Techniques for ensuring no one sits on the seat next to you on a busy train:
1) Sit on the seat nearest the aisle and put your bags on the window seat. Be prepared to have to move everything if someone calls you out though. This one is quite effective but expect dirty looks.
2) This is an extension of #1. If you have a laptop, get it out! No one can ever be bothered to ask you to move your computer, bags, coat etc to the window seat!
3) Sit on the window seat, but spread your legs into the legroom for the aisle seat. Headphones in! Pretend to be asleep! This is almost guaranteed to work because one wants to wake a sleeping commuter. Additional points if you put a coat over your face. Double points if you snore.
4) Put food wrappers on the other seat. This always grosses me out and I never ask people to move their sandwhich packet or leaking coffee cup. This is a dity move, but you'll be cruising along solo, so who cares?
5) Eye up people as they walk the aisle looking for a seat. The odder you come across, the more you might look like someone who wants to talk to strangers, the more you look like someone who will take up more than just your seat, the better. The least effective, but probably the most fun.
People did all 5 of these tactics on me this morning on the train to London. Assholes. I eventually scored a seat next to a dude who put all his papers across the aisle seat. I asked him to move them and he sighed and did it as slow as he could. Sitting next to him right now. Yeah that's right green jumper man, I BEAT YOU.
.............News....Gigs....Music....Shop....Contact...........................................................................................................................................................
Sunday 31 October 2010
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Crazy Arm Tour, December 10-18th.
Crazy Arm asked us to come on tour with them in December so obviously we immediately told them about our completely ludicrous rider requests and warned them of our outrageous behaviour when in the company of people we don't know and told them that they would need to sort a roadie for us because there is no way we're lugging our own shit around. They said that was cool and so we're going on tour and I am excited already.At the moment we're going from the 10th to the 18th or 19th around the UK. Some confirmed dates are up on our Myspace and we're just filling in the gaps at the moment and hopefully we'll do a London show so I can sleep in my own bed mid-tour. Does going home in the middle of tour mean that you are actually doing two tours back to back?
If you haven't bought the Crazy Arm full-length yet, you are absolutely missing out.
Dan
Monday 25 October 2010
Chelmsford tomorrow.
Our first show since our last short tour in Europe is tomorrow. Its at the Barhouse in Chelmsford and its a benefit for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
If you are in the area, come along! It's only £3 and the cause is one that we are happy to back and be a part of helping to fund-raise for.
The address is:
The Bar House
16 Victoria Road,
Chelmsford
CM1 1NZ
See you there!
Dan
Thursday 21 October 2010
More sales speak.
Following yesterdays no-nonsense approach to ticket selling, I have more tickets to push in an equally pushy way.
The venue for this show, The Old Blue Last, is in the heart of Shoreditch and if you haven't been to Shoreditch before, watch the TV series called "Nathan Barley" and you'll have a fairly accurate idea of what certain parts of the seemingly "trendy" part of Hackney are like. It's a place that can verge on the rediculous at times but it is also home to good parks, a seemingly peaceful atmosphere, an entire road of curry houses and a 24 hour bagel shop where you can eat and be full for a few quid.
I really like Shoreditch - you can do anything you like there and no one cares because everyone else is either completely self absorbed or busy taking photos of something with a vintage camera and will probably miss what you do anyway. It's a fun, liberal place and playing a show in Shoreditch, just 20 minutes from home, in arguably the trendiest of places seems a lot of fun to me. That, and the room for the show is tiny and awesome. We haven't played London in a while and the line up for this one is great.
Dan
President.
Ticket Sales inc.
Wednesday 20 October 2010
Manchester with The Menzingers
You can get a ticket in advance for this, which I basically never do and I always figure no-one else does, but I think it might be worth it if you plan on coming because if you want to come and then can't get one because everyone else panic-bought a ticket online then you'll feel a right mug. GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.
You can get a cheaper ticket for both the Menzingers show and the Bomb The Music Industry show as well.
Thats enough promotion for now. Remember that we're also playing with the Menzingers in London on the 20th November too, so if you want to attend the very unique line-up of us and the Menzingers in one night, but live in London, we have you covered.
Love,
Dan.
Thursday 14 October 2010
Photos from tour. Round one!
Joe at the Eiffel tower. He's not really leaning on it....its miles behind him.
Meet Simon. The tallest guy on tour with the smallest cat on tour.
This is at the first venue on tour, in Paris. I have no idea why we posed this.
Pj getting pinned by a 6 month old dog with the softest fur this side of Dijon.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
France and Germany.
6/10/10 - Manchester.
Traffic was bad on the way there and we barely arrived in time to set up, sound check, get food and then play before immediately packing up and driving back to London. The show was at the Retro Bar and it seemed really busy when we played. I was nervous in a way that I haven't been in a long time as we started, we changed the set around and played a new song and I felt uncomfortable and awkward for a bit while I settled into it. The show was awesome fun. We packed the van and drove back to London as we had a ferry booked for 10am the next morning and we just couldn't stay. The motorways were full of accidents and roadworks and we got 3 hours sleep before getting back up to drive to Dover. It was completely worth it, but the next few days might take their toll, especially on PJ and Josh who drive.
7/10/10 - Paris.
We finished our last euro tour here and it was the hottest, most fun show we played on that tour, which was, on the whole, pretty hot and awesome. It felt good to start our time in France on a really positive show. The nerves from the day before were gone and the new songs felt almost as natural as songs we have played hundreds of times. Our tour friends, Zombies Are Pissed played great, I'd never seen them before, but I'm excited to watch them each night. I spent the morning with Joe making our way back to the others who stayed at another house across Paris. The more time I spend here, the more I want to live here.
8/10/10 - Dijon
As soon as I hung the phone up and looked around, I realised I was lost. I had assumed that Dijon was tiny and that randomly wandering while taking in nothing of my surroundings would be a good idea. This area looked nothing like where the venue was, it looked like a whole different town, one that I had never been to. I played it cool when I finally made it back and rejoined everyone, as if I hadn't just almost completely panicked. The venue is a small basement, hot and sweaty, busy all night and with a good atmosphere. We played last and despite my fears that people wouldn't stick around, they did and quite a few people knew all the words. That always gets me. Definitely on my list of places to return to as soon as possible. With a map.
9/10/10 - Koln, Germany.
I like mixed bills, its fun to watch bands where I can't pin their influences immediately. Driving into Germany for one day seemed like horrible planning, but despite the drives both sides, it was a really fun show and lots of people picked up records so I am keen to go back as soon as possible. The venue was called "Club Scheisse". Club Shit. It definitely wasn't.
10/10/10
The show for today never happened so we had the day off and around 9pm it feels very strange not being tied to a venue, loading gear and thinking about playing. Our next show is about 8 hours away so figure we'll drive more than halfway to Paris and spend the evening walking the streets doing little else. The 5 hour drive turns into 8 hours and we arrive later, hungrier and more tired than planned. Gwen put us up again and a few of us walked to the Eiffel Tower and killed a few hours before going to sleep. It didn't feel much like a day off, but we all hope to wake feeling good. I fall asleep itching to play a show whilst Gwens cat tries to sleep against my face.
11/10/10 - Angers
I wake up early with Josh and we get on the Metro and walk around Notre Dam. Its impressiveness is superseded by my total surprise that it's free to go into and look around. I realise that I haven't had a decent camera in too long and too many awesome places I have been are lost to grainy, badly exposed photos from cameras that I have had over the years. I'm told tonights show is the most likely to be the quietest of tour, it being a monday with no local bands. Its pretty much rammed and the show is good fun. We sleep at the venue so everyone relaxes knowing we don't have to move the van or load the gear and we fall asleep on a giant 10-person bed made of several mattresses side by side.
Traffic was bad on the way there and we barely arrived in time to set up, sound check, get food and then play before immediately packing up and driving back to London. The show was at the Retro Bar and it seemed really busy when we played. I was nervous in a way that I haven't been in a long time as we started, we changed the set around and played a new song and I felt uncomfortable and awkward for a bit while I settled into it. The show was awesome fun. We packed the van and drove back to London as we had a ferry booked for 10am the next morning and we just couldn't stay. The motorways were full of accidents and roadworks and we got 3 hours sleep before getting back up to drive to Dover. It was completely worth it, but the next few days might take their toll, especially on PJ and Josh who drive.
7/10/10 - Paris.
We finished our last euro tour here and it was the hottest, most fun show we played on that tour, which was, on the whole, pretty hot and awesome. It felt good to start our time in France on a really positive show. The nerves from the day before were gone and the new songs felt almost as natural as songs we have played hundreds of times. Our tour friends, Zombies Are Pissed played great, I'd never seen them before, but I'm excited to watch them each night. I spent the morning with Joe making our way back to the others who stayed at another house across Paris. The more time I spend here, the more I want to live here.
8/10/10 - Dijon
As soon as I hung the phone up and looked around, I realised I was lost. I had assumed that Dijon was tiny and that randomly wandering while taking in nothing of my surroundings would be a good idea. This area looked nothing like where the venue was, it looked like a whole different town, one that I had never been to. I played it cool when I finally made it back and rejoined everyone, as if I hadn't just almost completely panicked. The venue is a small basement, hot and sweaty, busy all night and with a good atmosphere. We played last and despite my fears that people wouldn't stick around, they did and quite a few people knew all the words. That always gets me. Definitely on my list of places to return to as soon as possible. With a map.
9/10/10 - Koln, Germany.
I like mixed bills, its fun to watch bands where I can't pin their influences immediately. Driving into Germany for one day seemed like horrible planning, but despite the drives both sides, it was a really fun show and lots of people picked up records so I am keen to go back as soon as possible. The venue was called "Club Scheisse". Club Shit. It definitely wasn't.
10/10/10
The show for today never happened so we had the day off and around 9pm it feels very strange not being tied to a venue, loading gear and thinking about playing. Our next show is about 8 hours away so figure we'll drive more than halfway to Paris and spend the evening walking the streets doing little else. The 5 hour drive turns into 8 hours and we arrive later, hungrier and more tired than planned. Gwen put us up again and a few of us walked to the Eiffel Tower and killed a few hours before going to sleep. It didn't feel much like a day off, but we all hope to wake feeling good. I fall asleep itching to play a show whilst Gwens cat tries to sleep against my face.
11/10/10 - Angers
I wake up early with Josh and we get on the Metro and walk around Notre Dam. Its impressiveness is superseded by my total surprise that it's free to go into and look around. I realise that I haven't had a decent camera in too long and too many awesome places I have been are lost to grainy, badly exposed photos from cameras that I have had over the years. I'm told tonights show is the most likely to be the quietest of tour, it being a monday with no local bands. Its pretty much rammed and the show is good fun. We sleep at the venue so everyone relaxes knowing we don't have to move the van or load the gear and we fall asleep on a giant 10-person bed made of several mattresses side by side.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)