New website - www.sweetempire.nl

As of today we have an official website: http://www.sweetempire.nl

On this page you can still check out some old news if you'd like to read that.

Soapbox now streaming on Bandcamp

On our recent tour we stopped by somewhere in the country side near Norwich to record a song on a beautiful day in a beautiful studio called The Saints with a great guy called Adam. The song, called 'Soapbox', is now streaming on our bandcamp profile, as well as the studio's website.

Check out Soapbox: here.
Also be sure to check out the studio:
Website
Adam's site
Facebook
Twitter

3 shows this weekend

We're doing some sort of weekender this weekend.
We've got two shows with our friends in Social Distrust and one show with our friends in The Liberation Service and Soey.
This Friday we will be playing Panic Room, Essen, DE (w/ Social Distrust).
On Saturday we're playing a festival in Rüthen, DE called With Full Flunky (w/ Social Distrust a.o.)
Sunday we're back in Holland and we will finish the weekend off by playing Hans' Crust Venue in Diemen-Zuid (w/ Liberation Service, Soey, The Minority).

Facebook event Friday.
Facebook event Saturday.

"Don't Panic" - Digital Compilation

We've been featured on a free digital compilation by No Panic! Records called 'Don't Panic'. Our contribution, Torches, goes alongside some great bands incl. After The Fall, Fights And Fires, Dividers, Static Radio NJ, Rust Belt Lights, The Snips, Rebuke, Protagonist, and many many more. Check it out by clicking here!

New song streaming!

On our recent tour we stopped by somewhere in the country side near Norwich to record a song on a beautiful day in a beautiful studio called The Saints with a great guy called Adam. The song, called 'Soapbox', is now streaming on the studio's website. 
Check it our here and click music: http://www.thesaints-studios.co.uk/
Follow the The Saints Studio on Facebook and Twitter.

Music Video

We're going to record a music video for 'Emma' tomorrow. Stoked/siked/etc.!
It will be released in September probably, of course we're doing some kind of release show for it. More info soon!

Tour is over...

We just spent 17 amazing days on the road. We had the best of times.
Pictures and such will follow but for now we'd like to thank the following people for making this an unforgettable journey:
Julia/Benjamin @ Baracke, Chris and all @ Kaoskeller, Heino/Jack/all @ EKH, Tom @ Sub, Fra @ Blue Rose, Gippy and all @ Terra Di Nessuno, Matt/Bomb The Gig @ Deep Inside, Nico @ Rivoli Bar, Romain @ Juke Bocks, Rhys/Jamie @ Mozarts, Rob @ Portland Arms, Jack @ Karma Kafe, Sophie for the place to stay in Norwich, Kieran/Andi/James @ Kraak Gallery, Calum/John/Cooper @ The Empress, Ollie @ The Bird's Nest, Sander/Daan @ Horizont.

Further we'd like to thank all the bands we got to play with:
Victory Points (2x!), It's Not OK (3x!), Nina School (2x!), The Early Grave (2x!), Hot Water Music, La Dispute, Social Distrust, Just Like Rats, Irish Handcuffs, All Bricks, Remedy, Blind Of 69, Hammers, Iron Heel, Chronos Is Gone, Porna & The Kokots, Beata Ignoranza, Cocks, Polar Sun, Dear Hearts, Dividers, The Kid Is Fireworks, Beverly Kills, Apologies I Have None, Leagues Apart, Speedboat Salesman, Dogfight, Eric Bana, James Choice, Flat Earth, The Priceduifkes, and Violent City.

Most thanks to all of you who came and watch a show of ours!

We can't wait to get back on the road again.

EU/UK Tour

We're going on tour this Friday. Of course we don't have to tell you we can't wait...
See you at the show!

Facebook event, with links to all the separate facebook events: here.

Say Cheese! compilation

‘Punk is dead’ is a saying often heard. That’s not true, at least in Holland it is not. To prove the Dutch punk is vibrant and alive non-profit label North Empire will release an online compilation called 'Say Cheese!'

This compilation features 18 Dutch punk rock bands, each contributing one song. Varying from established to upcoming bands, every single one of them hardworking and delivering top quality songs. Making it obvious the Dutch punk scene is alive, varied, and offering a lot of great music to listen to.

Because punk is known as a socially concerned genre all the revenue made with this compilation will go to a good cause. Wakker Dier in this case, a Dutch organization fighting for the welfare of animals in the bio industry. Please help out when you download the compilation.
The compilation is available on a ‘pay what you want’ basis via: http://northempire.bandcamp.com

In-store show and...a review

This Saturday we will be playing an in-store acoustic set (some songs) at the Etnies store on Damrak, Amsterdam. Hope to see you there at 2pm. This will be with Versus The World.
Both bands will be playing the Winston that evening alongside the great Cobra Skulls. Hope to see you there as well, this time at 8:30pm.

Also, we've been just been told there is another review of 'This Season Needs Torches' somewhere on the web, on FrostClick to be precise. It's a pretty positive one.
Have a read!

Design of our new merch

Emma, who made our design for our new merch, has posted a lovely story about how she made it. We are still blown away by the result. Have a read here and be sure to check out her other work too. Thanks lots Emma!
http://emiloumakes.co.uk/sweet-empire/

New merch

We've got some new merch!
2 different types of girlies, 2 shirts, and tote bags. All fair trade and sweatshop free. Check it out!
Order from our webstore (click!) (the girlies are very limited and only available at shows)

The design features extinct animals like an Irish Elk, a Mammoth, and a Dodo. And it has been made by Emiloumakes, we think it's stunning. You really should check out her website.

Compilation and magazine feature

Our song "On Fake Borders" has been featured on an American compilation CD which has been released to support the making of a documentary called "Tikkun Olam". This documentary will be about the relation between Judaism, punk rock, and radical politics.
We'd like to thank Matt for putting us on the compilation and we wish him the best of luck with the documentary. We're looking forward to seeing the end result.
You can download the compilation or order a copy (incl. zine!) over here.
Read more on the documentary here.
Also check out their associate website PunkCDSampler.com.

Besides this great news we've also been featured in Proefdiervrij's magazine. Proefdiervrij is a Dutch organization which fights against testing on animals.
We played a festival last February which had 'science' as the main theme. We thought it would be a nice idea to get Proefdiervrij some attention, and so we did. They supplied us with promotional material and even gave us some awesome shirts! Besides talking about the good cause we asked people at the show for a donation and ended up raising €135. Thanks so much to the people who donated! We are happy we could help out Proefdiervrij, and what they stand for, by doing this show.
Check out the article:

Sale - Special Offer - Discount

We've got some stuff up for sale. Special offers! Discount! etc.!

Get a (fair trade, sweatshop free) t-shirt for €7,50 and include a 'This Season Needs Torches' CD or LP to make a total of €15.

Get on this! Go to our webstore.

A late review

Yet another review of 'This Season Needs Torches' has surfaced. This time on Rockfreaks.net

Check it out over here.

Julianadorp this Friday

This Friday, March 23rd, we will be playing a show at Café Peanuts in Julianadorp, NL. Please come by and party.

Besides that we're still busy with sorting out our EU/UK tour for June. If you can help please get in touch: info [a] sweetempire . nl . This is also the address to send other (gig) requests, fan mail, hate mail, etc. to.

Thursday: acoustic radio show

Coming Thursday we will be playing an acoustic show at Café Lokaal, Heemskerk.

Show starts at 21:00h (doors at 8pm, free to get in) and it will be broadcasted live on Café Acoustique - Radio Heemskerk. Click the link to get the frequencies or to stream online.

Get ready for a few stripped down versions of our own songs as well as some covers.

Houten on Saturday

We will be playing Punk For Sale III at JC Enter, Houten on Saturday.

We had a little talk and we think you should all be there

.

Show this Friday - ACU, Utrecht

See you there!

Sorry if you get sick of the flyer... (deleted the flyer 'cause it made me sick)

Another review, this time it's written in German

Another review of "This Season Needs Torches" surfaced. This time it's a German one, on Poisonfree.com.

We do speak a bit of German, but not enough to completely get it. Please let us know what it's about if you can understand.

Read the review here.

Download the album for free here.

Proefdiervrij

We'll be playing at Breinfest today. A festival organized by our local fellow band and good friends Het Brein Dat Kwam Uit De Ruimte, to celebrate their fifth year anniversary (congratulations guys!).

The theme for today is 'science'. As we're a real punk band we thought it would be nice to get some attention for a good cause. We'll be supporting Proefdiervrij (anti animal testing) today. We think animal testing isn't necessary in todays world. With science on such a high standard we should be able to do testing in various, more kind, ways.

We'll be donating the money we make on sales, as well as our fee, to Proefdiervrij.

So you should all hurry and come down to Cafe Lokaal, Heemskerk today. Starts at 4pm.

Tour = cancelled

We are very sad to have to bring you the news that we have to cancel our upcoming UK tour due to family reasons. We are devastated and can’t choose the right words to say. Unfortunately some things are just out of our control. The Living Daylights have cancelled as well, as we were in this tour together. We hope to be able to reschedule soon though.

Happy new year!

Happy new year to all of you! We hope 2012 will bring nothing but good times.

We're getting ready to head out to the UK again at the end of this month.

This is the routing:

January:

Th 26: The Cavern, Exeter
Fr 27: TBA
Sa 28: TBA
Su 29: The Croft, Bristol
Mo 30: Mozart's, Swansea
Tu 31: Old Angel Inn, Nottingham
February:
We 1: Karma Kafe, Norwich
Th 2: The Earl, Sheffield
Fr 3: The Empress, Harrogate
Sa 4: The Shed, Leicester

If you could help out with any of the tba's, please get in touch!

If you live in Holland and would like us to rent your van or borrow your car, please get in touch as well!

Also we have a lot more great plans for 2012, including some fun shows. We'll tell you more soon.