January 2008

27th  Happy (belated!) New Year to you all!  Apologies for the lack of updates on this news page, but we have been anything but idle since the Christmas festivities and mince pie eating ended.  So much to report, where do I begin?

I'll start with news on the new album "Content" which is taking far too long to finish off but we are very nearly there at long last! The final track listing seems to be agreed now, and runs as follows:

1. CHANGES
2. HEAD
3. SATELLITE
4. DAVID
5. AIR
6. ERASE
7. GRAVITY
8. HEARTACHE REBORN
9. SELF
10. SHADOWS
11. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE (bonus track)

In a final push to get the artwork finished we got together for a photo shoot on a wet Saturday evening in mid January.  Not being the sort of band to venture too far away from the comforts of home we chose to take some pictures in Graham & Liz's grungy old cellar.  Armed with several budding photographers (namely Crap Roadie Mark, Chris and Egor Nick), several thousand watts of stage lighting, a laptop and several boxes of beer we ventured down amongst the spiders and made a start. All was going well until we overloaded the mains and started a small electrical fire adjacent to Graham's guitar collection...  Undeterred, we extinguished that and carried on and got some excellent results, some of which you can see on our myspace page.

Speaking of Myspace, I have just uploaded some of the new songs on to our profile page if you would like to go check 'em out - if you do, feel free to leave us some comments on there we really want to get some feedback on this.  Check us out at www.myspace.com/motusmotus

The CD cover artwork is now very nearly finished as a result of the photos we got from the depths of Graham's cellar.  I'm hoping we can get the thing finally nailed and sent off for printing in the next week to 10 days.  If you want to be one of the first to get a copy of the album then use the PayPal link on our homepage to order a copy now and we will send it out as a priority once the covers come back from the printers.

After not playing together for a month we booked a rehearsal down at Beever Creek for Tuesday 22nd Jan.  On the Saturday before, Graham thought he should check his Trademark amp out as it had made an odd noise at The Wellington gig Christmas week.  Good job too, as the odd noise had morphed into something much more alarming and hideous, prompting one of the greatest examples of panic buying I have witnessed for some time.  The chaps at Sound Control in Leeds did him a good deal on a worrisome Line 6 40-watt tube amp with many buttons and flashing lights which to be honest is totally lost on a bass-player like me.  Graham needs to write a post on here to explain what it's all about.  But if you think 40 watts is not likely to cut the proverbial mustard then think again.  Brutal doesn't really do it justice.  Imagine pressing your ear against, say, Concorde in full 'after-burn' and that gets you somewhere close.  One chord at 'gig volume' sent the shop staff in to fits of arm-waving apoplexy and caused several expensive Les Pauls to disintegrate into clouds of over-priced sawdust.  Fearsome stuff.
So we got to rehearsal and after my ears had stopped bleeding I actually started to appreciate the thing.  I suspect there will be more knob-twiddling to be done before the G-Man is truly happy with his new purchase but it would be boring if this wasn't the case.  It would be like buying the latest and greatest game for your Nintendo and beating it at the first attempt. 

So, two January gigs to ease us back in to the thrill of gigging in post smoking ban Britain.  Friday 25th was at the Brewery Tap in Idle and we hit them hard with Ely's new set list.  No longer is the first set a preamble for the second.  Now, the first set leaves us several stone lighter and barely able to walk! It rocks.  This gig also gave us chance to try out the new light controller which really makes a massive difference.  It's nice to know that after all this time we have finally got some excellent and highly portable stage gear which makes us self-sufficient and able to play anywhere.  Small electrical fires notwithstanding...

Saturday night and we were back at the Tut & Shive in Yeadon, which surprised all of us as we never expected to play here again.  Not the biggest crowd in there these days, thanks to Tony Blair, but this was a great gig and we played out of our skins.  Nice to see Italian Tony again, and thanks for the positive comments about my bass sound! I've dicked around with my rig like a true amateur for ages and it has just clicked for me now, so to get an endorsement from you made my evening.

The Mallard in Doncaster and The Lion in Castleford to come this weekend.  See you there.

Mike