In the past month or so The Coastguards and myself have performed two shows with close friends in an "unannounced" capacity. By this, I mean that we were asked to play a couple of weeks after the posters had been printed and I wasn't sure enough that the noise coming from our stage would be worthy of attention. The first show was a support for dear friends The Broken Family Band. I was joined by Henry from the band Fields and Laurie from my full time band Absentee. The response to our show was, by my own judgement very warm but caused one blogger to remark "my god this was horrible.it's the singer of Absentee who wants to be tom waits but fails miserably and instead sounds like a very boring man who needs a glass of water. the songs just got worse as they went on so dreary utter rubbish. This was their first gig hopefully my last seeing them!" Steven Adams later said he was "just glad I'd left the house".
The second gig we did was with another of my favourite bands, The Bookhouse Boys. This time joined by Henry from Fields and Romeo from Magic Numbers, we chose to try a quieter interpretation of the Coastguards sound, and whilst the crowd responed in a pleasurable and reassuring way, no one felt inspired to write an insult on the internet. My need for text based approval was met later that night in the toilets, where i found "Dan from absentee needs a shave" scrawled on the wall in childlike handwriting.
The good thing about playing gigs supporting your friends is that they will probably never say that your band is awful.. such is the wonder of friendship. So, it is with an awquard tingle that i say in advance "We are playing a gig with strangers on Monday 17th of March at the Big Chill House in Kings Cross". The group in question are The Cave Singers. Signed to Matador, they display a firm grasp of melody and a tasty way with popularity. Im hoping for a favourable/feverish response to our performance, whilst at the same time offering a writing oppertunity to a few more ill informed wannabe journalists hoping to make a mark in a difficult and competitive industry.
Does this blog contain too many words? I dont know, I have not read or written one before. you decide. Much love, Mr Dan Michaelson.