DAY5 - GLASGOW
epic drive. i think i slept the majority of the way there or it just went really quickly. we've played upstairs in the bar of glasgow barfly so it was refreshing to find on arrival that we were playing the real venue downstairs. we set up and, as usual when in glasgow, went to monorail records. picked up the first los campesinos album (finally!) for a bargain £5.99. also bought endless summer by fennesz. definitly worth a listen. we had a bunch of press to do and one particularly nice gentleman had made us som 'aztec cookies'. amazing scenes. we love food so having them after eating some wicked veggie food at 13th note totally made my night.
personally, ive had mixed experiences of our times in scotland so to play to a really full room of people who seemed genuinely into what we were doing was really pleasant. its made me look forward to our scottish dates in october a lot more. driving master matt spalding decided he was up for the drive back home after so we went full speed ahead to sheffield. what a machine.
DAY6 - NOTTINGHAM
i was particularly looking forward to this show all week. i love the social as a venue and im moving to nottingham really soon so any time spent there gets me totally pumped up. we met up with friends and watched a dismal arsena performance against a hull team that fully deserved their victory. bad start to a good night...
our good buddies brontide opened up and played a wicked set they wear their influences proudly on their sleeves and if yr into bands like battles and russian circles, you should definitly check them out. what would be mirror!mirror!'s unintentionally last set of tour (more to follow...) was of the brilliant standard they'd set themselves all week. this band are rapidly on the rise and its been an absolutel pleasure to spend a week in their company.
as it was our last opportunity to fully extend our party arms with m!m! we all hit stealth vs rescue rooms after, accompanied by brontide and a whole host of friends. it was nice to have a few drinks, do a bit of disco dancing and generally have good times. we all stayed at different places and on the way back to where myself, ed and joe n stayed, party cohort tom warner decided it would be a good call to play a little joke on bean. recently, joe n has dscovered he's slightly intolerant to gluten so tom called bean up and said joe had bean rushed to hospital, we were all in a waiting room and that he would need to make his way to the square and await further instructions. this was followed by a series of texts between ed and bean, shown below:
bean:
ive just got called by tom warner. is mate alright? whats going on? x
ed:
basically the doc says his face is swollen like a bag of tsatsumas. hes in surgery. we're all in a&e. meet eva in the square. steve will get you a taxi from there x
bean:
jesus. what meet in the square tonight? i dont know where i am!
ed:
hes out now. doc says hes ok now. his face is only a golf bal per cheek. fins deliberating canceling york. what do you think? x
bean:
i dont mind. its up to mate see how he feels. i dont know how fast i could get to where you said to meet x
was this out of order? yes. what is funny? yes. was eds use of a letter t at the start of satsuma a stroke of genius? i thought so... but yeah. we're total dicks. in a bit nottingham x
Monday 29 September 2008
Saturday 27 September 2008
hysterics tour - days 3 & 4
DAY3
after staying at matts on tuesday night, we headed to ikea. yes, ikea.
matt had been raving about their 75p veggie hot dogs and we had to check it out. it was definitly worth the detour. everyone filled up on super cheap food and we made our way to the barfly.
initially we had all thought we were in the smaller room upstairs so i was a little apprehensive about being told we were in the big room, especially considering there was literally no advertisement for our show. even so, we still got a good amount of folk down with a lot of help from the opening support your biggest fanclub. mirror!mirror! also totally killed it tonight. not sure if it was because it was a home-town(ish) show for the but they were on particularly fine form.
we drove home after as ed needed to be at home on the thursday morning. i believe this is when the 3 player DS tetris battle began. myself, joe n and our merchboy tom have since been at loggerheads playing. tom is easily the most accomplished at the moment but this will hopefully slide. almost certainly not in my favour though. updates to follow.
DAY4
leeds. we were all pretty excited about this show because we have a bunch of friends who are all studying/living in leeds. also, we've done a few supports slots at the cockpit but never actually headlined there ourselves. even so it was supposed to be at the brudenell (which is one of my favourite venues) i was still excited to be headlining the cockpit.
the gig was promoted by james brown (yes, james brown) of pulled apart by horses. this was an excellent start because we know him and like his band. he was very accomodating, brought us our vodka and we got on with things. various friends arrived and we caught up and then before we knew it, due to the new 'nailgun' (ouch), clubnight, we were on. we played a different set and it worked much much better. a lot more energetic. we were all really suprised/flattered with the amount of people who turned up and are grateful that so many folk wanted to come.
after the gig we seriously got on it. there was a slight altercation with a band that played the other room and were in the other dressing room. basically, dont steal other bands booze, yeah?
cocks. it was ok though because ed had hidden the litre of vodka and seeing as though we ran out of mixer i was drinking it straight. mistake number one. this mistake was pre-empted with the other mistake of eating at 'wokon'. totally gross, flavourless noodles because pitza cano wouldnt deliver to the cockpit. so i started dancing and having a pretty good time. then i took a phone call outside and must've been totally all over the place because the bouncers wouldnt let me back in. so i ran in anyway and then got thrown out. then i was sick. everywhere. fucking noodles. tom got a wicked photo of it which will no doubt appear online soon.
that concludes day 3 & 4.
james
after staying at matts on tuesday night, we headed to ikea. yes, ikea.
matt had been raving about their 75p veggie hot dogs and we had to check it out. it was definitly worth the detour. everyone filled up on super cheap food and we made our way to the barfly.
initially we had all thought we were in the smaller room upstairs so i was a little apprehensive about being told we were in the big room, especially considering there was literally no advertisement for our show. even so, we still got a good amount of folk down with a lot of help from the opening support your biggest fanclub. mirror!mirror! also totally killed it tonight. not sure if it was because it was a home-town(ish) show for the but they were on particularly fine form.
we drove home after as ed needed to be at home on the thursday morning. i believe this is when the 3 player DS tetris battle began. myself, joe n and our merchboy tom have since been at loggerheads playing. tom is easily the most accomplished at the moment but this will hopefully slide. almost certainly not in my favour though. updates to follow.
DAY4
leeds. we were all pretty excited about this show because we have a bunch of friends who are all studying/living in leeds. also, we've done a few supports slots at the cockpit but never actually headlined there ourselves. even so it was supposed to be at the brudenell (which is one of my favourite venues) i was still excited to be headlining the cockpit.
the gig was promoted by james brown (yes, james brown) of pulled apart by horses. this was an excellent start because we know him and like his band. he was very accomodating, brought us our vodka and we got on with things. various friends arrived and we caught up and then before we knew it, due to the new 'nailgun' (ouch), clubnight, we were on. we played a different set and it worked much much better. a lot more energetic. we were all really suprised/flattered with the amount of people who turned up and are grateful that so many folk wanted to come.
after the gig we seriously got on it. there was a slight altercation with a band that played the other room and were in the other dressing room. basically, dont steal other bands booze, yeah?
cocks. it was ok though because ed had hidden the litre of vodka and seeing as though we ran out of mixer i was drinking it straight. mistake number one. this mistake was pre-empted with the other mistake of eating at 'wokon'. totally gross, flavourless noodles because pitza cano wouldnt deliver to the cockpit. so i started dancing and having a pretty good time. then i took a phone call outside and must've been totally all over the place because the bouncers wouldnt let me back in. so i ran in anyway and then got thrown out. then i was sick. everywhere. fucking noodles. tom got a wicked photo of it which will no doubt appear online soon.
that concludes day 3 & 4.
james
Wednesday 24 September 2008
hysterics tour - days 1 & 2
we're on tour again!
this time its a little different as we're touring in support of a release. its strange but thats something we've never done before.
our album came out on monday and we started with a free show at the old blue last in london. we had been told to expect it to be busy-ish due to 'online reaction' to the fact we were doing a free launch show and other factors but i dont think anything could have prepared us for the amount of people that turned up. totally sardines. we had mirror! mirror! and the ghost frequency come down and play and they both put on excellent shows. we went on a little later than initially anticipated but fortunately, everyone stuck around...
we started playing and people were nodding. we hit a heavy bit and everything went a bit mad. alex 'holy roar' fitzpatrick began what became a running theme through the set - stage diving. im not sure we've ever had anyone stage dive to us before and it probably wont happen again but at this show, probably everyone that was anywhere near the front had a go. it was fun (although in places a little frustrating because of equipment getting unplugged/wet with booze) but we cant really complain. it all added to what was an amazingly fun night for us all. my personal highlight was having to tackle someone at the front, off the stage because he literally wouldnt get off and kept falling into joes guitar stuff. if there is any pictoral evidence of this particular move, i would be grateful to see it. also, it was pretty awesome to have a room full of people sing happy birthday to me. thanks a lot!
so yeah, we finished at the old blue, all sweat and smiles, and headed down to the macbeth where tiger (this is music london) had kindly arranged an afterparty. we hung out for a bit and caught up with various friends and i had a go at DJ'ing, controversially playing 'all the things she said' by tatu. i thought it went down pretty well (more DJ sets please!). it finished there at 2 and we tried our best to find more fun but ended up getting stuck waiting for buses. i got back to where i was staying in new cross at about 4.30am. nevermind.
we all convened the next day and made our way to bristol. in boring news, we were late because of traffic but all was ok when we got there. me and ed were particularly stoked that the promoter tim had provided us with a litre of vodka. this is the first time we have recieved vodka as part of our rider. good times. the show ran a little late and with an 11pm curfew, it wasnt looking so good when we started at 10.35pm BUT all was well and we managed to play a full set in the end. we made our way across to derby after the show to get matts van fixed and we're at his house now. his mum was really sweet and made us tea and coffee and loads of toast. exactly what was needed!
we have birmingham today and there will be updates every couple of days from different people.
keep fucking the idiots.
james
Sunday 21 September 2008
the start...
our year starts here.
hysterics is released tomorrow and we begin our 2 week headline tour tomorrow. it feels strangely juvenile to still associate september as being the start of the year but for us, it is.
everyone is totally pumped to get back to playing shows and to bust out the new jams live. having essentially had the summer off in terms of touring, its been a long wait to this set of shows and we're going to do our upmost to make sure they're as special and memorable as possible so please come down and get involved!
we have a few birthdays to celebrate whilst we're away so be prepared. i turn 20 tomorrow and our merch boy (bitch) tom is 19 on the 29th. good times guarenteed.
so yeah, buy the record, come to a show, have a drink.
see you somewhere along the road...
james
p.s new lovvers, throats and data.select.party will all be amongst yr favourite releases of the year. incredible stuff.
hysterics is released tomorrow and we begin our 2 week headline tour tomorrow. it feels strangely juvenile to still associate september as being the start of the year but for us, it is.
everyone is totally pumped to get back to playing shows and to bust out the new jams live. having essentially had the summer off in terms of touring, its been a long wait to this set of shows and we're going to do our upmost to make sure they're as special and memorable as possible so please come down and get involved!
we have a few birthdays to celebrate whilst we're away so be prepared. i turn 20 tomorrow and our merch boy (bitch) tom is 19 on the 29th. good times guarenteed.
so yeah, buy the record, come to a show, have a drink.
see you somewhere along the road...
james
p.s new lovvers, throats and data.select.party will all be amongst yr favourite releases of the year. incredible stuff.
Saturday 13 September 2008
vive la france
last weekend we went to france. it was our second time out of the UK with this band and the second occasion that we've had the opportunity to play in paris. needless to say we were all pretty excited about it.
we headed down to london the day before with our driver 'magic' matt spalding. on the way to collect eva from work i realised i didnt have my passport and she probably didn't either. good start. so setting off an hour after we intended we eventually got to holy roar HQ at 11ish. we were up at 6.45am the following day to head off to folkestone. the eurotunnel is a weird experience. we've used the ferry in the past and it ALWAYS make me want to throw up but with eurotunnel we were underground for about 20 minutes, then in france. easy!
we made it from calais to paris pretty easily but couldn't initially find the venue. i used my pigeon french and we got by. it was hidden behind a big hedge. we were fortunate that everyone at the venue spoke pretty good english. i feel incredibly rude expecting everyone to speak english but my french really isn't good enough! so yeah, after soundcheck we headed into the area of paris we were in (bagnolet) and had a mooch around. we saw loads of vans with amazing graffiti on the side and tried to hire bikes but couldnt work out how to use the machine. we tried walking to the eiffel tower but were disappointingly too far away. maybe next time...
from our brief experiences of gigs in europe, its a huge contrast to the UK. the way bands are treated is incredibly different. before the show, all the bands sat down together and were fed hot meals. we were brought out bread and red wine and everytime it ran it, it was replenished. amazing! needless to say we got a little tipsy and then had drinks tokens on top of that. we checked out the other bands and waited for our slot. we were fortunate to play to a good sized crowd who were very receptive. having not played so much recently, it was refreshing to kick it live again and to enjoy ourselves. i accidently punched an amp behind me and cut my thumb pretty bad and had to keep wiping the blood on my shirt to not dirty a borrowed keyboard. nice.
after the set we hung around at the club night for a while, used the drinks tokens and talked to various nice people. everyone was exhausted by the travelling pretty early on so we headed back to our hotel, slept, found food the next day and then made it back to the UK. all in all, a sweet weekend!
james
we headed down to london the day before with our driver 'magic' matt spalding. on the way to collect eva from work i realised i didnt have my passport and she probably didn't either. good start. so setting off an hour after we intended we eventually got to holy roar HQ at 11ish. we were up at 6.45am the following day to head off to folkestone. the eurotunnel is a weird experience. we've used the ferry in the past and it ALWAYS make me want to throw up but with eurotunnel we were underground for about 20 minutes, then in france. easy!
we made it from calais to paris pretty easily but couldn't initially find the venue. i used my pigeon french and we got by. it was hidden behind a big hedge. we were fortunate that everyone at the venue spoke pretty good english. i feel incredibly rude expecting everyone to speak english but my french really isn't good enough! so yeah, after soundcheck we headed into the area of paris we were in (bagnolet) and had a mooch around. we saw loads of vans with amazing graffiti on the side and tried to hire bikes but couldnt work out how to use the machine. we tried walking to the eiffel tower but were disappointingly too far away. maybe next time...
from our brief experiences of gigs in europe, its a huge contrast to the UK. the way bands are treated is incredibly different. before the show, all the bands sat down together and were fed hot meals. we were brought out bread and red wine and everytime it ran it, it was replenished. amazing! needless to say we got a little tipsy and then had drinks tokens on top of that. we checked out the other bands and waited for our slot. we were fortunate to play to a good sized crowd who were very receptive. having not played so much recently, it was refreshing to kick it live again and to enjoy ourselves. i accidently punched an amp behind me and cut my thumb pretty bad and had to keep wiping the blood on my shirt to not dirty a borrowed keyboard. nice.
after the set we hung around at the club night for a while, used the drinks tokens and talked to various nice people. everyone was exhausted by the travelling pretty early on so we headed back to our hotel, slept, found food the next day and then made it back to the UK. all in all, a sweet weekend!
james
Thursday 4 September 2008
leeds festival
whilst we're a little late on this and it may not be totally relevant now, here is our (my) review of what i saw at leeds. despite the initially crap weather and slipknot pulling out, we had a pretty sweet weekend.
arriving on the wednesday to get the spot we get every year we were greeted with rain. rain so hard that evas tent flooded so badly that she had to go home and come back again! thursday was no different with mud being consistently churned up and wellingtons becoming an absolute neccessity. i went to see grammatics play the dance to the radio stage on the thursday night. they, of course, totally rocked it but had to cut their set short quite considerably due to the pidgeon detectives (eurrggh) secret set running over. booze ensued and thursday night quickly became friday morning.
friday saw the remaining members of the tomassi party contigent arrive. having sorted out a guest ticket at the last minute, joe n found himself in the haven of guestcamping; a flat, grassy paradise compared to the battle of the somme-esque vibes of blue valley. jealous in the very least! a huge oversight in the colour of wristbands meant that you could simply turn yr brown weekend wristband inside out and it would be black: the same colour as the guestbands. upon realising this i took advantage of it all weekend, only being stopped on a few occasions. this meant we got to see more of the youthmovies boys and spend some time with lovvers. festivals are really fun for catching up with other bands.
in terms of blagging into 'restricted' areas i totally won. i managed to also get into the arena crew campsite, which you needed a photo laminate for, using the above trick and the distraction of my partner in crime whilst i climbed over a fence. if anyone from festival republic reads this, please dont let it put you off booking us next year! i was drunk and it seemed like an amazing idea at the time.
onto music, which is what this post should probably be about...
highlights of the weekend for me:
friendly fires
late of the pier
youthmovies
digitalism
simian mobile disco
yeasayer
these new puritans
wild beasts
los campesinos!
all the above bands totally killed it. i would go into detail but alcohol consumed there and the time which has passed has impaired my memory of what exactly happened. i just remember all of them being especially good fun.
i managed to get a guestpass for the sunday and thinking that the traditional sunday night trouble would kick off, i moved my tent to the guest area where i thought it would be safer. in a massive stroke of irony, after being out, i returned to find my tent and all my stuff had completely disappeared. after searching for half an hour, i found my tent on its side with the contents of my bag emptied inside. fortunately, only my sleeping bag had been stolen which i settled for but found really trivial. bastards!
so yeah, good weekend!
props to the penistone set, youthmovies, lovvers, tom warner, alice thomas, matt and katie, everyone that wore our shirts (we saw you!), thomas sadler, jack, william bowerman and moody of course.
see you there next year hopefully.
james
arriving on the wednesday to get the spot we get every year we were greeted with rain. rain so hard that evas tent flooded so badly that she had to go home and come back again! thursday was no different with mud being consistently churned up and wellingtons becoming an absolute neccessity. i went to see grammatics play the dance to the radio stage on the thursday night. they, of course, totally rocked it but had to cut their set short quite considerably due to the pidgeon detectives (eurrggh) secret set running over. booze ensued and thursday night quickly became friday morning.
friday saw the remaining members of the tomassi party contigent arrive. having sorted out a guest ticket at the last minute, joe n found himself in the haven of guestcamping; a flat, grassy paradise compared to the battle of the somme-esque vibes of blue valley. jealous in the very least! a huge oversight in the colour of wristbands meant that you could simply turn yr brown weekend wristband inside out and it would be black: the same colour as the guestbands. upon realising this i took advantage of it all weekend, only being stopped on a few occasions. this meant we got to see more of the youthmovies boys and spend some time with lovvers. festivals are really fun for catching up with other bands.
in terms of blagging into 'restricted' areas i totally won. i managed to also get into the arena crew campsite, which you needed a photo laminate for, using the above trick and the distraction of my partner in crime whilst i climbed over a fence. if anyone from festival republic reads this, please dont let it put you off booking us next year! i was drunk and it seemed like an amazing idea at the time.
onto music, which is what this post should probably be about...
highlights of the weekend for me:
friendly fires
late of the pier
youthmovies
digitalism
simian mobile disco
yeasayer
these new puritans
wild beasts
los campesinos!
all the above bands totally killed it. i would go into detail but alcohol consumed there and the time which has passed has impaired my memory of what exactly happened. i just remember all of them being especially good fun.
i managed to get a guestpass for the sunday and thinking that the traditional sunday night trouble would kick off, i moved my tent to the guest area where i thought it would be safer. in a massive stroke of irony, after being out, i returned to find my tent and all my stuff had completely disappeared. after searching for half an hour, i found my tent on its side with the contents of my bag emptied inside. fortunately, only my sleeping bag had been stolen which i settled for but found really trivial. bastards!
so yeah, good weekend!
props to the penistone set, youthmovies, lovvers, tom warner, alice thomas, matt and katie, everyone that wore our shirts (we saw you!), thomas sadler, jack, william bowerman and moody of course.
see you there next year hopefully.
james
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