music, music, music, music....all the time

Back in London after another long weekend of playing and watching music. It's been a bit full-on recently. In Edinburgh I did my first radio session ever, which was...pretty terrifying. I think I did alright, but it does sound like I'm about to break down in tears at any point. This was the first time I'd ever played any of our songs without Bill. Eek!

Interview with me + 16,000 km

It probably didn't help that Dan from Withered Hand did his session just before me...


Interview with Dan (Withered Hand + Cornflake)

I mean...how do you follow that?

On Friday we headed to Newcastle for an all-day music event at the Tyne Bar. It was us, Allo Darlin, Hexicon, The Just Joans and a bunch of local bands. Should have been awesome, but it was a bit weird for a number of reasons. First, I don't think people were really there to see either of us. Then, most of us played before anyone really showed up....I think Allo Darlin did best. They were on late and by then people had had a few drinks.

Paul Hexicon

The Just Joans

Despite the lack of people, it was great seeing the Just Joans again, though. I hadn't seen them since the WeePOP! anniversary show at The Enterprise last summer.

On the Sunday we all headed to Edinburgh for Retreat!, a free all-day event taking place in The Bristo Hall. With an incredible line-up this was one of the musical highlights of the summer.

Both Moustache of Insanity and Allo, Darlin' were invited to do acoustic sessions for offthebeatentracks.tv, an online video series similar to France's Takeaway shows.

Allo, Darlin's session went smoothly (as you'd expect), but the Moustache one was rather chaotic (again, expected). First, we had to climb over a closed gate to get into a city centre nature reserve. When we finally started playing, a rather scary-looking man started waving a giant bottle of White Lightning Cider at us. In the end he didn't kill us, but came out to watch. I'm pretty sure our fear will be reflected in the videos so keep an eye out on the website. They have a bit of a backlog, but it shoudl be up at some point in September.

Enfant Bastard

Enfant Bastard was my musical highlight of the weekend. Apparently, they played a set of songs by singer Cameron's other band, The Love Gestures, rather than Enfant Bastard songs, but having listened to his records the boundaries seem a bit blurred. Anyway, playing gritty anti-folk with quirky and slightly self-depracating lyrics, they came across like a Scottish mixture of Half Japanese and early Jeffrey Lewis. Most excellent stuff. Check them out.

Enfant Bastard myspace

The Love Gestures myspace

ok...that's about it...all musiced out for now.

Pop, pop, poppety pop

On Thursday it was time for eagerly awaited 'Records Make Great Pets/WeePOP! Anniversary' extravaganza at The Wilmington Arms. I had spent the day in Brussels and was panicking about making it back to London in time. When I eventually got there, it turned out there had been some mix-up with the sound engineer and...well...noone had been booked. Luckily, the guys at The Wilmington were brilliant and managed to sort it out, getting an engineer down on very short notice.

After a quick soundcheck, Moofish Catfish kicked off the evening's music. Their new album is brilliant and they played quite a few songs off it. It's called Yours To Share and all the songs (and more) are available as free downloads on the Moofish last.fm page.

Moustache of Insanity were up next and I think we did pretty well. People seemed to enjoy it. Well, apart from some guy on livejournal, who wasn't quite sure what to make of us and seemed a bit annoyed that we kept making mistakes. Haha.

Anyway, in the end this was Allo, Darlin's night. The Henry Rollins Don't Dance single was finally out (it looks and sounds brilliant) and the band was in good form. Since Mikey the Drummer was in Australia, Johnny from the Wave Pictures was on drumming duty and he did an excellent job. The band's getting tighter and tighter and the songs are getting better and better, so it looks like a very bright future indeed for Allo, Darlin.

Let the countdown begin - 15 days to go!

That's right! That is a bonafide copy of Allo Darlin's Henry Rollins Don't Dance seven-inch! I've never actually held it in my hand, but I assume it's real. It's orange! Yay! And the label on the disc was made by yours truly. Yes, that's right. Me, me, me. I did it. It's very exciting to see it. Woo. It's an incredible EP as well, so keep checking WeePOP! for pre-ordering details. Official release date is of course 18th June, when we're hosting a launch party at The Wilmington Arms. But you knew that already, right?

Recording like mofos, Cardiff etc

Moustache of Insanity have been spending a fair bit of time in the studio recently. With "a fair bit" I mean we have sat down to record at least three times in the last few weeks, and with "studio" I mean Bill's living room. It's extremely satisfying actually, the whole song-from-scratch-to-finish in a day. Last week we recorded Living Room Picnic, another brand new song. I wrote the lyrics on my way to work, hummed up a melody on my lunch break, hummed it to Bill around 5:30pm, he thought of the guitar parts and pretty much everything else, then less than two hours later, we have a pretty decent-quality demo. I'm a bit worried that the melody sounds a little too much like David-Ivar Herman Dune's Burn Burn, but hopefully it won't be too close. Anyway, that's what we're doing at the moment. Trying to write and record as many songs as possible for the next month. Then pick the best songs to fill a 23 minute mini-CD and then record those "properly"....obviously still in his living room, but just take a bit more care doing it. The CD should be out in May on WeePOP! Records and that is pretty much the most exciting thing ever.

I went to Cardiff with Allo, Darlin at the weekend. Cardiff is a strange place, much smaller than I imagined and unfortunately I got a bit of a bad vibe from the place. I'd like to think that this was mainly due to the fact that Wales was playing some other country at rugby and as a result the city centre was full of extremely drunken rugby fans...from the early afternoon onwards. The city itself seemed nice, but yes, the rugby kind of put a damper on the whole experience. Allo, Darlin was great as usual, but again, some drunken guy at the venue was being very loud and annoying. And you know, the uke really isn't the loudest of instruments. So, that was a shame, but these things happen. Freezepuppy was supporting, which was quite an experience. A really engaging performance, but very strange and truly unique. I hope to go and see him when he comes to London on 28th March.

The gig was part of a club night called Twisted By Design and they were responsible for the club afterwards. I found it hard to leave the dance floor, cause the hits kept coming: The Moldy Peaches' Who's Got The Crack, several Of Montreal tracks, Hefner's Hymn For The Cigarettes, Pulp's Babies and so on...all great fun...and then afterwards, we finished up the night the best way imaginable....CHIPS.....CHEESE...AND BEANS!! Go Cardiff!