Hello there!

Our feet are firmly back on home ground after pretty much solid touring since the start of the year. We now have just over three weeks 'off' in which we plan to rehearse to within an inch of our little lives, write and demo loads of new songs, Lucy will finish her uni work so she can officially be owned by Elle s'appelle© and I'll be recording the new 28 Costumes album.

It's fair to say that this last weekend of playing shows has been one of the best we've had as a band. On Thursday we drove to Newcastle to play at a student indie night called Stonelove in a place called Digital. We were made up to finally make it up to that neck of the woods after a few false starts and it's safe to say that the response from the small crowd in the insanely smokey room that people enjoyed themselves! (On a side note: best rider and most genuinely interested promoter to date!). That night after the show we drove to Owen's sister Hazel's place in Durham, had a few beers, various teas and breads and wound up her two cats. We went to bed at 4am and set our alarms for 6am as we had to be in Camden at half 1 for soundcheck...

En route we stopped a service station so I could get my power nap on and Owen and Lucy bumped into the guys from Sky Larkin. This kind of set the tone for the rest of the weekend, meeting up with people you don't get to see as often as you'd like. We made it to the OH! bar in Camden on time and managed to fumble through something that resembled a soundcheck on 2 hours sleep. We wandered around, took everything in and made the most of our Artist Hospitality wristbands! The Streets of Camden were a bit like Korova on New Years eve but in a good way... Anyhow I'm losing my train of thought. The show that night: The venue was completely packed and everyone had a smile on their face. There was a huge queue outside too. Steve Lamacq introduced us to the audience as 'The perfect example of an underground, Alternative, indie-pop band for the noughties' which made our brains melt. The gig that followed was by far and away the best show we've ever played... The place was bouncing and the audience was so incredibly up for it! We left the place buzzing and went about preparing for the next show.

The gig the following day was in a place called the underworld, just over the road from the OH! bar. Judging by the layout, decor and flyers strewn about it was usually frequented by a more metal orientated crowd. We soundchecked last as we were first on. We then slipped away to do a quick interview with our mate Alex. We know Alex quite well now as he's been at almost all of our London shows and does a lot of really great press work for us. As a result he had a really suited bunch of questions and it was more like having a chat with your mate than being interviewed. Afterwards we went back to the Underworld. We were due on stage at 6:45, Owen popped out front at about 6:35 and reported back 'There's about ten people out there'. After the show the night before we couldn't really care less, we'd had a blast already. We got our 5 minute call and modestly took to the stage to tune etc... Had a little look around and realised that the place was packed! We couldn't really believe it but excited and humbled we played a wee blinder and left the stage agreeing that it was actually our best gig! There were moshpits, crowd surfing and everything! We were completely blown away when we looked at the list of bands playing at the same time as us... Anyhow, thank you to everyone who made it down and rocked out. There are no words, bring on the festivals!

In other news our Treehouse session has been uploaded http://www.treehousesessions.net/ the gang there are all amazingly talented and make us look like we know what we're doing. We'll be interviewed about the session on radio Merseyside this Wednesday  5:30pm-ish. Please take a look at the session. I'm especially made up with the 'making of' video as we had loads of fun that day and the clip really captures that. Tune in for the interview too!

In other, other news, I've fallen out with my beard and had me a shave. I look 12 years old... Take care all who went the distance and read to this point, See you very soon,

Andy x