Sorry for another late update (rest of the band: “what happened to the promises of a weekly blog?”) but I’m giving the normal excuse... we’ve been really busy lately.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to...

Got a tonne of new songs written or in the works... so many in fact that we’re currently working on a demo recording to give us an idea what we’d like to go into the studio with next time round.

We’ll see how this comes out and decide whether to stick a few up here if the quality is up to scratch. This will be very soon, maybe by the end of the month!

We’ve also been doing lots of floor spots at folk clubs around Kent and now have a couple booked in London too. We’ve been getting a good reception so far and it’s nice to do something which, for us, is a bit different. If anyone would like us to come and play at their club, give us a shout – there is an email form direct to Los Salvadores HQ (Marf’s house) at the bottom of our myspace page if you don’t have an account.

Next summer could be pretty full-on as we are talking to quite a few festivals about possible slots, including return visits to some of our favourites. More news as things are confirmed over the next few months. Well exciting!

Also exciting are more possible additions to our line-up in the coming weeks. Can’t say too much yet, but watch this space.

Er... there’s probably some other stuff too...

The nice picture at the top of our myspace page has become one sixth more irrelevant. We’re sorry to say our drummer, Matt, has left.

We’re going to miss him loads because he is the nicest grindcore-loving, nymphomaniac, thong-obsessed drummer we have ever met.

Matt has a lot going on at the moment and after the Babar Luck gig earlier this week, he had a long chat with us and decided the gig schedule was too much to cope with on top of everything else.

He brought loads to the band and revitalised the sound with his unique style. He is a totally solid drummer and nailed all the weird rhythms and time signatures we came up with which has helped our sound develop loads over the last few months.

The next recording, which might be available before the end of the year, would have been far more difficult if we hadn’t had his talent to draw on.

So it’s goodbye to Matt and his hairy arse, his obsession with videoing everything, his tendency to wear girls’ perfume and his unhealthy interest in Charlotte Hatherley.

We wish him and his uncontrollable gag reflex the best of luck in whatever he does/gags at next.

Eurgh aaach... aaach.....

Love

Los Salvadores

PS. Jim says cows.

We’ve just had one of the best weekends gigging ever. We played three really great shows, met some awesome people, partied hard, and suffered the consequences.

But we’ve also got some sad news, which we’ll announce later this week, that will change the course of the band. We’ll keep you posted.

We’d all like to say a massive thanks to Speccy and Molly for not only putting us up after the Pirate Punx gig in Bath, but for giving us free booze and throwing a quality after party at their house.

It was a great night all round which saw drummer Matt pole dancing with a mop (or was it Fro?) and all of us finally getting to bed about 6am.

Needless to say, we all felt a bit delicate on Saturday and certain people, who shall remain nameless, took part in some impromptu roadside weed control. Stinging nettles meet stomach acid, there can be only one winner. Nice.

The gig itself was hot, sweaty and intense and the crowd really went for it, which we are really grateful for. It’s so good to play a gig like that when you’ve been sitting in a van for five hours listening to bassist Jim scream his head off at cows, lorries and inanimate objects he is particularly drawn to.

We played our new song Bartholomew’s Day for the first time and it went down really well. We’ve been looking forward to playing it live for ages, as it took ages to learn and write bits for but we think it was well worth the effort.

Slightly-older-but-still-new-song Smuggler’s Leap also went down a treat.

Anyway, once we’d finished being ill we drove to Leeds where we met Andy, another great promoter, who was really good to us and put us up at his house and listened to us talk utter mince until 3am.

The Cardigan Arms, where we played, is one of those pubs where you get the impression the punters eat the glasses in lieu of ready salted, but the venue above was cool with a good PA and great soundman called Tom.

The gig was good fun, not sure people knew what to expect to begin with but by the end it was all going really well and we got some great feedback.

The night almost turned ugly however when a riot kicked off outside the pub while Marf, Fro and Matt were in the van.

They sensibly stayed (cowered) in the van while the locals chased each other down the street with metal pipes... eventually it quietened down a bit and we loaded the gear in... only for it to kick off again. We kept the engine running while we crammed Andy and his girlfriend Diana in the van and made a quick (relatively) getaway to York.

We stayed at Andy’s flat and sat up drinking and chatting for a bit, then went on a little tour of the city on Sunday. York is a great place that I know pretty well (went to uni there for four years) and it was good to see it again and wander about in the sun.

Matt and I also had awesome hog roast and Andy played with a Microkorg in Banks music shop. We all agreed we wanted a Microkorg but couldn’t afford one so we left.

Mafro drove us to Manchester for the next gig, and after unloading at the Retro Bar we went for a Chinese. We went to one of those dodgy all you can eat buffet places, laughably called No 1 Chinese Buffet or something like that.

Just put it this way, I’d have hated to try the second best in town. Mafro had some soup that tasted of wee, and everyone started feeling decidedly dodgy after consuming just a plate of glutinous mess masquerading as food.

Fortunately our constitutions held out and the gig was amazing, as always at the Retro Bar. We sweated it out most of the monosodium glutamate and by the end of the set people were dancing away and we want to say a massive thanks to TNS Records for organising the show.

Can’t wait to get back to the Retro Bar for our next Ska Bar gig, coming up in November!

Finally, for all our friends in Kent, if you can possibly make it, come to our gigs in Canterbury or Maidstone this weekend, it would be great to see you!

Cheers,

G

Hello, sorry it’s been a bit quiet. We’ve been taking a little break this September following the summer which was pretty intense, but we’ve got loads more stuff planned for the next few months and can’t wait to get gigging again.

This is good because our first weekend back involves three successive gigs - Bath, Leeds and Manchester. Should be a great weekend, lots of driving, but lots of music and sweat and fun too. And that’s just in the van on the way to the gigs.

We’ve been working on some new songs as well. If you were at Red Roar Festival at the Red Lion you might have heard Smuggler’s Leap, and we’ve got several others at various stages of completion.

One should be ready any day now. It’s called St Bartholomew’s Day and we’re just polishing it to make sure it’s perfect as it has lots of parts and a fairly complicated arrangement by our standards.

These two songs, along with Holly Shore which we’ve been playing for a few weeks now, will all be recorded in December back at Bernie Torme’s Barnroom Studio.

They are all based on Kent legends, all really interesting stories which we decided to turn into songs. It makes a change from our usual subject matter, and poses different song writing challenges so it’s been a good learning curve for us.

We also have two new new songs which are at much earlier stages, but both are showing promise (we think), and most of us have written parts... once we get back to regular practices in October things should start moving a bit faster. You can hear short bits of them on our latest video blog.

And we’ve got more local gigs coming up too in Maidstone and Canterbury, plus a special Christmas party planned... comes earlier every year doesn’t it? More details later!

Cheers,

G

Welcome to our new Myspace page! We think it looks well flash, and we plan to keep it updated with fresh news, videos and gigs as regularly as possible so keep checking back.

Our page was designed by Pinkie Designs – if you need a new page, you really should give her a look: www.pinkiedesigns .com. Leah does not charge the earth and she’s great to work with... She put up with our nonsense anyway and that takes some doing.

Talking of nonsense you can watch Matt and Mafro spouting nearly 30 seconds of it in our new video blog.

This is something we are experimenting with at the moment, and we plan to feature jams of new songs we’re working on, behind the scenes footage of what we get up to back stage (18C) and Matt repeatedly smacking himself in the face with a melon.

See you soon!

G

Right... I started this blog about a month ago. What I need to do is write less... or write quicker... one or the other. Anyway, just in case anyone still gives a toss what we were doing over a month ago on August 1, here it is...

I was feeling pretty disjointed about 1am on Sunday morning. We did three gigs in a row, travelling from Dover to Croydon to Horsham, and it really felt like we’d just done a weekend’s worth of gigging... except I’d only left the house 14 hours ago. Weird. It was like I gained a Sunday...  or lost a fortnight. One or the other.

Anyway it was a pretty cool day, apart from the bastard weather, which got progressively worse throughout the afternoon.

Dover was great though, and the Dock Rock event was well organised and welcoming with food and drink and two big artic lorry trailers to play from.

Matt and Mafro were interviewed by Pat Marsh on Radio Kent, while the rest of us listened on a portable radio round the back of the lorries and laughed at them. Fears the interview would turn into a presentation on cymbals and the benefits of growing your own vegetables proved unfounded.

There were about 1,000 people there when we played at about 1.30pm, and we pulled off a tight set, and got some good feedback, even though it seemed a bit early in the day for the crowd to really get moving. There are some shots of the gig up on facebook.

That was the last we saw of the sun that day, and by the time we got to Croydon Music Festival, water was cascading from the sky in sheets, drenching everything and everyone.

When we found our stage Mark, the stage manager, said they had been told to cut the power to avoid everyone being electrocuted.  We said we’d do a busking style acoustic set, even though it would mean doing without Jim.

So we walked back across the festival to the van and tried to dry out a bit. Matt and I got an organic bacon burger each. It was tasty. I owe him a fiver. It is a month later, and I haven’t paid him. Ha ha.

The organisers must have been cursing the rain as the whole thing looked  like it would have been brilliant... loads of stages, really well laid out, easily enough room for the 40,000 people it was designed to attract.

The main stage was immense (and the power was still on) and the sound was incredible. It should have been a great day.

But it was the sort of rain you can’t ignore... you know when you’re in the street and suddenly it’s like some tosser has started pouring buckets of water out of the sky,  and everyone runs into the shop doorways and crowds together staring at the rain and says “I’ve never seen anything like it”?

It was like that.

We couldn’t even face exploring the festival it was so wet, so we sat in the van moaning at each other, then traipsed back to the stage to set up.

By some miracle the power had come back on, so we quickly plugged in and got going. Some of our mates had come to see us from Gravesend and Croydon, and it was good to see Nicky and Tom and Dave... there was also a wasted half naked bloke who seemed to enjoy it...

The power stayed on for about three songs then cut out again, but we kept playing and just moved to the front of the stage. Everyone moved right up to the stage so they could hear and we belted out the songs as loudly as we could.

Not wishing to get all sentimental, but I thought there was a real feeling of togetherness with everyone enjoying music in the rain, and it actually turned out to be a lot of fun.

The guys organising the stage – Esther and Mark from the Green Dragon – were really nice too, and said they would have us back for a gig at the pub in the dry. Awesome!

At 6.30pm we piled into the van and got back on the road, arriving at Frontier Festival in Horsham just before 8pm.

The rain had kept many away, and there were far fewer than the expected 300 people, but everyone who was there seemed to be enjoying themselves with a free hog roast (awesome) and busking sets – the organisers had to cut the power here too – told you it was wet.

But the rain stayed away and as things dried out the festival got going properly again. Was good to see the Drone Rebels again – check our top friends – who organise the whole thing, and Drew kept the event going despite the setbacks.

We played just after it got dark and it really looked amazing with the lights and everyone at the front. The power cut out a couple of times, but it came back on again, and we just kept playing regardless.

We loved playing, but the Drone Rebels owned the show with their home crowd loving every minute of their set.

We were pretty knackered by this time and shortly after the Drone Rebels finished we headed back to Kent.

Lots of other stuff has been happening... there will be more frequent, shorter updates from now on... promise.

G