santa bring me spare parts

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse.

That knocking was caused by the clicking, with care,

Of hopeful young Trewin, who sat working there.

The band were all gathered, stuff spewing from their heads,

(not ideas but old drinks and cheap takeaway breads),

so all that we dreamt of was dismissed as crap,

and all went asunder, for a Christmas Eve nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

Jeb sprung from a hole with a grunt and a splatter.

Away to the window he flew with a flash,

and out of it fell, with a scream and a crash.

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,

chilled Jeb’s bloodied head, bloodied legs, and torso.

He stumbled and bumbled and lurched to his feet,

a trail of teeth; bones, curdled red on the street.

‘Mmeeerrrrr’, said old Jeb, as he lurched through the door,

blood covered his face, shirt, shoes; stained the floor.

Holes punched  through his head bared his pulsating brain,

though his skull was crowned white by the petrified rain.

‘It’s Santa!’ yelled Seryn with great childish glee,

and quickly manoeuvred to sit on Jeb’s knee,

‘For Christmas I want…’ Seryn started to say,

but stopped all a sudden, as Jeb’s legs gave way.

‘Gaarrrrgh!’ said the Claus now sat slumped on the stairs,

These things were the stuff of young Seryn’s nightmares.

He passed out and smashed his young head on the floor.

The wind proved his killer - decapped by the door.

The house now looked festive, though sounded like hell,

filled only with screams – no carols, no bells.

In the night, tints of laughter, as from afar I looked on,

through the sight of a sniper, should anything go wrong.

Trewin surfed downstairs, for something to drink,

stepped over Seryn’s corpse, not stopping to think,

that Jeb might need help, no legs, fractured skull,

Trewin thought of music, ‘These tracks, they sound dull…’

‘Ah-ha!’ thought the Trewin, ‘I’ve got it at last!

That section needs brass! A grand trumpet blast!’

Then I, like an angel, abseiled through the ceiling,

and sent out my own blast to send Trewin reeling.

‘But you hold no trumpet?!’ he screamed, hands on his ears,

as I kicked in his eyes, wiped spiked boots clean of tears,

‘I'm using my arse.’ I said with a smile,

before blasting another, with great rectal style.

‘THERE’S ONE MORE WHO’S BEEN NAUGHTY!’ I sniffed through the house,

Ed stayed in slumber, curled like a woodlouse.

So I left a timed bomb there to tick by his head,

Soon he, like the others, would be messy and dead.

Now, all alone, I stopped at the computer,

Exported the tracks, like some dark cyber-looter,

And sent all the songs to the good girls and boys,

So this Christmas day, was the Christmas of noise.

Alas, corrupt files, ‘Porn virus’, I knew,

The music was lost, but I knew what to do,

‘C:\sendChristmastohell.exe’ I typed in the datum,

so Christmas was taken, and ruled, now, by Satan.

‘Well done, Tim’, he said, as he lit a cigar,

‘The boys are now dealt with – you, child, will go far!’

But I knew what to do as I lined up my sight,

‘Merry Christmas to all,’ I said, ‘and to you, a goodnight.’

His horns away flew with the shotgun's great blast,

Dominion was mine - some power at last!

I repainted hades a shade of magnolia,

And Christmas? Under me? There had been none holier.

Epilogue:

Twas the night before Christmas, and Phoria were dead,

But hell gave ideas to my all-knowing head,

The power to raise all the band from their graves,

And use them as musical (and other) corpse slaves.

----

So that, if you hadn't noticed, is that.

Don't forget THIS, also.

Do enjoy whatever you do. I'm putting this up just before heading out for Christmas Eve breakfast with old friends. Leaving the house before coffee is not something that makes any sense to me.

Enjoy yourself, pity me, egg IDS.

Merry Christmas, from All Of Us.

Hugh, more or less.

            Christmas is just around the corner, isn’t it? Can you feel it? I can, weighing on me like an elephant. Every penny counts, so don’t be surprised if we can’t send you all an individually engraved solid gold statue of Seryn on the toilet. I can barely afford the one I bought for myself.

            The new EP is being groomed, like a prize dog. The last few hairs are being glued into place with Copydex. You know, the stuff you used in primary school then never ever used again, and don’t forsee ever using again, because it smells so bad and you go home and realise you’ve got a bit of it stuck to one of your fingers and peel it off and roll it up into a ball and play with it for a bit. Yeah, like that.

            I have no idea how it actually sounds. It’s become a part of the furniture, now. We hope everybody will like it.

            It might be being put through some interesting channels. We’ll know more when we know more, and you’ll know more when we decide to tell you we know more. For now, we know enough, and that's enough to spur us on and keep us believing through the cold, dry nights.

            This intense poverty is taking its toll on our sanity, I think. I say this every now and again – such is the way when you get five young(ish) people working together, chasing after an oasis. The power of belief can be enough, for the most part, but sometimes it fades and you’re left alone, in a desert, surrounded only by voices coming from far away, telling you’re not good enough, and should be doing more to ‘get us all out of this mess’. Still, you’ve got to plough on, haven’t you. ‘It’ll be fine’ is pretty much the band motto. I just romanticise it into a kind of 21^st century bohemia. Maybe this will all be looked back upon in one of those ‘I love 2013’ programmes, beamed straight into your eyeballs using Google Retina, and it’ll be ‘Oh yeah we had to hold our house together with bits of string and use guitars made out of felt tips. Great times. I’m so happy we went through that and developed character…’ all the while resting our feet on some slave or other, sipping 25 yr old Glenmorangie in our Canadian mansion while our enemies dig in the dirt outside for a briefcase containing £100,000 that we told them we hid somewhere, but didn’t.

            We’re still straddling that line between envelopment and isolation. It’s a tightrope, for sure, but we are definitely getting there. We have to remember that.

            We have you guys, anyway, and that’s enough to get us through. Of course, as always, your support and nice words make all the difference.

            So, the cold has snapped in, Christmas has taken all the jolly out of us, and now I’m just a whining old wind-up merchant. The best kind of company, and the best kind of person to let you know how we’re doing, now and then.

            I didn’t mean to bum you out. Don’t cry. We’re fine. The future looks rosy, but it’s like when the iPhone 5 comes out and someone says ‘You can’t have it right now, you have to wait for the iPhone 6 – it comes out next week.’, and you’re all ‘Well that’s OK, that’s great. But I’d very much like an iPhone 5. Like, now.’

            Temporal materialistic urges transferred onto idealism. That’s what’s going on. That’s what’s healthy.

            Have fun, and stay warm, whatever you’re up to, or not.

            Tim

PS. Say hello to Mr Ando.

'All these...moments...will be lost in time, like the smell of your shoes when you use our new product!' [Quote from 'Glade Runner'.]

            Whatever I say here, it’s the bread in my head talking.

            Right, so, what’s been going on?

            Saturday night we only went and bloody well recorded with a bloody string quartet didn’t we? Eh? Only went and strummed and pickled along with some proper bloody musicians, eh? Ed got to accompany one of the violinists ‘practicing’ some Vivaldi during one of the breaks, as you do, which pleased him so much I thought he had a banana lodged in his gob.

            We did it all in the recording studios at The University of Surrey, with the very able and amicable Oscar (Oskar? Oska? Glen?) Somethingorother who also very kindly put us up at his house after our 3am finish. The evening ended with us blearily watching the pale blue glow of sunrise appear behind net curtains while drinking some remarkably dodgy sherry. Thom-of-the-Novi was also in residence, filming all and making every mistake watchable a thousand times over. We’ve handed the footage over to Edward Snowden for safe keeping, so it’ll be viewable soon.

            Sunday was something of a write-off, then. We went to the effortlessly sterile PC World in short-notice-search of a big hard drive to take the previous night’s recording from Oscar (Oskar? Oska? Glen?) Somethingorther, and also to back up all of the work currently teetering on the precipice Trewin’s computer. Imagine. It’s all on there. It’s all on there, dangling by a thread of computer failure. One wrong website, Trewin. One wrong website…

            And I, like so many defence contractors, have already seen his search history.

            In the waning words of the world’s worst; Fred Durst: Back up, back it up.

            We also treated ourselves to a Sunday feast in Frankie & Benny’s (despite my fervent protestations) which was like eating some dinner inside an arse. Our waiter was a dude, but the food tasted like someone had read a cookbook backwards. My stomach made noises I’d never heard before, that evening. There’ll be samples of it on the new EP.

The sounds, that is.

Then, just as soon as I’d fallen asleep in the van and then the next thing I know woken up the next day in my own bed, it was time to play The Haunt with the ever wonderful Mt. Wolf.

Here’s an example of their music which both the band and their existing fans will no doubt find an achingly predictable choice, but I’ve already put the work ‘achingly’ in front of ‘predictable’ in order to emphasise it, so I’m pretty much running the risk of post-modernism as the sentence descends into a wry smile of nonsense.

(I tried everything to embed the video on here, but it seems Google are unable to integrate their services properly unless you're a Government, so here is a long hyperlink and explanatory sentence.)
 

This song’s been in my head for a very long time. It bangs the shit out of your bones if you go and watch it live. Go and watch it live, then.

The Haunt gig was good. Thanks for coming down, those who did. Those who didn’t, find Doc Brown, go back, go watch. I’ll thank you as my memory alters.

            Last night was our gig with the same band in Heaven. That’s always fun to say. Another good gig – perhaps our biggest yet! Despite my really rather painful neck problem making me feel like an emotionless statue onstage, I think we all had a really good time.

            Good work, gang. Keep following – all sorts of news and other delights are flowing freely from our rusty pipelines.

            Today, then, is a day of restful delights. I’m currently sipping my second coffee, I’m about to stand in my freezing back garden with an invigorating little cherry ended friend, and then I think I’ll spend the day inside under a blanket trying to complete Half-Life on the PS2.

            Because that’s how bread rolls.

            Have fun, whichever baked good you choose to become.

            Tim

           

George Osborne covers my girlfriend's income.

There’s this girl who lives in my house. It’s her birthday today.

For my birthday, earlier this year, she bought me (among other things) an 18” Terminator 2 doll (‘poseable battle exoskeleton’) and a Kindle. I’ve looked at the Terminator doll every day and thought ‘Oh Stan Winston, you genius. You’ve built the scariest motherfucker in the land and made a whole generation fear for the future.’ I’ve also used the Kindle every single day, taking food out of the hands of starving orphans who I would so often fund with my book-buying charity splurges. It’s all electronic, now. If I didn’t enjoy contributing to human suffering so much, I’d feel bad about the guilt.

A challenge appears: What in the heck do I now buy for her that will in any way compare to two of the best gifts I have ever received?

What do you do, Tim?

I don’t know.

You could buy her some diamonds? Perhaps an extravagant vomit of flowers delivered to our door every day of the week leading up to her birthday? A sex oven?

Get real, Tim. A sex oven would just be a present for yourself. She’ll see right through it (through the little window, at least. When the little light’s on.) At least there’s a timer. 

And she can control the amount of gas.

Anyway, I got her what I did: a mound of tat. There are two ways to approach the inevitable couple-gift-wars on a budget. 1) The nuclear gift. Pretty much what she did to me – inadvertently creating a rod for her own back when she did it. Her future is fucked. She’s peaked too soon. Or 2) Buy a whole mound of tat, substituting quality for quantity.

Worked like a charm. She totally fell for it. Who’d have thought a 4” LED illuminated perspex statue of The Virgin Mary would prove so popular?

           

Then…someone turned up at the door. An entire governmental department squeezed into a little brown envelope. One of them jumped out of the first thumbed opening and smacked me in the face with a frying pan. My girlfriend laughed. I was on the floor, bleeding from the nose and eyes. She continued opening the envelope but she couldn’t reach the end before they’d burst out of the lumpy, writhing package she’d been wrestling with. Someone ran over my head on a unicycle, and I swear the naked trapeze artist stole my design.

One of the ‘Dancing Clown Firework Army’ ran up to my girlfriend carrying a big creamy cake, handed her a fat cheque, then slammed his face into the cake (sending the cream topping flying into all of my electronic equipment) before farting Stop (Right Now) by The Spice Girls.

‘Oh yeah!’ my girlfriend hacked through fits of laughter as I lay comatose and leaking all over the floor, ‘A sweet tax rebate!’

Jesus, HMRC. Way to upstage the king. I was doing really well up until this point. I’d done pain au chocolat and everything. This Government.

So, now the only thing I can hope to get away with is fumbling my way through a cool recording session tomorrow where we’re hoping to do some live sessions of some of the tracks with the Phorchestra, and shuffling flat-footedly through our forthcoming gigs, 11^th, 12^th, and 20^th November in London and Brighton respectively.

So long as Santa doesn’t turn up in a fucking Mustang and start handing out chocolate covered credit cards, my mediocrity should go unnoticed, and even praised, just as planned, and just as I’ve gotten away with thus far.

It’s better to be the best regarded giver than to receive.

I hope you are presented with everything you hope for this weekend, whichever way you take it.

Tim

My idea of 'chilling out'.

            What a great gig at The Old Market on Monday night. Efterklang were great, the crew were so friendly and professional, and, shucks, you the audience stood up and listened and applauded and got drunk and smiled and put on a new pair of trousers and sank and put a parsnip on the wall and touched the snail and did a little dance and wave, just for us. For this, we thank you.

            A quick apology to those who may have been queueing at the merch stand after our performance only to be turned away by the guy hawking the Efterklang stuff. We’d failed to inform said guy of any of the prices (so he couldn’t inform you when asked), and we’d forgotten to…you know, attend to our own merch stand. We did get there in the end, and all was beautiful. If you missed out on buying it from us on the day, or have just decided that in fact you do want that t-shirt (perhaps as a gift for Grandma?), just click here to fulfil your wildest dreams.

            We were all so knackered yesterday, but we hung out and drank tea and had a meeting and sorted out stuff for the future. Focus, ahoy!

            What are we doing today? Well…chilling out, for the most part. I’m going to spend some time investigating the very interesting Conservative MP Peter Bone (such investigations shall hereby be known as ‘Boning’) and the Midlands Industrial Council as part of my interest in the bill currently worming its way through the House of Commons to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights (the first attempt to pass a similar bill was shut down several years ago, but the new one has the word terrorists in the title, and so has been gifted political teeth). Peter Bone – who is sponsoring the bill - has also supported bills meant to: deport those seeking political asylum; limit women’s reproductive rights; and reinstate the death penalty, two of which, I believe, are due for a second reading early next year. He’s also the brains behind ‘Margaret Thatcher day’, which is just the best idea ever and has not yet been thrown out. He’s also part of this political group who seem to have been bought forward in time from a Victorian salon, and believe in 'proper pride in our nation's distinctive qualities'. Allow me to indulge in sinister innuendo, if that sort of thing interests you at all.

            I mean, all of those things sound like a right lark after running several disasterous companies and receiving money from dark coalitions who don’t have to declare their members or their means of income (also: employing your own wife as ‘executive secretary’ and plonking her on the highest allowable MP's secretarial wage), but I am just, you know, full of hate for those who clearly so desperately want to selflessly improve this country for the citizenry that they represent. So, I’m genuinely going to spend my time looking further into it/him today for my own sanity and knowledge, and that’s why I’m telling you about it. 

            Back to business:

            The others might be making music or videos.

            Don’t forget that inbetween all the Boning we’re playing at this very lovely gig in Notting Hill for Communion this coming Sunday 3^rd November. This is a bill I can support. Come along. We’ll badger you until then, anyway.

I hope you’re having fun.

            Tim

...he said with a cheery smile.

Purposelessness drives us down into the ground.

Such is the fate of a bass player.

Trewin’s hard at work, probably - tweaking the new stuff, adding tiny little melody lines behind the core song to add interest and stuff that only our subconscious really hears to keep us interested in whatever music we’re listening to. Listen carefully to something in your collection that at first glance seems highly repetitive, and you’ll see that the reason your brain does not switch off (or…maybe it does) is because of some misplaced drum skit, or some off-kilter note in the rhythm section, somewhere (and it may occur just once), that keeps you interested without you knowing. It’s like television. Those flashing white transitions in adverts that force every ancient instinct to PAY ATTENTION. That’s what musicians make. A piece of music, in the 21^st century, is more than anything else an advert for itself. Please refer to: IMHO

            Not to denigrate it. There’s still an Aristotelian ratio to be calculated between observing a perfect wall of paint as its vapours whisp into a mathematically ornate universe, and being assaulted by a Michael Bay film. 

            Jeb’s working, probably, on videos or new visual things or whatnot. France Traumas, I think it’s called. A satire on European existentialism, which is something to which I cannot relate and, oh woe, fear I shall never be able to…

            Nothing new here. Hard at work on the usual stuff. Phoria stuff.

            Ed’s scoring some string parts for recording. That’s what a classical education and a predilection for unheard of tidiness will get you. Not a note out of place, I’m sure.

            Seryn’s started teaching Japanese, I think. Or English to Japanese people. Or something like that.

            Me? I play bass. I live in my little satellite habitat. What have I been up to? My own stuff. Throwing out guitar lines this way and that, sitting in a backbreaking posture on a wooden chair (my comfy, executive chair was destroyed in, you know, a fire) typing away for days on end, trying to finish weird little projects that I still don’t believe I ever will.

            I think that we all feel a slight sense of limbo. Or perhaps it’s just me. The future, from here, looks bright, but it shines like a 1pm appointment. It’s not like you can really start anything this morning, as you’ve got to leave the house at midday, so you tidy up the kitchen a bit, flick frustratingly around the TV or check facebook for twenty minutes longer than you normally would just to get shot of that time that lays before you. Before you have something to do. You’d rather either just get the appointment out of the way, or have it late in the day, like 5pm, so the day is yours, rather than belonging to your own apprehension.

            We’ve got so much stuff going on, I guess I’m just being complacent. I WANT EVERYTHING TO HAPPEN NOOOOWW! Not later! Not at 1pm! NOW! *stamp stamp feet feet*

            As a product of a capitalist society, I demand purpose. I demand that something demands my attention, with urgency.

                Or I could just practice Distorted Western Buddhism. 

                Thank goodness for laissez-faire.

            Tim

P.S. Welcome, to our three-thousandth facebook fan. Come see us play with Efterklang on 28^th October at Hove Old Market. It’s literally just down the road from me, which means it’s great.

           

The smells, Esmerelda...

            After the last week, what with a visit from parental units A & B, the suspense of various meetings and/or fashionable dates taking place, and our rather disconcerting and looooong experience at Cargo last Friday, I ended up performing an accidental biological experiment on myself, inspired by tiredness.

            If you’re in any way squeamish, I suggest you plug your nose and eyes…

            …mmm…

            …now.

I sweated A LOT during our last gig. What with the stage lights, a full room, a long day, and various stimulants (entirely legal, fact fans) plugging my system…yeah. I sweated a lot. I slept that night on a dirty sofa, and wore those same clothes in a fit of fatigue for maybe three days before changing into my ‘sweats’, as I believe the colonies call them.

Today - seven days (or one Craig David) later - I showered.

This is the kind of insight that you simply don’t get from other musical acts. Such is the nature of a newswire maintained by a man who watched All Dogs go to Heaven one too many times as a child. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. The more we share, the more we’re gonna get. I assumed as a little lad that those dogs were of course referring to intimate states of mental arousal and opinion, rather than material goods which should be hoarded at all costs. And a fine job of that we are doing, too.

So I showered and changed my frilly undercrisps for the first time in a week, today. What did I find on my journey of soap and Darwinian Beagle-y wonder? Weird red blotches in bodily creases that I did not know existed. Enough belly-button fluff that I won’t need to buy a Christmas jumper this year, and, according to my topmost follicles, that my flat in fact has its own microclimate where it regularly snows whenever it’s not raining butter.

The reason why it took this long to succumb to ‘common personal hygiene’ was not just laziness, but also that I’ve been tying up my time in various creative projects, none of which involved leaving the house. Writing for extended periods of time? So long as the solidified crust around my arms doesn’t prevent me from reaching the keyboard (of my laptop which often sits on my lap, breathing its humid breeze around that most coveted of unwashed areas, fact fans), then why bother presenting myself, visually or nasally? My little partner in love doesn’t care, or at least she says she doesn’t, so, apart from out of loving respect for her, what possible reason do I have to ‘clean’ myself? I’ll only get dirty again.

Of course, things grew on me, things lived on/in me, and things…changed. I am now my own eco-system, supporting strange, reddened, bulging life forms. I am one with my cotton t-shirt.

Using the hairdryer to better dry my body actually sent wafts of strange odours around the room. This is something that has never happened before. So not only were my findings biological, they also pertained to convection patterns and other physical processes.

All in all, it was an accidental experiment that has taught me…nothing.

I am now clean, just so you all know.

 The next time I follow basic hygiene protocols will be at our very exciting gig supporting Efterklang on 28^th October. This is a damn cool gig to be involved in. We’ve been listening to them for years, so it’s a little ‘Hurrah!’ in the Phoria logbook.

Very exciting.

We’re also currently number two (by far my favourite number below sixty-eight) in the ReverbNation chart. That’s pretty good. It would be nice to be number one, but number two is fine, you know. We’re happy with that.

If you’re not happy with that, by the way, then feel free to tell your friends to click and listen to us on ReverbNation and just everywhere and buyeverything and listen to everything.

I’m on toothbrush strike until we reach the top.

The new stuff is still underway.

Gingivitisly yours on this energetic Friday,

Tim

What we are made for.

            You came to see us at Cargo, some of you.

            Thank you for that.

            Check out the guys at Petulant Penguin and go to one of their other nights, too. They are lovely and deserve all the success they’ll no doubt achieve in the increasingly science-fiction-comparable City of London.

            The other bands, too: Leaving Atlantis and My New Favourite Tribe

            The gig was good. We’d been there since one o’clock in the afternoon, and spent a good five hours soundchecking; getting things ready for another aurally spacious gig with a slimmed down version of the Phorchestra. Many will balk at that name, but I embrace it if only in an obvious attempt at post-irony.

            There was an issue during said soundcheck as we discovered that the light on one side of the stage was blocked by a large tubular ventilation shaft running along the ceiling. This light was necessary for the willing members of the Phorchestra to read their parts. (They read their music off sheets of paper - not like real musicians like myself who insist on vaguely memorising a series of notes, then panicking constantly or using Pterodactyl based memory tricks to crack open the floodgates of your soul.)

            Trewin stepped up as soon as the problem was outlined, and in a ‘flash’ of genius and telecommunicative sacrifice he fired up the torch on his ancient phone and swiftly duct taped it to the ventilation shaft that was causing all of the problems.

            Problem: solved.

            …until we started playing, and it became violently apparent to those who weren’t spellbound by the sound at front of house that Trewin had neglected to put his phone on silent. I can still see one violinist, and you know who you are, sniggering as Trewin’s personally selected one-consciousness-trance ringtone sang at us from across the stage. I didn’t manage to catch your eye, here unnamed violinist, but I shared your upturned corner-of-mouth and juddering shoulders.

            In the van on the way home Ed also mentioned a ‘strange rumbling sound that was kind of in a rhythm, but was totally out of time with the rest of the music.’ It was not until my head had been neatly placed onto a pillow that the neurons fired to tell me it must have been Trewin’s phone vibrating against a hollow metal tube that spanned the entire length of the room. I blame the technical staff, as is the musician’s tradition. I hope none of you noticed…

            Another one:

            As we took to the stage, Trewin said a polite hello and indicated that ‘we will be starting with kind of a quiet one, so…it might be worth simmering down a bit.’ Quiet followed. Then the frequency splitting hiss of the dry ice machine whirring into action for a good seven seconds. I see this as an obvious display of technological sentience and protest that will one day result in our music being played in a future-war scenario as thermal-goggled geo-clones wage war through billows of dry ice to defeat the evil AI (housed in the body of a robot shark) insistent upon causing farcical scenarios. This is how it starts. Do not blind yourself to the reality of the situation.

            So far, so Spinal Tap.

            Then we tripped and fell down the rabbit hole.

            Gig finished. ‘Hurrah!’ we all said, turning around to see our equipment immediately being man-handled offstage and almost thrown through the back door into a pile of wide-eyed drinkers. ‘Let’s get this shit out of here’ one white-shirted, and clearly very important and direct and practical man hissed to his co-workers. It was nice. Can we go through this door? I’m carrying an amp that weighs more than me! No. OK. But this is a door, right? Yes, I'm going to get out just as soon as I find a door I can get through. Can I get my stuff from backstage? No. Oh…how do I? Erm…

            Luckily I tend towards video games that rely on stealth-mechanics - all calculation and timing - and I also have this fantasy where I’m a total badass whocouldbreakintothisbigmilitaryinstallationifireallywantedtobutijustdon’twanttotodayso. So I managed to blend in seamlessly with the ‘club night’ that had immediately popped up in our wake as if the people were once invisible and several bags of flour had just been released from the ceiling; I got the security code (to which I was rightly entitled) and managed to get backstage to retrieve my precious, precious plastic bag with my shoes in. Then I walked away, lighting a cigarette while the whole barrage of ‘retro’ beats and flesh exploded behind me in a huge ball of flames that resembled my smiling face.

            The post-gig strictness was foreshadowed by our navigating an entranceway that Jeb rightly pointed out was scarily dystopian in nature, so in fairness we should have seen it all coming. It’s right, of course, that stringent security measures are in place at certain venues. If I was giving them slips of paper in direct exchange for a can of beer and receiving no change I would also want the peace of mind that comes from being in a place that follows the protocol of a lockdown in San Quentin. That’s a good thing. Everyone feels safe. A bit like the internet in a couple of months. Safer for everyone.

            At the entranceway you are asked for photo identification, whomever you may be and however old you may look. That’s OK - knowing who’s in the building and all that. But, hilariously, your ID is put into a scanner above which sits a huge screen that proceeds to display your photograph, name, and age. It couldn’t have been any more Demolition Man if it had a big flash of green text saying ACCESS GRANTED CITIZEN #41729. REAP THE REWARDS OF CONSUMPTION. Jeb’s ID picture is hilarious, and the door staff didn’t even crack a hello before they frisked us.

            Of course, had the security not been so efficient, we would no doubt feel less comfortable having the staff leave our gear outside among the throng of jeans-and-suit-jacket drinkers. At least we would know who it was who had stolen it. Not that prosecutions based on that technology alone are successful.

            All good. We’ll hit Cargo again. Go there.

            A special shout to Louie, who came and sorted out some special visuals. Great work, champ. Live projection mapping and all that.

            After all of that it was a party or home. I was knackered, so we split into two groups. Some went partying (I heard one of us was spotted in the early hours of Saturday striking up jaunty conversations with strangers on the tube…) and some went back to Brighton to recline and listen to music after a long day/week/month. Ed, in his sobriety, took on the mantle of ‘absolute hero’ with his flu-inspired late night driving.

            We listened to some great music, but I don’t remember what it was. Jeb – can you put a couple of the bands in the comments section on facebook or something? I’m sure the people want to know what we listen to when we hang out. …right?

            Love to you all, on this fantastic autumnal Sunday.

            THIS ENTRY WAS NOT WRITTEN BY ANYONE AFFILIATED WITH PHORIA. PHORIA AND ASSOCIATED PERSONS DO NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSE ANY OR ALL OPINIONS STATED HEREIN. FACTS ARE THEY.

            Tom

           

           

           

This is how we are.

            There are two ways - and only two ways - to deal with waking up too early.

The first is to lay there struggling to sleep/wondering where your arms suddenly appeared from/trying to displace the looming sense of inevitability that grows incorrigibly behind your eyeballs. ‘Drift away, like a dropped twenty pound note in a summer’s breeze’, you enforce upon your psyche which just mugs you off and dances around staring at you and wearing a witch's grin. It blasts a dirty song in your cerebral cortex, it does.

The second is to spring into action at 5am, fully aware that come 11 you’ll hit the ground and smash like a baby squirrel.

            Tomorrow is Cargo, as if you didn’t already know (know what? That tomorrow is Cargo!) As if you didn’t already know. (Know what?) Hey! So along with the new EP, colds and flu, meetings and other things in our backstage area, and my parents coming to town, it’s been one of those weeks not made for brains. We’ve been looking forward (inevitably) to this gig for the most part, but now that it’s actually here we’ve ended up looking forward but feeling backward. It’s a bit like that tickle you get when you get out of the bath that’s simultaneously lovely yet unbearable. Or like that time when that cheap barber (‘doctor’!) set your shoulders on fire.

            It ain’t easy (despite how we make it look), and my body has perused the mouth of the rest horse and declined its offer. Just to make everything easier.

            Trewin’s in quarantine, far from this madding crowd’s ignoble strife and priceless knives.

            I can feel a sniffle coming on. Ed’s one of those people who warns you to stay away and then sprays his sneeze across a room. I’m one of those people who breathes in sneezes.

            So, that’s that. I won’t see you at practice today. You’ll be hiding around the corner out of sight along with the point of life, won’t you? I know your giggle, though. I record you. I’m also extremely proficient at echo-location, like those raisin-birds.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Have fun, however much confusion, panic, and fatigue might control your moment to moment decision making and moods.

            Tim

'My model railway is just down these stairs.'

            it got more and more delightful

            in between the shimmering screen and the rough rope that bound my wrists somewhere in the hollow dark somewhere in the sound that bounced off concrete archways and drowned the drips of the wet cellar somewhere above the snapping click clack of the four of us dancing in our chairs trying to escape rubbing our shin bones raw somewhere beyond the prancing shadow figure who preyed upon us all in turn blanking out the scrolling screen our only source of light merely looking down on us and smiling somewhere from hell and heaven mixed

            came a voice

            so what do you think of the new ep lol he said

            he ripped the tape from our lips and took some skin

            its great its nearly there we said

            good he said because theres loads of music on it that is nearly there

            yes we know we said not too long now

            not too long now he said and then he gave us some hugs and stroked our hair 

if we get let out we will be at cargo on Oct 4th

           

           

Screen if you want to go faster.

Good golly – is it the Monday after, already? How the b*stard did this roll around so soon?

            The hangover - the loss of temporal function - is from Thursday night’s Soundscreen performance at Brighton Corn Exchange. HundredthAnniversary and Luo were ego-stultifyingly good, as were the big videos that were projected behind each band. Well done to everyone – the bands, the video artists, the stage crew, The Phoria Orchestra (yeah), Soundscreen…

            Thanks to everyone who came, too. It looked like a full house from where I was. That’s very nice of you. We like to be watched. This goes out to all you kids at GCHQ, too.

            This was a nerve-fracking one. We all went a little bit wrong from about an hour before the show until it was actually time to play. Jeb wasn’t the only one to walk away from me, saying ‘I just…I  just can’t deal with you right now.’ I can’t be more honest than saying that is totally fair. I’m just jealous that he actually can get away from me – I, on the other hand, am stuck here. A jellied little prison of bone and skin. Thanks very much, unfathomable state of being.

           

            The nerves and strange sensation of impatient dread (like say, if you just couldn’t wait to smash yourself in the face, despite the fact that you have no reason to enjoy being smashed in the face) were probably from the weeks of work and stress that went into the gig. Ed scored his b*lls (bollocks) off (not in the Blue Peter sense), Trewin manned the crow's nest of the good ship aesthetics, and Jeb…I dunno…probably had something to do with the videos. You know what he’s like. I don’t think I’m being unfair in suggesting that Seryn and I did very little – though who knows how bad it could have got had those three grafters not had two lazy urchins to target in their private moments together? I’ve said it before; my purpose is to provide a common enemy, and thereby foster coalition between potentially disparate parties. If you don’t like that, well…

            Talking of parties…nah. Let’s not have that conversation. It’s always slightly cringe-worthy when someone talks about a after-party they went to when it mainly amounts to sitting on a chair drinking regrettable amber fizz (none of that, anymore, please. I don’t know why I returned to that place of worship – it’s bloody horrible) and choking on air thick enough to take a seat in the House of Commons. It’s cringe-worthy, I tell you. Especially when you consider the fact that the highlight for me and my little flower of a follower was when the host presented us with his collection of original Soviet pin-badges. I think the others were in the hot tub on the roof. Let that sink in, then see if you want me to tell you about the party.

            I thought so.

            So the party…

            And now I’m like this.

            Tim.

Everyone should come.

        So what did you do yesterday?

        Oh, right.

        Oh, yeah?

        That sounds awful. Truly dreadful. Why the heck would you share this drivel with me? How is a story like that going to enhance my life in any way whatsoever? I regret asking.

        WE, on the other hand (since you’re interested), did something that was actually worthwhile. Check it out:

I have better quality photos, but no others in which Trewin looks like a teapot posing for Debenhams.

          Yes, we practiced yesterday with the orchestra (or Phorchestra, if you won’t) alongside whom we’ll be performing on Thursday night. Here’s the gig. Tickets can be purchased by clicking through the facebook page. Click it. View it. Come. Strictly in that order. Please. If you do, I promise I won’t be as cruel as I was at the beginning of this post. That was an error on my part. I’m sorry – I’ve just woken up and I had a bad dream. We love you, really.

        Come.

        As usual, Jeb was on hand to film a little film (‘film’ is the one where the pictures move around on the screen; not reach from the page, envelope you, and transport you to something that’s not quite hell but personal revelation tells you is a much more torturous version of the kind of thing traditional depictions of hell singly fail to describe - that's something else entirely that a priest once showed me in a cave) so that film should turn up soon to slather a thin veneer of drool onto your chin.

        It was great fun to hear the tracks brought to life with that whole new element added. We’re doing three new ones, two of them never before gigged, each with strong orchestral accompaniment. There’s a whole bundle of new visuals created especially for the event, too. Lots of people have been workin’ ‘ard for this performance. We like the Soundscreen people. The venue’s much bigger than we usually play, too. We like playing bigger places.

        Thanks to all the people who play the little wooden instruments for coming along yesterday. We really can’t wait for Thursday.

        Whoever you are, whoever you know, please like and share the stuff we put out. This one should be a banger!

        Here’s that link again!

        And here’s a video of one of my favourite comedians, which I only found recently after years of convincing myself I’d seen everything he'd done that was available – hence my excitement and will to share.  It's actually been up for ages. I don't know how I missed it.

        That’s just what I like. If you don't share my tastes, that's OK. Just ask why I should share this drivel with you, and how it's going to improve your life in any way, whatsoever.

        Warmest regards,

        Timothy Dustless

P.S. That meeting I mentioned the other day? Don’t worry about it for now – just know that I’ve reminded you of it in order to tell you not to think of it. This will be on the test.  

An actual natural scenario.

I have a confession to make. I live a double-life. I am a double agent, trading secrets between the worlds of poverty and riches.

        My little dwarf of a bed-mate and I (and, I know, certain other members of the band) have regular dealings with her majesty’s Government concerning aspects of our personal welfare and our potential success. This is to the norm, and the presence of such a safety net and support network is not only welcomed and appreciated by us, but should be by all, for its myriad of societal benefits and the sense of solidarity for which it stands.

        Despite the undoubted best intentions (undoubted) of all involved, however, sometimes these systems will have cream-buns stuck in them somewhere – moistening the cogs and creaming up once creamless intricacies of previously perfect governmental processes. This particular cream, then, has been the subject of my morning so far, and has been for the memorable past. I am not, however, the party that dropped the bun.

        So, there is a stress. A direct, unnecessary and unexplained stress upon my very status as ‘person in a house’. Others have similar, politely unutterable problems.

       

        And so I take a step of desperation. A step that only the bravest yet most compromised agent would take. I maintain the cognitive dissonance of an imagined Reverend Charles Sheen, and draw from the completely imagined twin conflicting bank accounts of Jeremy Hunt, simultaneously. I make turncoat, if only in my head.

        Today, then, the other shoe in the bush on the other hand of Phoria is in central London, where we know several meetings of great importance to our future will take place. These are meetings that not only most bands, but most anyone-ers, would earnestly desire to be a part of not so much for any positive outcomes, but only to hear a yes or a no. Just to take part, as is the British way.

        Today, I and the rest of the band straddle both camps. Our bodies are weary, in all accounts empty, but our minds are flush with new ideas and avenues – new inlets of potential futures flowing all the time. Positive, moving forward – as much as we can, for now. We occupy both the bottom and the top; a coarse and inappropriate reflection of my favoured media.

        New material still coming. Promised soon.

        Little tastelessness.

        Tim

P.S.: Our next show.

(Stud)Hi-ho, (stud)hi-ho, it's off to work we go.

        So we’re building a new studio. ‘That’s good,’ you say ‘you need a new studio.’ Yes, we do. Thanks for understanding.

       

        Here’s a bad photo of it in progress:

There's no such thing as bad photos; just bad people.

        It doesn’t tell much, though I know Jeb was making a Changing Rooms style time-lapse film of the transformation of the once inhabited bedroom from a dirty, scuffed white to an all over shimmering, spectacular, incandescent…grey, which should soon surface. I, apparently, was the worst at painting the walls. No-one specified to me that ‘walls’ did not mean skirting board, carpet, and face. My artistic training consists mainly of drawing imaginary pictures of me going through an intense eight-week drawing class - none of which can be deciphered by the average huumun.

Trewin was very excited about the purple sofa-bed he managed to pick up for £30. ‘It’s a £1000 sofa-bed that I picked up for £30! Try it! Try it out! Mmmm. It’s awesome, right?’ It was awesome. I got paint on it.

So that’s where we’re going to continue work on the new EP - our new little studio set within the picturesque grounds of the Phoria househole. It’s brewing. It’s brewing nicely. There are songs on it.

And so far – no distractions whatsoever.

So that’s that. Life, it seems, is a river of pain with a jagged bed.

Shop here, then.

Tim.

       

Play along.

So I was asked this morning to organise a meeting between four of the five members of the band.

        Play this music while you read the rest:

        (Read it as me with a kind of gruff voice, waking up in my Spiderman bedsheets wearing a coat and hat and smoking a cigarillo. Just a normal day, in OTHER WORDS.)

        The phone called out like a lost child…lost on the streets of loser-ville. I’d lost her/it. I was lost. The sense of loss weighed on me like one of those fruit hats. Lost. Unfindable. This was a game of cat and sheriff, and I’d already lost. My favourite television show was Lost, but that’s over now. Misplaced.

        ‘Hello?’

        ‘Hello.’

        I was at a loss to place the voice. (I was blind.)

        ‘Who’s this?’

        The caller was Nancy Smithington – someone broad I once met down on the four corners of 4^th and 4^th. I was a perfect square, and she offered to look at me, dead, in the eye for a couple-a bucks. I didn’t take the deal. I saved her life that night. Since then she’d always called me, looking for a date. I sent fruit baskets.

        ‘Johnny, honey, you never cawwl me anymawer.’

        That bit is to give you a clue as to how stereotypical her accent is/was/she dies at the end of this story. Oh shit now I’ve given it away. Well, as they say, people always die.

        She read me a list of names. She told me what it was fawer.

        ‘Jawnny, baby, we need these guys. We got shit to do, honey. Get in touch wit ‘em. Call me back. I have diarrhea so I can’t dial the telephone.’

        Damn. Three names and a whole lot o’ nuthin.

        ‘Oh, and baby…’ she said, ‘come round soon. I miss ya.’

        I threw the phone out of the window. I wouldn’t be needing that again, unless someone needed to get hold of me, or I them.

        I swam down the rotten stairs of the building to retrieve the telephone. ‘If I’m going to call these people to get them together for a meeting,’ I said to myself, which brings into question the ontology of the ‘words’ I was using, ‘I’m going to need the telephone so that I can talk to them on that.’

        I called the telephone company to check that the phone was still working. They said they couldn’t tell, but that they’d send a guy round. I told them not to bother – Johnny Macintosh will figure these things out if it takes him all month.

        I called the first guy on the list. No reply. Typical. I called the second. I think he answered, but it sounded like he was just pumping air rhythmically through his lips. A secret code, eh? Nobody gets Johnny Macintosh like that. I slammed the handset against the table as hard as I could, and put it to my ear. He was talking, now. A little rough stuff from me never hurt anybody.

        ‘Little man in the phone?’ I said.

        ‘Hey Tim.’ It was Ed. I should have known.

        ‘Johnny Macintosh.’ I said.

        ‘…sigh. What do you want, Tim?’ Still talking in code. It was difficult to crack his nuts.

        ‘A meeting, little man. A meeting. Today. Skype.’

        ‘I’ll be there.’

        Dominoes. Life is dominoes. You knock one over, but if you set the dominoes up properly i.e. glue each one to the table so that it can’t go anywhere, then you’ve got to remove each one by hand, individually. It’s the only way to keep things tidy in this work-one-day world, and I was a tidy little man.

        ‘Seryn.’ I gargled.

        ‘Hey Tim.’

        I spat, and rinsed.

        ‘Seryn, we got a meeting. Nancy wants us.’

        I heard the sound of gunfire.

        ‘I’m a little tied up here, dude. What time?’

        ‘One-ish? Two?’

        ‘That gives me something to live for.’

       

        The sound of death filled my ear. The screams, the gunshots, the burst of explosions. ‘Secure the bunker!’ ‘Get the bastard!’ ‘You’ll never get your secrets back, Dr. Inchera!’ ‘Burden?! I thought you were…’ ‘…dead? Heh…dream on, Doctor…IN HELL! DREAM ON IN HELL YOU BASTARD!’ Bang bang bang boom. 'Oh Seryn, my hero!' 'That's right, Dad.'

        I sent Jeb a telegram. He replied and said it was fine he was just making some beans alongside toast.

        So, my job done, I had breakfast. Eggs over-easy, and a difficult cup of coffee. I squeezed myself in between the two panes of glass in my double glazed window, and wondered how I got into this shape. One woman, a list of names...

One name was missing, I knew that. He’s on the upper-South side, trying to conceive of opposites to left. Maybe he’s got the right idea.

        After all, as Nancy said: We got shit to do, honey.

Bloodworks US iTunes

Bloodworks UK iTunes

Phoria Store

Sept 5th: SoundScreen event at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, full audio-visual show w/orchestral ensemble.

P.S. Nancy dies of skydiving poisoning.