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

..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"

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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