29/08/2010 - 5000 hits
The site has now had over 5000 hits, which is a nice way to end the summer. The autumn will see the band rehearsing hard and contuining to write new material with, hopefully, at least a handful of gigs before the close of the year.
18/08/2010 - New Line Up/New CD Download/Website
Welcome to the new look site for The Sanction. We decided to simplify things a little and hopefully make the site more user-friendly.
The Live CD can be now downloaded via the Music link. Lastly, we welcome Al (Alex) Burchell to the fold on bass. The new line up of Hayley McCarthy, Mark Wabe, Steve Horne and Al Burchell will be rehearsing over the next few months and playing live soon hopefully somewhere near you! Check back often!
10/07/10 - Live Download
'Live At the Millenium Hall' will be available to download in the next few days. Recorded in January 2009, this live set features Stacy Plant on drums and is the last recording that Al Hill played on as bass player with the band. Another track has been added to the jukebox....
06/06/10
'Dream State Reality - Live' is now available to download here. You can also listen to the track on our streaming media player opposite. We will add more tracks to the player in the coming months.
The 'Live' CD tracks will be abvailable to download in the next few weeks.
18/04/10 - Changes/Live Tracks
Steve Langford has left The Sanction. We wish him the greatest success in the future and thank him for his time spent with the band.
Mark Wabe joins The Sanction as drummer from April '10 onwards.
The band are still looking for a suitable bassist (details on your right) and now, a keyboardist/synth player/programmer. More details of the latter to follow.
The second round of mixes for the live material have been completed and now all that remains is the mastering process and to create the 'cover' art and trac-listings/credits etc. Since the material is live and was played at the Millenium Hall in Essex, we've decided to call it 'Live At the Millenium Hall' which is original we know....Again, the tracks will eb available to download free from this site in MP3 format (320 kps (highest quality MP3)).
05/04/10 - 3000+ hits/Mixes
The site has now had 3024 hits (as of 24.00 04/04/10). We've had visitors so far from Norway, S. Africa, Australia, United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Phillipines, Japan, Cambodia, New Zealand, Wales, Scotland and many locations in England. We thank all who have visited and downloaded our music (download here).
The ten track live album recorded at a live date in January '09 has finally been mixed. The line up for this CD is; Stacey Plant: Drums, Al Hill: Bass, Hayley McCarthy: Vocals and Steve Horne: Guitar. The album includes quite a few covers including Hard to Handle, All Along the Watchtower and Creep as well as 'Turn Away', an original song that did not make the final cut of our downloady album. The tracks are yet to be finalised and mastered.
More information will follow.
12/03/10 - Live/BBC Radio
Last week the band, supplemented by guest bass guitarist Aiden Eggenton of Wideboy Generation, played two covers at an event in Bishop's Stortford, Herts.
Work continues relatively slowly (and more importantly; painlessly) on the live CD, taken from a live set in January 2009.
BBC Radio may be playing one of two versions of 'Falling; in the near future, as we've "had an 'email" (!). We'll post details here when and if.
02/03/10 - Keeper Leaves/Live Album
Some visitors to the site may have spotted that the download album is missing a track, namely 'Keeper of Dreams'. It was felt the album was stronger for it's exclusion, so after much 'umming' and 'ahhhhing' we've revised the download and it's now no longer available. It was one of the live songs we recorded in January 09. As we work through the mixes of this though, it seems unlikely to make the 'final cut' as the live version didn't translate well to 'tape' (well, hard drive...). The good news is though that the ballad 'Turn Away' which didn't make the download album due to technical problems will be on the live album, so it'll be the first time the song will have been heard despite being written in early 2008.
It remains to say that the downloads are going strong. We've had visits and downloads from the Phillipines, Japan, USA, Canada etc as well as many locations within the UK. Again, thank you to all that are supporting us. Keep spreading the word!
18/02/10 - Fish!
We have it from a reliable source that Fish (ex-Marillion and now solo artist) has downloaded, listened to and liked the album! This is especially pleasing for Steve as he grew up listening to the classic 'Script For a Jester's Tear', 'Real to Reel', 'Fugazi', 'Misplaced Childhood' and 'Clutching At Straws' albums, (all featuring Fish on vocals before he left for a solo career). Those who are not familiar with Fish or Marillion may still remember the singles 'Kayleigh' and 'Lavender', major hits from 1985 and 'Sugar Mice' and 'Incommunicado' from 1987. 'Clutching At Straws' remains one of Steve's all time favourite albums, so this bit of news comes as an unexpected and fairly amazing surprise!
Interestingly, a drummer we were going to audition in the summer had toured in his band in support of Marillion in the mid-80's. It was decided, though, that this particular drummer was not for us. This was quite upsetting as he knew Chas and Dave as well...
Visitors from Japan, Australia, the US, Canada, France, the UK and Basildon have also downloaded the album. The site now stands at a little under 1500 hits, so we're very pleased. Keep telling your friends and as soon as we have sorted ourselves a new bass player, we'll be catching up in rehearsal and playing live as soon as we can.
25/01/10
The site has now reached well over 1000 hits, which is pleasing. Please pass on the link to the site so others can download our 'downloady album'.
The Sanction still plan to be playing live in the spring/summer of 2010 and to have enough material to record for a 2nd album.
Peace out dudes.
06/01/10 - A Message from France
We received an email from Arnaud Coutancier, who provided one of the samples on the tracks which are still available to download for free. The message reads;
I discovered my name on your credits for a sample on your record. I listened [to] it.. I love it ! Best regards. Arnaud
The reaction to the download has been extremely positive so far with growing international interest. The band have now reconvened after the Christmas break and are preparing more material to play live.
22/12/09 - Download Limit Exceeded Message
The band are very happy that so many people have taken an interest in our music - so much so that the servers are having trouble keeping up with demand. If you get the message 'download limit exceeded' , please try again a little later. Additionally, the cover art and credit/track sheet can now be downloaded correctly. Once again; thank you for taking such an interest in our efforts - slightly unexpected and very, very welcome.
21/12/09 - Download
The Sanction's first 'album', partially recorded at Riverway Studios and partially recorded at 'home' is now available to download free of charge via the music page. The band are now on their Christmas break, following a rehearsal yeseterday in which the first collaborative song was written. The Sanction take this opportunity of wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Hayley, Steve, Alan and Steve :-)
13/12/09 - Press
The band received a short mention in the 'Herts and Essex Observer' this week.
8/12/09 - Live - New Line Up
The Sanction's new line up of Hayley McCarthy, Steve Horne, Alan Engel and Steve Langford played their first 'mini set' at a 'Rock Night' in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire last night. It went well and marks the first tentative step into the live arena - more live dates will be announced in Spring 2010.
4/11/09 - The Sanction CD/Download
The Sanction's debut CD will be available to download from December 21st 2009 at 7.21pm (start of the winter solstice!). It is a largely 'homemade', recording using Cubase and various other pieces of audio software. The vocals were recorded at Riverway Studios, Essex and the tracks were mastered by Mark Kempston. The CD/download features 9 songs, 8 of which were written by Steve and 'Falling', which was written by Hayley. The tracks were recorded by the remaining three members of the original line up, (Hayley McCarthy, Al Hill and Steve Horne). The CD is dedicated to the memory of Alan Baker. You can read the lyrics here.
The Sanction's new line up, (Hayley McCarthy: vocals, Steve Horne: guitar, Seve Langford: drums and Alan Engel: bass), will debut some of the songs live for the first time on December 7th.
Download 'The Sanction' Download 'The Sanction Live'
A bit of history....
The Sanction are a heavy rock band from Hertfordshire and Essex. They formed under the name 'Proximity Effect' in 2007 with Alan Baker on drums, Steve Horne on guitar, Hayley McCarthy on vocals and Al Hill on bass. On the day of the first rehearsal, they were joined by keyboardist Andy Monk, but it soon became apparent that a permanent keyboard player, at that point, was not needed. As a quartet, the band met regularly throughout the winter months of 2007/2008 to rehearse original material, culminating in a short set at a local venue.
Alan Baker tragically took his own life in April 2008 as the band were preparing material to record. The band took a short break before deciding to continue, with a name change (to The Sanction) and Steve taking on drum programming duties for the recordings.
The CD took, in total, 18 months to record at Steve's 'home studio' and Riverway Studios (where vocals were recorded in July 2009). An initial attempt at mixing at the studio was aborted due to time and contextual issues. Steve mixed the songs at home from July to October 2009 on a Carillon audio PC (the same computers as Air Studios), which was nearing the end of it's useful lifespan and is by today's standrad ancient. The mixing process was very difficult - often being unable to hear the mix for audio interference as a result of loss of headroom, (in other words the Carillon just couldn't cope and made lots of nasty noises). However, with a lot of perserverence the album was completed. It is dedicated to the memory of Alan Baker.
A live date in January 2009 with temporary replacement drummer Stacy Plant was also recorded and is now available as 'Live At The Millenium Hall'. Some post production work was applied to the original recoprding to make the songs more 'listenable'. Al Hill left the band following this gig, to start a new life in Scotland.
In September 2009, a new line up of the band met to rehearse the songs together with some cover versions. The line up was Hayley McCarthy: vocals, Steve Horne: guitar, Steve Langford: drums, Alan Engel: bass. The band continued to rehearse, (with a brief break to play a 7 song live set in December (testing the water....)) in preparation for live dates in Spring 2010. However, it became apparent that the line up was not working out to Hayley or Steve H's satisfaction and it was agreed that changes needed to be made for the benefit of all concerned.
Following Steve and Alan's departure, Mark Wabe auditioned for the band. His aggressive, yet intricate drumming blew both Hayley and Steve away and he was asked to join the band immediately. There then followed a long, protracted search for a bass player which stretched over months and months. Finally, Al (Alex) Burchell came and played with the band one Sunday in August 2010 and the latest (and hopefully final) incarnation of The Sanction was born.
