Apologies, i am old

Old site

2011-01-19T05:25:00.000-08:00

Hi. We moved the whole site, so if you have bookmarked this blog, please go to http://aihn.blogspot.com/ which is where our new blog is.

Our website address is still www.apologiesihavenone.co.uk, but it just bounces through to this new blog now.

Dan

Europe Tour

11/7/11 - Club Sheisse, Germany

50825 Köln - Ehrenfeld, Köln, Deutschland

Facebook

12/7/11 - Epplehaus, Germany

Karlstraße 13, 72072 Tübingen, Germany

13/7/11 - Sub, Austria

Kaiser Franz Josef Kai 66, 8010 Graz

14/7/11 - Venster 99, Austria

Währingergürtel 99, Vienna

Facebook

15/7/11 - Triebwerk, Austria

Neunkirchnerstraße 65b, 2700, Wiener Neustadt

Facebook

17/7/11 - Mighty Sounds Festival, Czech Republic

Official Website

18/7/11 - Bloos Gschwend, Auenstein, Germany

Beilsteiner Strasse 14, 74360 Ilsfeld, Auenstein

Facebook

19/7/11 - Az Mülheim, Germany

Auerstr. 51, 45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr

20/7/11 - JC Metecho, Belgium w/ Lemuria + Cheap Girls

Nieuwkerkenstraat 198, 9100 Nieuwkerken-waas, Mechelen

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To the Extreme!

2011-01-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

I am reading the Vanilla Ice autobiography at the moment. It was written a few years back so I don't think it will document his downfall into obscurity. Shame.

Compelling reading though. Review soon.

Does anyone want to rap on our full-length?

Dan

I wish I had more to report.

2011-01-10T04:58:00.000-08:00

I don't think I have mentioned it here, but Calvinball have mentioned it so the proverbial cat is out of the proverbial sack anyway so I guess I can talk freely about our planned 3-way split with Calvinball and Onsind. I have no idea who suggested it, but we all decided that since touring together was really fun, that we would cover one of each bands songs and then put out a record. I'm not sure who is releasing it either. Not much has been agreed other than that we all agree that we are going to do it. That much has been agreed.

It's been a mixture of fun and frustrating trying to work out covers of songs that I already think are amazing, but do something interesting to them which doesn't change them so dramatically that it sounds unfamiliar. Me and Josh spent almost 8 hours trying to work out about 30 seconds of the middle of the Calvinball song yesterday. I thought my head was going to explode. We have barely even started the Onsind song yet.

So thats how it's going: Slowly.

On top of all this we have been demo-ing our whole new record at home, tweaking almost everything to make sure it will sound banging and to save us time in the studio. It's depressing to look at my calandar and see no shows booked for January and February but there seems to be so much to do to finish this record and make it as good as possible that we just couldn't see a way around it. In March we will be touring again and hopefully testing out new songs before we record.

In other news, I have become awesome at making balloon animals.

You'll find me making money on the side at kids parties around East London. I am available to hire also: balloonanimalswithattitude@apologiesihavenone.co.uk

But don't email me with genuine booking requests because what you see on the right is the limit of my abilities.

Dan

Review of our Leeds show.

2011-01-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

Someone did a review of our show in Leeds with Crazy Arm.

Check it out here!

Dan

Happy new year

2010-12-30T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hi.

I was going to wrap this year up by listing and describing my favourite shows that happened this year and I never finished that because it sounded like a whole bunch of backslapping of people who are my friends and it all sounded a bit cliquey. I'm not into that. The people who smashed it this year, well, I've already told them that I thought they were awesome. I know that when you tell someone they were awesome right after they played it can come across a little dishonest at times, other times it's just a horrible time to be starting a conversation while packing stuff away, but I hope those people know that what they have done has stayed with me.

For me, this year has been great, it's our first full year as a 4 piece and I feel happier and more content with what we are doing than ever before. We've played a lot of shows this year, been to Europe twice, been around this country more times than I can count and played with more than a handful of bands that I have a huge amount of admiration for. Next year we'll be putting out a full length (finally) and touring hard as usual and hope we can change things up a little and do a lot of new things, musically, and otherwise. I'll talk more shit here and tell everyone about gear and stuff like that, because that stuff is universally accepted as being awesome to discuss. Right?

I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who put us on this year, everyone who let us stay at their house, fed us, partied with us and mostly, everyone who came along to our shows and made sure we didn't just play to the bar-staff and the promoter. We've been there, it's not fun. I also want to thank the bands we have toured with this year - Rooftops, Just Panic, Imadethismistake, Crazy Arm and Dan Postin for being the best dude I have met this year. Touring can be tricky, even at the best of times and I would do it all again with all of you.

I am rambling now, I feel I have too many people to mention and I have mostly said all this to people already so I'll leave it here.

I cannot wait to get back onto the road next year, see you all then.

Dan
x

ps: New website soon. Myspace is dead and I am abandoning it ASAP.

Dear Apple inc.

2010-12-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Apple Inc.

Thanks for the e-mails through December reminding me to buy various Apple products as Christmas presents for my loved ones. Had you been advertising iPod shuffles, Nanos or accessories for Apple products at a reasonable price, I might not have been so keen to immediately delete your e-mails. However, you thought it perfectly appropriate to remind me to buy iPads for my loved ones. A £500 gift. How about a Macbook pro? Only a grand!

And yet the only things you know about me, are that I bought my laptop from you four years ago in your refurbished section to reduce the cost to myself and I have bought nothing from you since then. I have only been in touch with you to have my laptop repaired a number of times because of random faults and the fact that your magnetic power supply cables frequently melt and become a fire hazard. My laptop died this year, only four years old. By any standards, thats pretty shit for eight hundred pounds.

Thanks for e-mailing me today, reminding me, only 4 days after Christmas, where I bought nothing from you, that I should "treat myself" to an iPad. Even my Dad knows that the iPad is a gimmicky, expensive, underpowered toy.

Merry Christmas.

Dan

Last Minute Christmas presents!

2010-12-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

We have just upped our new shirts and ceramic owls to our shop. Any orders we get will be shipped the same day or the day after if you are buying for Christmas. The owls are limited to about 100 and we sold a bunch on tour so not too many left. They come giftwrapped and strung with ribbon.

Dan

The worst day our band has ever had. Ever.

2010-12-20T03:25:00.000-08:00

We bailed on a show for the first time ever at the weekend. To make things worse, it was the last date with Crazy Arm on our UK tour together. I was beyond gutted. We all were.

Our London show the day before was a difficult show for us, we spend a cold half an hour jump starting Crazy Arms van which had died and the PA had some problems which pushed the show back and meant that the vocals were a struggle to hear. Only one monitor worked so we had to switch positions at the last minute after setting up and the soundguy was hassling us to get going. Not a great start. I want to say a huge thanks to Dave McManus for organising the show though, his Everything Sucks nights are always busy and always well promoted, but for me, the show just lacked something on my part. I wasn't happy after the show and after the nightmare load-out where we can to carry our shit for about 400 meters on icy paths across multiple journeys to where we managed to park the van didn't help. I just wanted to go home and start again the next day. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Crazy Arm who were heading to Plymouth after the show. The next morning I felt much better, a little easier about the night before and ready to play hard and round the year off on a good note.

In 3 hours we travelled from East London to West London. Fifteen miles. The motorways were jammed, snow was falling hard, cars were slipping all over the place and it seemed impossible to make it to Plymouth in time considering Crazy Arm took seven hours to get home the night before and this was on clear roads with minimal ice. We call up the train company and ask about possible trains and PJ cracks up in the van after being told that it would cost four-hundred-and-thirty-pounds-and-eight-pence with a four-person super saver deal. No chance. We hadn't moved more than 500 meters in the last hour and it seemed dangerous and impossible. It took a further three and a half hours to get home and we had to spend another 45 minutes digging the van out after dropping Joe home on the way. The van had slipped against the curb and we had to use wood, boiling water and direct pushing on the side of the cab to get it free. We google mapped our journey - 30 miles in the best part of seven hours. We checked how long it would take to walk that distance - four and a half hours. Once I got home I felt delirious. No way to spend the day. No way to end a tour. No way to end the year.

I want to say a massive thanks to Crazy Arm for asking us to come out on this tour with them, they are probably the best band in the country and watching them every night was incredible - they play tighter and harder than pretty much anyone I have ever watched and they are the very best dudes. Their new single Ambertown is out now, its classic Crazy Arm and mega-banging. A huge sorry for bailing on the show. I promise we did everything we thought possible. Thanks to everyone who put us on, put us up and PJ for cooking most days. This tour has definitely been an education and we are all keen to get started next year once everyone is home from Christmas and New Year and finish up this record.

Day 6 - On the A14 to Norwich

2010-12-15T07:14:00.001-08:00

It seems stupid to keep a tour diary when we're driving only a few hours between shows in our home country and staying at, mostly, people we knows houses. There's something comforting but fairly risk-free about touring in the UK that doesn't keep me on my toes the same as I feel when we tour Europe and everything feels a little terrifying and home is more than an overnight drive away. I've eaten well, slept well and am wearing fresh clothes each day. The van smells ok and loading in and out each night has felt a little to easy. I don't feel like I'm on tour. I feel like I'm hanging out with my friends, old and new, and playing a show each night between bouts of sitting around swapping stories and discussing other shit that happened on other tours while PJ cooks. That said, and I realise that everything above might sound negative which I definitely don't intend, this tour has already been really good for us and fun beyond words. Its been an education watching Crazy Arm every night, they really are about as good as you can get and even their worst shows are better than most bands best. Every night after they play I want to jump back behind the monitors and do our set again. I am looking at everything we do as a band and trying to work out how we can make what we do a bit better, sound a little more defined and push us a little harder. I can't wait to get home and go over all our new songs and write parts that I can't play so that I can force myself out of my comfort zone and make things a little different whether we keep them or not. I'm excited about everything at the moment and I think these ten days is what we have needed for a little while to eek out a little more from ourselves. There's four shows left, Norwich, Leeds, London and Plymouth and I feel like we're just hitting our stride. I could keep this up, weather permitting, for much longer than ten days, although a few nights in my own bed would be awesome right now.

/ramble

Dan

Ps; if you bought something online from us over the last few days, its all being posted today or tomorrow. You'll have it by xmas, sorry for the delay.

I am laying on the floor in Warren from the Attika States house.

2010-12-12T02:20:00.001-08:00

3 shows into our tour with Crazy Arm and I have learnt a few things already. We're always dead careful about where we park our van, we're worried about people hitting it, getting parking tickets or leaving it in the way. Crazy Arm do not give a shit how they park there van and at first I was thinking that maybe we were over cautious and we should just do whatever we liked, like Crazy Arm do. They got a parking ticket yesterday. One-nil to us!

I'll share some more learnings, such as how Crazy Arm refuse to turn their amps down, and how they seem to need 12 hours sleep another time. Needless to say, they are killing it every night and we are constantly looking at our own performance and trying to work out how we can raise our own game. They are amazing. 7 shows left, come hang out. Bring earplugs.

Dan

Tour starts today.

2010-12-09T06:47:00.001-08:00

Today we go to Exeter to start a ten day tour with Crazy Arm. We have a bunch of new shirts, ceramic Owls and a grip of lozenges. We're ready.

Hope you can make it.

Dan

7" review.

2010-12-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

Hi. The good people at Pop 'Stache have done an article on our 7" - mostly about the packaging and presentation - all of which were done by Ema Smith. Have a look, I think the article is rad. Whoever wrote it, thank you for taking the time to do it, its much appreciated.

We go on tour on Thursday with Crazy Arm for 10 days.

I hope we have a heat-wave in the UK.

Dan

PJ, you can have your strap back.

2010-12-06T04:44:00.000-08:00

I borrowed this guitar strap off PJ about two years ago when my awesome blue strap died after Josh stood on the plastic adjustment part and it broke. It's been through a lot. In that time it's been through probably a few hundred gigs, a few thousand hours of practice and probably a few bucketfuls of sweat. I had to leave it to soak after our euo-tour in the summer because, well, it wasn't exactly fresh. But it carried on and never broke. Never slipped. Pj, you can have your strap back now with my eternal thanks. It probably needs retiring soon and I wouldn't trust it on any guitar that you could risk dropping. It's wearing out, but holding on ok. It could be said that I owe you a new strap. We'll talk about that.

Soon to be unveiled on the Crazy Arm tour - my new tweed guitar strap. Yeah. Tweed.

Dan - 28 years old, fashion sense of a 70 year old farmer.

March

2010-12-01T02:28:00.001-08:00

Yo. We're already planning for a tour in March next year and we're hoping to have a lot of the new record done by then. We're planning to go to England, Wales, Scotland and both Irelands. If you want us to play your city, town, party, let us know, we should be able to squeeze some in. Hit us up on contact@apologiesihavenone.co.uk and we'll talk business!

Ps; Mike Davies played us on this Radio show last night. It's on the iplayer for a week.

Dan

Southampton to Brighton.

2010-11-30T04:48:00.000-08:00

Driving to shows recently has meant driving in the dark on the way and driving in the dark and the cold on the way home. When we were heading towards Southampton last week to play with the Riot Before, I find myself riding shotgun, slowly nodding off to the sound of the fan and the mumering of voices in the back. Everyone is asleep or falling asleep except PJ, eyes on the road. It felt like we were driving home from a show, rather than driving there and I could have happily got in bed once we arrived. We parked up outside the venue and someone told me it was minus 2 degrees outside and so loading in was done quickly and efficiently. I planned on squeezing in a skate before the show, but my feet felt like blocks and no amount of warming up would ever warm me up enough to use my muscles. I felt like playing in my hat and jumper, but everytime I have tried to do that my hats slipped over my eyes and my jumper gets tangled up with my guitar strap. I have resolved to only play shows in a t shirt, Function over fashion, whatever the weather. The show was an odd one - the stage layout meant I had to play on the other side and I just can't ever get my head round that. People stayed and watched and sang a long and so even though I felt strange playing stage left, it felt fun. Thanks to Ricky for putting us on. Last night was similar. A cold drive, a quick load in. A cold start to the show. A constant of Brighton shows is that they always feature at least one drunk rambling guy who either dances all night in his own unique style or tries to somehow sabotage the show by grabbing the mic or yelling at the bands, you can predict it before even getting to the venue and setting up. This show had a crew of dancing people who wanted us to "big up" something or other. I had no idea what was going on and i don't think they did either. I wondered if they paid in.

Our tour with Crazy Arm is in 10 days and we won't play a show between now and then and I wish that wasn't the case.

Photos from The Old Blue Last

2010-11-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

The Old Blue Last show was awesome fun. The venue has a great stage and sound and the show had been promoted well enough that despite the clash with the Kingston show that had Above Them, Calvinball and Our Time Down Here on the bill, it was still rammed. Loading out of the venue is a ballache - you have to carry gear through the downstairs bar which is always completely full of people that don't seem to want to get out of your way. We had to park about 100 metres down the street from the venue too. Thank god I was drunk or it would be been a nightmare. Thanks Aisha for putting us on. The Menzingers were completely amazing at this show. I think there is a video somewhere of them at this show. Oh, it's here.

PJ was white hot for this performance. Honestly.

These owls are for sale dead soon.

Dan

The ups and downs of this morning.

2010-11-23T04:51:00.000-08:00

I quite often wake up right before my morning alarm goes off, like something in me doesn’t want to be woken by a machine, that it wants to wake on its own, in its own time. So this morning I find myself, exactly a minute before my alarm is supposed to go off, grabbing my phone. My eyes blurry from sleep guide my thumb to hit the “snooze” button and go to drop it and fall back asleep for 9 more minutes, as if those 9 minutes will make any difference to how rested I feel and how terrible it will feel to get out of bed into the cold and take a shower.

Just as I go to drop my phone though, I see that I have two e-mails and I cannot resist checking them, despite knowing they are likely to be inconsequential timewasters. Another minute lost deleting useless binary from my life. Viagra spam. Delete. Twitter “friend add”. Delete. Wait. What? Did that say what I think it did? I try to recover the deleted e-mail but it’s gone and I have to wait until I get to work to check what the message said. I feel excited, like the most awesome thing has happened and I have to wait an hour to check it. I can’t help feeling that this could be the day that everything becomes amazing. I am totally stoked. I log in to my work computer and can’t find it and eventually give up in frustration. Maybe I imagined it. It wasn't meant to be. Suddenly, I check my other accounts and finally I find the e-mail.

There it is.

A friend request on twitter from Kanye West.

Kanye West.

This is the greatest thing that has ever happened.

Then my heart sinks.

It’s not Kanye West. It’s “Kanyewestnews”. A fan-based street-team for the voice of our generation.

What a shitty morning.

Our new owls.

2010-11-22T04:30:00.000-08:00

Ema has made us some ceramic owls for our merch box and did a step by step on how you turn a chunk of wet clay into something that is awesome. The owls are available at shows and online really soon. The ideal christmas present for someone you love!

Dan

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How to make owls, by Ema Smith.

Step 1: I wedged the clay to get rid of any air bubbles and dry it out a little. This really hurts my arms. Will soon be resembling a body builder. Sort of.

Step 2: Next I rolled the clay using wooden guides to make sure all the owls were as fat as each other.

Step 3: I had to leave the clay slabs to dry out a bit and then cut out 100 owls. Next, I tidied up all the edges, put a hole in each one and then left them to dry for a few days.

Step 4: I loaded the kiln and bisque fired them to 1100 c in my lovely kiln in our living room. Safe to say it was pretty warm in our house that day.

Step 5/6: I enlisted the help of Dan and Josh against their will (please note Josh's scowl) to help glaze the owls whilst we watched the apprentice.

Step 7: I loaded them into the kiln and fired to 1017c. 12 hours later... I removed them from the kiln and applied the ceramic decals I had made to the glazed surface (whilst making 50% of calvinball a roast - that's what you call multi-tasking).

Step 8: Loaded the Owls back into the kiln AGAIN but this time I fire to 800c to fix the owl decals.

Step 9: Gatta 'helps' thread ribbons through the owls.

Step 10: We wrap and pack them!

emiloumakes.co.uk

Punknews reviewed us.

2010-11-22T02:20:00.000-08:00

Our show with The Menzingers in Manchester got reviewed by Punknews the other day.

Check it out here! www.punknews.org/review/9750

5 stars.

Dan

Saturday, in London, for one night only.

2010-11-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

...for the second time in a week! The Menzingers, Apologies, i have none and Leagues Apart all on the same bill!

If I was Geordie, I would say "Hoots man! I canne waait for the gig, it'll be a reet laff!" or considering we have been accused of being cockney I'll just say:

"Ere, geezer! This gig will be maaaad buff".

I have lost my way with this blog posting.

Dan

Just Panic tour is over and I am back at my day job.

2010-11-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

From Friday night to Monday night we drove about in a silver van and played shows up North with Just Panic who were completely awesome. All the shows were good fun and everything finished off in classic style in Manchester with an awesomely busy and fun show followed by the standard trashing of Kieran Kellys house. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who put us on, Chris, Sean and Keiran and the Just panic guys who arranged Liverpools date - you are all dudes.

Thanks to everyone who came along and everyone who helped us out with floor space. Thanks to everyone who lives at Kierans house and sorry about the mess and noise at 5am.

If you still haven't checked out Just Panic, get on it now before they become massive so you can tell your mates that you have had their record for ages and are thus way cooler than they are.

Erm...thats all for now. See you in London on Saturday night for another banging show with the Menzingers?!

Dan

Just Panic tour starts today

2010-11-12T04:45:00.001-08:00

Heyoo! We left Joes studio in North London about an hour ago and nearly left London, before Joe realised he forgot his cymbals. We're back at the studio now for our second attempt at going on tour with Just Panic. Bolton tonight. Get down!

Dan

Sink, venues. Sink.

2010-11-10T03:30:00.000-08:00

Do you know whats really frustrating? Venues that get funny when you ask for water. That sucks and I have written about it before, but it really sucks and is totally inexcusable. Most venues are cool about this kind of standard hospitality, but the ones that aren't well, I hope they sort it out before people stop going there.

You know what also sucks though, and is much more common?

Tiny sinks.

It seems like most venues have these incredibly tiny sinks and so if I try to keep my hydration under my own control and avoid bothering or somehow offending the bar staff by asking for something as trivial as water, my plans are totally foiled.

Well, venues, I have your number. No matter how small your sink is, I can beat you. I have developed a method of almost filling any bottle no matter how ridiculously small your sink is. Through a system of folding the bottle and tipping it backwards I can drink your water in quantities previously thought impossible without a hosepipe. I have scored a victory for the bands. Your porcelain water-protection devices have fallen to my technical prowess. I have won.

You know what really sucks though? The other night when I was getting pissy trying to fill my bottle up but bragging that I had managed to do it, I realised that there was free bottles of water for the bands.

One-all.

Dan

Don’t Panic.

2010-11-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

A while back we played with Fake Problems in Manchester and the guy running the show had us on at like 5.45pm and while driving up to Manchester I was pretty sure we would play to no-one. In reality, the room was pretty full by the time we played ad totally full by the time we finished and I was totally stoked on how it all went and the fact that anyone gave a shit about what we were doing. The rest of the night was really awesome but it was a band I had never heard before, Just Panic, that I got really into. We didn’t see them again for a while, but somehow I picked up all their recorded stuff and didn’t really listen to it much until after we played with them again in Derby this year. After that show I got the 7” and then re-listened to everything of theirs and we had it on in the van for a few weeks. They flat-out rule.

We figured that seeing as we’re playing Manchester with them next Monday; we should do a few dates together before the show. So we are.

Formally announcing the Just Panic, Apologies, I have none mega-weekender!

12.11 – Gigs, Bolton
13.11 – Caledonia - Liverpool
14.11 – 1 in 12, Bradford
15.11 – Tiger lounge, Manchester

If you are around for any of these shows it would be awesome if you came, I promise you good times and quality rhymes.

myspace.com/justpanic

Dan

Ps: If you aren’t in Bradford on the 14th, but are in Manchester, go to the Bomb The Music Industry show. That band is completely worth your entry fee.

Bomb The Music Industry - Saturday.

2010-11-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

All I seem to do these days is post about tickets and where you can get them and for some reason that seems entirely lame despite the fact that knowledge is power and tickets guarentee you entry to shows that you might be interested in going to.

Aaaanyway. This Saturday we are playing with Bomb The Music Industry and everyone knows this band is completely rad and we are stoked to be playing with them again. Last year Jeff from BTMI came over to the UK on his own and did a sort of solo/ipod show which I'm not sure everyone totally got, but I thought it was absolute genius and I sort of fell in love with everything he is doing. It's basically a party and some shows could really do with a bit more of a party atmosphere. The show is at the Peel and tickets are available through Banquet records here.

I am so excited about this show. Cynics and Bad Ideas are playing too, both also awesome.

Dan

*Flyer designed by Banquet records, Edited by Dan Bond. In MS Paint.

The Riot Before are coming to the Uk.

2010-11-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

The Riot Before are awesome and I have been waiting for them to come over for ages now. Last year at Fest in Gainsville I was queing outside the venue they were playing for an hour, stressing I wouldn't get in, drinking a giant can of American Beer to calm my nerves and hopping from foot to foot. We didn't get in. I admitted defeat and went to watch Broadway Calls and Strike Anywhere. I bombed out later that night and was in bed by 10pm. I blame the Riot Before for that.

Anyway, we are playing with them in Southampton soon and I recommend buying tickets to avoid stressing about not getting in and thus drinking yourself into a hole. The venue is apparently 50 capacity, which means, minus the other 10 dudes in the other bands, there will be probably 40 tickets on sale. As president of the Apologies, i have none ticket hotline, I urge you to buy tickets!

Dan
President
Apologies, i have none ticketscam inc.

Train Tactics

2010-10-31T03:17:00.001-07:00

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.

Crazy Arm Tour, December 10-18th.

2010-10-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

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

Chelmsford tomorrow.

2010-10-25T03:09:00.001-07:00

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

More sales speak.

2010-10-21T02:47:00.000-07:00

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.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE

Dan

President.

Ticket Sales inc.

Manchester with The Menzingers

2010-10-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Right, this show is going to be mental. It's like the whole line up is made up of bands that I think are awesome and dudes that I think are totally buff. The day before this show is Bomb The Music Industry, so you if you live, or happen to be, in Manchester on the weekend of these shows you better pace yourself because you are gonna have a good time.

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.

Toilets of Tour.

2010-10-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

Thats the whole trange of toilets, from relative luxery...to a latrine, in 3 days.

Photos from tour. Round one!

2010-10-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

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.

France and Germany.

2010-10-13T10:01:00.001-07:00

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.

Gig review - Off With Their Heads.

2010-09-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

So it seems that no-one ever reviews shows anymore, at least not the smaller shows that are usually really fun. Is that because there isn't much to say about a bunch of (usually) guys (unfortunately) playing in dinky venues up and down the country? Maybe it's because everyone knows at least a few people there who know some people who know the bands or something and no one wants to get critical about this kind of thing. I don't know. I like reading reviews though, especially ones where people talk all kinds of shit on everything and everyone. Please keep it up anyone who is a furious reviewer, I love your work. Anyway, our show in Derby with Off With Their Heads got reviewed and no shit was spoken, it was just all very kind stuff. Have a read here: letsgetdangerous.wordpress.com

The gig was awesome, despite running quite late and getting home at 5am. Off With Their Heads were real good dudes and this is a photo of them from the side of the stage, where us VIPs were hanging out*.

Hunky guys.

Dan

* If you consider the VIP area to be also the area where bands stored their gear and had terrible sightlines and was at no point called the VIP area.

Mega-dealz

2010-09-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

We still have 2 shirts left in our "shirts that we don't have enough of to bother selling at shows" mega deal. They are both handscreened American Apparel shirts in size medium. We are selling them for £6 each and if you are interested, just e-mail us! contact@apologiesihavenone.co.uk

On a similar note, does anyone else think it's not lame at all to wear bands merch at their shows? I do it all the time. Break the rules!! Be free!!!!!!1

Dan

Does anyone know anyone in France?

2010-09-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

We are having problems filling two dates in france for our October visit. At the moment our trip looks like this:

7/10/10 - La Miroiterie, Paris
8/10/10 - Deep Inside, Dijon
9/10/10 - TBC

10/10/10 -TBC

11/10/10 - l'Etincelle, Angers
12/10/10 - La Place, Caen. w/ RVIVR

If anyone can help us with the 9th and 10th anywhere in France that would be awesome. We're on tour with Zombies are Pissed, so its two bands, one van. Bargain.

Swell.

Dan

Full set from Bradfords "Set Sail Fest".

2010-09-22T03:30:00.000-07:00

Hi. Our good friend and ex-Serf Combat dude Toby filmed our whole set in Bradford the other week.

Part one is below, you can see the rest here on his website Aloadofstuffthathappened.

Thanks Toby! Also, thanks to Dave WOLINSKI! for lending me his guitar when I busted a string. Guys awesome.

The next show is in Manchester and it feel like my second home. I cannot wait.

Dan

How we fixed the van.

2010-09-21T02:38:00.000-07:00

On the way to Derby for the awesome Off With Their Heads show, we picked up Jugs and Pookie who play in Rooftops and Jugs immediately busted the window in the back of the van. I don't blame him, these things happen randomly sometimes and could have happened to any of us. They do, however, seem to happen a little more often around Jugs than anyone else I know however. Odd.

Anyway, we did what we always do, and covered the entire door in tape and shit. It held just fine for the rest of the day and no-one saw the weak spot in the van and decided to break in and take our stuff. Win.

So a few days later, after we have moved the entire drumset, amps, merch and everything else we take to every show into our front room, we get the metal parts to fix the van and bust out the hand tools and get to work like REAL MEN.

Once we had carefully drilled holes, jig-sawed wood and taped everything else up, the job was done and we put the fucking kettle on.

At no point did we wish our Dads were helping us (!)

Our next show doesn't seem to be for ages. I'll remind you closer to the time.

Dan.

Tonights show in London is Cancelled.

2010-09-17T05:05:00.000-07:00

Hi. Please remember that tonights show at "Everything Sucks" is cancelled.

If you want to see some cool bands anyway, go to Dorking! They are putting a sweet show on there with Brothers, The 255s and Porches at 8pm. It's only 30 mins from central London.

Sorry!

Dan

2010-09-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

This is today!

Off With Their Heads
Apologies, i have none
Leagues Apart
Pacer
Rooftops

Come on down! This is Rooftops last show for a while, PJ explains why here.

Gonna be well banging.

Dan

Some random shirts leftover.

2010-09-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

When me and Ema were screening shirts we did some designs more than others and we now have a few leftover that we can never be bothered to set up and sell at shows. So, we're selling them here and these are the last ones we have.

If you want any of them, please e-mail us at contact@apologiesihavenone.co.uk with your address and which shirt you want and if we still have it, we'll give you the paypal details.

The top shirt is a Medium American Apparel shirt in white with a hand-screened blue Mouse print.

The second is the Owl design, on American Apparel, Handscreened in white ink on black shirt. It's a Medium too.

The last one is a version of the very first shirt we did, with a larger print. Its hand-screened on American apparel in white ink on black shirt. It's also a medium.

We just put some large shirts on the shop as well, they are the Mouse design and we didn't do many of them. I'd call them rare, but we have only ever printed like 400 shirts so far and so any of our shit can be considered rare.

See you all in Derby with OFF WITH THEIR HEADS?!!

Dan

You'll find me in the club.

2010-09-13T04:01:00.000-07:00

The club looked like a living room and despite it being 4am, the guy on the door wouldn’t reduce the door price for us. I wish that at that time, we just called it a night and went to sleep. After bumbling around listening to R+B for a while we left to go to back to the venue we played over 12 hours earlier and slept on the stage. My stomach was turning and I knew Sunday was going to be horrible and I wish at some point I would have realised that before it was too late. The other bands loaded out of the venue at 10am, about 6 hours earlier than I would have liked really. The entire show at Bradford was awesome, thank you Sean for putting it all together. I am sorry to everyone that I repeatedly crowd surfed on during Calvinballs set, I got a bit carried away.

The drive to Norwich seemed shorter than it was. I drifted between sleep and listening to rap. I had a cold sweat right as we started our set in Norwich and my head and hands didn’t seem to be connected at all, but the show was really good fun. It would have been the perfect hangover cure if it didn’t make my head feel even worse after the show. Thank you Jonesy and everyone who came, you guys are super fun.

Mega Games were rad this weekend.

Dan

That sucks.

2010-09-13T03:14:00.000-07:00

Hi. Our show in London this Friday has had to be cancelled as the venue has not finished their refurbishments yet. Sorry about that, hopefully we'll sort another London show pretty soon! Our next show is this Wednesday with OFF WITH THEIR HEADS in Derby.

Tickets and info are here: derbydiy.org

!!!

Dan

Bradford tomorrow, 4pm!

2010-09-10T13:13:00.001-07:00

Yo. We play tomorrow at 4pm now, long story.

Get down early you land lubbars!

Dan

Mega weekender is almost upon us.

2010-09-09T02:38:00.000-07:00

Blammo! This Saturday we hit Bradford for an all dayer with like a million bands. I am pretty excited to see Calvinball and Onsind again as it's been a while since we hung out and first show we have all played since we toured sometime last year. Mega Games are playing and I love them guys. I'm probably gonna get drunk before we play. I mean, I don't mean to, but I'm going to get all excited and struggle to keep track of myself. Theres a bunch of people playing we haven't seen in ages or never seen before so I am probably going to be seriously banded out by Sunday.

Sunday we play Norwich though! Norwich is home to Jugs, the only person I know to try to chat up a female bouncer while being kicked out of a club. Mega Games are playing this one too and they are fully awesome as a 4 piece. Hopefully by then I'll have convinced Murf, the guitarist to go electric for their set. I like the Marquee venue, it's pretty cold at night though, bring a coat.

There is some serious inconsistency in the capitalisation of our band name on these flyers. Mysterious.

This seems like as good a time as any to remind you that pretty much all these bands, including us, are giving away music here: Killyourown.bandcamp.com/

Dan

WTFest photos

2010-09-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

I was bright red.

Thanks to everyone that came and sweated with us and sang along, I had a great time. Photo by Craig Charley.

More photos when I manage to upload them!

Dan

How not to waste your money.

2010-09-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and just hadn’t got round to it, so here is my attempt to pass on as much information as I can anyone who is currently looking to buy any music gear (so thats probably just about everyone in a band). This is all stuff I have learned over the last 5 years or so, since I started geeking out a little on gear. Please feel free to correct me/add anything if you think it's inaccurate.

For anyone wanting to buy new music gear, the choices and prices can be overwhelming and there is a lot of substandard gear that you can waste money on, or features you will never use that bump up your costs. Before buying anything, I definitely recommend not only testing it yourself but reading up on the product on Google. User-submitted reviews on sites like Harmony Central can get quite skewed by a couple of poor reviews so try to read trusted music publications and read up on gear that your favourite artists use as well – I figure if you like someones sound then finding out what gear they use is a good start to understanding the tonality of certain products as well as knowing what gear will stand up to touring. No-one in a band tours with gear that is ropey, except, seemingly about half the bands we play shows with.

I tend to look at Music Radar and the manufacturers forums as a good place to start reading genuine reviews. Guitar Buyer and Sound On Sound are great magazines to read and they have a lot of information on their websites too. Gearslutz is a great resourse and despite its seemingly NSFW name, is entirely composed of fully clothed dudes talking about equipment, sadly.

Anyway, here is my guide to buying expensive music gear as cheaply as possible, provided you already know what you want, have read up on it, and (hopefully) tested it. I always recommend buying guitars in person, they can vary tons between the exact same models.

If you are gigging your gear, then buying used is obviously a good way to save money. Cosmetically, the gear may look a little worn, but if you are touring then your gear will get at least a little damage fairly quickly. Guitars are definitely a good purchase used – you won’t need to worry about it breaking or anything as there is very little to break on a guitar that isn’t cheaply fixed. Guitar amps are a little trickier and older amps will need a basic service from a tech and possibly some components changed if the amp is a few decades old. Pedals are a safe buy as lots of people sell them after barely using them. Avoid Ebay! The fees are mental and posting used gear is dodgy. Keep an eye on your local Gumtree, music shop and websites like Punktastic. I don't know much about buying drums used, sorry. I'll ask Joe to post here about drum stuff.

Better than buying used is buying B-stock. This is stuff that shops get returned, or shop floor units that have been played a little. They check it all over, replace things like tubes and fuses and sell them at less than retail price. Our band is using a heap of B-stock gear and it all arrives looking pretty much brand new. Between me and Josh we saved over £800 on our amps and Joe picked up a rack-tom drum for £50 that was originally something like £300. I have just given away my number one secret to cheap gear.

Knowing what you actually want will save you money. How loud does your amp need to be? What features does it need? Is it reliable? If it’s cheap you can assume there is a reason for it. Cheaply made music gear does not last and you will eventually hear the sound quality difference in higher quality gear. Be prepared to wait for used/b-stock items to come up on used gear websites – the wait will pay-off in the end.

Look after your gear. Padded cases for amps/heads (minimum), hard cases for guitars. Keep your leads and pedals in a tool-box or some other container that will stop them getting bashed and broken. Replacing stuff is wasted money if it never needed to break in the first place. Pack the van/car well – use bungee cords to secure gear because the worst thing to do is arrive at a show with busted gear and have to borrow it – even worse if you are on tour and in a foreign country, 100 miles from a music shop, on a Sunday.

Buy leads with a life-time warranty. This is essential; because all leads break eventually and they aren’t cheap. Keep the packaging somewhere and send the leads back when they break. I have done this twice already and therefore saved about £30. How-zat!

Understand how your gear works, if even a little. Your gear will break eventually. Basic stuff like changing tubes in your amp will save you a ton of money, most issues with tube amps are literally a blown tube and fuse. That’s a 10 minute fix that you can do with absolutely no tools most of the time and everyone around you will be super impressed that you know your shit. Google is your friend here, there are guides to basic fixes for every amp on the infonet.

There are some things you can’t really do on the cheap – good quality, new gear is pricey but totally worth it if it’s the right thing for you. “Take it away” allows you to buy equipment across 10 months, interest free and most places will allow you to trade-in old gear for a discount on new gear (although you’ll get a shitty price for what it’s worth). Buy strings in bulk, buy picks in bulk. Consider gear that will hold its resale value well if possible. Fender, Gibson, Marshall and Vox are all brands that you could buy for used gear and sell it a year later for the same money you bought it for. Some smaller companies offer great stuff at lower prices and its up to you to decide if the resale value is important to you: G+L guitars are easily equal quality to Fender guitars and were also designed by Leo Fender, but don't re-sell as highly for example

I think that’s enough for now. If you are still concerned about what to buy, feel free to e-mail me and ask anything, I spend far too long reading about this shit and I’ll be happy to help. I’ll probably advise getting a Telecaster and a Tiny Terror though.

Dan

We're going to France!

2010-09-03T06:11:00.000-07:00

Bonjour! Because PJ is originally from Switzerland and can speak French, we figured we'd go back to France and do a week of shows there. Linguistically, it just makes sense to go there, rather than, say, Iceland, where we would struggle to communicate in anything beyond the usual arm-waving and pointing that I am used to.

That said, I would love to go to Iceland, but we can't take the van and I don't think they do ferries to Iceland, at least not for any reasonable kind of money. Anyway, we're not going to Iceland (yet) we're going to France because we can take the van there and PJ can speak French and I love cheese.

That said, I don't really like anything except your classic yellow cheeses like Cheddar, a bit of Gouda, Mozzerella, you know, the normal ones. So we're not going to France for cheese, but because we can take the van there, PJ can speak French and because Dan likes some cheeses.

I'll tell you why we're not going to France though - toll roads! Too many expensive roads just to get from one city to the next. French drivers must be so pissed they have to waste all their money driving around only to find themselves in central Paris and a complete lack of road markings and signs.

Anyway, toll roads aside, we are going to France because we can take the van, PJ can speak French, Bondy likes some cheeses and we can tolerate the toll roads because it's beautiful there and playing shows in France has always been AWESOME FUN for us.

We're going with French band "Zombies Are Pissed" (about the toll roads no doubt) and we'll be there from the 7th to the 12th October and it's looking like this at the moment:

7th October - Paris (venue TBC)
8th October - Dijon@Deep Inside
9th October - Lyon (Venue TBC)
10th October - Still TBC
11th October - Still TBC
12th October - Caen@Bar Laplace With RVIVR.

If anyone wants to put us on in October on the 10th and 11th that would be awesome, just get in touch.

Until then, check out Joe the last time we were in France. Phwoooar.

Dan

WTFest - This weekend.

2010-09-03T03:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend in Southampton is WTFest and theres so many good bands playing that I'm stoked we're a part of it.

We're playing the Sunday at UNIT, a nightclub venue where we played a few months back on tour with Rooftops. The venue is pretty awesome, its got that super-seedy all black paint in it and it sort of smells like drunk peoples sweat and you can kind of hear the remnants of the constant bass and shit ingrained into the walls even when the music is turned off - a good sign, right? It's dark, and loud and basically everything thats awesome about playing these sized venues. I cannot wait. Bring ear plugs though.

Tickets are available in advance from here or you can buy a ticket on the door if theres some left which I have no idea if there will be or not. The Skints are headlining and they just played Reading festival, so, you know, could be a popular one.

In other news, I found out that Red Stripe isn't vegan (not that I am vegan, but I found it a surprise none the less) and that 75% of people will put a tea cosy on their head if left to their own devices. Odd day.

Dan

Still alive.

2010-09-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

It's been quiet. We play our first gig since Punk and Bowl on 5th September (Sunday) and I am excited, it's in Southampton at WTFest with some awesome bands, like Crazy Arm and the Skints - bands we have crossed paths with a few times but never get tired of watching. The WTFest people are tweeting like crazy to spread the word of the weekends shenanigans, if you like getting your information in 140 characters or less, then check it out! twitter.com/wtfesst

If you like all your information in one place, on one screen, in as many characters as it takes, have a read here: FACEBOOK!

The Mega Games weekender is looking a little like a 2-day job now because the Brighton venue fluffed it and double booked us. If anyone wants to put on two bands who have all their own gear minus a PA on the 10th September get in touch, we're not doing anything else at the moment! Sorry to anyone in Brighton who wanted to see us, but lets face it, we'll probably play there again a few more times before the year is out anyway.

Just to wrap this fairly uninteresting post up, here is a haiku about Wednesday, AKA, hump-day. *Ahem*

Hump-day is not great,

It is a misleading name.

Unless you get some.

Dan Bond

Greenwich, 2010

Not up to my usual stellar standards, to be honest.

Dan

Ven-durr.

2010-08-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

I get back into Stanstead the other day and go to collect my bag. My hands are sore from carrying luggage all morning and my arms have tanned into a t-shirt shape on my body from the Spanish heat. I just want to get my bag and get home, but the train and bus journeys ahead of me fill me with apprehension. This day is going to get worse before it gets better and that’s just the price you have to pay for leaving the country on holiday. It kicks you out on the way out and kicks you on the way back in. So my semi-broken luggage bag comes round on the rotating bag transporter and I would just love to ride it for a lap to see what it felt like, but I resist the urge and drag my bag off and drop it to the floor. Time for a drink. Time for a snack. This day is going to get worse before it gets better and I think the overpriced vending machines are a small price to pay right now. The choices are standard in the machine and show no originality and Ema chooses the shortbread chocolate and the bar gets stuck in the machine. I don’t really want shortbread, but buying another seems to be the only way to get the other one free. I pump in another 70p and out comes the first bar and the second one gets stuck. I knew the day was going to get worse before it got better, but I had no idea how quickly it would happen.

I wrote my first ever confectionary-based complaint letter today. Welcome to middle-age Dan.

Dan

ps: I listended to Onsinds new record this week. It completely rules.

Mega weekender

2010-08-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

A few weeks after moving into London, Josh found a punk show on the internet that was going on a few miles from our house and we decided we should go. I Google mapped the route and had no fucking clue about where the venue was or how we would get there, but apparently there was a bus that went there from our house and we just had to walk a little at the other end. Despite this only being a few years ago, no one had internet on their phones and I didn’t know anyone with a sat nav. if you were lost, you were lost. The second we got off the bus in Stoke Newington, I was lost and I realised that all I knew about London was a handful of very specific routes from one place to the next. If forced to deviated from them routes, I was immediately lost. I might was well have been in Bumblecomethropplewaite in Norfolk*. I had this horrible unnerving feeling that I would never know my around the city or understand the bus maps and would constantly just need to follow Josh around and do whatever he did. That feeling lasted about 2 months.

Well the show was kind of strange, but Mega Games 2 played that night and they were pretty cool so we gassed with them a bit about playing shows and going to fest and all that shit that people with guitars and beards like to talk about and we sort of kept in touch and ended up playing some of our earlier shows with them in peoples houses and odd venues to people who quite often didn’t seem to get what we were doing. That all seems a long time ago now.

Anyway, The Mega Games 2 was really awesome, just a guitar and melodica and some rough recordings of great songs. They are now a full band though, with bass and drums and are just called Mega Games now. We’re doing a weekender of shows with them in September and I am stoked – it seems like we should have done this ages ago. Have a listen to their stuff, its rad. You can get a record free here: Killyourown.co.uk Or listen online here: www.myspace.com/themegagamestwo

The dates were playing are:

10 September - Hectors House in Brighton
11 September - 1 in 12 Club, Bradford (All day benefit show)
12 September - The Marquee, Norwich

Come check it out yeah?

Dan

*That place doesn’t exist.

Moving homes, no broken bones though.

2010-08-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

In January our new flat looked like this as we moved in.

On saturday, our flat looked like this as we moved out, only 8 months later.

I hate moving house. I hate moving house the day before Punk and Bowl, which turned into a 19 hour long day of driving, loading gear and watching bands.

Long weekend.

Dan

Brickin nuggets.

2010-08-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

Apparently, not serving Chickin Nuggets is enough to drive some people to attack workers at McDonalds. Sure, the breakfast menu has a wide variety of beige coloured goods to bloat yourself with, as well as low quality coffee, but why no Chickin Nuggets?! ARGH!!!

My favourite part of this video is that after the woman verbally assaults the staff, physically attacks them, bricks the window and drives off, the next customer slowly starts pulling up at the window, all quite normally.

"Erm....where is my Bacon McMuffin?"

People are INSANE!!

Dan

It's not easy to make us look pretty....

2010-08-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

..but it is easy to show how sweaty we can get. Robert took some photos at the show we played at Sub in Austria and they turned out great. The show was one of my favourites on tour, the guys who put us on made sure we had everything we needed and were comfortable after the long drive, but more importantly, they promoted the show real well and it was busy and sweltering by the time we played. I can't wait to go back. Have a look at Roberts website, a ton of awesome bands have passed infront of his lens. www.hot-shot.at

Thanks Robert!

Dan

How to pirate our 7"

2010-08-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

If you want our 7" but don't want to pay for it, forget searching Google for a torrent! There is a better way! Find a friend who has already bought the vinyl, gather some varying types of silicone and liquid plastic and pirate it!

If anyone shows me a working pirated vinyl copy of our record, I will give them my test pressing.

This is the greatest thing that today has brought me. (Slow day)

To the seas!
Pirate Dan

Kill Your Own

2010-08-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

Our friend Ian has set up a website called "Kill Your Own" and its full of free music from some of the countries finest bands, as well as some difficult to find demos and obscure releases. It's a great site. He has just put up our record "Two Sticks and Six Strings" on there, so if you don't have a copy (and it's sold out at the moment anyway) you can pick one up there for free, or for a donation. If you also want to donate to the site itself, that would be awesome - the running costs of a site like this escalate quickly and I think it's a great resource. Download our record here.

In other news, this is a photo of me and Josh at SlamDunk festival earlier this year, with one of the girls from the Millionaires. Their mics didn't really work during their set, so they stormed off stage but hung around for photos. Alkaline Trio played that night and were unbelievably awesome.

Odd day.

Dan

Manchfester weirdness.

2010-07-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ema decided it would be cool to film our whole set at the Manchester show so she set the camera up, worked out the sound levels and placed the camera at a great angle to view the show. Except she put the camera on the bass cab and so the show sounds like a dubstep rave or something. Despite the sound making the footage all but useless, on looking back through the thirty minute clip there was some solid gold footage. At one point in our set Matt tried to choke me out with a wrestling move. I didn't tap out.

ManchFESTer weirdness from emilou on Vimeo.

Here are some moments from Sam Russos set too, it was amazing.

Sam Russo, ManchFESTer from emilou on Vimeo.

Our next show is Punk and Bowl in Bristol and I am already excited.

Till next time!

Dan

Manchfester

2010-07-27T03:18:00.000-07:00

The first chord in the first second of our set in Manchester saw a surge of people bash into our guitars and knock them out of tune. Perhaps moving the mics into the room was a bad idea, we quickly retreated behind the barrier but it didn’t seem to help. For most of the set I couldn’t even see my mic or hear any guitars. I had the best time. Thanks to KIERAN for everything and sorry about your house.

This is the last song we played at Manchfester, Rearranging the Dust.

AIHN - Rearranging the dust, ManchFESTer from emilou on Vimeo.

Drunk Girls Love Me!

2010-07-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

So I get the e-mail - we're doing kareoke and I have to be in soho straight from work to get drunk and celebrate a birthday. I totally forgot about this. I'm sitting at work in the clothes I wore yesterday to the gig at the Old Blue Last which unknown to me, have picked up some black marks all over chest area of my t shirt. I don't have a sweater with me and so I figure I'll just buy a plain shirt on the way to kareoke, it's apparently a nice place so I want to look, at the very least, a little bit clean. I take the tube to Oxford Street and it's fucking rammed the second I get off the tube and I can't help but wonder why everyone in the world knows about Oxford street but forgets that it is like the human equivalent of an ants nest. I roll into Top Man and go looking for something suitably plain and cheap to buy. It takes ages to find a plain t shirt and I realise that they have cut the neck holes about a foot wide on all their shirts. I don't understand at all. The only shirts with a normal neck hole seem to have semi-sexist images or alcohol based humour on them.

If lost return to the bar!

I bail and head to H+M. It's closed. Fire alarm. I stroll down to Uni Qlo and its the same as Top Man, all massive neckholes and dumb shit on the front of the shirts that I wouldn't wear even if someone had scrawled a giant dick on my chest that needed covering. I'm running out of options here and so as a last resort I go into M+S and find a plain grey t-shirt and pay the disinterested guy five pounds and head to the Kareoke bar. I take the shirt out to check the shape on the way and realise that the shirt is basically a square - it's equally as wide as it is long and looks completely stupid. I decide to wear my T shirt as it is - looking grubby is the better option here.

I am bewildered with fashion at the moment.

New shirts.

2010-07-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

Hi. Happy Tuesday. My ears are ringing today - we practiced all Sunday, all yesterday and then I went to the Old Blue Last in east London to watch a show. As if my brain doesn't get bombarded enough with volume.

We just put the new shirts online on our store. They designed by Ema Smith, printed by Get a Grip and are printed using water-based inks on sweat-free cotton made by Earth Positive. I think the company is really cool, have a read about them here, they claim their products use less pesticides, no fossil fuels, pollute less water and are responsible for a 90% lower carbon output than other factories.

I think it's a great idea for bands look into using sweat-free products for their merch, the costs are a little higher than common shirts like Gildan and Fruit of the Loom but it's possible to keep your prices reasonable while still making enough money to keep merch on your table and petrol in the tank. While I am not a fan of statements like "reduce your carbon footprint!" we can all do a little and I think we’d all like to see improved conditions for workers in overseas factories. Have a look at the prices for Earth Positive shirts and bags on Get a Grips website – they are an awesome company and can source Earth Positive as well as other sweat free manufacturers.

Our next show is Manchester this Saturday. We're playing a new song. I can't wait.

Dan

This post is mostly about other bands.

2010-07-16T07:24:00.001-07:00

A few of the bands we met early on when playing shows are still going and are just getting more and more awesome. The first I want to talk about it is Onsind, who I think get more mentions on this blog than any other band and, well, that seems fair considering they are probably one of the best bands going at the moment. Their previous records have been on fairly regular rotation on my ipod for the last 3 years now. They just finished their new record called “Dissatisfactions” and based off the songs I have heard recorded and the others have heard live, I am super excited. Ultra-catchy, super-uplifting but never cheesy or clichéd, please go listen to the new songs and prepare to buy their record. http://www.myspace.com/onenightstandinnorthdakota

The other band is Mega Games 2 who relocated to the Homestead before it closed and self recorded a couple of new records. The acoustic guitar and melodica remain, but with the addition of drums the dynamic has shifted a little and songs seem to dig a little deeper and a soar a little higher, like everything has found its place and nestled in tighter. You can download their new stuff from here: http://killyourown.bandcamp.com/

You can download all of Sam Russos stuff from there too and it would be crazy not to.

Our next show is Manchfester and we’ll bust out a new song we were playing on tour which is a banger. That’s right, I said it. Our new song is banger. What would you expect me to say? “Yeah we got a new song, it’s pretty ok” ? No way!

Well banging.

Dan

The Birds Nest 2

2010-07-16T04:21:00.001-07:00

Probably won't be playing the Birds Nest anymore. We're cursed.

x

The Birds Nest

2010-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Not long after moving to London I find myself in the Birds Nest in Deptford watching a horrible band try to squeeze onto the tiny stage with no idea of balancing their levels and so all I can hear is the bass guitar. Everyone around me is drunk and if I wasn't also drunk I would realise that I am completely lost and shouting louder than I need to at almost total strangers, surrounded by some tough looking guys with faded blue tattoos. At some point in the night I ask if our band can play here sometime and the guy just tells me to turn up on Monday to play the open mic night. The butterflies started then. It was a good few weeks later that me and Josh returned with one acoustic guitar, a knock off Les Paul, no amp and about 5 songs. We played at about 6pm to no-one and were most likely horrible to watch. We played sitting down and it was our first ever show. We got offered a proper show there a few weeks later and so back we came, with all our gear on our backs and in our arms and played electric guitar and drums. The guys doing the show split as soon as we arrived telling us they had a gig of their own to play and that the other bands most likely wouldn't turn up, but that the bar had money for us. We drank our pay before we even played, all ten pounds of it. A few of our friends turned up and watched us stumble through a short set that finished with josh kicking over his cymbal stand because he wanted to keep playing despite us running out of songs. It was our second ever show with drums and we were terrible. In my head, I wrote off the Birds Nest, somehow palming off the blame for our performance on the venue and swearing we wouldn't play there again and me and Josh started a new routine of practice and started taking steps towards consistency in our playing. I've only been there once since and I still felt some bitterness towards the venue despite knowing that we were entirely responsible for ourselves at the times we played there.

We're playing the Birds Nest tonight, probably 3 years since we were last there and I just don't know how to feel about it. The line up is great, with all the bands who have toured with imadethismistake playing, but I am uncomfortable playing there again. At the very least, if we can play ok tonight then I will feel satisfied.

2010-07-11T11:31:00.001-07:00

Freiburg, Germany
The last show we arranged was a squat in central Freiburg which was only finalised a few days prior to the gig. As soon as we arrived a small riot occurred out side the main entrance as apparently someone from the squat had burned a German flag and the fifty or so German fans gathering outside didn't seem to take kindly to that. It very quickly broke up once the police arrived, but it put a downer on the night, all of us expecting them to return after the match, especially if Germany lost their match and bombed out of the world cup. The venue was a wooden room at the back of the area and the small stage had monitors and a soundguy waiting for us and the show itself turned out to be both busy and fun with great sound. Maybe we were a welcome distraction from the incidents earlier in the evening, I don't know. I had a good time though. The football guys didn't return and the memory of the fighting that happened earlier was washed away while we wrapped the night up sitting around a camp fire talking shit about drum finishes.

Paris, France
Waking up in the children's play-room, which was our bedroom for the night, at 8am was tough, squat shows always run late. Paris was only 5 hours away but we all wanted to get there as earlier as possible to hopefully take a walk around town. The drive sucked and we didn't arrive at the venue until about 9 hours later and didn't find somewhere to park until close to 7pm. We briefly drove past some of Paris' landmarks and it only made me desperate to come explore more. Talks started about relocating the band to Paris at some point in the future and if there is a city I can imagine living in as much as London, it would be here. The show venue was moved twice due to venues closing but there were a good number of people there, including some friendly faces from our previous France shows who had come to see us off. I was lost in sweat and cymbals for the whole set, grabbing breaths of hot air between chords, just hanging on to stay conscious at times. It was the hottest show we have played since Fest and I had the very best time, such an awesome show to wrap things up with.

Kiel, Germany

2010-07-06T01:17:00.001-07:00

The drive felt like forever due to traffic jams and we arrived late to find that venue already busy. I'm always concerned at shows like this that people are there for another reason or they will leave after the local guy plays because no one knows who we are. They didn't though and the show was fun, if ridiculously hot. I realised that at every show so far there has been at least a few people who know the words to at least some of our songs and that is freaking me out a little to think that people in towns and cities I have never even heard of or visited are rotating our records enough to pick up the lyrics in a language which isn't even their first. As I changed my strings in the backroom after we played and I could hear the show going on through the door I felt very lucky to be here doing this. There's only 2 more shows until we come home, I wish this didn't have to end.

2010-07-04T17:45:00.001-07:00

Weiner, Austria
Pj cooked crazy beans for breakfast/lunch today. This was accompanied by roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli and Tofu and It.was.awesome. If you plan on touring, bring someone like PJ, who likes cooking and eating, it will make everything better, I promise. I have dodged so many meals from gas stations because of PJ and I cannot thank him and his appetite enough. The venue was just right, with great sound, a small stage and monitors, making playing easy and fun. We switched the set up tonight because it was clear that people at the show had been to multiple shows in Austria, which was, to me, incredible considering we have never played here. I don't want to leave, I like it here and everyone has been so awesome to us. I can't wait to come back and tour here again. Tomorrow we have a long drive and a gig in Germany on the same day that Germany will either progress to the next round of the world cup, or bomb out of it completely. This could go either way.

Near Stuttgart, Germany
As soon as we arrived we were offered food and mohitos and the uncertainty of the show and how it might pan out faded quickly. The house was busy and everyone seemed excited about seeing us play that night. Germany won the football so spirits were high. The venue was tiny and busy and despite sweating the most I have on tour just watching imadethismistake, the show was awesome fun. Uli and everyone involved in the show were awesome and I cannot thank them all enough for ensuring that our bellies were always full and our beers were always topped up. As this show was their first show and was basically just a favour to us as we had nothing booked in the cities that day, we were all apprehensive that playing a tiny town with someone who doesn't often do shows might be a big disappointment and somewhat awkward. Thankfully, we could not have been more wrong.

Oberwart, Austria

2010-07-02T03:14:00.000-07:00

The drive today was short and for some reason I wished it was longer. I like the peace in the van sometimes, shutting myself off into headphones and dozing along the motorways that weave through the the countries we fleetingly cruise through. I don't tend to look out of the windows enough - occasionally taking a look to the left of me reveals that we're somewhere beautiful, but equally often, that we are somewhere flat and uninspiring. I was only part of the way through the new Eminem record that I pirated when we arrived at Oberwart. The venue was large so winding my amp up was possible tonight and I thought everything sounded great out front. The mix of local bands and us meant a positive crowd that didn't entirely get lost in the large room and I was content after we played that things had gone about as good as they could have. We had an encore demanded off us, which is always a good sign. We finished on "Mabley Green" which we haven't been playing much on this tour and I enjoyed every second of it. The day off yesterday just made me itch to play tonight and for now, that itch feels scratched. I cannot wait to play again tomorrow.

2010-06-30T10:03:00.001-07:00

Ljubljana, Slovenia
The 11 hour van trip went quickly, broken up by sights of the alps, the oppressive Italian heat and cheap food from rest stops. As we loaded in to the venue the hours in the van faded quickly into excitement - the venue was amazing and everyone we met was awesome and friendly. The squat has been running for some time now and is fairly established so I was itching to get going and play. The start time kept getting pushed back as not many people were there and things didn't even get going until well after 11pm. There was only a few people at the show and I was a bit bummed that we had driven so far and the show was hardly even promoted but we played well and I can say that I did my best. My mood passed while we strolled around the city till 3am and crashed back at the squat. We met a guy from Leicester who moved to Slovenia to be a dancer. He could do the robot and after seeing him bust some robotics at 2am in the centre of the capital, the whole day was redeemed.

Graz, Austria
The show was packed and the last few days of disappointment have moved to the back of my mind. We stayed at Toms house who was in Antimaniax and everything right now is awesome for us. We don't play tonight, so we're taking some time to charge our phones, ipods and cameras while hanging with the dogs and being in awe of how great this house is and how friendly everyone we met has been. A really, really good day. I wish every show was run like this, we have been looked after beyond what I could ever expect and I would love to stay and hang out for longer.

2010-06-29T19:58:00.001-07:00

Geneva, Switzerland
This city is, without doubt, one of the most expensive places I have been, it seems the prices of food and beer are directly proportional to the quality of the beautiful view that surrounds the city. Before the show we walked around the parks and tourist sites of the city and I am in awe of how pretty it is and how amazing the giant water fountain by thee lake is. We were to play late because of the football, which Switzerland drew and subsequently bombed out of the world cup. I'm not sure of this had an effect on the turnout, but it was quiet in the back room at Tikis and I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Tikis though, is great and the guys take care of bands really well and I cannot wait to come back. We stayed in dorms above a nightclub across town that Luke and Fab had arranged for us and so we spent the night dancing to the wind-down of what appeared to be a pretty decent club night and called it in at 5am. It was Pjs birthday today, he seemed to have a good time while hardcore-dancing to some european rave music. 4 hours sleep.

Davos, Switzerland
Myself, Joe and Josh just got in, at 3.30am from trying to ascend a mountain, I'm not sure we made it even a tenth of the way, but without provisions, hiking gear and sobriety, we didn't stand a chance anyway and I feel no shame in coming back unsuccessful. The air here is clean and the views are stunning of snow topped mountains and clear lakes. The gig was fun despite everything running so late, Imadethismistake didn't play till almost 1am but people stayed and danced and drank and bought records and shirts. Jurg put us on, once again letting us stay in the venue on his mattresses and giving us free roam of the bar. Tonight though, our focus was on ascending mountains rather the drinking and I think we made the right choice. The tyre blew today and tomorrow is Sunday, I am crossing everything that the spare holds out till we get back to Gland for tomorrows show.

Switzerland
After driving back towards Gland, Switzerland, for close to 7 hours we find that tonight's show is cancelled and that all the driving we did was wasted. Everyone is bummed, especially as this means the drive to Slovenia tomorrow is longer than necessary and carries further expense in petrol and tolls. Nothing is open on a Sunday, so the spare tyre remains flat and its almost impossible to find reasonably priced food. We sleep in PJs old practice room and try to get an early night before getting up as early as possible to get the tyre replaced before the estimated 11 hour drive to Ljubljana. Not a good day at all.

Dijon, France

2010-06-24T17:41:00.003-07:00

We got stung over 60 euros for toll roads today. It didn't help ease the 6 hour journey from Laval to Dijon at all. It was hot and stuffy in the back of the van and the longer I sit in the rearmost seat the less comfortable it feels. Still, France is beautiful and the view from the window is worth the discomfort. The bar was called "Deep Inside" and we played in the small basement with disco-ball style curtain behind the drums. It was hot in there too and I sweated my way through the show, powered by Hoegarden and feedback and I was happy with how we played. Everyone here is, without fail, friendly and willing to give our band all their attention and I'd love to stay a few more days to play some more dates here. My french is slowly improving too: Bon Soir, un Bier sil vous plait? Tomorrow we see Luke and play Tikis in Switzerland again and I cannot wait. The van is creaking on right-hand turns and it needs some work. Dan Postin wonders if we can complete the tour by just turning left. We are traveling anti-clockwise around Europe and so it seems like a possibility. I hope it doesn't become a necessity. A good day today,

Laval, France

2010-06-24T02:01:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I didn't look out the window till we got to the venue and I didn't take in my surroundings until we had loaded everything into the small wood panel basement. We decided to go for a short walk before the show started after eating. Laval is really quiet, everything except bars seems to shut down by 6pm but the area is pretty and I can see why people would live here, it is the complete opposite of Hackney, no noise, no attitudes, and sometimes, no people. People don't seem to arrive at shows until 9pm in Europe, which is about what time many London crowds start thinking about which bus they are going to take to get home. It's kind of nice playing a little later, being able to push through till 12 if needed. There's seemingly no-one rushing at all here. The show never seemed to get off the ground for me, but the people there seemed attentive and happy to listen to us for 30 minutes and I was grateful for their friendliness and attention. Bart, who put us on, let us stay at his brothers apartment which he has just moved out of. Staying the night in a completely empty apartment with literally nothing in it was actually kind of refreshing and I feel positive about tonight's show in Dijon, despite the 5 hour drive (probably 7 in reality). Time for breakfast now. Thanks Laval.

Caen, France

2010-06-23T01:18:00.001-07:00

The venue was downstairs from the bar, a dark, low-ceiling room with no stage and simple lights. It was just the kind of venue we've played so many times before and will probably play so many times again. Everyone we met was friendly and despite the language barrier I hope I managed to let them know how grateful I was for their hospitality in having us play there for them all. Pj speaks fluent french and so he takes care of the communication for us, both on and off-stage and appears to be hilariously funny when speaking in a language I cannot understand. Simon, who put us on, treated us like kings and I cannot thank him enough. The 11 hour journey from Hackney to Caen started taking its toll around 1am when I felt my concentration and communication skills descended into shouting popular songs, but replacing the words with variations on Dan Postins name. I worry that this will be a trend for the next 16 days.

Dan

The Homestead is closing

2010-06-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Homestead is, as far as I know, being sold. What this means is that the UKs number one house/venue is closing and there will be no more shows there after this weekend. This is a sad, sad state of affairs and whilst I am gutted that it will be closing, I am really happy that not only did we get to play there a few times, but that everyone there feels like a friend and I always felt welcome there. So many good people have played there, so many good times. I can't think of anywhere with the same atmosphere and welcoming attitude.

The residents are having one last event this weekend and I really suggest going if you can. Not only will there be like 30 bands across 2 days, but it will be full of your best mates and the cheapest cider and cakes. Read more here: http://www.punktastic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=87584

We were asked to play, but so close to tour and with so many other last minute things we all have to do, we just couldn't make it happen. I hope someone manages to film this, but I'm not sure i want to know what I missed.

RIP Homestead.

Dan

Excuses, je n'en ai pas

2010-06-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah so it's just another Wednesday and I'm hanging out at work, wondering how blazingly hot is outside while computing with my hood up wondering if i have any idea if I am hot or cold, hungry or tired. This room is really starting to mess with my head and it's not even lunch yet. Speaking of the overpriced lunch I have to buy because I didn't bring anything to eat today, I checked my bank balance online this morning and shit is not looking good at the moment. I kind of wish I hadn't checked you know? Sometimes the daunting feeling of having an unbalanced financial life is preferable to actually knowing you are totally and utterly empty for the next week. Good job I am not working for 3 weeks while I drink my way around Europe and buy overpriced fancy snacks from foreign petrol stations. Shit, this time next week I'll have played 2 shows in France and offended dozens of French people by attempting to speak French. Bonjourno.

Punktastic reviewed our 7" and gave us four stars. 4 out of 5. 80%. B+. I'll take that. Have a look at the review here: http://www.punktastic.com/reviews/3705 Thanks Punktastic. If that swayed you into wanting to buy a record, click on "Shop" now!

Come see us in Europe (if that is convenient for you)

Merci Bowcoop.

Dan

New merch.

2010-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of those days where I get concerned I can find all the things in myself that annoy me about other people. I hope it passes and I don't have to re-evaluate myself or anything like that.

Aerosmith are playing and I can hardly be bothered to go and watch them. The idea of seeing them live has completely outdone the desire to actually follow through and I have been reading tour blogs and shit about the new 3D nintendo handheld that I will never buy instead. What a night.

At least we'll have new merch for tour. Thanks Em (as always). All sizes, including girls, and XL, as well as bags, ready for tour, if all goes well.

Till tomorrow,

Yours,

Dan Bond.

edit: Just saw the last 4 songs of Aerosmith. It was awesome. I should have watched more of it. They were awesome, despite silver leggings and some ugly guitars.

Yesterday was a fucking day.

2010-06-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Neil Sutherland and Imadethismistake borrowed Joshs van for the UK leg of their tour and it broke down yesterday in Cardiff, wales. Kyle talks about what happened here: http://stopdropandbreathe.blogspot.com/

For me and Josh, still in London and at work, it was the exact type of headache that we didn't want, and basically a worst case scenario we wanted so depserately to avoid. No one wants to drop shows. No one wants to pay to fix a van. No one wants half your band and all your gear in another country with a show that night.

At the gig we were supposed to play with Neil/Imadethismistake, me Josh and Joe slowly realised that with Joe needing to leave by 10pm and us having all our gear and bassist in a van thats was limping it's way into Brixton, that the show just wasn't going to happen this time despite the fact that 2 people had travelled from Brighton to see us though and I felt horrible. We decided to play a short acoustic set, borrowing guitars from Torn Out and Limited Means, but as soon as Joe said he was happy to drum using the house kit, we decided to do a short electric-set using house amplifiers, without PJ who was still on route, it felt like the least we could do. I plugged into the miniscule 5watt practice amp and turned it up full volume - you could talk over it, it was so unbeleivebaly quiet. They mic'd it, we played and it actually sounded fine, obviously drastically missing bass and PJs dancing feet.

Halfway through "Joiners and Windmills" Pj starts loading his bass stuff on the stage and joined in mid-song and we finished the set as a four piece and despite only playing 4 songs it was fun and far better than not playing at all. I'm glad we finished as a 4, it feels weird without everyone there. Thank you to the soundguy, everyone who lent us leads and everyone who seemed to enjoy the set regardless of the bullshit that surrounded it.

Public transport home was the typical ballache, compounded by carrying gear home and then emptying the van that had been dropped off on the street by our house at something like 1am.

A long day of stress and stressing.

Tomorrow brings its own challenges now, fixing the van for us, and getting a new van and getting to Scotland for everyone else. Good luck guys.

Dan

Europe tour

2010-06-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

Hi. Kylemadethismistake made it to London safely this week and has been holed up practicing with Dan and PJ for the UK leg of his tour at the studio and at our house. It's apparently going really well so hopefully you'll go check them out tonight in Cardiff Tonight, London with us tomorrow or some other time when the location is suitable for you and fits with your possible other commitments. It is dawning on me this week that we booked a tour when the World Cup was on and for some reason we didn't think this would be a problem when deciding to tour at the start of the year. I hope people come to shows and if they do we can have a game of football before and after the show if that helps? I'll bring the football, you bring your shinpads and keepers gloves. Jumpers for goalposts. ROONEY!

Some more details about our europe tour are up on the gigs page, but the tour is looking like this now:

Caen, France, Tue, 22 June
Laval, France, Wed, 23 June
Dijon, France, Thu, 24 June
Geneva, Switzerland, Fri, 25 June
Davos, Switzerland, Sat, 26 June
Gland, Switzerland, Sun, 27 June
Ljubljana, Slovenia, Mon, 28 June
Graz, Austria, Tue, 29 June
Oberwart, Austria, Thu, 01 July
Wiener Neustadt, Austria, Fri, 02 July
Kiel, Germany, Sun, 04 July
Paris, France, Thu, 08 July

Needless to say I am starting to get panicky that I don't have everything I need, that I'll get the first show in france without my leads, or spare strings, or worse, without any fresh underwear. I will almost certainly wear the same jeans for all the dates. Thats just how I roll. I must buy new shoes.

ps: Got a TC Electronic Polytune pedal last night - its awesome! Expect much spaffing about how awesome it is in subsequent blog posts in the future.

Peas

Dan

Top 5 flyers.

2010-06-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

I have decided to share my top 5 flyers of all time that have our band name on them. This top 5 is not related to the show itself, but just to the flyer, and is in no particular order. Just to make it totally clear, I love cool flyers.

I think this poster for the pre-fest show in Dorking was done by Joe from Calvinball. Despite our band name being what appears to be last on this flyer, and clearly in smaller text than the Buvvems, I think this is awesome. Joes other stuff is here and you can usually see me playing shows with his art all over my shirts.

May lives in Leeds and has put us on a few times now. Her flyers are beautiful. Whenever I see awesome hand-drawn flyers like this I get really positive about the show - I figure no-one is going to do such a great flyer and then put on a half-ass show. Every show we have done in Leeds has been really fun without fail. She also makes a great cake. May for Mayor! Check her stuff here, including some more flyers with our name on (!)

Lisa Lives in Swanage and seems to be a really prolific drawer. This poster was done as an "alternative" flyer to a show we were doing in Bournemouth because the official flyer was a pretty uninspired affair using a banksy image and "arial" text or some shit like that. It sucked. I love that you can literally see how much work and time has gone into this and it made playing a slightly awkward show a little easier on us that someone cared enough to do this for us. Needless to say, we rocked hard that night, for sure. Not that anyone in the crowd noticed. Lisa is awesome, check her shit here.

Dan Allen plays as Ducking Punches and has done a bunch of flyers and his own art for shows, records and whatnot. He is the guy who did the new Leagues Apart record too. This flyer was watercolour and ink on A3 and the original was being sold at the show. A great idea and awesome detail and stuff. I don't think Dan has a website, so go listen to his band instead.

Ema is my girlfriend and I think any accusations of bias are totally unjustified (!) when including this in my top 5 roundup. I freaking love this poster. Ema hasn't finsihed her website yet, but when she does, it will be here.

So thats my roundup of flyers and the artists behind them. I should also mention that Jamie from the Arteries does awesome art for shirts, flyers and posters, you should check his stuff out too: http://gotvitaminc.blogspot.com/

Peas.

Dan

Rock Sound Radar

2010-06-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

Yo. We're in this months Rock Sound with a little "radar" piece about us, they wrote some nice things about our band which is pretty awesome. When they asked us for a band portrait I had to tell them that there aren't any photos of the four of us except live photos of us at gigs (which tend to look crappy when they are shrunk down in print) and that the only photo of us in existence where we are all facing the camera and posing, is this one:

They printed it.

Even the cover boy Matt Tuck from BFMV could only muster fire for his portrait. We managed to get a semi-endangered animal for ours.

Apologies i have none - 1

Bullet For My Valentine - 0

Dan

2010-06-07T02:34:00.000-07:00

Hi. I've been in Cornwall all week. I can sum it up in 3 words. Hot. Pasties. Hilly. It was pretty awesome down there, got in some serious skimming in the sea and drank some serious cornish cider and had a real cornish hangover. I'm back in London to the sounds of sirens and angry bus drivers, but its ok. I'd rather be here than most places, at least I can get wifi.

The Euro tour is nearly completely booked and we have a tour flyer. Check it out.

I have more details about the europe tour to share pretty soon but we're just finalising some details, I'll post everything here though.

Dan

Back in the shire

2010-05-28T05:08:00.000-07:00

I'm back home today. Literally home. Didcot. My Dad got a new laptop and so I'm sitting here to the sounds of "loose women" on the TV (not my choice), the dog asleep on my foot while my parents are both asleep or falling asleep. It's hot and sunny and I have nothing to do at all, no errands to run, no work to do and only a guitar with 5 strings and it's awesome. Any more than a day like this and I'd go crazy, but today I'm happy with my lack of progress and accomplishment. I realised today though that the D string is essential and that the only guitar shop in Didcot has closed down. Probably because they only sold shit guitars and amps and didn't stock anything that anyone who knows anything would buy.

Kieran announced "Manchfester" today - 12 bands in Manchester for £6. I can't wait - I get edgy during all day events but the line up looks solid and I'm stoked to be part of it. Check it our here.

Time to go lay in the garden with Ben.

Dan

Ipod situation udpate.

2010-05-26T06:57:00.000-07:00

A haiku, about my ipod situation.

IPod Touch was great.

2 weeks of complete heaven.

Lost it K-Fest.

Dan Bond

At Work

Greenwich, 2010

Purple Turtle, Tomorrow

2010-05-24T04:08:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we play the Purple Turtle in Camden with Dirty tactics (USA) Bangers (Cornwall) and Pacer (Somewhere in the UK. I have no idea where though).

As previously discussed, I like the Purple Turtle and I like Bangers. I don't really know tons about Dirty Tactics and I had never heard of pacer before seeing the flyer, but I am quite excited about this show. I would recommend attending, but my opinion is biased based upon the fact that I like playing shows, I like the venue and I love Bangers.

Needless to say, I'll be there.

Dan

Re-arranging The Dust.

2010-05-20T04:58:00.000-07:00

I like playing this song. We’ve been playing it now for probably almost two years and I think I’d be happy to play it every night, every single show, every time I got my guitar out. The first time we played it we were a two piece and, well, we were still getting to grips with playing with consistency and I remember breathing deep and my heart racing as we went to start the intro. It was in Oxford, near where me and Josh used to live, at the Wheatsheaf which is a tiny and awesome venue which was where I think I went to some of my earliest shows. It was at the time when we would play as well as we could, replicating what we had done so many times in practice, sort of hanging on as hard as possible not to make mistakes, focusing tightly on exactly what we were doing and we generally did pretty well at that. These days I feel a little more comfortable playing shows, my body seems to take over and I can actually concentrate on enjoying the feeling of playing, instead of gripping on till the moment we turn the amps off and pack up. This song, more than most that have survived in our set this long, is the one I notice that feeling with when playing.

This song is about my Mum who has Multiple Sclerosis and my Dad who is her carer and anchor.

Dan.

(thanks to Ian at strikeachorduk.blogspot.com for the video)

Tour help - June/July 2010

2010-05-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hi. In June and July we’re going to be heading into Europe with Imadethismistake (www.myspace.com/imadethismistake) for a few weeks.

I.can.not.wait.

The plan is looking like this at the moment:

22/06 - Caen, France
23/06 - Laval, France
24/06 - Dijon, France
25/06 - Geneva, Switzerland
26/06 - Gland, Switzerland
27/06 - TBA Italy
28/06 - TBA Italy
29/06 - Ljubljana, Slovenia
30/06 - Wiener Neustadt, Austria
01/07 - Oberwart, Austria
02/07 - TBA Czech Republic
03/07 - TBA Berlin, Germany
04/07 - TBA Germany
05/07 - TBA Holland/Belgium/France/Lux
06/07 - TBA Holland/Belgium/France/Lux
07/07 - TBA Holland/Belgium/France/Lux
08/07 - Paris, France

Obviously we have a few dates left to fill, some of which are just still in the process of confirming 100%, but basically, if anyone can help us fill the dates in that are above that would be awesome. If you can help, please get in touch! bookings@apologiesihavenone.co.uk

Imadethismistake are streaming their new record here. (It's great)
We’re streaming our new 7" here. (It's great?!)

I'll talk more about why the new IMTM record is awesome and how all this came to be pretty later. I'm real busy man!

Dan
apologiesihavenone.co.uk

K Fest was pretty oK.

2010-05-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hi. This weekend was pretty fun. Angela and Alf (not sure how much input Alf had, but he's a dude anyway) put on K fest - a sort of semi-weekender across Friday and Saturday night in Kingston, just south of London. Dear Landlord played the Friday night and apparently sold out the Fighting Cocks and it was awesome. So I hear. I wasn't there, I went for dinner on a bus instead with Ema and got drunk instead. I know, I know, I missed a great show, but seriously, the Tofu stack from here is worth missing ringing ears and sweaty pits for. Dear Landlord are real good though, I hope you made it to a show. Or got drunk instead. Actually, I do not advocate drinking. Make your own bloody mind up.

So yeah, after last years K Fest went, well, pretty badly for us, I was more nervous than usual to play this weekend. It's somehow worse to fuck up on a proper stage with monitors and stuff than it is to fuck up playing a floor show. I guess real stages mean real bands and real bands don't fuck up. We didn't fuck up. At least not in any kind of major way. I was pretty happy about that. Someone filmed us playing Vicky Park and it's below. Can someone film us at a show and just focus on PJs feet? The guy is a windmill and headspin away from being a full-on dancer. He's got them happy feet.

So that was K fest, at least, the Apologies bit of K Fest. I should add right here that El Morgan stole the whole show and put on one of the finest performances I have ever seen by someone with a guitar. She's amazing, I don't think anyone said a word through her set.

Josh drummed for Calvinball because Conor is sick and in Brighton. He practiced for like 3 hours at home with the Calvinballs on his electric drumset and it sounded pretty cool considering the fact that they refuse to tune their guitars. After some serious Ipodding and drumming the air between bands, he went on to play real well. Maybe Calvinball should becoming a five piece? If Josh can't drum for them he could rap instead. Just a thought?

Anyway, thats all for now. OH YEAH! Pj fest is happening! Finally! Check this out!

Insane.

Dan
x
Apologiesihavenone.co.uk

"We'll never make it to the next level!"

2010-05-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

We put one side of our 7" up to stream on our Myspace page which you can check out here: www.myspace.com/apologiesihavenoneAREAWESOME!

I also figured it was time for us to step into the modern age (ie, life post-myspace) and get us a Facebook. And a Twitter. I can't help feeling a bit dirty about all this presence on the internet, but I guess people prefer using what they are used to using and I can't force everyone to actually just hang out with us in real life rather than tweeting us and poking us. Come chat to us! (in 140 characters or less, please)

Anyway, check this shit, I am going to try to embed a widget.

Apologies, I Have None on iLike - Get updates inside iTunes

Did that work? I hope so. You can hear our new song right there.

Welcome to 2010.

Dan
x

Trends. But not like that.

2010-05-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I’m bored I read the “have your say” page on the BBC website. They ask open questions there that often generate answers based on personal stance rather than fact, the kind of questions that attract the hardest, most fanatical viewpoints to battle it out over the internet with no possible winner. It’s not far off posing the question “Is there evidence for God?”. Quite frequently they post up questions relating to MMCC (man-made climate change) and the responses are fascinating. Whilst there is serious debate over how fast global temperatures are changing, how much those changes are directly related to the human love of oil and how accurate the data is, it’s pretty widely accepted by anyone who has studied MMCC that it exists and that we need to do something about it. Today I found this comment, essentially attempting to prove MMCC wrong:

“We have just had one of the coldest winters in my 60 years, its the middle of May and I can see frost on the grass when I walk the dog each morning….I am not afraid, repeat, I AM NOT AFRAID.”

I just love this comment and I think, worryingly, this is how a lot of brains work. It’s hard to see the bigger picture sometimes when the only proof you can actually see is right in front of you and conflicts with the general consensus. If all you ever saw was beautiful beaches in Cornwall, it’s easy to forget the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and if you can keep buying tuna in Tescos its easy to forget that certain species are almost completely extinct now. I sometimes think that disasters like the huge oil spill currently leaking into the Gulf can actually be a good thing, despite the terrible damage to the ecosystems in that area. At least we are being reminded that we do have a direct, measurable effect on the earth and the more we fuck about, the more damage we do.

I don't really have a point with all this, I guess I just hope that the people that make decisions about this stuff can look at the bigger picture. Any decision that goes the other way is basically siding with our friend above unless I am missing some monumental scientific evidence that proves MMCC is a load of crap.

For more terrifying, unscientific reading, please read this and this.

Oh, the picture is me, looking sweaty. If trends are correct, this could be me ALL THE TIME!

Radio! Radio! Radio! Radio!

2010-05-11T03:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at my desk where I work for a large (very large) music corporation, listening to Beyonce on my mass produced iPod and checking my online bank statements when I get a facebook message that a song of ours just got played on Radio 1 last night. I listened to it online.

I think thats the least punk-rock way to find out that we just got played on the Radio 1 Punk Show.

Lame.

Anyway, if you fancy having a listen, you can for the next 7 days here: bbc.co.uk/PUNKROCK!!

Thanks Mike Davies!

Dan

GARB is a Pillow-Head.

2010-05-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Josh drove something like 13 hours this weekend. London > Manchester > Dorking > London. At least half of that driving was hungover and off the back of about 3 hours of disturbed sleep. Hero. Thanks Josh, I'll get a driving license before this band is done, I swear.

I have this friend at work, I don't think he really gets our band, he talks about getting "backstage" and "getting tickets in advance" and "groupies". I wish he could have seen us when we were driving to Dorking after the Madchester show and the subsequent afterparty at Kierans house. Josh has his head slumped on one shoulder, eyes fixed hard on the bit of the road that seems to be in focus, fighting off the inevitable. Joe is well-gone in the back of the van after sleeping on a cushion-less sofa, hood up, eyes sinking. I'm drinking as much water as I can so I might have a hope of singing that night between dozing off and rubbing my face back to life. Bidder is in the back with a sleeping bag around his face, pen all over his face, puke on his breath. PJ is napping and generally feeling close to ok because he actually managed to sleep. We all have dumb shit written across our knuckes and acid building in our stomaches. I wish my work friend could have seen us then. Any ideas he had of us being rock-stars would have vanished quickly, we clearly are not cut out for this shit.

Maybe it's best he never finds out.

Anyway, Dear Landlord are awesome and Kieran and his flatmates are also awesome for letting us all come over and party to classic punk rock anthems until every beer was drunk, 50% of all showers had sick in them and 2 people had been wrestled into tapping out. Good times. Good times. We're done till K Fest this weekend, where we will be fresh and ready. If you see my work friend, tell him I'll meet him backstage and I'll leave his tickets at the box office.

Laters.

Dan

Apologies, i have none

Punknews Stream

2010-05-05T14:22:00.001-07:00

It happened. www.punknews.org/article/38173

No need for an awkward e-mail exchange now.

*phew*

Dan

"Stubbs-Gate" and streaming.

2010-05-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

I think Punknews is streaming the 7inch starting from tommorrow. This is perfect, I guess, for people who think our band kind of sucks but are interested to hear how bad the new stuff might be (I do this sometimes) or people who think our band is OK but aren't sure if we're worth £4. I suppose some people might be planning on picking up a record and hearing it streamed might swing it either way (and possibly kill the excitement to hear it I suppose). Either way, you won't need to pay us to form an opinion on our newest songs from tomorrow. Thats good for democracy, and this band is nothing without democracy (despite it being run much like a ~~dictatorship~~...fuck it, like a dictatorship). I hope people like it. I genuinely think it's the best thing we have done. Even my Mum thought it was ok (except the swearing in Vicky Park) and I'm pretty sure she didn't like our previous record at all.

Sooo yeah, check Punknews tommorrow and it should all be running. If it's not up tomorrow then I'll send have to send the good people at PN a friendly e-mail that says something along the lines of "Yo, Punknews, theres like 8 people reading my blog, expecting to hear some shit via the infoweb and it ain't happening! Sort it out!" and they'll say something polite like "Yeah sorry Dan, we have real bands that we're covering and we forgot about you guys, I'll sort it out, Sorry". I'll feel like an asshole then and reply "Hey, sorry Punknews, you guys do a great job and I hate to bother you. Any time you get it working is good with us" and they won't reply because, like they explained, they are busy covering real bands and stuff and I'll feel awkward about e-mailing them again in case they missed it, but be worrying about appearing to hassle them.

I'm rambling today. Maybe yesterdays info-blog about hearing protection used up my self-control and bullshit filter for the week. I should ask Josh and Joe to write on here, they are pretty stand-up guys who could probably write witty and clever things that I just won't understand and find myself quietly nodding along with in the hope no-one ever finds out. Pj writes his own blog, he's way too cool for this.

Moving on, I just thought I should mention "Stubbs-Gate" and my personal opinion on it. Well, I got kind of bored of Leatherface about 10 minutes into their set and left to talk shit with Get-A-Grip Kay and Mega Games 2. I missed the whole thing. I guess I was gigged out by that point of the evening. I have been at a lot of gigs recently, it's giving me a headache.

That is all.

Dan
x

ps: Dorking, Saturday. We play EARLY if you like that kind of thing (I am talking about our band). Ema did the flyer and it's ace. Cue the insect puns! It's a spiracle this poster even got finished with how busy Ema has been recently!

Tinnitus.

2010-05-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

If you are going to a lot of shows, or find yourself stuck near the PA at a gig, you are likely to damage your ears eventually. I have no idea or understanding on how it works, but it happens and it’s avoidable. A lot of shows I go are really loud, like, so loud I have no idea how people stand near the front without earplugs in. Maybe they are tougher than I am. Maybe they are already suffering hearing loss. I SAID MAYBE THEY ARE SUFFERING HEARING LOSS. The problem with ear plugs is they make everything sound kind of crappy, so it’s hard to enjoy music with them in. It’s even harder to play shows with them in because everything sounds different and it’s hard to connect with your music and the people around you. Well, both of those things are kind of fact, and kind of not. With the right ear plugs, things don’t have to sound crappy and you definitely can get used to playing with ear plugs if you give it a chance. I’ve used a bunch of different styles of ear plugs over the last few years and here is my review of what I have used.

.
Foam ear plugs suck. They strip out almost all the guitars and vocals and seem to leave the bass frequencies where they are. For dance music this isn’t a problem as much, but for guitar/vocals, they are the worst, except for, maybe, toilet paper in your ears. I only use these as a last resort, I figure it’s better than tinnitus.

Docs Pro Plugs aren’t designed so much for music as sports and other noisy environments. Josh really likes these because they don’t bring the volume down too much whilst still leaving the guitars and vocals intact. These have to fit well to work, mine didn’t seem to do much and I didn’t like them because they felt like they might fall out. They fit right inside your ear and that’s a good thing and if they fit, you'll probably like them.
.

ER20s sound ok for gigs, but they stick out of your ears quite a bit, which made me uncomfortable to kick off a shows with them in. The string means losing them is less of an issue though. Probably best for band practice and low-impact shows. They do them in smaller sizes too, which seem to fit girls a little better.

Alpine Music Safe Earplugs are the ones I use now. They are just like ER20s, but they go right inside your ear, so I feel safer when busting out pyramids and yelling “Wolinski” at Calvinball. They sound great for gigs and are pretty cheap and comfortable, easily the best ones I have tried. The only tip I have for anyone using them in a gig situation is to try getting your amp off the floor and more at waist-height. You’ll hear your treble better. They are about £25 and totally worth it. If you can afford custom ear plugs, I hear they are completely worth the £150 or so they will cost, but losing your ear plugs is inevitible, so bear that in mind.

.

So, that’s todays blog. Completely unfunny and entirely non-fact based opinionated consumer advice. More of that tomorrow when I shall be discussing the pros and cons of differing gauge strings on your guitar and why Flora Light tastes just as good as regular Flora in your sandwhiches.

Laters

Dan

Almost entirely non-band related posting. Feel free to skip.

2010-04-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

I like making puns and I like to think I am pretty solid at it and I will take a challenge at any time to pun on any specific topic. Whilst at a show recently (no idea where, or with who, but this is a true story) someone called me out on this and I punned them right in the face, twice. I cannot recall the jokes, but I know they were awesome, at least to me. However, despite my obvious skill and talent at making sweet puns, I am today announcing the retiring of some absolute classic kitchen-related gags which have now sadly become over-used and I also partly blame Josh for this. I am also compiling this list because I just found that i can do bullet points on the blog.

“Forking hell”
“Knife one mate!”
“I wasn’t bread-y for that one”
“You did that pun yeast-erday” (These last 2 work best whilst standing around the bread bin)
“Oven you glad you did that?”
“It was too freeze-y to make that pun” (works best when pointing to, or using the freezer, obviously)

I will replace these tired, over used puns with some modern gems:

“You have to draw the lino somewhere”
“Quit bake-ing my balls”
“That’s just glove-ly” (obviously, an oven glove is imperative to this hilarious joke”

Jesus, puns just don’t really cut it so much when written down and sober. Looking at them they sort of remind me of how I feel about drinking gin in the morning. It just doesn’t have the same appeal. Maybe I should retire from punning and move onto making obscure references to theoretical science and maths puzzles when confronted with difficult situations.

“I bet that’s how Schrödinger's cat felt!”

I feel like an unstable particle in the quantum Zeno effect!”

There, that should do it. Instant social awkwardness guaranteed. Can't be worse than loudly announcing hilarious puns at parties, gatherings and funerals* I suppose.

See you losers this weekend at the PJ and Gaby shows tonight and tomorrow, the Hackney show on Saturday and Punk and Bowl Sunday, yeah?

Dan

*Whilst I cannot accurately remember punning at a funeral, there is literally no chance that it hasn't happened.

Punk and Bowl

2010-04-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last nights gig at Ryans Bar was so crazy hot that not only did I sweat through the ass of my jeans, but I also sprouted an afro. Awesome times. All the bands, I thought, sounded great, which has been my biggest fault of Ryans Bar in the past. I don’t know what made everything sound so good last night, but maybe everyone was just a bit more willing to turn their amps down a little to control the levels. Either way, it made playing and singing feel very easy and watching the other bands enjoyable. I don’t know how so many venues continue to have such poor sound, even when I know the promoter has paid for the soundperson to be there and manage it all. It’s crazy because It’s hard to get into a band if all you can hear are guitars and no vocals. The gig itself was busy but quiet on a crowd front, especially after the last London show which was pretty rowdy in comparison. It was kind of nice to play and sing well (for me) and actually have people listen and be able to hear ok. Thanks for the show Greg.

This week we play some shows with PJ and Gaby, our first in a while. I’ll be playing bass and embarrassing PJs awesome bass set-up the lack of technique and precision that I have developed into my own personal style. I’m looking forward to the shows, it’s kind of fun to be able to hang back and play someone else’s songs without singing. One of the shows is at the Garage in Islington, a venue I went to about a hundred years ago* to see Boysetsfire. Well, we’re playing upstairs in that venue so it’s not like fulfilling some kind of ambition, but it feels like a step in the right direction. It’s the right postcode, it counts.

Oh, before I forget, this Sunday is Punk and Bowl. Shit man, Punk and Bowl is so fucking fun. Sometime last summer at Punk and Bowl I decided to miss half the bands, drink gin in the park next to the venue and harass the local squirrels. The night took a downward spiral as I started bombing out and yelling at Jon from The Cut Ups about how I loved his band before getting grumpy and going home alone. I was messy, messy, apologetic mess the next day. I haven’t bombed like that since…well, I mean I bombed at fest, that’s well documented, but I barely bomb out like that. This year, I redeem myself.

I will redeem myself.

Laters
Dan
x

*not a hundred years ago at all.

www.apologiesihavenone.co.uk

First reviews of the 7"

2010-04-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

Hi. I woke up early today and felt full of energy despite some Tyskies last night. How is Thursday treating you? I'm not working tomorrow which makes Thursday seem like Friday to me. Although, this is made all the more depressing by the fact that I am working both Saturday and Sunday. I have no idea what that makes today now.

ANYWAY.

Some cool people have listened to our new record and said "despite this being only 2 songs long, its worth reviewing". I could not agree more. Matt at Alter The Press said nice things about it here: www.alterthepress.com and Zack said nice things about it here: www.punknews.org. Thanks for the kind words guys. Do we owe you royalties?

No-one has said anything bad about it yet, and none of our lyrics appeared on a recent NME discussion on bad lyrics. This is a personal victory for us and Ithankyouall.

I am having a great Thursday/Friday/Whateverday today.

Dan
x
www.apologiesihavenone.co.uk

Project Bondy.

2010-04-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

Our good friend Toby plays bass in Serf Combat and their band is awesome and one day we will tour with them and it will be tremendous. Anyway, Toby has this recording device and has started taping shows and putting them up on the internet and I think this is really cool. It's really difficult to make it to some of the better shows around the country for a lot of people and a lot of southern bands never make it far up north and vice versa so the effort that goes into documenting some of these shows is really comendable and could help unify the semi-north/south divide that some bands struggle to bridge. Its a pretty small country afterall.

Ian at strikeachord has been doing roughly the same thing and I'd like to think that someone, somewhere will have the time and knowledge to pull it all together and create a site not unlike Ifyoumakeit which has been documenting shows in the NY area for a while now, as well as preparing original content and acoustic performances. I think this kind of thing could be awesome for a lot of bands in the country - there really isn't anything other than Punktastic to share what everyone is doing and help promote shows and bands to people that care, but haven't the time to go to every gig or check every bands website.

Anyway, in liu of some kind of my proposed mega-site (which I shall now call "project Bondy"), here is a recording from our first night of tour at the Cowley Club in Brighton, recorded by Toby. I think some of the levels are a bit dodge and my in-between song banter was not up to par that night, but whatever. We also only did 5 songs because time was a-pressing. Theres loads of stuff on the site, have a listen. http://aloadofstuffthathappened.wordpress.com

Dan "Project Bondy" Bond.
x

ps: Someone let Matt from Calvinball have a blog. It's tame at the moment, but I can assume there will be some serious shit getting talked once he starts posting drunk. I can't wait. http://calvinball.tumblr.com/

pps: In Florida they have all you can eat crab-leg buffets. EVERY NIGHT.

www.apologiesihavenone.co.uk

Mega Deals

2010-04-20T05:38:00.001-07:00

We finally got around to going through the shirts left after tour and put them up on the website, along with a mega-deal. Sorry we don't have any XL or girls shirts left, we'll make them a priority for the next batch we're doing really soon.

Have a look: www.apologiesihavenone.bigcartel.com

In other news, PJ is stuck in Switzerland due to the volcano shit, but seems to be having a good time, with 2 ice creams. Doing his bit for global cooling?

Laters.

Dan