The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

CCXV - The Wine Vaults, Portsmouth - 29/12/11

2012-01-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

Thursday 29th December 2011

The Wine Vaults, Portsmouth

The Day of the Rabblement

Kyle D Evans

The Real Raj

unknown

It's nice to do a festive gig, in this one I played 4 Christmas songs (Have yourself..., Blue Christmas, Christmas is Awesome (Reuben) and Yo Zushi's Christmas Song (Yo Zushi)). I also played one new DC song, 2 old DC songs and one new RSP song. It's a very confusing time at the moment; with a new DC and RSP album coming soonish I have 25+ finished songs but no bands to play them with. Must get the full band shows going again!

This was one of those gigs where my relief that there were plenty of people in dissolved into frustration that they weren't all listening. First world problems! It was ok though, to be fair most people were in to see DOTR, and they did not disappoint. It was the first time I'd seen them as a five-piece with mandolin and violin and they really got the place moving. My parents loved it too. I can't wait to see them play again.

New year's resolutions for 2012:

finally release new DC album
release new RSP album
play 50 gigs between DC/RSP/solo (this is unlikely but i'm aiming high)
write some pop songs for incredible young singer that Nelly has discovered
read more
learn more
spend less time on twitter

that'll do.

CCXIV - Birmingham Bright House - 12/11/11

2011-11-19T01:21:00.001-08:00

Saturday 12th November 2011

Birmingham Bright House

Kyle D Evans

Joe Summers

Neil Morris

Oh Stockholm!

A good gig for bullet points methinks:

Left a trumpet in Fareham and had to come back when halfway to the gig (it wasn't halfway - I've exaggerated for dramatic effect)
Got to the venue in decent time and had our usual super-quick acoustic soundcheck, then who should we see but OUR AMERICAN SUPER FAN AND THE WORLD'S NUMBER ONE COOL HAND LUKE AFICIONADO MR FRED WILLISTON, ALL THE WAY FROM WISCONSIN! (I've exaggerated here for dramatic effect - we knew he was coming)
We took Fred out for a pie. When in Rome. He was without a doubt one of the nicest, most polite and generous men I have ever met. A true gentleman.
I was really worried that it would be a quiet show, not that it usually bothers me, but Fred had come all that way and we wanted to look like a half-decent act at least. It was good though, and Fred had a great time.
On the way home we bumped into The Naked and Famous in a service station, who probably played to more people than us. Probably. The only person in the service station was a Vietnamese lady who was on her first night, and a Polish guy who was chopping mushrooms and knew no English beyond the phrase 'I speak no English'. Elliott Gregg got a little tired of waiting to be served by this odd couple and may or may not have half inched a mars bar and a packet of Walker's.
We received instant Karma for this deadly sin when Pauly B killed a sentient being on the M40, destroying a hare the size of a dog that was minding its own business in the slow lane. The shame.
Thanks to Addis for having us again.
Here's Fred!

CCXIII - Chichester Inn - 11/11/11

2011-11-19T01:19:00.000-08:00

Friday 11th November 2011

Chcichester Inn

Clockworks

Kyle D Evans

Sleep Centre

Collect My Years

This night was billed as 'Candle Club', but there were no candles to be seen. There was also no between-band ambient music, which made it one of the most awkward acoustic evenings ever. However, despite there being no PA music between the bands, there was music leaking through the speakers somehow when the actual musicians were playing. God knows how, the soundman certainly didn't seem to know how.

By this time we had our live show absolutely down and tight as a (INSERT SOMETHING TIGHT HERE (THAT's WHAT SHE SAID)), which happens every single time you get to the end of a tour, without fail. Oh well.

CCXII - Portsmouth Edge of the Wedge - 06/11/11

2011-11-19T01:18:00.000-08:00

Sunday 6th November 2011

Portsmouth Edge of the Wedge

Ben Marwood

Kyle D Evans

MyNameIsIan

The Boy I Used to Be

A hometown show for the first time in a long time, and my first solo hometown show. Great fun, I was promoting the gig too and a decent crowd came out for a Sunday night so I was able to pay all the acts. Ian just gets better and better every time I see him, and my students certainly enjoyed his set, since I've had to lend his album around half of my AS classes.

This is officially the friendliest bill that I've ever shared a stage with. I even got to meet Ben Marwood's Mum, who is as much of a legend as you would expect. We also bade (is that the past tense of bid?) farewell to Ian, who we'd shared many a car game of 'Would you rather?' with over the last week. Top guy.

CCXI - London Camden Wheelbarrow - 04/11/11

2011-11-19T01:13:00.000-08:00

Friday 4th November 2011

London Camden Wheelbarrow

Ben Marwood

Kyle D Evans

MyNameIsIan

More like it! We'd had a few duffers so it was good to play a decent show. Ian slayed, and we somehow managed to follow up by playing a pretty great set, if I do say so myself. It was nice and busy, and sweetly there was a big DC fan up the front on my left who was singing all the words to the DC songs, and an RSP fan on my right singing all the RSP words. After the show, they both bought the other band's stuff. Ah. Then Marwood got on stage and destroyed the place. In the most mil-mannered Marwood way possible, of course.

Elliott Gregg and Pauly got very merry afterwards and ended up in a *cough* gentlemen's club polishing off a whole bottle of grey goose. I hit the M3 and yelled all the words to the IceAge album about 5 times, or at least what I think the words are, they're Danish I think.

CCX - Brighton Druid's Arms - 03/11/11

2011-11-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

Thursday 3rd November 2011

Brighton Druid's Arms

Kyle D Evans

MyNameIsIan

We'd played the Druid's before and it was quite fun in a slightly rawcus pub gig way, but armed only with an acoustic guitar and my buddies playing quietly at my sides it was not so fun. There really is nowhere to turn when you're in the corner of a pub with a quiet instrument and nobody really listening. To make it worse, Ian came down from Cardiff on the train and had to go through the same ordeal. Not great, all told.

CCIX - Richmond Vodka Revolution(!) - 31/10/11

2011-11-18T12:16:00.001-08:00

Monday 31st October 2011

Richmond Vodka Revolution (!!!)

Kyle D Evans

Wow. I have now quite literally become the star of my own Flight of the Conchords style comedy. Before I launch into this, I'd just like to stress that I don't hold anything at all against Brenna who put this gig on, and in fact I somehow actually enjoyed this strange, strange gig. Here we go:

We had to set up our own PA and soundcheck ourselves.
Let's just take a backward step and remember that this gig is in a Vodka Revolution (which yes, you're correct, I did agree to)
While we were soundchecking a barman came up and dropped one of the all-time greatest lines, up there with the Ringwood gypsy comment (it's somewhere on this blog, back in the mists of time.... ), here it comes: "We'll have to make sure the DJ stops before you play, it'd be a shame if you were both playing at the same time." Brilliant.
It looked like the place was going to be empty, but as show time rolled around the place filled up with skimpily clad halloween-dressed student ladies and Pauly and Elliott's eyes began to light up. It was truthfully the kind of student night that i'd have been terrified to have gone to when I was a student. Because I was a shy idiot.
Oh yes, we realised just before we went on that we playing at Richmond University's open mic night. So that's a first too.
We were getting into our stride, even though people weren't dead keen on listening, and had played three songs when Pauly had a sign held up in front of his face: ONE MORE SONG! Which was soon replaced by: YOU HAVE 3 AND A HALF MINUTES! You have to laugh really. However, we were paid £10 a song, which isn't bad going.
To be fair, we got to see our wonderful friends the Blands, have a half decent dinner and a publishing deal may come out of it (long story, thanks Brenna), so you can't really complain.

CCVIII - Bristol Stag & Hounds - 28/10/11

2011-11-18T12:15:00.000-08:00

Friday 28th October 2011

Bristol Stag & Hounds

Cassette Culture

MyNameIsIan

Kyle D Evans

Day out: awesome. Pie minister, couple of nice shandies in the sun, ice cream, visit to Fopp, wings and wedges for dinner.

Gig: ok. Had better, had worse. We played ok, saw a few old friends, had fun. Amazingly, we were offered £5 as payment. That takes some beating. Any less any you are actually being paid with coins. We did manage to talk our way up to a tenner though, using skills gleamed from Young Apprentice.

CCVII - Leeds Royal Park Cellar - 26/10/11

2011-11-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 26th October 2011

Leeds Royal Park Cellar

Jake and the Jellyfish

Kyle D Evans

Chris Hobley

Lee Almeroth

There was meant to be some other northern dates around this, but they fell through so I ended up driving up to Leeds and back in a day. I was meant to be headlining (ooooooh!!!!) but Jake kindly swapped with me so that I could get cracking on the drive home.

I actually like driving for a long stretch and hammering through a big pile o CDs, in this case: EMA, Weezer, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Gaslight Anthem, REM, Shabazz Palaces, Beirut. Bizarrely, my brother-in-law Al (also from Fareham) was in Leeds and brought a big group of his workmates along, and paid for dinner. Luckily they weren't the only people there, and it was one of the better shows of the tour, allowing me to play loads of new DC songs. Thanks very much to Jake for having me and putting on the show.

CCVI - Brighton The Foundry - 23/10/11

2011-11-18T12:09:00.001-08:00

Sunday 23rd October 2011

Brighton Foundry

Dr Bluegrass and the Illbilly 8

Kyle D Evans

Different! A totally 100% unplugged show, and I had much more fun than being plugged in at the grimmest gig ever in Kingston a few days before. I yelled my little heart out, and even though a lot of people weren't hugely listening we had great fun. After us an awesome awesome bluegrass band played and we felt rubbish. Not that they weren't brilliant and lovely people, they just made us feel inferior to their brilliance. If I told you that they played a bluegrass version of 'Money for Nothing' and were still great, that's probably enough.

CCV - Kingston Fighting Cocks - 20/10/11

2011-11-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday 20th October 2011

Kingston Fighting Cocks

Kyle D Evans

Not a great one! There really is nothing quite like hearing these words when you arrive at a venue: 'Oh, the promoter hasn't turned up. You're welcome to play though'. Ho hum. We arrived at about 7. I think we played at half 7. To 4 people who were probably playing later on in the day. I wouldn't usually and it felt rude, but I couldn't even hang around to see the other acts.

On the plus side: we went to pizza hut where you now get unlimited salad. And Pauly and Elliott got to play on a leopard print pool table.

Here's my email from the promoter the next day:

'hey hey how did the gig go

sorry i couldnt be there,
i was huse riden with illness.. i hear there were some issues, so i appolergies for that, i couldnt actully leave the house, i was running late then couldnt leave untill which sucked as i was looking forward to playing and meeting you all alot!'

CCIV - Xtra Mile Showcase @ The Borderline, London - 19/10/11

2011-11-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 19th October 2011

Xtra Mile F**k the Fire Showcase

London Borderline

Mull Historical Society

Dave Hause

Chris T-T

Jim Lockey

Beans on Toast

Kyle D Evans

This was the first of a long run of dates playing DC and RSP songs with just Pauly B on keys/trumpet and Elliott Gregg on cajon (although Elliott didn't play this one.) Pauly and I were very nervous and we thought it showed, but a few people said they really enjoyed it, so that's good enough or me.

Elsewhere, MHS were my favourite band in the world exactly ten years ago so it was cool to play with him. In fact, everyone from all the acts today (Colin, Dave, Chris, Jim and Jay) are the loveliest people you could ever wish to meet. Good times! First congestion charge London show for a while though ("I wonder if we have to pay congestion" said I - as we drove right past the houses of parliament. Geography skills 0.)

GIG FAIL - Portsmouth Drift in the City - 28/09/11

2011-11-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

Usually I wouldn't write about gigs that don't come through, but some of the following probably need (if not deserve) a mention:

no lights in venue
downstairs bar looked like it hadn't been cleaned since 2008 (but it's ok, because the downstairs bar wasn't going to be opened - just walked through)
no booze behind upstairs bar (well, about 5 bottles of carlsberg)
massive puddle in upstairs bar, with a mop standing next to it
no sign of any staff in venue
toilets that would have made the bookies' in Trainspotting blush
soundman refusing to enter the premises until he was paid in advance
surprisingly, this gig didn't go ahead

CCIII - Southsea Fest @ The Vestry, Portsmouth - 17/09/11

2011-10-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

17th September 2011

Southsea Fest @ The Vestry, Portsmouth

Hometown Show

Judith and the Charmers

The Dawn Chorus (acoustic)

Andrea Kenny

Charlotte Carpenter

Caz Batten

Anthony Love

Angela Morgan

I love love love Southsea Fest and this was great as always. It was just myself with Pauly B and Elliott Gregg standing in on cajon duties. Great fun, we somehow filled the place to the rafters so that some of our good friends couldn't get in, so sorry about that.

My guitar was going horribly out of tune all over the place, and the room was kind of an odd shape for a show, so we ditched the PA and ended with a few songs totally acoustic, which was great fun. Afterwards I managed to have a wander and watch Beans on Toast, Kill It Kid and a few others, have some fish and chips and catch up with some old friends. What better way to spend an evening?

CCII - 2000 Trees Festival, Gloucestershire - 16/07/11

2011-07-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday 16th July 2011

Two Thousand Trees Festival (Busking Box)

DC/RSP/BOTB mega busk-off

One of the five favourite gigs of my whole life, and it wasn't even a proper gig. The organisers had asked me to do a DC acoustic set after all the main bands finished at 11pm, so Nelly and I started off playing 'Fractured City' on a couple of acoustics, and then gradually Simps, Wit and Kelvin arrived and played whatever they had at hand as we bashed through various songs and covers for an hour or so. The crowd of people that gathered were amazing and made it into a truly special moment. I like to list the sets after this type of show, so here it is, as best as I can remember. DC = The Dawn Chorus, RSP = The Retrospective Soundtrack Players, BOTB = The B of the Bang.

Fractured City (DC)

Relatively Young and Quite in Love (DC)

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

Green, Unpleasant Land (DC)

Why Bother? (Weezer)

Real Cool Hand (RSP)

Plastic Jesus (RSP)

50 Eggs (RSP)

Send Me the Hell Back Home (RSP)

Death is the End (RSP)

Last Day on Earth (BOTB)

That's Not Love (DC)

We Are Free (DC)

You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)

The Hope Will Kill Us (DC)

Heart of Hearts (DC)

CCI - 2000 Trees Festival, Gloucestershire - 16/07/11

2011-07-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday 16th July 2011

2000 Trees Festival, Gloucestershire

Disraeli and the Small Gods

The Wave Pictures

The Travelling Band

Charlie Barnes and The Geekks

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

+loads more

I cannot express in words how much I dearly love 2000 Trees festival. We were first on the Leaf Lounge stage and Nelly and I cut it a bit fine (due to biblical weather and general disorganisation), arriving about 20 minutes before stage time. Or perfect timing, as I like to call it.

There were tonnes of people out to see us which was very humbling when you're first on on a smaller stage, but people seemed to come out in force which was lovely. Neil Morris did about 70 eggs in the egg challenge, which must be some kind of record. Afterwards we sold out of Cool Hand Luke CDs, which, again, was very humbling.

During the day I saw some pretty decent bands (Islet, Danny & The Champs, Twilight Sad - who you really need to say inside, or at least in the dark) and a couple of excellent bands (Frightened Rabbit, The Wave Pictures), saw some old mates (Charlie Barnes, Ben Morse, Addis & the Birmingham massive, countless others), ate some nice food (Chorizo burger, moroccan Chicken thing) and generally had a lovely time.

CC - Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays - 03/07/11

2011-07-09T14:54:00.001-07:00

Portsmouth Gunwharf Quays

Sunday 3rd July 2011

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Kyle (solo)

Bemis

Strange days indeed. If this had been outdoors on such a gorgeous day there would have been a lot of walk-by traffic, as it was we had to get a lot of our friends and family down to make it worthwhile. I did a solo set, which was fairly soul-crushing, although it did provide a somewhat legendary moment when Pauly B played the solo to 'Relatively Young...' over the song 'Come on Home.' Smooth.

We played the whole RSP album for the first time, though the sound was fairly dodgy and by far the two most interested crowd members were by nieces (aged 1 and 2.) Ah well, not like it was a landmark show or anything......

CXCIX - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms - 30/06/11

2011-07-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

Thursday 30th June 2011

The Walkmen

The B of the Bang

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Sadly Portsmouth people (or maybe people in general) don't seem to be nearly as clued up as they should be, as the Walkmen only managed to sell about half the tickets for the Wedge (capacity 400). They were superb though.

BOTB were also excellent, great to see my bro Keef from DC nailing the bass just like he always does in any band. RSP's first wedge show, it was a little quiet but great fun.

CXCVIII - Glastonferret @ The Mad Ferret, Preston - 26/06/11

2011-07-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Glastonferret @ The Mad Ferret, Preston

Sunday 26th June 2011

Race Horses

Hey Sholay

We Walk in Straight Lines

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

The Jackpot Golden Boys

The Random Family

Richard Barry and the Chaps

Rae Morris

Mystery Tea House

Lakeview

We love Glastonferret. This was our first time as RSP, and we made the round trip in a day. Portsmouth to Preston and back.... that's some sweaty backs in the car. We did this show without Nelly as it was very close to the birth of the beautiful baby Imogen, but somehow we managed without his slide guitar skills and stomping/screaming prowess.

The way there was insanely cramped but we made it through (no sat-nav required - Paul's directions to Preston: 'drive to Preston, turn right at Staples.') Kelv accidentally bought three KFC meals on the way there, so when we went to 'spoons for the traditional shitty Sunday dinner Kelv stayed at the venue and somehow managed to get off his face in the space of about 50 minutes. However, he played like an absolute champ, covering Nelly's electric guitar parts too.

Excellent fun as always - indoor hay bails, tasty cider, nice people, good sound. You only have to do a ten hour round trip to get it.....

CXCVII - Brighton Druid's Arms - 09/06/11

2011-07-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Brighton Druid's Arms

Thursday 9th June 2011

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Max Fletcher

Jack Boyd

As correctly pointed out by Murray in Flight of the Conchords, small gigs are the best. Old music industry trick - small gigs if you want to sell out. The Druid's Arms is absolutely TINY - certainly no stage or anything like that. The kind of tiny pub gig where you have to move some tables out of the way to make space to play. And don't get me wrong - more often than not, as long as the pub isn't some kind of chav hell, I really like these shows.

Soundcheck took forever since I don't think they were expecting a ludicrous 6-piece folk/punk monstrosity, but all we had to do in the end was give up monitors, which wasn't the end of the world in such a small place. There was a kooky barman (european...) who arrived on roller blades and kept them on to serve from the bar in. Kelv and I had some lovely in-house Thai food made by the chef Pokky. I knew this because it said on the menu 'FOOD HOMEMADE BY POKKY.' However, when I said 'Thanks, Pokky' upon service of our food, he looked at me like I'd invaded his personal space. Poor old Pokky. I don't know why I did it actually, I never call shop assistants by the name on their badge.

Our show was immense fun, the egg challenge was slightly spoilt by a big fat pissed twat who also did his best to ruin Plastic Jesus 1 by hollering 'Dirty Old Town' over the top. He was ejected by the landlord after a few songs though, legend. We did a short, sharp, raucous set and had a joyous, sweaty old time. On the way home I managed to snag 5 croissants (and other similar french pastry delights) for a measly £1 from a service station. WIN.

CXCVI - Truro Bunters - 03/06/11

2011-06-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Bunters, Truro

Friday 3rd June 2011

Roco

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

The Gleebs

Another lovely day out (beach, sea, beers, ice cream, sadly no pasty, noodle bar) but not the best of gigs - lots of people but not many that really gave a shit. One of those. The 4 hour drive home could have been terrible but me, Neil and Kelv formed a vocal group and recorded an album on our phones on the way home. If you're interested, which you're not, the tracks we recorded were:

Heart of Gold

The Real Slim Shady

Price Tag / Where is the Love?

Poker Face / Barbie Girl

Boom Boom Boom / Love Shack / One Week

Rise / Knocking on Heavens Door

A Whole New World

These will see the light of day eventually....

CXCV - Cheltenham Frog and Fiddle - 02/06/11

2011-06-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Cheltenham Frog and Fiddle

Thursday 2nd June 2011

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

The Cadbury Sisters

Men Diamler

Andy Oliver

My Birthday! 27, the age of Rock and Roll death, I will do my best to avoid aeroplanes, strong currents and heroine for a year. I remember writing one of these when I was 22, I've had my sense of views, etc.....

Incredible day in Cheltenham, played footy in the sun, saw our album in rise records, had an afternoon nap listening to a gervais podcast, had a birthday nando's, played an ok show. Bigger crowds have been played but we had good fun. I straddled a table to sing the last song but embarrassed myself when it was wobblier than I had expected. I also did a gay commando roll to get back over the barrier onto the stage. I am 27 years old. Lovely sound guy and lovely promoter = good times.

CXCIV - Brixton Windmill - 01/06/11

2011-06-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

Brixton Windmill

Wednesday 1st June 2011

Franz Nicolay

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Ben Marwood

Great fun show alongside the superb Franz (formerly of The Hold Steady) and Ben (our new Xtra Mile labelmate). Both were superb, Tim the promoter is a top guy too and we rolled off into the night to stay at our wonderful friends Gareth and Vicky's place. Cheers!

CXCIII - Southampton Talking Heads - 13/05/11

2011-06-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Southampton Talking Heads

Friday 13th May 2011

Roxanne Johns

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Sweetheart

Analogue Manilow

Rox kindly invited us to support her for her album launch and we had a lovely time, eating chips in the beer garden in the sun and playing some country folk punk. I used to teach some of the kids in Sweetheart, which was pretty strange, and it was Analogue Manilow's first ever show, they were incredibly loud and great. The guy who did the 50 egg challenge absolutely destroyed it, doing the lot in about a minute and a half. Sensational stuff.

CXCII - Portsmouth Edge of the Wedge - 01/05/11

2011-06-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

Portsmouth Edge of the Wedge

Sunday 1st May 2011

The Day of the Rabblement

The B of the Bang

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

All the Shapes

Tom Fossum

Beatamax

The Boy I Used To Be

Zegema Beach

Incest fest: (deep breath) i organised this day, i play in the dawn chorus with neil and paul who both also play in the rsp alongside kelvin from all the shapes, who contain most of seven days at knifepoint who neil used to play with, just after he played in deadpan with matt, who sang in those days but then drummed for a long time in the dc and now sings again in beatamax, who were playing their first ever show, although most of them used to be in three day benda with paul, now of rsp and dc (remember?) - keef plays bass in the dc and is my bro - genuine incest - he also has a kick arse solo thing under the name tom fossum, and he now also plays bass in the b of the bang since ochs left to dedicate his time to zegema beach (his reggae/dub outfit), rsp and jukebox money, the covers band he plays in with neil and sometimes paul, as well as elliott gregg, who drums in rsp and b of the bang. rox also plays in zegema beach and the b of the bang, wit plays accordion and guitar in the dc and is head honcho in the b of the bang, but he just left jukebox money to spend more time on analogue manilow, a new sludge rock outfit he started with dave from the b of the bang and big matt, who used to drum in the b of the bang (not to be confused with little matt, who used to drum in the b of the bang). ben c only plays in the dc (phew), jack only plays in the b of the bang but he has been known to be in hats are for heads, billy and the bears and whitson. how did this all happen?

the boy i used to be is a really nice kid called Edward and the day of the rabblement are just an ace local band. we didn't want to overdo the incest. this was a free gig and absolutely rammed all day, brilliant fun all round.

CXCI - Chichester Inn - 29/04/2011

2011-05-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Friday 29th April 2011

The Chichester Inn, Chichester

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

The Lowland Runners

Becky Anderson

This was a very important day, beginning as it did with the most Royal Wedding of Wills and Kate, with added hot sister and Wills proving what a top everyman guy he is by driving an actual car. I fell asleep in the middle of it but from what I saw they looked happy enough. Wills is much balder than I thought.

We made the most of the day off and had a bit of a jolly in Chichester, getting a bit lost in the Cathedral along the way. Chichester Pete did this show and he's a real top guy, he put us on for our first ever show. The place was quite small and not the greatest sounding but lots of people about, good supports, and we had a beast of a show.

A very enjoyable bank holiday, thanks England.

CXC - Portsmouth Registry - 21/04/2011

2011-04-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday 21/04/2011

Portsmouth Registry

Tamborines

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Very drunk soundman, Long soundcheck, beautiful weather, average burgers, lovely staff, interesting show

CLXXXIX - Liverpool MOJO - 11/04/2011

2011-04-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Monday 11th April 2011

Liverpool MOJO

Evelyn Burke

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Charlie Barnes

Gintis

Today the rain came but we were a bit burnt anyway so we didn't mind. We got to Liverpool around midday and went to the Cavern but it looked shit these days although I liked that the logo to the Hard Day's Night hotel was the chord shape for that unique chord that starts the song. You know, that chord that goes 'DANG!.... It's been a hard day's night..."

We'd been told that The Grapes was a good place for food but it was pretty average actually. Fried Breakfast with chips though, can't really argue with Fried Breakfast and Chips. We had a stroll around town and went to the apple shop like little chavs, then bought actual apples like country gentlemen.

Most of the boys went to Chinatown for a buffet Chinese but me and Joel went to an awesome Irish pub called (brilliantly) Pogue Mahone's, and had fucking awesome burgers.

This was one of those sad gigs when, as me and Kelv walked in at about half 8, the first band were playing to literally 4 people in a quite large room. Heartbreaking. Even worse than that, Charlie Barnes, who is an incredibly talented guy and whose path we've crossed several times, played next to not many more people. Somehow by the time we played some people had turned up, and we dragged them towards the stage by doing Plastic Jesus all up in their grills at the start of the set. Somehow it took me until today's gig to realise that in our matching white shirts and with songs about Jesus, we do look a little bit like fundamentalist-christian-rock. Although if you listen closely (or just listen a bit), you'll find that all RSP songs which mention religion, even the covers, are about religious doubt. We are the doubting thomases of christian rock.

Another great fun show, followed by that inevitable feeling of wanting it all to go on for longer.

CLXXXVIII - Preston Mad Ferret - 10/04/2011

2011-04-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sunday 10th April 2011

Preston Mad Ferret

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Rae Morris

Roo Walker

We said our farewells to our good host Mr Addis and headed to Preston, once again in the scorching heat. It was our intention to go to the football museum at Preston's football ground, but Neil is physically incapable of going past 1pm without lunch so we had a little Subway break. When we got back to Preston FC it was far to hot to go to a museum, so we watched FC Mahud (an asian-British under 11s football team) slaughter their opponents by a score of about 13-2. The white boys team had a player called Lars whose Dad kept shouting 'Influence the game Lars!' But Lars clearly couldn't influence the game.

Once Real Mahud got into double figures myself and Paul took a stroll back over to Deepdale to finally visit the football museum we've been threatening to visit since we first played Preston with the DC many moons ago (see old blog entries), only to be confronted with a shoddy looking sign saying the football museum had just moved to Manchester. So we'll have to play a show there sometime.

We then took our slightly burnt bodies to Preston Travelodge, where: the car park is a fucking nightmare of endless supporting beams / the tvs make a sound like an out of tune bongo (if that's even possible) / the plugs don't work / the vending machines have no crisps / Neil tries to touch you up in your sleep. Actually that last one happens in all travelodges.

Soundcheck took a little longer than expected meaning we missed out on roast dinners and had to settle for wetherspoons gruel. The show was pretty good, today I played Plastic Jesus stood on a table. The crowd didn't exactly go mental but we got a decent reaction. I think many people were there to see Rae Morris, whose performance was quite stunning and had me feeling very, very inept as a vocalist. Good times, thanks to Ed and Lomax for accommodating us as always. When back at the shitty Travelodge we had to dig into my tour picnic due to the lame options in the vending machine, and I introduced the boys to dried Soya beans (which are amazing). This led to a too-lengthy discussion about Soy-bean based musicians and gleamed the following:

The Beanstie Soys
Broken Soy-cial Bean
Soy Or-bean-son
Soy Di-bean-sion
Belle and Soy-basta-bean
The Soy I Used to Bean
Soy Bean still loves you, Boris Yeltsin

Rock 'n' Roll.

CLXXXVII - Birmingham Bright House - 09/04/2011

2011-04-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Saturday 9th April 2011

Birmingham Bright House

Beans on Toast

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Mynameisian

Neil Morris

An absolutely sweltering day, and no better day to start the 'Quit or Commit' tour. Is 3 gigs a tour? It is for us working men. Mr James Addis put on the show, and put us up and made us tea and toast and did the sound and generally was generally a top bloke as always.

This was a pretty laid-back, friendly show, although we weren't the tightest we've ever been. Still, we managed to have a decent time and Beans on Toast were ace.

SWAG

CLXXXVI - Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London - 28/03/2011

2011-04-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Monday 28th March 2011

Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London

Chris T-T & The Hoodrats

Dive Dive

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

We were dead chuffed to be playing this show with a couple of our favourite bands, and it was good fun. The venue was one of those bar back-rooms and was almost entirely empty when we started so I had to run outside with my acoustic and Plastic Jesus people in the face to draw them in. It actually worked kind of well and we've started doing it whenever we need to drum up interest at quiet gigs (all gigs).

Chris T-T was particularly great tonight, despite some technical hitches and not playing 'Drink Beer' (I didn't really want him to, there was just an awkward silence.) His band are actually pretty damn tight, and he played lots of stuff from Capital which is always good with me.

It took me approximately 9 hours to get home from London, but that's pretty much standard procedure.

CLXXXV - Southampton Soul Cellar - 09/03/2011

2011-04-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 9th March 2011

Southampton Soul Cellar

King Charles

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Find X, Then Party

Yesterday's Notion

This might have been our best show yet, lots of people, including lots of kids who had come to see the 2 bands before us, and we managed to get pretty much everyone on side. We had a bloody good time on stage despite no sound check, due to a fairly hilarious sound man meltdown earlier in the day, and we played 'Standing in the Rain...' for the first time.

King Charles and his band are pretty damn tight, it's quite funny that he sometimes get lumped in with the 'nu-folk' thing when as far as I can see they're a party-funk band with an indie bent. Bloody marvellous, though Charles was perhaps lapping up the adoration of the 16-year olds a little much.

CLXXXIV - Cambridge Haymakers - 19/02/2011

2011-02-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

Saturday 19th February 2011

The Haymakers, Cambridge

Surviving Sunday

The Agitator

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Not good. Still a little raw in the memory this one, I might eventually write more, but for now, let's just settle for 'not good', deal with it and move on.

EDIT! A little more information on this.... I thought it looked good, I was keen to support The Agitator as I thought they were great (I still do, and now with hindsight and thanks to Jools Holland lots of other people do too), but the show had had zero advertising or promotion and despite being free entry on a saturday night was woefully empty. It was one of those rare shows where the few people present didn't even seem to want to watch the music and sat round the corner instead. Then after we played we were offered pizza as payment. Thanks. The slim consolation of the day was going to Fopp and Nanna Mexico, now both firmly embedded Cambridge staples. Doesn't really make up for the shambles of a gig though. Ah well, on to the next one.

CLXXXIII - Lexapalooza @ The Old Queen's Head, London - 12/02/2011

2011-02-21T09:58:00.001-08:00

Saturday 12th February 2011

The Old Queen's Head, London

Beans on Toast

Frank Turner

Random Impulse

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

+ loads more

EDIT - This was the best RSP gig so far. Awesome, awesome fun all round, a shame that FT turned up just after we finished our set, but we'll let him off. Steph completed the 50 egg challenge (50 sweetie eggs in three minutes) and we all had a great day. Especially Paul and Elliott who had there drunk faces firmly on by after party.

CLXXXII - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms - 19/12/2010

2011-02-21T09:56:00.001-08:00

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

Sunday 19th December 2010

The Dawn Chorus (5-year anniversary special)

This was a very special day for all of us DC boys. We spent a long time preparing our set because we wanted it right, and we had all the tables and chai

rs out in the wedge. We also decorated the stage with ludicrous amounts of Christmas tat and did some Christmas covers. I felt atrocious but had loads of honey and lemon and managed to play a decent set.

Here's what we played:

Neil wrote the setlist so we played 'Stop the Calvary' ;)

Towards the end of this show I had a huge swelling of internal warmth - we had played to more people (there were probably 100 hardcore DC fans in the house), but it felt like an achievement to be playing the songs we wanted, the way we wanted to, and for people to be there and sharing it with us. No matter what other music we all get up to, we've done the DC for a long time, and there is a certain magic when we all hit our stride. I wouldn't change that for anything. Merry Christmas!

CLXXXI - Mr Wolf's, Bristol - 04/12/2010

2011-02-21T09:51:00.001-08:00

Saturday 4th December 2010

Mr Wolf's, Bristol

The Dirty Roger

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Good day out in Bristol, had a massive Fopp splurge and a lovely bit of cake and coffee, plus some nice noodles at Mr Wolf's.

We played our best set yet. Our friend Mr Joe Longridge helped us out on extra trumpet and he was great. We'd like to use him again sometime definitely.

On to the next one!

CLXXX - Portsmouth Drift Bar - 21/11/2010

2011-02-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Sunday 21st November 2010

Portsmouth Drift Bar

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Crowns

Luke Ferre

Jimmy Stewart

Rossco

Rossco's birthday. He was drunk. We played well but weren't hugely appreciated. Rossco fell on me and gave me slight whiplash. Crowns were superb. Like the Pogues dressed as Editors. That's better than the other way around.

CLXXIX - Portsmouth Eastney Cellars - 03/11/2010

2011-02-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

3rd November 2010

Portsmouth Eastney Cellars

My First Tooth

Porcelain Coins

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Luke Ferre

A crazy, overly busy, running behind, hectic show. My First Tooth were ace. I was really close to falling off a stool and having the most pathetic folk/punk injury.

Good show

CLXXVIII - London Bull and Gate - 29/10/2010

2011-02-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Bull and Gate, Kentish Town

Friday 29th October 2010

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

Youthless

Nut

Capelle

BIG LONDON HEADLINER! We've been here before... Club Fandango were a lame promoter, not even a promoter really. Funny, I thought they had a good rep. 4 totally different bands with no common thread, none of whom I'm sure were paid.

Not a good London gig. Good to get some experience under the belt though.

CLXXVII - Portsmouth Edge of the Wedge - 27/10/2010

2011-02-21T09:27:00.001-08:00

Edge of the Wedge, Portsmouth

Wednesday 27/10/2010

Jumping Ships

The B of the Bang

Bear Cavalry

The Retrospective Soundtrack Players

So this was my first ever show with RSP, I'd better supply some history....

When the DC had some down time around the Summer of 2011, when Wit was on holiday in China, Nelly (who plays in DC and produces all DC music) challenged me to write a solo album. The idea didn't sit right with me, as I've never wanted to front any of my music with my own name. For one I think my name is boring, and secondly I like to distance myself from my everyday personality when songwriting.

So instead of that I decided to write an album based on one of my favourite albums, Cool Hand Luke. This started because I love the incidental music in that film, and I thought we could recreate it with a couple of acoustic guitars, banjo, and some stomping.

I played the songs to Nelly and we put them on a dictaphone. He started writing other parts for the songs and we discovered that some of them were full band songs. We gradually roped in whoever was around the studio to get involved too, namely Elliott and Ochs from The B of the Bang, Kelv from All the Shapes who used to play in Seven Days at Knifepoint with Nelly, and Paul from The Dawn Chorus.

However, before the live band was anywhere near happening we sent a song in to Frank Turner when he was running a competition for demos on his website. We already knew Frank through the DC, so we didn't make it clear that it was some of the same people, we just sent it in. He loved it, and even though he worked out it was some DC members, he gave it the nod and it won the comp. So we had a split 7" with Frank Turner released before we'd played a gig. After 150+ DC gigs. Life is funny sometimes.

So back to the gig. We had rehearsed a lot, and we played well. Clearly I'm writing this a long time since the gig, but here's a live video:

CLXXVI - Lincoln Drill Hall - 02/10/10

2010-10-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday 2nd October 2010
Lincoln Drill Hall

Tom Williams and the Boat
The Dawn Chorus
Headstrong (?)

....so we woke up at Bullsy's awesome flat and one DC member was less than on top form. Little did I know when he uttered one single deafening cough at 5am that Nelly had already been sick 3 or 4 times, with another 6 or 7 to come during the course of the day.

We watched a bit of Super Nanny at Bullsy's and then wandered into town for BOGOF full english breakfasts. Nice.

Lincoln has an incredible cathedral, I'm not a religious man but it was quite awe-inspiring. I didn't find this out until it was all lit up at night and I was desperately looking for my car so that I could drive home. Before this could happen we played to about a hundred 15-year olds, which was different to say the least. We actually went down quite well, until we played Last Day of April, to which a few of them slow danced but most of them cleared off. Something to remember for our next underage gig.

Nelly had an emotional day - the highest he got on his wellbeing scale was 83%, but he was as low as 25% at times. On the way home he got stuck on a dead end road and threw his Mocha. And that isn't a euphemism for ejaculation. We did, however, all make it home, albeit with sore heads and tired, tired bodies. Strange days indeed.

CLXXV - Walk The Line Festival @ Cheltenham Boogie Lounge - 01/10/10

2010-10-27T05:53:00.001-07:00

Friday 1st October 2010
Walk the Line Festival @ Cheltenham Boogie Lounge

The Dawn Chorus
Brown Torpedo
Swift Manoeuvre

Call it The Dawn Chorus' weird weekend. Strange times indeed. Drove straight from work on Friday night through shitty traffic, but it was nice to be greeted by a top soundguy and our good mate Bullsy. Suffice to say we don't often play at venues called 'The Boogie Lounge', but they put up with us scumbags for one night.

It was actually a bit quiet but everyone there seemed to be really into our stuff. We even got an encore call but the sound had to be cut, so we did 'Ring of Fire' acoustic in the middle of the dancefloor. Then the proper fun started, several games of silly drinking games with Bullsy in a quality local pub, but did the toilet smell of paint or carpet? Who can say. Neil had a few Bretons (french cider?) but that story unfolds properly tomorrow...

CLXXIV - Southsea Fest - Kings Theatre - 18/09/10

2010-10-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

Southsea Fest @ King's Theatre, Southsea
Saturday 18th September 2010

The Strange Death of Liberal England
The B of the Bang
Revere
The Dawn Chorus

Yet another glorious, glorious day for a Southsea Fest. Check back through these blogs if you need to, it is always sunny, without fail.

Everyone was running around like crazy at the Kings trying to make riders for all the big stars playing elsewhere - Pulled Apart by Horses, The Xcerts, Goldheart Assembly, Rustic Pony. We got 24 beers between all the band members, which works out at exactly one beer each, if you don't include Strange Death's orchestra.

We were very worried about playing to a perfectly empty theatre since the doors weren't opened until 5 minutes before our stage time. But... it was pretty good in the end. We played well and the audience swelled nicely through the set. They were also incredibly attentive, it was a pleasure to play.

Revere sounded as grand as the venue required, and Botb played lots of new stuff which I really enjoyed, though they had some sound problems and were pretty down about things afterwards. I loved their new stuff though.

Strange Death played most of their very, very good new album and even had a mass DC/Botb/Revere love-in to finish the set. After this I buggered off to go baby-sitting (rock and/or roll) but the rest of the boys had a very, very messy night. Another lovely SSF, bring on the next.

CLXXIII - The Cornerhouse, Cambridge - 24/07/10

2010-07-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

Saturday 24th July 2010
The Cornerhouse, Cambridge

The Dawn Chorus
B for Butterfly
Paul Goodwin

Very, very sweaty journey up. Cambridge is a bugger to drive to.
Had a lovely stroll around town, the university buildings really are beautiful, even if you have to dodge a lot of japanese tourists and irate cyclists.
Had my usual Fopp visit: A Hawk and a Hacksaw, James Brown, Camera Obscura, Explosions in the Sky, Neil Young, Scarlett Johansson.
Had a Movenpick Ice Cream - incredible.
Met the boys for our usual visit to Nanna Mexico - increbible.
Played the show - not so incredible but not bad. Paul Goodwin was great, we played pretty well with Ben Ox guesting on Bass, but not very busy at all. Still, I got to try out some Bono moves when my guitar broke down - again. Must get that fixed.
And that's it for another summer x

CLXXII - 2000 Trees Festival, Cheltenham - 17/07/10

2010-07-26T04:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday 17th July 2010

2000 Trees Festival, Cheltenham (Leaf Lounge)

Again, simply one of the greatest DC shows, full stop. Both my acoustic and the 2nd electric went loopy but somehow it didn't matter. Paul had a wobble on keys, I forgot some words. I think we all had a wobble at one point or another actually. But the crowd seemed to love it - and it wasn't raining this year so they could have gone elsewhere. Plus, for the first time our friend Mr Frank Turner joined us on stage for a run through of 'Carnivalesque', and he nailed it after zero practice. I would happily play 2000 trees every on a Groundhog Day-esqe loop for the rest of my life.

Big thanks to FT, the Trees organisers and everone who came to see us, we hugely appreciated it and hope you enjoyed it too.

CLXXI - The Bandstand, Southsea - 10/07/10

2010-07-26T04:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday 10th July 2010
The Bandstand, Southsea

The Dawn Chorus
Dan Smith
The Long Goodbye

Again, a very different show to the day before. Blisteringly hot, bare feet were the order of the day. Played a decent summery set, had a picnic, saw our old mate Edsa for the first time in years. All in all, a beautiful way to spend a summer day.

CLXX - Southampton Hampton's - 09/07/10

2010-07-26T04:02:00.000-07:00

Friday 9th July 2010
Southampton Hampton's

The Dawn Chorus
The Mopes
The Black Lodge Band

A much more stable show after the Camden shenanigans. Pretty much the standard summer gig routine of soundcheck in shorts, game of bum, wetherspoons, change into jeans, watch supports, play set while wishing it was acceptable to wear shorts on stage in any band other than the red hot chilli peppers, wipe sweaty face, stand outside trying to cool off, return home and sleep while still too hot.

CLXIX - Camden Lock Tavern - 08/07/10

2010-07-26T03:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday 8th July 2010
Camden Lock Tavern, London

The Momeraths
The Dawn Chorus
Stages of Dan
Jack Garratt

This was one of those shows that roughly follows that horrendous reality tv cliche - 'emotional rollercoaster.' I had been trying to arrange for bloody weeks who was providing all the kit for this show - we didn't really want to lug it there for a non-headline show - but since we heard nothing, we took everything. Then it obviously turned out we didn't need any of it.

Simps and I left straight from work to meet the other boys who had got there early. We sat in a very sweaty traffic jam for an hour but we needn't have rushed. There was literally no sign of a gig at the Lock Tavern at gone 8 o'clock. No drum kit, no PA, no stage. Not generally a good sign.

The show did eventually happen, and after a good few hours of getting rapidly more pissed and frustrated, we actually played a pretty great show. The sound was dodgy and Pauly B was rather too pissed to be playing keys, but it came over as endearlingly shambolic. Our set coincided with the outdoor sections of the pub being shut, which meant we played to an absolutely crushed room and I lost about a pound in sweat as a result. That's a good thing though. Following this our good friend Gaz led Ben and Paul off into the Camden night to thoroughly ruin themselves, and the rest of us returned to the M40, M25, M3, home, bed and work.

CLXVIII - Bristol Louisiana - 21/06/10

2010-06-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

Monday 21st June 2010
Bristol Louisiana

Owen Nicholson
The Dawn Chorus

We did a favour for our mate Owen to raise a few pennies for Raleigh International. It was far too hot for a two hour drive to Bristol, but a nice relaxing sound check due to us being the only full band was well received.

We played quite well, the Louie is a nice venue. Then drove 2 hours home, 4 hours sleep and then up again for work. Hell yeah.

CLXVII - Swindon 12 Bar - 06/06/10

2010-06-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 6th 2010
Swindon 12 Bar

Buswell (with strings)
Sweet Plum Trio
The Dawn Chorus
Frank and Jules

The previous gig in Swindon we met Shaun, a very nice sound guy, he asked us to support his band at the 12 bar, so we did.

His band had 11 members for this gig! Lots of strings. Lots of everything really. They were great.

I lost my tuner pedal :(

It was my birthday and I got the complete 'The Thick of It' on DVD :)

I ordered a cheeseburger at McD's and got a double :) x 1000

Good times

CLXVI - Swindon The Vic - 07/05/10

2010-06-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Friday 7th May 2010
Swindon The Vic

The John Trowbridge Band
The Dawn Chorus
x

I'm currently madly googling to try to find the names of the 2 bands we played with. I really can't remember. Back in the day I had a photographic memory for this type of thing. We hadn't been to Swindon for ages and we probably had our best show there. It was my Mum's birthday and we gave her the cake treatment, much like we did for Pauly B's Mum at the previous gig.

We played without Wit and it went well. That is all I can remember. Loser.
x

Victims - April '10

2010-04-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

After the Megabunny funtime tour 2010....

4 or 5 Magicians, 900 Spaces, A-Custom, Acropolis, Action Speaks Louder, Phil Adams, Afrosnatchers, The AKA Band, All The Shapes, The All-Singing Razorblades, Allo Darlin', Andy & Jack, Angelgear x 5, Apologies I Have None, The Arkwrights, CM Arnold & the Delta Breaks x2, Arty Karate, Ashford, The Autons x2, The Aviators, The B of the Bang x 30, Rob Ball, Philip Barebones, Emily Barker, Chris Bath, Batrider, Beans on Toast, Belligerence, Bemis, Bendigo, The Beneski Murder, Billy Vincent x2, Bipolar Empire, Black Carrot, The Steve Bland Assembly x 6, Blue Fox, Emit Bloch, Bodyhost x 2, The Boicotts, Adam Boucher x 2, The Boy I Used To Be, Brenda, Loz Bridge, James Bright, Burn the Witch, Captain Fantastic, Carlos and the Jackal, Carmen Rosa, Carmichael, Cats:For Peru, Citizen, Lester Clayton, The Clowns, Cocos Lovers, Contra, Kurt Cooder x 2, Alex Cornish, Covernote, Creepythinguy, Cymbiotic, Dali's Cat, Steve Dalzell, Tom Dangerous, De Squeran x2, Dead! Dead! Dead! x 2, The Deads x3, Deadbeat Descendent, Del Nil x 3, Stanton Delaplane, Delboy French, Depot, Deville, Different Day, The Dirty 38s, Dlugokecki, Dropstone, Dumbfounded, Alex J Dunne, Dutch Husband, Echobeat, Elaine Dismissed, The Elements x 2, Elle Milano, Emptifish, Enjoy Destroy, The Extenders, Fade Out x 2, Fake Ray, Luke Ferre x 2, Fly Monkeys Fly, Fresh Legs x3, Frisbee in the Jewel Box, Funk Yer Mum, The Gallery, Geko, Get Amped, Gilbert, Gilkicker x 2, The Glad Rags, Glen Belt, Nick Glover (The Seal Cub Clubbing Club), Golden Section x 2, David Goo x 2, The Good Intentions, Gary Goodman, Alaistar Goodwin, Paul Goodwin Band, David Greeves, GROOVE, The Gun Show x 5, Luke Haines, Frank Hamilton, Hardly Heroes, Hats are for Heads, The Heights, Hexicon, Higgy, Rob Himself, Hobos and Eskimos, Hold Fast x3, Holy Roller, The Hornblower Brothers, The Housewives, Hudson 10 x 2, HUMANS, I Am Jack, I Am Not Left-Handed, Idiot3, The Incredible Flight of Birdman x2, The Inklings, Introducing: Emergency Music, Ivan Campo, Ida Jacobsson, Joey Nightmare, Jukebox Vandals, The Kabeedies, Karmatribe, Kate Goes, Kid Idiot, Kill Kasper, Kody, Last Days of Lorca, Leptany, The Levels, Life of Byron, The Light Divided, Lisa Lindley Jones, Lines in Sand, The Lights Shine, The Little Ones, Little Things, Living in Cities, The Lonely Cardinals x 2, Looking Through Glass, The Long Goodbye, Lost Aura, LoveLikeFire, Peter Lyons, Richie Madisun, Mantis & The Prayer, Mantra, The Marvellous Mechanical Band, Elliot Mason, The Masters x 3, Jo McCafferty, Dave McPherson, Melodramas x2, Mercy Alexander, The Metropolise, The MFV, The Mindless Ones, Misty's Big Adventure, The Model Village, Momentum, Mono, Monsters Build Mean Robots, The Mopes, Neil Morris, Moses x 2, Mr & Mrs, Mr Christopher, Mrs Poopars Automobiles, Mumble, The New Root, Ninja Horses, No Skidoo, Stuart O'Connor, Octograph (?), Operahouse, Openroom x 2, Ornament Birds, Otaka, Ottersgear, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool?, Out Like A Lion, Over the Wall, Matt Park, Mrs Burns, Palais x 2, Jackie Paper x 2, Joe Parker & the Power, Chris Perrin and the Minor Falls, The Plans, The Plymouths x 2, Poppy, The Racketeers x2, Kyle Rage, The Rapids, The Rebs x 2, Red Campion, Reikidogs, Relentless, Retrofect, Revere x7, The Ridgeway, Rivers of Sound x 3, Roadside Poppies, Rockshore, Roland Shanks, Rolling Dog, Room 6, Roshambo, Rosie and the Goldbug, Rossco x 5, Round Ron Virgin, The Rudimentary Confusion, Rushing With Apathy, Sallyforth, Salvage, Sarah & Lewis, Saturdays and Sundays, The Shake, Sharks Took The Rest, Shit Hot Llamas!, Silent Radio, Silhouette Showgirls, Sine Star Project, Sister Divine, Six Nation State, The Adam Smith Effect, Something Pretty, Charlene Soraia, Spearmint, Jessica Spencer Band, Niall Spooner-Harvey x 2, The Stations x 6, Leigh Mary Stokes, The Strange Death of Liberal England x 5, Straylings, The Summons, Super Cannes, Supergrass (DJs), Surprise!, Chris T-T x 3, Tali Trow & The Well Being, Tag Team Preacher, Tamerlane x 2, Paddy Taylor, Temple, They Don't Sleep, Thomas Tantrum x 2, Three Blind Wolves, Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam, Tomboy, Transcend, Trinity, Frank Turner x 3, Umdongskulen, The Undefined, The Veils, Venice Ahoy!, The Vice, Videosprint, The Visitors, Jon Walbrin, The Waves, The Way, The Waysters x 2, Rich Webb, Whitewash, Wilf, JD Williams, Vaughan Williams, Winners, Wireless, Wiservice x 2, Wood, Wire and Words, Michael Wookey, Wyldside, Yellowgroove, James Yuill, Zodiac

CLXV - Brighton The Hope - 09/04/10

2010-04-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

Friday 9th April 2010

Brighton The Hope

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

The Extenders

I liked the Hope as a venue - nice tiny upstairs room with a bar above a pretty cool and central pub. We had a complete technical meltdown between TBOTB's set and ours, with Neil's amp, pedal board and banjo all breaking, to which he declared 'I've fallen out of love with rock and roll.' He got it together though, and managed to use Dave's pedals well enough that no-one would ever have known the difference. We ended with the five-drummer assault of 'Blast', this time with Pauly B playing trumpet standing on the bar.

This empty stage:

signifies the END OF MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR 2010.

Thanks to Simps for the photos.

CLXIV - Portsmouth Drift in the City - 08/04/10

2010-04-10T16:28:00.001-07:00

Thursday 8th April 2010
Portsmouth Drift in the City

The B of the Bang
The Dawn Chorus
The Long Goodbye
Rossco

i had to go to work and after getting in at gone 3 i overslept so had to go to work in my smelly tour clothes but i don't think anyone noticed then i went straight to ben's folks' to apologise for the broken ford galaxy but they were very cool about it as they always are and by this point i had a headache through lack of sleep but i ploughed on and went straight to the gig where soundcheck was mercifully smooth and then had a good old sit down in wetherspoons and a nice curry, rice, naans, bhajis, poppadoms, chutney and a beer all for six quid and then found out that malcolm mclaren was dead before heading back to play a fairly decent show to a strangely chatty crowd before bundling into many cars having retured the van to tom and leaving the psychos to another night out, this time at scandals.

CLXIII - London The Miller - 07/04/10

2010-04-10T16:27:00.001-07:00

Wednesday 7th April 2010

London The Miller

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

Lines in Sand

The nightmare continues...

nelly got up at half five to drive ben to leeds station, where he got a train to go to work in london
i got up at nine and left with dave to drive the galaxy to leeds to get fixed. i took dave because he seemed to know a little about cars, and i know nothing.
we dropped the galaxy off and went for breakfast at debenhams (porridge again!)
we then wandered around leeds waiting for a phone call which never came, so walked back to the garage to find that nothing had been done
we went for another walk and continued to hassle the garage on the phone, though i think our southern accents worked against us
at 2 we found out that the car wouldn't be fixed til 4. this was bad news but could be worse - we could still make the gig but probably not sound check. we decided to send the van ahead of us again, though this is when we realised that Dave had the van key. So Neil came to pick it up in the hire car and the van went on ahead.
Dave and I had a lovely baguette and soup for lunch, in fact we had a lovely romantic day together. When the galaxy was finally finished Neil, Wit and Keef got a taxi into Leeds and we set off. I had to storm down the motorway and (possibly) as a result the car began to over-heat again when we reached crawling traffic in London.
Many, many stops later we arrived at the venue at about half seven, brutally tired.
Somehow, we managed to pull off a high-energy set and had possibly our best ever collaborative run through of 'Last Day on Earth' with TBOTB:

they also added four-man extra drums to 'Blast', which Pauly B today played on top of a table.
somehow stayed awake on drive home and returned the battered and bruised galaxy to ben's parents (we'd since broken the passenger door and a light) with a simple note on the dash which read: 'sorry'

CLXII - Newcastle The Cluny - 06/04/10

2010-04-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 6th April 2010

Newcastle Cluny

Revere

Sharks Took The Rest

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

The day that things started going wrong. The less hung-over members of the touring party made their way back to the Leaf for a truly amazing breakfast - porridge and thick granary toast in my case - which I was ceryainly glad of later in the day. The heavy heads gradually followed over, followed by BenC, still 100% pissed from the night before having slept in his clothes. Ben put in a heroic effort on his porridge though, I must say, finishing it in a grand total of about 45 minutes.

The plan was to drive to our travelodge at Leeds-Bradford airport before completing the trip to Newcastle for the show. However, in Bradford the Ford Galaxy began to smell strongly of burning oil and died...

We called the RAC and meanwhile went to use the toilet at the foulest smelling cheap chicken outlet I have ever been to in my life. In fact, I realised on this tour that as a country we must be destroying battery chickens at an alrming rate to keep these places in business. £1.50 for 2 pieces of chicken, chips and a can? Horrendous.

The car was not too badly broken but needed a proper garage fix, so Neil flirted on the phone and sorted us a hire car to take to Newcastle. Newcastle looked amazing but we arrived late for soundcheck so no time to see it, as is often the case. The soundman was an arse too, which didn't really help. In fact, he jumped from being an arse to being a sound guy, so i guess 50% arse.

The Cluny was a really nice place, and the soup was excellent too. Amusingly (for everyone except himself), Simps was last to be served dinner for the third day running. I would say this was our weakest show, but we still went down pretty well. It was our last show with Revere, so we bid them fare-thee-well, bought up shit loads of their t-shirts and headed back to Leeds, playing a few rounds of 'one-word stories' to keep Nelly the driver awake.

CLXI - Liverpool Leaf Tea Bar - 05/04/10

2010-04-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

Monday 5th April 2010

Liverpool Leaf Tea Bar

Super Cannes

Revere

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

Nick Glover (The Seal Cub Clubbing Club)

Lovely lay-in was followed by a trek into Liverpool - a city I really like - with my roomies BenC, Matt and Keef to look for Breakfast. We were just too late at good old 'spoons, though Ben did manage to tramp a piece of uneaten toast from a deserted table while we were in there. This was only a sign of the depravity that lay in store for Ben in Liverpool though...

We went to a Yates' for a fairly grim but nonetheless very welcome full English, followed by a good look around Liverpool. I was thinking of joining Elliott, Paul and BenC in visiting the Beatles museum, but I took too long emptying my bowels in the world's busiest McDonald's and missed them.

This was probably the longest ever soundcheck we've been involved in, it was truly gruelling. Lots and lots of sitting and waiting. The Leaf was a great little place and luckily they served monstrous cappuccinos which kept me amused for a while, but I still needed to take a good few walks around the block.

This was probably the emptiest gig of the tour - Easter Monday was always going to be a struggle - but still enjoyable. Today Paul played 'Blast' from on top of Ben Ox's shoulders. I don't think he'd pre-warned The Ox, but his shoulders comfortably accomodated little B.

After the gig we made our way to the megabunny funtime tour's favourite club - Bumper. It was dead when we got there, but 20 DC, BOTB and Revere bodies soon filled thing up a bit. I left early as I wasn't feeling particularly in the mood, so you will have to decide whether or not to believe that the following happened....

elliott gregg took lots of stick for being bald... dave was stalked... stephen revere was a drunken legend... ben c got his bum out in bumper and the kebab shop... elliott gregg got lost in liverpool... dave got lost in liverpool... ben ox and jack entered a crack den looking for elliott gregg... ben c attempted to sleep on the pavement outside the kebab shop... a dc member was very sick in his bed (which he was sharing at the time)... elliott gregg arrived at the hotel at 5 and wouldn't go to sleep... i considered, i considered, a move to memphis, a move to memphis...

CLX - Preston Mad Ferret - 04/04/10

2010-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday 4th April 2010
Preston Mad Ferret

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
Revere
Ottersgear

We all awoke at Elliott Gregg's house for cereal, toast and creme eggs. Elliott's parents are legends. It was Elliott's last ever visit to his childhood home too, as his parents are moving soon. So after an emotional send-off we got on the way to Preston, which basically involved following any signs that said 'NORTH'.

On the way, however, we checked into our hotel in Liverpool, where the receptionists seemed slightly suspicious at the amount of people we were attempting to check into 3 rooms. They let us carry on though.

We all fell asleep on the short, hot drive to Preston, where we had a very smooth soundcheck thanks to the wonderful Mr Lomax before heading to Wetherspoons (Subway was shut). A good three days into the tour and Dave BOTB still couldn't manage to poo, despite a 'spoons curry.

Ottersgear, Revere and Bang were all outstanding on this night, and we played fucking well too, despite a bit of a lairy start after thinking we'd lost a trumpet. We found it though, somewhere amongst the millions of cases that become involved when us, Bang and Revere all share a bill.

Many lager and limes consumed, another fun visit to the Mad Ferret ended with an early(for this tour, anyway) night.

CLIX - Cambridge The Globe - 03/04/10

2010-04-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday 3rd April 2010
Cambridge The Globe

The Dawn Chorus

The Beneski Murder (?)

The B of the Bang

Woke with sleepy heads and drove straight to Cambridge, sans-Breakfast. Having a left-hand drive car allowed us to embarass Pauly B when we drove through a toll by puttinf on Westlife at deafening volume. Why was Westlife playing? Beacuse Simps made the worst compilation cd in the world, ever. Although he made the mistake of putting MmmBop on it, which is awesome.

Got to the venue in Cambridge in time to watch the ManUtd vs Chelsea match but commentary was in Italian, so we left the Globe and got an over-priced Panini in a bar with English commentary. We then got on the usual Cambridge trail of FOPP (many copies of Midlake's last album purchased at £3 a piece), followed by a few games of Bum on Parker's Piece, followed by tasty Mexican food in Nanna Mexico.

Soundcheck took aaages but did involve setting up the full PA. TBOTB were ace and really got into their stride. The next band were interrupted by a huge influx of chavs who threatened to scupper proceedings with their pissed antics (probably celebrating Cambridge's Boat Race victory) but luckily they left before we played. We had a belter, if i do say so myself. After the show we drove to Elliott Gregg's home town of Codicote and had a lock-in at his local The Goat, ensuring a few heavy heads when all eleven of us awoke at the house of Gregg the following morning....

CLVIII - London Brixton Windmill - 02/04/10

2010-04-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

Brixton Windmill, London

Friday 2nd April 2010

Three Blind Wolves

The Dawn Chorus

Round Ron Virgin

Over the Wall

Billy Vincent

I Am Not Left-Handed

The B of the Bang

Bipolar Empire

MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR 2

After several weeks/months of planning, the second MFT rolled out a day after April fools' day. Neil momentarily fooled me by emailing all the boys and saying he wasn't coming. But it was an hilarious April Fool! Speaking of which, the 'boys' involved on this year's MFT were:

TDC

Kyle - Vox/Gtr/Fabio Capello

Neil - Gtr/Banjo/Shouting/Paul Scholes scores goals

Keef - Bass/no known lookalikes

Matt - Drums/Vox/Tarantino

Ben - Mandolin/Banjo/Percussion/Trumpet/Alex James/Brian Cox

Pauly B - Keys/Trumpet/Alan Shearer

Wit - Accordion/Glockenspiel/Guitar/Daniel Bedingfield

TBOTB

Wit - different instruments but still Bedingfield

Dave - Guitar/David Tennant

Jack - Guitar/Keys/Accordion/Jesus or just any Greek

Elliott Gregg - Drums/Vox/Bobby Charlton

Ben Ox - Bass/Carl Froch/Singer from the Futureheads

On the morning I went for a nice big preparatory Full English before picking up Ben's parents' trusty left-hand drive Ford Galaxy. We made it to the venue in no time and were greeted by the Windmill's racist security rottweiler (it only seems to bark at black people.)

It was an amazingly strong line-up for an all-dayer, in fact there was only one band that I didn't like but I won't mention who they were. Billy Vincent were incredible though, they absolutely slayed their half-hour slot. Less can be said for the burgers, which were somewhat limp. They were free though.

It was our friend Vicky's birthday so we gave her a cake during our set, which actually went pretty well. The promoter Tim was a legend and paid us much more than promised which set us up nicely for the tour. Without meaning to contribute towards any national stereotyping, there were 2 scottish bands on the bill and every single member of said bands was completely pissed. Including the headline band, who were pissed from about 2 in the afternoon. Good work.

After the show we wandered off into the night in search of the mythical 'Pizza Go-Go', though all we found was a chicken house selling truly dirty chicken. We also encountered a rather huge chav thug who scared the chicken house guy into serving him ahead of us. I would have done exactly the same in his shoes. After this, straight to sleep at our good friend Rob's place.

CLVII - Portsmouth Eastney Cellars (Johnny Cash night) - 26/03/10

2010-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Portsmouth Eastney Cellars
Johnny Cash Night
Friday 26th March 2010

The Dawn Chorus
Bemis
Wood, Wire & Words
CM Arnold
The B of the Bang
+ others

Awesome fun. The Cellars was rammed, busiest I've seen it for ages. We played It Ain't Me Babe, I Walk the Line, Cocaine Blues, I Got Stripes and Ring of Fire. We were the only full band to play other that The B of the Bang, who opened the night. It was really great fun to let our hair down and have fun just playing the songs, I could have happily played all night if I'd known we'd have the time to fill. And my mum won the raffle too! All in all a good night.

CLVI - Leeds Royal Park Cellars - 27/02/10

2010-02-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

Saturday 27th February 2010

Leeds Royal Park Cellars

The Dawn Chorus

Ivan Campo

Tag Team Preacher

Ninja Horses

Jeez, I've left it too long to write this one. Furthest trip for a gig yet. Very long drive. Got to venue in good time to have a pint and meet alex the promoter, who was a top, top man. In fact, all of his mates who helped promote the night were great too. Pauly B was a little behind the rest of us after he went to see Pompey play in Burnley first.

Soundcheck took til right up to doors, so we quickly nipped out for some cheesy chips and dodgy pizza in one of the numerous dodgy local kebbaberies. It was during this trip that we were tempted to ditch the gig and go to see a double bill of The Wicker Man and Don't Look Now at the local arthouse cinema. Unfortunately it was the original Wicker Man though, not the far superior Nick Cage remake.

All the supports were cool, including our old chums Ivan Campo, who I hadn't seen for a while. They have actually now replaced the footballer Ivan Campo in my brain now - I no longer think of the afro'd old Spanish duffer when I heart the words 'Ivan Campo'.

We played pretty well, there was a nice little crowd, although they did start singing 'There's only one Frank Turner' after we played Carnivalesque. Luckily the potential for awkwardness was diffused when Matt misheard them and thought they were singing for Ghanain ex-Leeds legend Tony Yeboah.

We drifted off home - agreeing to split the drive into two hour spurts between myself and Matt. Matt did his 2 hours and then promptly fell asleep, leaving me to keep myself awake by listening to deafeningly loud Derek and Clive cds, followed by hollering every word to 'Pinkerton' and 'Funeral' at the top of my out-of-tune lungs to keep myself awake.

This is what I live for. Amongst other things.
x

CLV - Brighton Komedia Studio Bar - 25/02/10

2010-02-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

Thursday 25th February 2010
Brighton Komedia Studio Bar

The Dawn Chorus
The Hornblower Brothers
Gary Goodman
Glen Belt
The B of the Bang

No van. Horrendous weather (car-deep puddles). Very late for soundcheck. Subway dinner, as always. Comedy club, candle light. Jack BOTB turned up 2 minutes before set time. And spent less than an hour in Brighton. Soundman problems for BOTB. Good set though. Ben Glen Belt put us on, along with Steve Bland (again). Steve drove down from Oldham to see the show. Legend. Glen Belt were great. Stream of consciousness poetry from Gary G. Hornblower Bros were great. Brighton's most northern band. We played well. Had a heckler but I think he left. Very tired drive home. Onwards to Leeds.

CLIV - London Wilmington Arms - 21/02/10

2010-02-24T14:21:00.000-08:00

Sunday 21st February 2010
London Wilmington Arms

The Dawn Chorus
Elliot Mason
Phil Adams

The day after the huge wedge show we went to London and did probably our best ever London show. Pauly B was feeling the effect of not going to sleep the night before, but still ripped out some awesome trumpet work as always. I think he had a good sleep afterwards. We also had a good discussion about the percentage of tomatoes in tomato ketchup. I think we settled on 124% More tomatoes than actual tomatoes. This show was put on by Mr Steve Bland, who has outdone himself in terms of good deeds towards the DC. A truly awesome guy.

CLIII - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms - 20/02/10

2010-02-24T14:20:00.001-08:00

Saturday 20th February 2010
Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
Revere
All the Shapes

Our first proper wedge headliner, and things went off pretty damn well. In fact things went bloody spiffingly. It was All the Shapes' first ever gig, though 3/5 of them used to play in Seven Days at Knifepoint and Solrun with our guitarist and organisational generalissimo Nelly. They were great.

We'd just done a couple of dates with Revere, and it was good to see them on a proper stage. Though, perversely, a part of me preferred them in the bowling alley in Bristol. Perhaps it's the part of me that always backs the underdog.

The B of the Bang started their set with 'Last Night on Earth' in the middle of the crowd, which they often do, and it was amazing - a proper 'moment'. The crowd gradually got on board and were in raptures by the end. TBOTB had a few technical issues and I know Wit wasn't feeling great about things afterwards, but everyone I spoke to loved them.

We played most of the new album with a few slight oldies thrown in for good measure. Everything seemed to hold together pretty damn well. I had to really make myself look out and enjoy the moment - we nearly filled the wedge. I had wanted to headline the wedge since I saw JJ72 there at 16, and now we've done it. So thanks to everyone who came, I hope we were nearly as good as JJ72 x

The Carnival Leaves Town - Track by Track

2010-02-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

1) Enter: The Carnival - This was written quite late in the day once I knew there was a theme to the album. It was originally written to lead into 'Carnivalesque' but we changed the key so that it ran into 'The Guilt' instead. I wrote the vocal part but I wanted it to be shouted by a proper circus announcer. My effort and our label boss Rich's effort didn't quite sound right, but eventually Matt the drummer did a great take. It didn't sound right high in the mix, but when we added ambient noises and lowered the vocal in the mix it sounded great. I can play exactly one song on the melodica, and this is it. The idea here is quite similar to the opening track from Tom Waits' 'The Black Rider', though I hadn't heard that when I wrote this.

2) The Guilt! - One of the oldest songs on the record. I think this song encapsulates the essence of what we're about. This, along with 'Carnivalesque', is meant to cover the theme of staying faithful despite temptation - In the context of the album it's about a guy staying faithful while his girl is on the road with the Carnival. It's probably the most fun to play live out of all the new songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOW2hzfK2fA

3) Pacifists - This began life much further back in the running order, but it was succesfully bumped forward after an intense Concordes-esque band meeting. The story doesn't really have anything to do with the Carnival theme, it just comes from something I overheard people on a train talking about. I suppose it sounds a bit like 'Neon Bible' by Arcade Fire. This was an example of a song that sounded very average at demo stage, but came on leaps and bounds when the band got their teeth into it.

4) Heartbeat in 5/4 - I knew this would be great from when Neil first played me the riff. I nicked the title idea from a Gaslight Anthem song but didn't realise until it was too late. This could be my favourite track from the album.

5) Relatively Young and Quite in Love - I'm proud of this because it pulls together so many instruments but without sounding like a mess. It's the only time on the album that I bitch about small town music scenes, which I used to do a lot more. The title comes from when I was a legendary local band called The Marvellous Mechanical Band play a track called 'When You're Young and in Love', or something along those lines. And I thought; these guys are older than me but they're young an in love. So perhaps that could apply to anyone. It's really me trying to say that despite all the crap that comes with it, there's nothing I'd rather do than spend time with my 6 best friends, playing silly country-folk music to 10 people in Sheffield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkDVxf4A4-U

6) Carnivalesque - This was/is the lead-off single and features the charming Mr Frank Turner on vocals. We first met him when we supported him for a dodgy gig in Portsmouth, and he seemed to really like our stuff, so we kept in contact and supported him a few more times, then managed to rope him into singing on a few album tracks. He did a great job and had it finished in time for us to eat Humous and listen to his album. The three-trumpet part of this song is possibly the best thing we've ever done - it could have come out sounding a bit ska but actually ended up with more of an Eastern European feel.

It recently struck me that I got the titles of 'The Guilt' and 'Carnivalesque' round the wrong way, since this mentions the word 'guilt' twice and both songs are equally 'carnival-esque'. But it's a bit late once the album has been out for 3 weeks.

7) Schumann - Last year I had a book which had 365 pages so that you could learn about something new every day of the year. Fridays were music but it was always boring classical music, though some of the composers had interesting lives, such as Schumann. He was a child prodigy, as was his future wife Clara, whom he met when he was about 16 and she was nine or something. I'm working from memory. He was a bit of a genius but drove himself mad and completely lost the plot later in his life. I can't really remember the details any more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann

...but I was inspired at the time and wrote this.

8) Green, Unpleasant Land - This is also one of the oldest tracks, though it's been changed so many times that we don't play it live any more. I quite like it, listening back. It's probably the most 'Big Adventure' track on the album. Maybe we'll play it again one day.

9) Carnival Sound - This was a very, very late entry to the album but I'm chuffed that it made it. It's one of my favourite lyrics; I think it captures a few of the recurring themes on the album. Me, Neil and Wit are the only players on this track - the falsetto 'oohs' are myself and Neil, despite Neil's best efforts to replace them with Simps. It was probably the least produced track, and in a way it makes me want to make a more spontaneous album sometime, either within or without the DC.

10) The Happiest Home in These Hills - yes, I stole that title and melody from.... Pete's Dragon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yxYpEbqd6U

If Disney ever sue us then I guess at least it means someone's listening. This is very old, possibly the actual oldest track of the bunch. I'm not mad on the lyric, but I guess it gets the contrast of people's perception vs reality across, or at least it's meant to. Great fun to play live with the massive drums, I'm not quite sure if it's possible to do all the extra drums justice on record. Lots of people seem to like this though.

11) Raised on High Wires - This was originally called 'Carnival no.2', though that got veto'd due to the ridiculous amount of Carnival titles already involved. Lots of people mention Weezer, I think it's the bridge that's Weezeresque. For some reason we've stopped playing this live but I'm very keen for it to return asap. It's a hell of a tune. The original structure was very different and the old chorus was completely balls, but Neil and I (mostly Neil) spent about six months re-moulding it to make it work.

12) The Carnival Leaves Town - We had gotten into a habit recently of closing every EP and album with a huge crescendo of a track - Little Pinpricks, Last Day of April, A Blast from the Present - and we didn't want to fall into the trap of doing the same again. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those tracks, it's just that we aimed for a different kind of album closer. It still has a big ending, but in a more controlled way. Yes, it sounds 100% Saddle Creek but I really don't care.

That's it, hope you like it.

x

CLII - Bristol The Lanes - 16/02/10

2010-02-17T14:34:00.001-08:00

Tuesday 16th February 2010
Bristol The Lanes

The Dawn Chorus
Revere
Mercy Alexander

Woke in Sheffield early to put more time on the car and van and then went for a stroll to get a paper. Read that and some Betjeman and the lazy bastards still weren't up, so I woke up Ben to have a fry up with me, on the house because The Harley are awesome.

We were all rather worse for wear after Corporation so we made slow progress towards Bristol. We eventually got there too late to visit Fopp, which was slightly heartbreaking for me, though probably for the best since I'm skint. The Lanes was exactly that, a bowling alley:

We were playing right next to that, so it wasn't really a gig to play the quiet songs at. I had a really nice burger at the venue with my sister, her husband and friends, but by this point I was getting rather worried that I had a bad sore throat that really wasn't getting any better. It may have been due to not taking a coat on tour during near sub-zero temperatures at times.

Today's soundman was called James and he was a legend.

Mercy Alexander were great and Revere were absolutely incredible, as they always are. I can't wait til they support us at the Wedge later this week. My voice was completely dead, as was Ben's mandolin, but I think we played well, and it was a free show after all. I think singing was actually good for my knackered voice, since it pushed through a lot of the grizzly phlegmy bits.

All in all a good tour so far

CLI - Sheffield The Harley - 15/02/10

2010-02-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

Monday 15th February 2010
Sheffield The Harley

The Dawn Chorus
Cats: For Peru

We like the Harley. We left Addis' house early after Neil and Wit had played a truly special rendition of 'Sweet Child o' Mine' on an acoustic bass and guitar, and we had watched the Sam Neill video a few hundred more times.

When we arrived in Sheffield Matt crushed Neil's leg while parking the van. But Neil is a tough man and it didn't faze (sp?) him. We went for a walk in Sheffield and looked at the big wheel...

but we didn't go on it as it was £6.50. Instead we went into another HMV and didn't buy anything, as we generally tend to do.

Today's soundman was called Gibbs. He did a great job.

The Harley is a great venue run by cool people. They gave us two rooms in the hotel, free beers and breakfast in the morning, though Pauly B wasn't up to it. Whay wasn't he up to it? Because we went to Corporation after our show, quite possibly the worst club in the whole world. The only drinks were Vodka and Alcopop or Jagermeister. And the alcopop was on tap. You should not be able to order a drink by its colour ("Blue.") It was 5op for vodka and alcopop before midnight. The upstairs bar was hotter than the sun and made my glasses instantly steam up. They played 'She fucking hates me' by Puddle of Mudd. The toilets were pitch black and covered in piss. The whole place was painted black. Wow.

I forgot to mention that Cats: For Peru were great and the Djs basically played my record collection to a T, though they didn't have Nate Dogg & Warren G's 'Regulate'. After the club this happened:

CL - Birmingham Sunflower Lounge - 14/02/10

2010-02-17T14:32:00.003-08:00

Sunday 14th February 2010
Birmingham Sunflower Lounge

The Dawn Chorus
Neil Morris
Carlos & The Jackal

We woke in Bath to the sound of Klaire's landlady banging on the door relentlessly to avenge the noisy van from the night before. We had tea, toast and Hob Nobs and watched the Match of the Day repeat :( The hot water tank ran out so there were at least two unhappy bunnies in the DC.

We went into Bath and had an awesome pasty. It was at this point that Wit introduced us to the greatest piece of acting in cinema history; Sam Neill's scream in Event Horizon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzYR4IQ_kM

We wandered round Bath, which was a lovely city, and probably still is. The drive to Birmingham was easy enough, though we played in the centre of town so it took forever to park. We met Mr Addis who put on the show and also put us up for the night. He was a bit of a legend, though the show was a bit quiet, possibly due to it being the first time he'd put on a show there. Still, it was for charity and we played pretty well. The soundman was called James and he did a decent job in a sub-standard venue (the sound booth was behind the stage.)

We then retired to Addis' house where we ate endless Doritos and looked at his collection of Futurama figures:

He loved the Beatles too. Addis had a few too many cheap Aldi's ciders and fell down the stairs, burning a hole in the airbed he was carrying at the time. He and his partner Leslie were great hosts though, and we were very grateful. Apropos of nothing, here is a picture of Matt's Potato head:

CXLIX - Bath Moles - 13/02/10

2010-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday 13th February 2010
Bath Moles

The Dawn Chorus
Out Like A Lion

The tour continues properly. We started the day by going to the Southampton vs Portsmouth FA Cup match. Let's just say that Pauly B came out the happier man. Actually, with Wit and BenO on tour we actually had more Pompey than Saints fans in the band.

Bath Moles was a cool little venue, and although we only played to probably 20 people, they seemed to get it and we got an encore call. The support band Out Like A Lion were great and lovely chaps, and we got free food in a vegetarian restaurant and a rider. We are simple men, these things keep us happy.

Today's soundman was called Ed, he was a legend.

After the show we huddled into a tiny room and Wit told us about some of his techniques... sideways.

We stayed at my Sister's lovely house but unfortunately we woke up her landlady with our noisy van and she - possibly without realising it - quoted from The Inbetweeners: 'What on Earth is going on here?' I think that's what she said anyway, I was hiding behind a hedge at the time. Wit and BenC wanted to watch the whole of 'Yes Minister' on DVD but we eventually turned in.

CXLVIII - Winchester Railway Inn - 12/02/10

2010-02-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Winchester Railway Inn
Friday 12th February 2010

The Dawn Chorus
The Rapids
Revere

START OF THE VALENTINE GAY TIME TOUR!

So we started touring our new album 'The Carnival Leaves Town' and it was somewhere between moderately and fairly good. We realised that we now have an insane amount of gear, especially when we play with Revere, who have 8 members. Between us we can bury a venue in amps and guitar cases.

Today's soundman was called Kieran and he was a legend.

Neil, myself, Simone and Jess had a quite nice Chinese meal in a restaurant with shocking service. A fairly drunk crowd, but then it was a Friday night. Basically, an OK start to the tour. Neil and BenO arrived in the same clothes. Behold, Neil increased by scale factor 1.5:

..or is that Wallace and Carl Froch?
x

CXLVII - Southampton Hampton's - 29/01/10

2010-02-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

Friday 29th January 2010
Southampton Hampton's

Roshambo
The Gallery
The Dawn Chorus
The Plans

This was our COMEBACK gig and our first as a proper 7-piece rather than a 6-piece with regular contributions for sir Wit. In other words, Wit is a proper full-time member now, and it sounds awesome. For this gig we also had Ben O (The Ox) on bass in place of Keef, who was taking a few gigs off to concentrate on Uni. We had a few slight wobbles but it went off pretty much without a hitch. We were on a fairly ridiculous Oasis-lite bill - the band after us opened by shouting: 'Let's have some proper fucking rock'n'roll!' or something along those lines.

Also, if you are ever accosted by a large and fairly aggressive Polish tramp in Southampton city centre it helps to have a bag of Doritos handy.

Albums of 2009

2009-12-24T03:01:00.000-08:00

So here's my yearly list. This year, more than any other, it seems that every single end of year list - in particluar the top tens - seem to be nearly identical. Are Animal Collective, Fever Ray and The XX really that good? I like all of those acts, but do they really deserve this blanket praise?

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen any of my top 4 in any other list - maybe that makes me ultra-cool or maybe I have awful taste. I've only done a top ten this year too. I've actually bought a huge amount of music this year, but most of it is older stuff or didn't move me hugely (hello Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.) Here's to an exciting 2010.

20) Bob Dylan - Christmas in the Heart
19) Mew - No More Stories...
18) Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood
17) The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
16) Various - Dark Was The Night
15) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
14) Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
13) Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
12) Fanfarlo - Reservoir
11) The Leisure Society - The Sleeper

10) Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen - Anything that Tim Kasher makes will pretty much be a hit with me. The line between Cursive and The Good Life seems to be blurring somewhat, not that I really mind since I love both bands. If he keeps an album a year coming - under either guise - I'll be a happy man.

9) Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca - The first I'd heard of them was their track on the 'Dark was the Night' compilation, and initially I was disappointed that their regular material seems to be much more leftfield and "challenging". Given time, however, it unfurls itself beautifully.

8) Girls - Album - I don't care about their back-story, this is just a great album. Skipping easliy between Beach Boys pop, psychedelica and drawn out feedback sections, this is a gloriously fucked-up debut.

7) The Horrors - Primary Colours - A huge departure from their debut, which I actually like, this apparently rips off a lot of shoegazey bands of yesteryear such as MBV and J&MC, but to me this sounds a lot more direct and song-based. Where will they go next?

6) Frank Turner - Poetry of the Deed - His first proper full-band album, I personally like Frank best when he's in full-on British Springsteen mode. 'Live Fast, Die Old', 'Poetry of the Deed' and 'Try This at Home' are probably the best things he's ever done.

5) Wild Beasts - Two Dancers - A brilliantly surprise critics' darling, the odder edges of their debut and sanded off and the remaining ten tracks represent the essence of Wild Beasts. Possibly the most aptly named band of recent years?

4) The B of the Bang - Beginning.Middle.End - Yes, yes, they're on our label and I know them, but I was blown away by how good this was. Despite having heard 'New Road' several times live, it still nearly made me cry when I listened to it at home in the dark. I wish more people had heard this album, hopefully one day the public will have more BOTB in their lives.

3) Richmond Fontaine - We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River - Sublimely restrained and perfectly written songs from one of my favourite new old bands (whose singer Willy Vlautin is also one of my favourite new writers.) I intend to delve deeper into their back catalogue when my wallet will allow it.

2) Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances - I think this came out in 2008 in the states but it was definitely 2009 in the UK. Excellent lyrics are shouted and buried under distortion, leading to a surprisingly re-listenable experience. Something along the lines of The Thermals fronted by a 'Fevers and Mirrors'-era Conor Oberst, this is shambolic yet strangely charming.

1) Emmy the Great - At first I was slightly underwhelmed with this, but oh how it pays dividens over time. She writes perfectly about death, yet with a wry smile that allows this to bypass any mawkish sentimentality. Perfectly constructed and played, if her lyrics were a little more pronounced or higher in the mix I'm sure this would have turned more heads than it has done. I don't care, for me it's just about perfect as it is. More of the same please!

x

THE CARNIVAL LEAVES TOWN

2009-12-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

Our second album is out on 22/02/10

It is called 'The Carnival Leaves Town'

It was recorded throughout the year of 2009, possibly some of 2008 too.

It goes a little something like this:

ENTER: THE CARNIVAL
THE GUILT!
PACIFISTS
HEARTBEAT IN 5/4
RELATIVELY YOUNG AND QUITE IN LOVE
CARNIVALESQUE
SCHUMANN
GREEN, UNPLEASANT LAND
CARNIVAL SOUND
THE HAPPIEST HOME IN THESE HILLS
RAISED ON HIGH WIRES
THE CARNIVAL LEAVES TOWN

The track 'Carnivalesque' will be released as a free download in February from www.jellymaidmusic.com

I will put up a track-by-track in the new year

x

CXLVI - GangBang Stage @ Southsea Fest - 19/09/09

2009-10-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday 19th September 2009
Southsea Fest - GangBang Stage @ Little Johnny Russell's

JAMES YUILL
CHRIS T-T
LOVE LIKE FIRE
BILLY VINCENT
REVERE
THE DAWN CHORUS
THE B OF THE BANG
HOLD FAST
LOZ BRIDGE
THE DEADS
CHRIS PERRIN & THE MINOR FALLS
EMPTIFISH
RACKETEERS

You have to love Southsea Fest. The sun always seems to shine even though everyone is inside venues. LJR's was VERY LOUD this year, which is funny considering they have problems with residents complaining about loud music. I didn't see a huge amount of our stage since I was nipping around venues, but our good friend and new collaborator Wit of The B of the Bang fame was curating the stage, and he put a bloody good line-up together if I may say so myself.

Everything went off without a hitch, and we are now looking forward to finishing the bloody album at last, preceeded by a new single in February.

Ta-ra!
x

CXLV - Bestival - 12/09/09

2009-10-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

12/09/09

Bestival, Isle of Wight

The biggest festival we've done so far, even if we were on a fairly tiny stage. It was however much bigger than the stage at Lennon's earlier in the week. About eight times bigger actually. Bestival was a bit huge for me, as far as festivals go, the sort of festival where it's a military operation to keep a group together, especially when no-one's phone works.

Our stage was quite quiet for some bands, but for us the sun was out and a lot of people stopped by. We did a nice long set of old and new and sold quite a bit of merch to pay for the ferry. Afterwards I watched Florence and the Machine (so-so, sound on the main stage was pretty poor throughout though), Soulwax (pretty good, perhaps the odd guitar track would be nice rather than just playing snatches of Daft Punk though), MGMT (started well, plummeted into boring territory), then got some wedges and beans (nice), went to watch a bit of Massive Attack but didn't even notice them start their set, then watched Frankmusik in the big tent (I quite liked him but I don't think I'm supposed to) and then waited for aaaaages to watch Bat for Lashes, who were/was pretty good, but my legs hurt severely. I wanted to stick around for 2ManyDJs but I think my legs would have busted through my hips.

Good fun all in all, Sammy Davis Jr Jr/Julian (aka the van) got to rub shoulders with some silly big tour buses, and Neil didn't even get too sunburnt.

CXLIV - Southampton Lennon's - 10/09/09

2009-10-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

Southampton Lennon's
10/09/09

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
Fresh Legs
The Dawn Chorus

We did a little Bestival Warmup at Lennon's. It was pretty good, Wit played with us on accordion, glockenspiel and melodica, and I also made my melodica debut. Ben was also playing a snare and floor tom alongside his mandolin and banjo (which Neil sometimes plays too.) Things have certainly progressed since the old days of the four-piece. It was more or less impossible to get all 7 of us on stage but we gave it a go and had fun. Not too many people there but enough. We did lots of the new album stuff and then watched Fresh Legs, who were mighty powerful, and Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, of whom I won't comment.

Afterwards me, Ben, Wit and Keeef stayed at Sally's (Ben's sister), and she made us Jam on toast. In the morning.

CXLIII - Portsmouth Little Johnny Russell's - 29/07/09

2009-07-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 29th July 2009
Little Johnny Russell's, Portsmouth

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
The Steve Bland Assembly
The Boy I Used to Be

Argh. This was originally meant to be a full band show but became an acoustic show due to noise restrictions, though the pissed up punters at the back were making more noise than the four bands put together could have. Because it was so noisy we couldn't really get great dynamics going for our acoustic set, though it was nice to do 6 new tracks, many for the first time. I did, however, completely balls up 'Heart of Hearts' and make myself and indeed all of us look like complete amateurs, which is often how I feel when playing an acoustic set.

The SBA and BOTB were good though (those eagle-eyed will have noticed the SBA playing 2 days after their 'last ever gig', but we'll overlook that for now), and both covered one of our songs (SBA did Michael, BOTB did an amazing 'Hope will kill us'), which was very humbling. I'm now going on holiday for a much needed break.
x

CXLII - London The Miller - 27/07/09

2009-07-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

Monday 27th July 2009
The Miller, London

The Steve Bland Assembly
The Dawn Chorus
The Adam Smith Effect

This was the SBA's last ever show and they were absolutely brilliant. It made me sad that they've stopped playing but at least we got to share their last ever show. We played pretty well too, for a small but perfectly formed and very attentive audience. We really seemed to have tightened up about 5 or 6 of the new album tracks. We've pretty much decided now that it will be out at the start of 2010 and that's when we'll be touring next. Just a few more shows this summer now.

CXLI - Andover The George - 24/07/09

2009-07-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

Friday 24th July 2009
The George, Andover

The Dawn Chorus
Transcend

An interesting start but a predictable end. I'd let the diesel in the van get too low so we ran out on the hard shoulder in Fareham. Luckily Big Al and my Dad came out to save the day and we headed off a few hours late. After this, everything that happened was incredibly predictable: Steve the soundguy was lovely, we ate in Wetherspoon's, the support band were much heavier than us, we played to almost no-one but still quite enjoyed it. Probably won't go back to the George now though, I think it's just a bit too rock for our country-folk heads to handle.

CXL - Ipswich The Swan - 23/07/09

2009-07-24T06:46:00.001-07:00

Thursday 23rd July
The Swan, Ipswich

The Dawn Chorus
Mr Christopher

Woke in Cambs and Neil was a bit sick after his 2 pints. He blamed it on his lack of a proper meal.
Walked into town and had breakfast at Wetherspoon's with the local alcoholic community. Neil got sunburned in the pub garden.
Went to Fopp and had the traditional splurge. I got albums by Morrissey, Sparklehorse, Tokyo Police Club, Of Montreal and The Stills and Brick, An Inconvenient Truth and Premonition on DVD all for less than £20. I love Fopp Cambridge.
Didn't go to the Folk museum again after a poor review from some locals.
Played quite a bit of Bum (it's a football game) on Parker's Piece (it's a field) after have a lovely ice cream.
Got caught in a brief downpour so we ducked into a hardware shop and bought a tape measure.
Made our way to Ipswich, where we played at apparently the only venue in Ipswich, which was a pub with a temporarily installed PA. What a great place though; they played good music, everyone was dead friendly, they were going to let us stay though we decided to head back, they fed us, gave us drinks and paid us well. All you can ask for really.
We played fairly well, the crowd certainly got more into us as we went which is always nice.
Drove back home despite fear of being mugged in a service station and a downpour that reduced visibility to zero and made Neil and me nearly soil ourselves.
All in all, most good.

CXXXIX - Cambridge Corner House - 22/07/09

2009-07-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 22nd July 2009
The Corner House, Cambridge

The Dawn Chorus
Paul Goodwin Band
Roadside Poppies

The boys picked me up in the van straight from work, and since it was the last day before summer I managed to steal a copious amount of buffet for us to have on the way. It was a bit trafficy on the way so we did lots of car games, including 'Would you rather?' which is a new favourite. Wit was joining us on bass for Cambridge and Ipswich, and he put in some good work on 'Would you rather?', including 'Would you rather have a penis the length of a baguette but 1 cm wide, or the girth of a coke can but only 1cm long?'. I can't remember which I chose.

We got to Cambridge at about 8pm, but that was fine since we don't really seem to sound check at the Corner House. They gave us a few free pizzas and shit loads of chips and Neil got a bit pissed on 2 pints. We played pretty well, Wit was awesome on bass. We did have to cut our set a bit short but it happens I suppose. Paul Goodwin was great in support also. We sat around and had a few more drinks afterwards, until things got slightly odd with the bar staff and their confusing relations to one another, so we went upstairs and shared a very small room between six of us, which we are getting quite good at.

CXXXVIII - 2000 Trees Festival, Leaf Lounge - 17/07/09

2009-07-24T06:40:00.000-07:00

Friday 17th July 2009

2000 Trees Festival, Chippenham

Leaf Lounge Stage

This was more like it. The main stage was too big for us; we kept pulling our leads out when we tried to share a mic. The leaf lounge had a tiny stage and the drum kit was so close to the tent edge that Matt's head touched the edge while drumming. We played better too and went down an absolute storm if I may say so myself. We managed to get on ten minutes early too so we did a nice long set, including 'Ring of Fire', which is a bit of a trump card these days.

After the show I had to go home as Jess was poorly, but I believe the rest of the boys had a smashing time. Possibly our new best ever gig? Certainly the best not in our home town. Lovely stuff.

CXXXVII - 2000 Trees Festival, Main Stage - 17/07/09

2009-07-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

Friday 17th July 2009
2000 Trees Festival, Chippenham
Main Stage

Headed off in the morning in typically biblical weather for a festival weekend - though apparently it was worse last year. While close to Tot Hill (my favourite service station, even ahead of Fleet) I got a call from a guy berating us for pulling out, though there was a bit of crossed wires going on; what actually happened is we were invited to fill in on the main stage for Godsized, who pulled out.

We had to put our foot down to get there in time for our set, especially since 2000 trees was incredibly well hidden; there were literally no signs until we got there. Sat Nav was vital. We only did a 5 or 6 song set but our main goal was to get people along to our Leaf Lounge set later in the day.........

CXXXVI - Fuse Festival - Lichfield - 11/07/09

2009-07-13T15:02:00.001-07:00

Saturday 11th July 2009
Fuse Festival, Lichfield

Good fun, this. Paid much more than usual, played to a packed tent (thanks, rain!), people seemed genuinely into it and we sold out our CDs. It was a family festival so we shoved a bit of Johnny Cash in their earholes to cushion the relentless indie-folkery. Nice strong cider and lager led to tipsy kyle, half price belly buster burgers (2 x burger, 2 x bacon, 1 x egg, cheese) though i didn't have one. Tug 'o' war, nice few games of bum (it's a football game), lovely accomodating organisers, slightly dodgy sound set-up but certainly bearable. Good fun all round.

CXXXV - GlastonFerret @ The Mad Ferret, Preston - 27/06/09

2009-06-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday 27th June 2009
GlastonFerret @ The Mad Ferret

The Dawn Chorus
+ millions of bands

This was more like it. It was a bloody long way from North Devon to Preston, but just about worth it. The Mad Ferret had been fully grassed and hay-bailed and was packed out. Very different to the day before. There were also dodgy burgers, just like a real festival. You know the kind where the bun provides greater resistance to the teeth than the meat? It didn't make me sick though, and it did hit the spot, so that's fine by me. We succesfully tackled the intensely hectic 15 minute changeover in which we had to get all our 800 instruments on stage and line checked, and managed to play pretty well. We were paid much less than the day before, drove much further, but played to more people, including some who were listening. As a whole, a very enjoyable weekend which just about paid for itself. I guess that's what doing this is all about. Oh, and Keith was offered to smoke an E. Good, good times.
x

CXXXIV - Barnstaple Fringe @ The White Horse - 26/06/09

2009-06-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

Friday 26th June 2009
The White Horse, Barnstaple

The Dawn Chorus

Good points:

Neil, Ben, Paul and Keef went silly early in the morning to surf play in the sun in Woollacombe. I say surf, Ben had a go and the other three carried the wet suits and boards and tried to pass themselves off as surfers. They were also kind enough to put the tents up for me and Matt (who had work) and to set up all the gear at the venue.
The campsite was very swish and had a sauna and steam room. Very useful.
Had a clotted cream ice cream at Woollacombe beach.
Got to play 5 or 6 songs for the first time live without bodging anything too badly. 2nd album is pretty much written now.
Got free food for everyone at the venue, including Joe (our, erm, driver) and Simone (our....girlfriend. well, neil's)
I sang my guts out for 2 hours and kept my voice
Nice cheque to pay for the weekend's camping and diesel.

Not so good points

Neil was a silly boy and didn't sun cream again, leading to extreme lobster boy skin. Paul and Keith also felt it a little bit the next day. Silly boys.
The gig was a bit of a damp squib, unfortunately one of those where the punters would probably have preferred if we weren't there so they could get their friday drinking done in peace. Ah, well. I had visions of a nice little smokey old pub, but unfortuantely it was a modern, swanky chain-style bar with a recently installed stage. But what can you do?

Victims update, May '09

2009-05-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

After Drift Bar show 03/05/09

4 or 5 Magicians, 900 Spaces, A-Custom, Acropolis, Action Speaks Louder, Afrosnatchers, The AKA Band, The All-Singing Razorblades, Allo Darlin', Andy & Jack, Angelgear x 5, Apologies I Have None, The Arkwrights, CM Arnold & the Delta Breaks, Arty Karate, Ashford, The Autons x2, The Aviators, The B of the Bang x 17, Rob Ball, Philip Barebones, Emily Barker, Chris Bath, Batrider, Beans on Toast, Belligerence, Bendigo, Black Carrot, Steve Bland x 4, Blue Fox, Emit Bloch, Bodyhost x 2, The Boicotts, Adam Boucher x 2, Brenda, James Bright, Burn the Witch, Captain Fantastic, Carmen Rosa, Carmichael, Citizen, Lester Clayton, The Clowns, Cocos Lovers, Contra, Kurt Cooder x 2, Alex Cornish, Covernote, Creepythinguy, Cymbiotic, Dali's Cat, Steve Dalzell, Tom Dangerous, De Squeran, Dan De Squeran, Dead! Dead! Dead! x 2, Deadbeat Descendent, Del Nil x 3, Stanton Delaplane, The Deads x 2, Delboy French, Depot, Deville, Different Day, The Dirty 38s, Dlugokecki, Dropstone, Dumbfounded, Alex J Dunne, Dutch Husband, Echobeat, Elaine Dismissed, The Elements x 2, Elle Milano, Enjoy Destroy, Fade Out x 2, Fake Ray, Luke Ferre x 2, Fly Monkeys Fly, Fresh Legs x2, Frisbee in the Jewel Box, Funk Yer Mum, Geko, Get Amped, Gilbert, Gilkicker x 2, The Glad Rags, Golden Section x 2, David Goo x 2, The Good Intentions, Alaistar Goodwin, David Greeves GROOVE, The Gun Show x 5, Luke Haines, Frank Hamilton, Hardly Heroes, Hats are for Heads, The Heights, Hexicon, Higgy, Rob Himself, Hobos and Eskimos, Hold Fast x2, Holy Roller, The Housewives, Hudson 10 x 2, HUMANS, I Am Jack, Idiot3, The Incredible Flight of Birdman x2, The Inklings, Introducing: Emergency Music, Ida Jacobsson, Joey Nightmare, Jukebox Vandals, The Kabeedies, Karmatribe, Kate Goes, Kid Idiot, Kill Kasper, Kody, Last Days of Lorca, Leptany, The Levels, Life of Byron, The Light Divided, Lisa Lindley Jones, The Lights Shine, The Little Ones, Little Things, Living in Cities, The Lonely Cardinals x 2, Looking Through Glass, Lost Aura, Peter Lyons, Richie Madisun, Mantis & The Prayer, Mantra, The Marvellous Mechanical Band, The Masters x 3, Jo McCafferty, Dave McPherson, Melodramas x2, The Metropolise, The MFV, The Mindless Ones, Misty's Big Adventure, The Model Village, Momentum, Mono, Monsters Build Mean Robots, The Mopes, Moses x 2, Mr & Mrs, Mrs Poopars Automobiles, Mumble, The New Root, No Skidoo, Stuart O'Connor, Octograph (?), Operahouse, Openroom x 2, Ornament Birds, Otaka, Matt Park, Mrs Burns, Palais x 2, Jackie Paper x 2, Joe Parker & the Power, The Plymouths x 2, Poppy, The Racketeers, Kyle Rage, The Rebs x 2, Red Campion, Reikidogs, Relentless, Retrofect, The Ridgeway, Rivers of Sound x 3, Rockshore, Roland Shanks, Rolling Dog, Room 6, Rosie and the Goldbug, Rossco x 4, The Rudimentary Confusion, Rushing With Apathy, Sallyforth, Salvage, Sarah & Lewis, Saturdays and Sundays, The Shake, Shit Hot Llamas!, Silent Radio, Silhouette Showgirls, Sine Star Project, Sister Divine, Six Nation State, Something Pretty, Charlene Soraia, Spearmint, Jessica Spencer Band, Niall Spooner-Harvey x 2, The Stations x 6, Leigh Mary Stokes, The Strange Death of Liberal England x 5, Straylings, The Summons, Supergrass (DJs), Surprise!, Chris T-T x 2, Tali Trow & The Well Being, Tamerlane x 2, Paddy Taylor, Temple, They Don't Sleep, Thomas Tantrum x 2, Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam Band with Tim and Sam, Tomboy, Trinity, Frank Turner x 3, Umdongskulen, The Undefined, The Veils, Venice Ahoy!, The Vice, Videosprint, The Visitors, Jon Walbrin, The Waves, The Way, The Waysters x 2, Rich Webb, Whitewash, Wilf, JD Williams, Vaughan Williams, Winners, Wireless, Wiservice x 2, Michael Wookey, Wyldside, Yellowgroove, Zodiac

CXXXIII - Portsmouth Drift Bar - 03/05/09

2009-05-04T12:32:00.001-07:00

Sunday 3rd May 2009
Portsmouth Drift Bar

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
Hats are for Heads
Dan De Squeran
Rossco

There seems to be no such thing as a normal DC/BOTB show any more. You know, where we turn up at a normal venue, play our sets and then go home. Not applicable any more.

The Bang had double booked themselves tonight and had an acoustic show at Porters at 8 o'clock, so we all trundled over there to help them out on 'Last Day...' and then popped back to Drift. They were obviously very very good and their musicianship shines through when playing acoustic.

Lyrebirds were meant to be playing but pulled out, so Hats are for Heads stepped in at the last minute with a splendid set of acoustic spontaneity (sp?). At a conservative estimate I'd say that Wit and Jack BOTB probably played about 5 different instruments each tonight, and sang. The bastards.

We had a surprising amount of fun considering it was Drift, the only downside of the evening was that people couldn't get to the function room upstairs where we were because downstairs was rammed with a soul band and lots of, well, chavs getting their groove on. I should also mention that instantly after we played some DJs started playing incredibly loud shit music, including Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face' (which i regret to say is growing on me) which they managed to fuck up and have to play 3 times.

No more shows for a while now; a few festivals and new album writing. Can't wait for album 2 now, it's going to be a beaute.

CXXXII - Bridgwater Labour Club - 02/05/09

2009-05-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday 2nd May 2009
Bridgwater Labour Club

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
JD Williams

An interesting weekend which we christened 'The MegaBunny Reprise'. We had a practice in the morning to hammer out a few newies, we probably have 10 songs at least 80% ready to go now. The latest is 'Heartbeat in 5/4' which we rolled out this weekend for the first time. It isn't in 5/4 though.

We got to Bridgwater (where's the 'e'?) at about half six, it would have been earlier but we drove and then walked past the venue - it was literally a Labour Party club. We thought we'd be playing to 5 old men at the bar. How wrong we were....

First however, we had to deal with a couple of quite pissed off sound guys who weren't expecting a drum kit - we forgot to put it on the tech spec. We thought it was assumed. Though they turned out to be top blokes and did a good job. When we finished soundcheck and left the venue we noticed that there was actually a queue of teenagers outside, which isn't usually a hallmark of a DC show. When we returned from our fish and chips - I had a nice vietnamese Pengasious - the place was full of jailbait dressed up to the nines and guys who looked even younger than me. It was like a less fashionable version of Skins.

Of course the inevitable downside of this is that I'm about to complain that no-one was listening. It's always the way - either there aren't enough people or the people present aren't listening. Bloody self-important folk'n'roll stars. We played our set loud and fast - after the raffle - and got out of there, though not before someone had stolen our post-gig doughnuts. Most not good. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the first thing we saw when we got into Bridgy was someone lying in the road who'd been run over. Good times.

CXXXI - Portsmouth Eastney Cellars - 17/04/09

2009-04-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

Friday 17th April 2009
Eastney Cellars, Portsmouth

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
Hold Fast
C.M Arnold & the Delta Breaks

Awesome, awesome fun. We had a bit of a love-in with B of the Bang, lending a hand on Last Day on Earth and New Road, whilst they helped out at the end of 'Blast'; Wit taking over from Keef on bass so Keef could play trumpet, Jack doing some impressive work on the tambourine and Elliott getting in on the tom action. Tom didn't seem to mind.

Before this Hold Fast and Clym & co put on an excellent show, I reckon this was probably the best bill in Portsmouth for a while and certainly the best bill we've played on for some time. A contender for my favourite gig ever. Possibly even better than Ringwood.

CXXX - London George Tavern - 12/04/09

2009-04-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Sunday 12th April 2009
The George Tavern, London

The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang

The last show of the proper tour. Woke up in Elliott Gregg's house and after watching a bit of Junior with Arnold Schwarzenegger ("I'm gonna be a Mummy too!") Elliott's folks treated all nine of us to a cooked breakfast which is just outstanding. We then walked to a pub to watch the footy - it was a bit of a 1 pub 1 shop town, and apparently Elliott had worked in both.

We were only just outside London, so it was easy enough to get to the George Tavern, which was an extremely cool venue, if a little run down. Though apparently it's older than Canada, so you can't really complain. Both bands were a little tired and emotional but played well, in my humble opinion. It was cool to see some of our London chums and 'Happiest Home' is turning into a bit of a show-stealer for us, we will certainly be rolling that out a lot more in the future. The megabunny even avioded a police raid outside Neil's house at 2am in the morning when we were stopped by a van containing about 8 rozzers. They were nice enough though and didn't find the huge bag of skag in Pauly B's bag. Folk n roll.

Finally, in the words of Wit:

Jack didn't stop talking til the end of the tour,
Elliott was date-raped so his arse is sore,
Wit was mistaken for a lady a lot,
Matt saved his love so his voice was shot,
Neil cossacked in Bumper without a care,
Kyle maintained his luxurious hair,
Keith had a trip to A+E,
Ben went four minutes without losing a key,
A worrying smell of Piri-Piri,
Who's that in the toilet? It's Pauly B!
Julian and Fred were simply sublime,
Here's to the next Megabunny Funtime!

Amen x

CXXIX - Northampton Victoria Inn - 11/04/09

2009-04-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Saturday 11th April 2009
Northampton Victoria Inn

The B of the Bang
The Dawn Chorus

We thought this show wasn't going to happen when we realised the venue doesn't have a PA, but we eventually managed to wangle one and headed to Northampton. I had to help do the Big Shop in the morning but I was rewarded with a massive breakfast which went down a treat.

Arriving in Northampton was a litattle dpressing, as it always is when you realise you're doing a pub gig. We were even accosted shortly after arriving for not buying enough drinks! Though this was a false alarm and the place actually turned out to be very friendly. Points of note today:

Simps doing stand-up from his Gok Wan jokebook to check the mics - hilarious
Neil wore Elliott Gregg's hat for the whole gig which made him look like the Razorlight guitarist. Neil also loved being the soundman for the day
Both bands played well and went down well - we did our more country/easy listening material. nice.
We didn't leave for ages due to the pub getting us all free drinks and not closing.
I drove Julian for the first time and felt like a big man driving a big bus. After the show we drove to Elliott Gregg's house which was in Codicote which is basically nowhere, and you have to drive along some very narrow Deliverence bumrape alleys to get there. But we found it and EG's folks were incredibly kind in putting all 9 of us up for the night. Not before we'd watched a bit of The Aristocats though.

CXXVIII - Southampton Talking Heads - 10/04/09

2009-04-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Friday 10th April 2009
Southampton Talking Heads

Tim and Sam's Tim and the Sam band with Tim and Sam
Yellowgroove
Little Things
The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang

Had a lovely sleep in my own bed though I made the mistake of getting up at ten; usually a lie-in but in this case actually only 5 hours sleep which was a killer later on in the day. We had good fun tonight and saw some old familiar faces. We also had an onstage lunge-off against the bang which kept things jovial. Tim and Sam were awesome tonight but the ordering of the bill was quite bizarre. I'm not going to bitch, but in terms of style Yellowgroove were completely inappropriate as support, just a totally different type of music. And the 5 band bill meant that Tim and Sam went on at about half 11 which was just ridiculous.

CXXVII - Preston Mad Ferret - 09/04/09

2009-04-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Thursday 9th February 2009
Preston Mad Ferret

The Dawn Chorus
Mr & Mrs
The B of the Bang

Woke up completely knackered and set off to Preston. Let it be said that the folks from the Corner House are 100% bona fide legends - they put us up, gave us a lock in and then gave us tea and hot cross buns in the morning. The drive to Preston was the first trafficy journey which was mildly annoying since it led to us missing the football museum in Preston. That made it 3 museums I'd missed on the tour. The Mad Ferret was a really cool venue and it was probably the best we played on the whole tour. At the start we were only getting a ripple of polite applause, by the end we seemed to have won loads of people round. Thats probably the best feeling there is as a band.

After the show we loaded out to head home and sleep in our own beds, though not until after an insanely long drive - 5 hours! The wind didn't help. Nelly was a legend and drove the whole way - I needed partially stolen coffee to keep me up. I'm going to hell kids. That's folk n roll.

CXXVI - Cambridge Corner House - 08/04/09

2009-04-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Wednesday 8th April 2009
The Corner House, Cambridge

The Incredible Flight of Birdman
The Dawn Chorus
The B of the Bang
Cocos Lovers

Woke in Norwich with slightly heavy heads and wounded pride after a calamitous non-gig. We needed a good'un in Cambridge to make up for it and by gosh we had one. We drove there early and half the gang, not including me, went for coffee at the workplace of our old mate Cambridge Steve. My half of the group went to play frisbee and football on a big green which was most fun. We then took a stroll into town, had a bite to eat and eventually met the other group whi informed us that we had another patking ticket. More football followed, which got a bit over-competitive between Matt and Keef and resulted in Keef being rock bottomed. They quickly kissed and made up. We then decided to leave the contact sports for the day and head into town for a look round the awesome buildings, though we spent more time in Fopp, where Wit spent about £70, though I only spent £4 on three Byrds albums that I will probably never listen to. We also attempted to go to the Folk museum, though it was shut. Also worth mentioning that despite the beauty of this city, two complete strangers were incredibly rude to me whilst we were plodding the streets, one even doing so whilst walking a pram.

We had dinner at Nanna Mexico which is amazing - see previous Cambridge blog - though it did open up sinuses I never knew I had. The venue was a cool little place and Cocos Lovers were AMAZING - kind of like a more traditional Johnny Flynn with superb Fleet Foxes-esque harmonies. Or, whisper it, maybe better harmonies than FF. I'd love to play with thme again, they are also smashing people to boot. The B of the Bang weren't too happy with their set, though I thought it was lush as always. After our set Keef said his ribs still hurt so myself and Wit took hime to A+E, where after about 3 hours he was told that he had fractured ribs and given some drugs. Meanwhile, myself and Wit discovered the joys of Khat. To top it all off the other bastards had a lock in at the corner house. And to top that off we couldn't find our sleeping bags when we got back (we were sleeping at the venue), so we had to attempt to sleep without them. Still, somehow this was a most enjoyable day.

Norwich - EPIC FAIL - 07/04/09

2009-04-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Norwich - no gig

Oh dear. Here's the long and short of it, I can only arsed to speak in short facts. Woke in Sheffield and went back to the Harley for Breakfast. Drove to Norwich which took quite a long time on the A roads. Spoke to promoter who told us to arrive at six. Got thowere a bit earlier so checked into T-lodge. Went to venue at six, greeted by barman who assured us that it would be dead since we were the only bands and weren't local. We then loaded our gear in. The barman then told us that we were promoting our own show, no local acts were even on the bill (we were assured that they would be), and that basically he didn't want to stay open. In his words; 'if you have to play, can we get it over and done with as quickly as possible'. The hostile atmosphere wasn't all that enticing and this guy seemed to be a complete nob, and the venue was miles out of town, so we grudgingly decided to fuck it off. I felt awful for being responsible for us going to Norwich, and we all had a little bit of a strop for half an hour.

Despite some calls to play Quasar (not mine), we decided to go to a pub, play darts and watch the footy. Other than Jack who asked me to give him some simultaneous equations to solve. That's folk n roll. Then we went back to the travelodge and sunk a bottle of Tequila and 60 bottles of Bier de Flandres which we'd bought earlier. This led to Pauly B sicking up Piri Piri chicken and Jack and Elliott running naked down the corridor. Good times.

CXXV - Sheffield Harley - 06/04/09

2009-04-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Black Carrot

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

+1 unknown

Woke in Liverpool and realised that we had a £25 parking fine on Fred Galaxy. Simone took an age to emerge from the travelodge and we thought she was had had enough of the Megabunny, though she was fine and soldiered on. A little sleep depraved was all. I wanted to go to the museum opposite our travelodge, but we decided to power on to Sheffield. On the way me, Ben, Neil, Keef and Simone stopped in the Peak district to climb a peak and look at shout at some sheep which was amazing and probably better than the museum would have been. Once in Sheffield we atched a bit of Jackass and Borat and had a little sleep.

The Harley was a cool venue, but again, a little empty. Interestingly, the venue is sponsored by Bench, and they actually give away Bench clothes to anyone who is willing to wear them on stage. This was music to the ears of the DC and Botb, with Jack nabbing a hoodie, Matt and Elliott t-shirts and Paul a pair of jeans. Paul also picked up a spare which will hopefully be paying off our parking fines on ebay very soon.

We played really well I thought, other than slightly fucking up Schumann. My voice seemed to be on fire, which was just as well as Keef and Matt had colds and were both totally out of action.

After us Black Carrot played, and they were either the most brilliant or the most mental thing I've ever seen. Or both. They would have made 'Trout Mask Replica' sound fairly commercial. One of them was playing a homemade cross between a saxophone and a pair of bagpipes, and the singer was prone to having a complete meltdown on stage. We then headed back to the T-lodge where I think everyone went instantly to sleep after last night's bumper night in Bumper.

CXXIV - Liverpool Tabac - 05/04/09

2009-04-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Liverpool Tabac
Sunday 5th April 2009

The B of the Bang
The Dawn Chorus
Kyle Rage
The Good Intentions
+ at least 2 more

A bit of explanation needed in advance here, we were initially due to go to Dundee on this day, but the show got pulled at less than a week's notice. Luckily Wit managed to rustle us up this acoustic show.

Earlier in the day we woke in Bristol and me and Wit initially decided that Elbow's 'Starlings' was going to be the theme tune for Nelly's debut performance as Lonesome George in 'Lonesome George the Musical'. We eventually managed to round up all the troops, including picking up Keef from fucking frenchay AGAIN, and went to Ikea for Breakfast/Lunch which was nice, though afterwards myself and Wit got lost in the Ikea maze.

I drove Fred Galaxy for the first time, which was interesting, and we eventually made it to Liverpool after endless banter, including Matt promising to play my face like a cahont (sp?). We realised once in Liverpool that we really needed to practice an acoustic set so we bundled into one of our travelodge rooms to do just that.

Arriving at the venue was quite funny - it was essentially a small wine bar and we turned up with about 20 guitar cases and other such nonsense. We quickly returned for the van to store all ou stuff in, though I got a bit over excited and destroyed Julian's side door handle :( After dinner in the chav courtyard of hell (Yates', Wetherspoon's, Lloyds Bar, Walkabout all within literal spitting distance of eachother) we returned to the venue where we realised that there were a ridiculous amount of bands on the bill. And the promoter thought that we were one band, not two. We decided to get stuck into some cocktails; 'Tabac' was very nice, 'Sea Breeze' tasted like Beef. Lots of people played, including the promoter who had a song called '173' - in which claimed to be 173 - which has plagued me ever since. By the time we played we were on the way to being merry and only had time for 2 songs; Fractured City and Relatively Young & Quite in Love (first ever outing). The B of the Bang also played 2 songs, finishing with Last Night on Earth and a mass singalong, or as 'mass' as you can get when there are more band members in the venue than punters.

After this we went to a club called Bumper which was

a) incredibly cheap - £2 for a beer and a shot! and...

b) incredibly full for a Sunday

It was in Bumper that the greatest thing I have ever witnessed in my life happened. There was one of those twats who goes to clubs to breakdance there, and he actually challenged Neil to a dance-off. Neil, who has the rhythm of a tramp with discombobulated fingers. So the circle opened up and this guy spins on his shoulders, does a backflip, does the worm and a few other moves before returning victoriously to his mates. Neil then pulls out a full-on cossack dance, complete with raised arms, and kept it going for about half a minute. My ribs have not ached so much for a long, long time.

We eventually left Bumper and walked back to the travelodge, though not before Elliott Gregg had time to steal a wooden chair which he fell asleep clutching.

CXXIII - Bristol Mothers Ruin - 04/04/09

2009-04-14T05:58:00.001-07:00

*MEGABUNNY FUNTIME TOUR*

Saturday April 4th 2009

Mothers Ruin, Bristol

The Dawn Chorus

The B of the Bang

Onwards to Bristol. We left our good friend Ben's house and went for a wander into town, stopping off at a music shop with an incredible selection of string instruments including an applatian dulcimer. We also stopped at a Fopp, which was very exciting for me since I used to spend about 90% of my income on Fopp back in my Uni days. I got 'Elliott Smith', 'The Host' double DVD and Greil Marcus' 'Invisible Republic' all for £8. Amazing. We then went to a Boulangerie (sp?) for some very tasty baguettes and cake served by some sensationally friendly ladies.

We then wandered to the downs for a game of frisbee, stopping off to bet on the Grand National on the way. At the downs we met the rest of the gang, played a bit of barefoot football and had a little rest, before stopping at a pub for a few ales and to watch the National. My horse was lengths ahead up to half way but then fell, the loser. Jack and Elliott Gregg were the only people to win any money.

Then we split again and half of us tried to go to the Corrie Tap for half an Exhibition Cider (12%!), but it was unfortunately closed so by some bizarre logic we had to go somewhere else for a half. By the time we'd found the venue I think I'd walked about 10 miles since the morning.

Mothers Ruin was a very strange venue, basically the upstairs in a bar, no particular stage or standing area. It wasn't too bad a show, a little quiet but worth doing.

After the show the gang went to Thekla, which is a club on a boat, but me, Neil, Wit and Simone first had to take the Van back to Neil's mate Joe's before getting a Taxi back to Thekla. However, when we got there we stood in the queue for ages before being told that we wouldn't get in. So we got another taxi home with a racist twat who didn't have a clue where he was going. In fact, the only achievement in going to Thekla was to give some money to a tramp whose fingers were - by his own admission - 'discombobulated'. So instead of going out we watched The Wicker Man and went to bed. We later found out that Elliott Gregg may or may not have been date-raped in Thekla - a man gave him a drink of water may or may not have rohypnoled him, then Elliott went missing for half an hour. Only Elliott will ever know, and since he was given a forget-me-do perhaps no-one will ever know.