhere. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get this CD out and we very much hope you will like what you hear – we love it!

We also hope you like our new website: themadeira.net. At the moment it looks very similar to our old one, but it’s got a lot more bells and whistles that we will take advantage of in the future. The best thing is that there is new content: two new downloadable songs from “Carpe Noctem”; great photos from our March Indy show; a new t-shirt now available for purchase; and complete information for all our upcoming summer shows (plus some nifty fliers!).

Speaking of shows, our East Coast trek is in only six days! Washington, DC, Asbury Park, NJ and New York, NY, joined by some of the finest surf bands around today (see Shows for all the details). It’s our first time playing on the East Coast as a band, and we can’t wait. The bonus for those that come to the gigs is that we expect to have advance copies of “Carpe Noctem” available for sale – you can be among the first people in the world to have the new Madeira CD! Looking beyond this short tour, we will have an Indy CD release show in late June, and then we return to SoCal for a whirlwind three-day tour in early August. Lots of activity ahead (by our standards, anyway!), and we sincerely hope to see many of you during all these travels.

Have a great summer, and enjoy our new CD!

-- The Madeira

Hello all!

We’ve been very quiet for quite a few months now, but that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening! In fact, A LOT has been happening.

First, some good news: the Madeira is featured in the April issue of Guitar Player magazine in a column “MySpace Hordes” where editor-in-chief Michael Molenda picks his favorite eight MySpace artists every month. He gave the song “Cordoba” a very nice (albeit short) review – see the Press page.

Second, our new CD is almost done!!! It will be titled “Carpe Noctem”, and it will be coming out on Double Crown Records in June. We recorded it between Christmas and New Year’s, and we are just waiting for our engineer to mix it (the mixing will begin in about a week or two). We are very excited about it, and think it’s even better than “Sandstorm”! It’s definitely a more diverse album. The few people that have heard the songs (rough mixes) have been very enthusiastic about them (thanks, Mom & Dad! :). We’ll be putting up a couple of new tracks on our websites as soon as they’re mixed and mastered – so probably in mid-to-late-April. For the moment check out the front cover of the album on the front page of the site and take a listen to an album preview, featuring a mix of snippets of the album songs – we hope you like what you see and hear!

Third, after a pretty slow ‘07, we have much more live activity planned for ‘08. We begin with an Indy show on March 28th, then follow that in late May with a 3-day tour East Coast tour (Washington, DC, New Jersey or Maryland, and New York). Then in early August we hit Southern California again for three shows (San Diego, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach). Go to the Shows page on the site for further details. We’ll be joined by many fantastic surf bands for all these shows, including the Cocktail Preachers, the Coffin Daggers, the Atomic Mosquitos, Pollo del Mar, Secret Samurai, the Detonators, the Aquasonics, the Insect Surfers, and many more. It’s gonna be FUN!!! We hope to add a few more local shows throughout the year, so keep an eye on our gig page, and we hope to see you at one of these gigs this year!

That’s it! Thanks for supporting our band, and have a great Spring!

-- Ivan

Great news!! Pipeline Instrumental Magazine Review #73 (Spring ‘07) chose “Sandstorm” as one of the three runner-ups for their Album of the Year 2006 award! (The winning CD was “Sonic Traveller” by the veteran instrumental rockers duo Shig & Buzz, and the other two runner-ups were by the long-running Spanish Euro-instro band Los Jets and the younger Spanish surf band The Long Boards.) Given that Pipeline reviewed over 200 surf and instrumental rock CDs in 2006, many of which are excellent, we consider it an honor to be near the very top of that large heap. A BIG thanks, Pipeline!!!

-- Ivan

We hope you're enjoying your summer. Things have been a bit quiet in the Madeira camp lately. Three reasons for that: 1) we're all keeping quite busy this summer, 2) Patrick is not as easily available anymore, and most importantly 3) we're working very hard on the songs for the next album. We have all the songs for the CD at this point (13 in total), and the recording session is booked for December. We're very excited about the new material and feel that the next CD should be a worthy follow-up to "Sandstorm". The best news; you don't have to wait until 2008 to hear the new songs! Read on...

This Saturday, August 11th, we will be returning to Columbus, Ohio for HOT ROD HULA HOP III, held again at Largo's Tavern (see our shows page). There will be vintage cars and, obviously, hot rods aplenty, many 'tiki' vendors, a burlesque show, and most importantly, a LOT of music! We will be joined by six other bands, including two other surf bands (the Coffin Daggers and Daikaiju) and various other exotica, rockabilly and garage acts. We got the prime spot this year, 9:45-10:30 pm, and our setlist will be heavy on the songs from our forthcoming album, many of them getting only their second live airing, and one or two being played live for the first time. It's gonna be a GREAT time, and we very much hope you can join us.

This will probably be our last show of the year, as we'll be concentrating on getting the new material ready for the recording. But we hope to be doing a lot more next year once the next album is out.

We hope to see you this Saturday, and thanks for all your support!

-- Ivan

We have some good news and some not so good. First of all, the good news: the Madeira will be playing in Indy again this SATURDAY, MARCH 10th at MO'S LOADING DOCK. And it will be a special show due to two factors, one of them being the unveiling of SIX new songs (two of which are covers) destined for our second full-length album. (That's in addition to "Surf Fidelis" and "The Saracen," two post-Sandstorm original songs we have been performing for some time now, and which you will again hear this Saturday if you're there.)

The not so good news, and the second factor making this show a bit special, is that this will be our last local Indy appearance for some time. The reason being that our rhythm guitarist Patrick and his wife Kathie will be moving to San Diego, CA the day after this show. They have been hoping to move to California for a while, and the time was finally right. We are truly happy for them, as it's an amazingly beautiful place. But we are also a bit sad for us, as Patrick has been an integral part of the Madeira family for three years now, and what a three years it's been! HOWEVER! All is not lost, as Patrick will continue to provide his signature lightning-fast strum and that big wet reverb chunk for our band. He will fly back to Indy every so often so we can continue - cause it just wouldn't be the same without our Patrick! We will still play the scheduled Lafayette, IN show in April, and we have a couple of summer engagements that are currently in the planning. And we still hope to record the follow-up to Sandstorm at some point this year, hopefully in the Fall. Still, his physical distance will necessitate some adjustments and we will be forced to cut back on our live engagements. All the more reason to make sure that you come see us this Saturday!

Have a great Spring (may it get here SOON), and we hope to see many of you this Saturday!

Thanks to those of you that came to the Melody Inn show on January 26th. It was a big success, and we DEFINITELY won over the mostly-surf-uneducated crowd, who, it’s safe to say, were simply blown away. Expect more of these mixed bills in the future given how well this one went.

Our “Live Track of the Week” giveaway is now finished. It’s been a lot of fun to do, and has gotten more people to check out our websites and introduce them to our music. The winners were:

• Alexander Hoffman (Valley Village, CA)
• Joel Edwards (Redlands, CA)
• Douglas Paulin (Ventura, CA)
• Adam Smith (Wallsand, Australia)
• Steven Van Brussel (Destelbergen, Belgium)
• Patrick LeJenue (Port Saint Lucie, FL)
• Gil Romero (Denver, CO)

We have put up all six live tracks (plus a bonus!) on our website now, so you can listen to them to your heart’s content!

The next show will be at Mo’s Loading Dock in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 10th. We are hoping to have a couple of special surprises that show. One thing which we will not keep as a surprise is that we will very likely unveil several new songs that night, maybe as many as six, all destined to make our next album! We hope to see you there! Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your winter – may it be mild!

Hello all;

Things have been a bit quiet on the Madeira front lately, so we thought we'd fill you in on what's going on. First of all, we have a show coming up on Friday, January 26th at the Melody Inn in Indy. We'll be playing with three other non-surf (though, we're told, very good) bands. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Second, we have been hard at work on new songs for our second full-length CD. So far we have six new originals that are either more-or-less finished or close, and a few others that are still gestating. Also, we selected two rare covers for the next CD, as well. We're very excited about the new material, and fully expect the next CD to be a worthy follow-up to Sandstorm.

Third, we've revamped our web sites a little bit. Our MySpace site now has two different songs from Sandstorm (Burning Mirage and El Caliph), so for those of you that still haven't purchased the CD you can now hear a bit more of it for free. Also, we added two live videos: Ricochet, from Sandstorm, and Surf Fidelis, one of our new originals. As far as our main website, we just added a live track from our July show at the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museaum - Dick Dale's Night Rider. Check them out - we hope you like them.

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to announce a giveaway. Here is how it works. Every week for the next six weeks we will put a different live track on this website. Take a listen to the live track of the week and then go to our MySpace site and leave a comment, mentioning the song by name. Each monday one person who left a comment about the live track of the week will be selected at random to receive a copy of our 'Ruins' CD-EP. The giveaway is now open, so check out the current live track of the week and leave us a comment to become eligible for the giveaway. The first winner will be selected Monday, December 18th, and then every Monday after that for five weeks. Good luck!

That's all. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope to see many of you in 2007!

-- The Madeira

Hello all. We hope you are all having a great summer. Ours has been amazing so far! First of all, our California tour was a huge success! We played to a lot of people, sold a lot of CDs, and had a great, great time. A lot more people know about the Madeira than before – mission accomplished! Check out four pages (!) of reviews (many of them positively raving) on Surf Guitar 101. We hope to post our own tour report soon, as well. Keep an eye on our website for that.

Second, Ruins, our new CD-EP is now available from Double Crown, and will soon be available through most internet retailers.

Third, Pipeline Rock Instrumental Magazine from the UK, the oldest and most respected surf/instro music zine, has a lengthy interview with Ivan in their newest issue (#71, Summer 2006), talking about both the Madeira and the Space Cossacks. In addition, they gave “Sandstorm” a raving review AND both editors, Dave Burke and Alan Taylor, ranked “Sandstorm” second on their current favorites playlists! If you wish to purchase the issue in the USA, Double Crown has it for sale for only $6.75.

Fourth, we want to thank the organizers of the Atomic Frolic in Champaign, IL and Hot Rod Hula Hop II in Columbus, OH for including us. We had a great time, and we very much hope that both festivals will continue running for many years to come. We definitely appreciated both the professionalism as well as sheer heaploads of fun at both fantastic events. Anytime you want us to come again, just holler!

Finally, we revamped the Videos page of our website. All the videos are now available on YouTube, and are linked to there from our site. We also added a few new videos. We hope you like what you see.

Enjoy the rest of your summer.

-- Ivan

Our “All That’s Left Are Ruins” California Tour begins in just a few weeks! We will be playing eight shows between July 21st and July 30th, starting in San Diego, finishing in San Francisco, and hitting many stops along the way (for a complete listing of the gigs, click on the Shows button on the left). Joining us will be nearly a ‘who’s who’ of modern surf music, including Slacktone (for three shows), Pollo Del Mar, Insect Surfers, The Pyronauts, The Neptunes, The Glasgow Tiki Shakers, and The Sand Devils.

• The Victor (Dick Dale – USA)
• Dilmohammed (The Treble Spankers – Holland)
• Almoraima (Paco de Lucia – Spain)
• Intruder #1 (The Surf Coasters – Japan)
• Intruder (The Surf Coasters – Japan)

The total length is close to 15 minutes. These tracks were recorded last summer during the “Sandstorm” sessions, and they reflect some of our influences and our appreciation of fellow purveyors of exotic and hard-hitting surf music.

We very much hope we will get to see many of you this month. Have a great summer!

-- Ivan

On Sunday, February 19th DJ Tom Stanger will be devoting much of his one-hour show Beyondo Mondo Record Party to the music of the Madeira and the Space Cossacks. You can hear his show at 11 pm EST on 91.3 from Akron, OH, or you can listen online at www.913thesummit.com. Tune in and check it out, it's gonna be rockin'!

Also, for those of you still in the Valentine's Day mood, we can recommend the world's only 'zombie romance' movie Zombie Honeymoon! This is an highly-acclaimed indie movie (five stars on Amazon) that was released on DVD on Valentine's Day, and has a soundtrack chock-full of surf-music, including the Space Cossacks' "Black Sand"! Other surf bands featured are the Fathoms, Los Mel-Tones, the Brimstones, and a few others.

Zombie Honeymoon at Amazon.com

(For more multimedia with good music, pick up "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer" video game, with a soundtrack featuring the Space Cossacks' "Solaris Stomp", in addition to songs by other well-known surf musicians such as Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and Perry Farrell...?)

We got a couple of nice write-ups in Indianapolis press recently. IndianapolisMusic.net chose the Madeira as their Artist Of The Week, and ran a lengthy story on us. It was supposed to tie in to our CD release show on 1/27, but alas, as you know, no show for us. However, we'll still happily take the publicity! IndyMusic.net is also running an Artist Of The Week ad in Nuvo, one of two Indianapolis free weeklies. Check out the article here. As they say, when it rains, it pours! Here's the other feature, in the InTake Weekly, the other Indianapolis free weekly magazine.

-- Ivan

We have some interesting links for you. First of all, the actual island of Madeira has discovered, well, The Madeira! Check out this very interesting blog entry at Blog.Thoughts.Madeira. Hmmm…maybe a tour is not too far off! The 3rd Eye Surfer blog has picked up the review of our new CD from surf fan/musician Danny Snyder. You can read it here.

And here are two more places you can purchase our new CD ‘Sandstorm’:

• ZptdudaMusic.com
• CD Baby

-- Ivan

Yesterday Dane, our drummer, did something very drummer-like - he fell of a bike and broke his arm. The doctor put him in a sling and a splint for two weeks, and told him no drumming for 4-6 weeks. He should be fine after that, but the upshot is that the Madeira will not be playing our Indianapolis CD release show on the 27th.

We don't know yet if the club will want to cancel the show or proceed with it anyway, with Destination: Earth! and the Reluctant Aquanauts, and maybe add one more band. Stay tuned, and we will let you know as soon as we find out.

We're all very disappointed, as you can imagine, especially since this was our CD release show. But we very much hope we can reschedule it once Dane is fully healed. We will keep you posted.

You can send get-well greetings to Dane (if any of you are inclined to do so) at dane.carter@gmail.com

-- Ivan

I’m very happy to announce that the official release show for our new CD ‘Sandstorm’ (Double Crown) will take place on FRIDAY, JANUARY 27th at The Melody Inn, in Indianapolis. Also performing will be Chicago’s trad-meisters THE RELUCTANT AQUANAUTS (their first appearance in Indianapolis) and Vector Sigma’s DESTINATION: EARTH! (their first public performance for the citizens of the third planet in over a year!!) This is gonna be a fun, fun, FUN show, and you should not miss it! Book those flights now, get on the train, start hitch-hiking, whatever it takes! :) Of course, I’m kidding, but we do hope to see at least some of you at this show. For show details, head over to the shows page.

-- Ivan

Our new CD Sandstorm is now available from Double Crown Records! Please check the Merchandise page for ordering information.

Ivan’s old band The Space Cossacks launch into orbit AGAIN! November 15th unveiled “Never Mind The Bolsheviks – The Best of the Space Cossacks” on MuSick Recordings. It features 24 songs, culled from their two now-out-of-print albums as well as some previously unreleased and live tracks. Check out more info about it at the Space Cossacks’ new website (soon to be fully updated).

-- Ivan

We’re rapidly approaching the official release of our debut CD, titled "Sandstorm"! It will be available December 13th from the Double Crown website and soon after from iTunes, Amazon.com and other internet retailers.

1. Sun & Sand
2. Sandstorm!
3. Cordoba
4. El Caliph
5. Burning Mirage
6. Rogue Wave
7. The Secret Route
8. Desert Drums
9. Ricochet
10. Crescent Moon
11. Across the Dunes
12. Express To Baghdad
13. The Oasis

We will have a CD release show at the The Melody Inn on Friday, January 27th. More details are to come.

In the meantime, you can check out the sister magazine of Double Crown Records, The Continental, issue #12, which features our studio recording of The Treble Spankers’ "Dilmohammed" on its sampler CD as well as my interview with the remarkable Norwegian surf band The Beat Tornados, The issue also has a great interview with Satan’s Pilgrims as well as an amazing collection of songs on the sampler CD, including cuts by Phantom Frank (The Phantom Four, ex-Treble Spankers), The Nebulas, The Beat Tornados, The Bitch Boys, Pollo Del Mar, The Cocktail Preachers, The Space Cossacks, The Sellcancers, and many, many more. The issue is available from the Double Crown website.

Enjoy the Fall, and check back often for more news.

-- Ivan

Just posted some pics of the Halloween show at the Melody Indy. Head over to the photos section to check them out!

-- Brian

We agreed to let an Indy indie webzine Jake Magazine use two of our tracks (Cordoba and Burning Mirage) for their October issue. So, if you want to hear an album preview, go here: http://geocities.com/jake_magazine/

-- Ivan

Hello everyone! Sorry for the long delay in news updates. We’ve had a very busy and productive couple of months. The July shows in Indy and Chicago were a big success, and we got a fantastic reception – big thanks to all of you that came out for those. If you weren’t there check out the Videos and Photos to see what things were like. Quite a surf party!

Following these two shows we were completely focused on one task: recording our debut CD. We recorded all the tracks (17 altogether!) on July 29th and 30th, with only a few overdubs added later. Since then we have been busy trying to get the mixes right. We ended up abandoning all the mixes we did on July 31st, and starting from scratch on August 20th and 21st. These were MUCH better. We returned to the studio for some tweaks on September 21st, and the mixes are almost completely done at this point. One more hour in the studio will do it, and we hope to do that very soon. The recordings turned out extremely well, powerful and energetic, and we can’t wait for the CD to be out. Ferenc (Dobronyi, of Pollo Del Mar ) is currently working on the artwork, and we hope to have everything completed in the next three weeks. Double Crown Records is shooting for a mid-December release date, which seems an eternity away! But it’ll be here before we know it. (Incidentally, we decided to take four of the recorded tracks for a future EP release rather than including them on the CD – otherwise, it would have been almost an hour long. Stay tuned for more info about that.)

Finally, we have another Indy show coming up. On Friday, October 28th we’ll be returning to the coolest live-music venue in Indy, the historic The Melody Inn. We’ll be playing with three non-surf bands, so it’ll be chance to spread the ‘gospel’ to the infidels! We hope you can join us for that. Our next show after that will hopefully be the CD-release show, sometime in December or January.

That’s it for the moment. Enjoy your Fall, and check back frequently for the updates on the progress of the CD.

PS Please check out our new Buy section where you’ll find some brand new Madeira t-shirts and stickers for sale. Hope you like ‘em!

-- Ivan

We recently had a major shake-up in the band line-up. Due to increasing family obligations, Scott Waddell has departed the Madeira. We wish him all the best in the future, and will miss playing with him. We were fortunate enough to find another talented bass player with a love of the reverbed sounds in the person of Todd Fortier. Todd is from Indianapolis, and has been playing bass for over twenty years. He loves his bass gear, and has played many different styles of music over the years. This is his first surf music band and we are greatly looking forward to reaching new milestones with him in our ranks, including recording our debut CD, slated for July. Todd’s premiere performance with us will be on lucky Friday the 13th (of May) in Hillsdale, Michigan. Stay tuned for more news about both Todd as well as our upcoming recording session. New gigs! Head over to the shows page and check them out!

-- Ivan

Several reviews were added to the press section.

-- Brian

Go to the press section and check out an interview with Ivan Pongracic that was featured in the Hillsdale Collegian.

-- Brian

Another mp3 has been posted! The song is called Burning Mirage and it kills! Go to the songs section and check it out!

-- Brian

I’ve just received updated recordings of the mp3’s from Ivan. These were taken from a recent rehearsal session. Go to the songs section and check them out!

-- Brian

We've had a very good Fall, with several shows and a bunch of new songs added to the setlist. Our next show is on Saturday, 22nd of January, in Ivan and Scott's place of residence, the glorious Hillsdale, Michigan! We hope some of you will be there. After this show the band will take some time off to allow Dane AND Scott to help their wives deliver their new babies! This will the second for both of them. Big congratulations! Look for us again in May or June, once our rhythm section has caught up a bit on sleep. Meanwhile, we have some exciting additions and changes planned for the site, including some new songs plus a few surprises. Stay put and please check back often. Thanks, and we hope you have a great winter and Spring!

-- Ivan

Hello all; After a brief down-time, The Madeira will be playing a couple of shows over the next month or so. We’ll be playing our first all-ages show on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13th, with longtime local faves RED LEADER (not a surf band), among others. This is a somewhat last-minute addition to our schedule. The show will take place at BUBBA‘S BOWLING CLUB (what a name!!) in downtown Indy, and we’ll be going on very early, between 7 and 8pm.

The band has been hard at work on some new original material, and we will probably unveil some of it at this event!

A bit down the road, we have the return of the ‘SURF ROCK NIGHT’! The MELODY INN will be hosting a special encore presentation of ‘SURF ROCK NIGHT,’ which will be held on FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10th. Joining the Madeira will be the premier American SHADOWS tribute band THE TROUBADOURS, as well as the not-so-surfy-but-still-really-fun-and-rockin’-in-a-sorta-surfy-way DESTINATION: EARTH!

Check out some video footage of the Madeira and Destination: Earth! from the last ‘SURF ROCK NIGHT’ here.

Hope to see some of you at the shows, and please invite as many others as possible!

-- Ivan

I've updated the page with photos and videos from the second gig on August 6th. Scroll down and check them out!

-- Brian

I’ve just received 5 new MP3’s from the band. Cordoba and El Caliph are brand new to the site. The rest (Express to Bagdad, Intruder, and The Victor) are updated recordings of the songs previously found here. Don’t forget the second show this Friday!

-- Brian

Here are two more tracks to check out, both from the same (first) practice session. The first is Dick Dale‘s rarely heard The Victor. The second is Dilmohammed by The Treble Spankers from Holland. The Treble Spankers were one of the best surf bands of the nineties, and they are sorely missed. We hope we did both DD and them justice with our versions of these great songs.

-- Ivan

Hi, this is Ivan Pongracic, formerly of The Space Cossacks and currently of the Troubadours. I'm extremely happy to introduce my new surf band, The Madeira. The Madeira has Dane Carter on drums, Scott Waddell on bass, Patrick O'Connor on rhythm guitar, and myself on lead guitar. Dane and Scott are also in the Troubadours with me, and Patrick is also the lead guitar player in Destination: Earth! from Indianapolis (D:E! is still together and they'll continue to subjugate the Earthlings throughout the Midwest).

We spent a weekend in mid-April practicing for the first time, and sparks were flying! I can honestly say that I have never played with a finer group of musicians than this, and I'm just giddy with excitement over the possibilities. I'm also really happy to be getting back to surf music proper after playing only Shadows covers for the last four years (the Troubadours, BTW, will also continue). We fully intend to make this an original band and we're already working on three new originals with more to come soon. But for now it's mostly covers, though not your usual covers. We'll be doing some Space Cossacks stuff, some New World Relampagos, some rarer first wave things and even some third wave songs by The Treble Spankers and the Surf Coasters. Oh, and then there's that Paco de Lucia cover! We're aiming to develop the whole North African (Morocco, etc.) and Southern Spain (Andalucia, flamenco stuff) connection to the surf sound - that's the MO. Still keeping the feet firmly planted in the trad sounds, but with the eyes aimed at the horizons, trying to peer a bit beyond. It promises to be interesting, if nothing else!

This site is very bare at the moment, but there are two mp3s available for download. Both songs are covers: "Express to Bagdad" originally by The Atlantics (from '64) and "Intruder" originally by the Surf Coasters. The first seemed quite topical as well as effectively showcasing the band chops, and the second is just a mind-blowing tune that seemed like a really nice challenge - hopefully we lived up to it! The recording is from our first practice session in a very hi-fi-hostile environment. It was recorded in Dane's basement with bare hard walls and the sound bouncing all over the place. In addition, we could only record on two tracks so we had two mics for four instruments. (Yes, that's what they call an ambient recording.) And to top it off, we didn't really have the time to ensure the best mic instrument balance, and as a result the rhythm guitar got buried (fortunately Patrick set up the recording so he can't claim a conspiracy to keep him quiet! :). But we're quite pleased by the results, and it'll give you some idea of what this band is all about. We hope to have a few more mp3s from the same practice session to put up in the next few days.

Finally, we would like to announce our first gig. It'll be on Saturday, June 5th, at Zanies Too in Indianapolis, with The Volcanos and the Troubadours (the same venue where the Troubadours played with Destination: Earth! and the Nebulas last year). So, you'll get the hard-driving exotic-tinged surf of the Madeira, groovy trad surf of the near-legendary Volcanos AND the finest (well, the only) American Shadows cover band! Consider this an invitation for people from all over the country - we'll try to make it a memorable show and worth your airfare or long hours on the road! I hope at least a few of you can make it.

Thanks for reading and listening, and hope to see all of you over the next few years.

-- Ivan