I thanked the hatamoto for letting me leave with my nose

A week went past without a gig. Everyone else in the world seemed to have a gig, but we did not. This is an unhelpful thought. Unhelpful thoughts occur to everybody, arriving unbidden and hanging around like odious lodgers who default on their rent before leaving in the night with your wife and goldfish.

This unhelpful thought is compounded by the fact that I believe the hype about emails, I believe it in the same manner that some people believe in God, at an emotional, visceral and impossibly irrational level. Emails are fast, so that means replies will be fast, so that means if I send someone an email there is no reason why I should have to wait any time whatsoever for a reply because the rest of the world is just sat waiting to reply to ME. This is quite evidently the thought process of a lunatic.

Consequently when I send off an email to someone who is looking for bands to play at their venue I enter a shameful spiral of constant inbox checking and growing anxiety. It becomes an unnatural preoccupation. Some people do reply quickly, setting the bar for everyone else. Some people never reply at all, which is not good. Strangely enough very few people fall in the middle of these extremes.

It’s the lack of reply which is the worst bit. It would be easy to just shrug it off and go “hey, relax, them’s the breaks” and so forth. Unfortunately I have not perfected my shrug yet. Instead my intestines seem to slowly wrap themselves around my lungs, getting tighter with every passing day without a reply until, when a critical pressure is reached, the black bubble of impatience bursts and I roar, usually in Mike’s car on the way to rehearsal “Fuck them. Fuck them in the ear!”

Waiting whilst being manly

You see, it isn’t the rejection that hurts. Rejection is tolerable. Never getting a response is akin to having no voice, to simply being ignored. Of course there are many reasons why a response may not be forthcoming, mostly mundane and administrative in nature. That’s why you deploy the follow-up email strategy. To have your follow-up email disappear into the void is harrowing.

The wounds heal of course, but like the rejection of a lover or the death of a pet, they never really go away. Sometimes I wake up screaming or I will be found checking my inbox in my sleep. At times like these I have asked my nurse that I be restrained and sedated. It is for my own good I reason. One day I awoke to find that I had daubed “Good Manners Cost Nothing” in foot high letters of excrement across the dining room walls. Another time I challenged a promoter to a duel to the death with pistols at dawn. The bounder never showed though. It is with sadness then that I must conclude that whilst I am indeed quite mad, it is the moral decay of the nation which has made it so. God Save the Queen.

Mighty Agrippa, Roman God of the Aqueduct!

Yes, I had a haircut. I had my hair cut whilst watching the Italians almost beating the Irish. I had my hair cut because it was too long and I kept getting it in my mouth, or my dinner, or both. Utterly ridiculous.

Later that day we had a gig in the Shipping Forecast. I think we played a blinder. After months of creaky vocal performances I actually managed to do a proper one, without wheezing or croaking much at all. I even did a bit of showing off, not that anyone would have noticed. I didn’t do a Christina Aguilera. Well, I did in as much as I got some words wrong, but not in the overblown melodic mangling way.

So we played a good gig, but not to many people. Most of the people were elsewhere doing something important and vital I suspect, rather than listening to us although the ones who did listen to us were much appreciated. Whatever it was they were doing some of them had evidently finished it by the time the Speed Pets went on and the rest of them finished after that in time to catch the headliners Rialto Burns. I didn’t ponder this at length or out loud to anyone stood nearby whether they were interested or not. If you happened to have thought I was then that was an imposter.

Jupoopitar yesterday

After that we went and ate some chips. Or maybe we had a drink. I’m not completely sure which one came first. I do know that someone had lethal wind and it wasn’t me. And I do remember stating that everything we do is pointless when considered on an interplanetary scale, and there was something about the music of the spheres or something along those lines.

I thought of a new name for Jupiter. Made me laugh. Shut up.

Oh yes, and we decided that we are going to do a series of open air gigs at random locations of interest which we may or may not tell anyone about. I’m not sure where we got up to with that or whether it came before the chips or after the chips or what. Mike did not dance though. And someone used the phrase “a different set of boobs every day”. I have tried to uncover the meaning of this but so far it has eluded me. Send your answers on the back of sock to the usual address.

Now go boil your head.

Tinned Peaches

First gig of the year is in the can. We had a pleasant evening in the Mello Mello, albeit a long one. I think that by the time I got onto stage I was a little more “relaxed” than was optimum. Still, I think we got away with it.

It was a long night though, so thanks to everyone who came along and stuck it out until the bitter end. Thanks also to everyone who came along with the intention of sticking it out until the bitter end but had to go home. We won’t hold it against you. It’s a lovely feeling to see people who have turned up specifically to see us perform. Gives me a warm feeling in my belly.

Set list for the night went thus:

1. Curtains

2. Lips Limbs Lungs

3. Facts

4. Hell Jim Hell

5. More

6. Dull Boy

7. Sanity Check

We’re changing it for the next few gigs and it will go a little something like this:

1. Curtains

2. Dull Boy

3. Facts

4. Another Man’s Dirt (new)

5. Dead Dog (Texas Sex Club Mix)

6. Lips Limbs Lungs

7. Sanity Check

A bit of a change and some new ones. Got to keep ourselves on our respective toes.

Our calendar has been filling up nicely. Here’s what is in it so far:

1. Dance on Toast at Mello Mello – 19th January DONE!

2. Shipping Forecast – 5th February

3. Shipping Forecast – 17th February

4. The Herald in Southport – 26th February

5. Ducie Bridge in Manchester – 4th March

I think that we are planning to put on one of our own nights in March, so watch this space. Or one of the other spaces which we have. Watch the spaces.

Don't touch the monk's junk

This page has been fallow for a little while. After our freezing gig at Le Bateau I have been a wheezing snotty wreck of a man. And I have not had the mental capacity (admittedly it does not take an awful lot of mental capacity) to do a blog.

So here goes. Firstly I will assemble some subject matter in my head; the death of Captain Beefheart, the Lunar Eclipse on the shortest day for the first time in 400 years, a Steve Strange and Margi Clark duet, my lack of appropriate footwear for the current weather conditions, the interesting structure of bacteriophages, Aleister Crowley and the kids from Fame.

Secondly I will jumble all of that up and come up with some tripe or other.

Apparently Aleister Crowley advocated that his disciples practice control over their thoughts, speech and actions by choosing something they regularly do and not doing it, using the word “of” for instance, or turning left or thinking about sea urchins. The examples are mine, not Crowley’s, so they are not to be thought of as “the most evil examples in Britain”.

Upon finding out this interesting nugget of information I thought “that seems like a lark” and resolved to not do 3 three things for the space of 24 hours. These three things were, not going on Facebook, not using the word “oven” and not thinking about gardening. These might seem inconsequential and pointless things to you and you would be right. I wanted a quick win.

My 24 hour boycott of Facebook was simple. The probability of Facebook improving my mood at any given moment is probably less than 3%. The chance of it giving me a vague sense of insignificance is higher at 13%. The maths told me to do it, so I did. As a result when I checked my status the following day I saw that Captain Beefheart had died. I felt somehow responsible. So I blamed Crowley.

Not saying the word “oven” was, I admit, not the most challenging thing I could have picked. Not thinking about gardening was also fairly straightforward. I managed to stand in my kitchen and look out of the window at the garden for a substantial amount of time with neither of these things occurring. Then again I often stand in the kitchen looking out of the window for substantial periods of time without anything happening at all so I am not sure what this is indicative of. Something of occult significance probably. I blame Crowther.

The garden is under a good layer of snow at the moment, as is the rest of Liverpool, or so I am told. Where there is no snow there is ice. I have only seen one person fall over so far and that was a small child who did it very well, I doubt Buster Keaton could have done it better. When people fall over my first reaction is to feel very concerned for them. On the one hand this means that I am a good person, full of the milk of human kindness, aware of the plight of my fellow humans, a noble spirit, a good man. Nay, a God.

On the other hand it means that I miss out on laughing at people falling over, which, so I am told, is was of the oldest pleasure known to man. Given the fact that I am so good and caring and loving and wonderful and divine I want other people to experience the pleasure of watching people fall over even though I cannot experience it myself. To this end I have always neglected to buy myself appropriate footwear for this kind of weather. Consequently I increase the chances of me falling over and other people having a good laugh at my expense. At this time of year, when there are a lot of people who are suffering because they hate Christmas, you have to spread a little joy. I blame Cromwell.

What have I got left? Lunar eclipse, Steve and Margi, bacteriophages and the kids from Fame.

Right. This morning there was a Lunar Eclipse. It was the shortest day. The two have not coincided for 400 years. The last time this happened the day after the Metropolitan of Goa limited the Pastoral Jurisdiction of Nazranies to Malabar and one hundred and seventy three years and one day lafter that George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland. Wheels within wheels…..

Which leads us to the Mashemon Christmas Outing. We had a very good time. We witnessed Steve Strange singing with Margi Clark. I also witnessed Mike dancing like the kids from Fame.

All that leaves is the bateriophage. Here is a picture:

Merry Christmas.

4 dimensional Etch A Sketch gave me rickets

Wonderful gig at the Herald in Southport on the 11th of November. It was our second time there and it was a really good atmosphere. I’m certainly looking forward to getting back in the New Year.

We have another one coming up on the 26th of November in the Everyman in Liverpool. Not played there before so it will be an adventure! Thanks to Ade Jackson for asking us to play. Apart from that it looks like we will be getting the rest of the year off (bar rehearsal of course).

So how will we be spending these dark and grimy nights? There’s the next batch of songs to work on; we have 3 written but not recorded, 2 written but not arranged, 2 written but in need of rearrangement and one idea that needs expanding on. That makes 8 songs, nearly enough for another album!

We have just done an interview for the website Sevenstreets – a wonderful website all about Liverpool and what is going on in it. Hopefully we have given some reasonably intelligible (if not intelligent) answers to their questions. It will be nice to have a bit more exposure for us. It is nice to be popular after all.



That's nice that is.



The other day I saw a pair of magpies having a proper fight. They were surrounded by other magpies that, as far as I could tell, were goading them on. I didn’t know what to do; should I intervene in the style of a teacher stopping a playground brawl, or should I join in with the goading and hopefully be accepted into magpie society? I am not ashamed to say that I did the latter. It is, after all, nice to be popular. Soon I will be their King, mark my words.

They have also started hiring out my fighting pit on a Tuesday evening.

Sonata in A major

First rehearsal for two weeks tonight. I had to do without last week because I was otherwise engaged. The hiatus has had a similar effect on me to that which giving up smoking had; I am cranky, unable to concentrate and constipated. I like my weekly fix of noise and bellowing. It makes the world a brighter place and the glow lasts for just about 6 days afterwards.

Someone asked me the other day what my plans were for Mashemon and I failed to explain them in sensible way. What I should have said is:

“Plans?”

That would have sufficed surely. Instead I rambled for a bit and waved my hands about. This chap went on to ask the big question: why do you do it? On reflection and given my current condition the answer is obviously because I am addicted to making music and noise. What purer reason could a man have? Of course, people may misunderstand that statement and come to the conclusion that I have several screws loose and a live eel in my thinking bag. This prospect does not bother me today, but sometimes it does. Sometimes I do get the urge to be normal and without the glow of a recent rehearsal to buoy me up I often give in.

That said I do have a poster for our next gig on the wall of my office. Not many musicians I know do that. My thinking runs thus: if I am next to the poster then if anyone seeing the poster has any questions I will be on hand to deliver the answers in a concise and appealing fashion. However, when this has actually occurred I have been reduced to my standard response ie. rambling on and waving my hands about. What I need is a script and some kind of hand restraint.

An infinite number of monkeys and typewriters should suffice. You notice I say infinite and not roomful, as a recent coffee advert would have you believe. This coffee advert really irritates me. It irritates me so much I can’t think of a decent metaphor, I have no metaphor for the job. It irritates me so much because it is a willful misunderstanding of a very simple concept. It also implies that a roomful of monkeys and typewriters could write the complete works of Shakespeare but could not make a cup of coffee. Given the quality of the coffee I have endured from said establishment in the past they must employ a fair number of monkeys themselves.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Did you see what I did there? What a twat.

I am still digging my fighting pit and it should be ready soon. I will be in there every Tuesday night, stripped naked and oiled ready to fight all comers, no holds barred. You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me?

Oh yes and come to the gig on Saturday. If you intend coming to the fighting pit it will be a good opportunity for some trash talking. You fat turkey necked lard arsed shrew sexer. You heard me and so did your mother.

I am pushed for chives

We were on Radio Merseyside on Sunday night; Dave Monk played Dull Boy on his show, which was nice. There was a debate at the beginning of the show about the Liverpool music scene. I’m not really sure what conclusion they came to. I imagine they didn’t come to one.

I don’t know much about what is going on, beyond the fact that there is usually something of some sort going on somewhere. Sometimes someone is watching, sometimes someone is doing it by themselves. With regards to the music scene I would say this:

1. There are a lot of bands
2. There are a lot of venues

Not all of the bands are good at what they do. Some are ok. Some are poor. The same can be said about the venues. If we hypothesise that the distribution of band quality and venue quality is random then we can predict that the probability of seeing any of the following is equal:

1. A good band in a good venue
2. A good band in an ok venue
3. A good band in a poor venue
4. An ok band in a good venue
5. An ok band in an ok venue
6. An ok band in a poor venue
7. A poor band in a good venue
8. A poor band in an ok venue
9. A poor band in a poor venue

If we do randomly distribute these possibilities 1000 times we would get something like this:

However, when I used real figures, we get something a little more shocking:

That’s right people, using the figures I obtained from TIPISS last Tuesday lunchtime we can see that you are more likely to see a poor band in an ok venue than anything else.

People this is big. I urge you to do nothing about it.