Spelling Lesson.

I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.
I must spell Kieran correctly.

Sorry Keiran. Kieran.

Madchester

At some point earlier in the year, Andrew Cream, guitarist in The Ruined and promoter under the name Last Lung asked us to play a show with his band in Manchester. Manchester is about 4 hours and 200 miles from London and driving there and back in a night is a nightmare. We did it once and said "never again". Its also terribly expensive in Petrol in a way that the show will never be able to cover. I took the show and figured I'd at least get one show between London and Manchester on the way up and one on the way back to minimise driving and petrol costs. But then Calvinball went and asked us to tour with them and Onsind just a few days later and so all my attention went on booking up a tour with them and the Manchester show just sort of sat there like the last Dog in the pound, just kind of patiently waiting for some attention.

That attention didn't come and so the drive to and from Manchester in one night was looking more likely. On the Saturday I had to go back to Didcot to see my family, and Josh knocked off the first 70 miles or so and went to Peterborough to watch Neil Sutherland and Friends play the Xoo bar. Sounded like a good gig. The day of the show I had to jump on a train to London, to get a train to Peterborough and meet Josh and Keiran (our unofficial roadie/merch girl/hype man) and drive to Manchester. Well, it all went ok on the train, despite destroying my wallet so the train company score 1 point for the well timed trains, but they lose 5 points for a 100 mile journey costing almost £50 (and I hold them responsible for the muffin, see below)

The gig was pretty well attended, very fucking loud and a pretty mixed bill of punk, ska and horror punk(!). I broke only my second string during a set and realised that the backup guitar I bought a year ago, that I have never used live, is completely useless as it won't stay in tune or sound good. Anyone want to buy a used Epi Les Paul? No? Well the set ended on a low point, which was a shame because the rest of it was really good and really fun to play. Nothing like ending on a bad note (literally). The Ruined played last and were awesome.

Come 11pm, it was time to hit up the Motorway and drive home, and it was only at this point that the terrible logistics of our gig planning were becoming obvious. We ended up bombing out at Keirans house at 2.30am and finishing off the journey home at 8am the following morning to get to work in time. Josh said he couldn't focus on the road or signs for about 40 minutes before we gave up. It's times like this that I realise how much DIY punk relies heavily on friends, luck and hard work. Who wants to drive 8 hours in a day and finish at almost 3am? Who wants to be at a venue for 5 hours, only to play for 30 minutes? Who wants a bunch of people staying over after shows and leaving to the next town and leaving you with their mess? Well, we don't always want to, but we'll do it if we have to. Thanks again Kieran - people like you (and your parents) help keep people like us going. See you next time!

Muffin to lose

This muffin is criminal, right when i was relying on it the most. National rail once again have me by the balls because I want to travel the 60 or so miles from London to Didcot and feel that £20 is a fair price for a one way trip on crowded train that takes 45 minutes. Its not a fair price by anyones standards, but at least tonight I got a seat and the seat next to me is taken up by my bag and a bass guitar that is as much company as I really want right now. But this muffin, fuck man, all I wanted was something that might make me feel less like tonight was a big fucking lose. Does anyone else start spending the second they realise they have nothing left? Like once you have reached the bottom, you are finally free? After getting stung for a ticket that will in all likelihood never get checked on this journey I barely cared about the extortionate £2 for a honey and lemon muffin from some faux french cuisine outlet in Paddington station. This muffin is, quite easily, 4 days old. I know this because it crunched when I bit into the piece I wrenched off the top. That's the best bit! I would love to get off the train and slam it back onto their glass counter and tell them that despite missing my train and getting an overpriced ticket/muffin combo, I was not going to be taken advantage again tonight. I want them to eat this shit that they peddle to late night commuters who long for their bed and the conversation of someone other than a ticket robot. I want them to suffer the same disappointment that I felt. I want them to know that despite today being a massive ball-ache that this journey didn't have to be the massive kick in the groin that I didn't want. It could have been a quiet train and a nice muffin, a sip of water and an episode of Peep Show, but instead I am dying inside from this block of muffin scratching through my insides. I swear right now, I will never buy another item of food from a train station, and by my calculations, If I bought 4 muffins a year at £2 (not including inflation) then, if I live till 75, I could save just short of £200 in my life. Fuck you muffin, I'm practically rich because of you.

This post seems to be mostly about Onsind.

At the very start of 2008 I think, I posted about our band on a website, trying to get people to listen to us and managed to attract the usual semi-cynical replies from people that hadn't listened to our band telling me that no-one was interested in our Music.No problem really, its all you can expect from pushing your band on people to a degree and its why I've never been comfortable about doing anything to promote what we are doing beyond playing shows, giving away Cd's and trying to keep our various online presences up to date for anyone that is interested in us. Still, someone DID listen, and they liked us, and they offered us our first show beyond 2 hours drive from our house. Probably our first real show outside London really. JC at Discount Horse records went as far as to book us a headline slot with Onsind in Durham as well as the possibility of playing a house party and another gig on our last day. It was our first real trip for a show. I wouldn't call it a tour, but 3 shows up north in one long-weekend was beyond our expectations at the time and I guess it was our first real experience of the hospitality that DIY punk can offer. Not only did we get paid for the show, people paid for our free Cd's, we got fed, taken on a tour of the Durham Cathedral, played a fun house party and got squeezed onto a daytime show (although this show was beyond odd and the fairly large crowd that were in attendance almost entirely consisted of people in bands who were either about to play, or who had already played). I remember feeling like we had conquered the world on the 7 hour drive home that Sunday and I have always been excited to pass through and see everyone again.

This weekend we loaded up the car with tents, sleeping bags and gear and headed back up north for a weekend festival called Full Throttle where we would spend the weekend with our northern friends. The EIGHT HOUR DRIVE would have killed us off easily had we not been staying with Will, who took us on a refreshing walk with his Dog around Sedgefield as soon as we arrived and the hours of driving seemed to drop off us all quickly (except Ema, who slept almost all the way there). Thanks Will, your hospitality shall go down in the permanent records of Apologies, I have none as being 5 star.

The festival was largely made up of bands I had never heard of and the attendance was mostly people i didn't know - not a problem at all. On checking the bands prior to leaving, I accepted that the line up wasn't made up of too many bands that i would ever love but again, not a problem, I was looking forward to spending time with everyone, watching friends play and wandering between tents in case I caught anything I liked. We were to play the main stage at 4pm - its a big tent with a smallish stage and I remembered playing it last year and struggling to get into the set. The barrier in front of me and huge open, well-lit space made playing feel awkward. It was the same this year so it was hard not to come away disappointed. Its hard to create a good atmosphere when you are dwarfed by a PA, barrier, bright sunlight and 1/10th full tent and i started drinking pretty heavily as soon as we finished. Our friends mostly played in the smaller tents late at night and I couldn't help but feel jealous that we weren't playing the same spaces at the same times. Disappointments like that are hard to shake and are compounded by a sense of distaste for my own self-pity when maybe I should be thankful I even got to play and that people took the time to listen. The rest of the weekend was largely made up of sitting about talking shit and watching bands, some that I liked and some that I didn't. I think the acoustic tent was the premier tent of the weekend for me, it was small and busy and was the last tent playing each night. I barely got through the last night after bombing out on Gin but i recovered in time to see Onsind give probably the performance of the weekend. It was literally amazing. It was really good to end the weekend on such a brilliant set and I think it helped to correct the tiny part of me that didn't want to let go of my own disappointment - it really can be pot-luck as to when you get an awesome show or poor show, but it also helped to focus my own mind on what i can do to get through the more difficult shows. It rained that night and the field turned into the muddy bog that it had promised to do just a few nights before, like the clouds could finally relax. I felt relieved that the rain had held off this long and so I stuffed my new, but muddy tent back into into its too-small bag and got back into the car for the drive home. I am still wearing the mud stained shoes I spent the weekend in - I should buy new ones really, these will never feel the same again but I own no shoes at all other than these. I would love to post pictures of the weekend, but Ema lost her camera on the first night (if anyone was in the Bishop Aukland, Lower Wham area of Butterknowle at the weekend and found a canon Ixus, please let me know!).

Calvinball + Onsind + A,IHN tour.

It's been ages since I tried to book a tour. I just don't know some bands in the US manage to book months long tours across dozens of states when they have just 1 EP out or a split record, but it seems to happen all the time. Maybe there's just a ton of venues and hundreds of isolated scenes that put on shows that makes it seem easier or maybe its not easy at all and all the American bands spend months pulling their hair out trying to make the 400 mile trip to the next venue worthwhile. Booking tours in this country is just not easy and relies on luck, patience and well, a lot of luck unless you are a big enough band that people will bend over backwards to book you. We managed to book up a few dates with our good friends Calvinball and Onsind that will take us to some places we have played before and some new places across the country (and Scotland) and the process only took us a few months. To be honest, we were massively unsuccessful in booking up dates so most of the work was done by the other bands - thanks guys. I'm stoked on this tour - we're hiring a van between all of us and "doing it properly" which I am hoping will mean eating, sleeping and partying well.
This country is starting to feel small now. We've driven to so many major cities, quiet villages and houses that every time we pull-in to get petrol I feel like I recognise the lino and coffee smell and urinal. Like at every service station we have a preferred parking spot and my wallet winces at the memory of the overpriced, over sugared shit that I bought here last time. I can measure the distances between cities in terms of hours, petrol money and meals now. I don't want to get stuck in any sort of routine and touring with friends whom we have still yet to get to know as well as we'd like seems like a great way to break things up a bit but its also reassuring to know that regardless of how well organised the show is, whatever the turnout, at the very least I get to listen to bands that I already know that I can sing along with. I am sure that the 9 days are going to fly by far too quickly and leave my on my ass wondering where the next time we get to do it again will be so I'm already thinking beyond August, about where we can go next.

Here's our August tour dates:

August 9th TBC
August 10th London (at the Brixton Windmill)
August 11th Leamington (at Robin's Well)
August 12th Birmingham (at Scruffy Murphys)
August 13th Leeds (Royal Park Cellars)
August 14th TBC
August 15th Perth (Mucky Mulligans)
August 16th Newcastle (at King's Manor)
August 17th TBC

Calvinball - www.myspace.com/thisiscalvinball
Onsind - http://www.myspace.com/onenightstandinnorthdakota

The PJ and Gaby Cartel/Experience/Brigade

We spent the best part of the weekend playing shows with PJ and Gaby as their backing band, which is a horrible term for "we play the drums and bass for them". Although, that could actually sound kind of cool, I think I could probably get away with saying that we play drum+bass and then let people think I am some sort of awesome DJ. I will need sunglasses and a bigger man-bag if I am to pull that off I suppose. Me and Josh decided to rename the full-band PJ and Gaby "The PJ and Gaby Experience". Does that sound awesome? Or totally shit? Jimmy would be turning in his grave.

The Friday show was in Basingstoke, a place I have been too once and only remembered being lost in the industrial estate for hours whilst looking for fun stuff to skate. I had no idea that Basingstoke was, essentially, a secret hub of punk. There were easily 50 people at the show, all of which paid attention to the bands and seemed to open to the differant acts playing differant styles of acoustic punk. I was really unsure of how the show would go whilst we were driving there, I always get apprehensive playing in new towns I'm not familier with but the show was a pretty solid success and Pear Cider was £2.50 a bottle and we got fed excellent vegan Chilli. Even if I pissed myself on stage I would have considered the night a success at that point. Kelly Kemp blasted out a solid set and Burning Idols played their first ever show and did way better than we did (see below) at our first show. The sound on-stage was shitty so it was a tough show to play - I kept my head down and focused on hitting the right strings as well as I could. Pj broke two strings in 30 minutes, a feat I have only ever seen beaten by Daniel from Onsind at Full Throttle festival last year. Amazing.

Saturdays show was at a family garden party in a marquee. Not your usual show at all and one that had we played at as A,IHN would have been somewhat difficult. I would have felt like I was basically just yelling, shouting and swearing at a family gathering which is, or isn't cool, depending on how you feel about that stuff. Probably about a dozen people played through the day, generally all what I would loosely call "folk" - there were banjos, ukes, madolins, 12 strings, violins, a double bass and harmonicas - sometimes all played by one band. Playing was easy and I can safely say I made the fewest mistakes at any show we have ever played with PJ+Gaby. I count that as a victory. My progression on the bass has been nothing less than amazing.

Amazingly slow.

Our next show is at Full Throttle in Lower Wham, Butterknowle. I'm sure you're familier with it. See you there?

Radio! Radio! Radio! Radio! Radio! When i got the music i got a place to go!

Mike Davies has played us on his Punk Show twice in the last 2 weeks. My Mum and Dad are so proud they even attempted to listen to the show on the internet. I think they finally realised that we took this music thing seriously. My dad rejected the internet for years but then when I moved out of home I think he finally "got it". Getting broadband probably helped (he is as impatient as me) but every time I would go home to visit, he's pull me straight upstairs to the computer and show me his latest funny YouTube clip or Lol image or something. Its great. Now he e-mails me, texts me, and now, finally, he has accessed digital Radio. Progression. (See below)

Anyway, none of that is relevant. You can hear us getting played on the radio here if you like:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/mikedavies/ (this link will die in a week apparently)

Don't tell Mike that he called our record by the wrong name, I don't want to piss him off and at £16 per minute for airplay, if he plays Eason Drive we would scoop £64. That would be the easiest "daily wage" we would ever have earnt. What? of course we're in this for the money. At this rate we'll break even sometime in 2024.