Sunday 28 September 2008

I Wish I Was A Tourist

Uni is great and I am a real geek. I have been typing up my lecture notes and everything. Oxford is such a busy city. (It has a 'Past Times'! You know, that shop that sells quaint crap like wooden puzzles and soap shaped like gallows or whatever? Honestly, Oxford does not need a Past Times - every shop sells that crap!) Anyway there is a load to do here, I have been life drawing once. The shop I have been in most is Debenhams.

On my way back from Brighton (helping Roz move in) to Oxford (where I now live), I saw the most amazing advert in Victoria station. For those of you who aren't quite done mourning the death of the People's Princess.....spend your way through freaky bereavement with... THE PRINCESS DIANA TRIBUTE PHONECARD!!! I wish I could find a link but I can't, so you will have to believe that these exist. There are different pictures for £5, £10 and £20 cards. I don't think I will ever stop thinking about this.

Saturday 20 September 2008

Gormless Mallard

I have been at uni for a week now, pretty much. Tons of stuff has happened but in a way nothing has. Sometimes I feel confident but often I feel like an outcast. I feel like that in Bristol too though so I am not overly worried.

There are football trials tomorrow. I went and bought some boots today (I also bought Football Manager - what the hell am I doing? I have BILLIONZ of things to do and some part of me is instructing myself to fritter my life away! Seriously, it's not like I have a million books to read....I don't want to play that stupid game!) I am kinda scared about playing football for the first time in ages. I will report back.

Saturday 13 September 2008

Rest Day

We are home now. That means we have finished our tour. It was a good tour. We rocked seven cities. We caught all our trains. We saw many Starbucks. There were no massive peaks or troughs. I liked it in York when we were locked inside and had to lug ourselves and all our stuff out of a window. I didn't like it in Leeds.

Sheffield was a great line-up. My favourite band were Mexican Kids At Home. Pete described them as 'slacker pop on a tatty skateboard', and that is pretty much exactly what they sounded like. In a good way, obviously. We stayed at Pete's house and he made us the greatest (veggie) sausage bap for breakfast. He writes for When Saturday Comes! That made my tour.

We played in London at a place called The Macbeth. It seemed pretty trendy. Apparently the bassist from Radiohead was there. I don't think he watched us though. Most people just seemed to chat.

Our setlist by the end of the tour looked like this:

My Kaleidoscope
Perfect Holiday
The Internal World
Mysterious Guitar
Understanding Parents
(I Won't Forget) The Way
Fluffy Clouds Of Joy
Cool Science

I'm leaving for uni tomorrow, and I am not really nervous or excited or anything, just pretty tired.

Sunday 7 September 2008

York Suspense

Our York gig has been cancelled, due to the promoter's brother needing an operation. There isn't really much you can say about that. Don't know what we will do instead, we already had the tickets so we are heading there right now.

Glasgow was pretty good. Support was The Paraffins, who are actually just one Paraffin, called Billy. I thought he was really great, kind of like Jonathan Richman mixed with Talking Heads, only somehow (despite wearing panda pajamas) a bit more sinister. We went on at about half twelve (in the morning!) having spent eight hours on the train. The crowd didn't seem very interested. We rocked it anyway. I did my usual trick of saying something fairly offensive without meaning to. Most of what we saw of Glasgow came between 3-5am, when we waited two hours for a taxi to take us to the promoter's house. Needless to say, it wasn't that pretty. Or warm.

Saturday 6 September 2008

Berwick Inevitable

We are on a train, and have been for about five hours. God has pissed all over Scotland and now we are waiting in one of his puddles for a man to drive to near our train, then walk to it, then pull us to Berwick.

So far the tour has been good to middling. Oxford was a pretty nice pub called The Jericho Arms. The headline band were massive pricks in ways that I can't begin to describe. Everyone else was nice.

Birmingham I really thought was fun. We rocked it. People did a clapping thing in the Cool Science breakdown. The band after us were called Ace Bushy Striptease and they were really cute. I loved them. Josh was there and he went round flogging our EP. It worked - we could really use him every gig. We missed Das Wanderlust cos we had to get our train.

Leeds last night was pretty ridiculous. We arrived at the Cardigan Arms and some locals told us to go upstairs. We were met upstairs by the sound of a vicious bark, followed by the sight of vicious fangs, owned by a vicious dog. If it weren't for the stool handily located between Cerberus and me, I am pretty sure I would be dead now. Someone upstairs gruffly pointed us towards the "Harmonic Room", which was mainly CRAP, with curtains made of rolls of paper. The sound engineer was quite keen to tell us stories of how notoriously useless the promoter was, and when Roz asked where he was, the sound engineer told her "Madrid."

The door was run by three of his friends who took the piss out of everyone who came in, and left before the last band had finished (taking with them the night's takings from the five or so paying audience. The other bands were pretty nice though, we sold a few EPs. I just don't see what the motivation is for Moog "Promotions" to put on bands is. The bands don't get anything from it, the audience is non-existent, and any money they are making is surely not worth the bother.

Glasgow later on should be completely ace, we played a new one last night (nothing to lose, really) so hopefully it will stay for tonight. If we get there in time.

Tuesday 2 September 2008

Ellis Jones: Gig Promoter

We kicked off our tour with a Bristol gig last night. I put it on at The Junction. I really love that place. I don't think it is doing very well, I really hope it survives. I think they are offering free hire gigs now, so everyone should really take advantage of this place else it might not be here when you need it.

Roxy was her usual effervescent self. Attack + Defend were awesome. I felt like I put on a good gig. Our set was ridiculously shambolic. Mainly my fault. Maybe my future is in running a massive live music empire, not being in a massive live band. I doubt it though. Thanks to everyone who came.

We are leaving for Oxford today. There is still loads to do, and I am wasting my time and yours by filling up this blog! What a fool.