If you only ever see one Straw Bear gig ...

We’re playing a very special gig on November 16 at Waterbeach Baptist Chapel. For some time now, the people at The Beach Sessions have been staging increasingly popular nights at The Sun in the Cambridgeshire village. Andrew and Helen at The Beach Sessions have built a really strong following, through a combination of sticking their necks out and booking decent bands and keeping the atmosphere pretty relaxed and hassle-free. It’s pretty amazing to see so many people coming along to a pub on the village green to watch new music, and our gigs with them have always been great fun (apart from this one time when I had a throat infection and couldn’t sing a note). This time though, they’ve asked to play at the Waterbeach Baptist Chapel ... which should be amazing. What’s more, the man at the mixing desk for the night will be Sam Inglis of audio bible Sound on Sound, for whom we will forever have a soft spot for after he gave our album the best review we’re ever likely to get. So with Sam working the desk, a beautiful venue, the good people at the Beach Sessions behind the event, and the fact that it’s probably as close to a hometown gig as we’re likely to have ... we think you should try to come along. The photo is Tom Adams at Waterbeach Baptist Chapel.

New single 'Snobbery' available now

Our new single Snobbery is available now to download - go to: http://strawbear.bandcamp.com/

Northern mini-tour - dates in Manchester and Liverpool

We're off on a mini-tour at the end of the week supporting the Kate Rogers Band. We'll be at the Night & Day Cafe in Manchester on Thursday 25 July and at The Zanzibar Club, Liverpool, on Friday 26 July.

Meadowlands calling ... and The Great Escape

We've been lucky enough to be invited to play the Meadowlands Festival this weekend. For those who don't know, it's a fantastic boutique festival nestled in the picturesque South Downs in East Sussex. Find out more about it here. The organisers are massively driven and passionate about what they're doing, so we're very much hoping we'll all enjoy some decent weather for the bank holiday weekend. We're playing on the Sunday around noon if you happen to be going along. Thank you to everyone who came along to see us play the BBC Introducing Stage at Brighton's Great Escape festival. Tom Robinson of BBC6 picked us for the event, and so we rehearsed pretty hard to ensure we were able to put on a decent show ... thankfully, the audience really seemed to be behind us and we loved every second of the performance. We've had some strong reviews and a bit of airplay on Radio One, so it's been a very satisfying experience for us. We owe Tom Robinson a great deal, once again. SB

BBC pick Straw Bear to appear at The Great Escape

BBC Introducing has chosen us to appear at their showcase at The Great Escape Festival 2013, held in Brighton from 16 to 18 May. We'll be appearing at Blind Tiger on Friday 17 May - our show is at 7.45pm.

Link to BBC Introducing blog

Link to The Great Escape 2013

More praise for 'Black Bank' with 5-star review from R2 magazine

As if recent airplay of our single 'Kitty' from BBC Radio 2's Whispering Bob Harris, Dermot O’Leary, and 6 Music's Tom Robinson, Absolute Radio's Geoff Lloyd, Xfm’s John Kennedy…  wasn’t enough, our album 'Black Bank' continues to attract breathless praise.

This time, it’s from the respected Rock ‘n’ Reel magazine, who gave us a five star review:

Download our new single Kitty - out Monday 11 March

Our new single Kitty is available from Bandcamp http://strawbear.bandcamp.com/ from Monday 11 March.

Kitty, taken from Straw Bear's new album 'Black Bank', is a story of unrealised artistic ambition set to soaring folk-pop that has seen the Cambridgeshire band tipped for big things.

BBC Radio 2's Dermot O'Leary named it among his singles of the week on his Saturday show. Broadcasting legend 'Whispering' Bob Harris raved about Kitty on his Radio 2 show. And 6 Music's Tom Robinson described Kitty as "an understated gem" - featuring the band in session on 9 March.

Listen again to Straw Bear's 6 Music Session here

A New Band A Day described Kitty as “a hook-laden song of near-perfect pace, delicious construction, delightful lyrics and sweet intent”. The influential blog went on to single out Straw Bear as one to watch in 2013.

'Whispering' Bob raves about our new single 'Kitty' on BBC Radio 2

'Whispering' Bob Harris played our new single Kitty on his BBC Radio 2 show on Sunday 17 February. The legendary DJ described Kitty as "lovely" and said our forthcoming BBC 6 Music session with Tom Robinson on Saturday 9 March is “definitely a date to put in the diary.” Hear what Bob said about us here: http://soundcloud.com/ask-me/straw-bear-kitty-bob-harris Kitty is out Monday 11 March 2013.

Straw Bear BBC6 Music Live Session on the Tom Robinson show

2013 has started with a bang. We have been invited onto the Tom Robinson show on March 9th at 9pm to play three live songs, and talk about our new album and upcoming gigs.