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

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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

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