The Crimea (band)

The Crimea
The Crimea at The 100 Club, London, UK. January 2006.
Background information
Origin	United Kingdom
Genres	Indie
Years active	2002–2013
Labels	Alcopop Records, Lazy Acre Records
Website	The Cimea website
Members	Davey MacManus Joe Udwin Andrew Stafford Owen Hopkin
Past members	Andrew Norton Julz Parker

The Crimea were a British indie band, based in Camden, London. The band were featured in John Peel's Festive Fifty, ranking higher than bands such as The White Stripes and all eleven of the initial album demos were played on his show. The Guardian has described The Crimea's songs as "mini-epics" that reduce frontman Davey MacManus to "spasms of jerking anguish". On 2 July 2013 they announced via their official Twitter account that they were calling time on their 11-years as a band and that their gig at the Jazz Café in London on 30 July 2013 would be their last.

In 1998 The Crocketts signed to UK label V2 and released two albums. However, in late 2001, the band were dropped from the label's roster as part of a 'rationalisation' plan. Following this setback, Davey MacManus and Owen Hopkin formed The Crimea.

Their song "Lottery Winners On Acid" was played frequently by John Peel in 2002. They recorded a Peel session on 16 January 2003.

The Crimea were signed to Warner Bros Records following a showcase at the 2004 SXSW Festival in Texas. Their debut album, Tragedy Rocks, was released in 2005, with the first single from the album, "Lottery Winners On Acid", released on 9 January 2006; it entered the UK singles chart at No. 31 and became the first of three singles to appear as Single of the Week on what was then the show hosted by both Colin Murray and Edith Bowman on BBC Radio 1. In support of The Crimea's second single, "White Russian Galaxy", the band then performed on Top of the Pops.

Due to poor album sales Warner Bros dropped The Crimea in late 2006. The band continued to write new material and in April 2007 released Secrets of the Witching Hour as a free download from the band's website; a CD was also available, with artwork by Joe Udwin, the band's bassist, in collaboration with London-based, visual artist Tersha Willis. The band received a lot of support from Radio 1 DJ, Colin Murray, who gave the Crimea airtime on his nightly show by playing one track from the album each week and advocating downloading the album. The band hoped to tour substantially off the back of the new record.