My love of Van She thickens/hardens (ooh-err, et cetera) this week with the announcement of the Van She Party; and 11 date party-tour which begins in Brisbane on the 4th of July and ends on the 26th in Adelaide. If you’re interested in checking out the full tour date schedule (and would like to buy tickets,) click on this bit of the interwebs. So how many of you will I be seeing at the July 18th show being held at Melbourne’s Prince Bandroom?

June 21st marks the release of the hotly anticipated single “Strangers” (artwork pictured to the left) from the boys. This is still some days away so if you’re sick of my Van She ramblings of late, you might want to stay away for a while because not only will I be reminding you of the single release the week it hits shelves, the year is pretty much assigned to seriously annoying levels of Van She devotion over on these parts. “Strangers” is still very much my song of the year thus far and seems to have earwormed its way into the iPod’s of others as well which really pleases me. Triple J and a lot of community broadcasters are giving the song the support it so richly deserves but, criminally, commercial radio hasn’t touched it. Baffling. Anywho, here’s the CD single tracklisting;

01. “Strangers” (Radio Version) 3:35
02. “Strangers” (Yuksek Remix) 4:37
03. “Strangers” (Strip Steve Remix) 5:59
04. “Strangers” (Van She Tech Rework) 3:49
05. “Strangers” (VIDEO) 3:41

Incredible. And then once the single is released, it will be LESS THAN 2 MONTHS before the album. August the 9th peoples; that’s the OFFICIAL release date for the boys’ debut album “V.” You have no idea how excited I am about this. Three years in the making, we’re finally going to get that full length record. Come late July, you just know I’ll be camping out by my letterbox waiting for that shiny and new promo copy to arrive. Hint fucking hint.

Went to see Cut Copy live on Thursday and the We Love Sounds music festival on Saturday. Caught The Bravery (amazing!) and Utah Saints (!!!) among many others. Great nights out; will hopefully do a little piece on them soon.

It does seem that every second post these days I’m apologising for something, and today is no exception. Tomorrow may have been four days ago, but it’s better late than never I guess so sorry. Things have been rather… bizarre of late. I caused some serious damage to my ankle (again; this time it was the other one) two weeks ago and have been knee-high in new subjects for uni, which is on top of the monotonous 9 - 5 job I have, plus the Forte Magazine stuff. I’m going to be making a conscious effort to spend more time on the site again over the coming weeks; it’s just been a bit tougher for this first half of 2008.

And on that note; can you believe we are already halfway through the year? Far out…