A mother ship is a vessel or aircraft that carries a smaller vessel or aircraft that operates independently from it. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research (such as the B-52 carrying the X-15), or ships that carry small submarines to an area of ocean to be explored (such as the Atlantis II carrying the Alvin). The mothership may also recover the smaller craft, or may go its own way after releasing it.

Usage

The term mother ship dates back to the nineteenth century whaling trade when small, fast ships were used to chase and kill whales. The dead meat from several boats was then brought back to the larger, slower ship for processing and storage until the return to land. This model enabled a far more efficient method of whaling. Though whaling is much lower-scale than in earlier days, the single large storage ship model is still used extensively by fishermen. Such ships are known today as factory ships.

In many languages, such as Chinese, Finnish and Japanese the word mother ship refers to an aircraft carrier; see (literally "mother" + "warship").

The mother ship concept was used in moon landings performed in the 1960s. Both the unsuccessful American 1962 Ranger landers and the successful Soviet 1966 Luna landers were unmanned spherical capsules ejected at the last moment from mother ships that had carried them to the Moon and crashed onto its surface. In the manned Apollo program, astronauts in the lunar module separated from the command module in lunar orbit, descended to the lunar surface, and returned to dock in a lunar orbit rendezvous with the command module once more for a ride home to Earth.

In science fiction and UFOs

The term has achieved prominence in science fiction and in UFO lore, which extend the idea to apply to spaceships serving as the heart of a fleet. The concept of mothership (almost always spelled as a single word) clearly implies that the other ships in the fleet are dependent on the mothership for at least some services. Motherships are essentially the sci-fi equivalent to modern flagships. Typically, a mothership will take up station in an area and remain there for long periods, while smaller ships sortie to interesting destinations. Sometimes a mothership is large enough to operate alone, or is so huge that it contains a fleet in its body.

A variant of the term mother ship can be traced to the hundreds of claimed UFO sightings in the U.S. during the summer of 1947, when a woman in Palmdale, California was quoted by contemporary press as describing a "mother saucer [with a] bunch of little saucers playing around it." The term was further popularized in UFO lore through the UFO sightings of George Adamski in the 1950s, who claimed to sometimes see large cigar shaped Venusian motherships out of which flew smaller sized flying saucers.

In video games, motherships are often a source of bonus points or encountered as boss characters. Roles played in a fleet by a mothership may include that of troop or smaller vessel carrier or repair/supply services.

See also

Aircraft carrier

Dropship

Factory ship

Flight deck

Milchkuh

Military spacecraft in fiction

Parasite aircraft

Starfighter

References

Category:Ship types

Coordinates	33°55′31″N18°25′26″N
Name	Enter Shikari
Background	group_or_band
Origin	St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Genre	Post-hardcore, electronica Metalcore (early)
Years active	1999–2003 (as Hybryd)2003–present
Label	Ambush RealityTiny Evil PIAS Recordings (Europe)
Url	www.entershikari.com
Current members	Rou ReynoldsRory ClewlowChris BattenRob Rolfe

Enter Shikari is an electronically influenced English post-hardcore band, formed in 2003 in St Albans, Hertfordshire. The band is named after a boat belonging to Roughton "Rou" Reynolds' uncle, and a character in a play which he wrote before forming the band, both of which are named Shikari. Shikari also means 'Hunter', in Marathi, Persian, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali. Their debut album, Take to the Skies was released on 19 March 2007 and reached #4 in the Official UK Album Chart. Their second album, titled Common Dreads, was released on 15 June 2009 and debuted on the UK Albums Chart at 16.

Biography

Beginnings and Take to the Skies (1999–2008)

In 1999 a band named Hybryd formed consisting of Rou on guitar, Chris on bass and Rob on drums. They released an EP under the name 'Commit No Nuisance' and featured the tracks 'Perfect Pygmalion' and 'Fake'. In 2003, Hybryd became Enter Shikari. They revolutionised their sound by recruiting Rory to play Guitar so that Rou could concentrate on electronics. Enter Shikari formed in St Albans, England in 2003. The band features Roughton "Rou" (/raʊ/) Reynolds on vocals and electronics, Liam Clewlow (known by his middle name 'Rory') on guitar, Chris Batten on bass guitar and Rob Rolfe on drums. All four members are from St Albans. and would be released on 18 June. The song's video was premiered on 21 May. The single received bad reviews from NME.

On 6 June 2007 they performed a live show on BBC Radio 1 for Zane Lowe at BBC Radio Theatre.

They played an eleven date headline tour in October/November 2007 including their biggest ever headline gig in the 4,921 capacity Carling Academy Brixton. The band released a compilation EP titled The Zone on 12 November.

Enter Shikari have performed over 500 gigs as of 2007 and played on the Gibson/MySpace stage at 2006's Download Festival. On 14 May 2007, Enter Shikari started their first North America tour. This followed into three more North American tours.

In January 2008, Enter Shikari performed in Australia and New Zealand for the first time as part of the Big Day Out Festival. The band also did a number of side-shows in Australia, including two sold out shows at the Hi-Fi Bar in Melbourne.

They played at Projekt Revolution in Milton Keynes on 29 June 2008, alongside Linkin Park, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D, The Bravery, InnerPartySystem and Pendulum.

On 13 May 2008, the band released the first in a series of videos called "Enter Shikari: In the 'Low". The videos, posted on the band's YouTube page, showcased the band as they recorded their new single, "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape", and demoed new material. One of the new songs set to feature on the album was 'Step Up', which was first performed at Milton Keynes Pitz on 28 June 2008, the warm up show to Projekt Revolution the following day.

On 8 August 2008, it was announced that "We Can Breathe In Space, They Just Don't Want Us To Escape" would be released as a single. It was said to be a drastic re-working of the song originally demoed by the band back in 2005, but was not to be included in the band's second album.

They completed a tour of the UK and Ireland which took place over the course of 6 weeks; from 30 September to 4 November 2008; and consisted of 28 shows. A DVD compilation of live footage filmed by band / crew along with some TV footage was to be released to coincide with the tour according to a Kerrang! interview with the band, but has not been released as of yet.

Common Dreads (2009–2010)

It was confirmed by NME that Enter Shikari had finished working on their second album, Common Dreads, in March 2009 and announced that they would tour the UK and Europe during 2009. They also made available a free download of a new song, Antwerpen from their website. On 15 April 2009 Juggernauts was played on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe's "Hottest Track in the World" and was released as a single on 1 June 2009. The B-side of the single is "All Eyes On The Saint". The band also had help from musician Danny Sneddon who helped with the recording of Juggernauts. On 1 May Kerrang featured their track-by-track of the album. Metal Hammer were the first to review the album online with a track-by-track. Since it was announced in an interview with Andy Copping on Scuzz on their "The Digital Darkside: Download Special" that there would be 2 secret bands playing at Download Festival 2009, it has been heavily speculated that Enter Shikari would play one of these slots. They were confirmed to be one of the secret bands on 9 June 2009. Enter Shikari also featured at Reading and Leeds Festivals on 29 and 30 August 2009, playing songs from Common Dreads, as well as acoustic variations of 'Juggernauts', 'No Sleep Tonight' and 'Adieu' from Take To The Skies.

Common Dreads was released through Ambush Reality on 15 June 2009 and debuted at #16 on the UK top 40 album chart. The second single that has been released from Common Dreads was No Sleep Tonight. The 7" vinyl, CD single and MP3 download was released on 17 August 2009. A slightly modified version of the song "Wall" was released as a radio single, and a video for the song "Zzzonked" made of clips of a live show which was played at Norwich UEA, was also released.

A 2-disc version of Common Dreads was due to be released in January 2010. Frontman Rou Reynolds announced that “We’ve got a different artist for each single from Hospital Records to do drum ‘n’ bass remixes so we’ll be releasing that as a 12". Then we're doing the same thing with (dubstep label) True Tiger who've done a dubstep remix of each single.” however it was later said in a Radio 1 interview that in fact they were only having their main singles remixed.

The new single "Thumper" was released on 19 January 2010, on BBC Radio One, As well the new single "Tribalism", which was first played on Radio 1, 16 February 2010. These songs come off the new B-sides and remixes album Tribalism, which was released on 22 February 2010.

Since March 2009, drummer Rob Rolfe has not been able to perform at United States shows due to a denial of a visa. Rob has chosen Fellsilent drummer, Christopher Mansbridge to fill in for these dates. Although, on 9 July 2010 Rob stated in a Twitter post that he had obtained a visa. On 30 September 2010 Rob passed through customs at an airport in Houston for Enter Shikari's North American tour in October/November, and confirmed this in a Twitter post stating simply "America, I'm back".

Throughout February–March 2010, Enter Shikari joined the Australian summer festival Soundwave along with other bands such as A Day to Remember and Architects, playing shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The band then continued to tour Japan with A Day to Remember and Escape the Fate and in April–May 2010, they served as a support act, along with August Burns Red and Silverstein on A Day to Remember's Toursick.

"Destabilise" and new album (2010–present)

On 14 June 2010, Enter Shikari announced that they had returned to the studio to do a "one off new track" called "Destabilise" which was released as a download on 26 October 2010, and a limited edition coloured 7" vinyl on 29 November 2010.

On 25 June 2010, Enter Shikari arrived in Carson, California for their first day on Vans Warped Tour 2010. They played around the country until 18 July 2010. It was the first time Enter Shikari had been on Warped Tour.

After finishing their part of Warped Tour, Enter Shikari played a few festivals such as headlining Redfest and supported The Prodigy at Milton Keynes Bowl followed by an exclusive show at the venue Underworld situated in Camden which was filmed and recorded as a possible DVD release, though technical problems with the recording - caused by heat and moisture in the room - resulted in it being highly unlikely that a majority of the show will ever see the light of day.

In August 2010, Enter Shikari returned to Australian shores for a headlining national tour, playing sold out shows in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne and near-sellout shows in Perth and Brisbane. On 2 October 2010, the band went on their headlining "Destabilise" Tour in North America with Haste the Day, Sleeping With Sirens, MSWHITE, and Lights Go Blue.

The band then supported 30 Seconds to Mars on their Into The Wild Tour leg of UK arenas in November–December 2010. This was the band's last tour for 2010.

According to an interview by Rob Rolfe, the follow up to Common Dreads is projected to be released in late 2011, but no official release date has been set. In 2011, the band will take a break from touring, to focus on recording it.

Also, at the end of 2010, the band collaborated with UK drum and bass band The Qemists on their single Take it Back which was released on 28 March 2011.

On 5 January 2011, Enter Shikari announced that they will be playing on the 2011 Vans Warped Tour during the summer. They will be playing the whole tour opposed to playing only half of the tour in 2010.

On 21 March 2011, it was confirmed that Enter Shikari will be playing at the Reading and Leeds festivals in late August.

On 8 April 2011, the band uploaded a video via YouTube. The video is a spoof of old video of "Destabilise", performed by a faux group, Jonny and the Snipers (a play on the name of their song "Jonny Sniper"). The video is supposed to play on the idea that their song is a covered version of an older song.

On 26 April 2011, the band confirmed a mainland European tour starting in Warsaw, Poland on 12 September, and ending in Tilburg, Holland on 3 October 2011. Support will be provided from Your Demise and letlive.

In May 2011, the band traveled to Thailand to record their third album. On 11 May 2011, they announced that the first single from the album would be "Quelle Surprise", which was previously released in a live video on their YouTube channel. The official single was released on 19 May 2011.

Also on 11 May 2011, the band announced a very intimate show in London on 15 June at Dingwalls. They stated the show as a celebration of their returning home from Thailand with a third album being ready, and a send off with friends & family before they headed out on their world tour.

Band members

Roughton "Rou" Reynolds - lead vocals, electronics, keyboards, synth programming

Liam "Rory" Clewlow - lead guitars, rhythm guitars, backing vocals

Chris "Batty C" Batten - bass guitars, backing vocals

Rob Rolfe - drums, percussion

Discography

Take to the Skies (2007)

Common Dreads (2009)

Ambush Reality

Ambush Reality is an Independent record label started in July 2006 that currently only releases music by Enter Shikari. It is co-owned and run by the members of the band and their friends. The band has decided that, in order to tour in the United States, they will have to sign with a major record label in America. On 28 August 2007, Ambush Reality said that Take to the Skies will come out in North America in October 2007, with Ambush Reality joining Interscope Records imprint Tiny Evil. Ambush Reality have recently signed a distribution deal with Warner Music in order to make the album Common Dreads and future releases more accessible outside the UK and also more widely advertised and promoted. As of 8 December 2010 Enter Shikari / Ambush Reality have left distribution through Warner and will distribute throughout UK/Europe/Japan/Australia via PIAS.

Side projects

Reynolds has produced music as part of a side project with the name "Rout", which he sometimes performs in small venues and before shows. He previously used the names "Shark & Blitz" and "Routron 5000". The music develops on his penchant for electronics, resulting in a drum'n'bass/jungle/dubstep sound. Some songs feature samples of Rou and friends fooling around as well as iconic lines from movies or songs.

Frontman Rou Reynolds has also set up his own clothing company Step Up Clothing which was to be launched 23 April 2011 but due to technical difficulties will be launched at a later date .

Drummer Rob Rolfe also performs as a DJ under the alias "Sgt. Rolfy" specialising in freeform hardcore music.

Enter Shikari promoted the film Zeitgeist: Moving Forward through their website, encouraging their fans to join the Zeitgeist Movement, stating: "Single-handedly the biggest influence on all that is Enter Shikari!".

Reynolds was also involved in hardcore side project JBM along with his friend Matt Pendell.

Awards

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- !align="left"|Award !align="left"|Status !align="centre"|Reference |- |align="left"|Kerrang! Awards: Best British Newcomer 2006 | style="text-align:center;"|Nominated | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|NME Awards: John Peel Award for Musical Innovation 2007 | style="text-align:center;"|Won | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|Rock Sound Magazine's poll for 'who will make it in 2007' | style="text-align:center;"|Won | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|Kerrang! Awards: Spirit Of Independence 2007 | style="text-align:center;"|Won | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|Kerrang! Awards: Best Live Band 2007 | style="text-align:center;"|Won | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|BT Digital Awards: Breakthrough Artist of the Year in association with BBC 6Music | style="text-align:center;"|Won | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|Kerrang! Awards: Best Live Band 2009 | style="text-align:center;"|Nominated | style="text-align:center;"| |- |align="left"|Kerrang! Awards: Best British Band 2010 | style="text-align:center;"|Nominated | style="text-align:center;"|

The song "Sorry You're Not a Winner" was featured in EA Sports NHL 08.

The song "OK Time For Plan B" was featured in EA Sports Madden NFL 08.

The songs "No Sleep Tonight" "Wall" and "Juggernauts" were featured in a single episode of Waterloo Road on BBC One in 2010.

The song "Destabilise" was featured in an episode of Ski Sunday on BBC One in 2011.

The song "The Jester" was featured in an episode of Oh Oh Cherso on RTL 4 in 2011.

The songs "No Sssweat" and "Stand your ground; this is ancient land" were featured in an episode of Bizarre ER on BBC Three in 2011.

References

External links

Category:English rock music groups Category:2000s music groups Category:2010s music groups Category:British post-hardcore musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 2003 Category:Musical quintets Category:Kerrang! Awards winners