Well well, its all been happening recently, indeed so. Especially the return of insomnia. Boo. No-one invited you, seriously leave me alone will you?! Sitting here with my 5th coffee of the day, listening to Get Cape Wear Cape Fly ( i assumed with that name id hate him – i made the same mistake with Death Cab for Cutie so this time did some investigating) it dawned on me that i havent written for a while … very bad form i know. So i slap my own wrists and make up for it. I hope you appreciate the effort – its not easy to type and slap your own wrists at the same time, and men are historically bad at multi tasking so we are entering scary territory here. Bear with me. Bare with me? No no, that innevitably causes problems. Just bear. Cool? Cool.

Well, Saturday just gone we played a gig at The Borderline in Soho, which was quite the jolly. It was strange to be the opening act but we’d agreed to do it on the understanding the promoter, who has always been good to us, would fix us up with something excellent later in the year … he indeed did, but i digress so more of that later. We brought a good crowd down, a bunch of lovely people who all seemed to have a good time … well, at least until we finished playing. The following bands were, shall we say, likely to appeal to a very specific group of people … ones without ears perhaps … we were not included in that group (all of us have at least 1.7 ears) so headed next door to Crobar very soon afterwards where we proceeded to listen to excellent rock tunes and drink evil green shots and bourbon long into the night. The next day did require some recovery, if im being honest. I woke up feeling rougher than a dead dog. It was a nice way to see the sunrise. Well, i thought it was the sunrise-as it turns out it was about 11am and my eyes were just screwed from being glued shut all night … and possibly the aforementioned green shots. But yes, again a really good vibe and we played a couple of tracks we havent in recent gigs which went down very well. I noticed sales of our debut EP The Shipping Forecast went up on Amazon and Itunes the next day, so i guess we are heading in the right direction.

Since then Caleb has flown off to South Africa for a couple of weeks (driving to the airport at 4 in the morning is something i can recommend for the surreal nature of it all) so while we have a quiet period without rehearsals or gigs im taking the opportunity to catch up on all the admin type stuff, and replying to all the lovely messages we get from you fine people – ah yes indeed, we heart you muchly for your support! Its kind of strange to only play one gig a month, but our hands are tied on this matter – the venues we play now require contracts to be signed, and one of the conditions is always that you dont play another London gig more than 3 weeks either side to ensure lots of people turn up. Fair enough i guess. No point playing a really good venue with no-one there to see you. So we just try to ensure the few gigs we do play are as good as possible. Coming up on Nov 28th we are playing the Water Rats in Kings Cross, followed by PUNK in Soho on December 19th and then on Feb 2nd next year we play a VERY special gig at Bungalow 8 in Covent Garden, where we are only allowed to bring 35 people as the club is members only (and for members, read famous people) … I am hoping playing there will offer the opportunity to play our first New York gig as Bungalow 8 started in NY and having lived and studied in NY it would be UH-MAZING for me to go back – digits crossed eh?

We also have an interview, review and live-lounge type recording coming up for an online music magazine which we are all looking forward to … although Caleb is already agonising over whether to cut his now-enormous hair. I dont think he should. I do think you should also tell him this if he asks. Even if he doesnt. Maybe i need to start a website …

www.dontcutyourhaircaleb/itsmassiveandexcellent

… i wonder how many people just tried to click on that link The album is on track – 3 more tracks to complete, whilst the last 3 we did are as we speak being twiddled and fiddled with in their temporary home – the studio of the very excellent Michael Scherchen, who is mixing and mastering the album. We are excited. We do so hope you love it. Should be completed by end of the year so we’ll look to do some kind or swanky album launch type thing … hmm, i’ll set my mind to that one. We’ll need to get some publicity for it. Hmm. I could always kick those those two Irish lads from X-factor into a bloody pulp for their crimes against music, then use the publicity to endlessly hawk our album. I mean come on, thats win win for the entire nation right?!  Well, any suggestions that wont land me in prison, drop me a line

Ok, im off to make coffee number 6 and quickly remove my wet towel from the radiator. Does anyone else have a dad who is full of amazing bits of information that make no sense, like not to put wet towels on radiators as it makes the paint come off? Ive had this all my life, and yet still follow these bizarre hints and tips. He once told me blu-tac is radioactive – i wouldnt use it for 3 years. I was 21.

Love n hugs to you all, keep up the good work (whatever that may be)

Marc xx

ps here’a a couple of snaps from the Borderline gig – thanks to all those who came along

Wow, you can tell i’m tired!

So, we pretty much have the next 6 months planned out, which is quite a nice feeling. 3 more gigs this year – October 24th at The Borderline, November 28th at Water Rats and then finishing off the year in style on December 19th at Punk. They are all big gigs in decent venues, something i have been aiming towards in the last year. We constantly hassle the world to come see us, so the least we can do is give you all an excellent place to have an excellent time. S’only fair K? K. They will be the culmination of a years work, putting together the set list of songs we have worked on, recorded and improved by a large amount since Simon joined the ranks a few months back. The endgame of it all is that we hope by the time the last gig comes around to have finished the album. We have 2 more tracks to record, and then it is done. And we can wrap it up in pretty paper and try and get the world to listen. We really want the world to listen.

And that will be the end of 2009. When i look back I am very proud of how far we’ve come. At the start of the year we were nothing. Not even a real band really. Played a couple of gigs. Sat in Caleb’s room and worked on a few tunes. Since then we have played a whole bunch of excellent gigs in really great venues, released an EP which has done quite well so far, played our first festival, almost finished an album, build a great following online, made a website, started a blog, been written about in the papers and … well … thats not bad to be getting on with. Well, apart from one other thing. We have been lucky enough to meet some fantastic people along the way … you. Thats right you heard me. YOU! YOU = all the people who have written to us, come to gigs, given us support, joined our myspace and facebook pages, taken photos, written about us, given us bits of paper that say ‘you are smexcellent’ … you know, that kind of thing. It’s that that keeps us going, keeps us believing we are on the right track. We really do appreciate it, you yourselves are smexcellent and dont even try to argue the point!

And 2010? Well, some of it is already falling into place. I imagine we will take a couple of months off gigging to write and rehearse some new material. We have 4 or 5 new songs in various stages of development and I think it’s about time we got them in order … after all, they will take up the majority of gig time in 2010 and will be the basis of the 2nd album. We’re not going Coldplay style and releasing an album every 3 years. I already have the next one in mind. By that time we should have more skills than Napoleon, Kip, Pedro, Megashark, Giantoctopus and the flumps put together. Thus, the 2nd album will be the primary source of joy in your lives for the entirety of the time you listen to it, plus an average of 16.2 minutes afterwards as well. Afterglow. Hmm, there’s a title. We are also looking at a tour of the North of England and Germany in the summer of 2010. Hopefully we can tag onto some famous band or others coattails and support them on tour … Silversun Pickups would be nice. Or Mutemath. Radiohead wouldnt be too shoddy either i guess.

One thing we will do for sure is carry on working to try and bring you as much excellence as we can in one go. Whether it be on stage, recorded, musings on the old online com-pu-ter etc we are here only for your amusement and entertainment.

Well, our hair is anyway

Us x

(ps hope to see you on the 24th October at The Borderline! Click where it says click and you will be magically transported there on the internet equivalent of a flying unicorn)

Right now we are recording bass tracks for 3 more songs from our first album ‘The Shipping Forecast’ … or to be more accurate we are surrounded by about 8 million miles of cables, a LOT of musical instruments, several empty beer bottles and a whole bunch of very nice recording equipment, whilst Caleb and James work on the recordings and I sit in a big comfy armchair writing to all you good people I might as well have a white cat on my lap and speak in a Doctor Evil voice, such is my position in these proceedings. Admiring from afar? Perhaps so. My role is strictly that of observer, and as such I am providing the aforementioned beer and moral support, and recounting tales of Tuesday night and our sojourn to Londonvillage to play a gig at The Comedy in Piccadilly Circus.

I stumbled up to Piccadilly Circus a good hour before the rest to acquaint myself with the venue and was surprised to find how intimate it was. Not in a bad way at all, but it made me realise how hard we’d have to work to get the audience tapping their feet, then nodding their heads, then breaking into spasticated dancing that just doesnt fit with guitar music at all. There is rarely a better sight than spasticated rock dancing. I believe that, and stand by it and NO-ONE can tell me otherwise!

But yup yup, we did our soundcheck which was a little odd as the guitar amps werent mic’d up so i felt a little like i was being abused from all angles by a cacophony of sound, but it sounded pretty decent. I could almost hear my vocals at one point. I think they were my vocals. It was that or the screams of the Romanian fisherman trussed up in the bathroom (I didnt ask questions). But yes, it was done within 30 minutes, which is quite good for us considering we each bring two guitars and arse around like prima donnas with them, and headed upstairs to while away the time before it all kicked off. The beer and pub food came in an incessant stream to the table as we were all fooled into buying various items from the dubiously named ‘menu’, the highlight of which was Chris Doran attempting to eat the MEGABURGER in one bite. Suffice it to say, critical fail.

We headed en masse down to the venue to catch the first band, who were a very cool Ryan Adams-y country rock combo, with wicked slide guitar and nice tunes … also a nice bunch of guys and girls as we discovered on several cigarette breaks. Around 9.30 we got on stage and ran through a brief 6 song set of some of our more upbeat tracks from The Shipping Forecast. All went pretty well, and our small but loyal gang of followers (with a few new additions to the ranks) seemed to be digging what they were seeing. There are some videos, which i will try and make viewable using the wonders of the Sony Vegas 30 day free trial, and thus you can judge for yourself. We came off the miniscule stage aware that we hadnt managed to move much in 30 minutes due to each having about 2cms of personal space to work within but had built up a fair level of sweatyarmpittedness, which i guess shows we were giving it as much as we could. As with the last couple of gigs, we finished up with ‘Halfcut’ which is the last track on the album … maybe its time for a change soon to keep things fresh. It does seem to be the most popular single of ours on Itunes and Amazon at the moment, but we want to keep things fresh

And then it was done. Due to illness, tiredness and epic train journeys we all headed off in our respective directions with a feeling of satisfaction that we had given value for money to those who had made the journey … oh by the way, yes we heart all of you who did! Thank you for making it a great evening for us. A record company chap called on the way back, which lifted my spirits further. Just shooting the breeze, accepting the masses of helpful hints he was giving me … for the first time, I managed to find a description for what we sound like. I never have done before. I was summarily informed if an A&R guy asks and I say ‘i dont know’ he will say goodbye (in a manner of speaking) … the closest I could get was ‘like Nick Drake got pissed off and picked up an electric guitar’. It was the best i could do! We have been compared in sound to acts as diverse as Radiohead, Ryan Adams and Nick Drake … so i figured that description was the best we were going to get.

And yes, so it was done. Finished. Onwards to the next one. October 24th at The Borderline. You want to be there, oh yes i REALLY think you do. We are going to rock your frickin FACE off, just wait and see …

So we’re playing in London tonight at The Comedy in Piccadilly Circus – hope you can make it

Yeah, so thats it for now. Blog number 1. Onwards and upwards.

Us x