It's been awhile – haven't been as busy recently, getting lazy in our old age, or something. However, we still exist, here's what been happening dude...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Recording

Think we might be making a new record. Ten songs, about half finished. Who the hell knows what will happen with 'em but when they're done we'll post a few up here. I'm excited but hate recording vocals. It sounds a lot different to Who Invented Love? but that's a good thing I reckon.

Club Playthings

Not been doing too many shows recently but we're still plugging away with this. My new favourite band is Francis Pugh & the Whisky Singers and they've played them all so far. However, they're not playing at the next one, which is:

Thursday 29 May @ the Port ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Mahon, Oxford

featuring Oxford locals Mephisto Grande and Turn Again Lane, plus us. If you're around come on down, only a couple of quid to get in. More info here:

http://www.myspace.com/clubplaythings

Spain

Mid April we got to go to Spain to play three shows. I'm still not sure how exactly it all came about but it was the weekend it snowed in the UK in April and, a few hundred miles away, we got to wear shorts and t-shirts, and sunnies were essential. So, as you can imagine, this was like our summer holiday come early. If you're a real band you complain about having to go away to the bad parts of foreign countries, but we're not and so we were pretty excited about all this.

Day 1, Murcia

JM, who runs Creampop Collective (and who took fantastic care of us the whole time we were there) booked our flights; we got Mark, our Tour Mom to book his own (he ended up booking the wrong flights and had to pay to change them) and we were just counting the days. The night before Mark and I went to Tescos cuz we'd planned a giant cook off for us all. Strolling down the booze aisle we discovered 50p England flags and baseball caps so we bought a load and decided that the whole trip we should be obnoxious English tourists (fair enough I reckon, we were going to Benidorm, Costa Del Trash). Back at the gaff we cooked up a feast and made denim cut offs and sleeveless t-shirts. Few more beers, then bed, for a 5am start.

Next morning we nearly missed our flight; Tibor had to change his t-shirt at the airport he was so stressed; Pat, oblivious to the pain, started sinking beers at 8am on the plane; Mark had all his toiletries thrown away by the foul tempered cows at the security check; or, wait, was that cuz I was discovering new levels of cuntdom as I maniacally fought my way through the docile and well-balanced crowd of holiday-makers, pushing to the front, refusing to apologise, and they were just appalled at my rudeness? Oh well, either way, we made the flight.

In Spain I started to relax, once we were settled in our rented car on our way from Alicante airport to the city of Murcia. We had the whole day to kill which we just about managed to do without killing each other from boredom. Thing is, we knew we couldn't get drunk as we had to play at, like, 1am (at least, I was too panicked to drink and Tibor doesn't often drink - Pat was, of course, already drunk and stayed that way till 9pm when he got an incurable headache and had to go for a lie-down) so we could only wander about this hideous, sun-baked town, no good shops, loads of construction, dusty, not quaint.

Got lost for 2 hours trying to find the venue (Spain is appalling for road signs) and made a terrible first impression on our hosts, who had to come and find us and who wouldn't let us out of their sights for the rest of the trip. When we got there we soundchecked and then the venue tea boy pulled on his rubber gloves and started laying on a fantastic Spanish buffet for us! Pat was, at this point, in the car with a migraine so Tibor, Mark and I stuffed our faces and got the beers in from the well-stocked fridge. Things were starting to get good.

Pretty well lubed at 1am, I managed to persuade Pat to change into his English tourist gear, did so myself and went onto the stage screaming at the audience in English, and was greeted by a stony silence. Some woman, apparently (according to Mark, our mole in the audience), muttered 'kanye' under her breath which (like it does in English, actually) means 'cunt'. Fair play - I was dressed like a twat, screaming at them in a foreign tongue. We were supposed to play for an hour but could only stomach half an hour before slinking feebly off the stage with our tails between our legs. Back upstairs we had to wait until the guys from the opening band let us back into the dressing room after hotboxing it and suffered the final humiliation of having to wait outside in disgraceful outfits, sweating, not talking to each other. A Spanish guy, bizarrely, came up and begged us to continue playing but we were too dejected to feel touched by his positivity. Once inside, Tibor, in his greatest ever display of emotion towards me, hurled a bottle across the room and screamed, 'that's right, abuse the audience for a stupid in-joke, that's really clever', then stormed out. Pat diplomatically left the room to drown himself in booze and I sat smoking cigarettes, trying to laugh it off, still wearing an England flag on my head and short denim shorts that practically exposed my nuts. Mark helpfully said 'I thought it was hilarious but no one else did'.

Finally bucked up the courage to apologise to the other two and went downstairs, sank a few beers and discovered we had a hotel room in town. Once there we necked the bottle of whiskey they'd given us and at 5am everything was alright again. Rock and roll.

Day 2, Benissa

Thing is with Spain, even though everything at night is, like, 3 hours later than in the UK you still get booted out of hotels at the same time. Stumbled out, eventually, at midday and left my favourite blue jacket there, behind the door (only realised when I got back to England and needed it again). Went to the cafe next door where I discovered that Spanish coffee is totally fucking brilliant (the waiter asked Pat why his friend needed so much caffeine after I ordered my fourth).

The next place we played was Benissa, the hometown of JM and the Creampop crew. This was my favourite town and show by far. Can't really remember what we did during the day except Pat drank, Mark drank, Tibor drove, I looked out the window of the car and didn't write this then. We played at the town social centre, which was like a working man's club in the UK, just slightly less depressing (perhaps cuz the weather was nicer). Soundchecked and all the usual crap then went for a big banquet with the Creampop crew. I have a fond memory of us all sitting at this big long table, all the Spanish drinking polite European glasses of beer while TYP drank from pint glasses. Cute. Also remember thinking it was mental that we were watching live football at midnight and that the night hadn't even begun and we were finishing dinner thinking 'we still have to wait 2 hours to play?!'

I actually had a kip in two garden chairs behind the black curtain while Supernova played (Spanish band we also played with in Murcia, seemed like nice guys but were kind of mod imitators and seemed to have this perception of London as the Swinging 60s, which, as far as I'm aware, was bullshit in the 60s, never mind now). I had to slap myself a couple of times before we played but eventually stumbled onstage and played a great set (in civvies) despite having a dodgy monitor that kept spluttering in and out. Some of the weirdos were dancing, and afterwards Mark took some great black and white pix of us; now, some of my fave TYP shots, almost like old hardcore photos from the early 80s. Then we got trashed on some horrible Spanish liquor before leaving the venue at 5am, outside telling this drunk Spanish guy who was annoying me that I wanted to sleep with his girlfriend cuz I knew he didn't understand what I was saying; except, thing is, she did and Pat got really mad at me and we stormed off back to the old convent we were staying at.

Day 3, La Nucia

Oh yeh, the convent. We had this entire old convent, a hospital for the war wounded during the civil war, now a hostel that you could only stay at if you got the town council's permission, to ourselves. It was great, in an intangible, kind of atmospheric way. Anyway, last full day of the trip, one last show in La Nucia, just outside Benidorm. We spent the day in the perfect solitude at Pat's parents house not far away, near this big mountain, all rustic and white-washed, you get the picture. I went for a run and played guitar on the roof, Tibor took pictures, Pat and Mark chucked beers in the pool and soaked up the sun. Reluctantly headed off to the show as the sun was going down on the most perfect-weather day we had there.

The final show was at this local loser expat bar. We were guaranteed 150 Euros and I thought they were gonna stiff us for it seeing as it was basically only the bar crew's pals that turned up, but they didn't. A Swedish band called Dexter Jones Circus Orchestra played first and they lent us their gear. They were on a three week tour through Germany and France, two weeks in and looked pretty tired. Call me a pussy or just plain lazy (I'm pretty sure I'm not lazy), but I think that confirmed for me that long weekend tours are the best (though, probably cuz it doesn't constitute hard work, not conducive to doing much for your band profile). Mark thought we played our best show of the trip. Got into the whiskey and sprites (local tipple) before heading back to the convent.

Next day, up in plenty of time but still nearly missed our flight again, only this time due to the fucked up Spanish motorways and poor signage. Finished off the lasagne from the cook-off when we finally got home. Great trip.