Wednesday 25 August 2010

Like hot sauce on a cuban heel.

Last night we spent an entertaining few hours filming ourselves for the video for Sanity Check. I do not believe my hair put in a very good performance, but there’s not a lot I can do about that. My hair is self employed and if I criticize it too much it might just decide to leave and I don’t want that.

We also started work on our new cover song last night, to be unveiled on the 25th of September. I think it’s going to be pretty epic, not in terms of length but in terms of width. It’s going to have a lot of girth to it, which is a good thing so I am told.

We may have a couple of new tunes ready for September as well. One is a bit of a Krautrock steam locomotive that has made a bid for freedom, jumped the rails and is escaping down the autobahn. The other one is a bit harder to describe. It goes rurr rurr ruur, and then boodonk boodonk and then there’s a bit of nang nang nang nang nang before we get back to the rurrs. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Over the weekend I made Danish pastry. Not Danish Pastries, but pastry from a Danish recipe. It involved plain flour, bit of salt, butter and a big old dollop of cream. It was really very easy and very nice. So now, when you hear someone say “Danish Pastry” make sure you know whether they mean the puff pastry and cinnamon concoction or whether they are simply referring to a recipe from Denmark. It could save your life.

Friday 13 August 2010

Yorrrr oveeerrr the hill riiiide naaaaw

Our gig on Tuesday is cancelled. Not too sure why, but it is fine by me. I was a bit bothered by the prospect of changing words in songs. It just didn’t sit right with me at all. So I’m glad I won’t have to do it!

Rehearsal last night and work is progressing apace on our next collection of tunes. One opus finishes, onwards to the next! So far we have three tunes, one of which we are already playing out and about and which I am yet to play properly. But that’s alright, it’s still cool. It’s nice to not have any deadlines or anything, just the opportunity to work on things and keep our creative juices flowing.

The dates have been booked for our regular music nights in Next to Nowhere on Bold Street. The first one will be on Saturday September the 25th and we are currently looking for the right acts on put on. We are open to suggestions and offers….

That is about it. I’m off to the opening of the Nerve Centre event tonight. To find out more about it, and what we will be doing, have a look here: http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/

Tuesday 10 August 2010

Turf trading brings thistle risk

We are traveling to the Wirral next week to play in Jack Rabbit Slims in Hoylake on Tueday the 17th of August. 7 Waves Radio are doing a live broadcast and we are, therefore, going to be broadcast live. All fine and dandy, but I have been instructed to keep the language clean, which presents a bit of a problem.

Normally when I’m doing my thing, playing guitar and singing at the same time, I try not to concentrate too hard on what I am doing, letting all those practice sessions take over and just let it happen. As Bruce Lee says “Don’t think! Feeeeeewl.” It’s a bit like that. Disengage the rational mind. Otherwise I have a tendency to get a bit confused and forget what I’m supposed to be doing, which might result in me falling over or soiling myself or both. Now I have to remember not to sing “fuck” in Hell Jim Hell and “fucking” in Sanity Check. I’m not 100% confident that I’ll be able to remember to do that successfully.

My plan is to substitute it for another word if I remember to or, if I forget, I can say I used, thus giving me a plausible level of deniability. So far the words I have been considering are:

Fugg
Fuff
Fung
Funge
Funt
Fud

Each of which can be given an “ing” for deployment in Sanity Check:

Fugging
Fuffing
Funging
Fungeing
Funting
Fudding

I am also pondering the word Fum as in “I fummed your wife, she sucked my duck.”

What do we think? Which should I use? What’s the worst that can happen?

Monday 9 August 2010

Drunken owl ruins tortoise race for vole jockeys

What a jolly day Thursday was. We had a nice drive up to Southport, looking at the views and the architecture. There’s some pretty intense architecture, I can tell you. The Herald was a very friendly place and I felt quite at home there. If it was not miles and miles away I would make it my regular boozer.

Vision Thing and sound man Dan made life very easy for us and they were all so nice! And they played well and made good sound respectively. So I think we will definitely be going back.

Amusing technical things which happened: somehow between doing the sound check and starting our set I managed to change my guitar sound from the reasonable mellow and muddy sound I like to something which really required the wearing of skin tight leather trousers, spiked wrist bands and a maybe a muscle vest. It was awful. What made it worse was the fact that I left it alone for about four songs. I have experienced things sounding different once the gig started before, so I assumed that it was just my ears deceiving me, or the effect of the sound bouncing of the bar maid’s head or something. But after starting our new song “Wear and Replace” and it sounding like Eddie Van Halen’s Jump (which it really shouldn’t) I accepted something was afoot.

The guitar was also very loud, so loud you could smell it. And my hair kept going in my mouth.

After we had played we watched Vision Thing do their, um, thing, and very enjoyable it was as well. All the people came to the front and there was a really warm atmosphere. I have never managed to elicit that kind of goodwill from an audience. Maybe it is my brand of deodorant that is to blame. Must be.

Our maiden album is finished and the artwork has gone to the printers. If you want one just leave a message on facebook and we will sort you out.

Wednesday 4 August 2010

My broken back door blues

I have just made the mistake, as I repeatedly do, of reading the comments bit at the end of an article on a newspaper website. It said comedy is for making people laugh. It irked me did that and here is for why. I am increasingly of the opinion that there is absolutely nothing that is for anything. I will accept no exceptions. Music is not for listening to and lungs are not for breathing. They are things that just happen to be used in that capacity.

Consider the nose. Is it for breathing or is it for balancing spectacles? Or spectacles? Are they for looking or are they for keeping the bridge of your nose covered? Or art? Is it for looking at or hiding pieces of wall? Do you see the difficulty? Of course if we exclude the concept of something being for something, having a purpose or reason, then all of this goes away.

It also results in a considerable drop in anxiety about whether you are using the right something for what it is for. Cutlery is the first thing that springs to mind, although correct use of cutlery seems an anachronism these days. At least to me. Maybe I need to do more fine dining with judgmental folk. But what are fish knives for? Cutting fish? You can’t cut a fish with a fish knife!

I use my stereo as a place to empty mugs. It is very good at that, it can hold at least 8 mugs on top of the speakers. This is as it should be.

We have a gig tomorrow night and I shall be employing my new philosophy as much as society will allow. If for any reason I am observed using anything for any reason that may be construed as being what it is for, rest assured that it is either purely coincidental or because I have developed a habitual association between certain actions and certain objects. I’ll be producing a pie chart to present my findings.

Monday 2 August 2010

Cold apple crumble

We are planning our next night of entertainment. After slogging through a bunch of gigs this summer which, I think it is fair to say, have not been well attended, we have decided to go back to where we started and hold an evening of fun and frolics in Next to Nowhere, under News from Nowhere on Bold Street in Liverpool.

We played our first gig there and it was a great night, good crowd and lots of enthusiasm. Since venturing into the outside world we’ve spent a lot of time hurriedly setting up our gear, wondering where to point the projector, sitting around waiting to go on and then, once we have played, trying to pack up as fast as we can before the next bunch get on stage. This does not make for memorable nights.

With all that in mind we have decided to do it for ourselves. We want to create a certain atmosphere, something that is equal part gentleman’s club, part discotheque. I’d like it be the sort of night where people come along, find themselves a cosy spot and just dissolve into what is going on. The sort of place you can sing along if you want to or dance if you want to but not worry whether anyone is listening or watching.

Previously these affairs have involved bringing your own liquid refreshments, and I think this has been a plus. You don’t have to queue up at the bar, you don’t have to be disappointed that they don’t serve your favorite tipple and you’ve only got yourself to blame if you pour too much down your neck and find yourself lost in a strange city bellowing at hotel staff and wondering where all your money has gone. So this is going to be just the same. Sort out your supplies, beetle on down to the venue, sit down, tune in and melt into the ether.

I wouldn’t advise anyone to bring any ether though.

We have a gig coming up this week in The Herald in Southport. I have only played in Southport once before, and that was a very different style of music. I am hoping it will be a good night. We are making our music very well at the moment, everything is falling into the right place. When it is going well I tend not to think very much, just do. It is a very liberating state of mind. The outside world does not really penetrate into your awareness; you’re just making music, pushing air out of your face and waggling your fingers. If I can find my way into that state in at least one song then I’m a happy camper.

What makes it difficult is all the faffing around you have to do before you are ready to play. At most gigs everything is hurried, you have to plug all your stuff together using leads that are impossibly tangled, even though you put them away in neat coils the last time. Sometimes things do not work and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why. Sometimes the guitar strap won’t stay attached to the guitar and you run the risk of being belted in the face by a flying headstock. Then, once you’ve gone through all this you have to reverse the process whilst the other band trample around, jumping through similar hoops.

So we are taking control of the night. I want music made by musicians who are relaxed and at ease, who don’t have to endure the pre-performance frenzy and the post-performance muddle and I want to be a musician who does not have to worry about these things as well. So that leads onto the process of finding the right musicians for the night. Pop your suggestions in a bottle. Or somewhere I can read them.