Guilfest!
Posted by AK - call me tripod - 2008-07-04
Guilfest this Sunday... I'm just about ready to burst out of my plaster cast - Bruce Banner styles - with excitement.. I'm trembling - Frankenfurter - styles - with anticip..p..p..ation at the thought of having a tent all rammed-up with folks (prolly sheltering from the rain, if weather forecasts are to be believed!) shouting and screaming and hollerin' and jumping around like the psychologically challenged as we tear the erse out of our set!!!!! It's been too long since we last mixed drum with bass and throat with my own machiavellian blend of Gibson and Vox.. formulating and concocting aural merriment like some half-crazed alchemist, bent on intoxicating your ears with tone and volume... seeking that bio-molecular reaction that hard-wires your ears to your fists and causes spontaneous waving and pumping of hands in the air until you can just about make out the screaming noise coming from just under your nose...!
Yep. Looking forward to it.
And we're headlining the Camden Barfly on Thursday!!! It just gets better and better!!!
We're hiding away at our secret reh-erse-hal base in London on Sat morning, where physisisisists *hic* will be monitoring our set like the Russians in Rocky IV when Ivan Drago is going through his training... we won't be injecting anything tho.. JUST SAY NO! well... Mikey was thinking about getting some botox.. I reckon he was just pronouncing "buttocks" in a patois kinda way.. eeew.. what a mental image that makes.. now I'm for it... I'd better get my sewing kit ready, he will no doubt want to run me through his new Enslicerer 2008 for that... doh! I thought the beauty of the internet was to make dangerous slanders from the relative safety of online anonymity? I'm doing this all wrong, obviously.
IF ONE MORE PERSON tells me to "break a leg"... well, I'm-a gonna put my foot in dey botox...
Currently listening to the Raconteurs.. Jack White makes the world a better place.. I could go on and on and on (and generally do) about that dude.. he makes me want to play guitar!!! And usually only I'm allowed to do that... oh, and I've also been listening to this on youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0QKbnCDW94 my favourite film of all time ever.. "I got a real good guitar player, name of Jack Butler!" I keep wanting to cross reference Karate Kid quotes with it tho.. "Sweep the lick!" "tap on.. pull off.." etc. Enjoy!
*heads off to listen to Ry Cooder albums*
Our men in the north - Donny, Manc, Wakefield and Brum gigs
Posted by AK - I'm loving it. - 2008-05-28
OK - so we're all back in one piece after our dates up north.. this touring life can take it's toll tho, and countless hours in the van is a reality that I've always tried to spare you from, dear reader.. I try and show that we are all absolutely loving being on tour, staying in hotels and headlining festivals, playing our music to people all over the country, and enjoying every minute of it.. but believe me it's a full spectrum of highs and lows.. reality does indeed bite, occasionally..
The Doncaster gig at the Leopard was actually cancelled on us last minute by the promoter - who had a reason that we could not argue with, but in this business it's sad that you find yourself distrusting people, de facto. With pretty much all of Doncaster in London for the football, we're hoping that the promoter's excuse was actually a cover for this. Anyway, we head all the way up there on Thurs and get to the venue, which isn't in the most salubrious of settings, but it does have a bar and a toilet so we're straight in there. The promoter hadn't promoted the night at all, but the sound guys were there, and the venue itself was great - reminded me a bit of 21 South Street in Reading but was bigger - with a bar to suit.. we figured that even if no-one turned up we'd use it as a rehearsal, and the owner said he'd pay/feed/water us anyway, so no crowd = no problem. As it turned out, the owner's daughter brought some of her mates along to see us so we did at least get a group of girls screaming and cheering at us in between songs!
Tony, being the master sleuth that he is, had spotted the sound guys sticking some mic's (good ones, too...) up above the mixing desk - and like Hercule Poirot; he pounced! "J'Accuse!!! I theenk you arr recordink uzz!", which they were, for a nominal fee. We soundcheck and decide that the evening might not just be a rehearsal as it sounds good and is a nice big hall in which to create some rock and roll joy, so we go off to investigate the hotel, which is again more engaging than a travelodge, if only half built! bit soulless, but a warm comfy bed nonetheless. Massive restaurant across the road, pretty barmaids to flirt with, and lots of good food with some ale. Ahh.. it's great to be on tour! Anyways, we head back and play the show in as relaxed a manner as we have done all tour, due to the absolute lack of pressure and our own, stirling and very British, "keep buggering on" attitude and everyone's happy, especially Tony once he's had a listen back to the recording that the sound guys have made.. and once we've all had a listen, we happily slapped some cash into their palms for their efforts and walked off with a live set captured for posterity.. it was only a mixing and a mastering away from being as good as a studio recording! We'll get the fruits of our efforts up on here asap! Everyone's happy, back to the hotel to see off the rider and Tony gets to sit there at breakfast, ashen-faced and slumped in his seat, as I dealt with a massive fry up and finished his for him as well. The eggs were minging, but quite frankly ladies and gentlemen the cook had me at "black pudding".
You can take the boy out of the front row, but you can't take the front-row out of the boy. I'm pleased to say that due to regular gym visits and careful dietary considerations my skinny jeans now fall down on me even when I'm wearing a belt (I'll be happy to show any ladies demanding proof), so this fry-up was richly deserved and thoroughly enjoyed. Besides, I knew I'd need the carbs for this stint of the tour.
OK, on to Manchester to headline the Maps festival at the Dry Bar - we were in hog heaven - up to full gig fitness after the previous night and playing in one of our favourite towns. Our hotel was massive, swimming pool/gym, etc.. but it was all a facade.. the entrance was grand and plush, like a Beverly Hills type of deal, but the rooms were all sub-Travelodge standard.. meh, still a bed for the night innit. We hit the jacuzzi and the steam room for an hour or so.. we were due onstage at 1am so we decided we'd eat as soon after soundcheck as we could so we'd have hours to digest and not be full for all the jumping around and intenseness of the show.. so straight off to the curry mile for us! Quality banter, quality weather and good times all round as we got stuck into some Asian cuisine.. and back to the hotel for a nap. Got to the venue an hour before we play and listen to the other bands - all good stuff up in Manchester! Nice big crowd of folks, and great atmosphere.. which kinda died down pretty quickly after midnight.. we started up and revved up the remaining numbers good and proper, but we were feeling the effects of a long day and the mood was kind of grumpy afterwards - the nap was probably - in hindsight - a bad idea. The bouncer at the load-in door was being a dick and we got a parking ticket as well.. pffft! looking back, we still headlined a festival in Manchester but it was quiet in the van back to the hotel.. we're usually such cheery chappies! Hotel was heaving with a students end of term party, which we saw in action as we left for the show.. and were gutted that it had pretty much ended by the time we got back. I made a half-hearted attempt to engage with some stragglers in skirts, but headed off to my room shortly thereafter.
Next day we were off to the Trafford Centre to nose around and soak up some atmosphere in the glorious sunshine. We all split up and came back with different stories, me and Tony watched the world go by as we sipped coffees and saw some big arm-wrestling contest.. amazed to see that the Polish national arm-wrestling champion is about 9 stone dripping wet.. I was tempted to get up and have a go! Until we saw him almost cripple some beefy English lad.. Then on to Wakefield for the show at the Escobar. Halfway there I realised I had left my phone at the hotel in Mancheser and once ensconced in Wakefield hotel I called them, only to realise that the staff at the previous hotel were in fact complete b*stards who may as well have told me that they didn't care, wouldn't be doing anything about it and hoped that the eastern-block cleaning staff were at that very moment dialling the speaking clock in Australia on it. So, my phone is lost.. anyone needing to contact me can get me on here for now.
The venue was cool tho, loads of pictures on the walls of when the Arctic Monkeys/Pigeon Detectives/Cribs had played there, staff were top banana and none too slow in presenting us with our rider! Big up deyselves! Wakefield is an interesting place.. we saw a 9yr old staggering about as if on pills, and as we were loading into the venue at half five some completely pissed bloke stumbled in behind us - we thought he knew the staff or something, but they were terrified when they saw him! He was ok tho, and quietly sloshed on down the road to find a bar that was open.. soundcheck was mint, other bands were nice and friendly, and there was an ok crowd there considering the Kaiser Chiefs gig nearby that night. We headed off to a Mexican place for food, there was a girl's birthday party in there, which caused much entertainment for all.. more like a hen do than a birthday party! Eeeexcellent! Then back to venue for the show. I had a good time, jumped on my amp for "Have you heard.." and generally enjoyed myself. Quality times, and the hotel bar was open so some late night drinking was done. The football in the car park the next day was classic, trying to play headers and volleys in tight jeans and pointy shoes was tricky, but we managed it anyway.. until Luke came along with his John Smiths "'Ave it!" attitude.. Tony was covering every blade of grass in the car park and Jim treated us with the condescending benevolence that David Ginola would probably show when kicking about with his local under 10's team. Jimmy used to play for Reading, you know (Reading Town, that is). I almost managed a "trappy-on-the-back-of-your-neck" to prove to him that rugby players aren't automatically indisposed towards Wendyball - but I didn't, so I guess they might be..
And orf to Brum... which was a long way from Wakefield in the van with hangovers.. and with yours truly suffering some tense moments in between service stations on the motorway thanks to the previous night's Mexican food.. *note to self*.
So we rolled on into the 2nd city with skies grey and teary, and minced around the Bullring for clothes and coffee, cursing Mexican food and loving the time out of the van in amongst the good denizens of Brum. I became enamoured of the blonde girl called Jo in Costa Coffee with the elfin looks and we did some quality "Yes, we're in a band" strutting around the place like peacocks. We played our fave gig on our last tour at this venue, so it was all smiles and good times when we pitched up and set up, the promoters and staff are all sound as anything and pizza and beer was handed out and we caught up and hung out as the crowd swelled for the night's show. First band - Sicum - were proper good, sorta Ragey and Chili Peppersy, which we liked - FAT sounding guitar and a rapper you could believe in. Nice work. Crowd loved it, and rightly so. Next band, the Zebbedy somethings.. (sorry guys! I blew out my short term memory banks back in 'Nam) were crazy - intense, punky, post-pop screamings that sent the place mental! So we had to go on and play like demons to keep the pace up! Much more like it! After some pretty hard shows, this was more like it! Crowd well up for it, and us nailing it down like we know we should. Brilliant! Sold some merch, sank some beers and mingled and back-slapped afterwards.. just the perfect end to this run of the tour. Even the long old drive back home afterwards was fairly manageable, and a bank-holiday lie-in today to boot. Ahh!
*purrs contentedly*
Tour points to be awarded soon.. but Jimmy and Shane have both told me that I should be awarded most, although they respect the fact that I can't do that myself cos I write the blogs and it would offend my sense of false modesty. What can I say? I live for this, I'm happiest on tour and I'm an animal. A musical noble savage, if you will. 30 points to me. 20 points to be divvied up amongst the others.
Chichester uni and Oxford
Posted by AK - me and my radio rocking on through the night - 2008-05-12
Ahhh... another glorious morning here in the shires, memories of last years rain-drenched May are washed away by the rays that now stream down upon us as - in the words of Homer - dawn rises early with rosy fingers.
Fridays gig at Chichester uni was everything we hoped it would be.. we turned up to find Simon and Oscar from Ocean Colour Scene chilling in the afternoon sun, and they were friendly and very decent blokes.. we didn't bother them too much, had a chat and a beer.. Simon remarked in a nicely understated way that it was just the two of them playing as part of their acoustic tour because "Steve was playing with Paul".. as you do! Jimmy was concerned that OCS would poach me, so obviously I had to reassure him that this wasn't going to happen.. I have a £3million buy-out clause in my contract, which scares most bands off. The Nizlopi guys turned up shortly after, and with the weather plus some delightful student girls running around finalising the ents, time passed very agreeably during soundchecks. Very strange to be headlining such a strong lineup, but we weren't going to argue!
When the ball started, we thought we'd best spend our time running around shooting each other (and some random students) in the Lazerquest inflatable maze, all good fun but it did get a little vicious as our competitive natures started raring up! We followed this with an inter-band 3-a-side game of human table football.. luck won out over talent as Tony welted the winning goal past me in goal... table football was definitely the winner!
Nizlopi were brilliant.. had the crowd in the palm of their hand, and my love for double-bass was rekindled good and proper.. top set, top musicians and good to see the students were all up for a night of live music.. by this stage they were still fairly sober but partying like a festival crowd.. and I'm pleased to say that a lot of them were female and very beautiful... happy days!
After we had sampled some of the hog roast it was OCS' turn to take the stage.. and put on another brilliant set for the students.. Simon was in great voice, engaged the crowd really well (despite some of the by now drunker elements of the crowd demanding tunes out of them.. this is one of the greatest British rock bands of the past 20 years! not some performing monkeys jiggling around an organ grinder!!! fools.. drunk, student fools!) and Oscar's piano accompaniment was sublime. "The Circle" sounded amazing.. and "Day we caught the train" sent the place mental as their encore.. suddenly we felt under a lot of pressure to follow them! But we did, with some lovely fans of ours right at the front and encouraging everyone to have a good time! The crowd had thinned a little (the four security guys at the front soon became one guy standing at the side!) but we played our hearts out and gave the night a decent finish, got the bodies dancing and screaming and whatnot. Job done! The rest of the band decided that heading home straight away was in order.. I was out-voted four to one.. leaving hoardes of drunk, posh, totty completely un-harried... it still rankles.. got to say a big hello and thank you to the girl who was at the front who also saw us play in London last weekend: she said that I played guitar like Slash, and made my whole year when she did!
Last night we were in Guildford, back at the Boileroom so Chinese take-aways and a nice well-stocked beer fridge backstage.. it was a Sunday so we didn't know if many people would be out but the weather meant that the beer garden soon filled out, and we had a nice bunch of fans turn up... our set was besieged by technical gremlins.. leads not working.. strings snapping, etc just one of those gigs.. but people clapped and cheered and we shifted about 20 singles so a good night despite not being the most enjoyable set for us! Steve Bradfield did an acoustic set to open, he was a really cool guy and has an amazing voice.. lots of nice segueways between songs and all delivered with an easy-going, affable manner.. top man. Elmor were also on the bill, we've played with them before and always enjoy their company and music.. it was a nice chilled evening all-in-all.. big thanks to all who came!
Oxford next.. new venue, more fans to win over and more copies of the single to sell to them! Will keep you posted as events unfold...
London, Leeds and Blackburn
Posted by AK - 2008-05-06
What a brilliant start to the tour, was great to play the Water Rats in Kings Cross - I've seen loads of top nights there, and we had a blast in front of a crowd that was much bigger than we thought it would be considering we were on first.. wicked sound, and my new amp came through its road test covered in glory! We didn't play great.. kinda focussed us all for the rest of the tour tho.. certainly made us all realise that we hate sloppiness.. one of our new tunes still needs fine-tuning, but great to wheel out a new tune nonetheless.. Turned out to be a top night all round, one of other bands are also playing at the Chichester uni ball on Friday, so was good to check them out and sup some beverage in the warm, balmy, London evening.. summer! we love it! Massive thanks to everyone who came up from Reading/London, Elliot, Pope - you know whose youse is.
We were all up at dawn's crack on Sat to bowl up to Leeds, but being all professional and sensible like, none of us had overdone it after the London show and we were all massively up for the tour so minds, bodies and spirits were all present and correct.. quick cup of tea with a bacon roll chaser, and we hit the road... 5hrs later, and much loving of the beautiful weather and scenery up in Yorkshire (we're naturalist aestheticians at heart..) and we found the hotel.. Shane is awarded 10 tour points at this stage for being creative with his choice of hotels... lastminute.com had sourced us a night at a massive, sprawling, country estate, hotel/conference centre place with a gym, swimming pool, etc. TOUCH! And the city centre was alive when we got to the venue, the music festival that was going on combined with the weather meant that there was a party vibe happening.. lots of fancy dress, great crowds.. and the venue is cool as anything (apart from the load into the venue!). We turned up about 10 mins before we were due to start - we knew we were only getting a line-check but some of our best gigs have only had a linecheck (ie, no sound check, just a perfunctory setting up of amps, etc.) - set up, absolutely nailed the gig and had the whole place cheering, dancing, etc. and got stuck into the rider. This lad comes up to me afterwards and tells me I was "the talent".. I mention this to Shane later at the hotel and he says I shouldn't let it go to my head; Horse. Gate. Bolted. So far, we've all had different people at different gigs offer each of us individual ego-massaging in terms of who is "the star".. I think Jimmy and Tony have the most, with Luke just behind them.. I believe I may have whinged, pseudo-jocularly, about it on here before.. so I'll add another notch to my tally just for the sake of keeping score. Mike has only had a couple (for looking cool!) which is indicative of how lightly we take that sort of thing, cos he's probably the most talented guy I know. Anyways, cheers to that lad for the praise and helping me lug my new amp (a Vox AC-30, picked it up from Dawsons in Reading on Fri afternoon.. they had to suffer me playing it at full volume before I bought it.. it's amazing) back up the stairs afterwards.. dropped the van back at the hotel, taxi's back in to Leeds for some revelry, and then back to the hotel bar for late-night entertainments... hmmm.. not sure if I want to divulge all details, but suffice to say that I got very drunk and chased skirt all round the hotel, with the rest of the band listening and laughing at my patter at the bar. The abuse dished out to me the next morning was merciless.. as were the hangovers we were all nursing.. but we didn't need to leave for Blackburn till 4-ish so we spent Sunday morning in the pool / steam room / jacuzzi in the hotel - and chilled the hell out.. tactically avoiding a group of girls from the night before.. *blushes*
And then on to Blackburn, where we were headlining the Courtyard festival.. what a wicked night!!!! Great stage, massive sound, and a load of bodies all in there having a good time! We played the best gig of the tour so far, watched by Clint Boon, who was DJ'ing afterwards. Our mate Chris got punched by some complete tosser, which kinda sucked, but he managed to laugh it off! tough bunch up in Blackburn! Oh yeah, when we turned up at the venue we went straight to the stage to see the band that was on - a 2 man jazz/death-metal/punk outfit which I kinda liked, but I think I was the only one in there who did - and some bloke lobbed a beer bottle, whistling past my ear, at the stage where it smashed. It was like that scene in the Blues Brothers where they play in that country shack and have chicken-wire across the stage to stop bottles being thrown, etc. Quality! The band .. .. us were great, kinda Weller-esque, and tight as anything.. they were Scousers, and were trying to out-intimidate the crowd!! The singer told them that "Blackburn Rovers were f****** sh*te!" - I thought they were going to get lynched... and then we went on and slayed everyone. Got people up and dancing, clapping and screaming and whatnot, and gave "My love it let me down" an absolute rinsing as an encore... I really, really love my new amp! Got the gig on video so hopefully you'll be able to see the carnage for yourselves.. everyone was really friendly to us afterwards, we hung out with our mates Lee and Chris and made some new ones.. Clint Boon's DJ set afterwards was amazing, most people in the place were totally wasted and it was a great vibe (with some quality dancing on the dance floor! not from me tho.. I was trying not to fall over by sticking with a lazy, monkey-dance kind of flow.. we had free Stella all night.. indulged in a little more skirt-chasing.. and then back to the hotel, which was almost as bad as the travelodge in Birmingham for utter crappiness.. but still a nice soft bed and a decent coffee sold next door. Woke up the next morning when Tony punched me in the stomach, the harshest wake up call ever. I forgive him, he was only being malicious... he had also squeezed a load of toothpaste into my shoe... I'm still not sure why he was booby-trapping my footwear, I can only put it down to the booze... so we gingerly scraped ourselves up and poured us into the van for the long drive home in the glorious May sunshine. 5 hours later and we were back home. I can't speak for the others but I got home and went to the gym to sweat out some alcohol.. I made the mistake of telling Jimmy what I do when I go swimming, he just laughed in my face.. I don't know if I'm a poor swimmer or just very lazy.. he's probably a closet dolphin. So yeah, that was the first leg of the tour! Tour points so far:
Jimmy: 5 Not a foot wrong.
Luke: 3 Quality
Mike: 2 Bearable
Tony: -2 for toothpaste booby-trap and stomach-punch alarm calls.
Shane - 10 Outstanding
Me: 25. I've started well on this tour, new amp sounds great, my womanising is a source of great joy to all, and we've only got lost twice so far I think. Roll on Friday!
Club Velocity gig
Posted by AK and Sid Siddle - 2008 - 04-14
So, Sat's gig at Club V was good.. big crowd, all the other bands pitched in to make it a good night (I hereby pledge eternal fraternity with the Dirty Mundays, for just being legends and providing me with some of my favourite memories) and we played pretty good.. I get antsy if we haven't played for a few days, and after the rip-roaring show for Josaka's birfy it had a lot to live up to.. but as I have probably mentioned before, Club V was a special gig for us - some of the best nights I've had have been at Club V.. I reviewed a bunch (should be up in the Josaka archives), so many top performances.. I just wish we could have played at the old Rising Sun venue.. an amazing place, a bit like playing in a squat with a bar.. what an ambience.. but you can't say fairer than we had on Sat, shoutings out to Celia and Melvin and everyone else.. may all your uppings be big.
And I think Sid Siddle, legendary head honcho of Club V - http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/music/s/2024090_celebrating_sids_success - was happy enough with events. He posted on our myspazz:
"We have learnt a lot about ourselves from this band-basically not to believe a word from 'so called friends' Because you should take them (the band) (very) seriously. Last night the last three songs (we were on the door at the start-we deal on three songs) were worldclass. They would take anyone-anyone on. They aint cool. For the (final) record we aint cool and we have never been cool. We have no hair-own one pair of jeans and two pairs of shoes.WSunday appeal to real people, who like a beer plus an ultra cool sxe America chap who we instantly made friends over Minor Threat.A band for the people. We are now converts.Whilst 'sassy' friends doing 200 m trips watching the
so called Reading band. That band in the eNMEy-we bigged them up-but their end of year report-they aint delievering.They diss the town-they aint the new Pavement-they are sadly the new Magoo.WSunday single is huge and will/would give Kicks a run in the charts.Ignore what you have read/heard about WSunday.Very professional.Very focused. We give any band any thumbs up for that. Go and see them/check them out seriously trust us-this band are buzzzing.The bass player total skin-if we could afford the 20 quid-we would going to N1 today to watch Agnosic Front/US Bombs and of course the mighty Hardskin.Wsunday arent Oasis-they are more Slade/Prisoners/Kasbain. Reading are going down.Very Reading.WsUnday arent very Reading they think bigger and you have to fucking admire that. Oi other bands look here they confirm your fucking pretending!!
Cheers Sid! I reckon we'll stay up this year, myself.. the gooners don't have anything to play for now, we can knock them over at their gaff.. Wigan and Derby.. gotta be optimistic.. and Spurs might also be halfway to their summer hols..
Thanks for having us play your night! It was quality!
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