Like hot sexy beast on toast, that's what.

It’s been a few weeks now since our debut as a three piece and the good feeling hasn’t worn off yet. A big thank you goes to everyone who turned up, to Go Heeled and Ade Jackson for making lovely noises and also to Katherine Hartley for taking some great pictures. Furthermore, I think that anyone with a heart and ears would have to agree that Andy was magnificent on his debut.

bang bang bang bang bang boom tish

We’ve been working on the b-sides for our next single, due out sometime in August or early September probably. Track listing runs thusly:

1. Guts
2. More
3. Taxidermy

Went to Manchester Radio online for a nice chat with Paul and Lucy on the Ripman Show on Monday. Drank some drink, slurred our words and they very kindly played Lips Limbs Lungs and the b-sides. Very nice people they were as well.

Whilst we are on the subject of booze and trying to talk about Mashemon, Richard Lewis has included us in his recent roundup of what is going on in Liverpool for http://www.beardedmagazine.com/. We spent a pleasant afternoon in the pub with Richard a couple of weeks ago, holding forth about music, the premier league of glam rock, the sealed knot society and a whole heap of other stuff for an article for Nerve magazine. I don’t remember much about the evening other than going for a drink with Paul Reynolds from A Flock of Seagulls and being told that Brian May is very tall.

This Saturday we are playing for the CND at St. Brides church in Liverpool. We’re on at 4.30pm, so come along and see what we look like in the light.

Automatic Grape Foam

If, like me, you often find yourself having to come up with the name of a famous actor who you need to disguise yourself as you’ll probably have a couple of reliable names you can pluck out of the ether without much effort. Mine are Vincent Price and Sidney Poitier. You might have Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier, or Adam West and Marlon Brando. You can have whoever you like, there aren’t any rules. You can have more than two if you need them. It is up to you, I can’t tell you how to live your life and even I tried to I doubt you’d listen to a word I have to say even though I am always right about these things, like that time you were going to spend all that money on those expensive sausages because you were having your family round and your mother always complains about whatever you give them unless its sausages and even then if they aren’t excellent sausages from the butcher then she’ll go on and on and on and on and on about her old butcher when she was a child living in Chelmsford and how the butcher had sawdust on the floor and was really fat and you can’t trust a thin butcher, just like you can’t trust a bald barber.




Here's a picture of a fat butch... hang on

 

Do you remember what I said? That’s right, I told you to tell them to and fuck themselves. Of course, when your father died later that year and you were no longer in the will because they had disowned you, you tried to make out that it was my fault. Thing is, they had started to hate you a long time before that ever happened. They told me so that time I took them all out to the dog racing and made them put a grand on Lusty Veronica, who should have won really. I told you about that didn’t I? Never mind. And stop trying to set fire to my house. It’s pissing me off.



Anyway, I digress. Last Tuesday I was skulking around the local retail park trying to decide whether I wanted to buy myself:

• A tub of screenwipes.

• A bag of compost.

• 24 petrol blue carpet tiles.

• A Power Rangers duvet cover (reduced).

• 3 frames of ten-pin bowling for the price of 2.



I was stood on the corner weighing up the pros and cons and those things which seem like cons but, on closer inspection turn out to be pros, until you actually make the decision when they turn out to have been cons all along, when who should come out of the garden centre but a guitarist I had to fire from an old band. He had a length of hose under one arm and a bag of charcoal briquettes under the other and some kind of flowering shrub stuffed down the front of his trousers. Not wishing to be recognised and decided that if he saw me and tried to speak to me I would pretend to be the spirit of Vincent Price, tell him I was late for the bowling league and run off.

He didn’t see me though. I lurked around for a while longer, kind of hoping he would come back. He didn’t and it began to rain, so I went home for my dinner. I had fish fingers.

Meeting him, the guitarist, who I fired, from that band, back then, before, reminded me that he was the only person I have ever met who managed to make his musical instrument speak the language of his very soul. And it sounded like the death squawk of a terminally constipated goose lodged in the severed head of Janet Street-Porter, being fired from cannon at an orphan, on crutches, at Christmas, for ever and ever. This contributed to his departure from the band. In a strange twist of fortune this week I will be attempting to recreate this very sound for our new song Kompressor. I know I won’t be able to create anything as unpleasant because my soul is not a filthy motorway service station toilet, shellacked with the accumulated secretions of four decades worth of lonely truckers, onanists and perverts.


Why not have a go yourself? I know why.



All day

Why I like Talk to Frank

There is a new (new to me at least) promoter about and they are called Talk to Frank. You might have heard of them.

We first played for them in the Bad Format club at the end of April. Our previous trip there had been a pretty bleak experience, so we were a little cautious about playing there. Ever the optimist I thought that it couldn’t be that bad again. Whilst the turnout was a bit sparse (our intrepid gang of middle-aged co-conspirators made up most of the audience) we had a grand time, played well and I left with a warm glow of satisfaction. A good deal of this warm glow was down to the Frank in Talk to Frank, Mr Frank Hedges.

You meet a lot of “cool” people in this line of work. You meet a lot of people who dam up their enthusiasm for some reason. I’m not much good at that especially when it comes to getting out and making music and as far as I can tell neither is Frank. I like him for this. I also like him because he always gets back to me. I have fired off messages to numerous promoters and I think that I would not be unfair in saying that Talk to Frank is the only one I would be perfectly confident of getting a reply back from, either from Frank himself or Joanne. Good manners cost nothing after all.

Friendly, enthusiastic and they reply to messages. Frank also got out of bed to come to our gig in Parr Street for the Smiles for Japan event. Friendly, enthusiastic, replies to messages and has good taste. If I had a Christmas card list they’d be on it.

Here’s what I suggest you do. If you’re in a band and you’re looking for a gig and you’re not the sort of person who dicks people around and has unreasonable demands (not that anyone like that would be reading this I am sure) then drop him a line and ask for a gig. If you would like to know what a Talk to Frank night is like then check out his facebook page for updates. If you want to know what a Talk to Frank promoted Mashemon gig at the Lomax is like, get your arse down there on the 20th of August. I think knicker throwing would be appropriate.

Preparing Pre-Preventative Cultural Retardation Measures

Not had a gig for a whole 20 days and I have another 22 left to go before our evening in the social centre. That’s 42 days. So far this year I have had to wait 25 days at most between gigs and on average we have had a gig every 10 days. I’ll be including a full breakdown in the annual report.

Not that I have been lazy and sitting around in my dressing gown eating fondant fancies and filing my fingernails. Oh no no! There has been song writing and recording to be done. This has not been the easiest task though. The vocals and guitars for the first album were recorded in my dining room, which was quite a nice room to record in even if the rest of the house was cold and damp and horrible. Unfortunately, despite my new home being neither cold nor damp nor horrible, I now have to record in our spare bedroom. The atmosphere just hasn’t been right and I have been struggling to work out what the matter is and what I can do about it.

So I had a think and came to the conclusion that it was the fact that this house is a mid-terraced affair whereas our last place was at the end of the terrace. This meant that I could sing to my heart’s content safe in the knowledge that no one would be listening. This is not the case in our new place. I can hear our next-door neighbour’s telephone ringing most of the time, so they can definitely hear me bellowing away. And that bothers me. It makes me all shy and timid. So there was only one solution that I could think of.

Booze. Yes, a few glasses of anxiety inhibitor are definitely the answer. There’s a balance to be struck of course, I want to have the rosy glow and the inability to properly appreciate the consequences of my behaviour, but I don’t want to end up with the diction of Shane MacGowan. Don’t want anything too gassy either. Whilst my belches have a certain rich bass texture I find it quite hard to get them in tune and we don’t use any pitch adjusting techniques in Mashemon. We do a lot of other things, but that’s just not cricket.

So the recording is back on track. Our first single of the year will be a three track affair containing the following:

1. Lips Limbs Lungs
2. Dead Dog (Texas Sex Club Mix)
3. Note Left Unwritten

Should be ready for July. I am also pleased to announce that this single will feature live drums. Our rehearsals with Andy have been going extremely well, so well in fact that I have been making involuntary Rock Singer Exclamations. I have never been one to do that sort of thing, making those “woo” and “yeah” noises and letting out a bit of “huh” and “hoo” or maybe a little “ooooootakemetothebridge”. I’ve just never felt the urge. But I did the other day. We rocked like a mother. Fucker. And the R.S.E just slithered out. Not too many, I have standards, but a couple. I think my posture may have improved as well. And I definitely did more hair shaking. Whether these are welcome modifications I don’t know, you’ll have to come and watch us on the 25th of June and make your assessment then. I’m excited now and I’ve still got 22 days left to wait. By the time of the gig I’ll be so excited I won’t be able to get my trousers on.

Things are going to sound different, louder for a start. Here’s the set:

1. Guts
2. Kompressor
3. Frank Bloke
4. Another Man's Dirt
5. Sanity Check
6. Lips Limbs Lungs
7. Facts

Not 100% sure about the order yet, but that’s what we’ll be doing. Still confirming the other bands for the night, but it’ll be a grand old time. Come along and partake. If not I’ll be coming round yours and you won’t like that at all.

Too tense for trousers.

13 gigs in the bag for us. They have been a varied mix of fun, frustration and the fog of war. Now, as promised, we are going to have a few weeks of rehearsal and recording in preparation for kicking off again in late June.

Here are some things for you to expect:

1. 3 singles, each backed by a pair of B-sides.
2. 1 album.
3. 1 drummer.

So that’s 12ish new recordings and 33.33% more Mashemon. That’s really not bad. More than I’ve ever got from my subscription to Fence and Hedge Aficionado, the bi-annual publication for the discerning boundary enthusiast.

Our two May gigs were very enjoyable. Both were in support of the Smiles For Japan event and hopefully we entertained the people who turned up in support. The Thursday gig was a hoot, good sound for us to play with and nice people. The Saturday gig was a more considered and restrained event since it was early evening, we were playing our quiet set and I had not exchanged much of my blood for fizzy attitude adjuster, although I made up for that afterwards…..

Playing the quiet set for a second time was alright, but given the amount of noise we have been making of late I think it is safe to say it will be going back in the box for a little while.

It was obvious that a lot of time and effort had gone into the Smiles for Japan fundraising, and we felt proud to be a part of it and give some support. Thank you Seba for asking us along. I particularly enjoyed the man in the Dolphin suit. A triumph.

Finally I would like to say thank you to the nice woman who felt compelled to curtsy to me when we were introduced on Saturday before the gig. I like to think it was on account of my good posture and regal demeanour. Or maybe I look like the Queen. Don’t know. Carry on!

Crackity crackity snappity snappity

That’s it for April then. It was a busy old month. We played 5 gigs, of varying quality, drank more beer than was probably good for us, were subjected to some prolonged interpretive dancing and carried a lot of heavy things up and down several flights of stairs over and over again.

Our final gig of the month at the Bad Format was a hazy affair and very enjoyable to boot. Frank made us feel very welcome and was a superb host. Thanks to the Mashemon faithful for sticking it out until the bitter end and a special commendation goes to Paul for his tireless shape-throwing. Relentless.

We’ve finished two recordings – Curtains and the Texas Sex Club Mix of Dead Dog and I am currently fiddling around with finishing a third – Wear and Replace. We’ve introduced two new songs into the set – Frank Bloke and Guts - and performed our first “quiet” gig in the FACT, which was one of the highlights of the month for me. I have also purchased my first roll of gaffer tape.

You would think that we would be taking it easy after that, but you would be wrong. Last night the two headed creature that waded out of the Mersey two-ish years ago began to grow an extra head. With a beard on it. And drumsticks in its teeth. We have two more gigs in May, playing for the excellent Smiles for Japan event that is being organised by Seba Rashii and associates and then we will be wrapping ourselves in a silky cocoon until the metamorphosis is complete.

Exciting times for us then. All we have to do now is find some places to play in the second half of the year and everything will be fine and dandy. Suggestions and invitations gladly accepted.

I have belonged to all manner of hysterical curators

Four gigs go by and I return.

April has turned all busy. Since the gig in the Laugh Inn we have played at the Bumper in Liverpool, Gallery 2 at FACT for the Nerve Centre’s Insurrection and the Shakespeare in Southport. I know Dylan will probably have done as many, if not more, but I think that’s not bad going.

The Laugh Inn was good, nice venue, friendly staff and a good sound man. Thanks Daniel. We got to use their gigantic glitter ball, which lent us a glamorous air. Whilst the venue was nearly empty the only people I know in Chester came to see us, which was good of them. Thank you Kim and Andrew. I seem to recall one of Andrew’s friends telling me something important about the wiring in the place, but I can’t remember what it was. Something about danger.

Our return trip to the Bumper was challenging. For one it smells of stale beer. There were some problems with the sound, I had a little too much to drink and our playing was sub-par. That said we were the only ones who brought any people, thanks to everyone who came along, it brought a tear to my eye. Afterwards I went and drank tequila until an ungodly hour. That brought a little sick to the back of my throat.

Next up was the FACT, which made up for everything. We put together a quieter set for this one, played a new song, turned everything down and had a good time. We even did an encore, our first ever I believe, which goes to show how much we enjoyed ourselves. Special mention to Alan for an outstanding t-shirt and some quality heckling. And to Paul. He knows what he did.

What's Burt looking at?
 Dunno, could be girls.

Finally last Thursday we had a last minute appointment at the Shakespeare in Southport. This is Dan’s (who used to run the gigs at the Herald before it was sold) current base of operations. It was a good venue and sound, and we managed to get the stage area completely dark, which made the visuals look great. Unfortunately the darkness did lead to some “jazz” moments from me, but I don’t think anyone noticed. The Southport faithful came along, which was very good of them. Easy on the eye as well, which is nice.

That’s the past and that is gone. Onwards to the future. On Sunday we are in the Avenue pub in Leigh. The show starts at 20.00 so if you are in range haul your carcass along. We’ve got a 45 minute slot so we’ll be sticking in some extras. Not sure quite what though.

The Badformat on Friday the 29th will round off April and then we are into May. So far we have only two dates booked – two gigs in support of Seba Rashii’s fund raising for Japan. I’ll post details of those up nearer the time.

After May we will be going dark for a while I think. We have some things in the pipeline which we will hopefully be unleashing at the end of July, ish. And a lot of recording to get done. Watch this space, unless you’re driving in which case keep your eyes on the road and your hands where I can see them.