Old site

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!

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.

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.

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

Check it out here!

Dan

Happy new year

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

x

The ups and downs of this morning.

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.

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.

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.

...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

x