As regular readers will know, we’ve been hard at work producing and recording a few new songs, some of which have been infiltrating the live set of late, and these are coming on nicely. Nigel and I spent most of Sunday working on some cello parts for the track “The Observatory”, and with a bit of help from Cubase, managed to make one cello sound like the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, which was fun. I think I’m finally happy with the sound of the drums after a lot of fiddling, and I may have to bite the bullet and have a go at the lead vocal at some stage in the near future.

In between all that, last Thursday we were welcomed to a splendid venue near Earls Court in London called "The Troubadour". Having spent the day enjoying the delights of Britain’s motorway network in our trusty minibus, we arrived in good time for the sound check at half six which was concluded with the minimum of fuss and faff. I’ll say now that I thought the sound guy was excellent and really helpful, which is always lucky, as we are not the easiest band to engineer. The venue consists of a busy restaurant upstairs, and a cool, rock and roll club downstairs. It actually reminded me of one or two places in Manchester that have a similar vibe. The layout of the venue was rather like an “L” shape, with the stage in the corner, so you have to sing a bit to the left, and then a bit too the right in order to see the whole audience.

Apparently, The Troubadour has a long history of musical excellence, having seen performances from Hendrix, Joni Mitchell and others. There was a long list on a flyer but I've not got it on me right now. Anyway, nice to be in the company of greats, and makes a change from people banging on about Morrisey/New Order/Joy Division/Happy Mondays and The Smiths which I'm sick to death of.

Troubadour 2

Many thanks to all those who came down, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It was nice to do a full 45 minutes and therefore actually stands as the longest set we’ve ever played! I could certainly tell because I was gasping for a drink after “giving it some” during the first few songs. A nice person provided me with a gin and tonic half way through the set – I don’t know who this was but many thanks for that! It certainly wet my whistle at the right time. In terms of industry presence at the gig, there was some, and I don’t want to name names here, but I suppose that's good and we must be on the radar finally. I hope they didn't hate it. 

You’ll be able to read a review of the show in next months Sandman Magazine, and I’ll post the feature and links up here when I get my hands on a copy. Lets hope its positive.

Anybody interested in what we actually played, here’s the set list:

Troubadour 1

Orange Glow

Tides

Deserted

Clockworks

Romance

Healing Hands

Invisible Man

Whistle While you Work

The Observatory

Kudos to Liam Bailey who supported us with his excellent roots acoustic set – I would post a link but I can’t find one right now. Many someone could post one if it turns up? He is definitely worth checking out. And also to Inflatable Buddah who provided some light, comic skiffle with a fine selection of wind instruments, including bass clarinet that I haven’t seen in a rock and roll venue for some time.

So onwards and upwards, and its time now for another Manchester show on April 16th, and this one is linked to a thing called “Have You Got The Nerve?”

“What is that?” I hear you cry.

“thenerve.tv” is the world's first crowd sourced TV production company. Mark Bowness, creator of Tribewanted, is looking for ordinary members of the public who will create a new breed of TV and web based programming. “Have you got the nerve?” is the tag line, and we’ve been asked to play at their Manchester launch night which is at the TV21 bar, in the Northern Qtr. I’m not quite sure how this all fits together, but I imagine Wednesday will be some sort of social networking / hobnobbing session with creative types and media people, and they’ll be a lot of drinking involved. Anyway, I think it’s free and we are headlining and possibly trotting out the full 45 minutes again all being well, so if you are around, come down.

Here’s a link: http://thenerve.tv/

Can I also just say thanks to all of you who have been in touch with positive comments and such via MySpace/Facebook/Vox etc, that’s great and we really appreciate it. Keep it coming.

Ben

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Hello.

Well, I was going to pass comment on IB's blog today about how much promoting we should all be doing on the internet in order to market ourselves to record labels these days, but I have to say after a weekend of gigging and being out and about, I really haven't got the energy to launch into the debate. I think the bottom line is that there are only so many hours in the day and the best use of your time changes depending on the demands of the project at any one time. I still feel there is a very valid role for record labels and would hope that our chances of (dare I say it) commercial success would increase rapidly should we get some decent investment from a label, if nothing else because I want to spend time touring and recording, not logging into CDbaby or whatever everyday. There is only so far you can take a DIY project via the internet due to the vast quantity of (often shit) bands who are all logging onto the same thing (e.g. MySpace) Anyway, if anybody wants to read the debate it can be found here: http://indieboy.vox.com/library/post/fair-play-to-those-who-dare-to-dream-make-art.html

First things first, many thanks to everybody who came down to see us on Friday. It was a sell out and it went really well. I wasn't expecting to see so many people there but I can only be delighted with the turn out and especially all those people who hadn't seen us before and expressed their delight and interest after the performance. I think it was probably our best gig yet. Thanks to all those at Thriller Killer who put us on, and Johnny who did the sound. Next up, an acoustic show down at Trof, in Fallowfield, Manchester, at a night called "While Other Bands Park Vans", and after that, back down to London, and yes I will be harrasing all you London A+R folk to get down there. Its at The Troubadour, which I understand is near Harrods and therefore is probably very posh, on the 3rd April. .

Can I remind everyone that we have a profile up at XFM and I've just spotted that they've got another one of these rating things - if anybody has a spare moment and wants to give us a rating, we can be found at http://www.xfmuploaded.co.uk/thismorningcall. It should only take a moment and we'd be very happy! You don't have to be logged in or register in order to leave a score. Lets hope they like it sufficiently to spin a tune on the unsigned show and then we can all get excited once again!

We were also featured in the South Manchester Reporter this week - a lovely article and a photo which filled the best part of a page. There doesn't appear to be a weblink to the article, so I'll just reprint a paragraph here that I did find funny: The band say they are inspired by an array of musical talent, ranging from Goldfrapp to Bowie. But even recording sessions at Ben's home in Levenshulme - just around the corner from the McVities factory - have helped get the creative juices flowing. "Yes, biscuits have been an inspiration, we were considering releasing a record called Hobnobs", Ben joked.

Well, there you go - my words afterall and not something I hope I'll one day find printed in the pages of NME. I do like Hobnobs though, well nice.

Here's a tune some of you might not have heard before... Its called Romance and its a ballad.

Romance

This Morning Call

enjoy... this is the one our french friends said they enjoyed the most.

best wishes,
Ben

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