We went to see The Divine Comedy at the Olympia in Dublin. It was a fantastic gig. Neil played a song off his new album called The Plough. It's a remarkable song. One of the best things I've heard in a while. We also went to see our old touring partner, Simple Kid. And Ryan Adams.

Speaking of our charity work, perhaps we should have looked a little closer to home. Ben discovered that the very ground beneath his feet in his new home was not all he hoped it was. The wooden boards were suffering from severe dry rot. Kevin, being the handy man of the band as well as one of the most physical, will be taking care of the situation once his piano lines are down.

We had our last rehearsal at the weekend. It was a bit emotional considering we've been working on this record for quite a while. We start recording next week in Vancouver. Originally it was going to be Dublin but we couldn't get the studio we wanted for the dates we wanted.

We're all looking forward to working with Tony Hoffer again. There's almost twenty songs to fight over. It's a large figure for us. In the past we only ever had thirteen or fourteen songs to go into the studio with. Infact the dreaded "double album" was even mentioned for a fleeting moment (and thankfully dismissed just as quickly).

Kevin is reading A Room With A View. Daniel just got a new puppy which everyone is jealous of. His name is Bruce and he is a beautiful dachshund. I'm reading The Great Gatsby. I also went to  see Time To Leave. A french film about a photographer who has three months to live. It's actually very good. Padraic is in San Francisco with his girlfriend. Benny bought a lovely house, he's currently working on getting the desk from studio one Abbey Road, into the studio in the back garden.

We have a title for the record already in mind. (In the past we always found ourselves srambling like headless chickens for a title that would somehow sum up the mood of the album with deadlines nipping at our heels.) This meant we could meet the art department in London to start brainstorming early over artwork and the record sleeve. We've always beeen heavily involved in this. Sometimes even to our detriment. I still get death threats over the last album cover.  

It feels like we haven't toured forever. Which might explain why we've been to so many gigs of late. The following were the great ones.  Morrissey in Dublin at the Olympia.  Belle and Sebastian in LA at the Wiltern. Republic Of Loose at Eamon Doran's in Dublin. Field Music in London (supporting Stereolab). The Strokes in Anaheim. And The Divine Comedy last night at Vicar Street.

I'll post more blogs and Padraic will post more pictures from Vancouver and the studio, as soon as the record starts to take shape. Bye!

Conor

PS We have changed thethrills.com homepage to a holding page for the moment. Enjoy!

We were walking through the streets of Toulouse. It was certainly cold but spirits were high due to the fact that tomorrow we would be supporting Oasis, one of our childhood musical heroes. Suddenly we heard someone shouting down at us from a fourth story window in a mock Irish accent. It was Liam inviting us out for dinner. My last memory of the night before was reminding Kevin of our early flight as I left at a sensible hour. It was a flight that Kevin would never make. And so as fate would have it, Kevin spent the next night in an airport hotel room in Gatwick with nothing but a 4 am wake up call to look forward to, while we dined in Toulouse with Oasis, ending with a sing along around the hotel bar piano.

Outside the venues "Be Here Now" was blaring from stereos and union jacks were draped everywhere. It was like the summer of '95 all over again except for the Baltic temperature. The crowds were good to us and all the gigs went well except for a rocky start in Rome. To say the crowd was restless on that particular night would be an understatement. There had already been riots outside as the disgruntled fans grew impatient and the police had to be called in. To make matters worse, all the posters around the venue had The Stereophonics incorrectly billed as the support act for the evening. Noel said he really liked 'Nothing Changes Around Here", one of our new songs. Oasis played their hearts out every night. There were as good as I remembered them when Daniel and I went to see them as young teenagers.

Florence is a stunning city to walk around. Full of beautiful old cathedrals and galleries. As Tim, our ever knowledgeable English sound engineer, reminded us, "there's money in culture, boys". (The same man that infamously spat the word 'philistines' out when we told him that O' Connell Street no longer looked like it did when it was called Sackville Street). We went to see an Italian Oasis covers band play in a local indie bar called Be Bop on our night off. The band played for over four hours. They played "The Meaning Of Soul" twice in forty five minutes. When we walked in, the Italian "Liam" announced our arrival mid song in a thick mancunian accent. He had every nuance down to a tee and on some songs he came very close to sounding like the genuine article. The real Liam had dropped by to check them out earlier which could have only made things even more surreal then they already were.

We visited St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The view at the top of the dome was breathtaking. Nick, our A&R guy, experienced severe rotatory vertigo and had to be helped down in his nervous state, while he shouted agnostic statements in a loud, posh Liverpudlian accent. Kevin and I both managed to get attacked by the same crazy women on separate occasions beside the Colosseum. Possibly the world's worst pick pocket.

Conor

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURE GALLERY - remember to click the question mark on the bottom right of the gallery for descriptions.

I woke up disorientated and in haze. So this was how Padraic and Kevin must have felt during the mornings of 2003. I had had four wisdom teeth removed. I put it off for almost a year because of touring commitments and a fear of general anaesthetics. When I woke up after the operation, I was told we were offered a week and a half of Oasis support dates in Europe. It was short notice. They were starting in two days. I immediately rang all the guys and told them in a slurred voice that I would be ready in time. I was feeling great but I was still heavily sedated by pain killers, being overly ambitious and had a sore week in front of me. Anyway, we held on to the last three shows. We will be supporting them in Toulouse (4th of February), Florence  (6th of February) and Rome (7th of February).

Oasis were big heroes of ours when we were teenagers growing up in Dublin. As well as Pulp and Blur. I have kept a page from The Cork Examiner in the summer of 1996. It has a big review of the Oasis concerts in Cork. Underneath the review is a picture of Daniel and I at the gig. We told ourselves recently that we wouldn't do anymore support dates but this was too good to turn down.

We think we might put back the recording sessions for the album by a few months. The latest batch of songs were easily the best so far. We feel we're entering a creative patch and it would be shame to interrupt it. We'll probably play some of our new songs at the Oasis dates.

Conor

For further information check out the official Oasis tour schedule and ticketing agencies at

http://www.oasisinet.com/site.php?site=tour

The Irish Christmas tour went very well. Thanks to everyone who showed up - particularly those who had to travel. We got a good review on page two of The Irish Times. A nice present to discover under the tree on Christmas Eve. I usually don't pay much attention to reviews but when your new songs are still babies, it's nice to get some encouraging words. And we played alot of them over the three nights. At times, perhaps, too much for an audience to absorb in one sitting. Some of them will be brought in for repairs. Some rose to the occasion. Some are still being written and didn't get played at all.

The last blog was titled 'Final Writing sessions'. In hindsight that was slightly misleading. We will return to our rural retreat in a few weeks to give the songs a final polish and tie up any loose ends. In the intervening weeks I'll continue writing and hopefully have a couple of new songs ready to throw on the heap.

We've decide to work with Tony Hoffer again on our next record. He produced our debut album, So Much For The City. We used to think that for a band to progress, you couldn't use the same producer again. In hindsight that was a bad case of tunnel vision and group think. Tony is a great producer and a lovely guy. I believe we can make a really exciting record together without repeating ourselves.

Padraic had a bad fall during our New Year's Eve celebrations and broke two fingers. We all held our breath. Fortunately, he'll be out of the cast in two weeks. However, when Padraic was being x-rayed in hospital, the doctor discovered a small piece of bone missing in his left hand. Padraic cast his memory back over the last few years, in an attempt to get to the bottom of this mystery. The culprit was none other then our own drummer, Ben Carrigan and his overly enthusiastic/vengeful tackle when playing football against The Pixies road crew in Florida a year ago. Ben is usually such a nice, quite boy. But hell hath no fury as a drummer scorned.

Myself and Daniel came down with bad colds. We still went to see, Irish artist, Robert Ballagh about artwork for the next album. He told us he sold his bass to Phil Lynott when he was teenager. Phil later told him it was stolen in London. I enjoyed Match Point, Daniel gave Broke Back Mountain the thumbs up and Padraic raved about King Kong, from a purely cinematic perspective, and gave Broke Back Mountain a thumbs down.. Kevin doesn't particularly enjoy the medium. Myself, Kevin and Padraic finally bought neighboring apartments (well, as good as) in Dublin after Christmas.  A momentus occasion for three domesticated gentlemen. Celebrations were put on hold because of the aforementioned cold.

We would like to do a couple of more shows before we start recording in February. Perhaps in Britain. Time permitting. If we can make them happen, we'll keep you posted here.

Conor

IRISH DECEMBER TOUR PHOTOS HERE>