......so you feel like you're coming home every night...aaahh. Yes, we've 9 days of UK fun ahead of us, playing many of the same venues we did on the belle and sebastian tour.
The last 6 days have been tiring but fun. The drive to Oslo was long and snowy and it was dark when we got there. We shuffled like penguins along the icy pavements being careful not to fall over. Of course the next day i fell over and hurt my knee quite badly. Had a bit of a limp for a few days but its ok now, just a bit of bruising. Feeling cold and sorry for myself i went into oslo centre and bought a jumper. When we re-grouped later that afternoon it transpired that eamon had also bought a jumper. Managed to get a good round of bowling in before the gig. Ten pin is quickly becoming brakes' sport of choice, definitely for these winter months anyway. The gig was a hoot, id say as good if not better than stockholm.
We made it just in time the next day in Copenhagen, the venue was huge and very beautiful in a thirties style, lots of black and white tiling and symmetry. Watched editors from the balcony which was closed off to the public. They were very loud but apparently not as loud as us, i was impressed anyway, their songs are growing on me and the light show is very pretty.
The next day, in Bochum, we did not make it in time, well we got there when we were suposed to go on. The promoter wasn't too happy and the crowd were a little impatient. We'd been given a dubious map you see and it had got us very lost. Eamon eventually got the directions from an art school. I broke a string which stressed me out even more than i was already. We just about scraped through i think.
Eindhoven reminded me of Groenigen with its big market square and old churches. We had a bit of time to spare so on failing to locate a nearby bowling rink, we opted for a nice coffee shop and got stoned. A little too stoned perhaps as none of us said much for the rest of the day. Tried out some new intro music of Sun O, an american apocalyptic noise ensemble whose album that tom bought is specifically designed to be played very loud and very bassy. We thought we'd see if we coud make the audience hallucinate before our gig. Gig was ok, we was a bit stoned innit!
Back to blighty the next day and we just made it onto our designated ferry that was running late anyway. We were disappointed once we got to the Astoria to find that Richard Hawley had pulled out due to illness. So we took his slot and played a blinder. I was somewhat daunted at first having not played there before but i got into it once id reminded myself that it was a speck of a venue compared to the hammersmith apollo.
I left shortly after our set to go and watch some friends of mine, The Young Playthings play at the Metro club. They were sweet and it was good to watch a band who weren't editors or belle and sebastian. Other than the chalets, they were the only band ive seen in the last two months. Going to see Silver Jews in glasgow in april so ive got that to look forward too.
Friday 24 February 2006
lie back and think of england
well, here we are at the end of the mammoth "first bit" of our spring 2006 tour with t'editors, and a mighty fine jaunt 'round europe and scandinavia's most eye wateringly cold places it was, too....props to the stockholm massive, in particular..........moving on, london last night (get well soon, mr. hawley) was a triumph for all brakes-involved personnel, if somewhat slightly marred by a lovely review of editors on page seven of today's independent which chose not to mention brakes one little bit!! the cheek!!! anyway, we had the last laugh......symbols and base? did you GO to school????
also must just mention the new GO-Kart Mozart record - "Tearing Up The Album Chart".....had to check it out after seeing them at Hammersmith (and digging Denim, previously)......and it's brilliant. deranged, but brilliant.
righty....i'm off to my bed.......bristol tomorrow, then some more, then manchester, then skiing in the cairngorms on our day off!!! woo!!!!!! hope y'all are well...........byeeeeeeeeeeee!
tom
x
also must just mention the new GO-Kart Mozart record - "Tearing Up The Album Chart".....had to check it out after seeing them at Hammersmith (and digging Denim, previously)......and it's brilliant. deranged, but brilliant.
righty....i'm off to my bed.......bristol tomorrow, then some more, then manchester, then skiing in the cairngorms on our day off!!! woo!!!!!! hope y'all are well...........byeeeeeeeeeeee!
tom
x
Friday 17 February 2006
there aint no train to stockholm
HOwdy
The first week of our touring relationship with editors has come and gone so quickly, mostly because it has been very good and highly enjoyable. We started in gent, belgium where we were very, very late due to traffic. We finally made it to the gig 5 minutes before our stage time. "Cripes!" I thought. "What a terrible first impression to make, editors will hate us forever" i fretted. That couldnt have been further from the truth, they are all top fellas. Gig went fine, watched editors, they were good. I tried to get up on the balcony and trod on someones hand, oops. Next day we were off to Utrecht, a beautiful and tranquil city with all the character of holland's more famous destinations but without the sex crazed stoned wankers. Our ex-pat friend richard foster was present and supplied us with literature, music and some rather smokeable afgan cannabis resin, yum yum. Next it was off to bielfeld, germany. We got a bit lost on the way in so tom went in to a record shop called Ween. The shop front was even adorned with Weens logo. Seeing as most of us are big Ween fans we found this extremely amusing. It was only that morning that we had been watching a Ween live dvd too! The venue was tucked away in an industrial estate, had a fusball table and a yo la tengo poster in the toilet. These things made me happy. Pre gig, i was sitting next to our merchandise table with keith and waynne when a girl ran up and started staring at our flyer. "Are they a rakes covers band?" she said. We all found this very funny, "No!" i said. She looked at me, looked at the flyer and in almost comical fashion had a double take moment before running off in embarrasment after realising who i was. I felt a bit sorry for her. There was a gaggle of british barracks kids present. Apparently their school gives them tickets once a month to go out so they dont get bored. They certainly made our night, they all went suitably mental during our set even though they didnt know who the hell we were. The long drive to Malmo, sweden was something i was looking forward to. We drove up past hamburg, into denmark and across the biggest bridge in europe. It was very bad weather and it felt like we were driving into the sea. We made it to malmo with not much time so no soundcheck for us. We did well considering but it was quite hard work. Another long drive faced us the next day. Waynne was concerned as it had been snowing the previous night but it had stopped soon after we went to bed. It was a magical journey through fjords and heavy unspoiled snow planes. We bumped into richard hawley at a service station, failed to speak to the man himself but his crew were very friendly. Stockholm was bitingly cold, we made it there in good time and managed to fit in everything into our schedule. There was an in-store at a quality record shop called pet sounds, it sounded good and we were surprised to have a few fans there. Sweden is a notoriously hard place to do well in, and having not had the best reaction the night before we were nervous about the gig. Id been to debaser a few years ago, it is a nice venue and i really wanted it to go well so as not to taint my happy memories of the place. It turned out to be the best show so far for us. The audience needed a little encouragement to step forward and fill the gap but once everyone was involved it was lush. Got highly pissed afterwards and cant quite remember certain details. Woke up thinking it was the middle of the night because our rooms were underground and have no windows, it was actually ten past nine. I'm now wondering where everyone is as we have another long drive today, off to oslo!
The first week of our touring relationship with editors has come and gone so quickly, mostly because it has been very good and highly enjoyable. We started in gent, belgium where we were very, very late due to traffic. We finally made it to the gig 5 minutes before our stage time. "Cripes!" I thought. "What a terrible first impression to make, editors will hate us forever" i fretted. That couldnt have been further from the truth, they are all top fellas. Gig went fine, watched editors, they were good. I tried to get up on the balcony and trod on someones hand, oops. Next day we were off to Utrecht, a beautiful and tranquil city with all the character of holland's more famous destinations but without the sex crazed stoned wankers. Our ex-pat friend richard foster was present and supplied us with literature, music and some rather smokeable afgan cannabis resin, yum yum. Next it was off to bielfeld, germany. We got a bit lost on the way in so tom went in to a record shop called Ween. The shop front was even adorned with Weens logo. Seeing as most of us are big Ween fans we found this extremely amusing. It was only that morning that we had been watching a Ween live dvd too! The venue was tucked away in an industrial estate, had a fusball table and a yo la tengo poster in the toilet. These things made me happy. Pre gig, i was sitting next to our merchandise table with keith and waynne when a girl ran up and started staring at our flyer. "Are they a rakes covers band?" she said. We all found this very funny, "No!" i said. She looked at me, looked at the flyer and in almost comical fashion had a double take moment before running off in embarrasment after realising who i was. I felt a bit sorry for her. There was a gaggle of british barracks kids present. Apparently their school gives them tickets once a month to go out so they dont get bored. They certainly made our night, they all went suitably mental during our set even though they didnt know who the hell we were. The long drive to Malmo, sweden was something i was looking forward to. We drove up past hamburg, into denmark and across the biggest bridge in europe. It was very bad weather and it felt like we were driving into the sea. We made it to malmo with not much time so no soundcheck for us. We did well considering but it was quite hard work. Another long drive faced us the next day. Waynne was concerned as it had been snowing the previous night but it had stopped soon after we went to bed. It was a magical journey through fjords and heavy unspoiled snow planes. We bumped into richard hawley at a service station, failed to speak to the man himself but his crew were very friendly. Stockholm was bitingly cold, we made it there in good time and managed to fit in everything into our schedule. There was an in-store at a quality record shop called pet sounds, it sounded good and we were surprised to have a few fans there. Sweden is a notoriously hard place to do well in, and having not had the best reaction the night before we were nervous about the gig. Id been to debaser a few years ago, it is a nice venue and i really wanted it to go well so as not to taint my happy memories of the place. It turned out to be the best show so far for us. The audience needed a little encouragement to step forward and fill the gap but once everyone was involved it was lush. Got highly pissed afterwards and cant quite remember certain details. Woke up thinking it was the middle of the night because our rooms were underground and have no windows, it was actually ten past nine. I'm now wondering where everyone is as we have another long drive today, off to oslo!
Thursday 16 February 2006
quickie
Just a quick one like... all going good, need more sleep, sweden is cold but they serve pickled fish for breakfast, kind of forces you to brush your teeth. Off to stockholm today, long drive so id best get going. Full update as soon as i can.
Saturday 11 February 2006
final leg
Wotcha
Well that's that done and dusted then. It seems to have gone quite quickly really and Brakes were only just getting into the swing of things, good job we've got another month of gigs booked, haha. Ulster hall is a lovely building with a big fucking pipe organ at one end. Some of us went bowling at the local bowlplex, not me though for i was walking around belfast in the rain trying to find an internet cafe so i could download some remixes of our smash hit "all night disco party". What is it with internet places? Somebody opens one, fills it with computers and then puts some computer illiterate drongo in charge. I got as far as downloading the songs before i realised i couldn't burn them as the cd drive wasn't being detected. All i got was confused grunts and an indifferent face from the drongo. I've had it with drongos. Only yesterday i waited 45 minutes in little chef for some breakfast before i had to remind the shitheads that id ordered it in the first place. Anyway.... We had a travel day after belfast and took a swaying ferry across to stranraer. Twas a beautiful day and the south west of scotland looked proper nice. It was late once we'd got to sheffield so we ordered in some indian food before hitting the hay. Sheffield octagon is more of a description than a name. I didn't count the walls but it is was definately multi-faced, and in sheffield. Eamon and i found a samuel smiths owned pub and drank some ale. We had a very good gig and we were all feeling lively so we popped next door to see the chalets play the fuzz club. They were better than i thought they'd be, good drummer and i liked the call and answer boy/girl singing technique. They had a few good tunes. Off to london it was the next morning and we had a spring in our step. We had the usual london guest list nightmare which resulted in most of us having to ring family members and tell them they couldn't come. The caterers made an extra special menu aptly named 'the last supper'. I had antipasta to start, complete with marinated anchovies and then smoked haddock on a bed of spinach, i like spinach. The gig was superb, eamon broke a string which put him off a bit but other than that it was grand. Playing fron of 4000 people wasn't as daunting as i though it'd be. We got thoroughly drunk afterwards and had many laughs before driving very quickly back to brighton. All in all a good time had by all.
The end
Well that's that done and dusted then. It seems to have gone quite quickly really and Brakes were only just getting into the swing of things, good job we've got another month of gigs booked, haha. Ulster hall is a lovely building with a big fucking pipe organ at one end. Some of us went bowling at the local bowlplex, not me though for i was walking around belfast in the rain trying to find an internet cafe so i could download some remixes of our smash hit "all night disco party". What is it with internet places? Somebody opens one, fills it with computers and then puts some computer illiterate drongo in charge. I got as far as downloading the songs before i realised i couldn't burn them as the cd drive wasn't being detected. All i got was confused grunts and an indifferent face from the drongo. I've had it with drongos. Only yesterday i waited 45 minutes in little chef for some breakfast before i had to remind the shitheads that id ordered it in the first place. Anyway.... We had a travel day after belfast and took a swaying ferry across to stranraer. Twas a beautiful day and the south west of scotland looked proper nice. It was late once we'd got to sheffield so we ordered in some indian food before hitting the hay. Sheffield octagon is more of a description than a name. I didn't count the walls but it is was definately multi-faced, and in sheffield. Eamon and i found a samuel smiths owned pub and drank some ale. We had a very good gig and we were all feeling lively so we popped next door to see the chalets play the fuzz club. They were better than i thought they'd be, good drummer and i liked the call and answer boy/girl singing technique. They had a few good tunes. Off to london it was the next morning and we had a spring in our step. We had the usual london guest list nightmare which resulted in most of us having to ring family members and tell them they couldn't come. The caterers made an extra special menu aptly named 'the last supper'. I had antipasta to start, complete with marinated anchovies and then smoked haddock on a bed of spinach, i like spinach. The gig was superb, eamon broke a string which put him off a bit but other than that it was grand. Playing fron of 4000 people wasn't as daunting as i though it'd be. We got thoroughly drunk afterwards and had many laughs before driving very quickly back to brighton. All in all a good time had by all.
The end
Tuesday 7 February 2006
heading north
Just about to leave our travelodge near dublin airport. For three nights it has kept the rain from our heads, leaving is just too painful. Off to belfast. Good bloody gig last night, we played well and won over quite a few bods i think. Low and behold on buying the evening herald on the way to the venue, there we were, page 21 grinning like idiots. Its was a strange article, nothing about the gig, just pictures of people who'd been at the gig, and no mention that we were the band supporting. I'll scan it and get it up here soon.
Ta
Marc
Ta
Marc
Monday 6 February 2006
tour news
Howdy ya'lll
Im sitting in the receptiion of a dublin travelodge having just played our first of two shows in the ambassador theatre last night. The last week has been good, Bristol and Cambridge were both good shows in very impressive buildings. Belle ands Sebastian sure know how to pick a good venue. Only downer was that i broke a string in cambridge during disco party, need to play a little softer perhaps. We then returned to Brighton to play the dome, it was a fairly surreal experience. The gig itself was good, the brighton crowd looked pleased to see us and somebody threw some rather large pants at us adorned with various brakes and b'n's felt tip pen grafitti. I kept spotting people i know in the audience and recognising people i went to school with. Straight after our slot we popped over to the centre to see the strokes, having not seen them before i was quite interested to see how they do live. The had a big light show and they were quite loud, couldn't quite hear his vocals well enough a lot of the time but they sounded good generally. We headed straight back to the dome afterwards and had to drive to stafford where we'd be staying for the night. A smart bit of planning on tour manager waynne's behalf, there was no way we'd have made it to holyhead, north wales for the 1:30 ferry check in if we'd stayed in brighton that night. So we were all a bit sleepy when we got to dublin, didn't stop us from hitting the city. Had a good meal but steered clear of temple bar on a saturday night, it can be pretty rough. The ambassador is an old cinema in a bit of disrepair, peeling wall paper and thread bare carpets, but it has a very grand design. The crowd reaction last night was a familiar mix of bemusment and confusion with a couple of hard fans singing along all the way down the front. Having outdoor fags afterwards (failure in being outside would lead to a 3000 euro fine), we were congratulated and thanked by a whole lot of nice people. That was nice. Any dublin herald readers should look out for us in the society section. Eamon, Alex and myself were photographed by their man on the streets.
marc
Im sitting in the receptiion of a dublin travelodge having just played our first of two shows in the ambassador theatre last night. The last week has been good, Bristol and Cambridge were both good shows in very impressive buildings. Belle ands Sebastian sure know how to pick a good venue. Only downer was that i broke a string in cambridge during disco party, need to play a little softer perhaps. We then returned to Brighton to play the dome, it was a fairly surreal experience. The gig itself was good, the brighton crowd looked pleased to see us and somebody threw some rather large pants at us adorned with various brakes and b'n's felt tip pen grafitti. I kept spotting people i know in the audience and recognising people i went to school with. Straight after our slot we popped over to the centre to see the strokes, having not seen them before i was quite interested to see how they do live. The had a big light show and they were quite loud, couldn't quite hear his vocals well enough a lot of the time but they sounded good generally. We headed straight back to the dome afterwards and had to drive to stafford where we'd be staying for the night. A smart bit of planning on tour manager waynne's behalf, there was no way we'd have made it to holyhead, north wales for the 1:30 ferry check in if we'd stayed in brighton that night. So we were all a bit sleepy when we got to dublin, didn't stop us from hitting the city. Had a good meal but steered clear of temple bar on a saturday night, it can be pretty rough. The ambassador is an old cinema in a bit of disrepair, peeling wall paper and thread bare carpets, but it has a very grand design. The crowd reaction last night was a familiar mix of bemusment and confusion with a couple of hard fans singing along all the way down the front. Having outdoor fags afterwards (failure in being outside would lead to a 3000 euro fine), we were congratulated and thanked by a whole lot of nice people. That was nice. Any dublin herald readers should look out for us in the society section. Eamon, Alex and myself were photographed by their man on the streets.
marc
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