No such thing as a free launch?

OK, OK. I know the Brighton Display launch was on Saturday and it's now the following Tuesday and I've only just rolled into work, my sleeves covered in blood and vomit, but you can guess why, no?

That's right. I was glueing fragmented socks to the specific inner sections of middle-aged men's sandals so that the members of that group might finally have the weekend comfort of a hot sock with the aeration of the modern sandal.

I don't waste my time.

So thanks, then, to those who came down. There was a little stress in the days running up to the show. We'd had the London launch, as you perhaps know, and it went really well, but this, lest we get complacent, is another gig, and you never know what each gig will bring. Will anyone turn up? Will we stride out in a blaze of woohoo and slink off stage fifty minutes later in a fug of underboot downtreadery? Will we play to the beer pumps? Will my shoes feel too close, not enough...circulation? But then what of the leather-upper comfort?

You never know what the next gig will bring.

Luckily, you're all bloody lovely people, and you turned up and cheered your little lungy-bums off. That was real nice. It makes me feel nauseous with happiness that you all came and made it a big hot and sweaty one to remember. TVM.

So that was it, then. We had the months of lead up to the release where we fretted and non-stop-internetted and wondered how regretted we'd get if the whole thing failed and we were asked to fuck off into a horrid late-twenties obscurity. Then we had the London launch where it all came to a head and the post-gig shenanigans were no more than falling asleep against a van window as the honey-like lights glooped across our faces, and then after the Brighton show...

...that all went away. We had a little-wittle bit of 'freedom' to play with.

So today I'm still rubbing my legs after a four-hour 'walk' home on Sunday morning along Brighton seafront. Nothing pleases me more than watching Seryn struggle to handle the mixed pleasures of bodily poison, sunrise, and a rooftop jacuzzi.

Little more cliché, nothing more fun.

Thanks, all. We'll be busy this week, performing a few experiments in some London recording shed or other. Then we're gonna look forward to the tour. More on that as and when.

Tuesday can be pleasurable, but the sun is out, so if you're anything like me you'll be wisely staying inside, smearing peanut butter on your skin to form a full paste of opacity.

Don't choose chunky – it makes you look weird.

Be fun.

Tim

We all do what we must, don't we?

It's a chore, isn't it?

Releasing an EP, playing the launch at St. Pancras Old Church to a top-notch bunch of you lovely, lovely people, cruising around London afterwards dreaming of the future with so much tiredness in your eyes that you look like you've been soaking your entire head in bleach... (I wrote that 'so much tiredness' bit first and then tried to fill in the end. The idea of us soaking our head in bleach is accurate in terms of our appearance, but it doesn't really work, does it? Still, you'll get what you're given.)

It's a chore.

So, today's a day off.

No. 6 in the iTunes electronic chart, highly recommended by those nice folks at Radio 1, word going all over the globe about us, apparently. Display. Display Display Display. American Display. Vinyl Display.

So yesterday was the London launch. Saturday is the Brighton launch. Do come, if you're about, and/or tell your friends. Come come come.

That's it, then. Display is OUT! OUT and ABOUT! (Except for our friends in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We had to push it back a bit over there, for reasons.)

Today, then, is kicking back (which is really taking its toll on my legs) and watching Seinfeld and wasting my time on video games and drinking tea and picking out the wallpaper for my future swimming pool.

It's going to be a good day.

Tempted to head into Brighton later. You know when you're like 'I could go out. ...maybe I fancy going out. Staying in sounds nice, though. I don't know... Maybe I'll go out. Will people be out? Of course. Is that good? Sometimes. If I go out, will everyone go inside? Will that be bad? I wouldn't mind having the whole town to myself. I could lick all the gutters without being judged and smear 'myself' over all the shop windows. But can I be bothered?'

You know when you're like that? Well that's how I am.

Nah, screw it.

If you need me, I'll be bringing the ruckus. Just follow the slug trail through town.

Have fun on this Tuesday; it might be your last.

I only mean that it might get rebranded to 'Pleasure-day', or something, to convince everyone that life is good now that we're finally seeing the benefits of a precarious and limited economic recovery. They can finally afford to run the air conditioning at full tilt in the back of their limousines. Oh, praise be to those on the supply side, for when tempered by an active and caring government they truly are the arbiters of all that is good and pure in this world.

Yes, let's just sit here at the bottom of the hill...

That's enough of that.

Stay safe, and thanks for the love! Keep it coming!

Tim

Death and bad PR.

But why are the kids crying?

Haven't you heard? Rik is dead! The people's poet is dead!

But how can Rik be dead when we still have his poems?

Dammit, death. Why did you have to have to...

Ah, never mind. We're as bummed as all of you, OK? Just see Richard Richard off with a two-fingered salute and we'll have done with it.

We've been weeping into our keyboards, then. Blue sparks flying everywhere. We'll be sporting new hairstyles at the launch this coming Monday. Think Dr Emmet Brown mixed with 80s Tina Turner.

We've been going at it really rather hard. OK? We've pretty much spent the last seventy-two hours getting stuff down: putting new samples on new gear, getting stuff wrong, trying to make a couple of lights look like Guy Fawkes farting on a candle at the wrong time.

It's good to be so concentrated.

Let's see what happens. I can't emphasise enough how excited and/or shit-panteningly scared we are about the launch on Monday. Not so much the launch gig at St. Pancras (which I'll mention here again), but just...getting Display out of the door on its heels. Nothing but a sleeping bag (vinyl sleeve) and a couple of quid (no metaphorical analogue, here); out on its arse (music). I know the fine people at X Novo have been doing one of those bang up jobs I so often hear about.

Loads of radio stuff, which we're really grateful for. I even had an old friend get hold of me the other day saying he'd come across our stuff accidentally on Radio 1, and is now, at last, a fan. I've been telling him to listen to us for years.

Basically this whole 'growth' thing (not that one – I've had that lanced) is just an opportunity for us to weed out the wheat from the chaff as far as our extended social networks are concerned.

It's a very hurtful experience.

Keep listening, then.

Tim.

'Do you farm corn?' 'Wheat.' 'OK, I've got time.'

What is it? Wednesday?

There are a myriad of reasons why one would not know what day it is. In the interest of 'selling the dream' I'll let you make up your own. Is it the result of a five day rock and roll drink and drugs bender? Is it the result of my staying up until 7am every day trying to get rid of all this candy floss? Have I reverted to the ancient Shankhandian calendar where every day is 'Cruelty day'?

As I say, in the interest of our lives acting as a conduit for you to fulfil your own fantasies, I'll let you make your own mind up.

The weekend that's just gone was the temporal site of the first festival of the summer! Woohoo!

At an unspecifiable part of the trip up to Cheltenham I thought we'd entered a trans-dimensional state of suspended animation, as while I could clearly see the world and its myriad of green horrors whirling by outside of the van, inside of the van, the speedometer suddenly read '0mph'. 0mph?

'Uh-oh.' said Trewin.

On viewing that, then, we just had to pull off.

What a great mood I'm in today.

Not only were there electronics problems, but we knew that the starter motor was having issues, too. This meant that we had to drive around a little off-motorway village at 0mph (which is difficult at the best of times) looking not only for a good pace to stop, but somewhere hilly enough that we could bump-start the van should it fail.

'Hi? Yes, we're running a little late...'

Luckily we found a lovely little roady inlet, all lined with trees with big thick trunks and nice grass; all peaceful like, to stop and wait and hope for the AA man.

We played guitar, laughed at our own bodily functions (an underused technique for any motivational speakers out there) and Jeb and Seryn went for a two-hour walk to the nearest place they could get food. The AA man (I forget his name, but it may have been 'Heltaaaaaaaaaaaaarn') was a very nice man indeed. He even took the piss out of Trewin, which not many of us get to do. It was like when a guest speaker comes into class and makes a slightly snarky comment to the teacher to get you kids onside. Except it was over a van. We weren't in school. We were outside. I've been over this.

Fixed.

Late.

'Can we still make it?'

Of course.

Turn up late, but the awesome people still put us on, straight away. We rushed them, but they all pulled together and put us on really well. The staff at Wychwood Festival, I have to say, were awesome. Thanks, everyone.

Although the bar staff didn't take much of a liking to me. I ended up sitting outside with them at about 1am, having danced like a loon at the silent disco with the others until 'Come on Eileen' came on and I thought I'd rather have an axe in the eye than listen to that like an irony soaked bank-holiday-celebrating fun-time fuck. Simon Pegg has already covered this attitude concerning The Timewarp. That's my feeling.

So I sat outside with the bar staff who were on a break, feeling like one of the rich people on the Titanic going down to mingle with 'the hands', but sinking even faster as my state of mind made me think it would be funny to make them hate me. I get this feeling a lot, but... Well, there is no but. I get amused by it. I was alone.

Then I went to sleep across the gapped seats of a van that smelt like Vince Cable's voice.

I'm writing in a fit of energy and updatedyness. Maybe it's the onset of summer, maybe it's because I've got other stuff to be doing and my subconscious is telling me to do anything but that, or maybe it's because I love you all – every single one of you – and just want to impress you.

Or make you hate me.

Look, we've got two shows coming up for the launch of Display. One in London and one in Brighton. Click on them. Buy tickets. We're musicians.

I think.

Stay safe and be well, and don't shout too loud at PMQs.

Tim