The Tale of Many Cities...

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music...

Have Love? Will Travel...

Featuring: Dave Fineberg, Tobias Kidd, Finnigan Kidd, Jerome Watson, Dan Chatterley, Mark Scurr, Chris Mcilvenny, A Van, The Road.

Short but sweet...

Club NME. Koko. 10/04/09.

Last night i saw two bands at Koko. I am going to write two short reviews of them:

1) Pretty bad.
2) Pretty bad.

That's all i need to say really.

Lights, camera, action...

Sidewalk. Opening Night. The Scala. 04/04/09.

Sex, Drugs and Vauxhall Astras...

It's all about the glamour, eh? The busty blondes, the white lines, the adoration, the screaming fans and the whiskey bottles. That's why you start a band in the first place, right? Just three weeks ago i was in the biggest backstage area i'd ever experienced in Berlin, two weeks ago i was in Austin, Texas, taking a dip in our rooftop pool, and just last week i was playing 3 sold out shows in support of the The Maccabees. So, what lay in wait this week?

First off, i'm hit with a rather asthmatic chest condition, then our van breaks down, and we're due in Sheffield. What now? We have to get there. Mark 'Big In The Game' Scurr has an idea. We'll go in his (champagne coloured) Vauxhall Astra. So, with just enough room for our guitars, keyboard, snare, cymbals and feet, we venture up the M1 in hope that we can borrow some backline. The opening band has pulled out at the last second, but the venue has a drumkit, and the Kabeedies kindly let us use their bass amp and guitar amp. So, we'll have to put the second guitar, the keyboard and the Chaos pad through the PA. Well, i say PA. Not so much a Public Address system, more of a Puny Address system, not a lot for Mark to work with. But he does, i fill up on drugs (Nurofen & Sainsbury's paracetamol) and somehow we pull it all together and play the gig. We've used our Get Out Of Jail Free card, the gig goes quite well, we meet some new faces and maybe make a new fan or two, and then it's back into the (champagne coloured) Vauxhall Astra for the 4 hour drive home. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll...

If you've got no kind words to say...

The thing about being in a band is you get to see a lot of other bands, and many of the bands i see are at best nondescript, at worst downright terrible. Every now and then i come across bands that hold my attention for more than 5 minutes. This week i came across two. The first was the opening band in Cambridge, a band i had never heard, knew nothing about, and didn't know what to expect. They're from Brighton, are called Lyrebirds, and sound like a combination of Interpol and Echo and the Bunnymen. Live, they were both engaging and unpretencious, had very little interaction with the audience yet still seemed appreciative. Whatever it was, i thoroughly enjoyed the set. Check their myspace where they have 2 tracks, and catch them live if you can.

The second band was The Maccabees themselves, a band i knew of from their early singles X-Ray and Latchmere, but didn't really have an opinion either way. Then i saw them play in Cambridge and realised i was watching one of the best live bands in the UK at the moment. From the very first song, they combine passion, sincerity and thoughtfullness. The song that stuck in my mind was their opening number, taken from their upcoming second album. It was available as a free download on their myspace and as a youtube video but has now been taken down, but here is the footage of the song No Kind Words from the show in Stoke: If you've got no kind words to say, you should say nothing more at all...