Tuesday 25 February 2014

I enjoy it, anyway.

We’ll start at the beginning, then, as is the fashion.

Not that there’s much of a middle. Or an end.

Oh good: I can relax.

We hit Bristol last week and we’ve only just recovered. Thanks so much to everyone who came. Start the Bus is a great venue – really friendly and accommodating. It makes a difference when you get a good crew and a good vibe before the gig. The crowd grew in numbers while we were onstage, too, which is always good. Yeah…basically it was good and everyone was friendly and had a good time, is the crux of the matter. A bit of a non-story. This whole ‘starting at the beginning’ thing has fallen at the first hurdle to be honest - although that in itself would imply a linear narrative, which of course this inevitably has as it is, like music or baking a delicious cake, something that you cannot help but experience as something persisting through time, meaning you’ll naturally apply your own sense of narrative to it. If you didn’t recognise that I didn’t start at the beginning at the beginning (which I actually did) then you wouldn’t be able to say ‘He didn’t start at the beginning’ when your friend asks ‘What’s the first thing you notice wrong with this?’ Mileage may vary by tolerance and/or imagination.

But you digress.

It’s been a funny old week. One of those where not that much has changed but you feel like you’ve been up to loads. What that does mean is that you’re filled with the enthusiasm of busy days but with very few meaningful stories to tell if you, like me, were stuffed from a young age with a suspicious modesty and a tendency to slip subtle hidden messages into your blogs. It’s like life: at the end of it all you’re just left with a dull hangover; your brain feeling like a well-wrung dishcloth and your body blalaaaaaaaa

BLALAAAALALAALALaALAALA

aaaaaaaaand your tongue fingers licking at a keyboard with nothing much to say, but a sharp and distinct urge to say it, as usual.

Look, we’re a way in to the week, now, OK?. Oh no, it’s only Tuesday. We’re, like, a day away from the beginning. That was good, wasn’t it? Remember when the week was new and fresh and exciting, just like every Monday? It’s somewhat erotic, isn’t it? That first thrust into the week ahead, teasing Tuesday like a FILTHY WHORE?

It’s not, is it.

Music.

The band.

Enjoy yourself, whatever you’re doing.


Tim

Friday 14 February 2014

Exactly the kind of thing you should expect in the 21st century.

There’s a chill in the air, isn’t there?
               
                Valentine’s wishes to those of you having a tough meterological time of it in at the moment. We’re on the South Coast, but are not seeing the kind of badness that lots of you are. Do be well, or ‘do-be-do-be-do be well’ as Fred Sonata would say.
               
                We’ve been all around the houses this week. A couple of days of recovery, a couple of days of great big work and more new songs for live purposes. Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes as always, new avenues and futures and all that as usual. The same old stuff in that everything is new. Consistence in novelty and excitement. It’s pretty good, really.

                I’m just putting together the last bits of my ‘Valentine’s day surprise’ for my loved one. It’s a 21st century musician’s lifestyle simulator – the most realistic one yet! First I will succumb to an absurd desire to destroy my body and mind, then we’ll live in one damp room with nothing but books and guitars for company, and then this evening we’re going to feast on scraps of rat and cupboard shavings! Ooh, she’s a lucky girl. Then she gets to agree to everything I say and agree that everything I do is good so I don’t crumple into a pool on the floor, weeping into an essay entitled ‘What I want to be when I grow up.’

                I think the rest of the band have the same kind of thing ‘planned’.

                Happy Valentine’s Friday!

                Telston


                Tim’s top tip: One thing missing on Valentine’s day? i.e. human contact? Simply drink heavily and manipulate a hand puppet into a selection of depraved acts! Or, order a bunch of flowers delivered to your door alongside a card that reads ‘From yourself.xx’ Upon receiving them, immediately open the card, stare the courier in the face and declare ‘They are flowers from me that I sent to myself.’ The courier will run away so fast that they’re bound to knock someone unconscious in their retreat. Hey presto! A Valentine’s date is yours!

Saturday 8 February 2014

It was a gig and it is one that we played.

I’ve decided to write this while all the strange colours and shapes from last night are still somewhat vivid in my memory. Good, no? I’ve got my second coffee of the day on the go after just getting through my front door, so let’s start with the joys of gigging.

Those who came to our St. Pancras Old Church gig are very beautiful people. Thank you so much for your support. Nice venue, no? Interesting, fun...a little strange. I thoroughly enjoyed shaking all the religious artifacts with incredible bass power during soundcheck. And in the gig. Big shout outs to Cate Ferris (‘support’ act. She ‘supported’ us with her songs. ‘Suppooooooort.’), Louis D’aboville who sorted out that whole light thing we had going on, and to our fabulous string quartet who, despite playing instruments that aren’t made of buttons that go BBRRRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVV, still manage to make music. Thanks to Communion, too, for putting the whole thing on. [If I weren't so knackered I'd put links on all those names, but I'm knackered (see earlier in sentence) and some of this bit is an edit, so I'm essentially writing from beyond this entry's grave. Woooooo-oooo.)

I’d like to say that my highlight was when the church bells from across the way started ringing during the quietest and most tender moment of the gig, but that would be my favourite moment in a kind of twisted way which, after having such a good time, I’m not feeling. My actual favourite moment was the end of Posture. We just smashed it and then ended up getting a tidal wave of reaction which, when you’re standing up there, makes everything go away and you can just drown in the flood of sound. It’s very difficult to describe how it hits you, if you haven’t experienced it. It’s like it goes straight through you and your mind kind of hooks onto it as it passes through and you suddenly find yourself living a mile or two behind your own skull. Awesome.

Look at that – a little sincerity, albeit dressed up as something hideous and garish so that I might protect myself from my own feelings. Makes you feel uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Me, too. Let’s sit in this puddle we’ve made for ourselves for just a moment. Tum-tee-tooo.

So, one of the members of the string quartet, who I won’t mention by name because it feels odd to (and I don’t know why), suggested we head back to hers after the show for a little chill and a drinky-poos. There’s no other way to end such a fun night, really, so after a couple of trips to a couple of Greenwich’s finest twenty-four hour supermarkets we found ourselves fully boozed and parked up and inside the building. Inside a lift. The lift didn’t work, for a while, so we were then seven, closeted up close like those fish that come in those overly used similes. It was a couple of minutes after the fear hit that the door finally opened, us having gone nowhere and perfectly happy to consign the last few brushed-chrome moments to the funny bin.

Ah, stairs. Front door. ‘Let me just snap my front door key in half, and we’ll be in.’ she must have said at some point, someone failing to suggest that it might be better to unlock the door, instead. Do you have a spare? No. ‘Hello, flatmate? Where are you? I’ve snapped my key and locked myself out! Oh, you’re in town? Can you...’

No, no, no. No help coming. Rightly so. Not a problem. She was mortified. We, of course, found it funny. Jeb only wished we’d been stuck in the lift for longer so that this might have punctuated the evening even more effectively. She ran to get the ‘super’, which I can only assume means Superman because I believe Superman helps human animals who need the superior help. Hence: Sup ‘erma’ n.

We didn’t go with her, because no-one offered to. Ho-hum. We sat on the floor of the very well appoitment block and opened our beers, like everyone who crosses that line between the privileged and the redundant should. We laughed. We joked. We needed a wee, we tried to pick the lock, and we contemplated lowering Seryn down from the roof with my hair.

She came back, still horrified, no super.

Don’t worry – we’ve got a van, outside.

So we sat in the van, in the wind and the rain, and we figured out what to do next. I mean, drinking and laughing were the first two things, but then we had to figure out how to get a set of keys back from the centre of London at 2am.

Taxi.

Taxi booked.

More laughing. More drinking. More cold, wind, and rain.

Forty minutes passes.

‘Yes, Hi, we ordered a taxi earlier, just wondering if...OK it’s still on its way to him...’

Stupid laughs. Punning on the names of composers, the jokes far too scatalogical for a blog so sophisticated as this little brown bum. Let's just say that 'Rimsky-Korsakov' made an appearance. Not literally, obviously.

‘Hi, we ordered a taxi about an hour ago...’

They’re almost there, they say. Who’s got the baccy?

‘Yeah, ahem, we ordered a taxi about two hours ago and we still haven’t...’

Gluggety gluggety glue. Trewin found some extra-strong tape in the van, made a crown, and we started sticking things to his head.

The wind and rain were still battering the van, and here we were in this car park, listening to an awesome pirate radio station playing some incredible jazz and house. I don’t usually like the radio, but this I could get down with.

Glug glug.

‘Yeah, hi, it’s been three hours now and...’

Ahem.

‘What about [insert immediate despatch courier name here]? They’ll probably do it and it’ll probably be cheaper.’

Very good idea.

‘Yes, that’ll be twenty minutes.’

Twenty minutes later, it showed up. Awesome, truly awesome. We’re talking half-four in the morning, at this point. We were to subsequently learn that a taxi showed up at the location about half an hour later, with the taxi driver telling the person from whom the key had already been collected to ‘go freng yourself’, or somesuch. Ah, well.

So it goes.

Indoooooors!

INNDDDDOOOOOOOOORS!

Lovely flat, big sofas, massive double bass in the corner, laptop, various refreshments, post-gig-glow still in attendance plus the surreal nature of our time in the van...

We ended up laughing, laughing a lot, long into the night and watching the sun rise over the London skyline listening to Ella Fitzgerald.

It was difficult to know exactly when, as the night segued so gloriously into the day that I didn’t feel a click of instinct or routine, but soon enough the adults knew it was time for bed.

‘We don’t have any curtains in the house, so...good luck.’

Thanks.


So that was last night. I now have to stay indoors for the next five years to pay off the loan I had to take out to buy breakfast at a Costa coffee on the A23, so you won’t hear of any shenanegins like this for a long time.

All of us are having a well deserved rest. That was a big gig.

Thanks again for all your support, our dearest people.

Have fun, and let the caffeine start coursing its way through your system this Saturday night, it’ll help you write nonsense.



Tim

Friday 7 February 2014

tunite

Right. Here I am. Just had a cup of tea, ready to head out the door.

It is Friday and it is gig day. First gig of the year. We're going to make your faces look like a mix between Robbie Coltrane and a crushed car. Oooooh we're excited. We're going to forget all the shit and smash our sound waves into your pants so everything flaps about and we think you're applauding the whole way through.

But anyway

So

And

What are you up to? Stop thinking about anything but us at St Pancras old church tonight. There's nothing else. New songs. NEW SONGS.

Together, we are stronger.

Tim

Saturday 1 February 2014

There comes a point in every student of topology's life.

                So here it is: it’s the weekend, everybody’s having fun, right?

                Maybe. We’ve got practice today for our gig (which will be the best gig ever, if you weren’t aware, followed closely by this one at the end of the month) with the string quartet. It’s always fun. Last time we got together we were practicing in Ed’s basement flat, watching him panic before their arrival like Hyancinth Bucket. While we’re all very very professional musicians, practicing with these guys is, for us, a bit like playing around with the work experience kid. There’s an element of ‘nooowwwwww....DO THIS! Yes! OK, nooooowwwww...DO THIS!’ and they do it and we all get a neon light switched on inside us that blinks ‘Cool’.

                The year’s revving up.We’re one twelfth of the way through.

                I spent a couple of days fixing Trewin’s computer. You know, the one with all of our work on it. You know, the one with the mountains of new stuff on it. You know, the only one we have that can run everything we need to make music. You know, the one our collective future depends on. You know, the one that Trewin uses to watch Esther Rantzen’s gimp safari.

                So I fixed it. It works, for now. Applause. I’m now bassist and tech support. Jeez. ‘Just like Jimi Hendrix’, I tell the fifteen year old inside my skull.

                And, if you hadn’t noticed, that garish blur of light called life keeps rolling past your eyes like the end credits to a children’s cartoon. You won’t get it back, but it’s not worth anything, anyway.

                Continue having fun.

Tim


                St.Pancras Old Church, London, £7


                Startthe bus, Bristol, Free entry

Achieve.

All milky and lava-lamp-ish the street-lights reflecting on my big red car bonnet as I curl it round at night all sound and echoing engine...