Hi guys, just in case you hadn't noticed we've just had our MySpace re-designed! Woohoo! Let us know what you think!! You can use the banner at the top of the page to check out our iTunes releases, new merch store and our Free MP3 Download (it's a live track!)

Join our mailing list by clicking on the banner below and we'll keep you updated with gigs, merch offers and other exciting bits 'n' pieces!

Oh, the horror!

It's this coming Monday. I'm onstage at a venue which looks a bit like Eruptions in Trowbridge (a low end, volcano themed strip joint slash music joint in a even lower-end west country town), with three distorted versions of old school friends standing too close to the stage, in an otherwise empty room, watching us play the most important showcase of our lives. Alex has not turned up to play the bass: I told him it wasn't that important.

With the first clicks of Adam's sticks, I know I've forgotten the words. Not just the first line or the gist of the first song: ALL THE FUCKING WORDS! Oh yeah, and the fucking tunes as well.

Luckily, I've stationed myself behind Hove on the stage so I can't be seen properly and have the cable wrapped around my feet so I can't move. Hove has brought his acoustic guitar to play because, and again I can only assume that this is somehow my fault, he doesn't really consider it an important show.

Adam forgets to drum on the first chorus, I hum my way through most of the first song and, just as we're about to get it together and break out into a fantsatic last chorus, our manager Justin steps in front of the stage, puts up his hand and says we should call it a day. Why don't we all just forget about being in the band and meet him in Hyde Park the next morning at 7 for a kick about?

I am, thankfully, awake now and I'm coming to the conclusion that I may be slightly anxious about Monday's show.

How very English it appears I am.

Complaining about the heat? Already?! Idiot!

It is really fucking hot though. Seriously, I haven't been able to enjoy a cigarette for days. The outside air is hotter than the wholesome smoke the poor sticks are expunging themselves to produce.

Not very much to say really...

I'm quite enjoying not talking to anybody I know about anything to do with London or my music or any of that kind of stuff.

Actually, that's a load of old shit. I just wish that I could be traveling around here and seeing all this cool stuff with the mighty Vein!


I will have more to say soon, I don't doubt it...



Bye4now. O.x

June 15, 2008. Omni Austin Hotel, Southpark. Room 722.

When you step away from the SUV you've just been travelling in, to move away from the hot exhaust it's blasting on you, and it turns out just to be the wind… I would consider that to be hot weather.

And this was 9:30 last night.

My travelling buddy Tom and I had just made our way to his insider's tip, The Hula Hut, which sits by the side of beautiful Lake Austin. Tom had spent the cab journey in a state of silent anger because I had taken 12 minutes to have a shave after arriving at the hotel, instead of the agreed 10. Of course I felt that, following an 18 hour journey from my London flat, (and considering I spend most of my travelling time with the never-ever-ever-rushed Hove), I was well within my rights. But you know how partners love to bicker.

The Hut was the usual first night wonder of jet lag chatter and crazy, adoring smiles thrown at strange women and inanimate objects. Fat Tire beer does make one talk shit fast.

Austin, it appears, is a conference-hosting sort of town. Famous to me for SXSW, we knew there was something going on when the only hotel available was 8 miles out from the centre. As always, I couldn't care less. I've got a big bed, a shower, a place to lay out my emasculating array of pharmaceuticals: I'm just fine.

This particular weekend, however, sees an amazing feet of planning (by whoever the planners are that plan the planning).

On 5th street… The Gay Pride march. Excellent! On 6th street. The biker convention. And not the cool kind that you can have a laugh with, either. They take their motor-bikling very seriously around here. Men's men and all that, I'm assuming.

It really was something to behold. The cab driver who took us downtown said she didn't know how she would be able to tell all the leather clad gentlemen apart. I said that the bikers wouldn't be needing a lift home.
Anyway, Tom and I quickly decided that this wasn't the 6th Street experience we had been looking for. It was ever so slightly edgy. So we bailed into another cab and hit the hay to properly prepare for the day which awaits me now.

It's 7:45, I'm in an air conditioned room but looking outside at the awesome bulb of the sun, I had better put some shorts on…

Bye 4 now. Ox

June 14, 2008. George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Houston, TX.

"ESCUSE CART PLEASE!" (The charming call of another altogether individual airport buggy driver).

So, here I am again. I sit, swallowed whole, inside the belly of another monstrous airport. Once more, a seemingly unnecessarily long connection.

And here it is again. The slow dawning realisation that I've done it. I'm away from home and things could turn out differently to the way I half-considered them, briefly, on the eve of my departure.

We're not in Camden anymore…

I'm sure it's true of everyone but somehow I never really consider the big things I do until they are already upon me. I mean, I think about them. But I suppose I never really believe that a thing like flying to Austin, Texas and then visiting my best friends in New York, under the feeble pretence of essential "work" business, will ever really happen to me.

I should be getting used to it by now. I have had a quite extraordinary year.

Still no record label interest, though. That also seems quite extraordinary to me. But it's not as if we've tried that hard. We've had far too much work to be getting on with.

The record is, at least, written and comprehensibly demoed. If we had to mix it and release it now, I wouldn't be disappointed. It's the music we love, played the way we want to play it. What can be wrong with that?

The best thing about this trip is going to be the perspective that only this amount of distance can bring. Feeling a bit out of my depth always brings me into focus. It makes me realise how much I drive myself crazy with tiny details and my obsessions: neat and tidiness; other people perceptions; the unjustness of the small world I inhabit.

But music makes me happy. Or at least it has the power to. And a lasting happiness too. A feeling of worth that nothing else is capable of. Ironically, the feeling which the music industry has the power to strip you of altogether. But only if you let it.

Only if you let it.

So, I will write in this space when I can over the next 12 days. And I will use it to tell you (and remind me) of how I got my shit together again.

Bye 4 now. Ox

Updated: 1.23.08

1. The Whigs Mission Control (ATO Records)
2. MGMT Oracular Spectacular (Columbia)
3. Air Traffic Fractured Life (Astralwerks)
4t. British Sea Power Do You Like Rock Music? (Rough Trade)
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
6t. Hot Chip Made In The Dark (Astralwerks)
Nada Surf Lucky (Barsuk)
8t. The Helio Sequence Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Sub Pop)
The Mars Volta The Bedlam In Goliath (Universal Motown)
10t. State Radio Year Of The Crow (Nettwerk)
Zox Line In The Sand (Side One Dummy)
12. Kate Nash Made Of Bricks (Fiction/Geffen)
13. Radiohead In Rainbows (TBD/ATO Records)
14. Sons and Daughters This Gift (Domino)
15t. Ludo You're Awful, I Love You (IDJMG)
Mexicolas Mexicolas EP (In Exile)
Various Artists Juno (Rhino)
18t. Cat Power Jukebox (Matador)
Liam Finn I'll Be Lightning (Yep Roc)
Philpot Hate Writes Better Than Love (Toucan Cove)
Polkadot Cadaver Purgatory Dance Party (Rotten Records)
22t. Against Me! New Wave (Warner Bros.)
Armor For Sleep Smile For Them (Sire)
Pride Tiger The Lucky Ones (Caroline)
RED VEIN THE THRILL THAT KILLS EP (RED VEIN MUSIC)
The Teenagers Reality Check (Merok/XL)

Alternative Specialty
Top 20 Songs
For Week Beginning 1/7/2008

TW
1 Nada Surf Whose Authority Barsuk

2 MGMT Time To Pretend Columbia

3 Sons And Daughters Gilt Complex Domino

4 Zox Goodnight Side One Dummy

5 White Rabbits The Plot Young Turks / Say Hey

6 Hot Chip Shake A Fist DFA / Astralwerks

7 Air Traffic Charlotte Astralwerks / EMI

8 Mexicolas Come Clean Self-Released

9 Kate Nash Foundations Fiction / Geffen

10 Mike Doughty 27 Jennifers ATO

11 Spoon Don't You Evah Merge

12 The Shins Sleeping Lessons Sub Pop

13 Jack Johnson If I Had Eyes Brushfire

14 Air Traffic Come On Astralwerks

15 Chris Walla Sing Again Barsuk

16 Liam Finn Second Chance Yep Roc

17 Red Vein One Little Thing Self-Released

18 Radiohead Bodysnatchers Self-Released

19 Band Of Horses Is There A Ghost Sub Pop

20 Foo Fighters The Pretender Roswell / RCA

Red Vein's music is being played on the following stations:


MOTOR FM, Germany


KFMA Tucson, AZ


KTCL Denver, CO


KROQ Los Angeles, CA


KJEE Santa Barbara, CA


Indie 1031FM Los Angeles, CA


WSFM Surf 98.3 Oak Island, NC


WCNR Charlottesville, VA


KNRK Portland, OR


KUPD Phoenix, AZ


WEQX Manchester, VT & Albany, NY



Thanks for listening. RVx

This is copied from my notepad, written yesterday morning, about this time actually...

Right, I'm back. Sat at Charles de Gaulles airport, waiting to baord the fourth and final flight of January's little adventure.

It's going to be serene, having a couple of days away from the boys. I've got a new flat to move into and that's stressfull enough on it's own. Especially when there's no money to pay the rent.

On reflection though, it's been the most succesful trip I've ever been involved in. Not a single word said in anger, no fallings out, and we've played an abosolute blinder!

We are so thankful to the people we met in Hanoi who didn't just make it happen but took the time and made the effort to get to know us and let us into their world a little bit. Finsbury's going to seem like a holiday from now on.

So thank you Bang and Trang. Tommy, Thang and everyone at Green Travel. Mai Quoc Viet, Vo Vang Quang and Vladimir, the best engineer I never had a drink with. I've got a sneaking suspicion we may see you in Moscow some time soon.

If all goes to plan, we'll see all of you again soon.

And I've got the best recommend for a Vietnamese restaurant in Hackney if anyone wants it...


Ollie.xx

It's funny how a place and a group of people that seem so confusing and different on first encounter can be so upsetting to drive away from less than a week later.

I'm scribbling this down somewhere over the Caucasus Mountains, seven hours into our journey back to Paris. I've promised myself that I'll copy it down into my blog word for word. No re-writes to make it sound better.

I've never flown business class before. According to the tickets that we arrived at Hanoi airport with last night, we weren't even supposed to be in here. An upgrade was arranged by our new friend Bang, striding into the check-in area all confidence and "don't worry!" smiles. Two words at the check-in desk, the whizz of tape being removed and through we went; out of the cattle queue and into the biggest plane seat I have ever seen. In fact, I'm sure I have seen them before but jealous eyes do not focus well.

Our last two days in Hanoi town were the most enjoyable yet. These were the added bonus days of the trip. The unexpected consequences of the organisers having to book flights at such short notice. We had moved from our opulent palace of splenour, The Hanoi Daewoo, to the slightly more modest (but still grander than I have ever been able to afford on a jolly) Jasper Hotel. Right in the heart of the Old Quarter, it was a bit of an adjustment. The traffic on the roads in this city would scare the crap out of the hardies Londoner, even at the quiet times.

The full day tour of the city on friday was whe I started to make sense of it all a little bit. 28 degrees and sunny is about as good as it gets at home and it's no different here. The perfect temperature for looking round Doaist temples, should you ever need to know. The day ended almost accidentally at what became my favourite spot in Hanoi. Our guide Thang, having seen our penchant for a polite beer or two, took us to a street bar where local Vietnamese poeple go for a drink or a bite ot eat. Literally a barrel on a box, under a tree, surrounded by miniature chairs and tables, right in the middle of the busiest, smallest and most interesting street corner I have seen anywhere.

We liked the bar so much that me and Hove even ventured out on our own at 11 that night to try and find it again. A confusing place in the daylight with a local guide, it is almost pointless to attempt that sort of expedition in the dark. By the time we all walked past it the next day, it had gone; replaced by mopeds and piles of rubbish.

I'm going to try and have a little sleep now I need to try and get myself on London time cos I've got to work tomorrow. Nice.

I'll try and carry on later...

O.