Brakes Blog 27/8/08

Two blogs in as many weeks is eager, i know, but we've been up to so much recently that it's hard to keep from blabbing about it all.

After recovering from the enjoyable yet damp Beautiful Days festival, we retreated to 284 studios once more to write and rehearse more for our imminent third album sessions. The songs are really taking shape now and we just want to get into the studio and start recording properly. This process will begin up in Glasgow straight after End of the Road festival.

The following Thursday we were back in 284 rehearsing for Brighton's new Beachdown Festival. Alex wasn't able to make the gig due to a previous commitment playing a festival near Carlisle with The Pipettes so we were rehearsing with a replacement. And who did we get to fill Alex's mightily rhythmic shoes? Mr Damo Waters, current ESP drummer, also known as The Muddy Suzuki;- his solo project alter ego. I highly suggest you all get your hands on his album Meetoo. It's brilliant. We'd never played with a replacement member before so we thought it was going to be weird, but after a few songs it was clear that he was more than capable. In fact, more than capable is an understatement, he was pretty much faultless and he hadn't even played any of the songs on a kit before. Due to sound and space issues in his new flat he'd only been able to listen to the songs on his headphones whilst tapping out the beats on his legs and memorising them. But here he was playing the songs pretty much perfectly. It put all our minds at rest for sure. After rehearsal we had a few pints in the Hand in Hand and called it a day.

The next day Eamon and I went to our old flat in Kemp Town to do some recording with our old flat mate and BSP bassist Hamilton at the legendary Princess Studio. Princess has been Hamilton's audio laboratory for the best part of 5 years as well as being the location for recordings by The Tenderfoot, Actress Hands, Good Morning Captain and numerous Brakes b-sides. It's dark, slightly smelly and just a little bit scary like you know something bad happened there once long ago. Its intimate atmosphere really forces musicians to listen to each other and play off each other more, always with brilliant and unique results. Eamon wanted to record a new romantic blues number called "I Could Be Your Fifth Gear". I played some drums and some guitar and Eamon did some singing. We drank some whisky and then i had to go.



That night I watched some of the BBC's questionable coverage of the Reading Festival. I felt sorry for Edith Bowman who was co-presenting the show with Zane Lowe. Lets just say there wasn't much chemistry there. I was shocked and insulted by MGMT who, after a full band set, sang their big hit Time To Pretend (undoubtedly a quality pop song) along to a backing track. A fucking backing track? Pure lazy. What really got my goat about it was that the tens of thousands of Top Shop clad hapless fools in their stupid fucking slitty glasses were lapping it up without a question. Muso rant over. Queens of the Stone Age were good though, or what you could make out of them through all the digital interference.

Saturday came around and it was a beautifully typical English summers day. We drove up to Devil's Dyke, the south downs location for Brighton's new Beachdown festival. We were booked to play the main stage at 2:30 p.m and from the car park I could see a stage that I just assumed was the main stage. I headed in that direction and found the stage manager. He confirmed what time we were on and told me that our dressing room wasn't ready yet. The others turned up and after standing around for a moment someone else told us that we weren't playing on that stage at all. I don't know what that stage manager was on about, obviously trying to mess with my head. We were directed out into the field where we could now see the true scale of the festival site. It was huge. Most the stages and food vendors were perched up on the hill by the road with a huge line of punter tents lining the adjacent hill. As we walked down the hill it was clear what a beautiful site it was. The green hills of the south downs meandered up and down all the way to the horizon where a large dark blue sea met the vibrant sky. The hill got steeper and before long we were descending on the main stage which was nestled right in the dip of the valley flanked by two steep hills.



As soon as we arrived and dumped our stuff the first act took to the stage. They were a samba band called Carnival Collective and they were very loud with their troop of drummers and such. Next up were Brighton based Doll and the Kicks and then it was our turn. I wasn't really nervous despite having many friends and family there. The stage sound was good and the crew helpful. We had fun. Damo played a blinder and basically we all had a great time. It was early in the day so attendance was thin on the ground but towards the end we had 3 or 4 hundred dancing down the front. There was also a great deal of people slumped on the hills obviously recovering from the night before.



After the show we watched Lightspeed Champion and Hercules and Love Affair who were both good. I got a bit stressed out running around trying to get extra guest-list for people. This was particularly annoying because it involved running up and down that hill several time until I just thought "why should i bother" and had a beer instead. Hunger pangs began to set in but no-one had told us where artist catering was. There was no way I was going to pay for my own meal so off i went searching, with my food voucher in my hand. After about twenty minutes I finally found it and I was overjoyed. We filled up on lamb shanks, turkey escalopes and as much free soup, bread and pud that we could. After some digestion time we went off to watch Restless List. Then we caught a bit of The Maccabees before going to see Yokoko, a new band made up of some mates of mine. There set was fun if not a little short due to the band being so new that they've not got many songs.
It was dark and cold now and me and the Mrs decided to make a run for it. We hadn't really considered how we were going to get back to Brighton but we were willing to get a cab if there was one available. We hiked up that bloody hill one last time and made our way to the front gate where luckily a cab was just dropping someone off. Soon we were back in Kemp Town where we were to meet up with some friends. The taxi driver said we'd been the nicest two people she'd driven all day which was nice. We drank until the early hours of the morning.

BrakesBLOG 08/08 - CONCORDE, STUDIO, DEVON

Brakes Blog 19/08/08


After a busy week of Brakes activities I'm hiding in from the drear and misery of our summer climate and enjoying some early morning Olympic television. The cycling is surprisingly exciting, especially the sprint although obviously it helps that the British seem to be top in this field. Some dormant patriotism seems to bubble up in me whenever we do well at a sport even if the sports the British succeed at are of the less popular variety. My mother made an amusing comment that Halfords will probably sell out of bikes in the next few weeks and all the swimming pools will be full to capacity.
Last Sunday Brakes headlined the At Home by the Sea festival at Brighton's Concorde 2. It was the second day of a weekend event at which the svelte venue was somehow magically transformed into a 4 stage indoor festival. Well actually one of the stages was outside under the arches, protected from the battering rain by a flappy piece of blue tarpaulin. Yes, it was raining. It didn't really bother me, I've sort of got used to it now. I hadn't made it down the previous day so I missed performances by Camera Obscura, Chrome Hoof and Brighton's very own Stuart Flynn and the Dirty Cakes. A band I was once in which now features our very own Tom and Alex White as well as ESP and Restless List's Matt, Mr Monster Bobby himself and several others. I heard the desk recording and it sounded brilliant.
Restless List opened up the backstage stage on the Sunday. They were loud and satisfying, first time Id seen them with new bassist/percussionist Matty who is a worthy addition for sure. The Shout Out Louds had nice looking guitars and were effortlessly good in true Swedish style. Slow Club played just before our set in the backstage area. They are a Sheffield based boy and girl duo in a Moldy Peaches vein. I made the mistake of sound-checking my bass before they'd finished their set and apparently my low end came blasting through the wall during an extremely quiet and tender part of a song. Eamon said I'd ruined their set but I'm sure he was exaggerating. I apologised all the same.
Our time came and we took the stage. I was nervous, hometown crowd, family present etc. It was hot and loud. A dedicated mob of moshers bobbed about in the middle of the reasonably sized crowd. I think it went well. I was so hot after and just couldn't cool down, need to do more gigs; I'm obviously out of practice.
The next day we rehearsed at 284 and wrote some new songs for our imminent third album. It's going well and there'll be a lot to be getting on with when we start recording properly so I'm looking forward to it immensely. But for the meantime we're doing trial recordings at Matt Eaton's house near Stroud, Gloucestershire. The day after 284 we headed out to the west country and set up for a couple of days of recording. It's good to have somewhere away from the distractions of city life and it's a luxury we didn't have while we were making the second record. The studio has been there for about 3 months now and we've managed to get a lot of work done there in that time.
Tracks demoed at Matt's so far include Hey, Hey It's a Beautiful Day, Crush On You, Don't Take Me To Space(Man), Eternal Return, Consumer Producer Chicken or Egg, Cigarettes Go Down, Leaving England and Do You Feel the Same?
After 3 days out there we got back in the car and drove down to Devon for the Beautiful Days Festival. The M5 was jammed so we went off road down some country lanes through several amusingly titled Somerset villages such as Curry Rivel. It was a nice, festive scene when we finally got there, plenty of trees and hills surrounding a picturesque stately home. The Levellers had already kicked off proceedings in the big top with an acoustic performance and the place was heaving with fans all singing along, even their kids were singing along. I suddenly felt like I was an outsider in the realm of The Levellers, waiting to be found.
We had quite lot of time to kill before our 11p.m show so we drank black rat cider and did crosswords. It rained a bit and we ate some catering food. Day lapsed into night and before long it was our time to get up there. We'd tried to convince juvenile chart lass Gabriella Cilmi to sing Jackson with us but she was too busy meeting and greeting some competition-winning minors. There was some slight confusion with the supplied backline. My heart sank when I asked a man where the bass amp was and he pointed at a Marshall stack. Luckily I found an Ampeg stack on the grass and dragged it up on stage. I didn't know if it was the one I was supposed to be using or not but I took my chances. We were up against Squeeze on the main stage, a band I grew up listening too. I was gutted not to see them but also gutted because understandably they took away a god chunk of our crowd. We had an alright show, it had been a long day and a long week but we gave it some and I think those who were there enjoyed it. It was nice to have Mr Mark Chadwick of The Levellers himself down the front egging us on.
We retreated to the backstage bar post gig and chatted with folk who were by now a good deal more inebriated than they had been during the day. We'd heard that the famous Bimble Inn was somewhere on site. Knowing that this would be where the party was at we went searching; in fact Eamon had already gone searching so really I was looking for him too. The Inn was way over behind the dance tent in a little valley. As we came down the hill the lights being projected on the opposite hill made the trees look like they were breathing which almost made me fall over. Miraculously we found Eamon and decided that the safe confines of the backstage area were much more suited to our current states. Although we did stop momentarily to suck a couple of balloons of nitrous oxide on the way back. Conversations and meanings blurred into nothingness and the last thing I remember is Tom shouting nonsense in my face as I was dozing off.
Luckily we'd secured the use of a caravan for the night so we all had somewhere dry and warm to sleep. This was especially fortunate as the next morning the weather had turned and it was raining something silly. I woke early as usual and scrambled out of the caravan into the wet. People were already boozing in the bar and eating Mexican food that looked kind of appetising to me. I went to the production office and picked up our fee and then I bought a burrito and ate it in the bar by the main stage whilst the poor band who had to play first on this god forsaken day were sound-checking. The burrito wasn't as nice as I'd hoped but it still filled a hole. Once everyone had risen we decided to get on our way. Unfortunately because we'd parked in the wrong place we had to lug our gear up a muddy road in the driving rain and wade through the quagmire of a car park. Soon the car was packed and we were on our way despite being soaked to the bone and almost getting stuck in the mud on the way out. It felt like we'd experienced all the ups and down that the British Festival season can throw at you in just 24 hours.
Next up we've got Beachdown on Saturday and then a bit of a gap with more demo work before End of the Road in September. Then straight after that it's into the studio for album sessions but i'll be in touch before then.

Photos from recent recording session below-

Festival Craziness

Hello Boys and Girls

Brakes are now fully in festival mode. We played Madrid's summercase a few weeks ago. It was hot and sweaty and good fun. Those Spaniards sure do like a late night boogie. The next morning Eamon and I drowsily made our way back to the UK for day two of Truck. Eamon did a solo slot at the market stage, it was rad. Thanks to all those who filled the tent out and sang along, good vibes! Eamon also did solo gigs at 2000 Trees and Kendall Calling. I wasn't there but i heard they went well despite a good lot of mud at both.
Next up we've got Brighton's At Home By The Sea tonight. Should be good, if you're doing nowt today then come down for an afternoon of musical delight. Next friday it's Beautiful Days in Devon and the week after it's the debut year for Beachdown Festival on Brighton's Devil's Dyke. Then of course in mid September we've got End of the Road, the finishing line of the festival season. If you're coming to all or any of those then see you there.
In the meantime we'll be working on our third album which doesn't have a name yet but will soon. Suggestions?
Details of the new record and other exciting things will come very soon, keep yer eyes peeled!
Ta-ra for now
Marc
BRAKES