al writes:

hiya,

first up, just to let you know that this thursday's gig at the coach and horses in hoxton isn't happening. well, it is, but we're not playing at it. it was all a bit last minute and they ended up double booking. no biggie. hope we'll get back there at some point. next "sort-of-gig" is the 27th. we're playing a couple of songs for the dc baby album launch at the lark in the park. more about that coming soon...

last thursday's gig at the fly was great. i can tell when we have a good gig because i get this little patch of raw red skin on my right forearm where i've rubbed all the skin off by bashing it on my guitar. rock frottage.

i don't usually notice till afterwards as it tends to happen at the kind of gigs where you get the magic feeling and forget where you are. all the hairs on your neck stand up, and you start bashing away and hollering till you think you might faint... then before you know it you've clattered across the finish line, you're standing there in a sweaty daze and the next band is hassling you to get off the stage. it's usually then that i notice the little red patch of owee that signifies a particularly intense gig. thursday at the fly was one of these - a great way to start the gigging year and we'd just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who came down. kissy wissy.

sunday saw us up at the crack of dawn, heading down to deepest kent to spend some time with a very interesting character called neil luckett. neil's a singer, songwriter, guitarist, zitherist, music teacher, producer, engineer and celebrity chef as well as being the tallest man in his village and keeper of the spirit of 90s grunge (see tv for dogs in our top friends). he also has a recording studio in a shed which is where we spent the day finishing off "kettles" and "famous jon". look out for one or both appearing on a myspace player or new cd demo some time in the next few weeks.

other than that, we're working on another brand new song provisionally titled "hey roomie" about moving in with a girl, which we're really enjoying in rehearsal. we're also planning to get back to a "big" studio to record a lot of the new stuff like leafkicker, ten speed racer and good idea. so we're on the lookout for a great studio that can give us reasonable rates. suggestions and offers more than welcome!

thanks for stopping by. you stay classy, planet earth.

al

x

al writes:

merry new year every single body!

hope you had a glamorous and relaxing christmas and an insanely invigorating new year. i'm not going to mention turkey or booze or over-indulgence in general. i'm also not going to say a single word about detoxing, diets or fitness related resolutions in case the stultifying predictability of this conversational gambit it makes me want to punch myself in the back of the head. moving swiftly on from that narrative black hole...

things is good here. we've had a bit of rest, j's been off snowboarding, bongo's been hibernating i think and i've been moving house, writing songs and moonlighting a bit but now we're back and oh my giddy gosh what a lot of sweet looking stuff just landed in our collective lap for january.

first of all : this very thursday, we're playing at the fly with renowned genre bonders red eye banquet. we hear good things about these guys and we're practically champing at the chance to play live again. it's a cool new venue and being dead central it's easy peasy to get to and from.

next of all: next thursday (18th) we're doing a little set at the the coach and horses in shoreditch for some lovely people in a band called captain pheonix and their label, kind canyon - top DJs and rising star theoretical girl will also be playing so if anyone fancies a cheap night out on curtain road, £3 entry will not rob you of that...

anyway we've got lots of new gigs, new songs, new recordings and even a whole big proper record launch to tell you all about very soon. but that's enough for now i reckon. we'll let you know more after we've broken the seal on the 2007 gigs next week.

be great to see you at the fly this thursday. bring a buddy! tell a friend.

thanks for reading!

a

x

p.s. buy the record!

breakin' the law breakin' the law... hello there you there! al back on blog duty.

last time we were at ISH (the international students house) we were raising hoopla for the tsunami benefit with our electric rock. we also had sumo suits, a man raffle and a porno lucky dip to entertain the throng. i believe jamie's house mate still has the copy of "poetic just-arse" she won on that... this time though it was all about the music.

with us on this latest outing was our old friend sleepy ed hicks: sleepy ed is a genuine modern day wandering minstrel and folk hero. he skips through the world with his banjo and fiddle on his back, singing old time appalachian mountain music and banjo versions of beach boys songs (modified with words about easyjet and cider). he used to be a regular fixture at our sunday club night until he really did run away to join the circus. in cyprus. anyway, he recently returned from cycling half way to china and back and we were super thrilled to have him back with us. he's magic. check him out here: www.fredwoodbear.com - he's one of a kind.

also with us were new friends the alpha beat (don't accidentally add an "s" at the end or they'll heckle the shit out of you!) featuring josh from our old friends, the articles. they turned out to be not only friendly and enthusiastic souls but a cracking band to boot. kinda kinksy english strokes-y stuff in places and they had of the best singers i've heard in a while. he had a way of making a lazy-drawl sound perky, powerful and toe-tappingly melodious. good band.

our own set was a bit of a blur for me as i was having such a time (nothing to do with the cheap bar, honest). i love playing in little bars without a proper pa and stage: it means first of all that you get to get really close to the audience (so that we were basically standing facing each other with nothing but a couple of mic stands separating us), and secondly that we can crank up the amps and get a real natural live sounding thing happening in the room (rather than relying on the vaguaries of monitors and such). it was great to see so many new faces getting down - a cheap late bar and cricket on the telly afterwards pretty much topped off a great evening.

next instalment - next wednesday the 13th at the wilmington on rosebury avenue with the velvetines. last gig of the year too. got anything nice planned for the coming yuletide period?

hopefully see you on the 13th,

a

x

jamie writes:

YARRRRRRRR!

*stomps feet

*shakes water off

well, it's been raining lots. autumn seems to have happened in the last couple of weeks and BOOM! now we're in a traditional constantly raining early darkness london winter. time to wrap up warm and sit in rooms with lots of other people. and warming beverages™...

it hasn't stopped al or myself cycling everywhere though. nothing will. it might be why i for one am enjoying playing "ten speed racer" that little bit more than anything else at the moment...

after a quiet spell on the gigging front (thanks to a couple of short holidays and a cancelled thingy) we're right back into it - our (awesome) friends the standards asked us to step in to play their club night at the enterprise in camden when a band dropped out, and we turned up to find a great live room packed out with eager ears. fantastic venue, fantastic night, very supportive crowd. go there! plus our pernicketiness with the harmonies is paying off - we had the voices of angels. really sweaty, gurning angels.

and then we just about topped that with a great night at the archway tavern on saturday, courtesy of the tube club and 4 other great bands. felt really good, and once again the crowd were grooving around and occasionally singing along... we tweaked "leaf kicker" in rehearsal during the week, and we played it with al doing the first verse completely on his own, all nice and acoustic like. as we don't really have anything else that does that, it worked excellently. didn't get time to finish with "meansucker" though, which was a shame..

helping out some more friends with another late-notice FREE gig this friday night, back at the international students' house by great portland street tube. huzzah! remember, student = cheap cheap booze...

thanks to everyone who's been buying the downloads and coming to support us, we'd give you our juices in return, if only you'd let us.

jxx

bongo writes:

Greetings all,

This week Allan and Jamie have let me out of my cage for a while to pen a few words.

Wasn't too much happening daddy-wise last week as Jamie was away in Barcelona for a short break. Funny enough, I was out there a few weeks back so gave him a few tips on where to go etc. Nice city and the weather is usually pretty good too!

On Wednesday I went to see one of our favourite bands, The Tacticians, play at their new single launch at The Fly. Great gig as always (plus a sterling performance from our very own Al long legs helping out on bass guitar duties)... Me and his Missus even got down to some Strictly Come Dancing action down the front! Don't forget to go and buy the record.

My weekend was spent mainly in various music shops buying some new "drummy" things - any drummers out there will know what a pain in the arse it is lugging all that heavy gear around so anything that helps reduce that is a bonus, I wont go into all the technical details but I now have all these bits and pieces to convert a big kit into a small 'jungle' kit.

Basically means I can set up anywhere in a few minutes and in very confined spaces.

Expect lots of daddy long legs small bar/clubs gigs and impromptu busking soon!

Bongo