4 posts tagged “gig”

We’ve had a real burst of hot weather here in sunny Manchester so predictably nobody has been sitting in front of a computer for longer than they have too. As a result, my blogging has almost died a slow and painful death. But low and behold, it suddenly gone rather muggy and there’s the possibility of rain. I’ve decided to retreat to the safety of the online community for a quick half hour just in case the heavens open.

Now let me see. What has been going on? Well, given that the last entry on the MySpace blog was regarding our lovely gig at The Troubadour, which is now some time ago, quite a lot has happened. We have basically returned to the studio to work on recording some of these new tunes, and I’m pleased that 90% of “The Observatory” is complete and once I’ve lived with the mix for a few weeks, I’ll post it both on MySpace and Vox for some feedback. There’s still a few guitars to put down, but the weather is just so not conducive towards being in the studio that I don’t think its going to happen just yet. Also started doing some drum loops for Invisible Man which I’m hoping will come together quite quickly.

We had a fun time playing Green Bohemia last weekend at The Green Room, Manchester. The Green Room is one of those small, urban, arty theatre spaces for experimental and community based productions. It also has a nice bar and a balcony for afterhours entertainments. It was so hot, I was dripping wet by the end of the gig and it was rather like I’d just stepped out of the shower. I can only assume that the heat was rising from the bar downstairs, as heat is want to do. Thanks to everybody who came down to support us. It was a rather spontaneous show, I don’t think we really knew what we were going to play, and it was fun to just launch into tunes on the spur of the moment. At the end, I really regretted wearing those black skinny jeans, I can tell you!

I should at this point mention that we have a show coming up at the end of the month for the MAPS Festival, which as you may know is an urban festival based in the Northern Qtr across the bank holiday weekend. I think it should be a good do. There are a lot of venues and a lot of quality local bands involved. Tickets are quite expensive unless you get them directly from me or a member of the band, so I would urge you to do so. We are playing in the Mint Lounge on Sunday 25^th May, in a prime time slot (cheers Stuart!), so obviously the powers that be think we can pull a decent crowd. Lets hope so. I think it could be one of the gigs of the year, so do join us.

It should be fairly obvious to you all by now that I have recently turned 30. Now, if I gave a shit about major labels wanting to sign us I shouldn’t really be announcing this fact on the blog, because these days if you are not under 25 you don’t stand a cat in hells chance of getting a major deal, and there might be A+R men reading this. It’s totally discriminatory but such is life. Even so, I couldn’t let this go without mentioning what a fabulous time we all had across my birthday weekend, and you can see the video over on our facebook site. I might post it up here or on VOX if I’m allowed. I’m glad to say that as well as our cultural expedition up Pendle Hill, with the witches and wind and the bleakness, we also partied hard throughout the night and I’m reassured to learn that despite what EMI might have to say about us being too old to rock, we are certainly not too old to party!! (just ask the neighbours!)

And that is, of course, another reason why I’ve not managed to blog as much as I could over the past few weeks, as its been “birthday season central” right here. I’ve lost track of how many birthdays have been upon us recently. Let us have a big happy birthday to all our friends, family and fans who have struggled up another rung of the great ladder of life in recent weeks!! I’m sure 2008/9 will be a fabulous year for all of you.

Manchester in the summer is a great place to be. Less students doesn’t necessarily equal quiet clubs and no atmosphere, and its also the season of outdoor gigs, impromptu street performance and light nights till late. It’s normally a short lived affair, but a worthy one. Everybody at least tries to make the most of it. People float round town wearing vest tops and light dresses, and sit on the grass in Piccadilly Gardens. Children jump about in the water feature. The knackered old houses don’t look quite so knackered. I’ve heard it said that Manchester has such a thriving arts scene because for nine tenths of the year, we are all inside, having to make our own entertainments and create our own little worlds in music or art. This is partially true, for sure. But at least once a year, the party spills out onto the street and if you are willing to embrace it, its one hell of a ride.

I think the possibility of rain has finally passed, so I’m going outside again for more sun. Lets hope it doesn’t storm on me as soon as I cross the threshold.

Ben

This week we have concluded much of the faffing around signing our first sychronisation deal with Faith and Hope records, trading as "Areebo". As you can see from the screen grab below, "Areebo" is a new idea from F+H to market various artists, both signed and unsigned, to the world of film, TV, advertising and computer games and works in a similar way to a traditional publishing deal. The deal is non-exclusive and can be halted with a months notice should a record deal come along or alternative publishing deal become possible. From our point of view, its a good way to try and generate some income while we continue to market ourselves to labels and develop our sound. It has also usefully been a good tool to harvest honest opinions from people in the music industry about what we are doing.

Areebo screen

Anybody wanting to use our material for synchronisation should pay this site a visit. I find it very user friendly, although at the moment it's very "faith and hope" artist orientated (as you might expect), and be sure to search for "This Morning Call" on the toolbar, as I'm not sure how great the "genre" and "mood" options are for searching for our tracks, we don't seem to meet any of the criteria! We have about 8 or 9 tracks up there at the moment, in various styles, ranging from pop songs, through to some ambient works, a dance track and even some classical music, credited to This Morning Call. We have made instrumental versions available of all tracks via this website as well.

In other news, we have our very first Camden show booked and ready to go this Saturday (1st December). Regular Voxers will probably know about this event already as it is being organised by IB - I'll leave the announcement proper until later in the week when we have stage times sorted and I know exactly where the venue is!! But watch this space and it would be nice to see some of you at the show suppoting us, and the wider Vox community, which this gig aims to showcase. And I've bought a new suit, so check me out!

Those of you with eager eyes will also have noticed that I've posted a demo of a new track up on our MySpace page - "Tides" - I think its good, but please feel free to leave comments and let us know what you think. The track is a bit Hot Chip/A-ha/Arcade Fire-ish - and Mark gets to show off his opera voice! It will no doubt appear on this blog as a genuine Columbia/RCA submission once we've had some feedback and I've tweeked the mix.

best wishes,

Ben

Well, I'm back.

As you may have seen from various news reports, it wasn't the driest Glastonbury Festival on record; indeed, it's been the wettest weekend in June in the UK since records began, which is an awfully long time ago. With flooding in many parts of the UK resulting in loss of life and transport chaos, it comes as no surprise that this year's Glastonbury Festival was also a total "mudfest". We are talking serious, wellies required mud here. Not for the faint hearted.

However, this year we had one big advantage. We had been forewarned! The marvellous British institution that is the Met Office informed us well in advance of the impending deluge and in the light of this information, brollies, wellies and rain coats were all packed and taken to Pilton enabling one hundred and seventy seven thousand festival goers defied the elements and had one hell of a party.

This year's Glastonbury was the largest arts festival ever held. It took all day just to walk from one side of the farm to the other. There were literally hundreds of stages, dedicated to all different types of quality music from around the world. The famous Pyramid Stage featured, in my mind, the rather controversial choice of headline acts which were the Artic Monkeys (Fri, my friend said they were "just OK"), The Killers (Sat) and The Who (Sun), while The Other Stage (which is just as big) featured Bjork (Fri), Iggy and the Stooges (Sat), and The Chemical Brothers (Sun).

Although the live music and fun didn't start until Friday, most of us turned up on Wednesday to soak up some atmosphere and the campsite was filling up rapidly by mid afternoon. I'd strongly advise anybody going to Glasto in the future to turn up as early as possible as the camping areas get ridiculously full very quickly. Prepare to be very well acquainted with your neighbours throughout the weekend. I travelled light, with only a tent, sleeping bag, three bottles of vodka, a torch, boots and wellies and some clean clothes for company. In actual fact the coach down was so quick and easy, and it dropped me so close to where I was camping, that I barely carried my luggage 500 yards all day.

One of the great, unsung features of Glastonbury is the great array of foods available. You could eat your way round the site. The emphasis is defiantly on vegan, veggie and healthy foods washed down with cider and more cider. But there were plenty of meat options on offer as well. Its London prices so be warned. £3.50 a pint of cider. I didn't think that was too bad to be honest, all things considered.

Lets talk music. Bjork was amazing. One of my main reasons for going this year was to catch this set, and she didn't disappoint. She emerged wearing a mushroom shaped hat and long coat, but this soon gave way to a multicoloured flowing outfit with a silver painted forehead. She played a selection of hits, with at least one tune from each of her albums. Despite making a balls up of playing "5 years" (I don't think anybody noticed apart from obsessives like me), the set was excellent, and the triple-header of "Hyperballad", "Pluto" and "Declare Independence" was a magnificent finale. I must say the rendition of "Army of Me" was probably my musical highlight all weekend. Other acts I caught on the Friday were Arcade Fire, who didn't really grab me I'm afraid, The Magic Numbers, for whom the sun shined and we all sang along, someone I can't remember the name of at The Glade Stage, who were doing hip-hop and drum and bass with saxophones and were excellent, Mcr's very own The Travelling Band, who deserve a bigger stage and were terrific, and Bloc Party, who are a very tight band but bored me as I realised I don't like any of their songs, and they didn't play "Two More Years"!

Saturday saw CSS (excellent, camp nonsense), Babyshambles (outright rubbish, even with a guest appearance from Kate Moss), Klaxons (all shouting and loudness and jumping and brilliance), Maximo Park (who should be further up the bill, simply excellent stuff from them), and The Editors (only caught part of the set but sounded great). Then onto the Dance Arena. That's five different stages all catering for different dance music types, and I caught Mr. Scruff (a bit too downtempo considering the time of night), and Sasha (what a fantastic Thom Yorke remix he finished on) plus loads of random stuff.

Sunday will be known as the day I was the most wrecked, and the day in which I had to drink mostly lager because some of the bars had run out of cider! However, Shirley Bassey was probably the highlight – she knows how to hold a crowd and the diamond-encrusted wellies were remarkably clean. The Bond medley was brilliant, and we got "Big Spender" twice. The Kaiser Chiefs played and I have to say they have some great songs but why do they insist on yelling "whoa, whoooa, whoooooooahhhh" at every opportunity?  The last show of the festival for me was "The Chemical Brothers" and it was a stunning, stunning show – although I couldn't stay to the end because I needed the loo so much I just had to go.

So that was Glastonbury, and it was amazing. Although I had to get up for the bus early on Monday, the day it closed, I was home by three in the afternoon and started the painful process of readjusting to normal life again. I still have a raging thirst for cider. Luckily, I have some in the fridge waiting for me right now. I honestly don't think the bad weather and the mud spoilt the weekend at all for most people. Out of the four Glastonbury's I've attended (1997, 1998, 2003, 2007), three have been wet and wild and one has been sunny. I guess its all part of the charm. Hopefully, next year we can get a gig there. I shall do a rain dance to try and make this happen!!

I shall be field bound once again.

Ben