Manchester Big Hands - 7th November '08

Word!!

  This was the best show ever!! We basically set this up ourselves to celebrate our single being available - PARTY TIME. We got Wonderswan and Piskie Sits to come down too and all our manchester friends and it was a rad time! Its a tiny venue so it was sweaty and ace and packed!

   Wonderswan were ace, their new songs are really cool - albeit noisy as fuck. Piskie Sits were the best i've ever seen them - its probably getting really boring us championing them all the time but i don't care because they have such good songs and are champs. Tour is going to be fun as hell.

   I think we played ok, we played December Snapshots again and also an even new one that hasn't got a name yet, it's about time we played some new songs and we're gonna try and book some studio time and get them recorded asap.

   It was rad to go to 'bring on the dancing horses' after too - a bit electro for me but it was good to have everyone around hanging out and drinking.  How ace is The Deaf Institute?!

   Had a bratwurst (?) for breakfast with Wonderswan too - beat that shit.

hx

Sheffield Harley - 2nd November 2008

Considering how fucking tired and disgusting we felt, Sheffield was made instantly friendly by meeting up with my old schoolmate Tom and a couple of beers. Greg slept at the venue for a couple of hours and after I waved goodbye to Tom went and discovered about twenty-eight 40p reduced sandwiches and sushi from Tesco - result!
OK, so its Sunday, its pissing it down, we're in Sheffield - I'm not sure exactly what we werer expecting but it was 300% better than what was in our heads. Cooper is a rad promoter and a good friend, we played with a cool band called The Hipshakes who kind-of sounded like Black Lips, it was nice to hang with Dan DeathByShoes too aswell as a bunch of other really nice people. The show was fun, a little restrained considering our physical state, and we played a brand-new song (I think it will be called 'December Snapshots' after by brothers old band that I got the ideo of Old Romantics off) and it went down really well.
Good friendly vibes all round again before we sold all our cds and went home!! We meandered through the Penines through dense fog and blackness with Liars on really loud before getting back, cup of tea then sleep for seven million hours - ace weekend.

hx

London Metro - 1st November 2008

Greg and I turned this show into a little prolonged trip to London becasue my brother and his sister live there so we got some quality sibling-time in. What normally seems like forever to get to London was in-fact fine - the drive down went really quick and a shit load of Fucked Up and Wild Beasts made the journey almost enjoyable! We chilled round Gregs sisters and went to the Mark Rothko exhibition at thw Tate Modern and ate an actual chilli-dog in some American diner which was awesome. Next day was filled with more hanging out and beers with old friends before we played The Metro on Saturday night.
The show was fun, made more fun by our friends coming along on a rainy saturday night to see us, it was a horrible night outside on busy Oxford Street. The crowd was good, lots of new faces, plus Ed (bad sneakers) and Ben (our lawyers) came down and it was a really friendly vibe.
We decided to completely un-consider we had to drive back to Sheffield for a show the next afternoon and went to a party and did all manner of wrong things until 8 am...
We must have had about two hours sleep before saying goodbye to our friends and injecting our eyeballs with bright blue energy drinks. We got to Sheffield with the aid of:
1. Windows wide open.
2. Earth records of full blast.
3. Popcorn Chicken.
4. Talking for the sake of talking (really loudly).
5. Regular changing of the voice on the TomTom (there was even an Australian one!).

Finally we got to Sheffield...

hx

Manchester MoHo Live - 25th October

Word up.

We were worying about this show because 'MoHo Live' (the night) is basically a pay to play night and we didn't know this until 3 days before the show.

PAY TO PLAY SUCKS SHIT. IT DEMORALISES ARTISTS AND THE LISTENER/FAN.

Just putting it out there.

So instead we didn't submit any names, got as many friends/fans in for free and just had a rad night anyways. We, obviously, didn't make any money but fuck it.

Emily from Barrow and Connor from Lincoln and Coxy from Manchester and a whole host of other awesome people we don't get to see enough came down, I think we played to about 150 people which was intense (although my slide playing was shocking).

Made some awesome new friends too, all JP's lot were ace, Marko and Matt from Jack Afro, some awesome girls I can't remember their names, I think a few people actually wanted their pictures taken with us too - crazy...

Anyway, ace night, Manchester is always good to us, got real drunk and all the Burnley lot were there too being amazing so we went back to Gregs for a little shindig and had some of the best fun ever. DRUNKEN CLIVE RULES O.K.

h-bomb x

Burnley Ale House Fundraiser - 19th Oct

Right - so Greg calls me up about two weeks ago and says we're playing his hometown, Burnley, for charity do. In Burnley.
I'm apprehensive to say the least, but it can't be worse that Bradford the night before so fuck it.
We arrive at Gregs mum and dads house and she makes us delicious fish pie and apple crumble, good start to the day.
Then we go to the venue (a cross between the pub at the beginning of American Werewolf... and The Rovers Return) and the rest of the night is, well... FUCKING AWESOME.
Appparantly all the BNP nonces and racisct thugs astay away from this oasis of tranquility. Everyone is so nice, free beer and drugs all over the place, Gregs mates are brilliant, everyone is having a greattime, it's for charity, we play really well (and LOUD) and it's the best night ever. Random.
If you find yourself in Burnley, scared and alone - go to the Bridge Beer House - easily one of the best pubs in the country full of brilliant folk.
Just shows you can play a shit gig in 'big deal' London and play your best in a little pub in Lancashire - the main ingredient is :
1. a good promoter
2. decent, good natured people

Top 5 best times we've had as a band, easily.

hx

Bradford - Good Form Club - 18th Oct

Best not saying much about this. Bradford is usually amazing, but like any city - if the promoter doesn't do the best he can in promoting his show then it's never going to be amazing, right?
Some really good people came down and we played with Four Dead in Ohio who are really really good (kind-of BRMC meets Jesus and Mary Chain NME darlings) and Greg and I ate a nice curry.
Apart from that, not a great deal to report.
We took our beers and cider and drove the fuck out of there back to Manchester and watched The Thick Of It, which if you don't know is the best BBC comedy sitcom ever made - FACT.

hx

BrainwashFest - Leeds 18th October

OK, so we're not exactly a LeedsMusicForum band so we were a bit apprehensive about the reaction we would get here. We were, though, completely stoked that Hayden asked us to play and there was am array of amazing bands and friends playing too that we just tried to smash it nonetheless.
Yeah, we got the greveyeard shift (4.30pm), kind-of, but we had to run off to Bradford and play a clubnight there afterwards but it seemed pretty busy when we played and got a mixed reaction. I don't know, Leeds is a funny place to us - we're not exactly a 'Leeds' band - but I live there and all my friends are here and I go to loads of shows here but we never get made to feel part of 'the leeds community' but I think thats a good thing in the long term. It was rad to see Paul Marshall again.
BRAINWASH IS AN ACE IDEA AND HAYDEN IS A TROOPER FOR GETTING HIS SHIT TOGETHER AND DOING SOMETHING LIKE THIS EVERY YEAR BECASUE MOST PEOPLE DON'T GIVE AS MUCH OF A FUCK AS HE DOES. HE IS A DUDE.

hx

WORD

Here is our tour blog, we have to go play some shows first though so keep checking back or whatever. No, go listen to These Monsters and then Eskimo Twins. Do that, then keep checking back.

H