NEWS: Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra EP

Image by Kay Donnelly

After kicking off the year releasing their fourth (and arguably best) album Soul Of My City, Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra carried on doing what they do best – touring constantly across the UK and Europe. After a summer full of festivals, they’re already releasing a new EP of entirely new material. Eta Carinae (it’s a star system) is the band’s first 10” release (on their own label, as ever) and contains four tracks – the wistfully romantic, lushly arranged title track (surely their most ambitious song yet), the moody junkyard blues of Black Dog, the swinging Basket Full Of Nothing and lead track Swinging Like A Brick, a harmonica and organ-drive rockabilly number.

Following the recent departure of guitarist Ben Fitzgerald to concentrate on his own Memphis Fitzgerald project, the EP is deliberately less guitar-heavy than previous releases (although Tim Bloomer does some fine work on Eta Carinae) so the band can do justice to the new material on their forthcoming run of dates. They play Stockton’s Georgian Theatre on Thursday 17^th, a lunchtime show on Thursday 24^th at Newcastle University’s King Hall (where the band were formed) and the official EP launch at The Old Coal Yard on Friday 25^th October.

Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra play Georgian Theatre, Stockton on Thursday 17^th, Newcastle University King’s Hall on Thursday 24^th and The Old Coal Yard, Newcastle on Friday 25^th October