Saturday 7th June 2008

This is Ivan, who put us on in the Dog and Partridge in Bolton. Even before he had served up home made vegan korma I had already warmed to him, and his esoteric little operation

Throughout all four support bands, attendance was minimal - which combined with the fact that it was the last date of our tour instilled an over-casual attitude in all of us, leading us to indulge in the free beers more than we usually would before attempting to play such complex tunes. However moments before we took the stage, at a half past midnight, people seemed to appear from everywhere and the gig turned out to be one of the boons on the tour - a full Elphwick - although it took us hours to leave Bolton and it was light by the time that we rolled back into Leeds, to finally deposit our gear back into the studio, and take to our warm, welcoming beds......

  How many carparks does one town need?

Friday 6th June 2008

This is Cromarty Club. They opened up tonight's show at the 13th Note in Glagow. A highly eclectic match, they played their slightly camp, Ben Folds-esque showtunes, for the first time on the stage and it was immensely entertaining, if not a little abrasive sounding. I've been waiting for maybe eight years for Crom to get a band together and play this music out. It was relieving and exciting to hera him finally do it. He's an old pal from back home, and Dan the drummer is an old pal from Leeds, I was in bands with both of them separately back in the day. I'm glad they met......

Our set was fun, but fairly poorly attended - the guys from the Ocean Fracture were brilliant hosts though - and if I'd taken a picture of them - I'd put it up here as well. They, rather than the gig we did, make me want to go back and play Glasgow again..... 

  Now Mis-ter-Lau..... hates the Mys-ter-rons.....

Thursday 5th June 2008

Back out on the road again. Tonight we played in the End Bar in Newcastle. This is the graffiti on the ladies toilet dor. There was grafitti art all over the bar. It was nice.

Music is medicine.....

  Scoops for the departed.....

Wednesday 4th June 2008

This is Pat, who died this weekend. The details have been covered in enough detail by the press and on the net that I don't need to go into them here......

She was an incredible campaigner, a lovely person and a friend. Death is a part of life, and we all need to deal with it - but untimely, unnecessary death is never gonna be easy to manage......

When people die, especially people in the public eye, people often tend to eulogise people and bring on the hyperbole - " He was just about the greatest musician to ever live.... She was just such an extraordinary human being.... etc etc etc...." But the thing about Pat, is that people have being saying how amazing and inspirational she was for years and years, long before her death.......

It's easy enough at times like this to ruminate upon the tragedy and say things like 'my thoughts go out to the family', but honestly, right now, my thoughts are with myself, the people I love, and an ever impending sense of my own mortality.....

 
Monday 2nd June 2008

Today we were in Liverpool for a gig at the Magnet bar which all told gets a half boon dome on the map. The rest of our day was ace, we wandered round Liverpool, went to the Klimt exhibition at the Tate (pictured - the giant ape is the thing that all the Gods fear apparently), ate beautiful home cooked food with friends in Sefton Park and finally caught up with TJ again after a year or so.

The gig wasn't too bad - but miscomunication between promoter and sound engineer meant that we didn't get to soundcheck even though we showed up at three - and too many bands meant that as headliners we went on way too late, and the bar was a bit grim, and there weren't that many folks and yadda yadda yadda.....

Beautiful day, average gig, horrendously late night... 

  Way past anyone's bedtime

 Sunday 1st June 2008

To Hull - and back..... this time to play live in session on the radio for BBC Raw Talent, a weekly local music show hosted by none other than Alan Raw - see what they did there...

Set was a whole lot of fun, but listening back to the broadcast those guys still need a session or two at rock school - specifically to learn that the drums need to be audible to be enjoyed..

Good fun nonetheless tho methinks...

  Way past my bedtime - again

Saturday 31st May 2008

Tonight we played at the Lamp in Hull - full points for posters. Porky the promoter wins the award for the only promoter of the tour so far to produce a half decent poster. The food laid on in the lamp was immense as well - I had the stuffed peppers....

And of the gig, well, since the support band didn't go on till 11 and played for 40 minutes, we ended up playing to a half empty room (although that might well have happened had they gone on earlier, but I need something to blame).. Thus it gets a half boon/dome combo on the megamap..

Full marks also for using old trivial pursuit question cards as beer tokens - gave us something to do in the seven hours between when we arrived and when we went on stage... 

  Way past my bedtime

Friday 30th May 2008

What did I say yesterday? - 'Panic Music' - where half of the cash that we've earned on this tour will shortly be eloping to.... Perhaps I should have said 'all'; as the repair of our equipment has cost us everything we've earned so far along the tour. A sum so princely that we all winced in sync when we heard it. True our broken equipment is all fixed (and to the hard working technical wizards that did it we are nothing but grateful), but our finances are now broken....

Today, after collecting our fully serviced gear and depositing every penny we had, we drove to Shoreditch, loaded the entire rig down a spiral staircase (the absolute worst for moving gear) and ito the 'Selector' studio for our live session on British Council radio. It'll go out, globally apparently, in a few weeks. We did however have to repeatedly turn down, as the lady in the studio adjacent to ours was trying to interview Sun TV pundit Gary Bushell and she kept complaining...

The session went fine, we nailed three instrumentals in the first take, packed up, loaded all our gear back up the spiral staircase, into the van, and then travelled 500 yards down the road, where we immediately had to unload it all again, down more stairs, and into the Industry bar for tonight's gig - suffice to say by this point I was completely paggered.

And of the gig; surely nothing could be worse than the shenanigans of Cardiff, especially since our equipment is all fixed and working - well Martin spent two tunes on his knees after his bass strap completely snapped (I managed to shore it up with some gaffer tape three songs in during the bassless intro to Happy Accident), I snapped a guitar string (We have no spare guitar - there wouldn't be room in the van) and had to replace it on stage during the outro to Happy Accident (Pete'll fix it for you and you and ba ba ba) and then at some point towards the end the whole bass rig packed up - ace

Despite the troubles it was an ace gig, and the onstage-race against time-repairs only served to get the crowd further behind us, and I had to jabber about our tour for five minutes whilst we replaced the entire bass rig with Eat Lights Become Lights' rig, and then when it still wasn't done we had a cheeky jam, but nonetheless, the repair of this rig could also run way into the hundreds, but this time we don't have a day off and we're not ten miles from Panic Music - I have no idea what we're going to do - but this blog is already way too long.....

And the pic? Not the selector session, not the ludicrously well attended Industry gig, not the fixed equipment, or the now broken rig - no, It's Lee, who tried to put on a silly wig for comic effect, and ended up looking actually quite slick, or at least far slicker than when swathed only in his current barnett.....only Lee.....

  Spare bass amp in Hull perchance?

Thursday 29th May 2008

We're in Cambridge - which is lovely - not for a gig, as Leamington Spa was cancelled, so we're chilling out with Tom's folks, who dished up some fairly tasty vegan fayre and a laser printer with which we were able to bootleg our own EP covers for sale at gigs - safe...

The picture shows the tiny cramped workshop of 'Panic Music' in Cambridge where half of our equipment is spending the night, after last night's debacle in Cardiff - and where half of the cash that we've earned on this tour will shortly be eloping to...

London - Industry, Shoreditch tomorrow - who's up for it?

Wednesday 28th May 2008

This is John. He, for the time being, is our engineer, which is immense. Apart from the occassional gig, we've never had our own engineer, especially not on tour, but John did the sound for us a few months back at the Oakford Social Club in Reading and enjoyed it so much that he offered to come on the road with us for free if we covered his expenses. Already he has made life so much easier, and tonight in Cardiff, only the third time he'd engineered the band, the onstage monitor mix was sublime - so much so that we played a brand new song.....

However, as you can see on the megamap, the Gremlins decided to gatecrash our show tonight. We couldn't get the synth going for ages at the start (cue awkward silence, marginally uncomfortable banter and then a general introduction to John and his radio 4-esque voice). Then once we finally started, Tom's guitar made a noise like really loud rustling packets of crisps all the way through 'Altered Beast'. Then once we made that go away it did it again in 'the Beast', I tried to fix it and ended up just jamming his reverb on full - we stopped the song midway, fixed that, carried on, then the piano cut out in 'Two Words' and then in our closing number, the debut of 'Wave Those Arms Airmen' Tom's guitar started doing it again, so he switched to mine whilst I played the organ and then..... hang on, this is quite dull, basically, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, yet somehow, we managed to pull off quite a decent show, still a full 'Boon' on the map, albeit a Gremlin shadowed one.

Now we're at Ed's yard, being very very quiet. Ed is 16 and this was his first gig as a promoter. Being 16 he still lives with his folks and I don't know how impressed they were when he told them that six sweaty men would be crashing on their living room floor; but they had prepared blankets and cushions for us when we arrived nonetheless.

Tomorrow, since Leamington Spa has been cancelled, we have a day off - trip to an instrument repairshop methinks.

Oh and even though we're in Cardiff, all our merch is now in Glasgow.... ace.

Messages of support or perhaps consolation for John anybody?!

Tuesday 27th May 2008

Today we went to see the new Indiana Jones film - For all that it was meaningless, soulless, saccharine, over-hyped drivel - I quite enjoyed it.....

Then we played at the Engine Rooms in Brighton with Down I Go , Jacob's Stories (pictured) and Take a Worm for a Walk Week - all of whom I've seen before and all of whom are immense. In fact Down I Go's new album 'Tyrant' (pictured) came out last week and I, albeit briefly, make a guest appearance, playing jazz bass on the end of Idi Amin - Which in turn, since the Vessels album is still not on sale and since all of what we do have to sell was recorded before I joined the band, means that tonight I didn't appear on any of our merch but I was on one of the other band's....

After the gig TAWFAWW locked their keys in the van, but it was ok, as the singer of 'With Scissors' poked an rod through a gap in one of the windows, perhaps hoping to activate some mysterious non-existent button on the inside, and then shattered the window trying to remove the rod - I would have taken a picture, but that'd make me a bit like those compassionless tourists at the start of Pretty Woman - so I offered a roll of gaffer tape and then we were on our way.

The gig gets a full Boon on the map, as it was ace, even though the rig in the Engine rooms was questionable, but since we did our first ever gig with our own engineer (picture of him tomorrow methinks) we got away with it.....

A WASP IN A JAR!!!!

Monday 26th May 2008

Another day off - so this time, we rode leisurely along the coast under the dusty grey sky to Brighton. We're staying with Jo and Cathy who Tim and Martin used to know in Leeds, and it's their flatmate Paul's birthday, so we all went down to Brighton Marina for a bit of ten pin bowling. I put in the worst round of bowling I have ever managed - the shame will linger for a great deal of time.

Then, as seems to be a feature of many of my nights - we sat up till sunrise, and helped Paul celebrate his birthday in style, listening to Bob Dylan and talking about literature..... tomorrow we gig... 

Bunch of part-time touring chancers - us?

Sunday 25th May 2008

We're still in Exeter. We've got a space on the tour between gigs but not enough of a space to return up north,  so today we borrowed Red Paper Dragon's rehearsal room and worked on 'Wave Those Arms Airmen' for a couple of hours, a track that we recorded for the album but have yet to play live - might just be buncing this one out in Brighton, although it depends how many on stage monitors there are....

Tonight, Adam Paper Dragon and Emma cooked us Chilli and put us up, we've just watched 'Walk the Line' (crikey I love Johnny Cash) and now we're watching 'Buffalo Soldiers' (Joaquin, Joaquin, please sign my napkin...) - The hospitality of virtual strangers is losing its power to surprise me, but that doesn't make it any less awesome - maybe I'm just becoming cynical about altruism...

Brighton tomorrow, another day off as our gig isn't till Tuesday - we're gonna find a cinema and go and watch Indiana Jones - since I already know it'll be lame, I can't be disappointed.... 

Messages can be deposited here for anyone I suppose... 

Saturday 24th May 2008

Tonight we played in Tigga's bar in Exeter, and thankfully people turned up and listened to us play. The bar was small, as was the P.A, but the sound and atmosphere were immense. Red Paper Dragon were meant to play with us, but Ollie's partner went into labour and they pulled out last minute, leaving only us and Spokes (who were ace again) on the bill.

After the show we went out with Matt the promoter and Kev and Adam from red Paper Dragon to the Timepiece, allegedly a top Exeter night spot

Now we're sat in Matt's ludicrously luxurious living room watching 'the Machinist' with Christian Bale, it's a bit weird, slightly scary and far too much like Fight Club for my liking....

Messages can be deposited here for any of the members of Vessels... 

 
Friday 23rd May 2008

Tonight we played at the Queen’s Hall in Nuneaton, I expected it to be the back wall of another pub, with a glorified boombox for a P.A and the only monitors in sight to be the sort you get on your P.C. As it turned out it was a fairly awesome rock club, annexed to a metal themed bar called ‘the Crew’, plastered with luminescent graffiti and framed posters of BonJovi, Slipknot and Metallica. 

The gig gets a half boon/dome combo on the map, even though the promoters, the rig, the club, the stage, and the sound were all awesome  - because out of the fifty or so people who were in the room when we started there were maybe ten when we were done. Not that we played badly, in fact I think we were fairly decent, I just don’t think that the good people of Nuneaton have space in their hearts for introspective-post-rock-math-rock-electronica-prog combos.... 

The second picture shows Ant and Matt, the promoters, who partied it up till five o’clock this morning with us back at Ant’s yards. True gentlemen, these guys regaled us with tales of having seen Lift to Experience live when the ‘Texas Jerusalem Cross-roads’ came out and of repeatedly making a loss on their nights by trying to promote commercially difficult music in a small town. As has been the case many times, the experience of meeting some like minded soulful sorts turned out to be the high-point of the night, and even if we did end up playing to the remnants of a crowd, these two veteran shoegazers made it well worth the trip....

The Early Years Only sold 400 copies... 
 

Thursday 22nd May 2008

Tonight we played in the Old Swan in Wrexham in Wales. The stage was set up in the beer garden, protected from the rain by some kind of ad-hoc sheeting itself covered in camo-netting. Hooky the DJ played awesome tunes all night, Moz the promoter/soundman took good care of us and got it sounding ace on stage, the other band Spokes were really good, and the crowd were really really appreciative.

This one gets a full boon on the megamap....

Today we kicked off the Megatour with a gig in the Manchester Ruby Lounge. The venue was dingy, the sound was rotten, my wrist is caning and I was in a bad mood. I've given it a half boon/dome combo on the map because the other boys seemed to enjoy it.

On the plus side 'the Big Nod' got played on Radio 1 tonight and the promo copies of our album have arrived...

There was time enough for a quick trip to Minehead this morning for a stroll along the beach before climbing into the car and sleeping the entire six hour journey back to Leeds....

I no longer have any idea why I am here

Today the sun finally came out and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the surroundings:

By day three I was starting to feel a little musically fatigued, like all of the immense bands were diluting the impact of all the immense bands - Here for instance are Broken Social Scene, another band I've been wanting to see live for a long time - they were pretty awesome, but I was plagued all the way through their set by the fact that my legs were ceasing to work:

Best band of the day though - why Battles again playing their second set of the weekend - still, it seems, a massive bunch of booners:

As was to be expected we sat up all night partying (not in our chalet tonight though, which we'd already cunningly tidied and then declared a no-party zone) and I could fill you in on the details but I guess if you weren't there it'd just be inane and perhaps dull - suffie to say, whilst people aross the world in places like Burma and China suffer unimaginable hardship, we were having a pretty awesome party....

What to do?

Today I watched Iron and Wine (Who I've also wanted to see for years and who was also disappointingly M.O.R) The National (Who were ace), Stars of the Lid (Where is the beat) which is truly awesome, and various other musical collectives - but the star turn of the day has to be Battles - what a bunch of booners:

It was inevitably another late and enjoyable night, Bobby and Jason joined us again and told us to hassle Congleton to take us on tour in America later in the year, and then at sunrise we went to the beach:

  Although it was ludicrously cold....
 

We woke early and bunced off to MInehead for the All Tomorrows Parties festival as curated by Explosions in the Sky. The premise is simple, a small music festival, at a Butlins holiday camp. All revellers are placed in chalets with beds, kitchens, and showers and in this particular case, the entire lineup, right up to the cinema listings and the tv schedule were selected by Texas post rock legends Explosions in the Sky. Explosions were produced by Congleton, who also produced our album, hence his band, the Paperchase being invited to play, and hence various other Texas bands and films featuring on the bill.

Tonight we saw Mono, who I’ve seen twice before, although tonight, especially in terms of volume they underwhelmed. Then Explosions in the Sky played on the main stage, a humble move since some curators choose to close the festival or play several times – Explosions, whom I have wanted to watch for years were also decidedly underwhelming, mostly to do with the volume and the sound and the strange shopping centresque setting of the main stage:

After Explosions we watched the Paperchase - you can download some of their music from their website here. - Congleton is the one in the middle. They are blatantly my new favourite band and the best band I have seen live in years - nuff said:

Then Fourtet closed the evening - he is a bit good - I've never seen him before but Tom has seen him several times and said that it was the best he'd seen him in a long time, so it must have been a good un - I like this snap:

Then we sat up till sunrise with Jason and Bobby from the Paperchase. Jason was lovely, Bobby was huge....:

We know where you don't sleep....